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hannie-dul-set · 5 months

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the psychology of strawberries — [s.qr].

SYNOPSIS. besides being your friend, kim gyuvin also holds the existence of being the worst matchmaker in history. the last guy he set you up with ended with a permanent ban from the arcade. the one before that caused you to file a restraining order. which is why when he tries to set you up one last time with his best friend, you understandably shut him down.

the problem is— why the fuck didn’t gyuvin tell you that his best friend is actually the prettiest man in the world? the most charming idiot to have graced your mortal existence? maybe if he did, you wouldn’t have to resort to pavlovian tactics and strawberries just to bag him. if he did, then you wouldn’t have to hide the fact that you’re kind of balls-deep in love with his friend.

PAIRING. shen quanrui x female! reader. GENRE. college! au, (anti) matchmaking! au, strangers to friends to lovers, eventual secret relationship. romance, humor, fluff, suggestive, older! reader, this is just lovelicky propaganda. sue me. WARNINGS. swearing, explicit language, mentions of sex, making out, making out in public, an almost car crash, stalking (not from any of the leads), erratic behavior (mostly from our lead), ricky in a floral shirt, black haired ricky and bathrobe ricky jumpscare. WORD COUNT. 21k.

TAGLIST. @lovialy @sarang-ae @khaelscafe @jenodreamer @lovelyrickyz @ciaoui @spjhyn @chwesuh-imnida @kgneptun @hanstarrs @dvalitaes @younxii @haesunflower @cyberpunksunwoo @tlnyjoong @bobabunhee @elavin @sassybakaaa @wishfulthnking @lvieee

NOTE. there is evident lack of plot in this. unless you consider thirsting over ricky as plot, then there’s a lot of plot. you’re welcome. feedback and comments are always appreciated, and i hope you enjoy!

AT SOME POINT IN YOUR LIFE, THE PROSPECT OF MEETING A NEW GUY STOPPED BEING A POINT OF INTEREST OR ANTICIPATION. It has now become a harbinger of horror, an inevitable car crash simply lying in wait. Gone are the days where you’re looking forward to the first kiss on your porch and doorstep— now, you don’t even care if you share the same hobbies or not, if you click well or not, neither if your personalities match or not.

Your only hope is that they don’t end up being a stalker or a slob or someone with severe anger issues. And there’s only one culprit for this seemingly permanent shift in your psychology.

“I’m not going on another date! At least one that you’re setting up.”

“C’mon!” Gyuvin clings onto your arm, preventing you from leaving the classroom. He’s crouching on the floor. Your face crunches up, looking down at him like he’s a piece of gum stuck on your boot sole. “This will be the last time. Please? I showed him a picture of you and he thinks you’re cute.”

The sole reason why Kim Gyuvin can get away with anchoring you by the arm with his entire body weight, why he can get away with setting you up with douchebag after douchebag, is because he’s a family friend, and you’ve known him for eight whole years. These tantrums are normal, but the sudden growth spurt he had in ninth grade makes him occasionally forget that you’re still two years older than him. You were already walking before he was even born. This bitch thinks he can make you do what he wants.

“Get off! Are you trying to dislocate my shoulder?”

The moment you raise your free arm to a fist, he releases you from his clutches and puts his arms up innocently, still crouched on the floor. You click your tongue with a sneer, brushing down your sleeve. Anyway, does he have amnesia? Has he forgotten how the last blind dates went?

“Your friend Jaeryeong also thought I was cute,” you start. “Really cute, in fact. To the point where he wouldn’t leave me alone and I had to file a restraining order against him.”

Now, he’s finally looking guilty. Gyuvin clear his throat and jumps back up to his feet, straightening his clothes and not daring to look you in the eye. “He—he had some issues that I wasn’t aware of and I’m sorry for that— but Ricky is different! He’s not some weirdo! I promise you that he’s a good guy and he’s good looking and—”

“You said the same thing about Do Hajun,” you cut him off. “Sure, he was pretty good looking, but he got so mad at a claw machine and started assaulting it in public. I got banned at the Game Plaza, Gyuvin. I’m not allowed there anymore. I was the top scorer at DDR there. I can’t maintain my rank there anymore because the last guy you set me up with had problems with his temper.”

He looks even more guilty now. Your glare softens because it’s not entirely his fault. But this time the guy’s name is Ricky. That sounds like a fuckboy’s name. A fuckboy who probably wears snapbacks and jeans a little too low. You’re not taking any fucking chances.

“Okay,” Gyuvin breathes out. “I understand that I may have made some bad matches—”

“Some.”

“A lot of bad matches,” he corrects, sheepish. “But that’s just because so many people want to date you! If you think about it, it’s your fault for always attracting weirdos! I’m just the connecting bridge and messenger! I’m sick and tired of my friends asking me to set you up with them too!”

“So why the hell are you trying to do it again?!” Man, you’re getting tired. You asked him to meet you in your lecture hall after class because you wanted to check up on his project, but the moment he came in, he tried throwing you into the sharks once again in an instant.

You dig into your bag for a piece of candy, unwrapping it and popping it into your mouth with an unamused expression as Gyuvin tries his damn best to market his friend to you. “This will be the last one, I promise! Ricky is my best friend and I can assure you that he’s a decent guy. He’s hot. He’s got a car. Didn’t you say before that you wanted a hot boyfriend with a car?”

“If he’s so hot then why are you so desperately trying to sell him off?”

You weren’t born yesterday. Hell, you were born earlier than this matchmaking scammer and he regularly forgets about that. “Well,” he starts, clearing his throat. “He’s my best friend, but I need my solo time too! If he gets a girlfriend, then maybe he’ll stop showing up at my apartment every Friday night and—”

“That’s enough.”

You stuff a piece of candy into his mouth, promptly shutting him up. His eyes are wide, shock quickly morphing into a grimace when the flavor finally kicks in. Durian. Serves him fucking right.

“Go set your friend up with someone else. I called you in here for a different reason, Kim Gyuvin.” Nothing like dropping his full name and reminding him that you’re still his upperclassman as a cold splash of water to the face. Gyuvin flinches, suddenly straightening himself. “How’s your project going? You only have two months left to finish it. I hope you didn’t forget.”

His face tells you that he forgot about it, but not totally. He’s reluctantly chewing on the candy you force-fed him. “I’ve— I’ve already picked out a place. Hadong Country in Gyeongsang. I’m planning on going there next week.”

“Alright, good.” You leave him with a pat on the shoulder. “Tell me once you’ve set the date. You should worry about your term paper instead of mine or your friend’s love life. Getting us to date won’t pull up your GPA, Gyuvin.”

“But—”

“No, that’s enough,” you shut him down. “I’m not dating this Ricky guy. That’s final. Nothing you can do or say will change my mind.”

Famous last words. Little did you know that you’d be eating that very statement by the weekend.

ONE OF THE PRIVILEGES YOU’VE GOTTEN FROM SUCKING UP TO YOUR PROFESSORS SINCE FRESHMAN YEAR IS HAVING FULL LIBERTY OF USING THEIR OFFICE AS A HANG-OUT SPOT. The air-conditioning here is better than the classrooms or students lounge. You can even raid their snack pantry as much as you want— grabbing a handful from the candy bowl, now filled with pink wrappers of some strawberry hard candy— and stuffing them into the small pocket of your bag to restock your portable stash.

“Does Prof Yoon know you’re the one that keeps vacuuming his candy bowl?”

The question comes from Hanbin, who’s just as shamelessly making himself a cup of coffee with the faculty’s machine. The both of you are regular freeloaders at the office. A well-earned privilege, you’d like to say.

“He knows,” you reply, snatching a box of pepero for good measure. “He lets me get away with it because I’m his favorite student.”

There’s one more freeloader. Hao is sitting on the cushy sofa set funded by the student’s tuition fees, sharing a conversation with Mrs. Lee, and the two of you join him not long after. “You three are supervising some of the freshmen this year, right?” your professor asks, and her question is met with a set of artificial positive responses. “I guess I can look forward to some of their outputs then,” she leaves with a hearty laugh and a hard pat on Hao’s back. You wince.

“Why is an old lady so strong?” he laments once Mrs. Lee is sure to have returned to her cubicle. Hanbin is feeling and probing around his spine in case it got broken.

“I hear she’s a member at the gym Jiwoong goes to,” you say. “Scary woman. Thank god we’re on her good side.”

Complaining about your professors in hushed voices while being in their office is a rare skill the three of you have mastered over the past two years. The two elicit murmurs of agreement with your statement. “Speaking, how are your kids doing?” asks Hanbin. Kids, referring to the eighteen to nineteen year olds under your care for their term project.

Hao takes your pepero stick offer before grumbling. “I don’t get why we have to supervise the freshmen when he have our own assignments and projects to deal with.”

“Because Mrs. Lee will give us extra points for our class with her if we do,” you remind. “Gyuvin is doing the bare minimum. At least he now has a location settled down.” The project is for their required course in community development. The freshmen are tasked to select a rural area in the country and do a needs-based assessment survey on it. You did the same when you were in your first year. Mrs. Lee is also the head of the university extensions office. You three have theorized that she’s just using this annual assignment to update her data inventory.

“Gunwook is too passionate. He wants to go all the way to freaking Mokpo.”

“At least he sounds hardworking,” you say, disregarding Hanbin’s stress over an inevitable five-hour drive. “Why can’t Gyuvin be the same? All he does is set me up with terrible men and barge into my family dinners.”

You say that, but everyone who knows you knows that Kim Gyuvin, despite being generally annoying, has burrowed a soft spot in your heart. Unlike Hanbin and Hao who missed a 40-point quiz for Mrs. Lee’s class to join a random play dance competition at the plaza (they won), you didn’t really need the extra points merit, so you had no intentions on volunteering to be a supervisor in the first place.

But when you caught whiff of the news that your poor, poor younger friend of eight years still didn’t have a senior-supervisor for the project, you somehow found yourself in front of Mrs. Lee’s office cubicle and signed up at the last moment.

Which is also why you’re up at 5 a.m. in front of Gyuvin’s apartment building on a weekend, no breakfast in the stomach, just to accompany him to Gyeongsang for this god forsaken community development project.

“Morning.”

Gyuvin greets you with a yawn and a heavy ruffle on the top of your head, to which you respond with a side kick to his ass when he walks past you. “You’re late,” you scold him, and though you want to continue berating your dear friend, two more familiar-looking people emerge from his building’s entrance.

“Oh, this is Taerae and Matthew,” Gyuvin informs you offhandedly. The two give you a mix of polite nods and smiles. You sort of know Taerae because you shared a class with him last semester. Matthew is just the guy you see at the campus coffee shop at least once a week. “They’re going to be my survey assistants. More people means more ground to cover at once.”

“How’d he scam you two into agreeing?” you ask.

“He’s buying me lunch for a week,” Taerae replies.

“I just wanted to go on a road trip,” Mathew says in a tone too bright for five in the morning.

You let out a huff of air. Your backpack is getting a little heavy on your shoulders, and all you want is to finally reclaim your lost weekend. Meaning, getting on the road as soon as possibly is priority number one. “So, are we commuting?” you ask. “We should get going then.”

“Oh, no,” Gyuvin replies. He’s already noticed your impatience, and has found himself standing behind you, taking your bag off of your bag so that you don’t snap at him for the next statement he’s about to say. “Actually, we’re waiting for one more per—”

A car horn cuts him off.

“Well, nevermind. He’s here.”

At that moment, a way too expensive looking car drives up to the porch of Gyuvin’s college-level priced apartment building. This is looking way too out of place. Matthew lets out a whistle when the car stops in front of you. “This kid just got his license exchange and the first thing he does is show off,” Taerae snorts. What...what does he mean? Is this your ride? Is this the (at least seventy-thousand-dollar) vehicle that’ll be driving you all the way to the outskirts of Hadong County?

The variables don’t click, but your surprise doesn’t end there. Because the person that emerges from the expensive looking ass car’s driver’s seat is— by far— the prettiest person you’ve ever seen in your twenty-one years of life.

Whoa.

Not even those thick, dark shades can obscure that god-sculpted looking face. They only make his nose bridge look even sharper, and you’re trying your damn best not to stare at those full and cherry-painted lips. Holy shit. Platinum blonde has always looked tacky to you, but now you have to re-evaluate. Oh my god. Kim Gyuvin has a friend that looks like this, and all he’s done is set you up with guys that can’t even fucking compare.

Walking statue of a man closes the car door behind him with a click. “Get in,” he says. Holy mother of god, you’re light-headed. Your brain is fuzzy. You’re about to pass out.

“Ricky! You’re late! How dare you keep the madam waiting?!”

Things start happening a little too quickly.

Wait a second—

“Shotgun!”

That name.

“Fuck off! Let’s play for the seat!”

Sounds Very.

“Rock, paper, scissors, shoot! Rock, paper, scissors—”

Very—

“Paper, scissors— shoot!”

—familiar.

“Dammit,” Matthew grumbles in defeat, joining Taerae in the backseat. You stare at the fist you have held out since earlier. Rock. Rick. Ricky. This guy’s name is Ricky. Isn’t that also the name of Gyuvin’s best friend? The best friend he was trying to set you up with? This is Ricky? This absolute god of a fucking man who’s looking at you with an ounce of confusion, still holding your fist up after somehow winning all rounds of rock, paper, scissors with nothing but a rock, is the Ricky you turned down a date with?

You were correct to assume that his name gives off fuckboy vibes. The problem is, he looks like a really, really hot fuckboy who you don’t mind ruining your life in exchange for three months of fun. Shit. You think you just made eye contact with him through his thick-ass sunglasses. He nods a little with a small, awkward smile before disappearing back into the driver’s seat.

Fuck. He knows. He definitely knows you wrongfully rejected his ass without even meeting him. Gyuvin, that snitching son of a bitch.

“Hey.”

With a heavy grip on his shoulder, you stop the said snitching son of a bitch before he can escape into the backseat. “What?” Gyuvin raises a brow. The audacity of this guy.

“What was your best friend’s name again?”

“Ricky Shen. Shen Quanrui. Shim Cheonye. Pick one.”

“Is that...the same…?”

“Yes, that guy is Ricky.” There’s an impatient honk from the car. You pay no mind, more concerned about the absolute fucking catch you totally drove away, and that regret is seeping through you expression, failing to wiggle out from Gyuvin’s notice. “Why do you ask?” Are you regretting turning down my offer last week? his face seems to say. You want to hit him. Yes, you are fucking regretting it, but there’s no way in hell you’re giving him the satisfaction of knowing.

“It’s just a little awkward,” you say. “Can you switch with me?”

“Matt hyung’s gonna throw a fit if I take your seat,” he simply hums, opening the door to the front seat on your behalf with a courteous bow that drives you further into annoyance. “Now hop in. We’re already behind schedule.”

You’re the bigger person here so you decide against throwing a tantrum. Begrudgingly, you enter the passenger’s seat, trying to ignore aphrodite’s reincarnation sitting right next to you, and prepare yourself for the three-hour drive or torture because you totally screwed over your chance of having him.

“Woohoo! Road trip!”

“We’re here for my project, idiot.”

“Please tone it down, I’m trying to sleep.”

It’s fine, you cross your arms, wiggling uncomfortably on the soft seat. It’s totally fine. None of Gyuvin’s friends have been decent so far. Yes. You shouldn’t judge positively too quickly. Maybe the only thing this one has going for him is his face. Maybe his personality is just as shitty as the last ones and you’ve completely dodged a bullet.

A very pretty bullet. The pretty bullet is looking at you through the rearview mirror. Oh god, why is he looking at you? He’s got his sunglasses down and those eyes are practically staring into your soul.

“Um,” Ricky clears his throat. “You should put on your seatbelt.”

That rasp shouldn’t be as attractive as it is. Fuck. This man is a walking heart hazard. “O—oh, sorry!” You’re stupid. Your brain is fried. You fumble with the dumb seatbelt, forgetting how it works, and mentally swearing at yourself in the process.

“Do you need any help…?”

Fight or flight instincts kick in. You smack away Ricky’s attempt at a helping hand. His eyes are wide in shock. Your eyes are wide in shock. You want to throw yourself out of this vehicle right now. “It’s—it’s fine!” Finally, you manage to put on the seatbelt. Ricky is a mix of confusion and offense when he starts the car, more on confusion, but that’s alright. The aftermath of him pulling a k-drama move and helping you with the seatbelt would have been worse. You would have disintegrated right then and there.

Your only source of comfort is the backpack that you’re hugging for your dear life. The entire ride is excruciatingly awkward because the three boys at the back have fallen asleep— a state you also wish to be in right now, but that’s quite frankly impossible because you’re a million times more conscious about your physical appearance right now with a literal angel next to you.

He’s not asking why you’re pressed so far up against the door. For safety reasons, you tell yourself. The air around him just subconsciously feels a lot hotter despite the air conditioning literally blowing cold air to your face.

“Would...would you like some?”

But that doesn’t mean you could stomach this awkwardness, either. Two hours have passed and neither of you have said a word to each other. You’re a fistful into your candy stash and it feels rude not to offer anything to him when he’s been driving for so long.

You have a cautious arm outstretched, a pink wrapper dangling between your thumb and index finger. Ricky peers down for a split second, a rumble from his throat before saying, “N—no, it’s okay.” The candy disappears into the crevices of his car. You dip your head down, trying to feel around for it, and Ricky continues talking. “Um. I mean. You don’t really have to force yourself to get along with me, seonbae. I already know that you don’t really like me.”

At that moment, you snap your head up. “What?”

Maybe you should’ve been more careful because you scare the shit out of Ricky and the car swerves off the lane.

Screech!

“Ah,” he exhales, parking the car at the edge of the road after nearly killing you all. “That was close.” How the three kids in the back are still asleep is beyond you. They’ve got their necks twisted in all the weird places and you’re pretty sure Matthew is drooling.

But the source of your adrenaline right now isn’t the near death experience.

“What do you mean you know that I don’t like you?”

Translation: what exactly did Kim Gyuvin say to this guy?

“You...turned down the blind date Gyu tried setting up,” he says. Well that’s because Gyuvin never showed you a picture of his face! Instead of using useless words to try and convince you to say yes, he should’ve just sent you his instagram and called it a day. “This car ride must be awkward for you, sorry. I’ll try to get to Hadong as soon as possible.”

He’s sweet and polite too! God, you’ve completely screwed it over. You spend the rest of the car ride overthinking and feeling sorry for yourself. The moment you arrive at your destination, you eject yourself from the car instantaneously. “Alright, we’re wasting daylight. Let’s get moving!” you clasp your hands together, hurrying your barely-awake lackeys into the town.

