#do you also find entertainment in seeing people dragged down and suffering because it would 'serve them right?'

[good-beans]

I know most of our focus goes (rightfully) to the trial songs, but I genuinely believe Baptism of Fire is equally a masterpiece of meaningful writing and intense vocal acting

Incoming tag rant because I need to yell about this, feel free to yell back

#milgram #fuuta kajiyama #like the other vds have good writing about the character and whatever social issue their crime focuses on #but this one is very pointedly about YOU #its about the audience. its about the milgram project. its about self reflection. its about self-appointed roles. its about you #even if you didnt vote t1 or anything the whole things is calling on you to reflect on your own judgements of others #how you treat people who come off rougher. how you treat people who have made a (bad but) common mistake. #do you also find entertainment in seeing people dragged down and suffering because it would 'serve them right?' #but es always remains in control of the situation. the drama doesnt end with 'and fuuta was right - you guys suck!' #its clarified that situations are different and have nuance. we are reminded to look at things with nuance. #then we are smoothly re-immersed in the story #and then!! the acting itself!!! #arthur lounsbery put his whole fussy into that performance (<- fuuta pussy) and i am in his debt every day for it #in both his vds hes just super expressive and fun to listen to #i dont understand japanese but he packs so much interesting intonation and emotion into every word -- im obsessed listening to him #he nails all the subtle emotions fuuta has: the pouts and outrage as well as underlying fear grief insecurity and immaturity #and then baptism of fire hes just... Wailing #like mahiru has her innocent and pathetic cries of pain in her sweet voice that works for her character but fuutas pain feels much more raw #the way hes practically sobbing at the end -- his voice cracking and screeching throughout -- the whimper of pain #its so unbearably intense!! it hurts!! and its supposed to!! but hes just so raw with it #and dont even get me started on his pained hysteric laughter omg.... #its just. a masterpiece. #i always appreciate the vds but i dont think ive enjoyed/relistened to one as much as this one #okay WAIT im back to add one more thing because im obsessed with ths idea of intentions #specifically in milgram i think the intention behind the murders are very important to consider #so i love love love the huge focus on 'i didnt expect/mean for this to happen' #plus as a general theme in fiction i think its sooo juicy when good intentions get fucked up #so i loved the repetition of that #fuuta is such a special case because he genuinely had no desire or expectation for his victim to die #(maybe kazui too? but he doesn't say so in his vd like fuuta does)

[charliedawn]

Hey, slashers idea.

How would they take of you when you're sick?

Pennywise :

Pennywise would look at you and burst out laughing like there’s no tomorrow. Human suffering is just funny to him for some reason.

Pennywise: "You are sick ?! Now, that’s hilarious !"

The Penny Brothers can’t get sick. At all. So, he’d find it entertaining, especially since they usually never see you so weak.

He’d enjoy it at first, but he’d soon grow worried and try to help you the best he can while pretending he doesn’t care.

Pennywise *pats your back while you sleep* : "…Hey. The nurses said it was serious. Don’t know if it’s true or not, just get better, alright ?"

Pennywise may act like a jerk most of the time, but deep down ? He cares.

Michael Myers :

Michael would try his best to understand how to help you, but would be clueless and would read whatever he can on the subject.

At the end, he would just make sure nobody gets close to your room while you rest and bring you water and soup.

He’d be your bodyguard and make sure the other slashers stay away while you rest—only allowing the doctors in.

He’d also try to check on you and your fever regularly. He’d be holding your hand and give you whatever comfort he can.

No way he’s leaving your side until he’s sure you’re going to be alright.

Bo Sinclair:

Bo: "Now, ain’t ya ‘bsolutely adorable ? All weak and livid. Careful. Heard that people used to die from tiny little colds…"

Bo would tease you, but he’d still make sure you get some rest at the end. He just likes to play with people and get you all worked up. If you react, it means it’s not serious and he doesn’t have to intervene.

However, if he sees that you are really sick ?

He’d gladly grab any doctor in the hospital and make sure they do their job…

Bo: "Can’t ya see it’s bad ?! Whatya standin’ over there like a bunch of daisies for when sunshine’s over there—suffering ?!"

Penny:

Penny would look over you from the shadows and cuddle with you when you want a little comfort during your sick days.

He’d also bring you his favourite games, so you don’t get bored.

However, he knows he doesn’t know anything about coughs and sickness in general. He’d stay at the feet of your bed and hear your breathing.

As long as you’re breathing, he’d stay calm and collected. He’d let the doctors do their jobs and only growl in warning from time to time if he feels that they’re hurting you.

He’d bring you snacks and make sure you don’t get bored while you rest.

Jason:

Jason: "…"

The man would understand, but he wouldn’t have a clue of how to help you.

He’d hug you and hope for the best.

Freddy:

Freddy would take care of your dreams and that you don’t get lost. Sick people often get very wild dreams and can get lost in them sometimes.

You *looking at the sky turning multiple colours and slowly enveloping you* : "…Wow. So pretty."

Freddy *grabs you* : "Whatya doin’ here, sweetheart ? Shouldn’t be out there on your own, buddy. Come on. Back in the world of the living we go."

He’d make sure your mind stays afloat, because even though he loves chaos and would love seeing you completely lose it…He’d lose something more important. He’d lose you.

Jack Torrance:

You: "I’m not sick…"

Him *looks you up and down* : "Yeah. And am not dead. Now, get back to bed."

No bullshit policy. You’re sick, you’re sick. He’d drag you back to bed if he has to—because he knows first hand that life is short and death comes quickly.

Jack would also bring you pills to sleep and get better. He may be a ghost, but he’s already been sick when he was alive.

He may be the one who can help you the best.

Brahms:

Brahms would take care of you. He’d bring you breakfast in bed and make sure you get some good rest.

Also, he’s wall boy. He’d watch over you at night and make sure you don’t overwork yourself.

However, he’d also cuddle with you at night and not let you go anywhere without him. He’d get clingy and would follow you to the kitchen or the bathroom.

And don’t even try to get away.

Brahms *appears behind you after you woke up to get a glass of water* : "Go…Back to…Bed."

#fandoms #imagine #fanfic #pennywise 2017 #pennywise 1990 #slashers #pennywise x reader #michael myers x reader #freddy krueger x reader #jason voorhees x reader #brahms x reader #bo sinclair x reader #jack torrance x reader

[gatitties]

A day off with Kunimi

Manager Miniseries

─Aoba Josai x fem!reader

─Summary: You're not in the mood for training and Kunimi seems to be on the same line of thought as you

─Warnings: none

12 < 13 > 14

You were walking calmly to school, very sleepy, you almost fell or crashed on the street several times, it had not been a good choice to stay up late watching movies. You had no choice but to endure the morning, or that was what you had planned to do if it weren't for a certain first year boy, who was kicking a can with an ass face outside the gym.

"Where has Kunimi gone? Also why is (Nn) so late?"

Oikawa's voice echoed throughout the place, you and Kunimi could hear the team's confusion due to the silence at the entrance, both looked at each other without wanting to enter. Kunimi was the first to step forward, grabbing your hand to get out of there, trying not to let them hear the footsteps. A light laugh escaped your lips, thinking that you would no longer have to suffer being among a bunch of sweaty boys today, you mentally thanked your junior, tightening the grip on your clasped hands.

"I'm sorry for dragging you, I just figured you didn't feel like putting up with training today either."

"No, It's ok, I think I'll run away with you today."

He just nodded and you walked to a cafe near the high school, at your request, you were going to die of sleep if you didn't drink some caffeine immediately. When you left there you two decided to walk near the school, although finally ended up leaving, skipping a day wouldn't hurt.

"Where do you want to go?"

"Honestly, my house, but it's far away and I'm lazy."

You laughed at how sincere he was, then he thought that walking through a small market that wasn't that far away would be good, since you could entertain with the things they sold there. When you arrived, you tried on some oddly shaped glasses from a small stall, you forced Kunimi to put on the typical glasses with a fake mustache to take a photo.

He just sighed every time you stopped to look at any absurdity, like children's toys or flashy things. He only stopped when he was in front of a sweets stand, they sold a lot of different types, but he only noticed some in particular, salted caramels, they were his favorite. You noticed ir and smiled, buying several of those candies, sharing them with him, which at first he refused but then agreed to take some.

He had to hold your hand so you wouldn't get lost among so many people, he was getting tired of being there, especially because there was more and more crowd and it was becoming difficult to walk down the narrow street without crashing into someone. In fact, at the end of the street someone pushed you so hard that you even knocked Kunimi to the ground.

"Oh fu-, look where you're going, you idiot!" The lack of sleep mixed with the stress of all those people made you explode, but your focus was on Kunimi who was cleaning his pants "I'm sorry, someone pushed me, are you okay?"

"Don't worry, it hasn't been much different from when we have to do dives in training"

He feigned disinterest, even finding a funny point to the accident, you sighed at his attitude. You finished seeing things, deciding to stay in a park sitting next to a pond, watching the ducks fight to get a piece of bread that an old woman threw them.

"What a beautiful couple."

You two looked at the old lady, you had not realized that you were still holding hands and you separated immediately, causing the lady to laugh, after the embarrassing scene you left there, tyou had had enough.

"Okay, now I really want to go home, want to come?"

"Sure."

He wasn't going to stand walking from one place to another aimlessly anymore so you simply went to the boy's house, who just wanted to rest lying in his bed with some good blankets and a movie, even if you accompanied him it didn't bother him, at this point he just want to rest and do nothing.

He let out a contented sigh as he closed the door to his house, telling you where to leave your slippers while you got used to the hospitality of Kunimi's house. As you spent the morning walking around the market, you arrived just around lunchtime, although no one was home, and you had to improvise something, that is, you ordered something for delivery. While the food arrived, you started arguing about what movie to watch, because you are both iPad kids and you need to watch something while you eat.

"For the last time I'm not going to watch Barbie of Swan Lake or Meet the Robinsons."

"Kuni-"

"No."

"But-"

"No."

You sighed exhaustedly, thinking about other movies, a light bulb went off in your head, and you decided to play an old reliable, Home Alone. Kunimi brought a couple of blankets, at some point in the movie you were practically hugging. Halfway through the movie his mother burst in, mocking her son for bringing a girl home, commenting on what an adorable couple you made. Kunimi had to kick her out because his mother and you started talking about him when he was a baby, because she show you an old photo. The movies ─because you decided to see a couple more─ went by so fast that you didn't even realize that it was already quite late.

"Honey, why don't you offer my future daughter-in-law a stay over?"

Everyone there knew that this was not a question but a statement, rather, an order. You almost choked upon hearing her, even though she was just teasing you, you went on to join forces at dinner to embarrass Kunimi instead, that family album can be a real danger in your hands.

"Leave the door open Akira!"

He rolled his eyes as guided you to the bathroom, lending you a change of clothes so could sleep comfortably. You could only laugh, deciding that you had had enough for today, you threw onto the bed next to Kunimi to rest, staring at the ceiling in silence listening to the little sound that came from Kunimi's phone, the first yawn was the signal for you to decide to go to sleep once and for all, you raised your leg, hitting the boy's foot.

"Good night Kunimi."

"Night..."

You smiled as you closed your eyes, taking seconds to fall into your deepest dreams, hoping that today is not the day you start talking in your sleep. He looked at you for a few seconds before putting down the phone and turning off the light without wanting to stay up late, tomorrow it wouldn't be so easy to escape from training taking into account the number of ignored messages in the team's group chat.

#hq #haikyuu!! #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu x manager reader #reader insert #fem reader #manager reader #x reader #sfw #manager miniseries #kunimi x reader #aoba josai x reader #aoba josai x fem reader #aoba josai #aoba josai x manager reader

[prasiddhibirb]

Dazai, chuuya, fyodor and kunikida with a s/o that has severe social anxiety?😭 I just had the most embarrassing episode ever in public today and some comfort would be nice, thank you!!😞💕

Dazai, Chuuya, Fyodor and Kunikida with a s/o that has severe social anxiety

author’s note(s): aww I’m so sorry that happened to you.. I hope you feel better. This was very interesting to write, thank you for requesting! Warning(s): dark in fyodor’s part (I’m so sorry I couldn’t imagine Fyodor comforting anymore)

-> Dazai

doesn’t really know how?????

he doesn’t really know how to relate to people so he’s not the best for comforting people

he’ll try and hug you more and reassure you when you are having doubts about yourself

when something embarrassing happens to you (according to what you find embarrassing), he’ll TRY to comfort you in the moment or drag you out of that social situation (only when he really needs to tho).

sometimes he steps in and talk for you when you are too embarrassed to

he regularly reassures you that everything is okay

tries his best to put you in more social settings for you to get used to it and try to get better at talking

until it worsens and he tries to get you in more quiet places where social interaction is kept to a minimal💀

He’s always ready to offer a hand for you to hold or a hug for when you are too stressed

will try and respect your boundaries in public but sometimes he can’t help but cling onto you

Def tries his best to not ‘embarrass’ you in public

There may be times where you just stand there awkwardly waiting for Dazai to stop talking to the person and your anxiety spikes istg-

you guys sometimes do night walks (if you are okay with being out at night with him)

in conclusion, Dazai isn’t the best when relating to others but, he’ll try for you.

-> Chuuya

will think you are being over dramatic at first

until her realizes that your social anxiety is so much worse than he thought

now he tries to get you out of as many social situations as possible

that means him being ‘overprotective’ in a way

I can see him giving more gifts to you after a stressful event, hoping to make you feel better in way

what’s good is that since Chuuya is a high ranking of the port mafia, you have lots of respect from the mafia members and they won’t try and mess with you (unless they have a death wish)

Night walks are also things that you guys do often

he tries to be present wherever you are since he is always worried about you

whenever you are stressed, he will try and comfort you (even if they don’t seem like comforts)

when you don’t know what to say, he’ll come to your rescue and talk for you

doesn’t quite relate to your social anxiety but he’ll try to talk in a softer tone with you and try to not get as mad as he usually does

-> Fyodor

Literally the first thing he noticed about you

You actually don’t get to outside very much (as you are Fyodor’s lover and you probably already know about his job anyways) nor did you really enjoy going outside anyways

He enjoys toying with your social anxiety

He’ll ignore you on purpose and be cold to you to toy with your anxiety

It’s all for entertainment, right?

perhaps,,

but now that you are his s/o, his toy, there’s no escape.

He thinks about how fragile and easy to break you are,,

about how cute and adorable you are as you lose your mind with him

while on the other hand you relish the times where you guys have a soft moment together

Maybe if you are into music, he’ll play his cello for you when he has time

so I can envision him having this thing where he gets to toy with you but if someone else tries to toy with you, they will regret it forever

whenever you try and tell him something but then stop because you find it too awkward, he’ll raise an eyebrow and order you to say it (chills run down your spine istg-)

He is the definition of “I can help this person right now but I consciously choose to only help them after they’ve suffered” when it comes to him helping you

so he basically steps in when you are on peak anxiety and stress

did I mention he will make you completely dependent on him? He def enjoys you struggling to say what you want because of your anxiety

I can imagine that he regularly reads online about social anxiety because of you

will tell you everything is alright when you are stressed

might even pull you into a hug (this is only in private tho)

words of affirmation is fairly common between you guys as he quite literally not relate to you, so he just tells you to not worry about it or smth like that

I am so sorry I cannot envision Fyodor ever really (?) comforting someone

-> Kunikida

omg (probably) the best person to end up with for your social anxiety

actually understands your social anxiety and tries to help to his best

he has definitely had dealt with people with social anxiety sooo he knows what to do

100% made a routine and list to help you

Forces you to go to sleep at very specific time, already planned out an entire diet for you and, little by little exposes you to social interactions to help you get used to people

I can imagine him just giving out a small list of tasks for you to complete throughout the week (like ex. : compliment someone or call up a friend and make plans with them to hangout, etc..)

will most likely give you medication(s) for you (only if you can’t bear it anymore) to take until further improvements show

He will most likely never step in as in his eyes, every situation is an opportunity to learn.

only steps in when he sees you really uncomfortable or on the verge of tears / in a really bad state

reassures you and supports you in your abilities

most stable person to be with 👍

#dazai x reader #bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs #bsd #fyodor dostoevsky x reader #dazai bungou stray dogs #dazai headcanons #bsd chuuya #chuuya x reader #kunikida x reader #fyodor x y/n #fyodor x reader #dazai x y/n #kunikida headcanons #chuuya x y/n #dazai x you #fyodor x you #bsd x reader #bsd x y/n #bsd x gn reader #bsd x you

[heavensbeehall]

More about the other victors & chapter 16

They're a little strange, but I'm pretty sure neither of them is going to try to make me uncomfortable by stripping naked.

Again, Katniss is not a sexual being yet. She is most comfortable with Beetee, Wiress and Mags because she understands those type of relationships. Also the three of them are awsome.

I glance around the Training Center. Peeta is at the center of a ribald circle of knife throwers. The morphlings from District 6 are in the camouflage station, painting each other's faces with bright pink swirls. The male tribute from District 5 is vomiting wine on the swordfighting floor. Finnick and the old woman from his district are using the archery station. Johanna Mason is naked again and oiling her skin down for a wrestling lesson. I decide to stay put.

Peeta is much better with people, all kinds of people. Katniss doesn't know what to do with naked people. So she stays with the nerds.

I want to know what Finnick and Mags talk about at the archery station.

I feel bad, knowing that their district must have suffered much worse than ours. I feel I need to defend my people.

Here's a chicken or the egg question. Are the victors from 3 and 4 rebels because their districts are rebellious. Or are the districts rebellious because their victors are?

Plutarch Heavensbee in the magnificent purple robe with the fur-trimmed collar that designates him as Head Gamemaker. He's eating a turkey leg.

I don't know why I find it hilarious that he's eating a turkey leg, but I do. I am imagining one of those rlly big ones from fairs and stuff.

When we make our way into the dining area, I see some of Peeta's gang have other ideas. They're dragging all the smaller tables to form one large table so that we all have to eat together. Now I don't know what to do. Even at school I used to avoid eating at a crowded table. Frankly, I'd probably have sat alone if Madge hadn't made a habit of joining me.

I wonder whose idea this was. I suspect Chaff. But we can see some of the school versions of Katniss and Peeta. He was always with a group from the town kids. She prefers to be alone.

Chaff doesn't seem as bad at lunch. He's sober, and while he talks too loud and makes bad jokes a lot, most of them are at his own expense. I can see why he would be good for Haymitch, whose thoughts run so darkly. But I'm still not sure I'm ready to team up with him.

This description of Chaff reminds me of my dad. He's a people-person and feels the need to entertain everyone all the time. (It can be exhausting and I can see why someone as introverted and inhibited as Katniss would be put off.) But the fact that he makes an effort to seek out Haymitch--who pushes everyone away--makes me love him. You know Haymitch says mean stuff to him and he just laughs it off.

After lunch I do the edible-insect station with the District 8 tributes--Cecelia, who's got three kids at home, and Woof, a really old guy who's hard of hearing and doesn't seem to know what's going on since he keeps trying to stuff poisonous bugs in his mouth.

I think Woof knows exactly what he's doing when he puts poisonous bugs in his mouth.

Finnick appears again when I'm picking up fishing tips, but mostly just to introduce me to Mags, the elderly woman who's also from District 4. Between her district accent and her garbled speech--possibly she's had a stroke-- I can't make out more than one in four words. But I swear she can make a decent fishhook out of anything--a thorn, a wishbone, an earring. After a while I tune out the trainer and simply try to copy whatever Mags does. When I make a pretty good hook out of a bent nail and fasten it to some strands of my hair, she gives me a toothless smile and an unintelligible comment I think might be praise. Suddenly I remember how she volunteered to replace the young, hysterical woman in her district. It couldn't be because she thought she had any chance of winning. She did it to save the girl, just like I volunteered last year to save Prim. And I decide I want her on my team.

Do we thinks Mags did have a stroke? I have a headcanon that she's had a speech impediment her whole life but that's just in the imaginary Mags story I write in my head.

In fact, I feel as if I've somehow been initiated into the victors' circle. During the next two days, I spend time with almost everybody headed for the arena. Even the morphlings, who, with Peeta's help, paint me into a field of yellow flowers.

Yellow flowers again.

Mags, who I can understand a little better now, decides she's just going to take a nap.

Queen shit. I love Mags.

#mags flanagan #finnick odair #beetee latier #wiress #johanna mason #the morphlings #woof #haymitch abernathy

[leeknow-ia]

continued from here.

august-ia ：

Although August had been against the idea of leaving his family at first, when he arrived at the academy he saw so many possibilities. His need to go against every word his parents said had created tension within the family and to clear the air they saw it best to send him away, it hurt even if he was used to sneaking away from them to various places to entertain himself while the rest took care of the family image. But now that he had his dorm room number and he was pulling his giant suitcase, he was grinning at the idea that there wasn't someone constantly breathing down his neck and glaring at him after every comment he made. Perhaps one day he'd find out that his family was still watching from afar but for now, he was simply happy to have some space. When he entered his dorm, he was happy to find the place small and cosy; coming from a large family he was used to sharing everything so it didn't bother him that there wasn't much personal space. Honestly, he couldn't imagine what it was like to need time alone. "Hi!!" one could see the excitement written all over him when he spotted his new roommate, the fairy grinning from ear to ear. "Oh, no need to move anything," he peered at the paintings that were mentioned but only momentarily before he began to drag his heavy suitcase towards the empty bed, assuming it was his unless his roomie was a complete freak- which August would accept too. He was leaving a trail of glitter after him from too much excitement, oblivious to that part himself. "I shall hesitate to ask," he saluted with a serious face since the other seemed so serious themselves. If you looked at the volume buttons on August, you could see the mute button broken and his volume only went down to medium. "I'm so excited to be here! What's it like? Are there lots of people?" he paused and added with squinted eyes, "Are they pretty?" "Oh, do you cook? Because I can cook!" he'd spotted the small kitchen they had in their room by then; August honestly could cook but he also was prone to fires and spilling things. "Have you been here for a long time? Am I your first roomie?" and if not, he was going to be the best one the other had had so far. "Oh, right, I'm August."

No one glaring at him after every comment he made? Yeah, that's Lee Know who was definitely giving him a hard piercing glare the minute he opened his mouth. What was it with these guys who were so damn happy? There was no happiness in life, only suffering and Lee Know was proud to be one of the many contributors to that suffering. "Yeah," was the extent of his response to the very enthusiastic greeting.

"Oh, okay then I won't," if this dude didn't care then Lee Know also did not care. He grabbed a few loose pieces of paper with some chaotic paint splatters on them. Lee Know's art style could only be described as 'Pollock in a blender'. The brush strokes were nonsensical, nothing really seemed coherent. He had a few black and white paintings and some with colour. Some had more definitive forms, images of pained screams or odd eldritch horrors.

He crumpled up the papers in his hands and as he did this action the scars between his fingers became visible. "Um," Lee Know noticed the trail of glitter that seemed to follow behind this guy as he walked. "Yeah, you're cleaning that shit up," Lee Know pointed to the ground and clicked his tongue in annoyance. Was it too late to request a roommate switch? Would that be too mean? "There are lots of people and I just got here. It's okay, better than where I was before," Lee Know replied to each of the fairy's questions one by one, surprised he could even keep up with each one. In giving his response he realised he had mistakenly given away a tiny bit about himself. "I cannot cook and you are free to cook, but I don't care if you make food for me or not," He hoped his cold demeanour would be enough to tell August that no, he did not want to be friends and did not want to do any of this 'roommate bonding'.

"Yeah, you're my first roommate. Like. Ever," He said as he tossed the papers he had crumbled into the rubbish bin. "I'm Lee Know. I like to stay up late, but I'm quiet," Maybe August was eager to start their roommate journey, but Lee Know felt quite the opposite and was looking forward to just never talking or interacting beyond room-related business. "What are you?" He asked bluntly, narrowing his eyes and holding his hands behind his back. "I'm a Mirrorwalker and I like to terrorise the general public," He answered very frankly with a smirk and a chuckle.

#对话 #无 #august-ia #语c

[momentomori24]

Free space!

Use this space to tell us about your favourite characters, fandoms, or ships!

I'll gladly take this free space, please and thank you 👍

Favoirite Fandoms: Danganronpa (also fangans like DRA/DRA2, Shattered Hope, Despair Time, Eden's Garden, Coward's Paradise, Lapse) Master Detective Archive: Rain Code, Sonic the Hedgehog, Undertale/Deltarune, Zero Escape and Your Turn to Die.

•Basically any horror, (murder) mystery, death/killing game, adventure, multi-ending or/and choice based you can think of! I started off with Undertale, Fnaf and Ddlc, fell into Ace Attorney, got abducted by Danganronpa and then dragged off to the place of no return from there. I was literally afraid of most of these games at first, but they got me stepping out of my comfort zone and discover what kinda media Iike. Now I'm stuck here. It's great tho XD

Favourite characters: Shadow the hedgehog, Sans (Undertale), Susie/Kris (Deltarune), Sou Hiyori (yttd), Ashley/Andrew (Tcoaal), Yuma (rain code), Nagito/Hajime, Sayori (ddlc), Vi (arcane), Yuki/ Sora/Teryua/Shobai/Iroha, Basil (Omori), Stan Pines (gravity falls), Santa/June (zero escape)

•Favourite characters for me range usually range from morally grey/complicated to downright irreemably evil to entertaining to sweet innocent cinnamon roll that has done nothing wrong. Most times it's the morally grey characters that are good people but do bad things not because they want to, but because they have to. Or when they've been beaten down and traumatised before and puts on an act and bares their worst to never be hurt or have to relive it all again. Or when they do bad things for good reasons and vis virsa! Or all of the above. An antagonist that could've been the protagonist in a different setting. Someone relatable yet troubled whose actions you can recognise as bad but then wonder what you would've done if you were in their shoes. When they die they get me the most, I won't lie. Other morally grey characters for me are the ones who are shady, sketchy, sleazy. Those who act all friendly and smile easily but you can tell that there's something sinister and off behind the facade, but you can't place your finger on what. They do shady things behind your back or in plain sight and you don't even realise until you look back on it. If not them, then there's no predicting on who it would be. They have to suffer a lot tho. If they're not doomed by the narrative how am I supposed to cry over them and regret ever getting attached and then cling to every fanart/fanfiction of them I can find (characters I mentioned I'm looking at you--)?

Favourite ships: Komahina/Sondam (dr2), Keisou/Soushin/Naoreko (yttd), Teru(kinjo)rei/Yukisora/Shobai x Sora/Iroha x Shobai (dra/dra2), Junepei/Seven x Lotus (zero escape), knuxrouge (sonic), sunflower (omori), Gravecest (tcoaal), Dipcifica (gravity falls), Vi x Caitlyn (arcane), Jesse x Jane (breaking bad), Diane x Bojack/Bojack x Sara lynn (Bojack horseman)

•No consistency to find here. At all. I love, love dark, unhealthy dynamics between characters that draw me into their orbit but then there's also the healing, tender relationships that make my heart melt. The ones where love didn't fix or change anything, but was still there. Then foils and enemies to lovers, that constant push and pull and mutual rivalry bordering on hate while there exists that romantic undertone underneath it all, waiting to see who'll be first to act on it. The developing ones, the 'not quite there yets'. And last but not least the 'will they won't they' where you wish they never will. As you can see, my taste in ships is all over the place but these are definitely my favourite ship formats!

Anyway, I love Danganronpa another and the Kisaragi Foundation trio so your blog is an absolute treasure to me ^-^ Thanks for the ask and the opportunity to ramble!

#momento talks #leviadraws #no i will not tag all the franchises here #sorry for any typos #these were mostly off the top of my head so hopefully I didn't miss an obvious fav

[gukyi]

love me or we both go down | kth

summary: after going through with an arranged marriage to please his parents and secure his inheritance of the family business, kim taehyung thinks he’s got it all figured out. he doesn’t. apparently just being married to you isn’t enough, not when everybody and their mother can pick up on the fact that the two of you absolutely loathe each other. but taehyung wants his inheritance one way or another, so he decides that desperate times call for desperate measures: the two of you need to fall in love, and you need to fall in love fast.

{enemies to lovers!au, arranged marriage!au, rich kids!au}

pairing: kim taehyung x female reader genre: fluff, angst, smut (i know, crazy right?) word count: 32k warnings: oral sex (m & f receiving), fingering, penetrative sex, multiple unprotected sex scenes (they’re married y’all), fat cock tae, tae has a wife kink, lots of praise, alcohol consumption (but they’re safe), minor character death (not explicit), mentions of heart attack, slow burn like there is no tomorrow a/n: hello and welcome to the fic everyone, literally everyone, has been waiting for! i am so, so, so excited to share this with you all, especially because none other than rose @kinktae​ helped me write the smut, and i am literally forever indebted to her. you all better go spam rose with all the love and support you can because this fic would not be here without her and i love her so much. 

also, to all my readers who aren’t comfortable reading smut, please know that the smut in this fic is not imperative to the storyline, and you skipping past it will not affect your reading experience., enjoy!

Never in your life have wedding bells felt so ominous.

The sound of them is akin to the sound of strings, of a single piano note in a horror movie, right when the film opens and someone random is about to die on screen for the sake of proving to the audience that this is, in fact, a horror movie. Make no mistake about it; these wedding bells spell doom for you, too. And the most horrific part about them is that just like that poor, helpless soul in the movie, there is no way for you to escape your fate either. 

With only seconds left to go before you have no choice but to promise yourself to the man waiting at the other end of the aisle, you desperately try to think of any last-ditch efforts to get out of this. Many, if not all of them, are utterly useless. 

Feigning sudden illness won’t work, because then your parents will just reschedule the wedding to a later date. Running away is fruitless. Where will you go? The parking lot?

If only you had a lover out there in the audience somewhere that could object to the marriage when the officiant says, “Speak now, or forever hold your peace.” A knight in shining armor that could whisk you out of the venue and off to a new life, far away from here. Too bad all of the people you’ve dated before hate you now. 

Maybe getting married isn’t such a bad thing after all. Instead of having relationships with multiple people who will eventually despise your existence, you only have to have a relationship with one. And the feeling, as has always been, is mutual. 

You bristle as your assistants do some last-minute prepping, fixing your sleeve and adjusting your necklace and making sure you don’t trip on your enormous train. They flutter around you like a swarm of well-meaning but ignorant butterflies complicit in the agenda of your family. None of them have said a word to you about the wedding ever since you arrived at the venue, choosing to talk more about things like the weather. Not that you were ever under the impression they had been hired to entertain you. Maybe they were told to not engage you, just in case you try to conspire with them.

As if they could be of any use in your wildly unrealistic escape plans. 

The truth is that, unless you were to drop dead on this marble flooring right now, you’re getting married. Whether you like it or not.

The doors open. 

You’ve attended red carpets, galas, award shows, and balls. You’ve had hundreds of cameras flashing in your face, the bright light capturing each and every centimeter of you. You’ve had paparazzi waiting outside the restaurants you eat at, the stores you shop at, desperate to catch a picture of you in sweatpants without a drop of makeup on. You’ve been on dates with ex-lovers that looked at you like you were a piece of meat with a credit card. And yet, for some goddamn reason, walking down the aisle in a white dress the size of Pluto, with the rest of your life waiting for you at the other end, makes you feel fucking transparent. 

Face resolute, you clutch onto your bouquet so tightly the flowers feel like they’re about to pop right out of your grasp. Determined not to look at anybody in the audience, you stare straight ahead, right into the eyes of your future husband.

Kim Taehyung, for someone you have seen multiple times drunk off his ass with hickies dotting his neck and jawline, cleans up pretty well. For someone getting married, at least. He dons a simple black tuxedo that still probably costs more than the average car, his caramel brown hair is pushed back off his forehead, and his expression is firm and still. He most certainly has had an equally expensive team prepping him, but they haven’t done too bad a job. The silver lining is that he doesn’t look any more thrilled than you are to be doing this, right here, right now. But to his credit, this is definitely the best he’s ever looked, as far as you’re concerned. 

When you reach him, he offers his hand out to you, a hand that you only accept for the sake of professionalism. The bouquet in your hands is handed off to one of your bridesmaids, and the two of you take your position at the front. Your train drags along the aisle, draping over the few stairs you had to climb to reach the altar, this satin trail behind you that cements you to the floor. It may as well be a ball-and-chain. It’s about as heavy as one, anyway. 

This is the longest you and Taehyung have ever held eye contact. Not that you’re really keeping track of how long the two of you have met each other’s gazes, but if you had to make an educated guess, this would definitely be the victor. Most of the time you end up sneering at each other ten seconds in, but to be fair, those other times you were also not getting married. To one another. In a ceremony attended by hundreds of people. And cameras.

There can be no sneering here. 

“Don’t you look nice?” Taehyung whispers, loud enough so only the two of you can hear. He has that drawling, sickly sweet tone to his voice, the one that you hate because it makes him sound like he thinks he’s so much better than everyone else. “Surprised they were able to makeup that scowl off your face.”

This, of course, brings on a hearty scowl only he can see, your backs both facing the rows of attendees. “How much concealer are you wearing to cover up all of the hickies on your neck?” You quip back easily. It’s not like the two of you are going to pretend he doesn’t waltz around at every club or bar or private venue he can find, looking for his next treat. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Taehyung grins, and if you weren’t standing in front of hundreds of people about to get married, there’s no telling what next you would do.

The two of you would probably go on like that for another ten minutes if it’s not for the officiant, who coughs once he’s ready and opens the book in his hands. Next to you, Taehyung straightens, hands clasped together at his front, and lips pressed into a neat line. You do the same. There will be no giggles, no laughter nor smiles, nor any genuine emotion at this wedding. This is a wedding for the sake of politics, for economics, for security, and anyone in attendance would be a fool to think otherwise. Especially you. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, family and friends, loved ones, and esteemed guests,” the officiant bellows, listing off as many groups of people as he possibly can in an effort to both include and compliment every person in the audience, “We are gathered here to celebrate the wedding, and future life, of Taehyung and Y/N…”

Taehyung turns to you, grinning in that god-awful way, the way he does when he feels like he’s got something over you. And sure, you can’t think of any punishment quite as bad as this, but what’s Taehyung got to smile about? He’s marrying himself off to a woman he hates, kissing goodbye his days as a free-spirited, heartbreaking bachelor, and promising what may very well be the rest of his life to loving you. That is not cause for celebration. 

But perhaps, to him, your suffering is enough to bring a smile to his face. 

Your vows are, to put it simply, total bullshit. Your family hired someone to write yours and there’s not a doubt in your mind that his family did the same thing. This nonsense talk, this complete and utter garbage that spews from your perfectly-glossed lips, shit about how you promise to love each other until the end of your days, how you promise to take care of each other when you’re sick and accompany each other at every event, every gala, every ball. Shit about how you promise to look only at each other, promise to uphold your family traditions and become a dependable spouse. 

The words don’t belong to you. But the thing is that this marriage was never yours anyway. 

When the kiss comes, there’s a part of you that thinks maybe you should have psyched yourself up a little more for this. When Taehyung pulls you in, placing a stiff hand on your lower back as he brings you towards his chest, your stomach turns and shivers run down your spine. The feeling of his hand on your body, the breath from his lips brushing against your own, are enough to keep you frozen in place. 

He smiles at you, almost as if to ask, “Are you ready?”

And you squeeze your eyes shut, almost as if to respond, “Let’s do this.”

When his lips meet yours, there is almost nothing. Nothing runs through you, nothing explodes, nothing strikes. But when he pulls away and cheers and applause rings out throughout the room, there is something. A little heat, a remnant of a flame, left on your lips. A little sting, just to remind you it happened. 

The entire hall is cheering but nothing about this is worth celebrating. The fact of the matter is that you and Taehyung will never love each other the way that you are supposed to. 

“Ugh, finally.”

The elevator doors haven’t even properly opened by the time Taehyung is loosening his tie, tugging it off over his head as he stretches his head back and runs a hand through his perfectly-styled hair. As he rakes his fingers through his caramel locks, the hairspray and gel loosens, strands falling down by the side of his face, framing his temple.

“Don’t sound so relieved,” you huff out, deciding now is as good a time as any to start getting undressed yourself. Reaching down to lift up the hem of your reception dress, you tug off your heels, already feeling lighter on your feet. Who cares if Taehyung is watching you pull off your stilettos like a defeated movie heroine? You don’t think you can walk another step in those shoes. “We still have to live together, you know.”

“Don’t remind me,” Taehyung says gruffly, brushing by you roughly as he stomps out of the elevator. “I’m just glad the fucking night is over. I swear, seeing that fake-ass smile on your face made me want to gouge my eyes out.”

You storm after him, refusing to be the helpless damsel in this situation. “Oh, like you didn’t also have that exact same fake-ass smile on your face. It almost made me think you were actually enjoying yourself tonight.”

“I was only enjoying the fact that I know you hate this just as much as I do.” It’s perhaps the only thing you will ever be able to empathize with him on. Mutually relishing in the other’s destruction. Taehyung fumbles with the keypad to the door to the penthouse for a moment before you hear the lock click, the door sliding open as the entrance lights flicker on. 

The reason Taehyung’s penthouse is so clean is because he’s never lived here before. Neither of you have—Taehyung’s parents bought it just for the two of you. And as much as you absolutely despise the idea of having to live with him, at least it was not you who paid for your place of residence. 

You can tell Taehyung’s never lived here before because it’s actually quite nicely decorated inside. The ceilings are high and the sleek velvet curtains are pulled open, revealing a shimmering skyline. The furniture is modern and functional, and the whole damn place smells brand new. You’ve had the unfortunate pleasure of entering the place Taehyung lived in before now, and it looked nothing like this. The furniture was worn and stained despite the live-in maid, the house reeked of five hundred different spices that wafted from the kitchen to the living room, and the bookshelves were covered with comics, graphic novels, and old textbooks. 

If it weren’t for the fact that you and Taehyung are rich kids in their twenties that hate each other, you might have actually thought the place looked… homey. 

You don’t have time to be impressed by the interior design and architecture skills of whoever designed this place. Right now, all you can think about is tugging yourself out of your airtight reception dress and passing out on the nearest bed. Which, hopefully, will be as far away as possible from Taehyung’s bed of choice. 

“How many bedrooms does this place have?” You ask, shimmying along the floor so you don’t trip over the hem of your dress. From the looks of it, you can see one giant hallway to your right and a massive, double-sided staircase leading up. 

“Enough,” Taehyung grumbles in response. The hazy stupor from all of the fancy champagne is starting to wear off for the both of you, leaving behind two grouchy, begrudgingly-married individuals who want absolutely nothing to do with each other and have no problems making that known. Whatever golden light of the evening that was making Taehyung at least a little bit more attractive than usual has faded, and now you see him for what he really is: an unceremoniously tired man in a suit. “You want upstairs or down?”

You gaze up at the marble staircase in front of you, then back down at your too-long dress. “Down.” The last thing you want is to trip in front of the man you have to see, every day, for the rest of your life. 

“Fine by me.” Taehyung’s halfway up the stairs by the time he turns back around to say something else. “I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess?”

“Yeah.” There’s no point in being hostile now. The both of you are too exhausted to mean anything by it. Besides, what else can you say? Everything to complain about has already been complained about. At least the two of you managed to wrestle out from your parents the stipulation that you would not be going on a honeymoon together. Now that would have been your worst nightmare. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

It’s as good of a goodnight either of you are going to get. Taehyung heads up the stairs and disappears around a corner, and you start wandering down the hallway. All the bedrooms look the exact same other than different colors on the walls and bedsheets, but they all look serviceable to you. Clean. Empty. Far away from wherever Taehyung is. 

You pick the one at the very end of the hall just to be as much of a diva as possible, and don’t even bother drawing the curtains before tugging off your dress. It’s past one in the morning, and you’re so high up you don’t think anyone will be able to see you anyway. By the time you’ve stripped naked and are tugging up the too-tight sheets tucked into the mattress, your legs are about to give out beneath you. The bed could be made of rocks for all you care. Anything to lie down on is fine by you. 

Sleep comes fairly easily to you tonight. Once your head hits the pillow you can already feel yourself drifting off, eyelids fluttering shut, but you don’t sleep quite yet. Not before you can think about how this is your life now, sleeping in a foreign bed in a foreign place with a foreign husband upstairs. This is what you will be living in now. Now and forever. 

Living with Taehyung is, in both the best and worst ways possible, like living with a roommate that doesn’t give a shit about the fact that they live with another person. It’s good, because you and Taehyung hardly see each other and speak even less, which was pretty much the only thing you were asking for when it came to living with him. But it also sucks, because whenever you do happen to cross paths, Taehyung acts like you don’t exist, barely sparing you a hello or even that tight-lipped smile you send to drivers on the road when they let you cross the street. 

Not that the two of you ever engaged in energetic conversation before you got married. But at least the two of you would acknowledge each other, even if only to shoot a glare and a scowl the other’s way from opposite sides of a hotel ballroom. Maybe it’s just because it’s him, but you did always find yourself actually relishing in those little interactions with Taehyung. In this strange, twisted way, it seemed to provide some sort of continuity to your ever-changing life. Like no matter what happened, at least you would know that the two of you would always despise each other. 

To be frank, right now you’re not sure if Taehyung even remembers he got married at all.

Nights have been a lot more sleepless since your wedding day. After two weeks, the reality of it has finally started to settle in. This is your life now. And ever since you realized that, your bed has felt much less comfortable. 

“But the place is nice, right?”

You look around the living room from where you’re sat on the sleek, white suede leather couch, eyes glossing over the bookshelves, the floor-to-ceiling windows, the draping velvet curtains. From here, you can see the entire city skyline, flecks of gold from the windows of skyscrapers against a navy blue background. Slowly, as the moon creeps over the sky and the clock gets later and later, those lights will soon begin to flicker off, one by one. 

“Yeah, it’s not bad.” Nothing to write home about. That is, if home were a place other than here. 

“That’s good. At least you don’t live in, like, a total dump or anything,” Victoria says on the other end of the line. “How’s Taehyung?”

His name alone elicits this deeply-exhausted sigh from your lips, like it’s been ten years since you married and every day has felt worse than the last. “Fine.” You can’t really complain about anything yet, considering that you hardly ever see the man. 

“Just ‘fine’?” Victoria sounds skeptical. 

“Yeah,” you draw out the word, as if trying to convince yourself of its truth. “I mean, it’s like he doesn’t even live here. I barely see him. And when I do, we don’t even speak to each other.”

“That’s good though, isn’t it? You hate him.” Victoria says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. And in a sense, it kind of is. 

“I mean…”

“I know that your life hasn’t exactly… gone the way you had planned, but isn’t this your best case scenario when considering everything?” She asks. “If Taehyung is as distant as you say he is, isn’t it almost like you never married him in the first place?”

As if on cue, you hear footsteps coming down the stairs, heels clicking on the marble as they make their way to the entrance. You whip your head around to find Taehyung, all dressed up in loose, flowy slacks and a flowery silk button-down, strolling down the staircase as he scrolls through his phone, paying you zero attention whatsoever. 

He notices you briefly when he reaches the bottom, meeting your eyes with his own. He offers this measly, unenthused half-smile your way before he grabs his wallet and some house keys from the table by the entrance, opens the door, and vanishes off into the night. 

If you hadn’t been in the living room, you probably wouldn’t have even realized he left. Not that you being present as he’s planning on leaving would have stopped him anyway. This is the sixth night he’s done this in the past two weeks. You could stand by the door and stare him down as he emerges from his bedroom, all dressed up for something you’re definitely not invited to, and he would offer you that same goddamn smile and walk out the door without even blinking. Who he was before you got married and who he is now are no different. Not even a ring could change that. 

“I guess,” you tell Victoria. At least Taehyung hasn’t turned into a helicopter husband. “I don’t know. Maybe I just wish that I didn’t have to deal with him at all.”

Wish you could turn back time. Wish you could worm your way out of an arranged marriage before it was too late. Wish you could go back to the way things used to be. 

You and Victoria talk for another couple of minutes before she regretfully has to end the call, citing both her beauty sleep and an 8AM meeting tomorrow morning as her reasons for hanging up. The moment you put the phone down, you sink back into the couch cushions, staring out the windows at the world below you.

Here’s the deal. What Taehyung does in his free time is none of your business. But also, it’s totally your business, because you are his spouse. A spouse who is an equal amount in the public eye as he is. What he does and does not do has a direct impact on what you do and do not do. 

It’s no secret that when you catch Taehyung sauntering down the stairs looking like a Gucci runway model, it’s not because he’s planning on catching a movie with a college friend and then playing video games for four hours on a couch in a basement. He is going out. To clubs, to parties, to exclusive events that he’s been invited to by his equally-rich friends, all of whom are acting like he’s the same bachelor he’s always been. 

And maybe that’s the real problem with your whole marriage—other than the glaringly obvious issue that it’s a marriage wholly unwanted by the two parties involved in it. Despite the ring on his finger, Taehyung is going out and pretending that nothing in his life has changed while you’re trapped at home, desperate to save you and your family’s reputation by keeping as low a profile as possible. You would give anything to march around the city all day, flashing middle fingers at paparazzi as you shop at your favorite high-end stores and frequent your favorite clubs. But you can’t, because your family’s fortune and influence is on the line. 

And apparently, Taehyung’s isn’t. 

It sort of makes you wonder why it was even Taehyung you ended up marrying anyway. His family isn’t any richer or more powerful than yours. Your spheres have always been sufficiently separate. What was it about him, and perhaps more importantly, his family that drew your parent’s eye? And what was it about marrying you that prevented him from saying no? Money? Prestige? Influence?

You suppose you’ll never know. But whatever mystical force that convinced Taehyung to agree to this must not be as important to him as your reasoning is to you, because it’s become exceedingly apparent that Taehyung does not care that he’s married. He doesn’t care about the ring on his finger, he doesn’t care about his public image, and he most certainly doesn’t care about you.

Perhaps you were naive for thinking this, but you actually believed marriage might tone him down a little. Might age him into a real adult with real world obligations. Instead, it’s only given you a firsthand look into who Kim Taehyung has been and always will be: a selfish rich kid.

You don’t bother waiting around in the living room until he gets back, but you are still awake by the time you hear the door creak open. Taehyung makes no efforts to hide his return. You can hear him chattering loudly on the phone as he stumbles up the stairs, can tell from his gait alone that he is most certainly wasted. You don’t want to know what he did tonight. You’ll probably be able to figure it out anyway when you wake up tomorrow morning and check your social media. 

What were you thinking, marrying him? That he would change? That he would suddenly become someone that you could rely on? You had no choice when you said, “I do,” but you were at least hoping that maybe one day, one day in a long, long time, the two of you would finally see eye to eye. Maybe there would even come a time when you would genuinely love him. How foolish. 

You close your eyes and try to imagine a world where you have married someone you love, someone who loves you back.

Not unlike the many nights preceding it, tonight is sleepless. 

Unlike your marital status and general disposition, one thing that hasn’t changed about you is your love for extravagant events. Call you conceited, but there is something so much fun about putting on a fancy, expensive dress that you love and getting your hair and makeup done before going to an exclusive gala and posing in front of five hundred cameras. 

Actually, now that you think about it, maybe your wedding could have actually been pretty good, considering it let you do all those things. It’s a real shame there happened to be a storm cloud in the form of Kim Taehyung there to ruin it. Otherwise, you think you would have rather enjoyed that day. 

Tonight is the first event since your marriage where you and Taehyung are both required to show up and act like a happy married couple. Which would probably be a lot easier if you and Taehyung had exchanged more than ten words over the past two weeks. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but there was a part of you that thought you could use your arranged marriage to actually cultivate some sort of meaningful relationship between the two of you. So events like these wouldn’t be such a drain on both of you. 

When Kim Taehyung comes down the stairs, he actually doesn’t look too bad. You don’t know why this sort of thing keeps catching you off guard—like you don’t expect him to look that good whenever you see him. The problem is that you can’t even chalk up the surprise to him wearing tailored clothes or having his hair done. He just looks… good. 

Well, you suppose you do have to look at him every day for the rest of your life. It’s a good thing he’s attractive. At least he’s not sore on the eyes. 

Taehyung and his unfortunate attractiveness aside, the two of you don’t say a word to each other as you join up at the entrance, grabbing any last-minute items like house keys, chapstick, and whatever dignity you have left to spare. You send forced smiles and tight nods each other’s way in the elevator, staring straight ahead in the lobby of your building as the car pulls up to the front door.

By the time the two of you sit down in the back of the limousine, the built-up tension between the two of you is so thick you’re almost positive that even the chauffeur can feel it through the closed partition. 

If you were any more idyllic, you’d probably spend the drive over to the gala staring out the window and imagining yourself in a different life, on a train to nowhere, flowers in your hair and a journal in your hands. Or perhaps you’d be the CEO of your family’s company instead of having that responsibility passed down to a husband you don’t even want, sitting in an office at the top of a skyscraper overlooking the city. Anything. Anything but this.

But the idyllic part of you died when you realized that fantasies like that are nothing but distractions and that daydreams are for romantics and optimists and losers. 

“What’s our plan for tonight?”

Taehyung scoffs. “What do you mean, ‘what’s our plan’?”

You frown. “Well, we’re married, so we at least have to act like it, don’t you think?”

“Isn’t standing there and smiling enough?” Taehyung asks, an unimpressed eyebrow raised. 

You bristle. Maybe that sufficed for your wedding, but there was so much going on it was easy to distract yourself from the gravity of it all. But this event is not about you. It’s not even about either of your families. It’s about someone the two of you are, at best, distantly connected to, through work, through fame, through power. Which means that though the focus will not be on you, there will still be eyes looking your way. Eyes watching your every move. 

“Do you think it will be?” You challenge. Doesn’t Taehyung realize that things are different now?

Taehyung’s lips curl downwards. “What do you expect us to do, shower each other in kisses? We don’t even sleep on the same fucking floor.”

“Maybe I just expected you to act less like a stranger and more like a husband!”

Taehyung sighs. “Don’t.” The word is clipped, short. “Don’t tell me you actually want to be married.”

“I don’t.” It’s a response that you hardly have to think twice about. “But we are, and nothing can change that.” Unfortunately. But it’s a fact that you and Taehyung have both had to grapple with over the past few weeks, and it’s becoming increasingly obvious that you are more aware of it than he is. If Taehyung could have his way, he would ignore you for the rest of his life and keep partying with the rest of his bachelor friends until he keeled over and died. 

He huffs next to you, eyes staring straight ahead. You don’t think the two of you have met each other’s eyes in a week. Maybe more. They’re starting to feel as soulless as your marriage itself. “Whatever. What do you want me to do?”

“What do you think?” You cross your arms over your chest. “Just act like you don’t hate me. Can you do that?” The way Taehyung’s behaving right now, you expect that will be a challenge for the both of you.

“Only if you can. I’ll even hold your hand to prove that we love each other.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

The idea of holding Taehyung’s hand makes you want to implode. The mere thought sends shivers down your spine. But it’s better than nothing, and that’s good enough for you. At least you won’t have to kiss. 

The rest of the ride there is silent. You drive to this gorgeous mansion just outside the city, bathed in lights hidden amongst the bushes, illuminating both the architecture and the enormous fountain that sits in front of it. In a house this size, you imagine you could probably go your whole life without ever having to come across Taehyung. It actually makes you consider investing in a home that big. 

Taehyung helps you out of the back of the limousine, a cold hand clasping your own as you rest your palm against his. You can feel the way his fingers hesitate as yours make to intertwine with his as you walk towards the entrance, smiling at whatever camera flashes you encounter on your way. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think you were holding hands with a ghost. 

The moment you step inside and are ushered out of the door’s view, Taehyung’s grip relaxes on yours. For a moment, you think he’ll actually spend the rest of the night like this, a gentle hand wrapped around yours, but then he pulls it away entirely and shoves it back into his pocket. Oh. You frown quietly to yourself. So that’s how tonight’s going to go. 

You don’t make an effort to reach out towards him again. 

For an event concerning people you don’t know a damn thing about, everyone sure seems to know things about you. Other than greetings, you don’t think anyone’s said anything to you about anything other than your recent marriage to Taehyung. Every conversation is punctuated by a Congratulations! you do not feel that you have at all earned, considering you and Taehyung could barely look at each other on the way here.

Maybe Taehyung was right. All you really can do is stand there and smile.

“Oh, don’t tell me… Y/N, is that you?”

The champagne swirls around in the flute between your fingers as you turn towards the sound of your name, looking up to see a familiar face headed your way. 

Kim Seokjin is nice enough. He’s terribly handsome and got a flawless smile, but you know better than to trust those pearly whites of his. The sight of him alone is enough to make your body tense up. There was a reason you had explicitly told your parents not to invite him to your wedding. 

“Seokjin, what a surprise to see you here,” you say, forcing a smile. “I thought you were supposed to be in Switzerland right now.”

“Change of plans,” Seokjin grins back in that awful, awful way, the kind of grin that makes you feel like he’s looking right through you. “I came back early. It’s a shame, though, I missed your wedding.”

You shrug. “It was a humble affair.” It wasn’t. And you’re positive that Seokjin knows it wasn’t an accident that you didn’t extend an invitation to him or his family. 

“Ah, I see,” Seokjin says, nodding his head. He turns to Taehyung next to you, who is making no effort to hide how wholly uninterested in this conversation he is, and holds out a hand. “You must be Kim Taehyung, then. I’m Kim Seokjin. Congratulations on your wedding.”

Taehyung shakes his hand firmly, the air between the three of you growing unbearably palpable. 

“Seokjin’s father is the VP of News Daily,” You explain, eyebrows raised as you try to signal to Taehyung what exactly it means when Seokjin is speaking to the two of you. “And his mother is a popular journalist for the city’s post.”

Seokjin grew up in the world of media, and it seems he’s picked up his parent’s affinity for sticking their noses in places they don’t belong. You know he’s not talking to the both of you out of the goodness of his heart. 

Seokjin laughs, his hand waving away the mention of his parents. “Oh, please. That’s them. I’m just a bored socialite like the rest of you.”

You resist the urge to scoff. 

“Marriage treating the two of you well?” He changes the subject to what he really wants to talk about: you. 

“Of course,” you say quickly, preventing any hesitation on your end. Your empty hand reaches towards Taehyung’s, fingers searching for his between the two of you. But his refusal to join hands does not go unnoticed by you nor Seokjin, who is eyeing the space between your bodies with an eyebrow raised. “It’s just been—well, it’s just been difficult to adjust to a new life. That’s all.”

If you were to describe the face of a non-believer, it would be the exact expression on Seokjin’s face. “Perfectly understandable,” he says, that same toothy smile lacing his features. “But it must be nice, you know, to marry someone you love.”

“I couldn’t be happier,” you say, almost challenging Seokjin to say something even more inflammatory. He must know that all you’re trying to do at this point is save face. Love? Ha! As if. 

“And Taehyung?” Seokjin motions to your husband. 

You can feel the way Taehyung is stiffening beside you. “I suppose we are both lucky and unlucky in many ways when it comes to who we love.”

It’s enough of an answer to get Seokjin off your tail. For now. He bids the two of you a tense goodbye before sauntering off to go poke his nose in someone else’s business, fish for drama, a thread of a rumor he can pick apart with nimble fingers. You wonder if anybody actually likes him. 

The moment he disappears from earshot, you grab Taehyung’s wrist tightly and pull him close to you. “What the hell was that?” You hiss into his ear. 

“What?” You can’t tell if he’s playing dumb or if he really is that dense. 

“You!” You exclaim. “Kim Seokjin is the one person who could easily expose how fake this marriage is and you pull away from me? Right in front of him? You can’t even hold my hand for two seconds, that’s how much you hate me?”

“Who cares what he thinks?” Taehyung says. “He’s just another media rat. No one will even remember we were here tomorrow.”

“But if you keep acting like this, people will start to notice! Why can’t you just act like you don’t hate me, for one night? Is that so bad? Is it that torturous, to spend one night with me?”

“Do not turn this on me,” Taehyung orders harshly. “You’re making a scene. Come on.”

You don’t have time to shout at him for bossing you around like you’re a toddler throwing a tantrum before he drags you out of the venue, the two of you finding a back door to the building that leads outside. The cold air blows against your body, goosebumps popping up against your skin, but you find that the chilly night provides quite the respite after practically overheating indoors. Taehyung makes fire rush through your veins but at least the air can cool you back down. 

Nevertheless, your conversation is not over. It’s just been moved to a more private location.

“You do realize that our marriage isn’t going to suddenly go away, right? That we’re going to have to keep doing this for the rest of our lives?” You remind him, eyebrows raised. There’s a part of you that genuinely thinks he’s completely forgotten that your marriage is permanent.

“Oh, and not holding hands for five minutes for this one event is totally going to change the course of our lives, isn’t it?” Taehyung fights back.

“Don’t act like you did the right thing,” you spit out. “You don’t have to pretend in front of me. I know you don’t give a shit about our marriage.”

“What marriage is there to even give a shit about? Just because we had a wedding and signed some documents does not mean there is a real marriage between us. Look at us,” he motions between the two of you like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “We hate each other. Is this what you would call marriage?”

“But at least I’m trying to get past that!” You exclaim. “You make it seem like being as miserable as possible is some sort of badge of honor. Do you actually want to spend the rest of your life hating the person you married? Or do you want to grow up and try and move on?”

Taehyung frowns. “What I want is for the person I married to stop acting like they’re doing me such a huge favor by pretending to care about us. Especially when all they really care about is their family’s goddamn reputation.”

“No,” you tell him sternly. You are doing him a favor. He just can’t admit that he actually needs help from you. “You are putting zero effort into this. What am I supposed to do?”

“Let it go!” Taehyung shouts. “Maybe one day we’ll actually start getting along, but right now it’s obvious that neither one of us can stand the other. I don’t need you to do favors for me. I can handle it myself.”

You look away, rolling your eyes. “Doesn’t look like it to me,” you mutter to yourself. 

Taehyung cracks. “Fine. You want me to pretend that I actually care about us? I will.” Thank God. Maybe now the two of you will finally start seeing eye-to-eye. “But make no mistake about how I feel about you,” he spits. “Getting married to you ruined my life.”

You stare straight at him and his eyes are swirling, so obscured in the darkness of the night that you might even think he doesn’t have a soul at all. His pupils bore into yours and for once, for once in your goddamn life, after so many years of staring each other down at debutante balls, so many years of witty refrains and snarky insults hurled each other’s way, it feels like the two of you might actually snap. 

Then, a camera flashes.

Trouble in Paradise! would be a suitable title for the front page of the city’s biggest tabloid… if anything about your life with Taehyung could be considered paradise. Unfortunately for the both of you, that is not the case. 

You don’t need to keep reading the rest of the trashy article on the front page of the daily tabloid to know how much trouble you’re in, nor do you even have time to scroll beneath the terrible photo of you and Taehyung literally shouting at each other before you hear your phone ring. 

You don’t even bother saying hello to whoever’s on the other end. You know it’ll go in one ear and out the other. 

“I assume you know why I’m calling,” your mother’s harsh tone spits from the other end of the phone. There’s no doubt in your mind that she’s standing in the middle of her office, snapping her fingers at her fifteen secretaries as they partake in the worst damage control your family’s had to deal with since your cousin two years ago was caught with a mistress outside a high-profile restaurant. 

“Can I take a wild guess?” You’re about to be scolded into the next century, so you might as well enjoy your last few moments. 

“Don’t get cheeky with me,” your mother warns. “Care to explain why you and your beloved husband made the front page of the Daily Post today?”

“I know,” you sigh, a hand coming up to rub at your temples. It’s eight in the morning, you’ve barely looked at your phone, and you haven’t even brushed your teeth yet. It feels like you’re still asleep, and most certainly lack the energy to deal with this right now. 

Your mother, on the other hand, thinks otherwise. “You know? You know, and you still go out and do this? For everyone to see?”

“We tried to take our argument outside,” you begin to explain, but your mother isn’t having a single word of it. 

“The fact that you thought it was even appropriate to have an argument in a public setting at all astounds me, Y/N. We raised you better than that.” There’s no need for you to even see her face. You’ve grown so used to that disappointed frown over the years that it’s burned into your brain. 

“Maybe you should have thought about that before marrying me off to a man I barely know so I could be someone else’s problem instead of yours,” you bite. 

“We did this for your own good,” she hisses back. “You are married because we love you, and we want you to succeed outside of this family.”

“Then why do you care what the tabloids print about me?”

“Because being married does not mean you are no longer a part of this family,” your mother informs you sternly, lips smacking together. “Your marriage reflects on all of us, and you know that. What will people think of us when they see how terribly behaved you are?”

“Everyone acts like that, and you know it.” How could your mother preach good behavior when everyone, everyone you know, is just as spoiled and entitled as you? There’s no such thing as being altruistic when it comes to people like you. Being genuine, and good, and pure—that will get you ruined. 

You can hear her breathing into the phone when your mother responds, “But not in public, and that is the point. We expect better from you.”

“If you were so worried about me behaving so badly, then why did you even marry me off anyway? You knew that I didn’t want to. What did you think would happen?” It’s a question you wouldn’t have dared ask three months ago. Hell, even a year ago, when it was first revealed you were to be engaged, you wouldn’t have dared open your lips. But things are different now. You’re married to a man that hates you just as much as you hate him. He is making no effort to improve your relationship and seems hellbent on despising you forever. There is no way to get out of it. And if your parents really foresaw all of that, then what was the point in the first place?

“Your grandmother.”

Your mouth shuts. 

“You know she wanted to see you married before she passed,” your mother says, words clipped and biting and harsh. “She cares about you. She wanted to make sure you’d be taken care of.”

“I don’t need anyone to take care of me,” you mutter to yourself like a petulant child. In a way, you sort of are.

“If you want to stay in her will, I suggest you change that mindset.”

You freeze in your tracks. The will?

“Is that a threat?” You ask, positively dumbfounded. Are you being coerced into staying in this marriage because of your grandmother’s will?

You can hear your mother laugh, that muted, knowing chuckle of hers. “It was the deal all along, remember?”

Vaguely, you do. You remember fighting your parents tooth and nail over getting married until your grandmother revealed it was her dream to see you wed. You remember the look on her old, wrinkled face, that soft, sad smile that said she knew she didn’t have much time left. You remember agreeing, because how could you deny her? You remember her promising to remember what you’re doing for her. 

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not.”

“But—”

“That’s the end of this conversation, Y/N. You fix things with your husband or you’re out of her will. She’s made that clear. I expect you’ll make the right choice.”

She hangs up. 

Well. 

There are a lot of ways to describe how you’re currently feeling, and you most certainly had an expensive education that would provide you with plenty of the vocabulary, but you think the most appropriate words for the current situation would be: you’re fucked. 

At least the feeling is mutual. 

Hardly two minutes after your mother’s brutal phone call, Taehyung comes storming down the stairs, hair still mussed from the night prior, his own phone clenched tightly between is fingers. Even from where you stand in the middle of the living room, you can see the way his eyes are glinting with anger, the veins popping out from his skin. 

“I just got off the phone with my parents,” Taehyung begins, not even bothering to spare a ‘good morning’ your way, “and they are fucking furious about last night.”