With five people, the surveys and interviews get done quicker than expected. At one point, while you were surveying a marketplace owner, your attention got inadvertently distracted by spotting Ricky from the corner of your eye helping out an old lady with a cart and you nearly had a meltdown. Again, why didn’t Gyuvin introduce you to him before your impression of his friends got screwed over by Jaeryeong and Hajun and all the fucking rest?

“What a sweet boy,” says the marketplace owner. He is a sweet boy. That sweet and insanely handsome boy could’ve been yours (not guaranteed).

“Hey!” Gyuvin snaps you out of your daze. You look up, crouched underneath the shade of a tree. One of the locals was kind enough to give you a tour of their plum fields in the village, but you’re a little too rattled to actually appreciate the green scenery. “The ahjumma gave us some plums to taste!”

“You’re a bad person,” you suddenly say. Gyuvin’s face distorts in offense.

“Well, if you don’t want any plums, you can just say so, meanie.”

Maybe you are a meanie, but you’re still not over everything today. While the four boys are fucking around from a bit of a distance, you’re still crouched down and absentmindedly petting a stray cat and moping. Matthew says something you can’t hear, and the three burst out laughing— only the three at first, because Ricky looks lost for a second, blinking with a dumb smile, before joining their laughter only a beat late.

Oh no, he’s cute. Oh god, you’re falling. Oh man, you’re a goner.

“Time to go home!”

It’s around four in the afternoon when you finally finish. You’re all gathered around Ricky’s car again, ready for another grueling drive back to Seoul. “Go sit in the back. I’ll drive this time,” says Taerae to Ricky, and there starts another rock, paper, scissors battle for who will take the front seat.

Unlike earlier where you won without even realizing there was a game, you lose even after praying to all the gods you know.

“Nice!” Matthew cheers, not even giving you a shot of negotiation because he quickly disappears into the car. You’re looking at Gyuvin, painted in shock and disbelief. Before you know it, you’re wedged into the backseat, in between the two men you’d like to be around the least at the moment.

Yours and Ricky’s shoulders are touching. This is worse than earlier. He looks just as uncomfortable as you are— arms resting on the open windowsill, head uncomfortably craned away from you and giving you a full view of the tattoo trailing down his neck. Something snaps in your brain. This is your nth breakdown of the day.

“Let me in your candy stash.”

Gyuvin gives himself the liberty to zip open the front pocket of your backpack while you’re hugging it in your seat. The sound of you swatting his hand away seems to catch Ricky’s attention, so you give up defending your property and let Gyuvin snatch a handful of the strawberry-flavored sweets from your bag. “This tastes gross,” he says with a grimace. “So artificial. Blegh.”

You suddenly hear a gasp from your left. “How can you say that?” You’re shocked to find out it’s from Ricky. He’s been relatively quiet all this time. Gyuvin sure knows how to get into everyone’s nerves. “Take it back.”

“I’ll take it back if you dye your hair black for a day.”

A harmless fist zooms in front of your face. “Now way.” Ricky is hitting Gyuvin.

“Gross, this is so gross.” Gyuvin is hitting Ricky back.

“So what.”

“I’m telling your mom about this.”

Your existence is forgotten and your breathing space in between these two relatively large men has significantly diminished. Your face is burning. You can’t do this anymore so you clear your throat, causing Ricky— who’s leaned a little too close, fist in the air mid-punch— to suddenly tuck himself back into his side of the car.

It becomes quiet again when Matthew and Gyuvin slowly doze off to sleep.

Gaze flitting to the front, you notice that Taerae is quite preoccupied with swearing at another car that just overtook yours. You take this as an opportunity.

A slight nudge to his arm, you hold open your palm without looking at Ricky. It’s a handful of the strawberry flavored candy he was so staunchly defending against Gyuvin earlier. He might’ve rejected your offering earlier, but you’re damn bent on ending this day by fixing his impression of you, even if it’s just a miniscule improvement.

He’s got his head trained down, staring at your offering with a face laced with a mixture of surprise, confusion, and uncertainty before a hesitant hand plucks out a single wrapper from the pile. “Thank you,” you hear him say softly, and you don’t miss the tiniest smile playing on his lips when the sweet touches his tongue, poking against the inside of his cheek and you feel somewhat offended because a damn piece of candy can elicit such an expression on his face when you can’t.

It’s not stiff like the numerous bouts of awkward eye contact you’ve been sharing without end. It’s not forced. It’s not uncomfortable.

It’s an expression that makes you feel all the more regretful because you probably won’t be seeing him ever again after this.

“Did you see that guy?! He honked at me! He fucking honked at me!”

But maybe that’s a good thing. Because maybe then, you’ll be forced to stop lamenting the chance you completely wasted.

MAYBE YOU SPOKE TO SOON. It’s the afternoon of a Friday, not even a week after your one-day trip to Hadong County. And Fridays are your cheat days to take a dip into your allowance for some well deserved milk tea at a bougie cafe next to your university.

What isn’t part of your usual Wednesdays is the inexplicable, one in a million chance that you’d be bumping into Ricky Shen again.

“Oh.”

You’re about to enter. He’s just about to leave, pushing open the door with one hand and holding a bright pink drink with so much whipped cream which looks particularly out of place against his all-black ensemble. The only common denominator between the both of you is the look of surprise you’re both sharing.

Ricky recovers before you do. He steps aside, giving you space to walk in while holding the door open. How the bare minimum is making you weak in the knees, you have no idea. “Th—thanks,” you give him a smile and walk forward, before putting yourself to a stop and spinning around. “Oh, wait. Have this.”

You dig into your pockets and drop three pieces of strawberry candy onto his hand. You don’t miss the way his eyes sparkle. “Thanks. See you around.” He leaves. You feel like you’re on top of the world.

From now on, you’re gonna stuff all your pockets with strawberry-flavored candy (courtesy of Prof Yoon from the faculty office) until Ricky gets brainwashed that your presence doesn’t bear awkwardness or discomfort, no— you are a good person. Your presence brings with you strawberries and sweetness. That one psych class you took last semester is finally proving itself to be useful. Ricky will fall in love with you through Pavlov and classical conditioning.

Is this ethical? Probably not. Will this work? You don’t bet on it, but his cute smile makes it all fucking worth it.

That is if a miracle happens that you somehow end up seeing more of each other. You sigh, waiting for the buzzer to receive your order. You remember that Ricky is a freshman, meaning you have zero chances of sharing classes with him, and your only mutual friend is Kim Gyuvin. You’d rather kill yourself than give him the satisfaction of knowing that you have a crush on his best friend.

Well, there’s also Matthew and Taerae. After your trip to Hadong, you somehow got added to a group chat with the two of them. “Same age friends have to stick together!” says Matthew. You’re not sure if you’re already at the point of calling them friends, but you are having dinner with them later, so that’s something. But no matter how much you want to gush about your feelings for the light-haired boy, you don’t think you can out yourself to those two just yet.

The buzzer vibrates in your hands. You stand up to get your order, only to be stopped by a familiar face that you’re not quite happy to see.

“I—I didn’t follow you here, I swear!”

Your expression sours. That last time you saw him was approximately three months ago— when you threatened him with a fake restraining order after Gyuvin and Hanbin helped you move into a new apartment.

“Jaeryeong.” You feel your blood pressure rising from the mere utterance of his name. “Is a restraining order not enough for you? Do I have to put you in jail so you can finally learn your fucking lesson?”

He looks rattled. “I heard— I heard from Siyun that the document is fake!”

Well, damn. You click your tongue. You thought it’d work for a little while longer than this. Maybe you should get a real RO next time. “So does that give you the right to keep stalking me, you damn creep?” You’re getting a headache. This guy’s appearance just makes you miss Ricky even more (gentle remember that Ricky probably doesn’t give a shit about you, nor does he think about you as much as you’ve thought about him within the past six days of your acquaintance).

“I really didn’t follow you here! This was just a coincidence!”

“Sure,” you wrinkle your nose. “Was breaching my privacy and following me all the way to my parents’ place a coincidence too?”

Maybe riling him up is a bad idea, but you’re not exactly the best at interpersonal relationships (case in point, Riky Shen). But this is also a public place, so if he does pull anything dangerous, one of the cafe patrons is likely to take a video which you can use against him. Jaeryeong has his jaw clenched, visibly grated. “Look, I came up to you today to try and clear our misunderstanding, but if you keep on being a little bitch, then—”

“Then what?”

You’re surprised to hear a much welcomed voice from behind you.

“What are you gonna do?”

The last person you expected to swoop in and save you from this clingy freak is your senior who’s been out of reach for months now because he’s dying in post-grad.

Kim Jiwoong suddenly tucks you behind him, wearing the facade of intimidation to scare off Jaeryeong— which, for some reason, ends up working because he runs off without much of a fight. “I’ll— I’ll talk to you later!” he says before leaving. Jiwoong lets out a sigh and turns around, looking at you with both disappointment and concern.

“You shouldn’t provoke guys like that. Who knows what could’ve happened to you.”

“I could’ve handled it even without you, seonbae,” you tell him. His gaze softens. You give him a bright smile. “It’s nice to see you, too.”

You know that Jiwoong is incapable of getting mad at you. The both of you catch up in the cafe once you’ve finally gotten your drink without any further interruptions. Whatever Gyuvin is to you, that’s who you are to Jiwoong. He was your project supervisor when you were a freshman, randomly assigned by a roulette, and somehow, you two still keep in touch two years later.

The both of you settle on a table inside the cafe. “How are your classes?” he asks. You reply with a bitter grunt, and that’s enough of a response for him to laugh and understand.

“By the way,” you rouse, spinning the remnants of the drink in slow spirals. “Seonbae. You’re close with Gyuvin, right?”

If your memory serves you right, you’ve seen them talking a couple of times with each other before, eliciting your utter confusion before ultimately finding out that apparently, they attended the same local dance studio before along with Hanbin and Hao for a period of time. “Well, sure,” is Jiwoong’s reply. That was just the lead-in question to your actual main question, which is—

“How about...his best friend?” you add. “Are you close with him too?”

You can see it in his face. He’s connecting the dots. You’re fiddling with your drink cup, nervous. The moment things click, Jiwoong unleashes a knowing grin.

“Are you crushing on Ricky?”

Well, damn. He didn’t need to be so blunt about it.

“And—and—and what if I am?” Smooth. Very smooth. You clear your throat, tugging on your collar to let some air in while Jiwoong stirs his americano with the straw, chin resting on his palms, evident amusement playing on his face. “So, anyway. I’m taking that as a yes— you are close with him.”

“Sure,” he hums. You want to sock him in the face.

“Well, is he anything like Gyuvin’s other friends,” you question. “Like Jaeryeong, or Hajun, or that one guy that told me to ‘sit pretty and shut my mouth’ because that’s what a woman ought to do?”

“No, no. Ricky isn’t anything like that,” he replies. “He looks a little intimidating, but he’s a nice kid. I don’t even think I’ve ever heard him raise his voice at anyone.” Ricky does seem pretty soft spoken and it’s hurting your heart. This doesn’t go under Jiwoong’s radar. He laughs at your misery and your shoulders slack. “His only flaw is his overconfidence, I think. Next time you meet him, you should compliment his face.”

No, but confidence is attractive. Overconfidence must mean extra attractive, right? Yes? “Thanks for the tip,” you grunt. “But can you not tell Gyoob that I sort of have a thing for his friend?”

This brings Jiwoong’s brows to a furrow. “Isn’t he hell bent on marrying off Ricky?”

“Yes. Well. There was a situation.” You don’t intend on telling Jiwoong about the said situation for the sake of your pride. He looks curious, but thankfully he doesn’t try to prod. The only thing that matters right now is that Ricky is Jiwoong-approved, and that’s good enough of a reason for you to pursue him under Kim Gyuvin’s nose. “Anyway, please keep this a secret.”

“What’s in it for me?” he asks.

“The continuation of my respect,” you flatly reply. Jiwoong, again, laughs and assures you that his lips are shut and sealed.

SOMEHOW, YOU’RE INVITED TO A BARBECUE DINNER AT MATTHEW’S BACKYARD. How long have you known him? Two weeks. Who else is invited to the dinner? His friends of two years the least. You’re not sure how you ended up here. Maybe you’re more charming than you thought. Maybe that’s why you keep attracting weird men.

But Matthew isn’t weird. He’s a little loud and a little too energetic for you to keep up with sometimes, but he’s nice, he’s polite, and you’d introduce him to your cousin if he’d let you.

You show up to his front door step with a convenience store bag full of canned beer. You’re still not sure what the occasion is, but alcohol is always a good gift. “You made it!” Matthew greets you with a half-hug, and upon entering the premises of his home, you spot Gyuvin giving you an unabashed look full of judgment while Matt takes your present out of your hands and into the cooler in the backyard.

“Since when were you two so chummy?” Gyuvin asks with narrowed eyes as he leads you to where everyone else is.

“Scared I might replace you in your friend group, Gyu?” you taunt.

“No. I’m scared of being the middleman again if Matthew hyung falls in love with you,” is his painfully honest answer. The yard is smoky and warm, familiar faces here and there— Hanbin being one of them, who graces you with a look of confused concern upon hearing Gyuvin’s words. “Hyung, you don’t understand my pain. I keep setting her up with my friends, but they’re never good enough for her. At this rate—”

At this rate, you’re gonna be needing a warning whenever Ricky suddenly appears in front of your vision— one of the people you preemptively deemed ‘not good enough for you’ only for it to bite you in the ass.

In fact, he may be too much for you, because for a second there, you had the presupposition that he might be walking up to you. That delusion is quickly evaporated into the barbecue smoke because he’s looking at Hanbin, not you.

“Hyung,” he says. “Woong hyung needs help with the grill.”

“Oh, I’ll be right there.”

In between, Gyuvin has somehow disappeared, leaving you alone with Ricky and the unreasonable amount of feelings you have for him. It’s been a good week since you’ve last seen him. He’s wearing a thick red jacket and that same look of awkwardness whenever you’re around. “Hello,” he greets you softly with a nod.

“Hi,” you do the same. It’s excruciating. It’s painful. There’s a sizzle in the air, music from the stereos, and the loud, rambunctious noises expected from a group of eight, nine boys. Yet it’s everything quiet in between the both of you.

But after that tense greeting, there’s a shift in his gaze, a change in his posture. He’s clearing his throat, balancing himself on the heels of his feet with tightly pressed lips resembling that of a smile— almost as if he’s expecting something from you.

Oh, you realize. Oh, he’s too cute.

Without much of a thought, you dig into your coat pockets.

“Hao!” you call out in a hurry, running off to the long picnic table where the rest are all gathered. Your heart is racing. Your heart is racing like crazy. “There’s still two faces I’m not acquainted with yet. Who’s this?”

While Hao introduces you to Gunwook and Yujin, your eyes flit over to the spot you’d left behind. Ricky is still standing there. He’s staring down, eyes trained on his cupped palms. “Ricky, come carry the cooler!” Taerae yells out for him, snapping him out of his daze. There’s a faint tinge of pink painting his ears when he strides off, fists closed with the same shade painting his knuckles. Your pockets are a lot lighter now. If you were him, you would have quite honestly fallen for yourself.

Dinner starts. You ask Yujin why he’s friends with a bunch of old men. “They’re obsessed with me,” is his reply, and you can’t debate with that. Not when five of them are suddenly yelling at Jiwoong for saying you should all play some drinking games to heat things up. It gets settled when Yujin and Gunwook are given glasses of apple juice, and the word ‘gorae’ is now being repeatedly thrown over the table.

One thing you’ve noticed is that Ricky is always a beat and half slow. It’s stupid adorable. Gyuvin passes the never-ending whale baton to him and he just continues the beat without saying anything, looking around like a lost cat, before letting out a noise and collapsing against Hanbin the moment he realized he just lost.

That’s it. You can’t take this anymore. He’s pocket-sized. You’re stuffing him inside your pocket. It doesn’t help that his flushed face makes him look exactly like the strawberries he loves much— matching the red of his jacket, and it’s driving you insane.

“You really do have a massive crush on him.”

Jiwoong invades your alone time once things have settled down a bit. You’re in the living room, sitting cross-legged on the floor right in front of the sliding doors to the backyard. No, you’re not sitting here because it gives you a nice view of Ricky chasing Gyuvin around with his jacket as a makeshift weapon. That’s not true at all. “Say it louder, will you,” you grunt when he takes a seat next to you, hitting the corner of your beer can with his before he takes a swig.

“I don’t have to. Not when you’re already practically outing yourself with your staring.”

You frown. “I’m not that obvious.” You double take. Then bite the inside of your cheek. “Hey. I think I’m screwed.”

Jiwoong shakes his head with a laugh. “Ricky is cute, isn’t he?”

Case in point, him doing that scrunchy face, gummy smile, when he suddenly bursts out laughing. You nod somberly. All Jiwoong does is make fun of your demise.

Still, you think you’re being subtle enough. Ricky is slow. He told you this was his strength and weakness when Gyuvin asked you to tag along with them on a shopping trip one time. But for someone who’s usually programmed to be in slow motion, he sure is quick to catch onto things when you don’t want him to.

“Seonbae.”

His voice is soft, unassuming. You’re both standing in front of Gyuvin’s apartment one late Friday afternoon. You’re holding open one of his hands, cupping his knuckles from underneath— something you’d never have anticipated to have the privilege of doing maybe three, four weeks prior— dropping five pieces of candy onto his palm without much of a thought.

“Yeah?” you hum.

He closes his hand and stuffs the fistful into his coat pocket, a completely blank and innocent face, before asking— “do you like me?”

Now, this wasn’t in your monthly fucking bingo.

You stifle back a choking noise, completely caught off guard. “H—huh?” Jiwoong was right. His only flaw is his overconfidence. You have no idea how to slip away from this unscathed. “What— what makes you say that?”

Ricky blinks at you. “You always give me snacks.” You’re pretty sure candy doesn’t qualify as snacks, but you digress. “Don’t...don’t they say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach?”

Unfortunately for him, you’re swearing by a different psychological tactic. “W—well, I always have a lot of candy with me! For my blood sugar, you know?” you sputter out the first excuse you can rummage from your short-circuiting brain. “And...and after finding out you liked strawberries a lot, it would be rude and selfish not to give you any if I have them, right?”

Right? Please agree. Please stop asking any more questions. Ricky is pondering over your words, seemingly deep in thought with pursed lips, until those said pretty lips part open to say, “Oh. Oh, I get it.” You don’t know what he gets, but you roll with it. “Then again, it also doesn’t make sense if you like me.”

The fuck does he mean that it doesn’t make sense if you like him? You’d kiss his face right here and now.

“You turned down that date, after all.”

Insult to injury. He doesn’t know that was the biggest regret of your life. You bite down your tongue and exhale sharply. “Ah. Don’t overthink it, Mr. Shim,” you tell him, finally knocking on Gyuvin’s door after standing in front of it for a good ten minutes. “Overthinking causes stress. Stress will give you wrinkles.”

“It’s okay,” he says, turning over the door upon hearing a click. “I’m still handsome when I’m stressed.”

You breathe out a sigh. This is the man you’re down bad for. This is the man you’re helplessly pining for.

“I think you’d be more handsome with black hair.”

Surprisingly, that statement comes from Gyuvin and not from you. He opened the door just at the right moment— an unimpressed look on his face upon seeing his unannounced visitors. “Why have my Friday night invaders tripled?” he laments. Tripled? You don’t ask and let yourself in despite his protests.

“I’m here to check on your term paper,” you inform, kicking off your shoes at the entryway.

“I’m here to play games,” says Ricky, doing the same.

“I’m here to play games too.”

For some reason, Gunwook had the same idea as you two to terrorize Gyuvin’s sacred Friday nights of solitude, but managed to act on it before anyone else. He’s already settled on the floor of the living room like it’s his own, legs outstretched, switch controller in his hands. “Hyung, let’s play!” he calls out to Ricky. Gyuvin reluctantly tells you to sit down before he grabs you two drinks from the kitchen.

“You know what, I forgot to ask.” Gyuvin settles down two glasses of juice onto the coffee table with a suspicious eye directly zeroed in on you. “Why were you two together outside?”

“Seonbae and I happened to meet each other downstairs,” explains Ricky. Which was true. You did somehow bump into each other at the building lobby, Ricky nearly closing the elevator in front of your face in the process.

“Right. I told you I’m here to check on your paper, and I’ll be off once I do exactly that,” you tell him, mentally thanking Ricky for the save. “You had a month to write so it better be decent. Give me your laptop.”

Gyuvin smacks his tongue, but does as you say anyway, while the other two boys loiter around the floor and fuck around with Gyuvin’s switch that’s connected to the TV. They’re playing a Mario game. You pay them no mind, ignoring the non-human noises they make once Gyuvin reappears with his laptop. He warns you that this is still his first draft, but you didn’t need that premise. The first page isn’t even formatted correctly. You’ve got your work cut out for you.

“Hey, hey, move over! Let me play—”

Again, you pay no mind to the noise. It’s mostly coming from Gunwook and Gyuvin because Ricky is quiet when he’s focused— in this case, focused on hopping over some goombas. He’s got a thin pair of glasses perched on his nose, lips pursed unconsciously into a noot noot, and fuck he’s so cute, and — no, you’re not paying attention to him. You’re paying attention to your junior’s paper. You’re proofreading. Simply proofreading. You highlight some errors here and there, marking some corrections.

Yet again, you don’t pay attention to the noise Gunwook and Gyuvin are making—

“Ah. I’m killing Gyuvin’s brothers.”

—but Ricky suddenly makes a quiet remark, and you snort very, very loudly in response.

You slap a hand over your mouth. That wasn’t funny. That wasn’t funny at all and the other two didn’t even seem to hear it. “Why are you laughing?” Gyuvin looks at you, offended by the sound you just made. “Did I write something wrong in the analysis? Why are you laughing?”

“N-no, it’s just—” Your throat rips into a cough because it’s not easy to suppress a fit of chortles. Ricky looks so proud of himself, you’re going to cry. You’re near choking and Gyuvin hops onto his feet and makes a beeline for you in a flurry.

“You’re so mean! Give me back my laptop!”

This isn’t a misunderstanding that you intend on clearing up, so you let him run off with his laptop back into his room to revise in private after you’ve disrespected his work. Gunwook stretches up too, saying that he’s off to buy some snacks outside. “Do you want anything?” he asks. Ricky is feeding you his juice and patting your back because you can’t stop coughing. “Okay. Ginger candy. Got it.”

Gunwook has left. Gyuvin is holed up in his room. And the fact that you and Ricky are alone in the living room right now isn’t helping the state of your lungs. “Are...are you okay?” Ricky, the sweet, sweet angel, asks with those giant boba eyes and soft voice. You want to bite down your sleeve and chew it right off.

“I’m—I’m alright.” No, you’re not. You’re sitting way too close on the floor, knees bumping, and the game over screen being reflected on the television right now is a perfect rendition of what’s going on inside your head right now. “Whew. I’m fine. I’m perfectly okay.”

You honestly have no idea how you’ve managed to keep it together these past couple of weeks. You don’t know how you haven’t jumped this guy yet. The video game is forgotten, and Ricky is scrolling through his phone. He’s wearing a melon green sweater which, objectively, is an ugly ass color, but Ricky somehow pulls it off and looks extra fucking soft in it and you’re not god’s strongest soldier.

He lets out a soft laugh, notices you staring, and tilts his phone and scoots closer for you to see a dumb Tik Tok video. Your shoulders bump. You make a comment that fails to register to your own ears. “By the way,” he starts. He places his phone face down on the tabletop. Whoa, this is a little dangerous. He shouldn’t be pouring all his attention into you like this. “Are you free this weekend?”

You blink. Your brain is jumping into conclusions. “Why?”

“Well,” he fumbles with the tips of his sweater paws. You’re going to eat him. “My uncle’s resort is opening a new branch, so there’s an opening party. Everyone else is coming, including Gyuvin. It’d be nice if you can come as well.”

“Oh,” you open your mouth. You’re a little surprised. “Thanks for the invite, but I don’t think I’m fit for those kinds of events, you know?”

This is quite a bit of pressure. Ricky tilts his head, failing to understand what you mean for a second, but when he does he exclaims, “oh! Don’t worry. We don’t have to join the formal event. We can just eat dinner and mess around at the beach. The actual party will be boring, anyway.”

“Ah.” He’s an angel. He’s so sweet. It hasn’t even been long since you’ve somehow been absorbed into their tight-knit group. You’re not sure how it even happened.

Well, you were already friends with half of them separately. Gyuvin has been buzzing around you since he was eleven and you were thirteen. Hanbin and Hao have been your academic ride or dies ever since you met them in the first week of classes. Jiwoong has been a force you could lean on the moment he took you under his wing for your first major project in university.

And Ricky—

“Tell me if you want to come,” he smiles. “So I can reserve a room for you.”

Maybe this was bound to happen eventually.

“I’m done!”

Gyuvin has finally emerged from his room, stomping back to you and Ricky before slamming the laptop on the table before you. “I edited it. No more errors now. Praise me,” he says proudly. You give him a suspicious glance, sliding the device closer to you. “This one’s good, right? Tell me it’s good. Don’t laugh. Laughing isn’t constructive.”

Ricky is curious and pokes his face closer to yours, and you flinch. “You misspelled ‘debilitating,’” he says. You gasp. Ricky, once again, looks so proud of himself. Gyuvin wants to die.

“Give it back—”

He snatches the laptop once more and starts aggressively typing next to the both of you. At the same time, Gunwook finally returns with a bag of miscellaneous snacks. “Seonbae, here you go,” he tosses a full bag of ginger-honey candy to you, which you now have no use for because you have stopped coughing.

“Thanks,” you gruffly say. When you stuff it into your bag you notice Ricky staring at you. “Do you want some?” you ask. He doesn’t answer your question but says something else entirely.

“You don’t need that anymore.”

Your eyes widen when Ricky snatches the bag of candy from you. He promptly opens it— moving quicker than you’ve ever seen him before, and rips open a piece before tossing it into his mouth.

You’re in shock. What is he doing?

“Hey, that’s not for you!” Gunwook protests. Ricky responds by simply pelting him with another piece. Gunwook is speechless. Then retaliates by throwing a candy bar from his 7-Eleven bag to Ricky’s chest. It bounces onto his lap. Ricky grabs another piece of candy to flick at Gunwook. They start fighting. Gyuvin notices the fun and abandons his paper to join in.

This isn’t how you planned your Friday to end up like. Then again, you didn’t plan on developing a crush on your friend’s best friend either, so you can’t really say anything else.

HANBIN HAS BEEN WAITING IN YOUR BUILDING’S PARKING LOT FOR A GOOD TWENTY MINUTES NOW. You’re already late for the event, so might as well make the most of your tardiness. I’m still getting ready, you shoot Hanbin a text. You keep messing up your fucking eyeliner, and there’s no way in hell you’re showing up to that damned, bougie ass event in front of Ricky with assymetrical eyeliner. His are always perfect and you don’t want to lose to that.

“Dude, we might miss the buffet!”

It’s Matthew yelling at you when the tinted front seat window rolls down as you sprint— heels on, mind you— to the car. “The place is a resort! They’re never running out of food,” you yell back while throwing the backseat open and then throwing yourself inside.

You’re breathing quite heavily. “Are we ready to go?” asks Hanbin, and you shoot him a thumbs up. You’re too busy catching your breath to notice Yujin also co-occupying Hanbin’s car.

“Noona, how long did it take for you to get ready?” he asks.

“Three hours,” you reply with a grunt. It’s a little hot so you open the windows, letting some air in. You can’t risk your makeup melting. You need to be extra pretty tonight to stand a chance against all the rich people flooding that place.

“Really?” Yujin does the same. “I can’t tell.”

You’re speechless. You hear Hanbin swallow down a giggle. Matthew isn’t even trying. This highschooler just roasted your ass. You need to put him in his place. “Why are you out here on a weekend?” you click your tongue. “You should be using this time to study.”

“I study enough already,” he protests.

“What was the Gyeongbokgung palace used for during the Joseon Dynasty?”

Yujin freezes. “Wow,” he says robotically after a significant pause, just as mechanically turning his head to the window. “The night air is so fresh.”

You don’t grill him further because Yujin is right— there’s something different about the wind wafting through the atmosphere tonight. You let yourself sink into the carseat, let the breeze cool your cheeks, eyes fluttered close, until you reach your destination. The resort is far off from the city— the seaside, obviously, but you don’t see the shorelane just yet. Only a towering building illuminated with warm flushed lights as the car drives up to the entrance, surrounded by ferns and foliage and an air of complete refinement.

The foyer floor is so shiny that you can see the chandelier reflecting from it. Are you allowed to step on this? Is this legal?

Upon entering the function hall however, your nerves become nothing. You already see a handful of people being completely, strikingly, and obviously out of place. All for different reasons.

You see Gunwook near the live band, somehow holding a conversation with two men that appear to be twice his age. Gyuvin and Jiwoong have comparatively way too much food on their plates as they camp right by the buffet. Hao is currently talking to a security guard while a suspicious looking vase is sticking out of his pocket. The only person that would be blending in well right now would be Taerae— if he wasn’t wearing that bright purple suit ensemble.

Damn. You shouldn’t have been worrying so much about being a fish out of water. These guys are way worse than you.

“I thought you weren’t coming.”

But of course. There’s one guy that looks like he’s completely at home.

Matthew greets Ricky’s arrival with a half-hug, and the other two boys do the same while you respectfully stand and stare. Respectfully. Yes. You pay no mind to that dangerously unbuttoned-button down under than dangerously low-cut blazer. You are the embodiment of peace and serenity and giving him your business as usual smile. “Hey,” you say. “Sorry we’re late.”

When Ricky returns your stiff smile with one of pure ease and kindness, you swoon like a fucking loser. “Yeah,” Yujin inserts. “She was taking so long to fix her face.”

Your smile stiffens further. “I did not take so long, haha, what are you talking about.”

Yujin gives you a look. “You said you took three—”

And there goes your hand over his mouth to shut him up. “Haha. Let’s go eat, Yujinnie. Didn’t you say you were starving?” Yujin muffles something out. You pinch his arm. “Thanks for the invite, Ricky! We’re off to sweep the buffet now!”

“Wait—”

You book it. Well. As fast as you can book it with these damned heels and with a large shoulder bag weighing you down because you’ll be staying here overnight for free. Does the bag match your dress? No, it does not, but you don’t know where your room is and you’re not well enough to talk to Ricky at the moment, so you suck it up and stress-eat at the buffet table with the Yujin you kidnapped. “Why were you so embarrassed, noona?” he innocently asks while stuffing his cheeks with some meat skewers. “You look pretty tonight and it’s all thanks to your hard work.”

Who has been teaching him these backhanded remarks? Who has been negatively influencing this child? You grunt and put a scoop of mashed potatoes on his plate, much to his displeasure, and continue eating your own damned meal.

“Hey, can you take a photo of me?”

The moment you’re done with your not so pleasant meal, you’re skewed away by Matthew who wishes to hire you as his photographer. After that barbecue dinner last time, Matthew swore that you take the best photos of him and his entire IG feed for the past month is credited to you.

You look at him, displeased because you’re not wearing the appropriate attire to lay on the floor to ensure the best angles. “Go stand by the window.” Still, you take his phone from him and make do with what you can. “What’s your password again?”

“Hao hyung’s birthday.”

“Got it.”

Now, stretching your legs and getting into various lunging positions aren’t easy to do when you’re wearing a long and silky dress. But you are a woman of commitment, and your bag is weighing you further to the ground as you take a low-angle shot of Matthew. “Okay, now hold your necktie. Now look away— perfect. That’s it. Next one.” When you try to get up, gravity decides that it hates you. You wobble on the stilts of your shoes, nearly stumbling back, but you feel someone grab onto your arm and pull you up before your ass kisses the ground.

“Whoa, please be careful.”

It’s Ricky. Of course, it’s him. When you look up, he’s got his eyebrows knitted together out of concern, strands of light wavy hair perfectly falling over said eyebrows and your breath hitches in your throat a little.

He’s got his other hand held out, and he’s probably expecting you to take it to balance yourself to your feet, but you refuse to be a predictable woman.

Instead, you give him Matthew’s phone and help yourself up. “Thanks. I’m fine. Just slipped a little.” You have no idea why you’re acting coy right now. Maybe it’s because he’s being a little less cute tonight, being a little more dangerous instead— flinching the moment you feel his feathery touch on your shoulder as he removes the weight of your bag from your person, before passing it to an attendant that he calls over with a single look.

“Can you bring this to Room 207? Thank you.”

No, no, no, this is too much. This is too much for you. Why is he trying to be smooth? Why is he trying to swoop you off your feet without taking any responsibility?

“Hyung, I’ll take your photos instead,” he says to Matthew, who’s been watching the spectacle unfold and you pray to god that your unsubtle thirsting wasn’t too noticeable. Matthew doesn’t say anything about it, though. You assume you’re in the safe zone because all he’s doing is complaining when Ricky takes way too zoomed in photos of his face. “This is a new trend. Just trust me.”

“Sure? Okay, go on.”

You take this as an opportunity to escape, only to be called by Gyuvin back to the buffet table because, “have you tried their gambas?! This shit is fire!”

When an old guy took the podium, you all took this as your cue to exit— scattered off either to the beach, bar, or your Ricky-sponsored rooms. You have an entire room for yourself because there’s no way in hell you’re sharing a room with any of those stinky boys. Your exhaustion is aching for a shower, and so you grant its request, and by the time you’re done freshening up and changing into a more comfortable set of clothing, you receive a text from Hanbin that they’re all gathered at the beach.

“Ah. The wind is cold.”

Wearing a thick jacket out was the right choice indeed. You stuff your hands into your pockets for warmth, feet sinking into the sand as you watch the mess before you. They’re all either running around, drawing things on the ground, or lounging on a picnic blanket under the starlit horizon. “Sit,” says Jiwoong, tapping the empty spot next to him, and you oblige with a yawn. “It’s only eleven. Can’t believe you’re sleepy already.”

“I’m getting old,” you tell him, letting your head drop onto your shoulder as you hug your knees. The rest are by the shore or in the water. You have no energy to join in at this point.

Jiwoong makes a distasteful noise at your statement. “What does that make me?”

“A fossil.” You yawn once more, craning your neck to bury your face into his arm. “I’m so tired.”

He chuckles. “Are you fine with Ricky seeing you like this?”

“Please be quiet.” This time, you sneeze. Right into the sleeve of his shirt. Then you sniffle. “He’s not even here.” Jiwoong is disgusted. He tips you off, picks up your wrist, and uses your hand to wipe off your ‘germs,’ or so he says.

“You’re lucky he didn’t see that. Where is he, anyway?”

The question is answered by Gyuvin when his energy finally gets exhausted from splashing around, flopping onto the blanket next to you and Jiwoong. “He was still in our room when I left,” he says, out of breath. “I think he wanted to rest for a while.”

Gradually, the rest start to gather too. “We haven’t taken a group photo yet,” Hao brings up. “He’s gonna sulk if we take one and he’s not here.”

It’s as if you just got recharged with a full eight hours of sleep.

“I’ll go get him,” you say, promptly standing up. “I need to pick up something from my bag, anyway.” Total lie. Jiwoong sees right through your bullshit and his teeth are showing through his smile. You flip him off and start making your way back, stumbling when Hanbin asks if you want him to accompany you, bringing back the hop in your step when Gunwook tells him, “she’s a big girl, she can handle it herself.” You’ll get back at him for that later.

Two-one-three, two-one-three, two-one-three, you repeat the room number in your head as you go down each door in the hallway, ringing phone glued to your ear to inform Ricky that you’re going to barge into his room, but he’s not picking up. Maybe he’s asleep? Probably. There’s no response when you knock on the door and slot in the key Gyuvin gave you, and you’re met with dim lights and an eerie silence the moment you crack open the door.

“Ricky?” you call out. There’s no response.

The light from the hallway leaks in to illuminate an empty bed. Huh. Where is he? What rouses even more questions is the odd positioning of what should be a bedside table, for some reason positioned at the foot of the bed and a few feet away from the open bathroom door. There’s also a mishmash of things stacked on the table— books, folded shirts, magazines, and some of which have fallen and scattered to the floor.

But those aren’t the only things on the ground.

You quickly bring a hand to your mouth. “Oh,” you wheeze out. “Oh my god.” You try to cover it up with a cough, but it’s too late. A snort managed to slip through.

“Stop laughing,” he protests from the floor. How could you hold it in when Ricky is right there, lying curled on the ground while hugging what seems to be his knee, bathrobe-clad, with papers and magazines scattered around and on top of him. A memo sheet is stuck on his cheek. His back is turned to you. His buzzing phone with your contact name on it is next to his head.

How the hell did he end up here?

“Are��are you okay?” you manage to say as you crouch down next to him. He doesn’t budge when you try to roll him back. He lets out a grunt and tells you to leave him alone. “I can’t, I was ordered to pick you up. What are you trying to hide? Why won’t you look at m—”

When you finally roll him to his back, you realize why.