You shrug. “Join the club,” you mutter, arms crossed in front of you. What, does Taehyung really think you got off scot-free?

“Don’t act like this means nothing to you,” Taehyung says as he approaches you, footsteps calm despite his demeanor being anything but. “You’re the one who’s so obsessed with keeping up their family’s perfect reputation. You’re the reason we’re even in this mess in the first place.”

“What do you mean, ‘I’m the reason’?” You ask, astounded. Like he’s totally absolved of all blame and just an innocent third party. “You are the reason we went outside. You are the reason we had that argument, because you refuse to accept the fact that we’re actually married and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Right, because holding hands is really gonna show all those people how in love we are. I bet your parents are so thrilled right now.” Taehyung drawls. 

“It’s a start!” You shriek. “God, you’re just so—so infuriating! You can’t accept that this was your fault, too. You just have to turn everything against me and you always, always have to get the last word. It’s like you think you’ll die if you don’t.”

“Like you’re any better,” Taehyung huffs back. “You think I’m the villain because I don’t want to pretend to be in love with someone I’m not in love with. You act like us not holding hands is going to ruin our lives. It was one event! One! It’s obvious we hate each other, so why even try?”

“What, do you expect me to just sit around and do nothing? To act like everything’s fine? Like I’m happy?” As if. This marriage is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. “While you prance around the city with your rich boy friends, going out to clubs and parties and pretending that I don’t exist? Is that what you expect from me?”

Taehyung laughs, this loud, disbelieving sort of noise, like he’s never heard such nonsense before. “Just because we’re married doesn’t mean the rest of my life has to change. Am I not allowed to enjoy myself with my friends? Or are you determined to keep me chained to your side for the rest of our lives?”

“What I want,” you punctuate every word, “is for you to stop acting like you haven’t got stakes in this, too. You think I don’t know how your family works? What being married to me means for you? Because I do. And I know that if we were to divorce, it would be you who would get the short end of the stick. Make no mistake.”

That’s enough to shut Taehyung up for a good few seconds. And it shuts him up, because he knows it’s true. Taehyung’s family may have a little more money, a little more power than yours, but you’ve got a family intimately more connected with the media. One phone call and Taehyung may have a rather messy, rather public breakup to deal with. 

“You wouldn’t,” he says, calling your bluff. 

“Are you sure about that?” You say, sticking your ground. You would never really divorce him, of course, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“I am,” Taehyung says firmly. “Don’t think I don’t know what being married to me is in it for you. What is it? Money? Power? Your father’s CEO position?”

“That’s none of your business,” you snap quickly. Maybe you’re more transparent than you thought. Bristling, you straighten your shoulders and turn back to meet his eyes. “Regardless, it seems we both have a reason to stay in this marriage.”

“It seems we do,” Taehyung agrees with a thin, contained smile. “Then I suppose we can reach some sort of agreement.”

“As in…?” Your interest in piqued. 

“I’ll stop going out with my friends if you stop picking fights with me all the time,” he says economically, like he’s killing two birds with one stone. 

“Only if you agree to also act more like my husband when we’re in public,” you tack on, because you just can’t settle for anything less. 

“Public only,” Taehyung specifies. 

You scoff. “Like I’d even want to pretend to be your wife when we’re in private.”

“Good. It seems we’ve come to a deal.”

“What’s in this for you, huh?” You prod, just to be annoying. Taehyung’s right. There’s a reason you’re not divorcing him the second you get the chance. But there must be a reason why he’s not doing the same thing. 

“Does it matter?” He challenges, a single eyebrow raised. “My life is just as awful as yours.”

Fair enough. 

“Do we have a deal?” Taehyung asks, holding out his hand, that sneaky, devilish grin lacing his features. 

Taking his hand in yours and grasping it firmly is the easiest decision in the world. His palm presses against your own, hot hand meeting your cold skin, and it feels like the two of you are finally finding some sort of balance. You look up into his eyes, burn your gaze into his pupils, watch them glint in the white ceiling light of the living room. 

“Deal.”

For two people raised on the values of reading the fine print and making educated choices when it comes to business deals, you and Taehyung sure haven’t worked out any of the intricacies of the deal the two of you agreed to. Unlike those business deals your parents constantly agreed to, however, knowing all of the stipulations and provisions of your strange, strange agreement with Taehyung may prove more harmful than helpful. 

Like right now. 

“Wait, we don’t have to be by each other’s side the whole night, do we?” Taehyung asks you, eyebrows furrowed in a knot, as you sit in the back of a big, black van on your way to a mutual friend’s twenty-first birthday bash. 

“There are going to be a lot of cameras there,” you respond. 

“Yeah, outside the entrance to the damn club. You know they won’t be allowed in, so who cares?” Taehyung rebukes. 

You huff out a little sigh, not wanting to get into an argument when you’re literally minutes away from your first public appearance since the whole tabloid debacle from three weeks ago. You and Taehyung could both do with being a bit more relaxed than you normally are when you’re around each other. 

“Hasn’t Clarissa invited hundreds of people? They’ll all notice if we aren’t together,” you remind pointedly. The girl whose birthday party you are attending is an heiress who grew up on the money of two people with a monopoly over the current artificial intelligence market and has millions of followers on social media. There will be notable people there. And people will know the two of you, as well. 

Taehyung rolls his eyes. “That’s the point, Y/N. There’ll be so many people, no one will even care. It’s her twenty-first birthday. Do you think people are going to be sober?”

You purse your lips together. He’s got a point. “How about when we are together, we hold hands. But if you see a friend or something then feel free to say hi.” Taehyung can be afforded that luxury. Especially because the chances of him not bumping into someone he knows is exceedingly low anyway. 

Taehyung nods in agreement. “You too. But I won’t leave you unless I know you’re with someone you’re close with.”

“You don’t have to stay, I’ll be fine,” you say with a small chuckle. What, is Taehyung suddenly worried, or something?

“Yeah, but it would be in bad taste if I left you with someone you didn’t know well. Or alone. Just wanna make sure you’re taken care of.” He shrugs nonchalantly, turning back to look out of the window on his side of the car. 

“Okay.” 

You don’t really have anything else to say to that. You’re sure you can handle yourself if you’re left alone for a few minutes while Taehyung says hi, but you actually find yourself rather appreciative of his resolve to look after you. Or, at least, make sure someone else is looking after you. It’s quite… chivalrous. Strikingly out of character for the Taehyung you’ve become well-acquainted with over the past couple of months. 

By the time you arrive, it’s obvious that Taehyung was right about there being so many people you two practically don’t even exist. Other than the herds of camera crews waiting outside the joint, photographing everyone that steps out of a black car to see what they’re wearing and who they’ve come with, no one seems to be paying you any attention. And in a way, that sort of nonexistence, that anonymity, it’s refreshing. Your entire life you’ve felt like all eyes were on you, like there was constantly a spotlight above your head, but here, the party centers around someone else. 

Despite that fact, Taehyung keeps his promise. He keeps himself pressed closely against you when there’s not enough space for you two to stand side by side, and he makes sure to have a hand gently intertwined with your own as you weave your way through the dozens of bodies in the room. He doesn’t say anything, of course, always looking up and forward instead of beside him, where you stand, but you find that you’re actually quite relaxed with his presence. He spots a bit of a clearing near the back of the first floor of the club, where a whole bunch of leather couches are pressed up against the brick walls, where the two of you can take a breather. 

“Damn, Clarissa knows a lot of people,” you say when you finally settle down, happily plucking a martini from a tray held by one of the many caterers wandering through the venue. 

“I doubt she’s even spoken to half of them,” Taehyung comments. “She and I have maybe spoken once… three years ago.”

“It was enough to get you invited, wasn’t it?” You point out with an eyebrow raised. 

Taehyung nods, chuckling a little. “Touché,” he says, clinking his own cocktail glass against yours. 

You take a swig of the drink, letting it wash down your throat. You’re not exactly sure how else you’re supposed to survive the night. “You must enjoy this, huh?” You muse, looking up at Taehyung from where you’re seated on the couch. He’s standing next to you, looking around the room with a distant gaze in his eye. 

“Enjoy what? The drink? It’s nice,” Taehyung says, having another sip. 

“No, I mean this,” you say, motioning toward the crowd. “The clubbing, the dancing, the drinking. I’ll bet that if you could do this every day for the rest of your life, you would.”

“I’m honored that you think so highly of me,” he deadpans. 

“Just making an observation,” you say, holding your hand up in surrender. “I mean, isn’t this what you used to do every weekend before we got married? Get wasted and party? Wake up in someone else’s bed the next morning? Muscle your way through the week just so you could do it all over again?”

Taehyung shakes his head, a knowing grin on his face. “Looks like someone keeps up with her tabloids. Let me guess, you would scroll through all of those trashy articles on your phone whenever you woke up so you could see what your future husband was doing?”

“I could have never even met you and I would know that that’s exactly what you do,” you say, even though you definitely did do those things before your engagement was announced to the public. “You’re a heartbreaker, Kim Taehyung. I don’t need to read a tabloid to know that.”

“Well, you must be quite the lucky girl, then,” Taehyung comments. “You seem to be taking up so much of my energy that I don’t have the time for that anymore.”

You place a sarcastic hand on your heart. “I didn’t know you were always thinking about me. I’m touched.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Taehyung huffs out, making the two of you both shake your heads as you chuckle to yourselves. First civil conversation you’ve had with each other in a long while, even if there may have been a few blows exchanged. 

The privacy doesn’t last long. Soon after, a huge crowd of people that could honestly still pass for teenagers herds towards the back of the club, all of them wanting to take pictures with each other. You and Taehyung do your best to stay out of the way, but one of the girls recognizes him from the Elle photoshoot he did about a year ago and begins to strike up a conversation with the both of you about your recent marriage. If she was paying attention to anything the tabloids leaked three weeks ago, she doesn’t mention it. Taehyung smiles and happily answers all of her questions, and even offers to take a picture of the group for them. The conversation ends before the two of you even catch her name. 

You’re standing by the line of buffet tables laid out against the staircase leading up to the second floor, no doubt as crowded as this one, when the opportunity for you to speak to someone other than Taehyung finally presents itself. 

“Y/N!”

You’d recognize that voice anywhere. You turn around to see Victoria barreling towards the both of you, not even caring when she accidentally spills a bit of her piña colada on the floor as she does. 

“Hey!” You exclaim excitedly. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Are you kidding? I’m pretty sure Clarissa invited everyone on her, her best friend’s, her best friend’s cousin, and her best friend’s cousin’s dog’s contact list,” Victoria says with a laugh. “It’s nice to see you. I feel like you’ve been holed up in that big ol’ penthouse for weeks.”

“Damage control,” you remind her succinctly. Victoria knows enough that that’s all the explanation she really needs. 

“I don’t know if the two of you have ever met formally,” you say, thinking back to your wedding, where Victoria spent most of her time schmoozing with your parents (who love her) and didn’t even engage with any of the people who Taehyung’s family had invited. “Taehyung, this is Victoria. Victoria, Taehyung.”

“Pleasure,” Victoria says in that loud, unabashedly forward way of hers, holding out a friendly hand. Taehyung smiles back curtly, taking her hand and shaking it gently, so as not to spill any more of her drink. 

“Mine as well. I remember you were at our wedding.” Oh? So he does know her?

“That I was. Oh, I miss that day. The food was excellent. Tonight’s isn’t too bad either. Hope you’re doing well, the two of you. It’s nice to see you getting along,” she says, always the observer. 

Taehyung’s eyes widen a little when he picks up what Victoria is not-so-subtly putting down, but you place a hand on his upper arm to calm him. “It’s okay,” you tell him. “She won’t say anything.”

“My lips are sealed,” Victoria adds. 

“If you wanna go spend time with some of your friends, you can,” you say, giving Taehyung a nudge. He looks positively helpless standing in between the two of you as Victoria out-extroverts him. 

“Alright,” he says hesitantly, even though you know he’s already spotted at least ten people you’re sure he’d want to spend time with over you. “I’ll come find you soon, okay? Don’t go too far.”

You nod, and Taehyung disappears off into the crowd. Not two seconds later, you hear someone else call his name in a familiar tone. 

“I thought you said you hated him,” Victoria points out as the two of you watch his caramel brown hair makes its way throughout the crowd. 

You take another sip of your drink. “I do,” you say. 

Victoria looks at you like you’ve just told her you’ve sworn off custard-filled doughnuts. 

“What?” You ask, feeling suddenly defensive. 

“Nothing,” Victoria singsongs. “It just doesn’t look like that to me.”

“We just need to keep up a good appearance in public, that’s all. You know how mad my parents got when the tabloids leaked all that shit a few weeks ago,” you explain. You’re not sure what all the fuss is about. Taehyung said he would do these things. And he did. That was him upholding his end of the deal. This is you upholding yours. 

“If you say so…” Victoria says, not looking at all convinced. “I guess I’m just surprised that—that you two seem to be getting along so well. Maybe you being married isn’t going to be the worst thing after all.”

You stare back out into the crowd, scanning the top of people’s heads for Taehyung’s familiar locks. In the dim light of the club, you have a difficult time finding his, squinting your eyes slightly as you look around, but eventually you spot him, dancing happily with some old friends of his you recognize. He looks like he’s having a good time. And that makes you feel like maybe, just maybe, this might end up alright. 

“Yeah,” you say, though with the pounding of the bass and the alcohol already rushing through your veins, it doesn’t really feel like your voice belongs to you. You look back at Taehyung, knowing exactly where he is now, and you smile. Just a little. “I guess he’s not so bad.”

You never do get a chance to meet Taehyung’s friends that night. By the time he joins back up with you and Victoria he’s by himself, a little more drunk than when he left, and ready to go home. And for once, instead of fighting him, instead of insisting you stay an hour more just to make sure you’ve done all of your rounds, you let him take you home. 

Taehyung has been spending a lot more time at the penthouse lately. Perhaps his family’s business happenings are slow, or perhaps he’s actually starting to get more comfortable with inhabiting the same space as you, but he has definitely found himself quite the rhythm in that house of yours. He even comes down to the first floor rather regularly. 

When he’s home, Taehyung is a lot quieter than you thought he would be. Granted, you don’t exactly know what you were expecting in the first place, but it certainly wasn’t him ruminating in one of the home offices while the Beatles play softly on the stereo, nor was it him reading a book in French in one of those big old grandfather chairs in the living room. If you didn’t know any better, you’d probably think he was still absent in that old way of his, ghostlike and silent, like he was occupying the space instead of truly living in it. 

But you do know better, and even though Taehyung is just as noiseless as he used to be, the house already feels a little bit fuller. 

Perhaps the reason you’ve become so keenly aware of his presence over the past few days is because of the notable fact that Taehyung has indeed held up his end of the deal, and no longer goes out with his friends in the evening. Or at all, for that matter. Which strikes you as rather odd, because he’s the epitome of a social butterfly, a thousand contacts in his phone and a whole group of friends he regularly spends time with. Maybe his parents told him to tone down the public appearances, too. And that’s understandable, but don’t they know Taehyung? Can’t they see how much he thrives on social interaction? It almost makes you feel… bad for him. 

To remedy this, you suggest he invite over his friends. Just for a few hours, you swear you won’t mind. 

“Seriously?” Taehyung looks positively shocked when you tell him he can, standing in the doorway of the office he seems to have designated as his own. 

“Yeah, why not?” You say with a carefree shrug. Besides, you’ve never met his friends anyway, and now seems as good a chance as any to introduce yourself. You are his wife, after all. “Unless your parents say you can’t. But it’s not a problem for me.”

“You… don’t mind if I have my friends over for a bit? Honest to God, we’re probably just going to play FIFA for three hours straight,” Taehyung says like it’s some sort of warning. Like the idea of him and his buddies from college are going to sit in the living room screaming at the television, leaving you alone to do literally anything else, is somehow bad. 

You laugh. “It’s fine, really. Call them. I’d actually quite like to meet them.”

Taehyung picks up his phone almost instantly, as if you’ll change your mind in the next five minutes so he better get them over soon, and already you can see the way his face is lighting up, the way his eyes crinkle as he chats to his friends and the way his lips curl upwards when they crack a joke back. Isn’t it obvious? He feeds off of the energy of others. Who are you to deny him such a simple pleasure?

As it turns out, Taehyung’s friends actually end up being quite nice anyway. 

He invites over three, because four people is apparently the perfect number for a hardcore game of FIFA on his Playstation, and they are all very handsome men you have never met before. You suppose like attracts like, after all. 

“You must be Y/N,” says the first one you see when you open the door to let them in. He doesn’t look a day over twenty-one—in fact, he could probably still pass as a college student—and has rather long dark hair that drapes over the sides of his face, covering the edges of his big doe eyes. “I’m Jungkook. This is Jimin and Hoseok.”

“Nice to meet you all,” you say, stepping aside so they can enter.

The shortest one, Jimin, grins in response, and Hoseok, behind him, gives you a wave. It’s refreshing enough as is, not having to exchange formal greetings and shake each other’s hands like you do with everyone else. Hoseok even gives you a bit of a nod, too.“You, too,” he says. “We’ve heard so much about you.”

Oh, have they, now? Interesting. 

“All good things, I hope,” you say awkwardly, forcing a small smile as Taehyung comes bounding into the room, ears perked up at the sound of his friends’ voices. 

“Definitely. Thanks for having us over. We didn’t wanna intrude on the sanctity of your new place,” Jungkook says, gesturing vaguely to the house as a whole. He’s got this excellent, genuine grin on his face, the kind that people who are just happy to be alive always wear. 

Already he’s said enough to charm the shit out of you. Who knew Taehyung’s friends could be so… friendly? “Please, you’re welcome any time. I was just thinking Taehyung was getting a little lonely.”

“There he is!” Jimin shouts excitedly when he spots Taehyung behind the two of you, looking a lot more casual than he normally does when he’s alone with you, having abandoned his usual silky button-down and wide-leg slacks for a loose shirt and some sweatpants. You didn’t even know he had those things in his closet. 

“Hey, everyone’s here!” Taehyung exclaims, just as happy. He squeezes past you to give the three of them a big hug, and it almost makes you feel like you’re intruding on something you shouldn’t be in. Even though this is literally your house. 

“Nice place you got here,” Hoseok comments, eyes drifting around the living room. “Very minimalist, I like it.”

“Sure hope you don’t spill anything on those nice leather couches of yours,” Jungkook says. 

“Yeah, unlike Kook, who has spilled tomato soup on every shirt he’s ever owned,” Jimin jokes, earning laughs from Taehyung and Hoseok and a punch from Jungkook. 

“Moved after we married,” Taehyung says simply, shrugging his shoulders. It’s an easy enough explanation for why it doesn’t look at all lived in. Here’s hoping none of them realize you sleep in different bedrooms. 

“Yeah, congratulations on that, man,” Hoseok says, giving Taehyung a celebratory nudge in the shoulder. “Who’d have thought, out of the four of us, Kim Taehyung would be the first one to settle down.”

The way Taehyung’s body tenses up at that comment does not go unnoticed by you. 

“Seriously, I would have never guessed,” Jimin adds on. “You’re showing us a new side of yourself, Tae. But I’m happy for you.”

Normally, you’d probably take offense at such blatant insinuations that your husband was a former playboy, especially from his equally noncommittal friends. But truthfully, it’s not like you were blind to Taehyung’s transgressions either. And what matters most is the fact that since it was announced publicly, you are the only woman he’s been seen with since your engagement. 

“Me too. You seem to really like her. I’m glad,” Jungkook pipes up, sending a smile your way. You definitely feel like you don’t belong in this conversation. “I think the two of you will be good for each other.”

“Yeah, I hope so,” Taehyung says with a nervous chuckle. His eyes quickly shoot your way, the two of you meeting gazes, your hesitant expressions matching. At least the two of you are on the same page. “Alright, alright, enough,” Jungkook says. “Who’s ready to get their ass kicked in FIFA?”

“You’re on, Jeon. But when I win, you owe me a five-star dinner,” Hoseok challenges. 

“Deal.”

Hoseok, Jimin, and Jungkook immediately crowd towards the couch, and you take that as your cue to leave. But before you can disappear down the hallway, you and Taehyung look awkwardly at each other, hands tied. It’s not like you can say anything to them. 

The truth is that, sometimes, it’s easy to forget that not everyone else knows that your marriage is just for business. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that there are still people out there that believe you marry for love. 

Isn’t it crazy to think that you used to be one of those people, too?

“Hey,” Taehyung says when you meet up at the bottom of the stairs again. 

“Hey,” you respond. 

“You look nice.”

You scoff a little to yourself. What, are you exchanging compliments now? “Thanks,” you say, looking him up and down. “You’re not so bad yourself.” Like he ever is. 

“I knew you had taste,” Taehyung teases, and it’s the sort of comment that would have earned him a melon ball to the face back when the two of you were teenagers at a debutante ball, but today only earns him a roll of your eyes as you join hands. You don’t have anything big tonight—just a small dinner to celebrate some sort of business accomplishment for your family, which means that all you have to manage is not ending up in some sort of food fight by the end of the night. 

“I didn’t have a choice, did I?” You retort easily as you get into the car. 

You don’t normally speak a lot on the way to events. Not that you ever did, but even as your relationship has slowly faded from pure hatred to attempts at compromise, you both seem to relish in being able to stare out of your respective backseat windows and into the city that surrounds you. Just out of curiosity, about halfway through the ride you look towards Taehyung to see what he’s up to, and find yourself genuinely surprised to see him leaning against the window with his eyes closed. Is he sleeping? A couple more minutes of gazing at him tells you he is, because his body has gone lax and his breathing has evened out, soft snores leaving his mouth. This ride can’t be longer than twenty minutes. Has he not been sleeping well? Up in that enormous second-floor bedroom of his?

He’s awake by the time the car parks outside the restaurant, this fancy name brand steak place that was chosen solely because the biggest beneficiaries of your family’s new business deal are two sixty-year-old men whose entire diet consists of beef and beer. No cameras tonight, just a small family affair. You and Taehyung hold hands as you enter the restaurant and are led to the private room in the back anyway. 

You and him are seated on the far end of the long, rectangular table, alongside all of the other adult children dragged along to celebrate something that has no effect on their lives. But it’s nice, because the space alone prevents your parents from actively speaking with you, and you and Taehyung can stay in your own little bubble, only chiming in for a toast when necessary. 

“What are you going to get?” He asks you, the two of you gazing at the menu. No matter how fancy this place is, all the options seem to boil down to steak, steak, steak, steak, and caesar salad. Classic. 

“Oh, so you actually care now?” You counter, an eyebrow raised in amusement. 

Taehyung laughs. “Aren’t I supposed to?”

You narrow your eyes at him suspiciously, wise to his usual shenanigans. It’s hard to tell if Taehyung really means what he says, or if it’s all for show. But perhaps he’s asking because he’s genuinely curious, since no one else seems to be paying you any attention. 

“The choices on this menu are simply overwhelming,” you say, motioning to the six options in front of you. 

“I know, I’m so torn,” Taehyung jokes, making you huff out a little giggle. At least he’s still got that same sense of humor. 

You both end up going for a pretty classic steak dinner, which neither of the two of you finish because the damn portions are the size of your head. Dinner is, in and of itself, absolutely mindless, all of your parents talking about things that don’t concern you whatsoever, leaving you and Taehyung to your own devices as you desperately try to make the night go by faster. 

At one point, you notice Taehyung’s foot brushing up against yours, the leather of his loafers brushing against the toe of your patent heel. Thinking someone of it, you push back, foot nudging his back to his own chair. It’s not a second later that Taehyung retaliates, the two of you dancing around each other underneath the table. 

If the two of you were any younger, or perhaps any less resigned to your fate, there’s no doubt in your mind you would be attempting to get Taehyung to fall off his chair in an effort to do the same to you. Footsie means war. But when the both of you know that, at the end of the day, you’ll still be going home to the same place, and waking up the next morning in the same house, it doesn’t feel like this is a battle.

It’s just life. 

Eventually, you meet Taehyung’s eyes with a hesitant smile, shoe pressed against his, stuck in ceasefire. And for once, he doesn’t have that devilish look in his eye, that smug little grin on his face that tells you that he’s going to make you regret whatever it is you just did. He’s just smiling back at you, all pink lips, having found real fun in the little things. 

And that makes you happy. 

The rest of the dinner is uneventful, which, in your book, is about as good as a dinner can go. You cheers to the future of your parents’ relationship with their newfound partners and say a quick goodbye to them both, hurrying out of there before they can ask you any questions on your relationship with your husband. But you don’t spend the car ride in silence on the way back. 

Instead, you say, “Have you been sleeping well?”

The question seems to catch Taehyung off guard. He was already getting in position to take a power nap on the ride home, head pressed up against the window of the car. 

“What?”

“Have you been sleeping well?” You repeat. “I noticed you fell asleep on the way here.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess,” he says, a hand scratching the nape of his neck. “I mean, it’s been hard adjusting, I suppose. But I’ll get over it.”

Hard adjusting? You’ve been together for nearly three months now. Three months worth of sleeping in the same penthouse bedroom, on the same soft-as-a-cloud mattress, underneath the same weighted blanket. And he’s still having trouble? 

“Oh. I mean, I just wanted to ask because you seem really tired lately.”

“I got a lot on my plate, what can I say,” Taehyung says with an empty smile, forcing a chuckle. “I’ll be fine, seriously. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Isn’t that my job?” You remind him. “I am your wife.”

Taehyung doesn’t say anything to that. He just lets out an audible breath, the kind you let out when you’re amused and have something snarky to say, but don’t have the energy to get the words off your tongue. 

The rest of the ride is pretty quiet. 

When you get home, you place your house keys in the bowl by the entrance and take off your shoes, just about ready to take a hot shower and collapse in bed, when Taehyung’s voice stops you. 

“Hey,” he begins, almost hesitantly. You look back at him inquisitively. “I was thinking, maybe, if you wanted, we could start sleeping in the same bed?”

You scrunch your nose up. Not in disgust, but in surprise. In bewilderment. What brought this on, all of a sudden?

“Really?” You ask, because you can’t help yourself. “I thought we liked the separate bed thing. Gives us privacy.”

“Yeah,” Taehyung says with a shrug, “but—I don’t know, it’s stupid. I just thought, you know, since we’re married and all. And it’s been three months.” He looks about two seconds away from backtracking, from shaking his head and going upstairs before you can say anything else. 

“Alright,” you say quickly, nodding your assent. Taehyung’s eyes widen when he hears the word, like he had completely expected you to shut him down the moment he made the suggestion. “If that’s what you want. We can try it.”

“You sure?” He asks, that same hesitant smile from earlier lacing his features. It’s strange. He almost looks… sweet. Nervous. 

You grin back at him. “Yeah, I am.”

Taehyung lets you grab some of your toiletries and your pajamas from your designated bedroom before you head up the stairs together, towards the bedroom he’s claimed for himself. Funnily enough, this is the first time you’ve been in his room. Three months of living together and you haven’t dared step foot on the second floor. 

You don’t know what you were expecting when he opens the door to let you inside. Maybe a room that screamed ‘Taehyung’ a little more than this one does. One that looks like an actual human has been living here. But other than one of his classic silk button-downs draped over a chair, there’s not a shred of evidence someone has actually been sleeping here. You could honestly be fooled rather easily that the shirt, too, is just decoration. 

“You can pick a side,” Taehyung says casually. He grabs his own sleepwear—an old t-shirt and some sweats—and heads into the bathroom to change. 

You wonder why Taehyung has had such a difficult time adjusting. This room is about as lavish as a bedroom can get. And yet. 

Sitting down on the left side of the bed, you begin to remove your own clothes, unzipping tonight’s dress and stepping quickly into your pajamas, hurrying to make sure Taehyung doesn’t catch you half-naked. How funny is that, you think to yourself. You’ve been married for three months and you still can’t bear the thought of Taehyung seeing you without a shirt on. 

When Taehyung comes out of the bathroom, hair all messy and clothes all casual, he grins lazily to himself. “I sleep on the right anyway,” he comments mindlessly. 

Within twenty minutes the both of you are about as ready to pass out as you have ever been, the only lights still on the ones on your respective nightstands. 

“Goodnight,” Taehyung says, reaching an arm over to switch his off. 

“Goodnight,” you tell him, turning off yours as well. And all of a sudden, the room is shrouded in darkness. 

You fall asleep instantly. 

When Taehyung wakes up the next morning, the first thing he says to you is that he hasn’t slept that well in ages. 

“You slept together?” Victoria shrieks, so loud you actually have to move your phone away from your ear as you punch in the code inside the elevator for access to your floor. 

“We did not sleep together,” you emphasize. “Okay, well, we sleep together, as in, in the same bed. But we are fully clothed. And not the slightest bit interested in doing anything other than sleeping.”

“I thought you said you liked having your own space,” Victoria points out. “When was the first time you—uh…” she pauses to find the right words, “shared a bed?”

“A couple weeks ago. It’s really not so bad, I don’t know why you’re so hung up over it,” you say, lips pursed. You squeeze the phone between the side of your head and your shoulder, hands full of shopping bags, the string of the handles burning your skin. Maybe you should look into getting a personal shopper. 

“I’m hung up over it because, for the longest time, you have sworn off Kim Taehyung. Called him dead to you. Insulted him every chance you get.” 

You scoff. You don’t need reminding of how much you hated him, how much you can’t believe you have to spend the rest of your life with him. “It’s different now. We’re married. And he said he wasn’t sleeping well. I felt bad.”

“He wasn’t?”

“Enough about him,” you say, shutting her up. You don’t feel like talking about him with Victoria anymore. “Word through the grapevine says that your parents are actually thinking of letting you start your own company?”

It’s enough to distract Victoria. For the rest of the ride in the elevator, she talks animatedly about a new streaming service her parents are considering letting her launch, under their parent business, of course, but it’s her own company nonetheless. And you’re proud of her. Proud she could do something your parents would never dream of letting you do. Proud she could make that happen. 

You push open the front door with the side of your hip after entering in the security code, phone still snug between your ear and your shoulder, when you hear Taehyung call out your name. 

He comes into view from the kitchen, which surprises you because you have, on multiple occasions, made fun of how much of a disaster chef he is, especially because he’s admitted to you he’s not a very good cook. 

“I made brownies,” he says, holding out a plate of the chocolate treats in front of you. Instinct has you dropping your bags on the floor by your feet and reaching out, but you eye him first, suspicious. 

“I have to go,” you tell Victoria, hanging up before she even gets a chance to object to your sudden departure. “You made these?”

“Yes, I did,” Taehyung says, rather proud. 

“And the kitchen is… still standing?” You ask, skeptical. 

Taehyung frowns at you, clearly unimpressed. “How bad of a chef do you think I am?”

“Pretty bad,” you admit with a shrug. 

Taehyung pouts sadly to himself for a moment. “These are good, I swear. Nothing weird in them like vegetables or anything either. I used a box mix.”

“No wonder they look so nice,” you comment snidely, hesitant hand reaching out to grab one. They feel like brownies. So that’s good. 

“Hey, I was the one who had to crack the eggs and shit. Three eggs! And not one eggshell in the bowl!” Taehyung says, clearly very pleased with himself. 

You laugh at his enthusiasm, taking a bite. It’s good. And exactly what you needed after a long day of shopping. “I’m proud of you. They taste good.”

“I knew you wouldn’t doubt me.” Taehyung grins.

“They’re really good, actually,” You amend, genuinely surprised. And the best part is that you can count at least ten brownies left on that plate, which means that you get at least five more. Which, if you had any less self-restraint, you would probably eat all at once within the day. 

“I’m glad you like them. They’re all for us, you know. No one else to share them with,” he says.

“Honestly, I’m probably going to finish them by tonight. You’ll have to make more tomorrow,” you say sheepishly. 