“Oh no.”

Ricky’s got a hand hovering over half of his face— the wrong half because you can very clearly see the red gash running down his right temple, but that’s probably not what he’s intending to hide. He’s got his brows in a sad and shameful furrow, glaring eyes refusing to look at you, and you can see the shades of pink coral and pink on his cheeks, slipping through the gaps of his fingers.

He’s pink. He’s so pink.

“Don’t laugh,” he grumbles. “It’s not funny.”

You might as well eat him whole, holy fucking shit.

“N—no, you’re right. It’s not funny. I’m not laughing.”

You’re damn near about to break into a coughing fit again with how hard you’re trying to suppress your giggles. Based on the evidence laid down at the crime scene— namely his still damp hair, scanty bathrobe, misplaced furniture, and the mess of it all— Ricky was likely trying to take post-shower thirst traps while Gyuvin was still out so he wouldn’t be made fun of.

Slipping and hitting his head on the table’s edge in the process was probably not part of his calculations. You fear you might’ve been the unintentional cause of this because you gave him a surprise call earlier.

“Let’s get you up, big boy. Grab my hand.”

Begrudgingly, he lets you pull him up. You instruct him to sit on the bed while you call room service for a first aid kit. The wound on his forehead doesn’t look serious, but you decide to apply some ointment and put a bandage on it just in case. He winces when you clean the dried blood off with water. God, he’s too fucking cute. Your gushing is ruined by an incoming call.

“Hanbin,” you greet, wedging the phone between your ear and shoulder because you’re still trying to patch up the poor boy. He scrunches his nose when the ointment touches his wound. “We’ll be there in ten minutes. A minor accident occurred. No, you don’t have to come up here. Ricky is physically well and alive.” You can’t say the same about his emotional state though. He’s been quiet and frowning this whole time. “Say hi, Ricky.”

You pass him the phone. He looks at your phone wielding hand, a contemplative expression, then takes it. “Don’t come,” is all he says to Hanbin at the other end of the line— a little too gruffly for your liking— before tossing it off somewhere onto the bed.

Ricky’s eyes snap up to look at you. Maybe you’ve been taking this situation a little too lightly.

“Is it done?” he asks in that same tone of voice, and— oh. Oh, no. You’re in a tight spot. Figuratively and literally because Ricky is leaning back against the bed, you slightly leaning into him because you’re simply, very innocently trying to bandage up his temple, and the most comfortable way to do it is having a knee propped up on the mattress, face hovering dangerously above his.

When you unavoidably make eye contact, you flinch and feel your bones rattle.

Oh.

Your gaze falters and your swallow down your dry throat, watching as the bathrobe slips down from his left shoulder in real time. That’s it. You’re gone. Your brain has stopped working. You’re starting to miss cute Ricky who gets excited over your strawberry candies. Where is he? Where did he go? This Ricky is a little dangerous. This Ricky feels like he’s going to fucking eat you alive.

“Y—yeah. One sec.” You’re not sure if you even managed to secure the bandage on his wound because the moment your skin touched his, you immediately flung yourself back from a ghost burn. “Did...did you hurt yourself anywhere else?” you ask. He shouldn’t be looking at you like that. Why is he looking at you like that?

The brief silence that follows swallows you whole.

“I’m not sure. Can you check?”

Then spits you right back out because crazy fucking bastard— what the fuck does he fucking mean by can you fucking check?

“Oh, um.” Dry. Your throat is dry. Does he want you dead? Is that it? Does it not matter whether or not you get out of this room alive? You don’t like this— whatever this is because you don’t know what’s wrong with him tonight. Did he get a concussion when he fell? Do you have to go take him to see a doctor?

Maybe it’s you that needs to go see a doctor. Because you’re pretty damn sure that this heart rate is nowhere near normal.

Knock, knock, knock.

“We’re coming in.”

Karma acts quickly because you stumble back and nearly collapse into the floor as well. The door cracks open and you grab onto the nearest thing for balance, which, in this case, is a curtain you almost tug off from the window out of sheer force. “Ricky slipped and hurt his head,” you blurt out the moment Hanbin and a few others enter the room. Ricky’s face drops into betrayal. Self-defense. You needed a diversion.

Taerae and Gyuvin are the ones that came with Hanbin, the former taking a long look at the room and its inhabitants. “Oh,” he says after acknowledging the mess on the floor and the bandage on Ricky’s forehead. “Okay, Humpty Dumpty.”

Gyuvin lets out a snort. Ricky chucks a pillow in their direction. Thank god for their interruption because you don’t know what would have overtaken you had they come five minutes later. “No wait, did he really slip?” Gyuvin asks, a little too giddy and giggly about the whole ordeal. “Dude, did you fall over while taking thirst traps?”

And you’re subsequently kicked out of the room while Ricky gets dressed into something more decent and gets made fun of by Gyuvin and Taerae.

“Took you guys long enough.”

You’re all back at the beach now with a grumpy Ricky in tow. Gyuvin immediately runs off to snitch on his best friend’s misfortune to the rest. He’s sulking, you notice, face down and hands stuffed in his pockets as the cool breeze flutters his hair in its embrace. “Quit making fun of him!” Hanbin scolds, and you spot Jiwoong’s expectant expression to tell him what you were up to alone in Ricky’s room.

Nothing You were up to nothing, you send the message through your glare. You could’ve been up to something had those three not interrupted, but would you have survived that? Your eyes flicker over to Ricky, who’s trying to push Gyuvin off him— traces of the tension and danger from the hotel room completely gone without a trace that you fear you might have just been imagining it out of the sheer feeling of want you harbor for the guy.

“C’mon, let’s take a picture!”

Before you know it, you’re gathered by the shore in a bluf, feet sinking into the sand, and you feel yourself bump into Ricky at the very moment the camera flashes to capture the scene.

“Hey, this one came out nicely.”

It did. You’re not sure about the rest, but this photo deserves to be tucked into your wallet and kept in a capsule.

Ricky is standing next to you, the tight frame leaving no gap or space in between. You’re both smiling a little awkwardly. It’s cute. You keep staring at it until your attention is pulled away by the very man himself.

“You owe me something,” is Ricky’s introduction when he saunters over to you. You raise a brow, closing your phone. Looks like he’s finally gotten over what happened earlier. Gyuvin has finally stopped teasing him by moving on to messing with the sparklers Gunwook brought. You can hear their shouts and laughter from afar, but it’s all muted down.

“What do you mean?” you ask.

He takes out one hand from his pocket, an open palm outstretched. He’s looking at you expectantly in wait. You break out into a soft laugh and shake your head. Maybe your candy-related scheme worked a little too well.

“I didn’t think I was contractually obligated to do this now,” you hum, fishing out a few pieces of candy from your sweats before dropping them onto his hand. “Maybe I should stop.”

“You can’t just start something by yourself and suddenly stop all by yourself. That’s not fair,” he complains, accepting your offer. “You have to take responsibility.” Only if he takes responsibility for your poor and shriveling heart. His tone is light, a smile playing on his lips, and at this point— you’re sure this isn’t just a crush anymore. You might just be a little in love with Ricky Shen.

YOU HAD NO IDEA HAO WAS SO INFORMED ABOUT PROF SHIN’S MAKEUP PREFERENCES. It’s her birthday this upcoming week. You three freeloaders need to keep sucking up so you can maintain your office privileges, so you decided to buy her a present. Hanbin is unavailable, so it’s just you and Hao browsing the boutiques downtown, and you narrowed down your scope (and budget) to just buying her makeup.

You pull out a bright red lipstick from the display and show it to Hao. “What about this one?” you ask. Hao puts on a look of disapproval.

“She doesn’t like wearing bright colors. Maybe something more on the nude side would be better.”

Well damn, okay. You put the rejected stick back with the rest of its friends. The next one you pick out is also rejected because it’s glossy. “Prof Shin prefers matte,” he further reasons. And now you’re starting to question exactly how and why he knows this. Hao doesn’t humor your queries, though. You settle with a nude Laneige matte lip and a matching blush as a bonus.

“We’re done here, right?” Hao asks after you two pay for the gift.

“Hold on.” You’re stopped by a certain item on display near the check-out counter. You’re convinced that you’ve definitely gone off the deep end at this point. The thoughts blurring inside your head the moment you laid eyes on the strawberry-flavored lip gloss for sale are a little too insane, even for you. You’re not buying this. You don’t even use gloss. This is crazy.

“Thank you, please come again!”

You exit the store with your gift for Prof Shin and a new lip product. You are stressing yourself out.

The buzzing of your phone forces you out of your existential crisis. It’s Gyuvin messaging the group chat. “Hey,” you tap Hao upon reading the message. “We don’t have anything else to do right? You said you have extra gift boxes at home.” When Hao asks why, you show him Gyuvin’s message.

[gyubie cutie: no one wants to send off ricky at the airport with me? :( damn i really am his only friend].

You reply that you and Hao are on the way. You know that Ricky is leaving for a quick vacation to Shanghai today (two weeks before the semester ends, mind you) after an impulsive decision involving alcohol the other day with you and a few of the guys. At one point they suddenly became all emotional and the topic of their families were brought up. Ricky woke up the next morning with a splitting headache and a phone screen that tells him his flight has been booked.

“Well, I guess I’ll just go,” he said over hangover soup and aspirin, as if he doesn’t have exams in two fucking weeks, and as if Shanghai is just a bus ride away. Sometimes, you’re surprised with how easy going he is. The flight is at an awkward time— Thursday mid-noon, so it’s no surprise that no one else is free to see him off. You didn’t mention anything about wanting to send him off and neither did he ask you to, so you thought why the hell would you do that unless you want to expose your ass full of feelings. But Gyuvin presented the opportunity. Who are you to turn it down?

“Over here!”

You spot Gyuvin waving at you two from a distance with outstretched limbs. You preemptively grab a handful of candy from your pocket— battle ready because it’s been getting harder and harder to pass these to him subtly as of late with the amount of eyes constantly on you— but you don’t find the mop of blonde anywhere, even when you’ve finally reached Gyuvin’s spot.

“Has Ricky left already?” you ask, brow raised. You’d be pissed if Gyuvin baited you two here only for the guy to have already left.

“No, no. He’s here,” he assures. “He’s around here somewhere. He bought some snacks not too long ago, but some girl stopped him to get his number. I lost him because seeing him get hit on made me gag so I had to look away for my safety.”

Well, that’s both assuring and not. Then you remember you have no right to be jealous because Ricky Shen, as suspiciously as he may be behaving as of late (case in point, accidentally seducing you in a bathrobe the other week), he is still not your damned boyfriend.

“Oh, there he is.”

Ricky who is not your boyfriend arrives, and the first thing he does is make you feel so fucking sorry that he isn’t.

“Whoa.”

No wonder you weren’t able to spot him right off the bat. His attention-seeking light hair is gone. No, he hasn’t shaved it— he dyed it freaking black and he looks so fucking good. “Oh, uh,” is how you greet him. The words have completely dried out from your throat. Ricky is looking at you expectantly. Your mouth is hanging open pathetically. “Wow.” Your eloquence is award winning.

He laughs. He wants you dead. “Does it look weird? I needed natural hair for visa requirements.”

“N—no,” you sputter out. Gyuvin goes on to brag that he was right that Ricky would look great in dark hair and Hao proceeds to try and touch said hair, only to get his hand smacked by the hair-owner, while you’re still temporarily incapacitated to say or do anything. You don’t get to say anything, because the clock strikes twelve-twenty, and Ricky has to go

“Have a safe flight, dummy,” Hao bids Ricky off with what you can only describe as a glomp, only to be assaulted by Gyuvin immediately after. You’re standing there awkwardly like a fourth-wheel, hands tucked behind your back because you can’t find the timing to say your farewells, and you missed the timing to pass the candy to him earlier after being so rudely jumpscared by his new look.

When Ricky finally manages to swat and push them both off, his eyes flash over to you. Your mouth curls into something sort of a smile— you’re not completely sure. Ricky takes a step forward to engulf you in an embrace.

Oh. Oh, so we’re doing this now, you think, eyes flying wide open in surprise with a pathetic squeak. “Thanks for seeing me off,” he murmurs softly, and you can feel his voice vibrating into your skin and penetrating your bones. You can’t even reciprocate because he locks your arms tightly against your own body, and you feel his fingers unclasping yours behind your back, allowing him to take the strawberry pieces you intended to give, before pulling away with a dumb grin. “Want anything when I get back?”

You try to blink away the violent shock tremors you’re feeling right now. “I’ve— I’ve always wanted to try the sun cakes there.” Deep breathes. You’re normal. You’re totally normal.

Ricky takes his carrier from Gyuvin, sending you a small smile. “I’ll buy you a hundred.”

“Don’t overdo it,” you let out a breath. God, he drives you insane. “Safe skies. See you when you get back.”

The moment Ricky boards the plane, Gyuvin turns around to ask you two what you should have for lunch. “Why are you so happy that your best friend is gone?” you ask with narrowed eyes the moment you three settle with the first food place you see at Terminal 1 of the airport. “Do you secretly hate him? Is that it?”

“He’ll be gone for two days max, give me a break,” he grunts. “And tomorrow’s Friday. That means I can get the whole evening and weekend to myself without anyone barging into my apartment.”

Your friend’s joy is reflected with how energetically he’s inhaling the bowl of stew. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. I’m gonna do a progress check on your paper tomorrow.” Gyuvin sets down the bowl, looking at you like you just sentenced him to prison. Hao is minding his own business and enjoying his meal. “What? Don’t tell me you forgot that your deadline is in two weeks. I’m checking it tomorrow, so make sure it’s at the very least decent.”

When Gyuvin tells you to stop nagging because it reflects your age, Hao had to stop you from throttling the man.

Anyway, the day passes and you’re at Gyuvin’s apartment to check on his paper.

“Why are you smiling at your phone? Damn, she’s finally lost it,” he says over another meal. You finished giving him your feedback and decided to just have takeout dinner with him. While eating, however, you received a text from Ricky— a photo of his own meal and a thumbs up above the plate of skewers. It’s been a day, but you can barely feel his absence with how he’s been texting you every hour from the moment he landed.

[ouricky: (photo attached) touchdown ✌️].

[ouricky: (photo attached) this looks like u].

[ouricky: are u asleep yet?]

[ouricky: gyuvin told me ur at his place. tell him to eat shit for me].

[ouricky: (photo attached) dinner w my sister 👍 our meal is better than yours].

“What the hell, did you get a boyfriend?” You look up from your phone to find a very judgemental Gyuvin. “After rejecting all my attempts to set you up for romance? This is a personal attack. You’re buying ice cream later.”

If only he knew you were texting his best friend. Not that you have any intentions on telling him.

“Hey, why do you smell like strawberries?” Gyuvin asks after your meal, right when you decide to retouch your makeup as you ready yourself to leave. “Is that the candy you always bring?”

“It’s my new lip gloss,” You show off the pink bottle. “It tastes like the fruit too.”

“Whoa, that’s cool,” he snatches it from you, examining it a little too close to his face to sniff it. “Where’d you buy it? Do they have one in mango?”

While trying to convince Gyuvin that he should maybe purchase actual mangoes instead of planning on eating an entire bottle of mango-flavored gloss, you also try to convince yourself that you definitely did not make this purchase yourself to try and seduce his friend. Ricky isn’t even here. You’re not wearing it for him. You’re wearing it for yourself.

“I’m off! I’ll take you to the store next time.”

When you defend yourself and your new lip gloss against Jiwoong’s judgment the next morning, he tells you that Ricky probably doesn’t feel the same way as you do. That you probably shouldn’t think too much of it and hurt yourself with your expectations. But at this point, it’s reasonable for you to start overthinking, right? Right? What does Jiwoong know, anyway? He’s not Ricky’s mother. Ricky’s mother is on a yacht with him right now, and you know because he just sent you a video and you’re damn near the precipice of falling headfirst into the depths of thinking he might just like you too.

“I just don’t want you to get too ahead of yourself and end up getting hurt.”

Assuming you’re right and Ricky does like you back— when the hell could it have started? The barbecue at Matthew’s? That one evening at Gyuvin’s apartment? That night in his uncle’s resort? You have no idea, much like how you have no idea how you somehow got absorbed into their mess of a friend group.

But a few little texts and inexplicable bouts of skinship here and there isn’t enough to set you way too far off-the deep end. The way he looks at you might just be your imagination. Jiwoong could still be absolutely correct and you’re just tripping over your own assumptions.

You’re not that quick to listen to your intrusive thoughts. You’re still a little reasonable. That’s why you haven’t fallen to your knees and blurted out your insurmountable feelings for him yet.

What does set you off to state beyond help, however, is a sudden phone call later that same Friday evening.

Morning, rather. Specifically at four in the morning— waking you up from your sleep by its incessant buzzing. “Hello?” you groan into the mic, voice still croaky and eyes barely open. “What’s up? Why aren’t you asleep?” You have no idea why Ricky is calling you right now. The moment you hear his voice through the line however, you feel all five of your senses suddenly snapping wide awake.

“I thought it’d be a waste to spend my time here asleep,” he says with a soft chuckle. Oh, holy fuck it’s too early for this. You’re not mentally prepared for this kind of voice from him yet— low, almost a deep rumble, reminiscent of thunderstorms and clouds, only amplified by how he’s practically whispering into the core of your being through the phone.

You pull your blanket down and roll over to the side to give your heart a chance to breathe.

“Yet you decide to call me at four in the morning instead of doing something more worthwhile,” you click your tongue, and you only hear Ricky laugh in response. “Are you planning on extending your trip? When’s your flight?”

“No, I’m leaving later. I still have to prepare for finals,” he replies. “Flight’s scheduled at 11 p.m.”

“Ah, that’s too bad,” you say. “I’m pulling an all-nighter at the library tonight. Deadline to catch. I don’t think I can see you at the airport this time.”

“That’s alright,” he hums. “Next time you can just come with me to Shanghai.”

You pause. Wait. Wait a minute. “Haha, yeah, it— it would be nice to visit your hometown with the rest of the guys, yes.” That’s what he probably meant. You probably meant all of you— many, plural— not just you and you alone. Haha. Of course.

But when Ricky takes a while to reply, you start to overthink, start nipping on the skin of your lip so hard that blood might draw.

“Yeah,” he says after an awkward beat. “With the rest of the guys. Yeah.”

You really need to hear Jiwoong’s voice of reason right now. Because all you’re hearing is the sound of your own heartbeat inside your ears like a hyperactive drum.