“We can make some together,” Taehyung suggests. 

“I’m looking forward to it,” you respond. The words come off your mouth easily, tumbling from your lips without you having to think about it. You aren’t saying them because you have to. You’re saying them because you want to. Because baking with Taehyung doesn’t actually sound too bad. Especially if it means more brownies. 

“You’ve, uh, you’ve got something,” Taehyung says, gesturing vaguely to the side of his lip. 

“Oh, I do? Yikes,” you say, a little embarrassed. Your hand comes up to wipe at the left side of your mouth. “Is it gone?”

“Wait, here, let me do it,” Taehyung says, reaching out towards you. He presses his palm against the side of your face, cradling your cheek and jaw in his enormous hands, and all at once it feels like your skin is on fire. 

Your body freezes up at the touch, at the way his thumb swipes at the corner of your mouth, right against your lips, wiping away nothing but a goddamn brownie crumb. You look at him, look right at him, how can you look anywhere else when he’s right in front of you like this, and it feels like you are caught in his gaze, a rain droplet trapped on a web, a bee stuck in its own honey. His big, brown eyes sparkle from the ceiling lights, a chocolate sky that mirrors the food he just made for you. He looks at you and his eyes are so soft, so open, so happy to be looking right back at you. God. 

“There,” he says, a moment too late. 

“Thanks,” you stammer out, speechless otherwise. 

You both stand there, looking at each other, wordless expressions drawn all over your faces, no idea what to do next. 

After a while, Taehyung breaks the silence. “Do you wanna order takeout tonight?”

“Okay,” you nod, still a little breathless. Taehyung smiles before retreating back to the kitchen, leaving you standing in the entranceway, shopping bags abandoned by your side. 

You look over to where he’s vanished. There’s a part of you that wishes he hadn’t left. A part of you that makes you want to see him again. 

Phone calls from your mother are never good. The last time she called… well, you know how that went. So when you see her contact information light up your home screen, it’s only instinct that you feel your heart rate spike. 

“Hello?” The voice that comes out doesn’t even sound like yours. 

There’s no good way to put what comes next. Your grandmother has died. Heart attack. The paramedics got there too late. It was over before it even started. 

For a moment, for a split second, it feels like everything is frozen. Like the world has come to standstill. Your mother’s voice echoes in your ears, suspended in time, the words turning into stone as they crash onto the floor. And when they do, it is as if everything comes back to life. 

Truth be told, you don’t know how long you stay there, sitting on the edge of the left side of the bed, your phone resting lifelessly in the palm of your hand. It feels at once like an eternity and only a second in time. You spoke to your grandmother two days ago. You had promised that you and Taehyung would visit her soon. How can this be happening?

Your phone buzzes relentlessly in your hands, condolences pouring in from every person in your contacts, sorry’s and heart emoticons and If you need anything, I’m always here’s filling up your screen. There’s a part of you that vaguely registers your mother, alongside some of the other members of your family, trying to call you. But nothing can seem to shake you. 

Until—

“Y/N? You still up here?”

You hear Taehyung before you see him. Hear his voice, hear his footsteps, hear the door creak open as he enters your bedroom. Slowly, almost sluggishly, you twist around to look at him, the mere act knocking the wind out of you. Or maybe you were already breathless. 

“Hey, you alright?” Taehyung knows instantly that something is wrong. 

“My grandmother died.” The words sit heavy on your tongue. There’s no point in not telling him. He’ll find out soon enough. He’s… he’s family, isn’t he?

“What?” Taehyung freezes in place. “I—I’m so sorry to hear that, Y/N. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” you say, voice weak but steady. You blink up at him, once, twice, three times, and then suddenly you feel tears running down your cheeks. 

Taehyung doesn’t say anything else. He rushes to your side and sits himself down on the bed next to you, arms wrapping around your body. And you don’t think about the fact that it’s him, about the fact that this is the closest the two of you have ever been. You just let yourself be engulfed in his frame, let yourself be enveloped in his hold as the tears stream down your skin, little hiccups jolting your throat. You close your eyes and press yourself into his arms, head resting against his chest, and wish so desperately that so many things about your life were just a little bit different. 

It must be at least five minutes before either one of you dares to move. Your phone begins to rattle incessantly, that familiar and insistent buzz that the both of you are hard-pressed to ignore. 

“I think you should answer that,” Taehyung whispers into your skin, lips right by your forehead. 

“Yeah,” you sniffle, sitting up next to him and wiping the remnants of wetness by your eyes. Well, Taehyung’s seen you cry. There’s no going back now. “You’re probably right.” You look down at the phone. It’s your father. 

“I’ll be downstairs, okay? Unless you want me to stay,” he offers, looking hesitant. 

You shake your head. “No, it’s—it’s okay. I’ll be fine.”

“Call me if you need me,” he makes you give him a nod of understanding before he finally gets up, hands slowly removing themselves from your skin, leaving little sparks in their wake. Remnants of warmth. Suddenly, you feel much colder. Hardly a minute later he’s out of the room, and you can hear his distant footsteps as they make their way down the stairs. 

Sighing, blinking, and swallowing all at once, you pick up. 

The call passes by in a blur. Your father says the will will take at least half a year to be executed, but that the funeral is already being planned. Your grandmother had hoped you would eulogize her. You agree, but you have no idea what you will say. He says Taehyung is invited but does not need to come if he cannot make it. He says a lot of other things too, about your mother, about your cousins, about your aunts and uncles and your poor grandfather, who passed five years ago, but you can’t even remember them moments after he’s said them. 

When he hangs up, the tears on your cheeks have dried, patches of them left along your skin. You head to the bathroom, getting off your bed for the first time that day, and try to wash away everything that has stained the morning. A part of you doesn’t even want to bother, just wants to slug downstairs and eat as much sugary cereal as you can get your hands on, but you can’t go down there looking like this. Looking so helpless. 

By the time you reach the kitchen, Taehyung is already standing there, on the opposite side of the counter island, a big stack of pancakes in front of him. They look mouth-watering. 

“Hey,” he says softly. “Thought you might want something to cheer you up.”

“Did you make these?” You ask, a little endeared. That was thoughtful of him. 

“Yeah. They’re still warm,” Taehyung says. He holds out a fork. 

You grin. 

The funeral is a week later. It sucks in every way that something can suck. But not in the same way your wedding sucked, or even the announcement of your engagement. It sucks because it’s a funeral, because you have to stare down your grandmother’s casket when a part of you still doesn’t even believe that she’s gone. Because everyone there is so sad, so melancholy, dressed in all black and looking down at their feet. Because everyone is so sorry for you, so sorry for your loss, everyone has nothing but condolences to offer you. What will those do? They won’t bring her back. They won’t change things. They won’t make you feel even the slightest bit better. 

Taehyung comes. He comes because he offers, and because you want him to. You want someone whose hand to hold. Want someone to smile at you when you’re speaking in front of your entire extended family and trying not to cry. You want someone who is familiar, and warm, and there for you. 

And most of all, you want someone who won’t keep the conversation going when you get home. 

“Do you wanna order Chinese?” He asks, coming into the living room, where you have been sulking on the couch ever since you stepped foot inside the door. 

“That sounds nice,” you force out. 

“Okay. Your usual?”

“Yes, please.” You don’t bother asking how Taehyung already remembers what you like to order when you’ve only gotten Chinese twice in the last three months. 

“I’ll call them.” He disappears off into the kitchen. 

What you do appreciate about Taehyung is how he has defaulted to food as a comfort measure, and how the thought alone genuinely brightens you up a little bit. You don’t know each other very well—still, after three months, you couldn’t even say his favorite color—but he is doing his best, and he is trying his hardest. In some ways, you were unlucky to marry him. To marry someone you didn’t love. To be forced into a union you had no say in, with someone you had so much antagonistic history with. 

But in some ways, your luck has changed. In some ways, marrying him was perhaps the best thing that could happen to you. Taehyung is snarky, a little devilish, and absolutely full of himself, but he is not thoughtless. He is not heartless. He has proven that he is willing to put in the work. That he can grow to care. To change. To compromise. And isn’t that the luckiest thing you could have gotten?

“I’m sure you’re probably sick of hearing people tell you they’re sorry for your loss.”

His voice breaks your reverie, carrying throughout the wide open space of your living room. He’s grinning honestly where he stands, slowly making his way over to you. 

“Kind of, yeah,” you admit. “It’s not going to bring her back. Most of those people probably don’t even mean it.”

“Don’t say that,” Taehyung says, sitting down next to you. “I’m sure they do.”

You look at him skeptically. 

“I mean, they’re sorry for your loss because that loss is causing you pain. And that sucks,” Taehyung explains, albeit a little less eloquently than you thought he would. “I know it sucks for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t like seeing you sad,” Taehyung says honestly, shrugging to himself. 

You scoff a little to yourself. “I would have thought my downfall would be the exact thing the great Kim Taehyung would wish for himself.”

“Maybe a couple of years ago.”

You narrow your eyes. 

“Okay, maybe even a few months ago,” Taehyung admits with a laugh, making you smile, ever so slightly. “But it’s different now. I like it when you’re happy. When you’re snarky and funny and a little evil. Seeing you like this… I don’t like the way it makes me feel.”

“That’s called empathy,” you point out. 

“I’m trying to tell you that seeing you sad makes me sad, stop being a smartass,” Taehyung chides, and that really makes you grin. “There. There’s that smile I was looking for.”

“You’re so annoying,” you say, even though there’s no malice behind it. You give him a little push, palms of your hand pressing lightly against his shoulder as you roll your eyes. 

“Only for you,” he promises. He manages to grab a hold of your wrist as your hand meets his torso, pulling you into him as he wraps an arm around your torso. You gasp a little at the sensation, head falling against his body, fitting snugly in the crook of his neck. He gives your side a comforting rub. “I’m sorry today was so shitty.”

“It was,” you agree. “But Chinese food will make it a little bit better.”

Taehyung looks positively scandalized. “What? ‘Chinese food will make it better’? But not your loving, doting husband?” 

You pretend to think for a little bit, tilting your head up to the sky as you tap your chin with your finger. “Okay. Maybe that, too,” you cave after a bit of waiting, just to be extra bothersome. 

“That’s what I thought,” Taehyung says proudly, looking down at you, eyes sparkling. You can feel his grip tighten as he presses you against his body, letting you rest your head on his side. It feels like the longest hug ever, like you’re wrapped up in a weighted blanket. Only it’s not a blanket. It’s Taehyung. It’s your husband. 

He’s your husband.

“Tomorrow will be better,” he says, and it sounds a lot like a promise. 

You nod against him, letting your eyes drift shut. Things are pretty awful right now. Your grandmother’s dead. The funeral was the saddest family event you have ever attended. You have no idea what’s supposed to happen next. 

But he’s right. He seems to be right a lot these days, actually. 

Tomorrow will be better.

Taehyung lets you sleep in for the next few days. Next several days, actually. Every time you wake up it’s close to noon and your husband is nowhere to be seen, the right side of the bed cold to the touch. It’s nothing to be worried about, though, because you can still see the noticeable dip in the bed from where he lies upon it, sinking his weight into the mattress. Taehyung’s an early bird and you’ve been having fitful nights ever since your grandmother passed. 

Today, you pull yourself out from underneath the covers around noon, sluggish and still tired, squinting as the near-afternoon light streams through the enormous windows of the bedroom. Taehyung must have thought to keep the curtains open today. 

You pull on the first casual clothes you see in your shared closet, some wide-leg sweatpants and a drapey t-shirt, and trudge downstairs like a raccoon to a trash can, hoping to fish through the kitchen cabinets to find something to eat. 

Taehyung is, as far as you can tell, nowhere to be seen. You can’t seem to hear him anywhere, and a part of you wonders where he’s at when you stumble upon the note left on the granite counter. 

Had a meeting downtown, be back around 1! There should be smoked salmon and some cream cheese and bagels in the fridge. 

Taehyung.

You chuckle to yourself as you read his flowy handwriting, amused that he thought to let you know of, of all things, the available breakfast foods in the kitchen. You check the clock. It’s nearly noon. Which means you have just over an hour of the house all to yourself. 

Having the house to yourself for five minutes is infrequent enough as it is, let alone for a whole hour. So often is Taehyung around, somewhere, holing himself up in one of the dozens of rooms or mindlessly wandering down the hallways. And for how much Taehyung is present, the funny part is that you still have no idea what he gets up to most of the time. Despite your voluntary abandoning of the separate bedroom rule, the two of you are still firm proponents of the sanctity of your personal spaces. There are rooms in the penthouse Taehyung has never been in, rooms filled with your clothes and makeup and accessories for when stylists come over before an event. A sewing room that you had specifically asked your parents for, because a part of you never let go of that childhood dream of being a fashion designer. 

And there are rooms in the penthouse that you have never been in. Rooms with dark wooden doors that have always been kept closed, that you have never stepped foot in. It’s not that you aren’t curious as to what Taehyung gets up to. He could have a goddamn evil lair in one of those rooms and you would be none the wiser. But you don’t go, because he doesn’t go into your rooms. Because you two, despite all the vows you have broken, promised each other you wouldn’t.

An hour to yourself is almost a good enough excuse for you to head back up to the bedroom and take a nap. Not that you don’t get enough sleep on a regular basis, or that you even had a fitful night last night—hell, you woke up near noon today and already you want to go back to sleep—but what else is there to do when he’s not around? What new freedoms have suddenly been given to you?

You head back upstairs, much less groggy after that delicious bagel of yours, when you catch a whiff of what smells like wet paint coming from down the hallway. It’s potent and immediately invades your senses, prompting you to wonder if that has always been there, or just magically appeared. Maybe you were so sleepy earlier, you didn’t notice it. 

Well, you notice it now. Unable to help yourself, you start to wander down the hallway, towards the source of the smell. God, it stinks. It takes you back to those days in middle school, when you would spray paint projects inside a tiny little classroom, have to step outside for fifteen minutes while you cracked the windows and aired it out. It gets stronger the further down the corridor you go, like a thick, smelly cloud stationed firmly within the walls of the penthouse. And then you realize where it’s coming from. 

It’s an art studio. 

A very messy art studio, you amend to yourself, as you peek inside. The door is wide open, and all of the windows are popped too, but the extra air circulation doesn’t seem to have made a dent in the scent. And all over the floor, the walls, and the tables are canvases covered in paint, denim jackets and pants and shirts with these wide, unafraid brushstrokes. Open cans of spray paint lie discarded on the hardwood floor stained with splotches of red, yellow, and green. 

Is this what Taehyung does in his free time? Is this where he goes, this bright, sunny room at the end of the second floor hallway? Is this what he is making?

You look down in awe at the clothes resting on the floor, splayed out to maximize dry time. Abstract faces, landscapes, and words are painted onto the backs of jackets, the fronts of old white t-shirts. What hasn’t made it onto the clothes has been put on canvases instead, blurs of color mixed together in this purposeful pattern, confidence emanating from every stroke, every dot. It’s not art in the way that the gorgeous landscapes of Monet, the picture-perfect portraits of Kahlo, the messy, unplanned splatters of Pollock are. It’s art in a different way. In a Taehyung way. 

Who knew he loved it so much? 

You almost feel like an invader encroaching on his territory when you lean down to start cleaning up some of the mess, throwing out empty spray-paint cans and tossing out grey paint water. You don’t dare touch any of the work, don’t dare try to move it. You do what you can, washing out the brushes resting in the water and cleaning up the wet splotches of paint on the hardwood. Over time, the thick scent of still-wet paint slowly fades, disappearing out the window as the fresh afternoon air seeps in. And you stand there, in a room full of art, in a room full of pieces that Taehyung has undoubtedly poured his heart into creating, and you smile to yourself. 

That’s how Taehyung finds you ten minutes later, peering into the room after declaring that his meeting had ended early. 

“Thought I’d find you in here,” Taehyung says with a grin as you jump at the sound of his voice, eyes widen when you turn around to see him standing by the door. 

“Oh, hey,” you say sheepishly. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Maybe because this is the farthest room in the house from the front door,” Taehyung teases lightly, coming up behind you. “I see you found my studio.”

“I know I’m not allowed in here,” you admit. 

Taehyung scoffs. “Who says?”

“Didn’t we both agree on that?”

He shrugs. “Sort of. I think we just reached an unspoken understanding we wouldn’t invade each other’s personal space. But it was not in the fine print, no.”

“The fine print of what?”

“That deal we made.”

Right. That deal you made, four months ago, That deal, where the two of you agreed to pretend to be in love with each other during public appearances so you wouldn’t get burned at the stake by your families. Where the two of you agreed not to interact with each other otherwise because you hated each other so much. 

“Oh, yeah,” you say distantly, feeling naive for already forgetting about it. It doesn’t seem to have slipped Taehyung’s mind whatsoever. 

“It’s okay, I don’t mind that you’re up here,” Taehyung says, interrupting that piercing little voice in the back of your head that is asking you why on earth you forgot about that deal in the first place.

“Yeah, I—” You scratch at the nape of your neck, trying to find the words to say. “It just smelled like paint, so I wanted to see what you get up too. And it’s this, apparently.” You motion vaguely to the entire room.

“You sound… surprised,” Taehyung muses correctly. 

“I guess I am,” you surmise. “I’m rather impressed, too, actually.”

“Really?” It’s Taehyung’s turn to sound surprised. 

“Yeah,” you tell him honestly, looking into his eyes. “I—you know, I just came in here because the entire hallway smelled like wet paint and I wanted to know why. But I didn’t know you loved art so much.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Taehyung points out. 

You suppose that’s true. You don’t know his favorite color. His favorite song. His favorite book. For a long time, you didn’t know what he got up to on his side of the penthouse. You don’t know how he met his friends. What he studied in university. Who he has loved in the past. Who he loves now. You don’t know why he does the things he does, and why he doesn’t do the things he doesn’t do. 

But you do know his Chinese takeout order. 

And you do know his hobbies. Well, one of them, at least. 

Who’s to say you can’t learn more?

“Well,” you start with a smile. “I’m your wife, aren’t I? Shouldn’t I begin to learn?”

Taehyung picks up what you’re putting down instantly, grinning in response. “Only if you’ll tell me things about you, too,” he requisitions. 

“I will,” you promise. It’s the easiest one you’ve ever had to make. 

His face is light, bright, bathed in the rays of the afternoon sun. His eyes shimmer as they meet yours, golden flecks more pronounced like this, in this gorgeous, open space, daylight streaming through the windows. Looking at him makes you feel like you are surrounded by warmth, makes you feel like the sun is opening its arms out to you. He has always been gorgeous. Beautiful. But looking at him like this, standing in the middle of a room filled with all the things he loves, a yellow halo surrounding him—he is ethereal. 

Taehyung smiles. “Then I will, too.”

The hand-holding comes naturally tonight.

The funny thing is, actually, you don’t need to hold hands at this gathering. It’s not an event. Or a public appearance. It’s not even a business dinner. It’s your aunt’s sixtieth birthday party, reserved exclusively for family. Isn’t that strange? That Taehyung is, technically, family now?

For so long you had vowed to stay as far away from him as possible. Vowed to stick it to him whenever and wherever you could, do anything you could to get on his nerves, rile him up. Vowed that when you, one day, took over your family affairs, you would never, ever invite him. Make it known that he wasn’t to be a part of your life. And yet, here you are. Clinging to him despite being well-acquainted with—loved by, even—every other person in the room. Holding his hand like a goddamn lifeline. 

To be fair, Taehyung doesn’t look a hair out of place here. Dressed relatively casually, a smart sweater with a collared shirt underneath it, he smiles warmly at all of your relatives and presents your aunt with a beautiful and very expensive scarf the two of you had commissioned from a designer in Italy, which she absolutely loves. She pinches his cheek and proceeds to wear it for the rest of the night. 

“Damn,” you murmur to yourself as you wander around your aunt’s house, hand wrapped around his arm. “This place hasn’t changed a bit.”

“When was the last time you were here?” Taehyung asks. 

The question actually makes you think for a moment. “I don’t know, maybe five years ago? Last couple of birthdays I was overseas or in school. Had to send her a card.”

“Bet your parents were real pleased with that,” he jokes, making you both laugh. At least you two will always be able to share your experiences of domineering and influential parents with each other. 

“Oh, I’m sure. Just as pleased as they were when they realized how much we hated each other.” You expect that little jest to elicit a laugh out of Taehyung as well, but he just smiles tightly, huffing out a breath of acknowledgement. 

“Eh, it’s not like that now, is it?” He offers up. 

“I suppose not,” you muse, sitting down together on her ancient grandma couch in the living room. No matter how rich your family gets, she’ll never get rid of this thing, that’s for sure. 

One thing you’ve picked up over time is that, for every second Taehyung spends basking in the spotlight, he spends an equal amount of time lingering by the wall, watching the rest of the world turn without him. He’s an observer. He is one by nature, feeling an irresistible pull to understand humans in a way only artists could ever do. He sits down next to you and watches your family in an environment where they can relax, where they can feel comfortable and be casual with one another. 

Very seldom have you ever brought friends to events like these. Small family affairs. But Taehyung isn’t a friend, is he? No, he’s your husband. He belongs here just as much as you do. 

“My family seems to really like you,” you point out. Not that anybody has ever harbored as much disdain for him as you. Your parents called him respectable and polite when they told you you were to be wed. Your grandmother had said he was a dashing young man. He doesn’t exactly have to reach far to be loved around here. 

“That’s my job, isn’t it?” He replies snidely. 

“Oh, just take the compliment,” you say with a roll of your eyes. Taehyung always has to be so difficult. “I’m surprised you aren’t nervous as hell. Last boyfriend I brought to meet my parents was shaking in his Louis Vuitton shoes.”

“Last boyfriend, huh?” Taehyung’s interest has been sufficiently piqued. “And, uh, how many of those have you had?”

You narrow your eyes at him suspiciously, smile twitching on your lips. “Wouldn’t you like to know, Mr. Heartbreaker.” Pretty rich of Taehyung to be asking you such a question when he’s probably had more girlfriends than you can count on both hands. “Not as many as you’ve had girlfriends, that’s for sure.”

“Guess I’m a lot different than all those trashy guys you’ve dated, aren’t I?” He asks, an eyebrow raised as he looks at you. 

“You are?”

Taehyung nods assertively. “Well, yeah. First of all, I’m your husband. Second of all, your parents love me. Third of all, you love me, too.”

You scoff. “Don’t humble yourself. You don’t know me that well.”

“Speaking of which,” Taehyung says, eyes wide as he points to you knowingly, “how about you tell me a little fact about yourself? It’s my job to learn about you, isn’t it?”

“That is my line, watch it,” you sneer, pointing back at him. You wrack your brain for a fact that you can tell him, something more exciting than your favorite color but less weird than one of those terrible icebreaker exercises you had to do in college seminars. Something that has pertinence to who you are. Who you’ve become. “Alright. I used to want to be a fashion designer when I was little.”

Now that catches Taehyung off guard. “Really?” He says, genuinely intrigued. 

You shrug. “Yeah. I learned to sew when I was really little. Been tailoring and hemming clothes all my life. But I always wanted to design my own stuff.”

“Is that what’s in your room?” Taehyung asks. “A sewing machine?”

“Bingo.”

“Wow,” Taehyung says. “I didn’t know that.”

“Isn’t that the whole point of this exercise?” You say, just to be smart. 

Taehyung shakes his head, eyes rolling. 

“What about you?” You ask. You can’t imagine what he’ll say. Astronaut. Veterinarian. Or, if he really wants to surprise you, a business executive. 

“A museum curator.”

It is an answer that simultaneously surprises and doesn’t surprise you at all. 

“Fitting,” you muse. “You could have put your own art on display.”

“Pretty sure that’s, like, super unethical,” Taehyung reminds you. 

“So? You’re rich. Start your own museum. Put your own art on display. Live your dream,” you amend. “It shouldn’t be holed up in that studio of yours forever. It deserves to be seen.”

Taehyung smiles at you. “You think so?”

You nod. “Of course. You create beautiful things, Tae.” It’s the first time you’ve ever called him that. And that is not lost on Taehyung, either.

“Thank you,” he says softly, blinking as he looks at you. He doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t need to.

Later that night, when everyone’s gotten a few drinks into their systems and Bruce Springsteen is playing low on the stereo, Taehyung disappears off towards the bathroom, no doubt because of the excellent soup that was served that night. All by your lonesome, you feel a little stranded, surrounded by your old relatives dancing on the hardwood floor of the dining room, your other cousins too young to actually spend time with. 

In the commotion, your mother comes up to you, swirling a rather large glass of red wine in her hand. 

“Where’s Taehyung?” She asks. 

“Bathroom.”

“No wonder you were alone,” she says with a hearty laugh. “The two of you have been glued to each other’s sides all evening.”

“He’s my husband,” you offer as an explanation. 

“I know, I know,” she says, shaking you off with a smile. Your mother is a lot more casual once she’s had her fill of wine, no doubt her favorite, Bordeaux. A lot more loving, too. “You really made your grandmother proud, you know? She loved you so much.”

“I know,” you say, trying not to get choked up at the mere mention of your grandmother. 

“She was so happy to see you with Taehyung. It made her feel safe that you would be taken care of,” she continues on, barely paying you and your swimming eyes any attention. “She would be so happy to see you with him now, too. How much you love her.”

“I miss her,” you hiccup out, trying to compose yourself. Nothing kills a birthday party like some sad sack crying over her deceased grandmother. 

“I know, darling,” your mother says, calling you by a nickname she has hardly used ever since you turned eighteen. She squeezes you tightly, a small hug of comfort. “I miss her, too.”

Someone calls your mother’s name, distracting her as she wanders off to your uncle, who is asking what the best way to cut the three-tiered cake on the dining room table is. She bids you a goodbye before disappearing towards the kitchen, no doubt ready to make the cutting of the cake an affair all on its own. 

Taehyung comes back soon after, spotting you instantly as you stand around in the living room. 

“Hey,” he says, noticing the wet shimmer of your eyes. “You alright?”

You nod, feeling better already now that he has returned. Now that he is by your side. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“I hope those tears aren’t because you missed me,” he says, wiping away a stray one that has escaped from your eyes. You close them as his thumb brushes against your upper cheek, your eyelashes, opening them only when you’ve felt his touch vanish from your skin, leaving little sparks in their wake. 

“No,” you say. But the night makes you honest, and a couple of drinks, even more so. “But I’m glad you’re here.”

Taehyung smiles. “Me, too.”

For all those days you have spent together, never have you and Taehyung had a night in. Which isn’t necessarily completely surprising, considering how many evening events the two of you have had obligations to attend, considering your differing work schedules and meeting times. Considering that, for a very long time, the two of you had no desire to spend any time with each other at all. 

But tonight, there is nothing on your calendar. No galas, no dinners, no meetings, no schedules. There is only Taehyung, who has spent the entire afternoon up in his studio, inhaling spray paint fumes and doing what he loves. And there is only you, who has spent the entire afternoon wondering what the hell you’re going to do tonight when there is nothing else planned. 

You knock on the door to his studio, catching him right as he’s finishing up another piece. This one is a single flower, painted in broad, confident strokes, bright green and red and sunflower yellow decorating the canvas. 

“Hey, what’s up?” He asks, turning around to face you. 

“Wanna order takeout tonight?” You suggest. 

Taehyung grins. 

Thirty minutes and your favorite Chinese food later, you and Taehyung have settled onto the couch, trays of dumplings and noodles and rice in front of you, an unfunny movie playing in the background. 

You can’t remember the last time the two of you sat on this couch together. Maybe that night you had made the deal? Perhaps not even then. It wouldn’t at all surprise you if you found out that this was the very first time you and Taehyung have sat together on your couch, in your living room, in your house. So often is it occupied by others—Victoria, who sometimes comes over to ooh and ahh at your closet, Jimin, Jungkook, and Hoseok, who sit on this couch and play FIFA like it’s their job, your mother, when she wants to make herself at home in a place that doesn’t belong to her—but never you. Never you and him. 

“This is kinda nice, isn’t it?” You ask, swallowing a bite of dumpling. 

“Chinese food is always nice,” Taehyung responds over a mouthful of cold noodles. 

“Not that,” you say with a sigh, “this. Sitting together. Watching this shitty movie.”

“It’s not that shitty,” Taehyung tries to reason. On screen, the main character is getting pied in the face during some weird college fundraiser. “Okay, it’s a little shitty. But it’s good background noise, right?”

You nod halfheartedly. “I guess.” Silence. You take another bite of your dumpling, not really sure how to continue the conversation. “We don’t really get to do this a lot, you know? Sit and eat dinner and watch a movie together. Like a date.”

“We’re on a date now, are we?” Taehyung muses, eyeing you snarkily. 

“Isn’t that what this is?” You retort. 

He shrugs. “I suppose it is.”

“Tell me another fact about you,” you request, looking over to him where he sits on the opposite side of the couch. 

“About what?”

“Anything.”

Taehyung pauses, ponders for a moment. But he could never say anything wrong. Not when there is still so much you don’t know about him. Still so much you want to learn, so much you want to commit to memory. For so long you have stared at the planes of his face, the curve of his nose, the twinkle in those dark brown eyes. Those you will always remember. But what about who he is? What he loves? Those are things you still don’t know. 

“The very first time I met you,” Taehyung begins, “I asked Jimin what your name was.”

“When was that?” You ask. Despite you being someone who has spent the better part of the last several years vowing never to give Taehyung the time of day, you sure don’t remember when it all started. 

“That debutante ball,” Taehyung remembers fondly, “when we were fifteen. I asked Jimin what your name was because I wanted to ask you to dance.”

“Shut up, no you didn’t,” you say with a scoff. 

“It’s true. You were standing there in that poofy white dress and I wanted to ask you to dance,” Taehyung points out. The fact that he even remembers what you were wearing is shocking. 

Who knew. Who knew, back then, that you would one day grow up to marry him. 

“And what did I say?” You demand more. 

Taehyung laughs at the memory. “I came up to you, and I asked you if you wanted to dance, and you said, and I quote, ‘Who are you?’”

“No,” you say, aghast at your own behavior. Were those really the first words you ever said to KIm Taehyung?

“You did. Don’t you remember?”

You think back. Think back to every year you have ever known Taehyung, every year you have spent scowling at him from across ballroom floors, making some snide remark as you pass by each other in the hallway. Every year you have spent cursing his existence, willing him away from you so he could bother someone else. Every year you have listened to rumor after rumor of girlfriend after girlfriend. You think back and somewhere, somewhere in there, in those dusty corners of your brain and cobwebbed boxes of your heart, is that first memory of Taehyung, too. 

Of him standing there in some generic black suit, black hair swept over his forehead, shoes too big. Of him coming up to you, trying to be as suave as a fifteen year old could be. Of you saying to him, instead of a hello, or even a what’s your name, “who are you?” 

Of him saying—

“And you said, ‘your dream come true’.” Like a dam bursting open, the memories flood back to you all at once. “I remember that.”

Taehyung laughs out loud at the thought of him saying something so cheesy. “Unsurprisingly, you didn’t want to dance with me.”

“You were so—” you begin, but you don’t have the words. Don’t have the words to express how you felt about him that night. Don’t have the words to express how you feel about him now. Thinking about this, talking about it, it is a bridge. A bridge between what was then and what is now. A bridge between who Taehyung was and who you were and who Taehyung is and who you are. “—so unthinkable. I couldn’t believe you had come up to me and said that. I couldn’t believe you had the audacity. But something about that night made me remember you. Made me remember your name.”

“You thought about me after that?” Taehyung asks. “Is that what you’re telling me?”

“There is something about you that is unforgettable,” you say, honest and real and true. What else can you tell him? The truth is that you have always thought about him. Whether you liked him or not. 