“Anyway, you must be tired. I should let you sleep now,” says Ricky after ruining all your chances of falling back asleep. You can’t. The best you can do is get up before the sun and go on with your busy day so as to not think about this conversation too much.

“You should be the one sleeping,” you manage to reply. “Don’t forget my sun cakes.”

“Mhm. G’night.”

Crazy. This man drives you fucking crazy.

You don’t return to sleep after that.

“Okay,” is Jiwoong’s expert opinion after telling him what happened later that same evening, having dinner with him at a McDonald’s near the city library. He’s put his kiddie meal on pause while you were telling him about Ricky Shen and his demonic antics at four in the morning. He’s got his elbows on the table, fingers interlocked, and staring at you with a look so serious he might as well be diagnosing you with a disease. “I think you’re right,” he continues. “Maybe he does like you.”

The shriek you let out is almost inhuman.

Jiwoong’s lips quirk into a smile and he goes back to eating. “I told you! I told you I wasn’t overthinking things! My lip gloss purchase is justified!” you proclaim. Jiwoong tosses a fry into your mouth to sedate you, and it works for a few chews until you start yapping again. “But, god, now what? He’s returning later or tomorrow. I have no idea how to face him.”

Your phone vibrates a message. “Is it Ricky?” he asks in an attempt to tease you, but all your face does is turn sour upon reading the text. “No? Who is it?”

“Woong,” you say, setting your phone on the table. “Are you busy this evening?”

He furrows his brows. “I was planning on writing my paper. Why? Is there a problem?”

“Great. You can work with me at the library the whole night.”

When you slide your phone over across the table, Jiwoong understands.

[jaeryeong: can i see you tonight? please? it wont take long. i just need to make things right].

“He’s a persistent fucking cockroach.”

You grunt, taking back your phone. “You should report him,” he says, and you’ve completely lost your appetite. “Screenshot his texts and block his number. I’ll accompany you to the station if you want to handle this legally.”

“No, it’s fine,” you scrunch your nose. He’s a wimp, according to his ex-friend Gyuvin, so you’re sure he isn’t gonna hurt you or anything. And your exams are coming up, so you don’t want to deal with processing this entire thing while you’re already academically burdened as is. “Be my bodyguard for the night. If he tries anything, I can just throw you at him and run away.”

Jiwoong doesn’t approve of your methods, but doesn’t argue anyway. After eating you both finally head to the library where you’ll be cooped up the entire night— tucked in the corner in your own respective cubicles.

Your friend’s worry starts stirring whenever he sees you check your phone every hour or so. He pulls back the desk chair upon noticing the serious look on your face, turning over to your direction in concern. “Is Jaeryeong texting you?” he asks. “Did he follow you here? Should I call the police?”

“No,” you reply. “Ricky sent me a photo of him at the airport. He’s wearing ear muffs. He’s so cute. I can’t do this anymore.”

Jiwoong’s face falls to an expression reminiscent of death and stops talking to you after that.

Well. You have been receiving texts from Jaeryeong, but you haven’t opened them in case he gets motivated by the fact you’ve read his messages. You still don’t know how he and Gyuvin ended up being friends, but then again, Gyuvin was friends with a group of delinquents in high school. He wasn’t part of the group. He just thought their vibe was cool.

“Hey.”

It’s twenty minutes past twelve, Ricky is probably still on the airplane, and you haven’t eaten anything since your 6 p.m. dinner. You poke Jiwoong’s arm, to which he blatantly ignores. “I’m gonna get something from the vending machine. Keep ignoring me and I won’t buy you snacks.” He says nothing but follows you when you get up, and you sneer at the man following you with a silent tantrum. “Quit sulking,” you tell him as you punch the numbers for coffee on the machine. “You’re not cute enough for that.”

“I’m sorry for not being Ricky,” is the first thing he says to you after two hours of silence. “You’re wearing that scheming lip gloss again, but he’s not even here.” You frown. He laughs and takes your place in front of the vending machine by cordially bumping his ass into yours the moment your drink falls down the chute. “Your phone’s flashing by the way. I think Ricky’s calling.”

You look down, bringing up your phone, and sure enough calling ID “ouricky” is giving you a call.

He’s calling. He is calling you.

Your eyes flash back up to Jiwoong, widened in surprise.

Why is he calling you?

“Did he send a message in the group chat that he arrived?” you ask, suddenly panicking as the phone relentlessly vibrates in your hand. “He didn’t, right? Why would he call me first? What time is it? Wasn’t his flight just an hour ago?”

“For someone who’s been pretty confident that Ricky likes you back, you’re sure acting funny,” he hums, leaning against the vending machine and taking a sip from his cold brew while you’re having a mental breakdown. “Answer it. Go on.”

“‘I’m scared!” you exclaim. “What if instead of saying hello I end up blurting out that I’m in love with him and ask him if he feels the same way?!”

You take too long to make a move so the phone line gets cut off. But when Ricky calls again, Jiwoong wastes no time to snatch your phone from your hands, click answer, and put the damn thing on loudspeaker for the entire fucking world to hear. What the hell are you doing? your scrunched up face says to him. Doing you a favor, his arrogant eyebrows reply. You attempt to snatch your phone back, arms in a desperate move to retrieve to device—

“Hello?”

—but they freeze mid-air at the sound of Ricky’s voice blurring through the speaker.

Jiwoong grins. You slowly get your phone back and press it to your ear. “Yes. Hello. What’s up?” You give Jiwoong the nastiest glare you can muster, but flinch back the moment you hear Ricky’s voice again.

“Are you still at the library?” he asks.

“Yeah.” You elbow Jiwoong when he laughs at your sudden switch-up. “Why?”

“Come down.”

What?

“I’m outside.”

It’s almost stupid how your body starts moving on its own.

The cold air bites your skin the moment you break past the doors, met by the dim sky and muted sight of the empty plaza square outside the library entryway. But it’s not completely empty— no. Ricky, who’s supposed to be still on the plane ride back to Seoul, is standing five feet away from you, eyes flickering up from his phone the moment you arrive, a slow, soft smile blooming on his face and cheeks.

You see the suitcase next to his feet. Jiwoong’s words echo in your head— maybe you’re right, he said, maybe he does like you. It’s not just a maybe anymore. It’s not just your mind making things up.

Ricky, who is supposed to be in the air halfway between Seoul and Shanghai, went straight from the airport to the city library just to see you.

You’re usually the one doing dumb things because of him. This time, it’s not you.

It’s him.

“Hey, are you crazy? Did your flight schedule change?” You stomp towards him, closing the gap between the both of you with big strides and quick steps. “Why didn’t you update us? Jesus, you gave me a scare when you said you were here.”

Ricky’s only reply is a laugh, and your intent to scold him more gets stuck in your throat and you stumble a little when you abruptly halt right in front of his feet. You look at him, batting your eyes in an attempt to blink away the possible pink and hazy filter you’re seeing him with, but it doesn’t work. He is just this pretty. He is just this dreamy. He is just soft and soft and soft when his eyelashes flutter above his big, dark irises as he looks at you, when his stained hair frames his face a little too perfectly, when the corners of his lips lift ever the slightest to resemble a smile.

“That’s not how you usually greet me,” he says. “Aren’t you going to give me anything?”

Your heart stirs. “What?” Aren’t you supposed to be the one asking that? He promised to buy you a hundred sun cakes, and you’re pretty sure those won’t fit inside his one suitcase. “Oh. Oh, wait.” You pat around your pockets, only to realize you left all your candy in your bag back with Jiwoong.

“Sorry,” you tell him, feeling a little guilty. “I was in a rush to get down. I wasn’t able to bring any with me.”

Instead of responding with disappointment, Ricky just hums and leans a little closer. “Really?” He suddenly nudges his face into yours, noses bumping, and your eyes widen in surprise. “But you do have something else.”

He’s close. His face is hovering a little too close to yours to be smiling cheekily unaffected like that. You can feel his warm breath on your lips and you’re starting to feel dizzy.

“It smells sweet,” he says and you think— oh. He’s not good for your heart.

Maybe it’s because he’s officially driven you to the breaking point of being crazy, or maybe it’s because the cold has completely frozen all the sane parts of your brain, but the words you’d usually keep tucked between your thoughts and confidentiality suddenly come stumbling out of your mouth before you can stop yourself.

“Do you want to know if it tastes sweet too?”

You gasp after realizing what you just said. You look at Ricky with a face aghast with surprise, jumping back because holy fuck— why did you say that? Why? You’re crazy. You’re stupid. You bite down your bottom lip and taste the dull flavor strawberry mocking the tip of your tongue. You’re insane. You have officially lost it.

If you were Ricky, you’d probably call yourself crazy too, but he doesn’t do that.

Instead, he does something even crazier by taking your offer and pressing his lips against yours.

It doesn’t register that Ricky just kissed you until after the fact, and you’re staring at him with wide, blinking eyes, lips feeling fuzzy, head afloat beyond reach, and him— at an arm’s length away— eyes averted with pink strawberries dusting his cheeks, much like the color slightly glazing his lips, as if he wasn’t the one who just pulled your trigger.

He ran his mouth about taking responsibility the other day.

You’re going to show him responsibility with your mouth.

“S—sorry, that was too sudden, I just— mmph—!”

Two months of pining after him come crashing down the moment you pull him by the collar to finish what he started and god— his lips are softer than you thought, sweeter than you thought, and it’s not just the strawberry lip gloss smudged between your teeth and tongue, melting into what you can only describe as the best fucking kiss in your entire life.

Ricky pulls away to breathe. You chase after his lips once more in a short-winded daze, only to stumble into his chest and he catches you by cupping your face to press another kiss to your mouth. “Ah. This is bad,” he murmurs between barely parted lips. “I don’t think the candy is gonna cut it anymore.”

For a second there, you thought he was gonna say that you’re a bad kisser.

“You should greet me like this from now on.”

YOU WAKE UP THE NEXT MORNING VIA SUFFOCATION FROM THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE AND A TEXT MESSAGE FROM A PESTERING RAT. Blurry eyes and barely conscious, you try to roll over on the bed but physically cannot with how Ricky is squeezing your torso with his arms, his nose buried against your nape as he curls up into you from behind.

You cannot move. You try your darndest to wiggle an arm out because your phone is incessantly buzzing on his bedside table— the only thing from your belongings that you brought with you last night because your haul to the library was left behind with Jiwoong, who’s probably the one texting you right now for ditching him.

When you finally retrieve your phone however, it is not Jiwoong who’s texting you.

It’s Jaeryeong. Squinted eyes read [how could you replace me with a grey-haired twink???] and [don’t even dare try contacting me, bitch] and the first thing you feel is confusion. Then you remember that Jaeryeong is a freak and probably followed you to the library that night, and saw you making out with Ricky in front of a public educational building.

Well. At least that stopped him from bothering you again. The question now is whether or not you should tell Ricky about this.

“I’m going to kill him.”

You do tell him, in between washing his hair in the bathroom to get the remnants of spray stains out of his hair because Jaeryeong’s comment pissed you off. “I’m gonna kill him the moment I see him,” says Ricky with a lovely towel wrap on his head. You’re looking at him through the mirror and the scary face he’s trying to put on is promptly negated by his spa-day look.

“Do you even know what he looks like?” you raise a brow, freeing him from the towel head to reveal a damp mop of light hair. You throw away the muddled towel and grab a fresh one to dry his head.

“I’ll ask Gyuvin,” he says, face covered by the towel, and you snort.

“I think we’ll have a problem with that. I was kind of hoping to keep this secret for now.”

Ricky suddenly throws his head back, causing the towel to fall to the floor and the top of his head bumps into your stomach. “Why?” he asks, upside down, big brown eyes staring right into your soul like a premeditated attack shooting you square in the chest. He can’t pull this move. That’s illegal.

“Be—because Gyuvin is annoying and he won’t let me hear the end of it,” you manage to say. You’re not going to fold. You’re not going to give in. “You know how I turned down that blind date with you right?”

The mention of it prompts a frown to tug on the corners of his mouth and it’s the second onslaught against your heart. “Right,” he huffs, lifting his head up to turn around and face you, looking up with a displeased expression, yet his actions say all but displeasure when he tugs on the hem of your shirt, pulling you towards him so he can lock you in place with his arms around your waist.

“Quit pouting,” you tell him. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours. You’re not sure if you’re gonna last a month with him being like this.

“Gyuvin said you thought I was ugly,” he says. “That’s why you said no to the date.”

All the adoration you feel gets extinguished in an instant.

You have never heard a more blasphemous statement your entire life.

“I never said that!” you shriek. “That’s not true at all! I didn’t even know what you looked like until we met for that Hadong trip that day!”

Ricky winces at your sudden volume and you’re quick to simmer it down and apologize by hugging his head to your torso. “Oh god, I’m so sorry,” you say. “I turned down the date because your best friend has traumatized me with all the previous blind dates he’s tried setting up. Jaeryeong isn’t the only disaster I’ve experienced. Every single guy he’s set me up with has been trash, so I thought you’d be just like the rest too.”

Maybe this isn’t a conversation you should be having in the bathroom of his apartment, but you digress. Ricky unburies his head and looks up at you once more. “So, am I?”

Again. You’re going to fucking eat him one day. “No,” you cup his face. You’re perfect, you’re an angel.” Maybe if you’d given him and Gyuvin a shot that day, then maybe your first meeting wouldn’t have been as awkward— but either way, regardless of the situation, you’re pretty sure you’d still somehow eventually find yourself falling for this loser.

You lean down, ready to dip into a kiss, only to hear an alarming noise outside the bathroom door.

“Ricky! Why didn’t you tell us you were back?!”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

You’re pretty happy that Ricky is quick to listen to your request because he immediately scrambles to his feet and tells you to stay inside the bathroom for the time being. “Hey, he’s not in his room,” you hear Gyuvin’s voice from outside, followed by Yujin suspecting that Jiwoong lied to them, followed by Gunwook saying that Ricky is definitely around, evidenced by his unmade bed and half-unpacked suitcase.

“I—I think I’d have to lock the door,” he mumbles to you, holding the doorknob and ready to leave. “What if they suddenly barge in?”

“It’s okay. You should go out before they actually barge in while we’re both still in here.”

Cue heavy knocks against the bathroom door. “Ricky! Are you in there?” Ricky grumbles out a swear and quickly slips out of the bathroom, a click on the knob, and you’re officially locked inside your boyfriend’s bathroom within the first twenty four hours of dating him.

Now, this is just great.

You have the privilege of eavesdropping into their reunion through the muffled audio on the other side of the door. “Who were you talking to?” you hear Gunwook ask.

“My...myself…” Ricky answers, and you feel excessively sorry for him so you decide to repent by cleaning up his bathroom. The problem is, even after you’ve finished cleaning, you’re still stuck inside because for some fucking reason, those three have no intentions of leaving.

“Hey, should we order some food?”

“Oh! Sounds good!”

“Let’s watch a movie, I’m bored.”

[ouricky: i’m so sorry they just won’t leave 😭]

You slump to the floor, back sliding down the shower glass. Maybe...maybe this is your karma for turning him down the first time and asking him to hide your relationship. Honestly, you should have known it wouldn’t be easy to keep things hidden from seven pairs of eyes (Jiwoong knows and has sworn secrecy in exchange of being his research lackey). It’s especially difficult considering you’re chronically touch-starved and must always have Ricky Shen around you to hold. So when you have another barbecue dinner at Mattew’s the weekend before your finals, and when Ricky— out of a newly formed habit— tries to greet you with a kiss on the face right in front of his fucking friends, you panic and end up shoving the poor boy, causing him to kiss the floor instead.

Your mouth is wide open. “Oh. Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” Hanbin and Hao hear the very distinct thunk and start questioning.

“Why...is he on the ground?” Hao looks down to see Ricky’s half-alarmed, half-confused face as he half-lifts his body off from the floor. Your face is burning. Oh god.

“He’s repenting,” you say through your teeth.

Ricky tries blinking away the shock.“...Yes...I made a mistake.”

You’re going to lock away your strawberry lip gloss from now on. It’s too hazardous. Hanbin tells you that “friends should get along” and asks you to help him set the table, leaving behind Ricky who’s being pulled back to his feet by Hao. When you see Jiwoong, who saw the whole thing, at the table looking at you with an insufferable look on his face, you flip him off.

“Are you in a bad mood today?” asks Hanbin as he passes you a stack of paper plates. “You keep butting heads with the boys.”

You’re speechless. You can’t even defend yourself if you wanted to so you resign to mumbling out a bitter apology and equally bitterly start arranging the plates on the table, much to Jiwoong’s pure and raw amusement.

When you guys start eating, you even make sure not to sit next to him. You are instead sitting next to Gyuvin, and Ricky is sitting in front of him. They’re both bickering over something again— chopstick-fighting against each other over the table while you half-listen to Matthew who’s sitting on your other side, complaining about Prof Shin and her impossible exam coverage as you clean off your plate.

“You took her class last year, right? Which lessons did she focus on?” he asks.

“Review the most recent ones. I think she just took five or six questions from the earlier lessons,” you reply, grabbing a slice of the gyukatsu you bought and heated up as a potluck, and absentmindedly place said slice on Ricky’s plate.

It gets quieter all of a sudden.

Ricky, Gyuvin, and Matthew are all looking at you— one more alarmed than the rest, and the realization drains all the blood out of your face.

“Yujin, you should try this too!” you try to play it off, placing another piece of gyukatsu on Yujin’s plate, who’s sitting right in front of you. And for good measure you do the same to all of the plates within your arms reach, all while swallowing down the desire to bury yourself into a hole, never to emerge ever again.

“Whoa, thanks.”

This whole secret relationship thing is harder than you thought, and Ricky is very visibly sulking that you’re giving away his current favorite dish to just about anyone. Looks like you have a grown man that needs to be coaxed back into affection tonight.

Jiwoong tells you that you should just come clean and stop making it harder for yourself. You firmly refuse because even though you are having a lot of trouble and even though you definitely want to kiss Ricky and his pretty face without the fear of getting walked in on by his friends who don’t know the concept of privacy, this set-up is still better than the bane of your existence, Kim Gyuvin, making fun of you until the day you die.

The said bane of your existence treats you all out to another dinner because he finally got his grade for his community development project. He says you have no choice but to come since you’re the reason he got an A.

It’s an easy dinner. You and Ricky even agreed to arrive at separate times with him tagging along with his hyungs, and you chaperoning the children while waiting for the rest of their arrival at the chinese restaurant. The problem comes when they arrive. Specifically, when Ricky arrives because for some god damned, unplanned reason, he arrives wearing the same distinctly floral-patterned short-sleeved button down you’re wearing.

“Oh.”

He doesn’t even fucking wear florals. Why did he decide to switch up today?

Never had you thought that the day would come where you’d be begging to bring back toxic masculinity, but here you are— mouth agape, aghast, and awkwardly standing from your seat at the round table because the shirts are way too obvious to be left unnoticed.

“Take it off,” you immediately demand. “This is absurd. Take it off and quit copying me.”

“Wow, are you two couple-shirting?” Taerae’s comment stirs a faint blush on Ricky’s cheeks. Why is this idiot blushing?

“I’m sorry to inform you, but Rik wears it better,” says Gyuvin.

You’re thankful that the same-shirt fiasco ended there. You try to ignore Ricky throughout dinner, but god damn it, Gyuvin is right— that shirt does look pretty damn fine tucked into his slacks and framing his broad shoulders like that and it’s making you angry.

Ricky catches you checking him out from across the table and you catch him subtly smirking. Oh, what a psycho. You’re not letting him off.

“I’m going out for a bit,” you announce, standing up quite loudly with how your chair scrapes against the floor. “Need fresh air. Be back in a bit.” Thankfully, they don’t stop you when you retreat to the cluster of grass and trees and plants tucked in one corner of the outside parking lot of the restaurant. When you take out your phone and prepare to send a message, the person you intended to message has already walked into your field of vision.

Ricky leaves the restaurant not long after you did, looking around the lot until his eyes land on your little corner, a sparkle in his eyes, and he jogs his way right over to you.

“Ah. Not today.“

You hold up a hand in front of your face and Ricky’s nose bumps into your palm when he leans in to get a bite of your lips.

He scrunches his face, wincing backward, confused. “You have wronged me tonight, Mr. Shim,” you say, dropping down your hand to complete your cross-armed display of beration. “You should reflect on your actions before trying anything funny.” All Ricky does is blink at you with those pretty brown eyes and no— you’re not going to give in. You’re biting down your tongue very hard so you don’t get swayed by those dangerous weapons (said pair of pretty brown eyes).

Ricky takes a step closer, or maybe he tugs you closer to him because you suddenly feel a pull on the belt loops of your trousers, face hovering just a few inches away from yours, pressing his lips together into a pout as he tries to get you to give in to his whims, but you are immovable. You are a mountain. You are this close to squeezing your eyes shut because he’s making it very hard for you right now to not kiss his stupid face.

When that doesn’t work, he resorts to his other weapon. That is, being sickeningly shameless.

“I didn’t mean to wear the same shirt as you,” he says, voice low. “Should I take it off?”

That’s it.

You hit his chest with a closed fist. “Ow!” Then you use the same hand to grab a fistful of that darned shirt and slam your lips against his because who are you kidding? You are not god’s strongest soldier. If Ricky bats his eyes at you and tells you to jump off a cliff, you might just do it.

When you hear him grunt into your mouth— something snaps. You pull him in deeper, other hand fixed on the back of his neck, the taste of strawberries mixing with spit and short breaths and the only time you’re letting him off is when you get lightheaded from the lack of fucking oxygen.

You pull back with a gasp. Ricky is flushed scarlet and his eyes are out of focus. “Wow, um. Uh.” You wipe off the smudged lip gloss from the edges of his mouth. He looks like he’s about to pass out.

“You two are so fucking disgusting.”

The sudden sound of Taerae’s voice feels like a bullet to the head.

Your face freezes. Your neck creaks, turning to the right, and you see Taerae standing a few feet away from you two, arms crossed with a face wound up in revulsion and sheer judgment and now you feel like the one passing out. You feel five years of your life getting scraped off against a sandpaper bed in real time. You want to fucking die. “H—hyung,” you hear Ricky say. “What—what are you doing here?”

“The guys are wondering where you two went, so I went out to check,” Taerae simply says, scrunching his nose before continuing. “I really did not need to see that.”

You feel the heat running up to your forehead. Oh god. Maybe you should’ve learned your lesson the first time you got caught making out with him in public. “I—” you start, a single syllable falling out of your throat before your mouth completely dries up. What are you even supposed to say in this situation? How do you explain to Taerae that this is not what it looks like— even thought this is exactly what it looks like?

“It’s alright. You don’t have to explain. I knew all this time that you two have a thing.”

“Haha.” You’re sweating. You’re sweating so bad. You feel Ricky squeezing your sweaty hand. God, you’re totally screwed. “What are you talking about, Tae?”

“I heard your conversation in the car on our trip to Hadong like two months ago.”

Well, shit.

“I woke up when Ricky nearly killed us all on the road. You two are the most unsubtle people I’ve ever met. Quit looking surprised. Do I have to mention the way you eyefuck him whenever you’re in the same space? Girl, you’re not fooling anyone.”

You peer at Ricky and he looks a little too happy to hear that. You’re dizzy, you’re nauseous, and you want to sew Taerae’s mouth shut right now. “Does…does anyone else know?” you ask, scared, and you tug Ricky out of your unhelpful corner and start heading back to the restaurant before someone else comes out to look for you.

“Well. I’m not so sure. They’ve never brought it up when you two aren’t around so I don’t think so,” Taerae replies, and you let out a sigh of relief. “I think Gunwook is onto you, but Gyuvin for sure doesn’t know.”

“Oh, thank god.”

Taerae raises a brow. “Why are you even keeping it from him? It’s not like he’s gonna disapprove or get mad. In fact, it’ll be his dream come true since he’s been trying to sell Ricky off since last year.”

The restaurant’s lights get brighter as you walk towards it. “I’m not hiding it because I’m scared he’ll get upset. I’m hiding it because he’s gonna rub it all in my fucking face and I have way too much pride to deal with that, thank you very much.” Ricky laughs. You shoot him a dirty look.

“Okay. I get it,” says Taerae. “You’re not a normal person either. No wonder you get along with everyone.”

“Hyung, that includes you too.”

“I know,” he huffs. You’re in front of the restaurant entrance now, and you make sure to wedge Taerae between you and Ricky for an extra safety layer. “I don’t think doing that is going to help, but whatever. This is none of my business, so you don’t have to worry about me telling anyone that you and Ricky are dating—”

“You and Ricky are dating?!”

Well, shit.

Maybe you’ve been out for too long. Because there’s suddenly seven people right in front of the restaurant doors, probably on their way to look for you, only for you to come walking back and getting absolutely fucked in the ass in the process.

Gyuvin was the one who made the very astute observation. His eyes are wide and his mouth is hanging open in disbelief. You shoot Taerae a look. He presses his lips together and feigns innocence. “Oh. What are you all doing out here?” he says. So much for not telling anybody.

“You!” Gyuvin ignores him to point an accusatory finger at you— “and you!” —doing the same with Ricky as the shock completely penetrates his facial muscles. You swallow, eyes flitting over at Ricky and the both of you share the same guilty look. “What do you mean you’re dating? What?! How?! Since when?!”

Gyuvin throwing a fit aside, what bothers you more is how completely unfazed the other six are— even Yujin. What the hell? Jiwoong is given. He looks like he’s having the time of his life. But why the hell is Matthew looking at Gyuvin like he’s about to laugh? “C’mon, man. They’ve been together since the first barbecue dinner obviously. How could you not notice?” he says, and now you’re just as alarmed as Gyuvin is.

“Seriously?!” your poor friend looks betrayed, but you’re in a state no better than him because what the fuck is Matthew saying? He’s way off the mark but have you seriously been this fucking transparent all this time?

“I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure they started dating when we went to the resort,” inserts Hanbin, and you’re absolutely at a loss. “The phone call, disappearing off together like tonight— the hotel room. I’m surprised you didn’t catch on, Gyu.” Hao agrees. Yujin nods and says “why else would you spend three hours just getting ready for a lame event,” and you want to melt into the ground.

You can’t do this anymore. You want to go home.

“No!” Gunwook butts in, refusing to be left out. “They’ve been together since that one night at Gyuvin hyung’s apartment! I bought noona a pack of candy for her cough and Rick immediately got jealous. They even showed up together. I’m telling you. They’ve been together for longer than you all think.”

At this point, you have no idea how to diffuse this situation. They’re all arguing about when or how you and Ricky got together. Jiwoong is laughing his fucking ass off. Taerae is trying his best to act like he’s had no part in this. Gyuvin looks like you’ve just twisted a knife into his back.

“Can...can I say something?”

It’s Ricky who speaks up and puts everything to a halt. They all look at him. You look at him. He clears his throat, slipping past Taerae so he can reclaim his rightful spot next to you, and makes your face flush a thousand degrees when he shyly hooks his pinky finger around yours and says, “You’re all wrong,” he says softly. “It’s only been sixteen days and twenty hours.”

Oh.

It’s quiet. You can’t look at him. You have your face turned down in a heated embarrassment. You physically cannot look at him and everyone else and the fact that none of them are saying anything is making things all the more worse.

Kill me. Just kill me now.

“Hyung, you’re so lame,” Yujin breaks the silence of dread. And just like that, they go on as if nothing just happened.

“Hey, did we split the bill?”

“Oh, Gyuvin paid for it all.”

“I’m riding in Bin hyung’s car!”

“Thanks for the meal! You three get home safe!”

You’re in a daze. These fuckers just gossiped about your ass and called it a day.

You’re not sure if you should be relieved or offended that they didn’t dwell any more on the topic of your relationship. They leave you behind with Gyuvin and Ricky, who’s legally obligated to drive you both home, and it’s so eerily quiet that you want to die. “I’ll—I’ll sit in the back,” you say, oddly reminiscent of your first meeting with Ricky, and Gyuvin simply sits in front without speaking a word to you. You fear he might actually be upset that you didn’t tell him.

Oh no. You make eye contact with Ricky through the rearview mirror as he starts driving. Do something. What should I do? I don’t know! I don’t know what to do either! and you cut your conversation short the moment you hear Gyuvin scratching his throat clear, and you jolt and straighten yourself in your seat like a guilty convict on the way to the station.

You end up not doing or saying anything until you finally reach your apartment. Ricky attempts to get out of the car to walk you to your door, but you stop him with one look because you feel bad enough as is to leave Gyuvin in the car alone. “Thanks. You two get home safe,” you say before shutting the door. The moment you close it, however, the passenger door clicks open in its place.

“Hold on.”

Gyuvin is out of the car, and you stop in your tracks to turn around and face him, pressing down your lips together because god, you feel so fucking bad. He should be making fun of you right now, not looking all serious! He should be gloating and rubbing it in your face that you should’ve just taken his offer!

He’s got his arms crossed and looks disappointed. You see Ricky peeking out from the rolled down window in concern, ready to step in in case things get ugly. “I knew you’d be into him,” Gyuvin finally says. “I told you, he’d be different.”

Wait. Wait a minute.

Suddenly, he’s grinning again. A stupid fucking devious grin and you feel your soul escaping from your body. “Did I scare you?”

Oh no. You’re not dealing with this shit, you’re absolutely not dealing with this shit at all.

“I’m going inside. Good night.”

“You should’ve just taken my offer the first time!”

“Shut up. Shut the fuck up.”

“And you should’ve told me you changed your mind. Maybe if you did, you wouldn’t have had to wait for two months before you started dating him—”

“I’m not listening, I’m not listening!”

“This is what you get for not trusting me!”

“Leave me alone!” you shriek, stomping up to your building entrance while Gyuvin happily chases you down, and you struggle to press the right numbers on the keypad so you hiss out a swear.

“No way. This is too good. I’m telling your mom about this,” he grins. You want to cry. “Oh, and I can take the bus from here. Ricky, come out of hiding and help your girlfriend get inside her building! She looks like she’s having trouble opening the door.”

It’s almost ridiculous how the urge to throw yourself onto Ricky overtakes you the moment he shows up, but you’re not giving Gyuvin another reason to make fun of you until the day you die. You tell Gyuvin to fuck off and he tells you to not have too much fun before finally going away. You’re tired. You’re absolutely tired, and you let out a groan into Ricky’s chest and let yourself sink into his warmth the moment you’re sure Gyuvin has left the premises.

“It’s open,” he says, prompting you to get inside but you don’t budge.

“Your friend is annoying,” you muffle into his shirt— the damned floral shirt that started tonight’s cataclystic mess.

“He’s your friend too.” You let out a grunt. Ricky soothes circles on your back and lets you throw your silent tantrum a little longer. “Gyuvin is right though. You should’ve just said yes the first time— ow!”

Ricky’s appalled confusion when you land a hit on his chest almost makes you feel a little better. The problem is, you did the same thing earlier and pulled him into a scandalous kiss immediately after, so he’s once again staring down at your lips like he’s waiting for it. Holy shit. Your psych class didn’t warn you about this. This is a little insane.

Your powers are too strong. The power of strawberries is too strong. But you’re not thinking straight right now, emotions at a high after the events that unfolded— so you don’t think and give him exactly what he wants, ending the night with the sweet taste of tart, and another breathless exhale brushing over his now swollen lips. “I think I’ve brainwashed you,” you say in between bated breaths. “Maybe it’s not me you like. Maybe it’s the candy and the strawberries. You should cut off on the sweets.”

“That’s not true,” he grunts, pressing in another kiss, pulling away with his teeth grazing your bottom lip with a tug. “I liked you from when Gyuvin told me about you. I like you. I like this.”

Well, that’s one way to drive a woman mad. Gyuvin was right. Maybe you should’ve taken that first chance when you had it, but it doesn’t really matter anymore because either way— you’re certain that the outcome would be the same.

“Oh, what the fuck? Gyuvin just texted.” The door is still still left hanging open, and you’re still pressed up against him when you look down to check your phone. “That son of a bitch— he sent a photo of us just now to the group chat. Is he still here?”

“Leave it.”

Ricky pulls you back when you turn and try to look for the nosy bastard who’s probably snooping around. He tips up your chin. “One more,” he says, leaning in for yet another kiss as if your lips are the candies you always give him in bulk, like he can’t function without it anymore.

“You’re getting greedy,” you say.

“You keep spoiling me,” he mumbles, feeling his lips graze over yours for the nth time. “You make me lose control of myself.”

Whether you met him earlier or later, you’re pretty sure you’d still end up falling horrendously for Ricky Shen. And you’d still end up doing all the same dumb things you did just to get to kiss him like this over and over again.

the psychology of strawberries. © hannie-dul-set, 2023.

#ricky shen x reader #zb1 ricky x reader #zerobaseone x reader #zb1 x reader #shen quanrui x reader #zb1 imagines #zerobaseone imagines #shen ricky x reader #zb1 x you #zerobaseone x you #ricky shen x you #zb1 scenarios #zb1 fluff

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doqt33th · 10 months

Text

SINGULARITY

MIRAGE/READER

SUMMARY: You and Mirage have been pining for each other for a while now. A nasty summer storm drives you straight into his arms. Shenanigans ensue.

WORD COUNT: 18k. Sorry I’m insane

WARNINGS: 18+ and I CANNOT STRESS THAT ENOUGH!! Explicit PWP, fingering + oral (fem receiving), penetrative sex, mild spit kink. Reader is fem and uses she/her pronouns but is written fairly androgynous. No descriptors of appearance beyond the basics and no (y/n) used.

Familiar streets flashed by at increasing speeds, traffic and pedestrians flickering by and blurring together into a smorgasbord of color, all gilded by the setting sun. Unconsciously, you dug your fingers into the seams of the leather seat beneath you, worrying the stitches. Out of the corner of your eye, the radio blazed to life with color and that oh-so-familiar symbol.

“Hey, hey, easy on the merchandise, hot stuff,” Mirage crackled out of the speakers lightheartedly, and you immediately yanked your hands into yourself like they’d been burned. In your worrying, you’d seemingly forgotten about what — or rather, who — exactly was your ride.

“Oh— my bad, I wasn’t thinking,” you said, sinking your weight back and down, instead picking at your nails to give your hands something to do. God, you were so nervous, and for what? Mirage knew all these people— these bots, and knew them well. They were all friends! Or amiable towards each other, at the very least. And they were the good guys. Saved the world and all that.

So why were you so anxious?

“You’re good, don’t worry ‘bout it.” He slowed to a stop at a red light. Your leg started to bounce. “Sooo… you wanna tell me what’s on your mind? Save me a trip to Noah’s repair shop? I’d hate for you to start taking your emotions out on me, y’know.”

You scoffed, eyes sliding to the radio. The grin that pulled at the corners of your mouth was one you were helpless to stop. He just had that effect on you, where around him you became a slave to your laughter and, additionally, also became one half of a terrible joke machine that Mirage happily completed.

Leather creaked as you nudged the inside of the door with your boot to chastise him. “You love when I take my emotions out on you, dick. Don’t lie.”

“Only the good ones,” he shot back, and you could hear the grin in his voice. “You nervous about meeting the others?”

His probe was successful; you fought the urge to shrink at your feelings being read so accurately and so immediately. “I— yeah. I am, and I don’t even know why. I’m sure they’re all great, I’m just working myself up over nothing.”

Red faded to green. Carried on the tide of forward-moving traffic, Mirage rolled ahead, eventually slipping over to make a turn. You watched him twist his mirrors to check his blind spot.

“Ah, c’mon. Nobody could blame you, you’re meeting a bunch of aliens for the first time. Pretty trippy for anyone. ‘specially if those aliens are, like, double your size. And robots.” A short chuckle topped off his words.

“Right. I just don’t wanna fuck it up or embarrass myself, you know how it is. I don’t wanna embarrass you, either.”

“Oh, Primus, trust me. You’re not gonna embarrass me. I don’t even think that’s possible. Prime’s seen me in a lot worse shape than bringing you in to meet him.” The world continued to roll by. Brick buildings blotted out the sunshine in intermittent flashes. “You got good marks from your favorite bot, you’ll be fine.” The dismissive tone of his voice was working, in a weird way, to assuage your fears.

“Excuse me,” you said, crossing your arms over your chest pointedly. “My favorite bot?”

“What, am I not?” A downright theatrical gasp hissed out of the speaker. “Have you been cheating on me?”

Cheeks hot with a flush at even the joking insinuation of being together, you glanced away from the impassive Autobot symbol on the radio and out the window. Still, the laugh barked out of you was sudden and sharp, and quickly dissolved into giggles. “Yes. Mirage. I’m sorry. There’s another ten foot tall alien robot in Brooklyn that’s been vying for my attention. We’re done.”

“I should throw you out on the street right now,” Mirage fussed playfully, his evident pout tinging his voice. “For breakin’ my spark. Also I’m taller than that.”

“You wouldn’t dare. I’m fragile.”

“I dunno. Noah gets his ass kicked around pretty good and he’s still kickin’ it.”

“I am not Noah,” came your tongue-in-cheek rebuttal. “And Noah just refuses to give up even when it’s good for him.”