You finish your dinner and place your trays on the end tables next to you, stacking your empty bowls and plates on top of one another as the movie rumbles on in the background. 

“It is kind of a shitty movie,” Taehyung admits after a while of being wholly unenthused. 

“Yeah,” you agree. “But it’s good background noise.”

Taehyung laughs at your little mockery, warm and deep and from his belly. You look at him. He feels so far away, on the other side of the couch. Feels like he’s miles apart from you. You have spent countless nights clinging to his harm, hand gripped tight in his. And sitting like this, a full couch cushion of space between the two of you—it isn’t enough anymore. So you inch closer. 

And closer. 

And a little closer. 

Until you’re pressed up against his side, legs touching as they rest neatly in front of you, backs stick straight as you stare at the television. 

Taehyung holds his arm up. An open invitation. 

Without asking, you lean into him, resting your head in the crook of his shoulder, in the space right underneath his jaw. You pull your feet up onto the couch and curl into his frame, pressing yourself against him. He is warm and firm and inescapable. He smells of coffee and paint and Chinese spices. He wraps his arm around you and pulls you in, as if there were any other place you’d rather be. 

You sit like that for a while. Wrapped up in each other. Lazing around on the couch as the stars twinkle above your head. The movie ends and the two of you don’t even bother skipping the credits, letting them and the cheesy 80’s pop song play on, a distant soundtrack. 

“I never thought any of this would happen,” you breathe out. 

Taehyung looks down at you curiously. “What? This?”

“All of it,” you admit. “Us. Getting married. That stupid tabloid picture. My grandmother. This. It’s all so new.”

“New things will happen all the time,” Taehyung muses aloud. “We can’t help when things change.”

“You don’t have any regrets?” You have plenty. Regrets that you’ll never become the CEO you wanted to be in college. Regrets that you’ll never become the fashion designer you wanted to be as a little girl. Regrets that you will come to resent this marriage, resent Taehyung more than you have in years past, all because you had no choice. Regrets that your grandmother couldn’t see you now. Regrets that there were so many things in your life you could have changed, but didn’t.

“I thought I did,” Taehyung tells you. “I wanted to spend more time with my friends. I wanted to major in art in college. I didn’t want to marry you. I know you didn’t want to marry me.” He looks down and you look up at the same time, eyes locking, inches apart. “But looking back on it, I’m happy where I am. With what I have.”

“I never thought it could ever be like this,” you say, words falling off your tongue before you even ask them to.

“What?”

“Us.”

There’s no need to elaborate. Taehyung understands. He understands that, half a year ago, you both would have thrown yourselves into a volcano before holding hands with each other. He understands that getting over your hatred for each other seemed like an absolutely insurmountable task. He understands that you had never wanted to marry each other, that you couldn’t believe you would have to spend the rest of your lives with each other. 

And he understands that now, things are different. 

“I’m glad things happened the way they did,” Taehyung begins. “I’m grateful for us.”

You press yourself impossibly closer to him, feel his grip tighten around you. Like this, you can hear his heartbeat. Hear it thump like a drum, steady and firm and unwavering. His heart beats against his chest and you wonder. 

You wonder if he can hear the way yours beats for him, too.

There were lots of things that made your night in together special. But one of them is the glaring fact that you don’t get them very often. That their infrequency makes them all the more valuable. 

This has become blatantly obvious to you, because right now you are not spending a night in together. Right now you are stuck at a gala that you have to attend for the sake of business, drinking thin flutes of champagne and mingling with people you barely speak to. 

The one good thing about nights like these is that Taehyung looks positively gorgeous in suits. He sort of always has, but you’d never admit that to his face. At least not until now. And as his wife, you are lucky enough to have a front-row seat. 

“I can feel you staring at me all the way from over here,” Taehyung deadpans as he helps himself to a chocolate-covered strawberry from the buffet table. 

You’re too obvious to have any shame about it. “What can I say, I like the view.”

“Hard to believe I was the once the one being shouted at for being inappropriate in public,” Taehyung says with a shake of his head. He bites into the strawberry and eats it all in a single go, tossing the stems into a bin nearby as you join back up in the heart of the crowd. 

“It’s only inappropriate if other people hear,” you tease, letting him guide you, hand intertwined with yours, towards an empty corner where the two of you can snuggle up to one another in (relative) peace. 

“I don’t think the champagne was very good for your filter, Miss Y/N,” Taehyung hisses into your ear, warm breath tickling your skin. 

“Don’t you mean Mrs. Kim?” You pose, an eyebrow raised. 

That seems to do something to Taehyung. It’s not very bright in here, with it being nighttime and all, but even still you can see the way his eyes darken. See the way his lips curl upwards, feel the way his grip on you tightens. It sparks something within you. Something deep in the pit of your belly. 

Something that makes you want more. 

You test the waters. “Mrs. Kim has a nice ring to it, don’t you think, Tae?”

Taehyung looks about a moment away from losing control. But instead of slamming you against the wall in front of all of these people and giving you what you really want, he growls out, low and powerful, “Home. Now.”

He doesn’t need to tell you twice. 

You hail your car outside of the venue and it’s all the both of you can do to not jump on each other right then and there, in the backseat of this giant black van, overcome with want, with need, with everything in between. Taehyung’s leg bounces impatiently the entire ride back, and the feeling of your hand pressed against his doesn’t seem to be calming him down. He pulls you close to him in the backseat of the car, a hand resting on your thigh. You eye him carefully, as if challenging him to be any more daring. He grins. 

Home cannot come soon enough. The two of you tumble out of the backseat and into the elevators, where you mash the top floor button after entering in the security access code, desperate and shameless. The ride seems to take hours, and the heat that surrounds you practically smothers you, covers you, fills up your lungs and chokes you. 

There is nothing left by the time you reach your door. The moment it slams shut behind you Taehyung presses you up against the back of it, pins you against the wood as he hovers over you, eyes tracing your lips. 

“Tell me something,” he demands. 

“What?” 

“A fact. Something I don’t know.”

It doesn’t take much thinking. “I want you,” you breathe out, watch it hit his skin, watch the way his eyes glint in the light of the entranceway. “Please, Tae. I want you.”

It’s enough for him. 

This is not the first time you and Taehyung have kissed. The first time was nearly five months ago, in a chapel, at an altar, surrounded by hundreds of people. It was so unfun that you seem to have eradicated the mere thought from your memory. But you remember that feeling from that day. That feeling you got when you pressed your lips against his, cemented your marriage with a kiss. That heat. That sting. 

Kissing him now—that feeling has returned tenfold. When his lips meet yours, it feels like fire is rushing through your veins, setting alight every nerve it passes, unforgiving and relentless. His enormous hands come up to cup your jaw, fingers pressing against the skin of your cheeks as they pull you close to him, keep you trapped in his hold. This is not the first time you and Taehyung have kissed but it feels like it is—it feels like there is a lotus blooming on a lilypad in your heart, it feels like you have been struck by lightning, it feels like nothing else you have ever felt before. It feels brand new. 

Pressing back against him, he slowly releases you from the cage he has created against the door, spinning around so the two of you can tumble up the stairs and into your bedroom, unable to resist sneaking in pecks here and there as you make your way upstairs. Every step you take you stop, giggle as he presses you against the railing just so he can steal another kiss from you, put his hands all over your body. It’s a wonder the two of you even make it into your bedroom at all. 

When you do, however, all bets are off. Taehyung presses you against the still-made bedsheets with a glint in his eye and a growl on his lips, pupils blown wide as he stares down at you, at your body.

"Aren't you a sight? Laid out so pretty for me," he purrs, robbing a breath from you.

It's a tone you have yet to hear from him. You find yourself growing impossibly hot under his stare, burning with an uncharted desire.

You can hardly wrap your brain around it. Here you are, craving the man you had spent the better half of your young adult life loathing. Maybe it’s the champagne; maybe it’s the way his fingers are running slowly up the length of your clothed torso. Whatever it is, your stomach does flips, unfamiliar to the way your body preens under his touch.

"Don't let it go to your head," you tease, simply because you could.

Taehyung hums disapprovingly, pressing kisses into your neck as he grabs one of your thighs and wraps it around his waist, riding your dress up in the process.

You sigh, exposing your neck further for him as he paints bruises into your neck. It feels like just yesterday you had called him out at the altar for his habit of sporting the very same marks you were soon to wear.

Perhaps you should have thought twice about letting the man you had married purely under business pretenses press his hips against your clothed center, but as he rolls his into yours, your mind falls blank, silencing any and all reservations you should have.

Whimpering, you beckon his mouth back onto yours, tongue meeting his wantonly. 

You feel his fingers creep up the outside of your bare thigh, thrilling you in the most primal way. Reaching the band of your underwear after what felt like entirely too long, he runs the pad of his thumb against the lacy fabric.

 You could scream. He is doing this on purpose. He must be. Surely he knows how badly you were aching for him? For him to fill you– whatever the manner may be.

You let out a whine before you can help yourself, frowning as Taehyung looks pleased with himself, confirming his knowledge of your prolonged pleasure.

"What's that? Did you say something?" he mocks, looking cruel and yet strikingly gorgeous as he smirks above you.

"God, you're irritating,” you huff, hips jerking up against his as he pulls at the band of your underwear, the elastic snapping back into the flesh of your hip. "Just fuck me already."

He tuts, clearly unimpressed by your impatience, "Now, where is the fun in that?"

Your eyes flutter shut as his fingers suddenly snake their way between your thighs. Mouth falling ajar, you grip his shoulders as he runs his middle finger against your clothed slit, trailing up and down your warmth. To think he was still dressed while he was touching you like this...

"No... I think I'll take my time with you," he says.

You mew against his hand, arousal forming against his long digits' ministrations. You have to hand it to him. Taehyung knows what he’s doing. The life of a bachelor has seemingly served him well.

You aren’t usually vocal in bed, but the way he’s purring words of filth to you, breath hot against the shell of your ear as he tells you how hot and slick your pretty pussy felt against his hand, has you gasping and sputtering, your own fingers wrapping around his wrist.

The fabric of your panties provides a friction that toys the line of pleasure and pain, making you thrust up to meet his motions, your humility slipping from you.

Taehyung watches you intently, cock growing hard under the constraints of his dress pants. You look better than he could've imagined, eyes watering and body shivering under his touch, his fingers soaking with your arousal. He can only imagine what you'd feel like with his fingers fully buried into you, rocking them against your velvety walls.

He lets out a groan of his own, turned on by the idea of you fucking yourself onto his fingers, whimpering out his name in ecstasy.

There’s this part of you that faintly recognizes that Taehyung has done this plenty of times before. Plenty of times with plenty of other lovers. But there is a different part of you, that part that bursts with light and hope, that reminds you that he was never married to those other ones. That his allegiance lies with you. And that thought, knowing that deep within you, he is yours, makes your jaw fall slack, pretty noises tumbling from your lips and your thighs clamping around him.

You were close, closer than you care to admit. Every touch against you is careful yet deliberate as he reads the signs of your body, the way it keens and arches into him, offering you words of encouragement as your climax finally hits.

"That's right. Good girl. Let go for me," Taehyung coos, eyes dark and focused on your writhing form.

You cry out into the familiar space of your shared room, head thrown back as you ride out the high, letting it wrack your body, send jolts throughout your veins.

You barely have time to catch your breath when he presses his mouth back onto yours, kiss still as eager as it was when you both first entered your home. You are alight with satisfaction as he pulls away to press a trail of kisses against your jaw.

"I want—f-fuck," you stutter as he finds your already hypersensitive clit once more, rolling his thumb over your now soaked panties in tantalizing circles, "want to make you feel good, too."

Admittedly, this fantasy had crossed your mind once or twice, brought on by the way he carried himself in a suit and the way his large fingers wrapped around the champagne glass; confident, collected, and entirely charming. Who are you to shy away from a man like him? He certainly has always been rather good-looking. 

He pauses his motions, pulling his hand back to sit on your waist. Your dress is of the finest, most delicate satin, and after tonight's activities, completely wrinkled. You can almost hear your stylist's cries of dismay. Whatever. You have a steamer. And why focus on the dress when it’s obvious the two of you are focused on what lies underneath it?

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." You nod, skin still burning from your past climax.

Helping you back up, Taehyung stands. You lick your lips as you sit back up on the edge of the bed, watching intently as he unbuckles his belt, audibly hissing as his pants fall to his ankles, cock visibly straining against the fabric of his underwear. Thank God you don’t have to stand. With the way your thighs still felt weak and how your husband looks like a goddamn Adonis towering above you? Your legs surely would give out underneath you if you rose.

Brows furrowed, Taehyung palms over himself briefly before pulling down the waistband of his underwear, his painfully hard member slapping against his torso.

Your eyes widened on instinct. While the last thing you wanted to do was help inflate Taehyung's already large ego, you were certainly impressed at his size; thick and girthy, his tip red and shining with precum.

He couldn't help but smirk, thoroughly pleased by the way you stared at him unabashedly, chest rising and falling heavily.

"Open up for me," he orders.

And who are you to deny a request from your dear husband?

Your pretty lips wrap themselves around his engorged tip, all remnants of lipstick long gone by now. Taehyung hisses, a hand finding the side of your jaw as you run your tongue against the underside of his cock.

"Fuck, you're so pretty," he grunts, fighting off the urge to grip the back of your head and fuck your throat. As much as he'd love your have you choking and drooling all over his cock – and boy would he – he lets you set your own pace, not wanting to overwhelm you.

It doesn't take long for you to sink your mouth further down, however, clearly set on making Taehyung feel as good as you could.

A low moan erupts from his throat, digits pressing into your jaw in request to take more of him in, which you happily oblige.

You had your eyes trained on him, completely obsessed with the way he panted through pink lips, hissing slightly every time your tongue rolled over his sensitive tip.

Lolling his head to a side, his eyes meet yours, gaze primal and wolfish as he watches the way you worked his cock.

"Doing so good, love. Doing so fucking good for me,” he murmurs.

You hum against his skin at the sound of the sudden pet name, an unfamiliar feeling fluttering in your belly. You push aside the feeling, focusing instead on the way he grunts at the new sensation you had just given him.

Giggling, you pull off his cock, opting instead to press a kiss against his leaking tip, making sure to hold his eyes as you run kitten licks against it.

"God, you're such a tease." He shakes his head in disbelief. 

He looks so good above you, shivering and cursing out praises on how good your mouth feels, how well you take his cock. Running your tongue along the length of his shaft, you become certain that this is a display you can’t imagine yourself ever getting tired of. But you have all the time in the world, right?

"Y/N,” he gasps suddenly, hips jerking towards your face. "Love, I'm gonna-- gonna cum."

"Cum in my mouth, please." Your voice was pleading and desperate. Taehyung had never heard such words spoken more sweetly. 

"Fuck's sake."

You let out a yelp in surprise as his fingers work their way through your hair, bringing your head back down onto his cock. You relax, though, when you feel the hot ropes of his cum hit the back of your throat, your hands finding purchase on his thighs as you do your best to swallow it all down.

Pulling yourself off him, you let out a small cough, eyes watering slightly as you hadn’t managed to prepare yourself with a breath before his release. His large palm runs across the top of your head as you caught your breath, expression flickering with something unfamiliar. Could it be... fondness? 

Your heart stammers at the thought as you stand, slowly stepping out of your dress, letting it drape off of your figure. Taehyung looks absolutely gobsmacked, pupils dark as he gazes at you, eyes unabashedly raking your body. He’s shameless. 

You both are. 

Slowly, you step towards him, fingers reaching out towards his shirt, carefully undoing the buttons as you gaze at each other, expressions unreadable. 

"Tae?” You ask innocently, blinking up at him. “Fuck me?" 

Your polite request makes Taehyung chuckle. 

"Please?" You bring your bottom lip between your teeth, eyes blinking up at him adoringly for good measure. You reach the last button, let his dress shirt drape open. He brushes it off himself, stands there for a few seconds just to let the way you’re ogling his toned chest go to his head. At least he’s good-looking. 

He sighs, probably contemplating some clever rebuttal, but eventually decides against it as his cock is already twitching back to life.

"Alright, love. Turn around. On your knees for me," He orders, making your stomach flip.

To your surprise, you are hardly in place when the warmth of his large hands finds the soft of your tummy, pressing you back into his chest as he pressed a peck to the back of your neck.

You squirm in his hold, whining as that same hand of his grabs hold of your breast, long digit rolling your nipple between their tips. You can’t help but press your ass back into him. His cock feels hot and heavy, pressing against the back of your thigh, making your pussy clench in anticipation. 

You want him.

You want him so bad that you don't know what to do with yourself, shuddering as his free hand runs along the side of your ass, leaving scorching hot trails on your skin wherever he kneads into your flesh. He's touching you everywhere – everywhere but where you need him the most, and the arousal that drips down your thigh mocks you.

"Dammit, please!" You exclaim, running out of patience.

"Please what?" He says, an eyebrow arched.

You shiver, committing the way his middle finger traced your pelvic bone to memory forever.

You puff out a frustrated breath, nearly at your wit's end. "Please fuck me, Tae."

Taehyung pauses, grip on your breast and hip tightening as he lets out a moan. You let one out yourself as you feel him readjust, cock pressing against your slick entrance.

"Fuck, you sound so pretty when you say my name," He grunts. "Okay, baby. I'll fuck you. Begging so nicely for my cock."

You let out a squeak as you're suddenly pushed down onto your hands, back arching as he pushes his fat cock inside your heavenly cunt. He's thick, so thick, that you instinctively grip the sheet underneath you, fingers curled around them tightly as if it means to hold onto your sanity.

Taehyung lets out a shaky breath, angling your hips up so that you could take more of him.

"You feel—feel so good," he admits above you, and suddenly you wish you could see him. See the way his bangs stick to his damp forehead—see the way his tongue swipes over his bottom lip wickedly.

You let that thought go, however, as he thrust into you, making your jaw fall slack and eyes flutter shut. Profanities roll off your tongue unabashedly, helpless under the way his thick member pulls out of you, only to slam back into you.

You weren't expecting this. The way he stretches you out further than anyone had before. Your pussy clenches around him, reveling in the sweet, sweet burn.

He digs into the flesh of your hips, holding you steady as you mew and cry out, pushing your hips back in time to his, trying your best to meet his movements.

"Tae... fuck, fuck, fuck—"

He was filling you to the brim. Filling you tight and deep.

God, the way he was panting behind you was music to your ears. His cock pulses every time you call out his name, voice muffled and buried as you had your head pressed into the mattress, hair messy and bouncing with every hard thrust.

"S'good! Fuck... so, ah, big..." you cry out.

You feel drunk. Intoxicated off this beautiful man and the way he makes you feel a way only he can.

You nearly let out a sob as the rough pads of Taehyung's fingertips suddenly reach around you and find your neglected clit, rolling light circles on the soft and swollen bundle of nerves skillfully.

You are a mess, whimpering and drooling into your expensive sheets, and he filled every inch of you, leaving no place undiscovered. Your high nears, stewing on low heat somewhere near the pit of your belly, waiting for a chance to erupt and wash all over you. Taehyung must be close to, you realize, as his thrusts began to slow down, slamming into you roughly as if chasing after his high.

"Gonna take this load? Huh? Gonna let me cum inside your pretty little pussy?" His voice is straining, as if trying to breathe evenly but merely moments from falling apart.

If only you could formulate an intelligent response, but instead, you are a blubbering wreck, thighs shaking as they threatened to give out underneath you. But somehow, Taehyung knew. He had you. Quicking his motions against your delicate pearl, he could tell you were close too, and he was going to make sure you got there.

Suddenly, you're crying out and convulsing, tears brimming at the ends of your eyes as you feel Taehyung empty into you, collapsing onto his hands as well.

You feel his hot breath against the back of your neck as he pants, breath growing more and more even as the two of you regain control of your bodies and minds.

Pulling out of you, he plops down beside you, and for a moment, the two of you hold each other's gazes, eyes speaking in ways words never could.

Finally, after what feels both like an eternity and just a moment, you work up the courage to say something, moving closer to him as you place a hand on his chest, cushioning your chin as you rested on top of it.  

"Psst," you beckon, voice hushed.

"Yeah?" His voice is husky and tired.

"I’m grateful, too."

"Huh?"

"I’m grateful for us, too."

Taehyung's gaze is soft, and it lingers on you for a second before the sides of his mouth curl up tenderly. He grins down at you, eyes drifting shut. You feel him squeeze you closer, pressing you against his skin. And then, you hear his breathing steady, see his lips part slightly. 

You lean into his chest, eyelids fluttering. “Thank you, Tae.”

Not unlike the many other mornings you have awoken in this bed, when you open your eyes as the morning sunlight streams through the windows, Taehyung is nowhere to be found. The sheets on his side of the bed are flipped aside, revealing that soft outline of his body from the night before left imprinted into the sheets, a dip in the mattress where he slept. You had fallen asleep all wrapped up in each other, tangled up like vines, but must have separated sometime during the night. Distantly, you register Taehyung’s voice outside, notice his phone missing from his bedside table. He must be on an early morning call. 

You check your phone for the time. Ten o’clock. 

A late morning call, then. 

Still basking in the afterglow of the night prior, you slowly inch your way out of bed, shivering as you pull the covers off you and scoot your legs around so they hang over the edge of the bed. You rub at your eyes until you faintly remember you did not take your makeup off last night, and when your hand comes away covered with black streaks and flecks of mascara, you wince to yourself. There goes five hundred dollars worth of a skincare routine. 

After washing yourself up and applying as many serums as you can to your skin, you wrap yourself up in one of his button-up shirts, the torso so wide that it drapes over you. The tips of your fingers peek out from the ends of the sleeves, and you cross your arms lightly over your chest as you make your way to the door, ready to entice your husband back to bed for round two. What? It’s Saturday. 

You peer around the door to find Taehyung standing a few feet away, facing away from you. He’s shirtless, and as his wife you have absolutely no problems ogling him, the toned curves of his back, the muscles in his arms. He’s always been a looker. You just finally have an excuse to look for yourself. 

You approach him quietly, not wanting to interrupt nor broadcast your sex life to anybody on the other side who may be listening. Already, the idea of crawling back in bed together sends goosebumps along your skin, makes you giddy with anticipation. You’re just about to tap him on the shoulder, lips curled upwards in suggestion, when he says—

“And my inheritance? That’s secured now, right? Because I said I would pretend to be in love with her in public—?”

And it is as if Medusa herself appeared in this room, turning you to stone as your heart thuds to the floor, a hollow, empty noise. 

You don’t hear the rest of Taehyung’s conversation. You don’t even hear the sound of your own heartbeat. This terrible, aching sound rings in your ears, silencing everything in its wake, drowning out even the sighs of your own breath. It is as if you have been frozen solid. As if you have been shot in the stomach. You stand there, feeling absolutely nothing, and all you can do is brace yourself for what is to come. Taehyung’s words were the knife but his next actions will be its removal, leaving in its wake an irreparable wound. 

He turns around, casual and cool, voice still hushed. As if you were still asleep. As if you hadn’t heard anything at all. But when he twists his body and sees you standing there, staring back up at him, lips parted in shock. 

“I’ll call you back,” he tells whoever was on the other side of the line, looking more panicked by the second. He opens his mouth so he can explain himself, but you don’t need him to. You’ve heard everything already. 

“I should have known,” you say, feeling angry and betrayed and sad all at once. “I should have known it was all an act.”

“Y/N, wait, let me explain—”

“What is there to tell me, Taehyung? What are you going to say? That you didn’t mean it? That you thought I wouldn’t find out? That last night was just a one-off?” You demand. The heat from your veins hasn’t left. Still, it simmers through your blood, burning you up from the inside out. “That you didn’t want to lie to me?”

“It’s not like that and you know it,” Taehyung says defensively, brows furrowed. “Just give me a chance to explain myself.”

“Explain yourself? How you pretended, every day and every night, just so you could get some more money in your bank account? So you could make sure you would get your father’s business when he died?”

Taehyung bites back easily. “Don’t act like you weren’t also faking it at some point. I know you were almost removed from your grandmother’s will.”

Your tongue is bitter at the mention of your grandmother. As if Taehyung ever even knew her. “My grandmother has nothing to do with this.”

“Really?” Taehyung challenges. “So you wanting to stay in her will was just a little bonus, right?”

“Don’t,” you say sharply. “It’s different.”

“Different how?” Taehyung spits. “Because right now, to me, it looks pretty similar to what I’ve done.”

“My grandmother died months ago,” you remind him. Her will is no longer the question. It has been written, settled, and executed. There was no reason for you to continue playing along once she took her last breath. No reason—unless you wanted to. “Meanwhile you’ve been keeping your inheritance a secret from me this entire time.”

“We made a deal,” Taehyung says. “A deal that said we would both act happy and pretend to be in love because we both had things we needed to worry about. Family things. Money things. You were a part of this, just like I was. You pretended, too.”

“Well, maybe I stopped pretending!” 

You can’t take it anymore. All this anger, all this emptiness, it’s been bubbling up inside you ever since you heard those first words come out of his mouth. It spills out of you all at once, an eruption from your lips, your heart’s doors bursting open. You have held his hand tightly in your own. You have pressed your lips to his. You have laid yourself bare in front of him. What is there left to protect? What part of you has not already been stained by him, by his touch, by the feeling of his fingers against your skin?

The hallway is silent, but you can hear your cry echo down the corridor. Hear the way it bounces along the walls before fading away. 

“Maybe I stopped pretending,” you repeat, softer this time. You blink and already can feel the streaks along your skin, the tears falling from your eyes. “Did you ever think about that?”

“Y/N, what are you talking about?” Taehyung looks like he’s in disbelief. Like he cannot believe the words you are saying to him. 

Well, that makes two of you. 

“Can’t you see, Tae? Can’t you tell?” You ask, the nickname falling from your lips before you can even help it. You must remind yourself to change that, later. “I’m in love with you.”

They are words you have never said to someone before. Not even your old boyfriends. Words that you always knew you would reserve for someone special. Someone who would touch your heart and make it their own, someone who would leave imprints of their fingers against your chest. Someone who would brighten you up from the inside out, leave you bursting with light. 

Ironic, that Taehyung has become that someone. When he is the one person you never thought could. 

When he has proven, time and time again, that you two just cannot mix. Oil and water. Pastel and acrylic. Satin and silk. 

“You don’t have to say anything,” you spit out quickly, before Taehyung has a chance to respond. “I know it doesn’t matter to you.”

“Y/N, yes it does,” Taehyung begins, desperate and pleading. “I know you heard what I said, but I swear, it stopped being an act for me, too. Things are different now, just like you said.”

“Don’t. Please.” You pull away as he reaches out towards you. Faintly, you remember that it is his shirt you are wearing. Remember that no matter what you do, he will always surround you. “Please, Tae.” You have nothing left. You can’t bear to look at him, but where else will you go? You cannot believe the things he’s said, the things he’s done, but where else would you go?

“I love you, too,” Taehyung says, and a part of you wants so badly to believe him. 

A part of you wants so badly to ingrain those words into your head, carve them into your heart, let him wrap his arms around you and promise that everything will be alright. But things are different now. Just like you said. You and Taehyung are not the same people you were six months ago. Or six weeks ago. Or even six minutes ago. You are helpless and he has proven that he does not care. 

“I have to go,” you say, looking away. You don’t think you could handle turning back to him again. “Please, Tae.”

“I’m sorry,” Taehyung says, and he reaches out once more but you are not there to meet him halfway. Were you ever?

“I know,” you whisper back.

You duck into your bedroom and pack a suitcase of everything you need. Being here is suffocating. Being with him is like setting yourself alight. 

Victoria has no questions when you show up at her door later that day, suitcase by your side and this ridiculous bottle of Merlot in your hands. You had picked it up on the way over. You sort of figured you might need it. 

“You don’t wanna talk about it, do you?” Victoria asks. 

“Tell me about your streaming service,” you hiccup in response.

Victoria is happy to oblige. She even tells you that she still hasn’t picked a CFO, and that the position would be open for you if you ever wished to take it. 

Funnily enough, what will become of you once your father retires and passes along the company is the furthest away from your thoughts. 

You remember being so worried about that. Being so worried that, once they married you off like every good daughter should be, you would be absorbed into your husband’s life, cut out of your family’s. Your father would choose a cousin, an uncle, or even a friend to take after the business, bestowing upon you a thoughtful inheritance but nothing more than that. All of those years of schooling, finance in college, your MBA soon after, would be wasted, just so you could hang on the arm of your husband for the rest of your life. 

It’s thoughtful of Victoria to think of you for the position. She knows just as well as anyone else that you would be an excellent fit. And if things were just a little bit different, you would be jumping at the offer. 

But your future career plans are on the backburner, along with the rest of your life. 

All you can really do, right now, at this very moment, is wait for things to change. As they always do. 

“Don’t you have an event tonight?” Victoria asks about three days into your stay. She’s given you her favorite (her words, not yours) guest bedroom and an enormous closet to match, despite you only coming over with a carry-on’s worth of clothes. 

You scoff to yourself. “Like I’d want to go to anything with him.”

“Have you even called your parents?” 

“No,” you say, not even caring about the repercussions. There’s no doubt in your mind that they’ll be ringing you soon. And when they do, maybe then you’ll finally work up the courage to tell them what really happened. Tell them that you can’t go back there. Not yet, at least. 

“I’m sorry that this happened to you,” Victoria says as she hands you a bowl of vegetable soup, homemade from a couple of days ago. You nod to yourself, sniffling as you curl into the couch cushions and wish they would absorb you whole. 

There’s no need to ask her what she means by ‘this’. Everything. From your engagement to the marriage, from those tabloids to the deal, from your grandmother’s death to now. It has all been unfair. Life is unfair. And while you’ve always known that, it has been particularly cruel to you as of late. 

Still, when you wake up sometimes, you can still feel him tracing over your skin. Feel his lips hovering over yours, breath fanning out over your cheeks. You turn over and expect to see him lying there, on the right side of the bed, sheets mussed as they cover his figure. You wake up and for a brief moment, for that split, split second, there is peace. And happiness. And love. 

And then there is nothing. 

“Yeah,” you sigh. “Me, too.”

Maybe he really does love you. Maybe things really did change. But you have always been a pragmatic person, always let your head guide you rather than your heart. The secret’s out. Taehyung had an inheritance he needed to secure. You were his path to doing so. Those things haven’t changed. No matter if his feelings did. 

“Hey, look at this,” Victoria says, brows furrowed as she holds out her phone in front of you, revealing a livestreamed interview from the event tonight. 

You peer over. 

It’s Taehyung. 

Of course it’s Taehyung. Who else would she be showing you?

He stands in a clean-cut gray coat, draping over his figure, black dress shirt and slacks underneath, belt wrapped neatly around his hips. He holds his hand up in a wave and smiles politely to the cameras, to the reporters, letting the flashes wash over him like waves in the ocean. 

“Mr. Kim! Mr. Kim!” Someone calls. “Where’s your wife?”

Oh, God.

Taehyung grimaces a little, pursing his lips. “My wife won’t be joining me tonight.”

“Can you tell us why?” They shout. 

“Sorry, no more questions. Thank you for asking though. She’s well,” he says, quickly ushering himself along, entering the venue so no more reporters can bombard him. When he disappears, the livestream immediately moves on to the next guest, but you hardly pay them any attention. 

“Huh,” Victoria says aloud. 

Indeed. Taehyung’s response strikes you as rather odd. Why would he tell the public that? Why not make up a lie, say you’re sick, or you’re overseas, or you’re just late? Why simply tell them that you won’t be there? Surely, Taehyung is just as aware of the consequences of arriving at an event without you as you are. There’s no doubt that his parents will be in contact with him soon, too. No doubt that this will leave a stain on his family. His image. It might even threaten his inheritance after all.

So why not lie?

You frown to yourself, nose scrunching up in confusion. You don’t like where this train of thought leads.

“You okay?” Victoria asks when she sees the bewildered expression on your face.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” you say. Just completely befuddled. It escapes you, why Taehyung wouldn’t just make up some sort of excuse as to reasoning behind your absence. Why he would even show up at the event at all. Certainly, going to the event without you is worse than not going at all. It prompts questions. It spreads rumors. 

Later that night, you get a call from your parents, demanding to know why you weren’t there with him. You say you got sick. You plead with them not to question anything. 

You wonder what happens next. You and Taehyung still have two more events this week. A dinner and a ball. What will you do then?

Taehyung goes solo for the dinner. You suppose you could have predicted that, considering his apparent willingness to arrive alone for the first event, too. He hasn’t made any efforts to contact you and for once, you’re glad for his silence. Not that you even know what he would say to you, anyway, but at least he isn’t begging you to come back to him. 

The sad truth is that if he did, if he got down on his knees right in front of you and willed you to come back home, you probably would. He has always been impossible to resist. Even when you first met him, when he sauntered up towards you and told you he was your dream come true. You didn’t know it then. But he was. He was everything you would ever want. 

Why would he lie? 

Why would he do that?

You can’t wrap your head around it. What is he getting out of it by telling the truth? By admitting to the paparazzi, to the reporters and the cameramen, that you won’t be there with him. That you will not be joining him. Nothing, certainly. His parents must be furious. His inheritance may be on the rocks. His image might tank. 

So then, why do it at all?

Could it… could it be?

Is it true?

You have loved Taehyung for a long time. Longer than you probably even care to admit. You have always held your head high at events, spoken loudly and without fear, but being with him made you feel safe. Secure. You would hold his hand and know, know that he was holding yours, too. It grounded you. It soothed your worries. 

Does he really love you back?

Taehyung smiles politely and laughs when he needs to at these events, but he doesn’t look the same. Even through the screen you can see those bags under his eyes, that spark that has faded. You hardly recognize him. He looks so lonely, without someone by his side. So distant. 

When you know the dinner has ended, you almost pick up the phone and call him. 

Almost. 

Instead, when the ball rolls around, you ask Victoria if she’s got a spare dress she can lend you.

 Kim Taehyung, for someone you have seen covered in paint splotches, wearing old college hoodies, and fresh out of a restless night’s sleep, cleans up pretty well. For a married man, at least. 

You wonder what the past few days must have been like for him. If they have been as empty as your own. Wonder what it was like, riding alone in a big black van to this hotel ballroom, no one to tease, no one to laugh with, no one to hold. No one to poke him awake if he accidentally fell asleep. No one to make sure he’s okay. 

Taehyung stands right outside of the entrance, waving politely to all of the paparazzi, smiling as the cameras flash, giving them the time of day for a moment before he heads inside and muscles his way through another event without you. 

Or so he thinks. 

You spot him just as he opens his mouth, ready to repeat those same lines all over again.

My wife won’t be joining me tonight. She’s well, though.

And maybe it’s just because you haven’t seen him in nearly a week. Maybe it’s just because he is about to lie to those reporters once more, ready to face whatever consequences come his way. 

Or maybe it’s just because you miss him. Miss him terribly, have been missing him terribly. Being away from him was necessary, but that didn’t make it any less unbearable. Not getting to hold his hand, see his smile, meet his eyes. You and Taehyung may not have always liked each other, but you saw him every day regardless. He became a constant in your life. Not an if, but a when. If everything went to shit, you always knew he would still be there. 

And there he is. 

“Wait! Taehyung!”

Taehyung’s eyes widen as he hears your voice, gaze darting around wildly, mouth parted in surprise. He looks around desperately, scanning the crowd, meeting the eyes of every single person in front of him until he finally looks to the left, sees you rushing up towards him, hiking up the skirt of your dress as your heels tap against the sidewalk. 

And when he spots you, sees you running up to him, his body relaxes, a weight lifted from his shoulders as he beams back at you, relieved and thankful and filled with joy, all at once. And you know, then. 

You know that everything will be okay. 

“Sorry I’m late,” you say sheepishly, cheeks burning as he looks at you, takes in every inch of you, breathes you in and lets you fill him up. 

Taehyung doesn’t respond. You reach out to hold his hand but he grabs your wrist and pulls you in, presses you against his body as he presses his hands against your cheeks, palms burning as they meet your skin, and he kisses you. In front of all these people, he kisses you. 

And goddamnit, you will kiss him back. 

It feels like lightning, like a thunderstorm, like the waves of the ocean are crashing against your heart. It feels like fire, like flames are licking at your veins, sending sparks through your blood. It feels like home. 

You and Taehyung ignore the shouts of reporters, the flashes of cameras, the honks of the cars on the other side of the road. When you part, he presses his forehead against yours and lets the tip of your nose meet his. And you smile. 

“Don’t be alone any longer, Mr. Kim,” you whisper, loud enough so only he can hear. 

“When I’m with you, I never am, Mrs. Kim,” he murmurs back. 

You wonder what those tabloids will be saying about you tomorrow. 

The rest of the night finds the two of you pretty much inseparable. You wrap yourself around his arm and for the first time in a long time, he presses his hand against the small of your back, keeping you close. Like he’d ever lose you again. 

One of your least favorite parts about attending balls used to be the dancing. As a young and eligible bachelorette, you would always have to lock hands with another, let him awkwardly guide you along to the music as you made the worst small talk imaginable, forcing laughter and smiles whenever he said something he thought was particularly funny. 

But, like so many others, things have changed. Things are different now. 

The waltz comes on and you and Taehyung are the first to reach the center of the ballroom floor, letting him rest his hand on your waist as you press yours on top of his shoulder. Let him twirl you around the room as the orchestra plays in the background, a soft, sweet, light little melody that carries you along. 

“I missed this,” you say softly. 

“I missed us,” Taehyung corrects. He pauses for a moment, swallowing hard. “I’m sorry for not telling you about my inheritance.”

“I’m sorry for storming out. I should have listened to you.” you respond easily. You both have plenty to apologize for. But night is darkest right before dawn. 

“I should have said something,” Taehyung says with a shake of his head. “But I was just so—so worried that something would go wrong. And I didn’t know how to explain how I felt about you. I acted in the beginning, too, but then things changed.”

“They always do,” you muse with a grin. 

“I couldn’t believe I had you,” Taehyung admits. “I mean, look at you. You’re gorgeous. And funny. And true.”

“Go on,” you tease, even though you do nothing to hide the smile inching its way across your face, the heating of your cheeks, the simmering of your skin. 

“Oh, shut up. You know what I mean.” Taehyung rolls his eyes. “I just—I felt something for you I couldn’t explain. I still can’t.”

You don’t have to prod any further. You know. Deep within your heart, you know. There is love blossoming in his to match the garden that has bloomed in your own. The flowers that have sprouted in the ashes. He has them, too. And when those petals open and the light streams in, he will know. He will know, too. 

“You make me crazy,” you tell him, whispering gently into his skin. “But I’m a better person when I’m with you. I know I am.”

“I meant what I said, that night,” Taehyung says. Makes you wonder which night he’s actually talking about. “That I’m happy that things have changed. That things happened the way they did. I’m grateful for us.”

“I am, too,” you say. And you are. 

You rest your head against his chest as you dance together, swaying back and forth to the beat of the drums, to the strums of the violins, all wrapped up together like ivy, like vines. Those, too, sit in that garden of yours. Keep you tethered to his side, keep him close to yours. He holds you in his arms and he smiles, because he knows, too. Knows that that garden in your heart will soon have a matching one in his. A mirror image of who you are. Who you’ve become. 

Things change. They always will. But so long as he is by your side, and so long as you are by his, you know. Everything will be okay. 

It's different, this time, when Taehyung presses you into the mattress. 

There is no rush. Because now you know for certain that all the time in the world is yours. He is yours forever. You are his.

The two of you are a mixture of tangled limbs and shared breaths, the feverish, irrepressible need to give yourself to each other nearly tangible. He breaks the kiss suddenly, and you’re about to break out in protest. That is, until you see him unbuttoning his shirt.

Inspired, you wiggle out of your own clothes, eyes locked on Taehyung's soft torso and the idea that you had married such a beautiful man, inside and out.

Looking back, you wonder if that was always inevitable. If you and Taehyung falling into each other had been written in the stars from day one, sealed as your fate from the moment he came up to you at that ball when you were teenagers. He was going to be a part of your life no matter what. Whether or not you ended up marrying him. But having him like this?

It makes it all worth it.

"Do you like what you see?" That old cocky smirk of his makes an appearance.

You raise a brow, choosing to omit a response as you unclasp your bra, letting it fall from your chest.

Taehyung swallows.

"Do you?" You tease.

His response comes in the form of bites down your necks and licks down your chest, stealing your breath from you. 

Your clothes are somewhere dispelled beside your passionate bodies, growing cold beside the way your two hot bodies warmed one another.

"You are so beautiful," Taehyung praises, fingers coming up to cup your breast, bringing it up to his mouth.

You mewl, wrapping an arm around his shoulders as his tongue toys with your pert bud, teeth grazing it ever so often just to hear the broken gasp that'd always follow. 

"And so sensitive too," he giggles, making you pout. His hands are gentle as if every touch means something. As if you mean something—no, everything—to him. And the most wonderful part is that he means everything to you, too. 

"Shut up." You roll your eyes playfully, gasping as his palm comes down the side of your thigh suddenly in warning. You bite down your swollen bottom lip at the gush of arousal that dampened your underwear in response.

"Watch your tone, love. Of both our positions, you are in the most compromising one." He reminds you. It isn't a threat, and while usually, that kind of tone would thrill you, you couldn't help but want his mouth back on yours already.

"You talk too much." You flop back onto the bed with a sigh. Taehyung watches with interest as your pretty tits bounce in consequence. Extending your hands out towards him, you give him a pouty look. "Just wanna kiss you."

"Is that all I am to you? Just a pair of lips for you to mack on? I've got news for you, sweetheart, there's a brain behind these ravishing good looks." He scoffs in feigned offense, sitting back on his heels.

You giggle.

It seems as though even during the most intimate of moments, Taehyung still found a way to be, well, Taehyung. At least that hasn’t changed. 

"Whatever, pretty boy. Why don't you come over here and put that mouth of yours to good use?" You purr, making his eyebrows raise in surprise.

"Oh? I don't remember you being this assertive when I was pounding you into the mattress last time."

“What, I can’t have a little fun as well?” You tease, grinning as you look up at him, raking your eyes over his figure. 

"Wanna have fun, love?," He murmurs into your ears, hands gripping either of your plush thighs. "Then spread those pretty legs for me, and I'll show you exactly how much fun you can have."

God, you love this man.

You oblige eagerly, breath quickening as he helped you press your knees by your chest, leaving the wet patch in your underwear on full display. 

"My pretty little wife." He sighs dreamily, making heat rush to your core.

Taehyung's cock stood loud and proud, a hot reminder of where the night would eventually lead to. Seriously, how did you get so lucky? You must've been a saint in a previous life, you decide right then. Or at least, the stars have chosen to be rather kind to you in this one.

"Gonna take these off," he mutters, mostly to himself, tugging the ruined fabric over your ass and down your legs, with your help, of course.

Despite your usual display of confidence, lying beneath your husband, spread out like this, has you feeling vulnerable and slightly insecure. But that insecurity vanishes, however, as he lets out a soft moan, fingers moving to spread your glossed lips apart.

"So fucking pretty, baby. Gonna make you feel so fucking good," he groans, leaning down to press his face near your most intimate part.

Pressing a tentatively lick against, his eyes flicker up to yourself, curious to see if you’re okay with him proceeding. And, well, it’s not like you’re going to say no, are you?

Embarrassingly, you rut against him, making him laugh as you drown in your own mortification.

"Need it that bad, huh?" He coos.

"Yes, please."

The rest of your plea is lost in a moan as Taehyung finds your clit, wrapping his pink lips around the sensitive muscle and giving it a generous suck. Your hands are in his hair before you can think to stop yourself, tugging at his scalp deliciously as his mouth makes its way with you.

Thank goodness for this apartment belonging to just the two of you as the noises that tumbled from your lips surely would've left a roommate blushing.

You're panting, begging for more even though you aren't sure how you'd even handle more. It comes as a delight and slight surprise as fingers suddenly slip inside, wasting no time to rub against your velvety smooth walls, curling themselves inside you.

"Fuck, Tae!" you cry out, eyes squeezing shut.

It was pure reflex. Up until now, you had been watching Taehyung intently, completely consumed by the way his mouth moves against you. How his tongue flicks against your needy clit cruelly. It just felt too fucking good.

You're so wet, positively dripping down his chin as he runs his hot muscle up and down the length of your pussy, devouring you like he hadn't eaten in months, and you were his first meal.

Taehyung’s nothing short of addicting, completely and utterly intoxicating, and you slip further and further to your demise with every lick he takes, every press of his tongue against your clit.

He has a hand pressed against the lower half of your torso, feeling the way you jerk and squirm as he makes a mess of you. You’re close and you know it, too, if not by the way you’re calling his name over and over again, then by the way your thighs tremble, hardly even strong enough to stay up.

"Let go for me, love. I've got you." He sounds so sweet, so angelic, despite how filthy what he was doing to you was.

His words are the push you need, and, like a rubber band that has been stretched past its limit, you finally snap, back arching off the bed as you come with a cry. White fills your vision, and your mind goes blank, only sounds of blissful static filling your ears.

His fingers hold up your quivering legs, mouth pressing kisses onto your pussy encouragingly until you simply can't bear it any longer, pushing his mouth away as you stutter out words of sensitivity and overstimulation.

“I’m going to have to request more of that throughout this marriage.” You manage to say once your vision and breath come back to you.

Grabbing one of your hands, Taehyung brings it to his mouth.

“All you need do is ask,” he replies, making you laugh as he presses a kiss to the back of your hand, always a gentleman

Not long after, you find yourself pressed against Taehyung, tongue running against his as he presses his hips into yours. He isn’t coy about his want for you, rolling his cock against your already sensitive center. Warm precum leaks onto your lower abdomen, and suddenly, all you can think about is having him inside you again.

“Taehyung?”

You don’t even need to ask. Hitching your leg around his thigh, he knows exactly what you’re seeking, lining up his leaking cock with your swollen entrance.

Pressing into you, he buries himself to the hilt, groaning out as your warmth envelopes him. You moan out so prettily for him, feeling tight and full with your first orgasm only minutes ago.

“You okay?” he hums, kissing your cheek.

You nod, ears warm at the intimacy of the moment. In many ways, this is nothing like your first time together. You are face to face, eye to eye, heart to heart. Between your bodies could be found more than just desire, but commitment. Devotion. Love. 

“I love you, Tae.” You gush, sighing out as he begins to rock into you.

He falters slightly at your confession but recovers quickly, intertwining his hand with yours and pressing it by your head.

Faintly, you realize. 

That was the first time you had ever told him that.

You look up at him, expecting some wide eyes or even a bit of a nervous tilt to his lips, but all you are met with is a glow. He beams down at you, and your heart swells. 

“I love you, too, Y/N,” he whispers, but you hear the words in your ears loud and clear.

Soft noises fill the room as the two of you become one—hearts synchronizing with one another in silent promise.

It was a promise unlike the one you had made to each other that day at the altar, for this one was real. This one was true.

You shutter with every thrust of his hips, your abused clit finding itself in the crossfire of Taehyung’s passionate motions.

Whimpering, you cling to him, overwhelmed and emotional, like your heart was about to burst. Taehyung lights a fire in you, sends lightning straight through your core. Every word, every smile, every kiss, every touch, they send shivers down your spine, tingles throughout your skin. It’s like you’re falling in love with him all over whenever you see him, whenever his deep brown eyes meet your own.

You remember being so afraid of love that you broke up with all your old boyfriends because of it. Because you couldn’t commit, because you were worried about your career, because they just didn’t give you that spark. But lying here pressed against him, against your husband, you aren’t afraid. Wrapped up around him, tangled up in him, you know. 

Between messy kisses and words of adoration, you find yourself growing closer and closer to your release. Brows furrowed and neck flushed, you come with a soft whimper of his name, coaxing his own orgasm out of him. He lets go inside you, painting you with his seed in a way that pleases you to no end.

Hand still in yours, he gives it a squeeze, pressing a kiss onto your damp chest, right over where your heart beats for him.

“I love you,” Taehyung says again when you meet his eyes, firmer this time, louder. Like he’s worried you didn’t believe him the first time. 

“I know,” you say with a giggle, the words going straight to your head—and your heart. 

Taehyung scowls. “What, no ‘I love you’ back? Is that what I’m hearing?”

“Well, only because you want one so badly,” you tease, pressing a quick kiss to his round button nose. “I love you, too, Tae. Always will.”

“I think I knew, then,” Taehyung says with a fond sigh, nostalgia overcoming his expression. “That first time we met. I knew you would be mine, one day.”

“You got lucky,” you scoff slightly. “But I’m glad things happened the way they did.”

“You’re my dream come true, Y/N,” he says. 

“And you are mine,” you murmur.

As the two of you drift off, all twisted up in each other, so mixed up you can’t figure out where you end and he begins, you think back to that night. That ball. 

“Who are you?” You ask, nose scrunched up in distaste. Before you stood a boy you had never met before, wearing shoes that were too big for him and a suit that was a touch too small. 

He grins at you, running a hand through his perfectly-styled hair fringe swiped neatly over his forehead, and he says, “your dream come true.”

And so it was. 

don’t forget to message me! ~ and don’t forget to message rose!

#taehyung smut #v smut #bts smut #taehyung fluff #taehyung angst #bts fluff #bts angst #bts scenario #v fluff #v angst #v scenario #taehyung scenario #bts imagine #taehyung imagine #v imagine #bts au #taehyung au #w: love me or we both go down #ITS FINALLY DONE YOU GUYS HOLY SHIT #this fic honestly has plagued my thoughts and my dreams #since AUGUST

[infictionalwonderland]

hope mikaelson x reader , bestfriends to rivials to secret protectors to lovers ?

secret protectors is secretly protecting eachother btw

and if you can , can you start it where they are ex bestfriends already

sure thing darling ;) I’ve tweaked it a tad but it’s mostly the same

it’s quite shitty but It’s written with my sleep deprived brain.. so.. sorry.

warnings : swearing, mentions of sex, underage drinking

Y/N Y/L/N and Hope Andrea Mikaelson.

The two of you had an.. interesting history to say the least.

Let’s start with the backstory shall we?

Now the two of you had already come from feuding families, though you had both completely disregarded that fact in your first meeting and there was an instant platonic connection. One which you and her both eagerly deepened as you’d both grown up shadowed from the outside world and without the ability to form relationships of any kind, so it was like a first to the both of you. In a sense.

Your relationship status of friends quickly glided from good friends to close friends to best friends and the two of you were perfectly content with this.

Of course that was until you families had to go ahead and ruin it.

It was actually Hope’s mum Hayley who had found out about your secret friendship first, unbeknownst to you, and Hope had almost burst into tears at the look of shock and mild disgust on her mum’s face.

“You’re father told me about that family.” Hayley had said “They aren’t a good bunch sweetheart.”

And Hope had stayed mute and assumed that that was the end of that — but of course she knew deep down that wasn’t simply going to be the end of this situation she had gotten herself into.

The next day, she was at a family dinner — one which they commonly had every single evening so nothing seemed out of the ordinary in the slightest.

But the tense looks on all her families faces told her otherwise and she had felt her heart psychically constrict at her dad’s next words.

“We don’t want you involved with that y/l/n family.”

That sentence was playing on her mind for days as she actively avoided you at all cost, knowing full well a look into your y/e/c eyes would only worsen her current predicament.

But she made her decision (no matter how difficult).

Family was everything to her...

So the next day, she had met you in person in broken up your friendship in perhaps the rudest way possible she could think of in the hopes you would start disliking her and consequently leaving her life which made her family life so much easier. No matter how the mere thought being without your presence for eternity pained her dearly.

But afterwards it was after your friendship never happened.

You went to thinking she was just like how your parents portrayed her family to be.

And she went to glaring in the halls of school and showcasing her ‘hate’ while dreaming of you when the day turned to dusk.

• • •

“Looking good y/n.” Your friend (kinda) Bianca Goldman whistled as you strutted over to her where she stood leaning against a tree as she observed the lively party.

“You too Ani.” You smiled playfully, twirling a strand of Bianca’s strawberry blonde hair around your finger with a playfully seductive look in your eyes.

“Go find someone else to hit on, you’ve got half the school pining after you.” Bianca scoffed lightly with a joking (mostly) roll of her green eyes but anyone could make out the newly gained pink flush to her pale skin.

“Aww no need to be jealous Ani.” You whispered lightly with a mocking pout as you leaned in a little more and watched in amusement as her pale skin gained a more crimson flush.

However, what you failed to see was from across the forest. Leaning against her own tree was your ex-bestfriend (enemy to everyone’s knowledge) watching you intently with jealously shining transparently in her ocean blue eyes.

“What’s go your thong in a twist princess.” Elizabeth Saltzman smirked jokingly, her eyes alight with the perfect mixture of mirth and entertainment that masked her confusion.

Hope didn’t answer, instead, a glare glazed over her previously envious blue eyes and she pursed her lips together.

“You’re jealous aren’t you?” Lizzie asked in amusement though slight shock, her gaze quickly flickering between both you and Hope with a new sense of interest and determination.

“Jealous of what? I’m only concerned for Bianca, y/n plays people and leaves them high and dry.” Hope spoke defensively.

“More like pleased and happy.” Lizzie corrected cheekily.

Her response was a displeased scoff and Hope taking an even bigger swig of her beer.

• • •

It was officially the next day and those who weren’t suffering with hangovers (the vampires and some werewolves or witches who knew the correct spells) were up bright and early.. most of them.

You were a witch, a bloody good one at that and thankfully you knew the hangover spell but with your lifestyle you sort of had to know it.

Still — instead of attending class like you were obviously meant to, you just went down to the kitchens for some food because hey? food is way more important than studies, right.?

Standing in the kitchens and munching happily on a chocolate chip cookie and you heard a sharp gust of wind. One which you could identify with an approaching vampire.

But before you could even turn, a resounding thud rang out through the kitchen and you turned to see a vampire, a newbie — Leon Arnold — neck snapped on the floor, blood staining his lips, mouth and shirt and vampire features receding back.

You blew out a harsh breath and placed your hand on your head, trying to calm your rapidly racing heart.

Under her own cloaking spell, Hope Mikaelson smiled lightly to herself in accomplishment and relief. Oh so maybe this seemed slightly stalker-ish.. but she was curious to what you did when you didn’t attend class and honestly thank god she did decide to be .. stalker-ish today.

“Mikaelson?”

Shit. She just so happened to forget you were an equally as powered witch who could see past her spells.

“You did that..?” You gestured to Leon and much to the annoyance of yourself you felt a warm feeling encase your heart at the thought of her protecting you.

“Yeah..I did.” Hope nodded her head hesitantly and slipped a quick smile over her plush pink lips with her cheeks discreetly flushing at the softer look that entered your y/e/c eyes.

“Well thank you.” You spoke sincerely and cursed yourself out mentally for the butterflies that swarmed around your stomach.

Just like old times

A response wasn’t heard on Hope’s end as you hastily hurried out.

• • •

“Ugh this is stupid.” Lizzie groaned slumping against the wall as she watched Hope pointedly avoid your eyes and you do the same. She had a sneaking suspicion and she also had an idea which in her opinion was spectacular.

“What is?” Josette, Josie, Saltzman asked hesitantly as she looked up with the end of her of pencil resting between her lips absentmindedly.

“This!” Elizabeth practically shouted as she gestured between Hope and you and Josie looked on with wide perplexed eyes.

“No you know what.” Lizzie muttered, putting Hope’s wrist in a tight hold and magically dragging you over. Ignoring your groans and shouts of protest and everyone’s either wide and curious or shocked eyes.

Quickly, she basically threw the both of you in the nearest classroom and placed a spell on the door.

“Talk! Now!”

You and Hope sat in a extremely tense silence for about a minute or so just staring into each other’s heatedly.

Before suddenly she crashed froward and pressed her lips into yours hungrily.

You eagerly responded to the kiss, familiar with this nature of kiss, winding your hands through her soft locks of auburn hair as hers wrapped around your waist. Hope let out a little moan as you ran your tongue over her bottom lip and she obediently opened her mouth slightly for you to proceed.

Abruptly the two of you pulled apart, panting harshly.

“We should—“

“Yeah—“

“Be my girlfriend—“

It felt like time stopped from a moment and with a wide grin appearing on your face you nodded your head frantically.

Your families the last thing on your minds.

#hope mikaelson x y/n #hope mikaelson x you #hope mikaelson x reader #hope mikaelson imagine #hope mikaelson #the originals #legacies #mikaelson

[livingalifeofasimp]

Yandere genshin impact boys with gn s/o who is now also an adventure like aether. Not to mention they were in relationship with him. So.....headcannon? Like I don't want where they will make aether and s/o break up. I want they to suffer! 😌 Have a great day and night!

This request really is interesting!. I hope you like ~

Warning : Yandere themes, unhealthy mindset, it's purely for entertainment purpose and nothing else. It must not be romanticized in real life. Arts are not mine only the content is.

🧡ℂ𝕙𝕚𝕝𝕕𝕖🧡

➳You were just an enemy, not a strong opponent but strong enough to surprise him and is constantly improving. Your presence was a mere amusement to him or a stranger  who crossed his paths one or two times. You meet Childe when he challenges you and Aether in one of your adventures.

➳You thought he was a guy full of himself but unfortunately you and Aether got forced to work with Childe in a case, unwillingly you supported Aether's decision. Honestly you never expected to see how much he cares for the people he loves and protects them, there was so much more than he shows.

➳It changed your attitude and perspective of him. Sometimes he can be a jerk . Still, you let your guards down since you both will be working partners even if it's for a limited amount of time.

***

➥Never have Childe lost a battle so miserably in a battlefield of love. It feels way far worse than losing a battle almost like he lost his heart and himself.

➥He wasn't able to understand how his hobby of teasing and testing you turned into a habit of being near you all the time, making him addicted to your presence next to him. Everytime when you were in danger, Childe jumped in the scene to protect you, even after knowing you could handle it, without caring about his situation.

➥He should have observed how protective and lovingly Aether looks at you and what's more worst to him is that you look at Aether the same way. Not a single detail went past his observation yet, this? Maybe he never wanted to observe or know such a thing between you both.

➥He saved you, why did you run to save Aether risking your life again?, everything became clear when he saw you both hugging and holding hands. Friends ain't like that. No longer, Childe was a cheerful, determined guy like he was before. Shutting himself away from the world falling into abyss, no tears were left to cry. People who knew him got concerned about his health.

➥What a great despair he is it? His situation is so laughable not even he knew how crazy his love for you is making him. He wants to make you feel the same pain, will you be able to take it?. But how can he hurt you, he loves you so much. How can he fall in love with his friend's girl? Knowing how happy they are together and he is just an extra.

❤️𝔻𝕚𝕝𝕦𝕔❤️

➳As a foreigner in Mondstadt, you searched for a job and luckily found a vacant seat in Dawn winery, since it's only for a few months you got along with the fate, it's better than nothing, besides payment was quite high and could cover up your expenditures. 

➳You discovered that it was owned by a young man which was quite surprising to you. At first you did not have a good option on Diluc, your boss who you never actually interacted with but everyone's past eventually finds their way to other's ears and it was the same in your case.

➳What a miserable past he had gone through, not that it's your business nevertheless it changed the way you saw him. You felt bad for him when he had to work alone on holidays so sometimes you volunteered. One of the reasons was extra pay, he was a good boss to you.  

***

➥Diluc didn't knew what he was feeling for you is. Is it friendship? companionship? or love?. It was for sure that his heart fluttered every time he saw you, you made him dress nice for you and behave differently in a way you don't think bad of him, so he tried and tried, sometimes made jokes to make you laugh.

➥It was so frustrating for him to see you sad. And now after all this when he saw you with a blonde guy who came to pick you after your shift made him lose his sanity. Who is he to you? Why are you so happy to see him? You never smiled like that at him.

➥It was exactly what he thought, you had a lover before he came into the scene. Again he was left alone in the darkness, alone, he is so afraid of being alone. Tears continually rolled down his cheeks, hitting floor . Why is everything so cruel to him? What did he ever do wrong? Why can't he live happily even if just for once?

➥When his heart finally fluttered for someone and he had a reason to wake up the next morning, you disappear, making his life far more miserable than it was. But does it matter? He is as miserable as he was before, did anything even changed? Diluc falled on his knees he was a fool to think he could ever be loved.

➥What is he supposed to do with these immense feelings for you?.  Diluc is aware of how destructive it is, if he loses control then he will hurt you, you will never smile again. He couldn't bear it and he doesn't want to live in a world where he can't have you, so he destroys himself before he can destroy you, taking his breath away himself.

💙𝕂𝕒𝕖𝕪𝕒💙

➳Certainly you got dragged by your friends, after all you came back to your hometown from a long adventure. They wanted to catch up with you so how could you reject them? At the end you accepted their invitation. That's where you meet Kaeya, friend of your friends though you didn't pay him any attention because your friends kept on questioning you. 

➳It was a sunny day when you decided to run errands, buying all the stuffs that was mentioned in your list, you got tired and visted the same place, you went few days ago with your friends. You liked the cocktail, it was of your favorite flavor. The drink was fresh so you thought of ordering it again, coincidentally meeting Kaeya and slowly you both became friends, helping and making fun of eachother.

***

➥This is not what he thought would happen! This is not how it was supposed to be! Kaeya's heart broke so bad, every moment it became harder to breathe, panic rose, he couldn't help but cover his mouth. A chuckle escapes his mouth.

➥For a minute how can he even think he deserves someone like you, look at you how happy you are, you are someone else's, so pure and perfect. Why didn't he realize it earlier? Why did he misunderstood your kindness for love?.

➥Kaeya wanted to purpose you, he was willing to be loyal to only you and keep eyes only for you. So when he heard from his friends who are your friends as well that you already had a lover for years and that you love him very much, it made him depressed.

➥Kaeya sat dissolved in own his sadness, a hand slides through his chest to his jaw, turning his face towards herself attempting to kiss him. As Kaeya's vision shifts on her, he realizes she is not you. Oh how good would it be, if you were the one he was holding, kissing and hugging.

➥He can't believe he became so miserable, constantly wanting to have you to himself. Kaeya pushes her hand away, his hands holded another glass of wine as he takes it down in one gulp imagining your smiling face towards him and hearing your sweet voice which are music to him.

➥Another woman leaned towards him, Kaeya chuckled to himself how dare he dreamed about you, you deserve so much better, not someone who is as dirty as him.

➥He knows it isn't possible to forget about  you so he tries to find comfort in some other women and this time he pulled her towards him, kissing her deeply, tears falled down his eyes. Oh how good it would be if she was you. 

🖤ℤ𝕙𝕠𝕟𝕘𝕝𝕚🖤

➳By the time you went back to meet your grandma, everything around the corner changed. You were happy to be able to meet her and see all those places you used to go when you was a kid, reminiscing and meeting all your old neighbors and childhood friends. They are still as fun as they were before.

➳When you got home you saw a handsome stranger in the living room and was shocked, he didn't seem to be a guy who could harm you or your grandma, by the way where is she?. Zhongli decides to introduce himself to free you from any discomfort.