“Thought qualities like determination were supposed to be big things with you guys.”

“In moderation.”

Mirage barked a laugh. “Ha! Should tell that to Prime. He’ll blow a gasket.” You opened your mouth to reply, only to be cut off. “No, seriously, tell it to Prime, we’re here.”

The easy confidence that your playful back-and-forth had teased out instantly chilled into a dense mass in your stomach; Mirage was rolling slowly up to a nondescript warehouse buried deep within the old industrial part of Brooklyn, and the way the worn brick loomed over you even in the car made your heart rate pick up.

Now or never.

Familiar alien whirs and clicks of shifting and setting metal filled your ears as Mirage rose into his bipedal mode, the driver’s seat gently ejecting you onto your own two legs on the pavement. Following the motion, you took a few steps forward, but still balked a little at the half open door. Inside, you heard voices of varying timbre, and you fought the urge to turn tail.

Now. Or. Never. Gritted teeth accompanied the repetition of your thought.

The displacement of air behind you — and the soft, constant mechanical noises emanating from his body — signaled Mirage’s presence before his voice.

He said your name with surprising care, using a tone that only came out when he was really being sincere. You couldn’t help the way your face warmed at it as you turned, craning your neck up to meet his gaze. “Hey, you, uh, you want me to go in ahead of ya? Normally I’d be like ‘ladies first’ and all that, but you said you weren’t feeling too jazzed about going in—“

“Yeah, actually, if you could, that would be… great. That would be great.”

“Gotcha. Let you psych yourself up a little more before you go in, I see how it is. Let me do the talking,” he affirmed with an easy grin and a nod, bouncing on the balls of his pedes a few times before striding forward. His long legs folded easily under him as he ducked under the lowered garage door, and you traipsed after, smoothing your thumb over your knuckles repeatedly.

The warehouse yawned beyond you, orange shafts of light cutting gashes into otherwise brownish darkness. Old graffiti sprayed across the walls told you that Ramona had been there once, then Nick, then Darnell, and a million others. And you were there now, feeling impossibly small, yes, but a little more resilient with the fading sunlight at your back and Mirage, like always, at your side.

He’d become a permanent fixture in your life from the day you’d met him — when you’d strong-armed Noah into giving up his secret about his Porsche, and the mysterious car had ended up being a twelve-foot-tall robot with a literal motormouth that made a playful pass at you within the first hour of your first conversation. You’d been flustered out of your mind, but had just kept coming back out of unfettered curiosity and outright fascination. Aliens were real, and Noah was friends with one, and it— he could turn into a Porsche.

Mind-shattering observations on the surface, yes. Mirage tended to deflate the grandeur, though, because he never acted like aliens did in the movies or in books. There was no ‘We come in peace!’ bullshit. He was so easy. Everything with him was so easy. He was loudmouthed and extroverted and genuinely hilarious; you spent hours in Noah’s garage trading terrible jokes — mostly bad sexual innuendos — or buckled to Mirage’s driver’s seat as he flew down Central Avenue on the wrong side of the limit and blasted Haddaway so loud it nearly busted your eardrums.

Weird to say an alien robot was your friend, but he was. He gave you rides to work, to your lectures, to your labs, wherever; in fact, he got petulant when you dared to take the bus one day to give him a break, and made it a point to pry your routine out of you so that he could take you wherever you wanted, no fares needed.

So infuriating. You loved it.

You loved… maybe more than just the back-and-forth. Maybe more than the bad jokes. Maybe more than the late-night drives. You were starting to think— starting to realize you loved big blue optics, and the rumble of a 260 horsepower engine when you made just the right innuendo, and broad, incredibly intricate servos that dwarfed yours in size but were so, so careful…

Man. You tried not to think about it too much. It as a concept made you laugh with its own absurdity. Poor human chick fell in love with the giant alien robot that made her laugh. It wasn’t… debilitating. You still functioned like a normal adult. Mostly. Except for that one night like two weeks ago where you’d been arguing with him about some stupid shit and he’d scooped you up, right off the ground, in both servos and held you there, digits interlaced against your back and thumbs on your front.

It wasn’t the first time he’d ever held you like that — he’d done it a few times — but something was different that night… even if he’d only done it to gain an upper hand in your bickering. The air crackled with latent electricity, made your skin buzz in all the right places, especially when Mirage had gone quiet for once in his life as he stared at you in his grasp. When you’d prompted him with his name, he’d only responded by gently stroking a thumb over the swell of your chest, which had made you gasp air in so sharply that it burned in your throat. The metal left a tingling path on your skin under your shirt in its wake and immediately sent your heart rate skyrocketing past whatever the fuck was a normal BPM.

He’d snapped back to reality at the sudden expansion of your lungs and had attempted to play it all off as a joke. You remembered how you’d still stumbled when your shoes touched the ground, an absolutely insane feeling of genuine heat rocking you as your brain seized the feeling of his touch while it still sparked against your nerve endings and helpfully replayed it over and over and over again. Sure, the rhythm of banter came back after a stuttering beat, but you never really cooled the warmth on your face for the rest of that night — and when Mirage had dropped you off at your apartment, your door was shut and locked for about five minutes before your shaking hand was frantically worked beneath the waistband of your pants.

…Whew. Definitely something a little more than friendly there. Maybe even more than pure love, something a little slicker and deeper that buzzed against your bones and coiled low in your stomach. It made you feel a little weird — just objectively, because of what Mirage was — but damn if it didn’t feel good to indulge.

God, fuck, why were you thinking about that now, of all times? Escapist fantasies be damned, you were going to meet Mirage’s comrades-friends-coworkers and leave a good impression. Not drool over the worn-out memory replaying in your head for the thousandth time this week.

Out of the darkness and around corners, they emerged. The stealth wasn’t on purpose; you didn’t even think they could be stealthy. Oh, one was coming right for you now — tall was the only word your brain could muster. Tall and red and square were added to the list of adjectives as the stately bot approached, servos collected into fists at his sides and shoulders thrown back.

“Priiiime,” Mirage greeted warmly, throwing his arms out at his sides in his favorite pose. “Look, hey, I know what you said about bringing more people around, but I swear— Hey!”

Completely ignoring your friend’s (status pending) greeting, the bot— Prime, holy shit, this is THE Prime, was kneeling down, leaning forward, and he was right in your face. You fought the very biological urge to flinch. Blue optics considered you for a moment before narrowing and flicking to your right from his lowered position.

“Mirage,” Optimus started with a gravelly tone from behind his faceguard that communicated exasperation above all else. “I explicitly stated that for our safety — and yours — that we were to come in contact with no more humans.”

“Sir, I gotta be honest with you. Kinda hard on a planet that’s got, what, five billion of ‘em? Six?” Mirage glanced at you for backup. You stared back flatly, refusing to say anything that might put you on the business end of a laser cannon.

“You were told to remain incognito so you could recover.” Optimus continued, his gaze returning to you. With a shunk of shifting metal, his faceplate slid away. His faceplates were weathered; the chipped metal around his optics gave the illusion of wrinkles and eyebags. Tired. He seemed tired. “This is not incognito. What is your name?”

You gave it after taking a beat to steady yourself. He repeated it back to you. “How did you come in contact with Mirage?”

“I, uh— Noah, Noah Diaz, he’s my friend. I basically pried it out of him,” you said with a nervous laugh. “So it’s not Mirage’s fault. I’m just nosy.”

At the mention of Noah, Optimus seemed to visibly relax; he moved back slightly, though he remained kneeling, and the narrowed, suspicious squint of his optics rounded out into something much softer.

“…I see. Then I assume you understand the… precarious nature of our existence on your planet.” he said, his tone grave and his optics searching your face.

You nodded, pressing the flesh of the inside of your cheek between your teeth for a moment as you came up with a suitably diplomatic response that still conveyed your friendliness. “I do, yeah. Noah told me most of it. What he could, anyway. I just wanted to make it clear that I’m not— I’m not a threat here. Like I don’t work with the, uh, the government or anything. Whatever you guys need help with, I’m available, even if that just means keeping my mouth shut.”

Christ, you were glad this wasn’t your day job. You’d be such a shit ambassador. I’m available. What the hell did that even mean? Fuck yes, you were available, your brain guffawed, thinking of broad metal thumbs brushing over your chest.

You blinked hard, squeezing your eyelids together until the world came back in a photo negative, to scold yourself.

Although you’d stumbled through your reply, Optimus seemed to approve. He rose with a great creak of metal off of his knee and backed up to give you space, though he still regarded you with those sharp blue optics that felt as though they pinned you to the concrete below. “I see Noah chooses his company well. I should have assumed his sentiments would extend to his companions.” He shut his optics for a moment and dipped his head, as if considering deeply what to say next. “I am not sure how much Mirage — or Noah — divulged to you.”

“A fair amount— well. Any amount that won’t get them in trouble,” you called up, taking in deeper breaths to project your voice up the two stories of height to his head. To your side, Mirage snorted. “I know your name— Optimus, I know that, and I know about the Autobots. A little bit about the— fuck, what were they called—“

“Terrorcons?” Mirage supplied, and you were impressed at how quiet he’d been otherwise.

“Terrorcons, thank you. Other than that, not much. How much should I know?”

“Your knowledge is sufficient. All we fear — and all we risk—“ Optimus added with a pointed look at Mirage, who looked incredibly sheepish. “—at the moment is discovery. So long as you maintain secrecy, no harm shall come to us… or you, for that matter.”

It almost sounded like a threat, but Prime worded it very much like a warning. You decided it was best to heed his word — not that you really had another option.

“Right. Okay. Well— I mean, it was nice to meet you. People — humanity, I guess — aren’t bad. Most of us aren’t, anyway. Just, uh, let me know if there’s something Noah and I can get or do for you.”

Prime’s gaze shifted away from you. In fact, it seemed to shift away from the warehouse in general, looking somewhere far beyond the now-shut garage door. “Your generosity is admirable, but it is not humans primarily that we are concerned with.”

Brows furrowed at his vague answer, you thought it over for a second — and then decided not to push it. He probably knew best when it came to whatever foreboding nebulous space threat loomed over your collective heads; you would leave it up to the experts.

“Oh, well, golden rule and all that,” you still offered in terms of a response. That got his attention. His massive head tilted downwards to look at you once more with curiosity. “If I crash landed on someone else’s planet, I’d want them to be hospitable, y’know? Just trying to make the best of a shitty situation.”

Like he couldn’t handle the terrible punishment of silence anymore, Mirage butted in. “See, Prime? I told you she was cool.”

A short jolt shook the broad, boxy line of his shoulders, and at first you had thought he’d coughed, and then you realized he laughed. It was barely anything, a huff of a chuckle, but you glowed with the indirect affirmation. Just made Optimus Prime laugh. Maybe you weren’t such a terrible diplomat.

He wasn’t looking at you, though, rather at Mirage, and you swore from your low vantage point you could see a barely-there smile on Prime’s faceplates communicating…was that smug amusement? As the tall bot carefully made his way past you, he stopped in front of your companion, and let a heavy servo land on the headlight adorning his shoulder.

“No matter what you may feel, you chose well, Mirage.” Optimus rumbled out, before removing his servo and traipsing off into a darker section of the sprawling warehouse, ducking through a much-too-small cutout and speaking to Arcee about something indistinguishable. However, you couldn’t care less about whatever her and Prime were discussing — what the hell did he mean by Mirage choosing well?

You turned your head towards said bot, mouth open for inquiry and one brow raised. Mirage looked mortified, in every sense of the word; he stood shell-shocked, lips slightly parted and servos up and open as if to defend himself. His head was whipped around to follow Prime’s departure from the room. A whir started, bouncing off the walls — Mirage’s fans came on and off intermittently to keep his ambient internal temperature at safe levels, but the steady hum of this fan let you infer that he was flushing something fierce.

“Mirage? What—“

Interrupting you by breaking, nearly jumping, out of his trance, he clapped his servos together and started talking at a million miles a minute. “Well, damn, look at that, haha, it’s late, ain’t it? You got work in the morning, right? C’mon, hop in, I’ll drive you home—“

“No, Mirage, hold on, what was he talking about—“

“Seriously, c’mon, he was just messing around—“

“You’re telling me Optimus Prime was joking? Is he even capable of that?”

He said your name with a finality that nearly made you flinch. “Look, I can’t really— Just drop it, please?” It wasn’t angry, nor was it even commanding; in fact, his eyes were wide and pleading with you out of embarrassment. You knew the feeling all too well, and in the interest of sparing his feelings, decided to let it go, despite your intense curiosity.

You put your hands up in surrender. “Okay. Dropped.” A few beats of silence passed while Mirage was still tamping down his fluster. “You wanna take me home now or are we waiting for Prime to come embarrass you more?”

“Please, let’s get outta here,” he affirmed, dropping into his alt-mode and popping the driver door for you. As you slid in, you couldn’t help the little mischievous smile that grew on your face as your brain cooked up some other joke to take the edge off.

The garage door opened on its own. Mirage rolled into the noticeably darker alleyway. The burnt umber glow of the sunset-stained sky was only visible overhead; otherwise you were boxed in on the sides by blacked-out buildings.

Stifling silence was broken by a joke. Your joke, actually. “…Can’t believe your dad made fun of you in front of me.”

The noise Mirage made was only comparable to a squawk. But obviously much more masculine, clearly. Still, his tires jerked on the road, betraying his surprise. “Hey— Prime is not my sire— or dad, or whatever you wanna call ‘em. He wishes.”

“I dunno,” you mused, arms crossed over your chest and back sunk deep into the seat. Brooklyn in transition blurred by in messy constellations of lit windows. “He got you pretty good there. Pretty standard dad behavior.”

“Hey, I don’t know what suddenly inspired him to go for comedy, but I do not appreciate it. That’s my thing. He’s stealin’ my thunder!”

“Maybe you’re just rubbing off on him.”

Silence.

The radio crackled. “Ew.”

Accompanied by the loudest eyeroll you could muster, you whacked the dashboard with an open palm, though you couldn’t stop your bubbling laughter. “Oh my god, you are so gross, Mirage! I hate you!”

“Ahh, don’t say that, c’mon! You love it here!”

“You wish.”

The rest of the ride home was spent that way, bickering like normal, and although you couldn’t let go of what Prime had said, nor his knowing look while he said it, you appreciated the return to baseline. When you got home, Mirage parked directly in front of your apartment building, and you lingered on the sidewalk for several minutes after you got out of the car. With the passenger door opened so it looked like you were talking to the ‘driver’ and not completely insane, you leaned on the doorframe and traded jabs with your ride until the humidity of the night air got a little too persistent to ignore. Damn you, Brooklyn.

“See you tomorrow?” Mirage never said goodnight. He only ever asked when he could see you again, corny bastard.

“Tomorrow. My roommate’ll take me to work, don’t worry about it. I’ll just stick my head in the garage when I get home.”

“I thought we had a thing goin’, man!” His faux petulance returned. “You movin’ on already? You just met my folks!”

Your jaw dropped for a second at the fact he’d turned the damn bit around on you. “I met one folk, and you literally said he wasn’t your dad.”

“Maybe I was warmin’ up to the idea!”

Another lethal eyeroll. Your smile still remained locked on your face. “Whatever. Get the hell out of here, asshole,” you said, playfully shutting the door just a little harder than you needed to and slapping the roof like a horse you were trying to send off into the desert.

Even as you turned to walk into your building, you could hear the way his window shot down, far faster than a normal roll. “Ay! Merchandise!”

You stuck a middle finger over your shoulder, thumb out and all, to give him an idea of what he could do with his merchandise. Tires peeled against pavement as he screeched out of his spot and down the otherwise quiet street, letting you know in return how he felt about that.

Smiling like an idiot as you climbed the stairs to your apartment, you felt… airy. You were always smiling after hanging around Mirage, you couldn’t help it — especially as of late. But still, you were dying to know what Prime was talking about when he was messing with Mirage earlier. You chose well. Chose what? Your brain briefly entertained the thought of Mirage returning what you felt, and it made blood rush to your face.

It couldn’t really… work. You had made peace with your physical differences weeks ago. The both of you got along just fine despite the size difference, and it never impeded your normal interactions. But you doubted Mirage felt the same; no matter how familiar, how friendly you were with him, you could never shake the feeling of being just a little too alien. Your greatest similarities were in personality. The closest resemblance you held physically was the fact you were both humanoid in shape.

That didn’t stop you. No, not at all. It didn’t stop you from dropping into bed after a quick shower with a heavy sigh, your hand inevitably sinking beneath the covers as you thought of digits — Mirage’s digits, so well articulated for their size and so careful — playing with the hem of your underwear instead of your own fingers, pushing the fabric aside just a little roughly to explore your alien anatomy. It took very little time for you to grind yourself to climax; in fact, it was embarrassingly quick, and it left your face hot with some special kind of shame as you slunk out of bed to wash your hands. The entire time, you avoided your reflection in the mirror.

Even with the ancient AC cranked on and chugging away, it took you a long while to fall asleep.

Off in the industrial district of Brooklyn, meanwhile, Mirage was burning rubber as he took ninety-degree turns at sixty miles per hour. His processor was thrumming at max capacity, and his engine felt like it was about to either stall or explode.

Primus, it was all too much. Your teasing always got him some kind of hot and bothered, tight under his interface paneling, but the acidic rush of embarrassment still prickled at his cabling. Prime, come on, man. Mirage was still floored at the fact that Prime of all bots had embarrassed him like that, in front of you, no less!

He had it bad for you, and he knew it, but apparently every other bot in that warehouse knew it too. Ever since he’d met you, you’d stuck in his processor, the way the light glinted off your eyes and your all-teeth smile and the way he could get you to laugh. Sure, his flirts were only playful at first — and he only did them to mess with Noah, who’d harbored an on-and-off crush on you for a while — but the more he did them and the more you returned them, the more he started really… considering it.

It was so shameful. Primus, it was shameful. He’d barely ever interfaced in his life — there was just no time, especially not on Cybertron — and never with organics. After that one night where he’d hefted you up with ease in both servos and completely blanked when confronted with your soft, warm weight in his hold, he’d been on a spiral. It wasn’t just enough to be friendly with you; he was plenty friendly with Noah (though with the amount of stupid passes Mirage made at him, Noah would probably say too friendly) and he wanted something more with you.