➳Then suddenly your Grandma came in with a tray of food and started complimenting Zhongli saying that he is kind enough to help her with everything when no one is here with her. You thanked Zhongli for being so nice to your Grandma. You didn't knew that your Grandma was rooting for you both because she thought Zhongli is a good guy who can keep you happy all your life.

➳Strangely you always found yourself alone with Zhongli most of the time, and when you knew why these coincidences happened, you explained to your Grandma that you already had someone and humbly rejected Zhongli.

***

➥Zhongli holded his head with his hands so hard, hoping to stop his thoughts about you. It was not his plan to love because they are gonna die anyways like his friends did. So why isn't he able to think you are dead for him. Your face, laugh, smiles and everything, even a smallest detail constantly hovers over his mind.

➥This is not what he is expected to do, but he just can't stop thinking about you and the more he thinks about you, the more sinful it becomes, desiring to tear down your perfect picture with your loved one and pull you to him. He can easily take you to himself, you will eventually love him, if you get to know him, his love, you surely will love him, right?.

➥Zhongli notices that his thoughts are becoming so corrupt, he must stop it. Zhongli threw all the expensive objects placed on the table with a shout losing his composure. Does she know how much he is going through? Tears threatened to fall down from his eyes, so Zhongli raised his head to prevent them from falling.

➥He never experienced such feelings, so much pain for not getting a chance to be with the person he wants the most. He is supposed to happily accept your decision and wish a good life for you and Aether but his heart wants to take you for himself and make you love only him; however, he must do what is right. Perhaps what's best for him is to think you are dead and grieve. Since he hardly believes he can ever stop feeling what he feels for you. He is such a fool for you.

#genshin impact #yandere #yandere genshin impact #yandere x reader #tumblr #tumblrfeed #yandere story #genshin impact diluc #genshin impact zhongli #genshin impact childe #genshin impact kaeya #yandere childe #yandere boy #yandere Diluc #Yandere kaeya #yandere Zhongli #yandere zhongli x reader #yandere childe x reader #yandere diluc x reader #yandere kaeya x reader #yandere childe headcanons #yandere diluc headcanons #yandere kaeya headcanons #yandere Zhongli Headcanons

[warrioreowynofrohan]

For the character ask game, what about Boromir? --tolkien-feels

Ooh, good one! Thank you!

One thing I love about them: His sense of responsibility. The thing about the Ring is that, when targeting good people, it doesn’t tempt them using their bad qualities, but using their good ones. Gandalf says it outright (the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire for strength to do good). Sam suggests it to Galadriel, and her response implies it was already on her mind:

Sam: You’d put things to rights…You’d make some folk pay for their dirty work!

Galadriel: I would. That is how it would begin. But it would not stop with that, alas!

And it is the same with Boromir. He feels a strong sense of responsibility for his city and his people; he knows that they are in deadly danger, he knows it is his job as their commander to see to their defense, he knows they are vastly outmatched in military terms. And he knows they have no allies from whom they can expect reinforcements (remember what Théoden is like when we first see him in TTT). He knows time is of the essence; he took the time to go to Rivendell in hopes that they would offer something useful; and instead he’s been dragged far out of his way and the company decided to waste a month dilly-dallying in the unsettling forest. He needs to get home, and he’s not happy at the prospect that none of his companions will go with him and this whole journey will have been for nothing.

It is a devastating weight to know that you have to do a particular job right, to know that many people including your loved ones will suffer terribly if you don’t succeed, and to feel that you don’t know how to do it. And it’s that weight, much more than the desire for glory, that drives Boromir’s desire for the Ring. It looks like the only way out.

One thing I wish people realized about them: There’s a particular line in the appendices that I find hilarious and everyone else seems to be sleeping on it.

It did not seem possible to Faramir that anyone in Gondor could rival Boromir, heir of Denethor, Captain of the White Tower; and of like mind was Boromir.

It takes a second. It’s not saying the brothers thought each other were awesome; it’s saying, “Faramir thought Boromir was awesome. Boromir also thought Boromir was awesome.” It’s such an iconic piece of characterization offered in such a great, understated way.

One (or more) headcanons I have about them: He’s an outdoorsy type. Goes hiking in the White Mountains when he’s off duty, which is why he knew what to expect from Caradhras.

A second one: He didn’t particularly want to be Steward of the City. He admired and respected his father and had a high opinion of the steward’s position and prestige, and he understood the job would be his responsibility, but he preferred frontline combat to politics and governance. And he canonically wasn’t interested in romance, but the succession would have required getting married. The appendices specifically compare him to Eärnur, the last King of Gondor, who rode to Minas Morgul for a duel with the Witch-king and left no heir.

Third: Denthor sent him and not Faramir to Rivendell not just because ‘the way was difficult and dangerous’ but because he trusted that Boromir would put Gondor’s interests first, whereas Faramir might get caught up in the elven-ness of it all and get roped into anything.

One character I love seeing them interact with: This is challenging, because it involves untangling the movie and the books. In the movies, I love his interactions with Merry and Pippin; in the book, he has very little interaction with them, and I think this was a good addition on the movies’ part. In the book, the bulk of his interactions are with Aragorn. One that stands out to me, and that I find quite entertaining, is when they’re boating down Anduin and Boromir has been disagreeing with Aragorn on the route for a while, and they hit the rapids of Sarn Gebir and Boromir thinks it’s intentional. Paraphrased:

Boromir: Once again [as with Caradhras, and Moria, and Lothlórien], I think this is a very bad idea!

Aragorn: OH CRAP OH CRAP OH CRAP I DIDN’T MEAN TO DO THAT!

One character I wish they would interact with / interact with more: I very much wish we’d gotten more / any ‘on-screen’ interactions between him and Faramir! And Denethor. There’s a lot of interesting family dynamics there to explore.

One (or more) headcanons I have about them and one other character: If he’d lived, he would have liked Éowyn a lot, and entirely approved his brother’s choice.

#tolkien #the lord of the rings #boromir #denethor #faramir #eowyn #aragorn #gondor

[ack3rlady]

Good evening

So here is one of the plots I always imagine you being erwin's little sister and levi is his best friend so he loves you and levi being levi would show through actions like buying the best gifts because he listens and cares also picking you up from places and agrees with erwin that you aren't allowed to have a boyfriend

Is that kinda out of character 🤔

Dinaaaaaaa! Sorry it took me forever to write this! It started off as something and turned into something else and then i had to sit and clean it up. Hope you like it bby!!

Pocket Watch

Summary: You and Levi go from despising each other to being two fools in unrequited love. Hange comes up with a disastrous plan to bring you both together that backfires. Big brother Erwin comes to the rescue :)

Notes: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff with a dash of angst, Hange being Hange.

WC: ~3k

Master List

You and Levi had a turbulent start. From the moment you laid eyes on him, you absolutely loathed the man so much that even his presence made you see red. He was rude, disrespectful and above all, tried to murder your brother. From the looks of it, he disliked you too, given you were Erwin’s sister, and also because you charged towards him with your blade right after, only to be restrained by Erwin himself.

Unfortunately, with the loss of Flagon and his squad, Shadis transferred Levi over to yours after that fateful expedition. And for the first time in your life, you hated your job. The thought of waking up in the morning and seeing his grouchy face, listening to his flat, uninterested voice irked you. You lost the will to get out of bed. Hange had to physically drag your body to the training grounds every day.

To say that you and Levi didn’t get along, would be an understatement. It would take mere seconds of being around each other for a new argument to break out. And because you were his new Squad Leader, you were forced to be around him almost all the time. The day mainly consisted of excessive eye-rolling, taunts, sarcastic retorts which would soon turn into a quarrel and then a massive brawl until Miche or Hange stepped in to pry you off each other's throats.

The new nicknames you coined for each other had traveled throughout the regiment. He referred to you as Shithead, and you called him Shitface.

For him, your interactions had turned into a strange form of entertainment. In no time, he had figured out which button of yours to push to get the reaction he wished to see. Meal time, which used to be the only two hours you could spend without him, was also brutally snatched away from you when Erwin insisted that Levi should sit at your table from now on.

“I have to look at Shitface’s shitty face all day. Did you absolutely have to invite him over to eat with us?”, you asked Erwin with your eyes boring holes into Levi, face contorted as if you just bit into a lemon.

The new commander suppressed a smirk; Hange and Miche were not polite enough to do the same.

“As if I want to be around your shitty head for any longer than I need to.”, he quipped nonchalantly, taking a sip of steaming tea out of his cup.

The back-and-forth, constant bickering and impromptu sparring continued until both you and Levi were promoted to captain’s position, a few months after Erwin became commander. Now that you both had your own squads to manage, you didn’t see him as much anymore.

You refused to admit it to yourself, but you missed him; missed being around him even if it only led to another one of your infamous fights. Your eyes would search for that familiar midnight head everywhere you went; relentlessly darting from one face to another until they landed on a silver pair looking right back at them.

Levi was in a similar dilemma. His life seemed a bit too calm, too quiet. No one glowered at him when he began training in the morning. No one screamed bloody murder in his ears every few hours. He actually missed the sound of your voice, even though he considered it the shrillest cacophony until a few days ago.

He found himself looking for reasons to be near you, scheduling his squad’s training sessions around yours. Awkward glances would be exchanged every few minutes, with both of you clearly realizing the difference in the way you looked at each other ever since your new roles drew you apart. They weren't glares of annoyance anymore. There was an unknown warmth present in your gazes. What was this foreign feeling?

“Miss me, Shitface?”, you asked upon bumping into him for the fifth time since morning.

“You wish, Shithead.”, he responded, lips upturned into a smirk.

Lately, there was a new found playfulness in your interactions. The words you exchanged pretty much remained the same, sans the sharp edge they had before.

.

.

It was late in the evening. It was also the first anniversary of that catastrophic expedition which stole Isabel, Furlan, and your childhood friend Victoria from this world. You snuck a bottle of whiskey from Erwin’s cherished collection of spirits and fled to the roof, a place you generally retreated to when feeling low.

You were greeted by a lone figure who was already sitting in your spot. But today, Levi’s presence didn’t bother you. On the contrary, you felt relieved to see him. When did the sight of him go from being bothersome to soothing? You took a seat by his side, popped open the bottle, drank to all the loved ones you had lost, and shared stories about them.

Well, you did. He only listened.

“If only I got there in time. I could’ve saved her.”, you sighed, thinking about Victoria.

Levi felt a pang in his heart, because that was exactly how he felt about Isabel and Furlan. If only he had never left. If only he made it back before it was too late.

If only.

You were not much different from him. He regretted treating you harshly without ever understanding your story. He felt terrible about how he never bothered to find out you too were silently suffering from the same pain as him, that there was a tragic reason why you even had a vacant spot on your squad for him to fill.

He watched your face glow under the moon light, your lips spread into a gorgeous yet melancholy smile as you fondly remembered the departed. His breath hitched when he felt a delicate weight on his shoulder, body tensing because this was the first time someone was this close to him.

He slowly looked down at your head leaning on his shoulder, teary eyes looking up at the moon. This moment, this image would forever be etched into his memory. Because the reason why he perpetually craved your presence around him suddenly became clear. Because this was the exact moment, he realized that he was in love.

After you were finished talking to your heart’s content, Levi walked you to your room and stayed long enough to make sure that you fell asleep. That night, he fought hard against this new feeling bubbling up in his heart as he watched your angelic face while you slept – A need to be with you, an urge to tell you how he felt, a longing to feel your skin underneath his fingers, to make you the first and the last face he would see every day.

He valiantly fought against the flutter in his heart, conquered it, and locked it away in the remotest corner of his mind.

.

.

You could see the faint light of the rising sun from behind your closed eyelids. You needed to be on the move in a few minutes and start preparing for the day. But instead, you chose to stay in bed, and replay the events from last night that brought a smile to your face – the way Levi’s pale skin shone in the silver luminescence of the moon, the way his softened eyes stayed pinned on yours when you spoke, how the strands of his hair swayed with the cool breeze, how you suppressed the urge to run your fingers through them, how you wanted time to stop just so that you could steal a few more moments with him.

You begrudgingly opened your eyes and removed yourself from the sweet flashback, only to find a delicate pocket watch on your nightstand with a note neatly tucked underneath it. It read -

Time took away my old friends, but also gave me a new one.

- L

.

.

Six months had passed since that day. Six months since you were both confronted by your feelings, and also six months since they remained unrequited. He had accepted that this was how it was meant to be, because, one – The world was a shitty place that could rip you away from him at any moment, two – his relationship with Erwin was far too important to jeopardize. Levi decided it was best to remain silent.

You, on the other hand, wanted to live every day like it was your last; and try to experience as many things in life as you could before death knocked at the door. But you knew of Levi’s outlook on relationships, and decided to respect his beliefs, without forcing your ideas on him.

So, you would both hold on to the little things, like having tea and meals in each other company, training together, watching the moon from that same spot on the roof and mainly, searching for each other among the multitude of soldiers, just to exchange silent smiles of assurance before each expedition as if it would be the last time you would be seeing one another.

This didn’t go unnoticed since another pair of eyes, four eyes were hanging on to every single one of these acts.

Hange was an intelligent person, not letting one thing escape their sight. When they were not immersed in analyzing titans, they were studying humans, and their vision was made even stronger by the thick pair of glasses adorning their face.

That is why they did not miss the subtle glances or a single smile exchanged between you and Levi, or even how the man who hated people with a burning passion would willingly enter crowded markets just to find you the perfect present.

It first struck them when he bought a stunning painting of the sun setting beyond the mountains. But instead of finding it hung on the wall of his office, they found it sitting on your desk the next morning. Then it was an intricate tea set that he purchased, which was now located on your table. And finally, the multiple books he painstakingly selected from a quaint shop in the bylanes of Trost that were all lined up on the bookshelf in your quarters. 

And they were not the only one noticing these patterns.

The silent but dazzling sparks flying between his sister and his right-hand-man caught Erwin’s eye too. His prominent brow would rise in curiosity when Levi would expressly insist on positioning you in the safer zone of the formation during expeditions. He saw how the captain would turn to you for your opinion on important matters, and you’d respond with a quiet nod. He also observed how Levi was not rude to you anymore, a complete paradox of his behavior from just six months ago, when you used to be the bane of his existence.

His suspicions were confirmed when he casually asked Hange about it. They squealed in excitement when Erwin’s account matched theirs. Miche agreed too, adding his own two cents to the story.

Erwin’s mind was racing, the usual calm in his blue eyes looking stormy. His brotherly instincts were tingling. He had never approved of any man you introduced him to in the past, always finding some or the other reason why they were not good enough for you.

But, upon giving it further thought, he couldn’t fault Levi. He knew that if there was anyone who could protect you better than Erwin himself, it was him.

The only area of concern was his quirky behavior. But he personally witnessed how you could hold your own before the man on numerous occasions. He had noticed how you had begun to smile more often when he was around, and how you remained calm and made better decisions in the face of danger outside the walls ever since you became close with Levi.

Your happiness and safety were all that mattered to your brother.

So, he gave Hange his blessings to carry out their ‘diabolical plan’ to bring you and him together. Together, they recruited Miche as the perfect decoy. According to Hange, the plan was simple. Miche would sweet-talk with you, in turn making Levi jealous. The jealousy would eventually make him flee the comfort of his shell and confess his feelings to you. Simple, right? Unfortunately, it wasn't.

.

.

“Hey gorgeous! You look wonderful today.”, Miche appeared out of thin air while you and Levi were sipping on tea and reading the newspaper on a bench under a tree in silence.

Levi’s eyes slightly widened upon seeing the tall man’s hand snake around your shoulder.

“Thanks, Miche.”, you replied politely, albeit a little confused, but not swatting him away.

Miche had been your friend ever since you were a fresh-faced cadet. And he was known for getting close to people to get a good sniff. So, his proximity wasn't a surprise, although the sudden compliments were. But you didn’t dwell over them, assuming that the beautiful morning had him in a pleasant mood.

Levi knew that you were strong enough to tackle Miche to the ground if his touch was unwelcome. The fact that you didn’t refute his advance, meant that you didn’t mind.

Maybe he wasn’t as special to you as he thought. Maybe the unspoken bond between you and him was all in his head. His thoughts immediately began to spiral, and he abruptly stood up and left without a word, leaving a baffled you, and a triumphantly grinning Miche behind.

What Hange, Erwin and Miche thought was the successful execution of their plan, was playing out to be the exact opposite, much to their ignorance.

This happened a few more times over the next week – during training, lunch, meetings – wherever you went, Miche followed. Levi felt his heart skip a beat every time he saw you smile in the other man’s presence. His jaw clenched whenever Miche cooed in your ears, his face just inches away from yours.

Levi was obviously jealous. But instead of stepping in and owning up to his feelings, he began to distance himself from you, only seeing you during work meetings and barely acknowledging your presence even then. He would turn in his tracks every time you were about to cross paths. The serene tea breaks in his company came to an abrupt halt when you would find his office locked and empty when you visited at your designated time.

You were beginning to feel hurt by this newly cold Levi, the equivalent of how he used to be before that night on the roof. Maybe him reciprocating your feelings was all in your head. You felt lonely after suddenly having lost your best friend and support system without even knowing why.

Erwin began to notice changes in your demeanor once more. The beaming and chirpy little sister that he was used to, was showing signs of suffering. But you would never admit to it when he asked; saying that you didn’t want to add to his already full plate.

He found you one night, sitting by the window of your dark quarters in tears. He slapped his palm over his forehead upon finding out that the sole reason behind your heartache was the debacle of a plan that the three had come up with. He came clean and encouraged you to go talk to Levi, revealing that the whole plan was only intended to bring you both closer.

You ran through the hallways, first to his quarters, just to find the doors locked again. Then you headed to the mess hall, hoping to catch him sipping on his late-night tea. But the vast room was deserted except for the scouts scrubbing it clean. So, you nervously headed to the place you were sure to see him. And that’s exactly where you found him.

There he was, perched at the exact spot on the rooftop, the same place where you had spent numerous nights together over the last whole year.

Levi perked up upon hearing your approaching footsteps. He didn’t even need to turn around to know it was you.

“You don’t talk to me anymore.”, you said, taking a seat at your old spot beside him.

“Well, you found someone else to talk to.”

“So, you just decided to leave?”

“I figured you had Miche and didn’t need me anymore.”

You turned to him in disbelief. The unchanged expression on his face was a sign that he did indeed believe what he just said.

“Do you just think you're that easily replaceable in my life? That someone can just walk in and take your position?”, you asked

“You did just let him do it, didn’t you?”

“Ugh!”, you harshly pushed his shoulders with both your hands. “I did not! Stop saying that you Shitface!”

“Tch! What's your problem, Shithead?”, he scolded, tightly clenching the collar of your jacket in his fist.

“My problem is that I’m in love with you and you’re too stupid to see it.”

His eyes and lips shaped into three round Os. “Huh?”, he huffed breathlessly.

“I love you. Since that evening that we spent right here one year ago, and I’ve been in love with you ever since . Miche was acting on some stupid directions that Hange gave him. There’s nothing between him and I, Levi. It’s you. It’s always been you.”, you said, quoting Erwin’s words and revealing Hange’s plan to him.

With that same fist around your jacket, Levi pulled you close; crashing your body into his, gently pressing his lips upon yours. Your heart began to pound upon his touch that you had been yearning for since over a year. His lips were warm, and soft, and he gingerly nibbled on yours, making you smile into the kiss. You felt his cool fingers raking through your hair accompanied by gentle hums of bliss. He finally broke away, allowing you both to catch your breath, resting his forehead on yours.

“I love you, Shithead.”, he whispered. “But, I’m going to kill those two giants and four eyes tomorrow.”

#levi ackerman x reader #levi x reader #attack on titan #levi ackerman headcanons #aot hcs #levi ackerman #levi headcanons #captain levi #anime #levi aot #levi ackerman x you #Mia.answers

[bitch-biblioklept]

The Darkling x f!oc

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 <you are here> Part 8

Chapter-7 The Winter Fete

Chapter Summary: With Alina finally harnessing her powers, revenge seems closer than ever to the Darkling. Baghra is afraid of losing the human her son was, and regrets making some decisions.

Word Count: 1.7k

(my gif)

It was done, the sun summoner had finally learnt to harness her powers. Revenge had never seemed closer than now.

The Darkling was ecstatic on finding out that Alina had finally summoned. He might even have done a little happy dance when he was alone, but he would never admit it.

The Grand Palace and the Little Palace had been decorated wildly, untastefully, but he didn’t care much. His time to avenge the assassination of his wife was close, and Zlatan was finally going to pay for his sins. The Darkling even agreed to put up a show for the sake of entertainment.

Alina had started looking better, her face was fuller and less sallow so her similarity to Serephina had almost entirely disappeared. And her blue and gold kefta was a big difference as well. His darling had always adorned a black kefta with silver embroideries on it, and the colors of all the classes; Coporalki, Etherealki, Materialki on the cuff of the sleeves. She had also preferred to wear traditional Suli clothes, even if that made most of the counts mad. She had never shied away from her heritage.

Aleksander had vividly remembered the functions in their wedding with the Suli people, it had been grander than anything he had ever seen since. The Suli were great people too, warm and welcoming to everyone. On finding that they were Grisha, they worshiped them like saints. Sankt Colvin and Sankta Rohini, they were given these lovely names to keep their identity a secret.

He didn’t dwell on the memory too much, but kept it in the back of his mind, in the reachable range to keep up his happy spirits, to remind himself of what Ravka had taken from him after he had worshipped her all his life. Ravka was a drowning woman who dragged his lover with her.

Koroleva Alina, the people chanted on seeing her display of her powers. Koroleva Alina, this is what Serephina had been called when she had caught the attention of the king. The trust between the Grisha and the non-Grisha was fragile and there just because he had won a war for him.

The king had been a recent widower, having lost his queen in the battle between the Ravkan kingdom and the Shu queendom. He was looking for a queen, and that was when he had caught Serephina, who was going by the name Alina at the time, catering to the guests dressed in a servant’s uniform.

“You, you right there,” the king pointed in her direction, and she stilled wondering if she did something wrong. “Come here,”

And keeping the mask of a meek, terrified woman afraid she had done something to offend the king, she walked. Her eyes briefly found his, and she found the grey eyes a bit wide in anticipation.

The noblemen eyed her up and down as she walked in the center of the throne room, a few even making passing remarks on her beauty. Aleksander would have clawed their eyes out right then and there if it weren’t for a gentle gust of wind asking him to calm down.

“You are so beautiful, dear.” The King said. The entire throne room quieted. “What is your name?”

She kept her eyes trained to the marble floor. “Alina, Moi tsar.”

“I am making you one of my personal servants from now on, Alina.” the king declared. “You will be taking care of my son, the prince.”

She looked at him for help, but said, “As you wish, Moi tsar,”

“Good, you are dismissed for now.” The king said. She hurriedly left, but her eyes found his from across the throne room. What had just happened?

They hadn’t guessed that it would be for keeping an eye on her, her behavior, who she met and how she acted. And on seeing perfection, the king had decided that she would be his Queen.

The Darkling gripped his flute of champagne too tightly, hearing a crack and loosened his grip. He downed the contents and left the glass for a servant to take. Serephina said the king had never touched her, and he knew she wouldn’t lie to him. They had even had separate chambers, (he would know, he visited her almost every night,) and her only job was the raise the prince and host the important political guests.

It had hurt him, it had hurt him terribly to see them in public, to see the king holding her nimble hand, kissing her cheek, having her at him arm, when he should have been the one doing all this. The King had loved her, he truly had. But to him she was Alina, and he died knowing that she was Alina.

But for Aleksander she had been Serephina, and she would always be Serephina.

And when the king had taken ill and died around two years later, Koroleva Alina had been given the throne, for the prince was too young to rule. She had raised the prince to become a king, she was raising him to become the king, but he was still too young.

And the years she had ruled had been Ravka’s golden age. The fifteen years she had sat on the throne were the best Ravka had ever seen. The young king took that further after she had faked her demise and it was more than half a century of prosperity and peace for the people.

It was then that he had decided he had to marry her with proper customs and had taken her to the thorn wood monastery in the forest. There the Suli had taken care of them, organized their grand wedding and had made them their Saints.

He was forcing himself out of his memories of her when Ivan had tapped his shoulder to get his attention.

“The trackers have returned.” Ivan said.

“What do they say?” The Darkling asked.

“They found it.”

This was the happiest he had been in fifteen years. His plans would unravel themselves soon enough.

Soon, Moya milaya. Soon. He promised.

.

Baghra was in her hut, pacing around, and waiting for her maid to return with information. She had never before felt this anxious. Maybe, maybe she should just tell him the truth.

She was just pondering all her options when the maid returned, panting. “They found the stag.” She said.

They couldn’t have, it was supposed to be a myth! No one had ever seen it before, then how did the trackers find it? Were they lying to get away from the Darkling’s wrath? Yes, that should be it. There wasn’t any stag found and the trackers were lying. But who would even dare to lie to the Darkling?

So many things were swarming in her head, and there had to be a way that would stop him. If he found the stag and took control of Alina’s powers, he was done for. Ravka was done for. Her son would be gone, pushed beyond the edge of redemption.

She will have to stop him before her son becomes one of his own abominations. There should be a way.

If Serephina was here, she would have thought fast. What would she have done? Baghra paced around, her fingers dancing against each other as her palms sweat. Sere had known Aleksander better than anyone, better than Baghra knew her own son, and that had been a cause of beef between the two of them, albeit it was mostly from her own side because she wanted to spare her son from the heart break and pain of separation that she had suffered.

What would she do? What would she do?

Nothing would distract him, no. She could pretend to faint, but he would call a healer and everything would be a waste of time. Maybe she should run away. She knew him well enough that he would come looking for her first and then go after the stag.

Serephina wouldn’t need anything to distract him. She would have just smiled in his face and he would melt instantly, Baghra scowled at the thought. She wouldn’t even have to smile… she could ask him for his head and he wouldn’t even blink before agreeing. How did Sere get that kind of trust from Aleksander, that would always be a mystery for her, but Sere would do anything for him too. Hell, she had done a lot things for his gain or to save his life.

She decided to think of something else. She wasn’t Serephina and she couldn’t do anything of what Sere could do. It was wasting a lot of her precious minutes.

Baghra didn’t even have much time to think before the Darkling was at her door, knocking. The maid rushed out on seeing him, bowing her head in greeting, muttered a quick “Moi soverennyi,” and then disappeared behind the woods somewhere. Hopefully she wouldn’t be here to hear the experience firsthand.

“My men have found the stag,” He declared. His slate eyes were dancing with amusement she had never seen on him. His thirst for revenge had pulled him under.

There was only one way to stop him now. Maybe if she had had more time, Baghra would have thought a way to stop him without really telling him the truth. Maybe the truth wouldn’t have been uncovered this way. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

But she was old, and her mind wasn’t as sharp as it had once been. So she told him the truth, the only way that she thought was appropriate in that moment. She knew it would stop him, change his sense of reality. He might even attack her for lying to him. But it would save him from falling over the edge. He will still be human.

Baghra knew she was going to regret it, that one decision had been the worst she had ever made in her life, but that had seemed like the good way back then. She hadn’t considered that he would drown himself in this thirst for a bloody revenge.

“Serephina is alive,” Baghra’s mouth told the truth before her mind could think of anything else.

*sorry for the cliffhanger there 🤓*

#shadow and bone #the darkling #aleksander morozova #general kirigan #ben barnes #general kirigan imagine #shadow and bone imagine #the darkling imagine #the darkling x f!oc #the darkling x reader

[tsukiida]

pining — bakugou katsuki

— info :: bakugou x gn!reader ; sfw ; slight angst & humour ; 3.13k words.

— contents :: quirkless reader ; bakugou’s pov ; one-sided attraction ; bakugou being bakugou ; well-meaning wingmen bakusquad.

— synopsis :: katsuki hates the way you make him feel.

— note :: this is my first time writing bnha, let alone bakugou, I hope I do it justice… if you read this, thank you, I hope you like it! :)

katsuki swears he hates you.

to be honest, he’d rather hate you, than feel like… this about you.

he’s convinced you’re messing with him. your quirk must make it so, because there’s no other reason why he feels his body heat up, his heart beat quicker somewhere deep in his chest, every time he thinks of you. you’re definitely doing it on purpose.

it’s that damned shopping trip to blame.

the girls had dragged everyone out to have some bonding time, which is the shittiest excuse katsuki has ever heard for splurging and buying pretty dessert that clogs up arteries. he’d have skipped out on it, but raccoon eyes begged kirishima, who in turn begged katsuki.

that’s another thing that pisses him off; remembering exactly how the other boy had convinced him. really, he couldn’t give less of a shit about something like romance, but of course the extras are going out of their mind about how popular they are with their preferred gender, and of course they had to drag him into it.

no, he doesn’t care at all, but it hurts his ego pride to entertain the idea that he might not be #1 at something even as petty as that.

hell, he doesn’t even care about being #1, as long as he’s doing better than deku.

but he’s not blind. cheeks is obsessed with the green haired idiot, her heart probably having a taste of her own quirk and shooting off into the universe fluttering madly every time she looks at him.

it’s like the world is out to get him, because not only did he have to accompany all the losers to their stupid trip, but he also had to, under duress, with that goal in mind? really? grade schoolers, the whole lot of them.

what he hates most about the whole thing is you, though.

and you’re doing exactly the things he hates.

ever since you stumbled across deku during that trip, tapped him on the shoulder and smiled at him, it’s like you punched katsuki in the gut. he can’t forget the way you’d looked so meek, but still somehow comfortable around deku, and he’d be damned if he doesn’t hate that.

and for the life of him, he can’t recall ever seeing you during his days in middle school. you claimed that you’d been classmates with deku – and by extension, katsuki – for an entire year, and deku sure seems to recognise you. but katsuki doesn’t. deku lights up like a stupid bulb, but katsuki does not.

he hadn’t needed to know details about any of the dumb extras that had infested middle school, more so any of them who didn’t already seem to know that he is the best. that must’ve been why he didn’t know you. there weren’t too many people who didn’t believe in his worth, but the ones who didn’t… they weren’t special enough for him to remember. they could never prove him wrong, after all. they were nothing.

but you.

he hates you. he strongly dislikes you. he can’t stand you.

and you seem to love that shitty deku.

no, it’s not the same kind of emotion that uraraka holds for him.

you absolutely adore that girl too, and she treats you nicely enough despite the wary look in her eyes initially, when she thought she was being subtle while hovering around deku.

no, katsuki hasn’t been observing. especially not because he’s interested. he is literally just looking out for himself, because he doesn’t want to be blindsided just because he wasn’t careful of some scheming pest.

the pest in question being you.

you’re already wreaking havoc on his mind, full of nothing but thoughts of you, other than being #1. he would never give up on that, no matter how much you make his heart pound and palms sweat.

you’re kinda helpful for his quirk, actually, and that’s the only reason he hasn’t already blasted you off into nothingness. the accelerated heart rate does wonders for him. but he doesn’t want to credit you either for something he could achieve with his own hard work.

he can definitely credit you for being the most annoying idiot that he knows, though. your quirk is painful, because late at night when he’s alone, he’s hit by images of your face. you hang out so much with his classmates now, he can’t help it. he can’t even sleep peacefully, because when he does fall asleep, his often dreamless nights are swapped out for stupid sequences produced by his subconscious involving you, because of your silly little quirk that you think katsuki is unaware of.

it gets worse.

he finds out you’re quirkless.

he storms up to you when he’s had enough. not only do you go to a school quite near theirs, but you also always have time to meet up, and isn’t that super convenient for whatever grand scheme you’ve concocted in order to try and take down bakugou katsuki.

it’s a half-growled and half-whispered, threat-filled one-sided conversation between him and you when he asks you to stop whatever you’re trying to do. you, being the infuriating person that you are, just tilt your head and stare at him in confusion. in the name of all might, that should not make his heart skip a beat, because he doesn’t have any intention of using his quirk right now. he just wants you to stop using yours. that’s all he’s there for.

but then you just shrug slightly, that damned nervous smile plastered on your face that you’ve barely been showing anymore, now that you’re comfortable with the extras. you shake your head when he asks you, as nicely as he can, to stop whatever messed up thing you like doing to him.

“this your way of trying to win against me? you can’t,” he grits through his teeth, fingers itching to create little explosions. he’s not going to show his off when asking you to call yours off. he won’t—

you tell him you have no idea what he’s talking about, because you’re as quirkless as they come.

with all the strength that he can muster within himself to not have an outburst, he asks you to repeat yourself.

you do. “i’m quirkless.”

in the end, he can’t help himself, and sets off a series of minute explosions that have you hopping back, out of his arm’s reach. as if he’d harm you with them, he thinks while glaring at you.

katsuki would like to say that he got over it quickly, but it takes a while, truthfully. at first he can’t wrap his mind around the fact that you’re quirkless, because then every thought of you that’s haunted him the past few months is without explanation.

you being quirkless literally opens up so many other questions. if you’re quirkless, then who’s to blame for everything happening to him? is it someone else at fault? are you just stupid and oblivious and unaware of your own quirk? did it manifest late? did someone grant it to you? there are so many questions, and things are still the same, if not worse. he barely thinks of anything else.

at least he can write it off in the name of being better at defending himself from stray quirks affecting him.

he hates it, but he asks kirishima, very subtly, if he’s heard of anyone whose quirk has the effects katsuki hates suffering from. the stupid redhead simply looks him dead in the eye and says that it sounds like the case of a bad crush quirk, something out of cheap romance novels which might be quite dangerous in practice, before proceeding to ask katsuki why he’s curious about it. bless his stupid soul, sometimes, because he completely buys the lie katsuki feeds him.

he didn’t want to have to convince kirishima that he doesn’t have a crush. because he doesn’t want to even entertain the idea of having a crush on stupid little you.

especially when you barely even give him the time of day anymore.

well, you’ve never really been the closest to him, nor does he want that, thank you very much! but it seems like the only time you and him ever had a proper conversation was when he asked you about your quirk, and that too ended badly, with barely any words exchanged. but at least you used to smile at him. not that he liked it or anything, but it was better than you giving him the cold shoulder.

are the extras actually more interesting to you than katsuki is? he’s a little miffed if that’s the case. but whenever he talks, you hear him, sometimes even respond to him, so perhaps it’s not a matter of ignoring him.

it’s just one thing you do.

you avoid his eyes.

it’s subtle enough that no one else notices, and the first few times he sees you look away when your eyes meet his, his breath catches in his throat and he’s almost too shocked to breathe in.

he knows that he’s not done anything to warrant that reaction from you. perhaps you’re simply realising after a long time that he’s the one you should be paying attention to, rather than all the extras. and perhaps it’s easier for you to pay attention to him with your ears rather than your eyes. he can understand that. your eyes seem to have that effect on him too; it’s entirely possible that this way is easier for you to focus on him.

maybe he makes you nervous.

there are so many maybes, but that thought still makes a grin tug at his lips, seeing which kirishima almost gets nervous. yeah, he’s getting cocky.

but that’s fine. he doesn’t plan on approaching you yet.

after all, if you’re into him, you should be brave enough to tell him.

…

honestly, it’s completely the electric eel’s fault. really, it’s 100% his fault because he thinks it’s fun to talk about stupid shit around katsuki. stupid shit like you possibly having a crush on deku, even though all signs say otherwise.

katsuki was willing to overlook that, but then raccoon eyes decided to encourage that hypothesis, and soon the idiots around him were talking in hushed whispers about deku’s supposed fanclub. such a situation definitely warranted katsuki blowing up their asses during training.

katsuki hates training with deku with a burning passion, but such a situation also warranted going up to him and demanding that he train with katsuki. if only he’d had enough mind to notice that the class was ending. if only he’d not run his mouth—

“they’ll never even look at you.”

deku doesn’t know shit about what katsuki just said, looking at him like he grew another head – which pisses him off even more – but kirishima and the rest of them know—

they know that katsuki is still hung up over that stupid conversation from days back, and they also know something’s up, and katsuki hates himself for being an idiot.

they corner him, as impossible as that sounds. katsuki would’ve blasted them off into outer space but they literally pile up onto him, clinging and refusing to let go of him even when he threatens to beat their ass again. curse sero’s tape.

katsuki would like to say that he fends them all off and throws them off his case. unfortunately, that does not happen. they find out a few things that day. thankfully, the only things they do find out are: you really get on katsuki’s nerves, and you also have a silly little crush on him.

“for real? are you sure?” ashido asks, eyebrows knit together like it’s something particularly unbelievable, and kaminari nods along uncertainly.

katsuki scoffs. “no other reason why they can’t look me in the eye.”

“i mean, you are kinda scary…” sero starts, but one glare from the scary person in question has him trailing off.

kirishima politely provides, “he’s manly!” and the conversation ends there.

…

oh, but the scheming doesn’t end.

kaminari is a bloody idiot, and encouraged by the equally idiotic sero, both of them come up with various scenarios wherein you and katsuki could stumble into each other, completely coincidentally, as if katsuki can’t hear them gossiping right behind him.

he ends up having to intervene when they get increasingly creative, which only means disaster in katsuki’s book.

“i’ll just wait.” he simply shrugs, watching the idiots get confused.

“fun to watch them squirm when they think they’re being subtle,” he offers further, and kirishima gives him a disapproving look, mumbling something about sadists.

“bakugou,” ashido stares at him critically, opening and shutting her mouth many times before eventually asking, “do you like them?”

after several more explosions, katsuki’s heart beating too fast in his chest, the sweat beading at his temples written off as part of his quirk, he’s able to dispel the idea from her mind.

he’ll never like someone like you.

and he’s still wary of you in the secret corner of his mind, not sure why he reacts the way he does to you. he’s not stupid, he knows what a crush is and how it works, but he really can’t see himself being attracted to you at all.

it has to be something someone concocted to get him weak, but they’re not going to succeed.

even if not having your eyes on him pisses him off more, making him feel irrational and prone to dangerous stunts and outbursts. even if not seeing you around much makes him feel like there’s not much to show off to. even if he really doesn’t feel like there’s anything worth showing off when he spies poor little you hanging around his classmates, quirkless and gentle.

gross.

…

katsuki hates being wrong.

katsuki hates knowing he’s wrong.

katsuki barely ever is wrong.

but when he is, he messes up completely.

if he were to possess the ability to correct one thing, he’d just lock up the idiots who call themselves his friends, and not let them near you.

they notice your little mannerisms too, of course they do when katsuki himself told them that you like him. they notice that you don’t meet his eyes and prefer staying away from him, but still respond to him whenever he talks. they notice that you don’t seem to fear him like some people do; almost as if you’re comfortable with him.

and they also notice things he wishes they didn’t notice, like the way his skin reddens imperceptibly when he sees you, and the way he makes an effort to not blast things up too much in your vicinity.

(it’s not really much use anymore, unfortunately.)

it’s definitely kaminari who is to blame; he always is for everything. katsuki doesn’t need any more reason to want to absolutely pummel him, because with the tape idiot’s encouragement, he bounces up to you one day and asks the dreaded question.

“what do you think of bakugou?” the blond asks, grinning from ear to ear as if he’s done something wonderful, but the way your eyebrow creases in confusion makes katsuki’s heart skip a beat. erratic. he doesn’t know what to make of the expression on your face. and no, he’s not waiting for your response, dammit. he’s 100% busy ignoring everyone. he can’t let you know all of his attention is on him, especially when you’re about to turn your head to look in his direction.

“he’s okay,” the words eventually leave your mouth, and he almost snorts. just okay? are you stupid, or just pretending to be? he knows your vocabulary is bigger than that.

“don’t you…” kaminari leans in dramatically, and katsuki has to strain his ears to hear—

“don’t you like him?”

well, hell. guess someone missed the tact memo.

that’s fine, though, katsuki’s okay with that. maybe letting you shyly avoid him isn’t the best course of action when you refuse to make a move.

you let out a non-committal noise, prompting another round of questions. the way you further get confused and respond with questions of your own makes something nag at the back of katsuki’s mind.

there’s something steadily sinking, and said sinking feeling grows the longer you talk to the electric idiot. by this point, katsuki has realised he’s missing something, but he’s still confident that it’s nothing he can’t overlook at this crucial moment when you spill the beans.

“my dear, sweet y/n, don’t you like bakugou?!” kaminari finally exclaims, possibly frustrated, and katsuki internally wheezes. he’s preoccupied with what you’ll say next, so laughing at the idiot’s expense takes a back seat.

he has to hand it to you; you’re really hard to crack, and it’s almost annoying. katsuki’s tempted to just burst his way over to you and demand a clear confession.

the answer isn’t something he’s expecting.

“not that he’s not, y’know, nice and all,” you babble, clearly stalling. you exhale at the same time as katsuki inhaling, and he holds his breath, waiting for the shoe to drop. really, maybe kaminari isn’t so bad if he can actually weasel the truth out of you with his stupid self.

“it’s just… he’s kind of scary. i try not to get in his way.”

kaminari seems just as stumped as katsuki feels in that moment.

“but… the way you act around him…”

well said, pikachu.

“oh.” that single word feels a bit like a gunshot. “oh, oh, i see. oh, no.” you need to stop saying ‘oh’ so many times, as if that changes anything.

“i’m sure he’s a good guy, but nope, i’m not interested in him romantically. i only act so awkward around him because that’s exactly how he makes me feel. i don’t even know him that well.”

can you stop twisting the knife?

“bakugou noticed,” kaminari mumbles, loud enough that katsuki hears. the words sound like they’re laced with pity. katsuki hates it, but what he hates more is how the idiot’s voice lowers to a whisper to say something to you that he really can’t hear from the distance.

katsuki also hates how your lips part and understanding dawns on your face.

he hates how your eyes meet his, head-on, because he completely forgot to look busy and has been gawking at you for the past few minutes. he hates how your eyes widen before a wary expression crosses your face.

katsuki hates the way you make him feel.

“is that what he’s passing it off as?” you ask, loud enough that he can hear. you’re not making an effort to lower your voice either.

kaminari does not respond to you, and you let out a short laugh, no doubt incredulous.

katsuki feels something within himself snap.

he leaves the room.

— note :: feedback is appreciated! :) I like this open ending because there’s a lot that can happen with it, let me know if anyone wants to see more of this! thanks for reading! :) ETA: if you’re interested in a continuation, you can read “honey”! :)

#bnha imagines #bnha x reader #bakugou x reader #bakugou imagines #bnha headcanons #bakugou headcanons #bakugou katsuki imagines #boku no hero academia imagines #bakugou katsuki x reader #boku no hero academia x reader #boku no hero academia headcanons #bnha #mha headcanons #mha x reader #mha imagines #nia.inks

[thearchvillain]

of horsefairs and maidens. part 1

nikolai lantsov x reader

link to part 2

summary: The weather is warm and the air thick with the scent of summer blossoms at the epicentre of horse auctions and races, Caryeva - and Nikolai Lantsov has been bored out of his mind for the past... what feels like an eternity. When even counting how many times his brother has made a fool of himself lost its appeal and became nearly tragic to watch, Nikolai retreated to the edges of the fair only to find that pretty girl Vasily had been dragging around all day hiding on the outskirts, seemingly desperate to escape the supposed Lantsov charm. Or whatever version of it Vasily had offered. "Tomorrow then.", he leaned down beside her, "I'll buy all your father's horses if that's what it takes." Watching her from the side he could just see the tiniest of smirks grace the corner of her lips, "That's an expensive sport you're wanting to try out." "Well, have I ever told you that I have a lot of money?" "Silly me, and here I was thinking you were a mere peasant." "Was it the humility? The rogue charm?"

word count: 2085

warnings: mentions of animal abuse, also Vasily being generally shitty as always

A/N - this is my first attempt at writing this sort of AU/imagine/excerpt, and I’ve gone overboard with the word count (as always), but I hope you will like it! i thought i might fit it into one part, but both Nikolai and the main character had so much to say I figured there would have to be another part thrown in there haha also we have some (briefly) confused!Nikolai, so I hope you enjoy that!

She'd hidden herself well, standing at the very edges of the fair where the trees cast their shadows long and wide in the evening sun, offering a pocket of peace to both the animals and the humans looking for a moment of silence, or cold breeze not laden with the scent of alcohol and sweat and horses.

Nikolai had been watching her for a while, straight-backed and still in her rider's outfit, standing near the rickety fence and looking at the horses not quite suited for the finer crowds that milled around the crown prince back at the heart of the fair. He supposed it was a good place to hide, not so much because of the forest behind them, but because his brother was far too vain to venture this far out.

"I saw you before, you're the girl who's been entertaining the crown prince.", he said, casually, noncommittally. She'd been ignoring the sound of his steps as he'd approached her from behind, drawn in by some sight before her, and even now she didn't so much as glance over her shoulder. Instead, she let out a sound that might have been a snort, but more lady-like, "Well, he's certainly not been entertaining me, so someone had to get the job done."

Nikolai stopped just short of the fence, to her left, and finally when the girl turned her head to see who she was speaking to he could see the brief flash of recognition in her eyes. So she hadn't known who she was speaking to. The surprise stayed there only for the briefest time, then morphed into something that might have been calculation, as if she were weighing her options - to speak of the prince to his brother this way was a dangerous game, at least if one wasn't familiar with Nikolai.

She finally settled on a slight nod, as graceful as it was superficial, "My apologies.", then she cocked an eyebrow, "Tell me, your highness, could this cost me my tongue?"

Cheeky. He smirked, "Only if it's me you're speaking of this way, and even then only because it would be a terrible lie. I'm wonderfully entertaining."

She made a noncommittal sound and looked back at her horses, "Does it run in the family?"

Nikolai felt personally slighted that the giant lump of muscle that was a horse a few meters away from them seemed more interesting to her than he did, but it wasn't like he was going to just back off, "At least give me a chance, it'd be a shame for you to think we're all like that."

"Like what?", she turned her clever eyes back to him and smiled, "You make it sound like I've implied the crown prince is not charming."

"Oh, you haven't. I'm the one implying it.", this seemed to draw out a chuckle from her. Take that, horse. "You're rather good at hiding distaste, I'll give you that."

"Who says I'm not hiding it now?"

"Ouch.", his hand went briefly to his chest in a theatrical display of hurt, "How come you're not nearly as charming to me as you've been to Vasily?"

"Because you don't seem like a jackass. How's that for the capital offence?"

"Personally, I see none, merely a good judge of character."

This time the chuckle she let over her lips was a bit less restrained, and he'd be damned if he didn't take that as a win. Now her eyes slid back to the meadow in front of them, beaten down by horseshoes and boots until it was nothing but mud, and Nikolai watched her watch that same horse she'd been staring at since he'd first spotted her. One could claim it was nothing special if it weren't for its size - he'd be damned if that wasn't the largest horse he'd seen since the army, and probably the roughest-looking.

"Do you have a penchant for the uglier specimen or are you just wondering about his size?"

The girl gave him the dirtiest look he'd been given in a while, "He's not ugly, just old and overworked.", then as if to sound less stern, "But he is a big boy, even for his breed."

Well, that attempt at a joke about his looks fell flat. He wasn't used to that. "How do you know?"

This seemed to be more her tune because she perked up and pointed one long, elegant finger at the horse, "Do you see the way he's walking? And the scars on his flank?", she didn't wait for the answer, he could hear the urgent irritation in her voice, "He's been severely abused - his hind leg has been broken and never set properly, and you rarely see a valuable work animal this scarred from beatings and equipment."

Now Nikolai looked, actually looked, he could see the ridges of old scars crisscrossing his entire body, and something off about the way he ambled around as if to put a distance between himself and the people. "I thought he was a warhorse, that those were battle wounds. Not something his owners would do to him."

He could see her soften a bit when she heard the shock and disgust that laced his tone, her eyes going briefly to him before she looked at the horse again, "Vasily wouldn't even look at him."

"You tried to show him to my brother?"

She frowned at his tone, "I had no choice! My father won't let me buy him, and he's going to be sold for meat if I don't get him before this hell show is over."

"You want to buy him?"

No, actually, this was the dirtiest look he'd received from a woman, "Well, of course. He deserves a peaceful, loving retirement. He's suffered enough."

Now it was Nikolai's turn to look incredulous, "I thought you were letting my brother drag you around like a prized mare because you wanted an actual prized mare."

She sputtered, incredulity lining her features before she finally found her voice, "Excuse me?"

"Not like that --"

"Like what then?"

Nikolai cleared his throat, if only to buy himself time, "Well, this went off the rails fairly quickly."

She turned her entire body towards him now, and he could feel the anger vibrating off her tiny frame in waves, all directed at him, "You were never on the damn rails."

Fair enough. "It says nothing of your character, anyone who listens to his drivel for an entire day should be well-compensated for their emotional trouble."

"I'll need to be well-compensated after this conversation."

"I don't think that old horse will do it though."

She smacked him on the arm. It took Nikolai a second to process what had just happened, as he looked down to his arm where her fist had punched him with all the righteousness of a woman scorned, then back up at her, incredulous once again. "I was joking."

"Try doing it again, but this time make it funny."

When Nikolai didn't answer quickly enough she put her hands on her hips and raised a brow, "Well?"

"Well-- my extensive education in diplomacy tells me I should ease off with the jokes and perhaps try to apologise?"

Her brow somehow went even higher, it made him feel young and squeamish.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply you were accompanying my brother for your gain."

"Oh, please, of course I've been advising him on horses because I want something out of him, why else would I listen to him compare me to a mare and act like he'd written me a sonnet."

"He compared you to a horse?"

"An expensive one, so it's fine in his mind.", she let out a shaky breath, the anger still simmering beneath the soft rosy tint that coloured her cheeks. Nikolai couldn't help but stare, taken aback by the simplicity of her intentions, her irritation - she'd been keeping her cool the entire day, nodding prettily whenever his brother said something, offering him her expertise only to have it thrown back in her face because she was not meant to be listened to, only showed off. And she was not a girl that wanted to be showed off or ignored, that much was clear.

"What?"

She turned to look at him, and Nikolai caught himself mid-stare, too absorbed in his thoughts to recognize that he'd been looking at her a bit too long. "Nothing, I'm just impressed."

"With what?"

"You.", he smirked, "I mean you've been suffering under his charms all day, then mine, and at the end of it you're restrained enough to only punch me in the arm?"

She frowned, her eyes sliding to his arm, uncertainty on her features, "Can I get in trouble for that?"

"Oh no, I'm into it."

She raised a brow, and Nikolai couldn't help the smirk that passed across his lips. Then he said, out of nowhere, "Will you come to dine with me?"

"As you said, your brother thinks I'm his prized mare."

That was only half a no, so he thought he might still have some wiggle-room left there, "Well I think you're far prettier than that. At least a good racehorse."

"Saints I want to smack you again."

Nikolai leaned in, his voice conspirational, "Well, yeah, that was kind of the point."

That chuckle again. He noticed that the feathery hair at the back of her neck curled delightfully when she turned to look at the fair and wondered briefly what she might look like when she let her hair down from her ponytail. His thoughts were interrupted when she said, "I can't. My father wants me to keep him amused, so Vasily might buy from him instead of the breeder from the next town over."

Nikolai frowned, "So he sent you out to entertain the creepier of the two princes like a well-trained monkey?"

"You just physically can't say a sentence without petting your own ego, can you?"

"Oh, you're noticing that just now?"

She leaned her forearms on the fence, staring out at the distance, "Are you really surprised? My sister probably knows even more than I do about the horses, but it was never about the knowledge."

Nikolai wished he could tell her he was, but he'd been made all too familiar with how these things worked in court, why his mother had paraded him around so much, with his pretty golden curls and charming smiles.

"Tomorrow then.", he leaned down beside her, "I'll buy all your father's horses if that's what it takes."

Watching her from the side he could just see the tiniest of smirks grace the corner of her lips, "That's an expensive sport you're wanting to try out."

"Well, have I ever told you that I have a lot of money?"

"Silly me, and here I was thinking you were a mere peasant."

"Was it the humility? The rogue charm?"

He'd just turned his head to look at her, a smirk playing on his lips, ready to come up with another joke to try and get another laugh from her when his brother's voice carried over from somewhere behind her, "Brother. I see you've met my advisor.", there was an edge to his voice, even if he was all drunken smiles, "She's pretty isn't she?"

"The prettiest.", Nikolai replied, pleasantly, even if he knew that wasn't quite the most interesting thing about her, "Come to save her from me?"

"Always.", Vasily's eyes went to the girl, and Nikolai realised he'd never asked for her name, "Did he bore you?"

"Not at all.", the mask slipped back onto her face, as empty as it was pretty, not that Vasily would ever notice, "I see he's inherited your charm."

"Yes, but not quite all of it."

Nikolai cast a glance her way and offered a slight smirk, something unspoken about it, an intimate joke, "I shall leave you two alone, I'm sure you've found another horse to bore her with, brother."

Vasily cleared his throat, "See you at dinner, little brother."

As he walked away, he could hear Vasily ask her for the details of their conversation, the jealousy seeping into his voice like poison. Then something about the workhorse they'd been looking at, wondering why she'd ever want that broken halfbreed. Nikolai knew why his brother had raised his voice when saying that, knew those words were meant for him more than her, but he was too tired to care. Tomorrow then. Hell, he might actually get himself some horses of his own tomorrow.

#nikolai lantsov #nikolai lantsov x reader #nikolai lantsov imagine #grishaverse #shadow and bone #of horsefairs and maidens #reposting this to the new standalone blog! #for practicality's sake #really sorry for the confusion tough <3 #i'll be posting part 2 and other excerpts on this blog from now on :)

[solarwonux]

prince!mingyu x princess!reader

w.c: 2.2k

warnings: angst, just a lot of it. 

note: I KNOW YOU WANTED BEST FRIENDS TO LOVERS BUT IT TOOK A TURN AND NOW I HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE CONSEQUENCES. I’M SORRY. anyway I hope you enjoy please please please let me know your thoughts .xx

masterlist || drabble game

Mingyu’s hand was intertwined tightly with yours as he led you further down the hallway of the palace. Away from the boisterous ballroom and the familiar low murmur of gossip and loud laughter of Kings and Queens, Princes and Princesses from all around the Kingdom.

It was the annual ball Mingyu’s parents—the King and Queen held a month after Mingyu’s birth. It was the one out of the two times a year where you got to see the tall handsome Prince, with now freshly teal dyed hair. A rebellious act on his part just to get under his parent’s skin. This is how he always was; his mischievous ways always gave you a certain rush of adrenaline, keeping you on the edge of excitement. The one in which you feared simply because if you hadn’t befriended the boy with the toy sword who went around challenging every single palace official he could spot within the limit of his parent’s ballroom; you wouldn’t be where you were now. With his fingers encased between the empty spots between your fingers as he took long strides down towards the forbidden ballroom the King and Queen always warned about. 

“Slow down Mingyu, I don’t have freakishly long legs like you.” You gripped the train of your off-white dress that oddly resembled a wedding dress. The thought alone made your heart race, simply because according to your mother, you were running out of time and needed to be wedded off soon. You figured that was the only reason for the way your dress looked, to give off the illusion of what you would like as a bride to the Kings and Queens that attended the annual ball looking for possible suitors for their offspring’s or in some cases themselves. Yet despite all that, the only person you ever wanted to spend the remainder of your life was with the boy who had stolen you away to chaos havoc around the dark corners of his castle one summer when the two of you had turned nine. The same one who was leading you away from the tiresome crowd, and the one who was already engaged to someone else. A Princess whose family was far better off than yours and checked off all the boxes in the eyes of the king and queen.

“You wouldn’t be having such a problem keeping up if you would’ve just grown a little more after I told you too.” The teasing tone wrapped ever so evidently around his vocal cords, hinting to the summer night a few years ago when the two of you had tried sneaking off into town together. But when you had failed to jump the fence after him, ripping your favorite dress in the process and getting caught by palace officials. He had expressed through gritted teeth and an angry gaze that the two of you would have been frolicking through town instead of getting lectured by both sets of parents if you had only been a little taller and not worn a dress. 

“Yes, I’m sorry your majesty next time I’ll let my gene pool know about your request.”  You huffed obviously annoyed. Clearly, Mingyu found it entertaining because instead of combating your comment with another teasing one of his he just stopped walking and let out a boyish laugh, causing you to trip and bump into the side of his body. “You’re annoying Mingyu.” You tore your hand away from his and crossed both your arms in front of your body. The gesture alone would’ve been followed by a lecture if your mother had been there to witness it. It was unladylike but who were you to care if it was or wasn’t. The only one you wanted and cared to impress already had his eyes locked on someone else. 

“Princess, are you…flirting with me because if so can’t say I’m impressed. Pretty disappointed actually.” He tsked shaking his head as he backed up against the familiar forbidden set of double doors.  You were panicked and looked around quickly to see if anyone was in sight, but to your surprise you and Mingyu were truly alone for the first time since sundown. “You would think that after years of knowing me, you would find me endearing instead of annoying, can’t say I’m not hurt by your indifference.” His hand moved slowly to the rustic gold handles and with a smirk followed up by a cheeky wink he opened them. The cold air from the untouched room folding over your lace trim covered arms. 

“Mingyu what the fuck are you doing, if they find us, we will never hear the end of it.” You yelled lowly. This had been a familiar sight during the years of your friendship. The two of you always found yourselves in front of the infamous double doors, hands itching to open them to reveal what was hiding behind. To finally see what the King and Queen were so adamant about keeping a secret. Each time you had been caught, lectured until the voices of his parents grew hoarse, while your parents begged them to spare your life. It had gotten to the point in which the two of you weren’t allowed to be alone anymore. The few times in which you found yourselves alone, there was always a palace guard inconspicuously watching from afar. 

“A Princess shouldn’t be speaking that way,” he opened the door widely, revealing a dark room where the only light known was the one that belonged to the moon as it filtered in through the skylight. The setting far too intimate for a relationship of your kind. Though, before you could protest and suggest going back to tiresome ball to listen to the same round of gossip for the umpteenth time, he grabbed your arm, dragged you inside and shut the door faster than you could form the words, “and we would only be caught if we stay outside. Now that we’re inside no one will ever know.” He whispered, the low vibrato of his voice sent shivers down your spine, and you thanked all your precious Gods for the limited lighting you found yourself facing. 

“Can I ask why we are here then?” You said, the famous rush of gut-wrenching adrenaline you only felt with Mingyu, returned. Instead of answering your million dollar question he simply shrugged and walked back, entering the faint spotlight supplied by the moon. As you looked around there wasn’t much to the ballroom, it was far smaller than the one you were used to spending time it, but it had a variety of glass sculptures that sparkled underneath the light of the moon slowly bringing them to life. Finally, you understood why this room was off limits. It wept with vulnerability so beautiful it took your breath away. 

“Care to share a dance with me?” Mingyu all but whispered holding his hand out inviting you in. Though, you had known the reckless prince for the entirety of your life. Never once did the two of you share a dance. It was an ongoing joke between the two of you that dances were only reserved for people you never wanted to see again. It made you wonder if this was Mingyu’s way of finally letting you go. To which you understood even though it brought an ache to your heart so awful that you would rather have someone cut it out completely. Somehow you had convinced yourself that hurt less then actually saying goodbye to the one person you had ever grown to love. 

After tonight, the secret trips into town would stop. The letters that shared equal amounts of adoration and frustration would stop. And the mystery of what was inside the forbidden ballroom would stop as well, because now you finally knew enough to be able to close the chapter you had kept opened for years. “Y-Yes.” You cleared your throat and pushed yourself away from your spot against the doors and slowly made your way to Mingyu. “There’s no music playing though.” You added once you were finally in front of him. It wasn’t entirely the truth, the faint melodies coming from the ballroom could still be heard as they bled through the dark walls of the ballroom. 

“Where is the rule book that says that you need music in order to dance?” He said wiggling the fingers of his extended hand as a sign that he was waiting for you to take it. “Even if such one exists; I wouldn’t care enough to read it. So just share a dance with me tonight, away from all the stares and all the whispers…but here…alone in the room where I’m meant to share my first dance with my wife.” 

“T-Then shouldn’t you save this moment for when it comes, why waste it on me?” You swallowed the thick lump that had formed at the base of your throat. It made sense why this room was off limits and it wasn’t because of how delicate it looked on the outside. It was meant to be shared between a husband and wife, and clearly not between childhood friends. With one suffering from unrequited love. 

Mingyu smiled a sad smile and it plucked your heartstrings creating a soft melody that longed for the times in which the two of you had no care for the world around your shared bubble. He grabbed your hand gently and intertwined your fingers together reeling you in and resting his hand against your lower back. “Your hands look so little compared to mind.” He deflected staring sweetly at your hand locked in his. You watched as he shook his head before lifting it, getting deeply lost in your eyes and he silently wondered if your heart was also beating ten times faster than it usually did. 

“I-I think we should go Mingyu, we shouldn’t be in here let alone toge—” 

“There’s no other person I would rather be in here with than you. I’ve always wanted you to be the one to enter this room with me. Where I can create such an intimate memory one no can take away from me no matter how hard they try to keep up as away from each other. I knew when I met you back when we were kids that I would always love you, but I also knew that my parents would never want you to be by my side when it came to ruling this kingdom. You challenge their views the only ones they have ever known, and it scares them, but their fear will never stop me from wanting you. I already failed once, obviously, but this time I’m not baking up. I’m going to fight for you and your heart even if it means leaving everything I have ever know behind.”

The only time you had ever heard such unfiltered determination in his voice was when the two of you were fifteen. After you had been caught having an unprompted picnic in his mother’s rose garden. 

“Don’t think about doing anything stupid Mingyu.” You blinked slowly. You were slow to process his confession because it was everything you had longed to hear. But you also had to make sure that you were in fact here and that it wasn’t your mind playing some sort of cruel joke on you because you had had two flutes of champagne and anything was possible.

“Leave your room open tonight, I have bribed some guards into secrecy, and we can leave tonight. Just you and me just like we’ve always talked about.” He rested his forehead against yours, holding you as close as your dress allowed him. His ears were as red as bricks and you knew that although he was determined to leave everything behind, he was also scared.

“Mingyu.” You sighed and pushed him away, creating enough space between the two of you, a frown forming along his usual soft features. “We can’t, I can’t let you do this. This isn’t some fairytale your mother used to read to you before bed. This is your life and my life on the line. If they find us do you think they’ll greet us back with open arms?” You reasoned backing away from him and the center of the room. Away from the moonlight and into the dark. 

“Who cares, they shouldn’t be able to keep us from loving each other. I want to spend the rest of my life with you and if that means living this hell hole, I’ve been so unfortunate enough to be born into then I will and I want you to be by my side.” 

“Mingyu, I can’t I’m so sorry.” You continued to move before your back hit the doors, the ridges digging into your back as your hand blindly looked for the handle. You were about to do the one thing you never thought to do. Sacrifice the many years of friendship that had blossomed between the two of you. You were about to break two hearts instead of one all because his safety was more important to you rather then your own happiness. 

“Why not?” He took a step forward and into the darkness. He was approaching you faster than you could have ever imagined, and you opened the door in a haste causing him to stop walking all together. Your grip on the door handle was so hard that your hand had started to grow numb. It took every last fiber of your being to not close it again and kiss him like you had always dreamed, but this wasn’t a dream . It was reality, and your reality was never meant to have a happy ending. 

“I just d-don’t love you, your majesty.” 

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