He’d lost count of how many times he’d rolled into some long-abandoned warehouse or pitch-black deserted alley and scrabbled at his interface panel to pressurize his spike before he feverishly, frantically humped his fisted servo for relief, mental processors supplying increasingly filthy fantasies of your soft skin against his chassis and your mouth, Primus, your mouth on his own, on his spike, wherever, he didn’t care. Every single time, though, after coming down from his high with steam pouring off his lax frame, he felt just a little more discouraged than the last — because he knew that his fantasies would have to stay that way. Fantasies. Your friendship was enough, had to be, no matter how bad he wanted you, because he’d be damned to the Pit before he scared you off by being stupid and admitting his feelings.

Ugh. Ugh. He took another corner too hard and felt his tires shriek, let the burn travel upward and reverberate in his frame. The chaos in his mental processors quieted as he neared HQ. All he knew was that it was late, and he couldn’t be too loud or Prime would get on his ass for interrupting his stasis.

Can’t believe your dad made fun of you in front of me. Your voice played, unbidden, from some file that popped open in his memory bank. He willed it away with a vengeance as he rolled into the warehouse-turned-headquarters as quietly as he could, transforming as soon as the door was shut and stretching out his back. Clicking echoed off the walls as his spinal struts reset, and the residual burn in his scraped tires tingled.

Mirage turned, and—

Yelped. Bumblebee was standing right there, shoulder against the wall and fiddling with some holographic projection from his forearm. Mirage coughed into his clenched servo to preserve what was left of his dignity.

“‘Sup,” he greeted through gritted denta. “I, uh, didn’t see you there, man. How’s it hangin’?”

Bee gave him a flatly unamused look that communicated ‘No shit, you didn’t see me.’ very well. The projection phased out of existence and left the two of them in the dimmed space in some kind of standoff.

“Well, y’know, beauty stasis and everything, I’m just gonna—“

“I wanna know, what you’re feeling! Tell me what’s your mind!” burbled Bee’s radio in place of his voice. Mirage jerked back for a second, not expecting Information Society at whatever unholy hour of the morning it was.

“Look, man, I don’t really wanna talk about—“

“There are some things you can’t hide!” insisted the same song. Bee gestured for Mirage to talk. Clearly he wanted to know.

This was as good a time as ever to spill, he guessed.

Mirage groaned and clasped both of his servos over his face after explaining the bones of it, his head tilted upwards, optics fruitlessly searching the water-stained warehouse ceiling for a solution to his problem. His… very human, very embarrassing problem.

Not that he thought you were embarrassing— not at all, never. But Prime would have his head over falling for a human. Okay, well, maybe not his head; it was more like Mirage would be in for a lengthy disapproving speech about responsibilities and goals and distractions, and Primus, just thinking about it made the former option of decapitation the preferable one. Even though he seemed to approve of his choice, considering what he’d said earlier, the ‘Bots were still at war, and there wasn’t time for human distractions. Literal human distractions.

It wasn’t like he could help it. You were funny, okay? And smart. And you teased him in just the right way that made his cooling fans sputter, and you were so curious about… everything about him, he thought, remembering your impromptu Cybertronian anatomy lesson with a hot flash in his processor. He couldn’t help but be flattered by your attention.

“Ugh, Bee, I don’t know what to do, man,” he said despairingly after a moment, pacing in circles in front of said squat yellow bot leaned against the nearby concrete wall. “I mean, look at this, she’d be missin’ out if she said no,” he added, arrogance staining his words in an attempt to console himself. It didn’t work; insecurity eviscerated his bravado moments after he said it. “Or… I guess we’d both be, huh.” A short, self-deprecating laugh left him.

Mirage wasn’t entirely sure why he’d come to Bee of all bots for advice, but he was sure as shit not going to Optimus after today, and Arcee would have just told him anyway. Plus, considering that Wheeljack wasn’t even in the country at the moment, his options were slim. Besides, Bee had… experience with this sort of thing. Dealing with humans and all. Just… not in this way. But it was close enough, and Mirage was totally lost; if he thought about it by himself for any longer, his processors were going to fry.

Speaking of, Bee tittered through his gutted voice synthesizer to get Mirage’s attention. Expression drawn into a very human grimace, Mirage turned to face his friend, servos planted firmly on his hips.

“Well, you gotta tell her— wanna know what love is— want you to show me,” Bee’s radio clipped, first from a talk show, then from a nearby station, and Mirage felt energon surge to his face in a hot rush at a very personal song being blared back at him.

He had the words memorized at this point. The shape of them was practically burned into his memory files, considering how much he played it for you. It was reserved for days on both ends of the spectrum, bad and good; Mirage would pick you up in his alt-mode and take you for joyrides across the city, flying over the Brooklyn Bridge at daredevil speeds, all the while blaring music loud enough to make your head pound.

The two of you had discovered a few favorites, but the Foreigner song was at the top of the list, right next to Careless Whisper, of course. The sound of your voice belting at the top of your lungs, softened with that specific human accent, thrumming and reverberating through your chest— you sounded so alive, but so different from what he was accustomed to.

“Dude—” Mirage nearly barked, voice up a full octave before clearing his synthesizer into his fist and repeating himself. “Dude. I can’t just do that. Aliens— we’re aliens. Well. She’s an alien, too, I guess, but we,” he paused to gesture frantically between himself and Bee, “are the aliens here. I don’t really think humans are into the whole giant robot thing.”

“Noah?” Bee played a clip of Mirage’s own voice back at him questioningly.

“Yeah, well, Noah’s a different story.”

With a whir of his actuators, Bee shook his head and looked away for a moment, big blue optics considering the floor. With a soft clunk, he crossed his arms over his chassis.

“Come on, man, you gotta give me something,” Mirage urged, tilting his head to follow the other bot’s motions. “Should I just leave it? I mean, I don’t want it to be weird, I just—“

Bee straightened up off the wall, clearly done thinking. His arms opened out in a shrug and his optics squinted, communicating I don’t know what you want me to say, dude, far better than his vocal synthesizer ever could have.

His radio clipped again, this time a few seconds of a Beatles song and then Noah’s voice. “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah— right?”

“I don’t know, that’s the problem,” Mirage groaned, rolling his head back with a pained expression and letting his body follow the motion as he paced another tight circle. His faceplates felt hot at the insinuation. “And if I ask, it’s gonna be weird. And if I make it weird, I’m never gonna—“

He stopped rambling when a four-digit servo thumped on the headlight atop his shoulder, rooting him to the spot. Bee’s optics stared him down, wide and bright blue, and it made Mirage press his lips together firmly as he awaited whatever sage advice he was about to impart.

ABBA filtered through the radio first. “Should walk right up to her and say—“ What came next made Mirage’s brow ridges shoot up so high he thought they were going to fly off his helmet. “—when I get that feeling, I want sexual healin’!”

Mirage’s jaw dropped. Immensely flustered and ten times more frustrated at his friend’s useless advice, he shoved the other bot off. “Are you serious, dude? Primus, I never shoulda asked you. Thanks, I’ll go walk right up to her and ask to interface on the warehouse floor, that’ll go super well.”

Bee nodded quickly and gave him a double thumbs up with a series of approving beeps and chirps, the bottoms of his optics flattening into an amused look. Mirage dragged his servo down his faceplates in mortification, although his cooling fans kicked on a click higher than normal.

Sometimes he wished he’d been left on Cybertron with Soundwave and all his other goons. This was one of those times. As he dropped back into his alt-mode with an embarrassed mumble about ‘going on patrol,’ Bee whooped behind him, and the last thing Mirage heard before peeling out of the warehouse was “There’s nothin’ wrong with me lovin’ you, baby, no, no!”

Whoever gave Bee access to Marvin Gaye needed to be whacked upside the helm.

Knowing Mirage’s luck, it was probably you.

He stayed out for the rest of the night in his alt-mode, wandering the streets and staying away from your apartment, no matter how bad he wanted to go. The pool of people with any useful advice to offer for his predicament was steadily shrinking; after the disaster with Bee, Mirage just needed to stay away from that warehouse and let his processors cool.

Sometime in the morning he returned, though not to the warehouse. He almost immediately crashed into stasis as soon as he rolled into Noah’s garage, his simultaneously pent-up and exhausted processors eager for a chance to refresh themselves and defrag.

Ha, he thought blearily as he sank into stasis. Defrag.

You were waking as he was crashing, though you weren’t happy about it. The eight hour shift that loomed ahead of you on top of the bullshit from last night was a pretty potent combination for a headache of a day, especially when you couldn’t have your morning jam sesh with Mirage on your way to work. Thankfully, though, your roommate was a kind soul, and there was an extra cup of coffee waiting for you on the counter when you stumbled out of your bedroom.

As you sipped it, you wondered just how long you could keep the front up. By some small grace of God, your roommate’s schedule didn’t align very well with yours; you barely saw them in your daily life even before you met Mirage. It wasn’t on purpose, of course. It just happened that way. But on a few occasions, they’d been home when Mirage had dropped you off, and you’d been just calling him a ‘friend with places to be’ to excuse the fact that he never walked you to your door. Being somewhat prescient, they’d nudged you a couple times about this ‘friend’ turning into a boyfriend, but had never pushed it.

You just hoped it stayed that way.

Breakfast was a quick and quiet affair, though you traded a few jokes back and forth that had the both of you giggling into your food. The ride to your job was similar, and your roommate wished you a good shift before driving off leisurely — such a stark difference compared to Mirage’s affinity for peeling off into the street at Mach-fucking-10. Thinking of him made your face burn and your mind race. You tried not to.

Time was an especially cruel mistress today, though. You swore that people were actively winding the clocks back every time you looked up at them, and your shift felt like a thick slog, knee-deep, that you had no choice but to wade through. The worst part about slow shifts was that your mind wandered with nothing else to do, and like a moth to a flame— or rather, like metal to a magnet, your brain circled around to Mirage again and again and again.

Damn that bot. Damn it all. Every time you thought of him, it was some stupid joke he’d cracked or silly offhand comment he’d made or ridiculous flirt he’d lobbed your way — always accompanied by memories of his body, surprisingly lithe considering what he was made of, all legs and a dramatic waist topped with wide shoulders that made your own engine purr.

“Mirage, did you go upstate or something? You’re disgusting,” you’d laughed as you raked your gaze over his pecs, pretending to eye the dirt smeared there and not something else.

“Disgusting?! You gotta be kidding me, I’m not half as bad as the rest of ‘em. You should see Bee, dude!” He’d gestured out the door of the warehouse, where you assumed the other bot was lurking in dirt-covered shame.

“What the hell were you two even doing?”

“Pfft. Practicin’.”

“Practicing body-slamming each other?”

“Yeah, want me to show you?”

“Mirage,” you’d groaned, laughing despite yourself.

“C’mon, I know a few good ways to pin a bot down,” he grinned, winking at you. You fixed him with the most dead stare you could muster before breaking into a half-smile of your own.

“I’ll pass on the whole getting crushed thing, but I could be persuaded to spray you down by hand,” you flirted back, just for fun.

No, not for fun. Real flirt. It was real, all of it was, and you couldn’t shake the memory of his optics widening, brightening, with eagerness and the way he’d pleaded. Playfully. Playfully?

“Please,” he begged dramatically, clasping his servos together, optics enormous. “I’ll be good! Maybe even stay still!”

You pinched your nose bridge between your fingers and tried to think about something else, because you were starting to press your thighs together a little and you were still at work, damn it. Professionalism was something you were aiming to maintain.

Hot. It was hot. That’s what you were thinking about. You’d glanced at the weather report earlier in the morning, and seeing a row of little sun icons clued you in on an insufferable heatwave that didn’t have any intention of breaking any time soon. Even now you felt sweat collect under your shirt and dot your hairline; all you could do was wipe your face with the back of your hand and keep working.

And working.

And. Working.

And then, eventually, you watched the clock tick over the last minute of your shift, and you heard angels sing a holy choir as you all but slammed your things down and sprinted to clock out. Well. You didn’t sprint, but you did speed walk, which counted for something.

Such was your haste to leave your workplace and talk to Mirage that you speed-walked headfirst into the lashing rain outside without a second thought. Genuinely caught by surprise, you stumbled back into the safety of the entryway, eyes wide as you watched the storm front swallow the last dregs of the golden evening sky and pour rain on the streets outside. Ink blots bleeding across paper. Rorschach tests. Some other poetic fluff came to mind over the supremely annoying realization that you were going to have to walk to the garage in wet clothes.

At least it was a quick walk.

Patience waning, you nearly considered calling Mirage — or even Noah — to come get you, but at the last second your roommate swooped in, pulling up outside and honking the horn a few times to let you know your knight in shining Prius was here to rescue you.

They cracked a few jokes at your expense when they saw your wet clothes, but it was nothing you couldn’t handle. Not after the trials and tribulations of Mirage. With a few clicks, the rest of your ride home was filled with Boyz II Men and intermittent conversation as you watched raindrops race each other down the window and considered what the hell you were going to say to Mirage tonight.

Mostly, you were dying of curiosity to know what Prime had meant to get him so flustered. Thinking about that, though, just made you go down a spiral of what-ifs… especially considering that one of them was ‘What if he feels the same way?’

You could handle rejection. You were an adult who paid taxes. But just this one time, you weren’t sure if you could handle reciprocation. Especially full reciprocation.

Mirage’s friendship was something you felt privileged to have. You were just quite scared to fuck it all up and lose out on all the things that made being his friend worth it — including him. Jaw tightening, you blinked and looked away from the window. No use stewing in it.

At home, your dinner was quick and light — something in a Tupperware that you didn’t look at too hard after microwaving. When your roommate asked about your rush, you came up with some lame excuse about hanging out with Noah, waving your hand dismissively.

Don’t worry about me. I’m going to go break Hynek’s scale of close encounters. Don’t worry about it though.

“In this weather? You’ll be soaked thirty seconds out the door. You were soaked thirty seconds out the door.”

“I’ll bring an umbrella,” you said, barely listening to them over the cacophony of your own thoughts. Mirage. Mirage. Mirage. I’m seeing him tonight. I’m talking to him tonight. I’m not going to pussy out of anything tonight. Now or never. “The place is like two blocks up the street, I’ll live.”

“If you’re so inclined to catch a cold, I’m not gonna stop you. Not making you chicken soup, though.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” you snarked affectionately, and the last thing you heard before exiting your apartment was their familiar laughter. That bolstered you somewhat.

Even if the rain whipping at your face made you reconsider your stupid horny stubbornness.

Only two blocks felt more like two dozen as you tucked your chin to your chest and gripped your hood to keep the wind from snatching it off your head; in your other hand you white-knuckled your umbrella to keep it from tilting the wrong angle and washing water down your back. Thunder rattled your bones more than once and made you think offhandedly of Kris, the poor kid. He hated storms but refused to admit it out of pride; he was probably curled up in a ball under his covers right now trying to block out the worst of the noise. And you thought of Noah alongside him just out of pure association, and you weren’t sure what made your stomach turn, but it did.

God, you hoped Noah wasn’t with Mirage right now. You didn’t want to slam the door open to the garage soaking wet and wrestle Mirage’s true feelings out of him while Noah spectated. Wrestle. Soaking wet.

Fuck my life.

The side door to the garage was jammed like it always was, even after you unlocked it, and you huddled against it to stay under the mediocre cover of the awning as you shoved your shoulder into it to force it open. Old metal hinges wailed as you ground them open, and the blessed dry warmth of the garage — the temperature always heightened with Mirage’s presence — sighed against your freezing skin as you wormed your way inside.

“Mirage?” you called tentatively as you leaned back against the door to get it to shut and latch. A beat passed before your senses came to you and your hand fumbled behind you to lock it. Not for sordid reasons, honestly. You just didn’t want anyone to even have the chance of walking in on Mirage when he wasn’t folded into a Porsche.

Speaking of, you saw him then, pacing around the garage and seemingly very involved in a conversation with himself. Although the rain outside provided a dull roar of background noise, the whirs and clicks of his actuators and soft whooms of his pedes against the concrete filled your ears with their familiarity. It was Mirage, and you knew Mirage, and it helped dull the edge of abject nervousness in your gut.

He cut a sharp figure under the hanging ceiling lights, making sure to duck and avoid smacking his helm on them. When those bright blue optics registered your existence, you swore they flared with delight; he said your name with such enthusiasm it almost made you excited. For what, exactly, you didn’t know. “Hey, sugar, what’s k— Primus, you, uh, swim on your way here? Or do I just make you that wet? Cuz I appreciate the compliment.” He grinned wolfishly at you. Sparks flew off your rubbed-raw nerves.

The unimpressed stare you gave him was lethal. “That is not how that works,” you said, shaking your umbrella off on the floor and setting it against the wall to drip dry. “All the wetness is— would be in one place, dumbass.”

“Sorry. Wasn’t paying attention during my anatomy lessons. Wanna reteach ‘em to me? I’ll behave, swear on my spark.”

A scoff. “When have you ever behaved in your life?”

“When it counts! C’mon, you know you like it,” he said, gesturing down the length of his body with a flourish of his servo. “I mean, what isn’t there to like?”

“If I answer that question, I’ll hurt your feelings.” Excess rainwater dripped off your jacket as you peeled it off. Mirage’s optics followed the motion intently.

Amber lighting nearly glowed against the sleek metal of his torso. So what if your own eyes had wandered down it at his emphasis? He’d invited it. Expressly. He loved your attention, loved flaunting everything about himself just for a glance his way from you, for anything you’d give him.

It took him a second to register your words. He gasped and clasped a servo over his chassis— his spark, you remembered that from your own anatomy lesson a few weeks ago. “Gonna break my spark talkin’ like that. I hurt your feelings or something, sugar? What’s got you so bent?” With his question, he sank into a deep squat, draping his forearm over his thigh and leaning close to you.

A deep exhale left you. Your shoulders deflated. “It’s not you. Just the weather.” A short huff of a laugh, barely humorous, left you. “I mean, look at me.” You held your arms out and spun in a slow circle, errant droplets flying in every direction. “I look like a drowned rat.”

The lightbulb over his head was nearly visible. “You, uh, want a hand drying off?”

You stopped dead in your tracks. Your hands fell to your sides. Something akin to lightning danced up your spine.

“What?”

“Hold on, hold on, I got an idea,” he said, holding his hand out at you to tell you to wait, excitement ramping up in his voice. What the hell was he planning? Nothing good, you figured. Or hoped.

Otherwise harsh sounds of metal against metal were softened by the alien chirrs and trills of the mechanical viscera working in his chassis as he settled on the ground in a sitting position. His back was leaned against the wall, carefully adjusted so his darling paint job was away from the rough concrete. To keep his balance, he rested against his tires and scooched his hips away from the wall, kicking his long legs out with a flourish and gesturing at his lap.

Although he was shorter this way, it was still a climb you didn't want to make while you were damp and the general slip hazard was high. “Can you give me a lift so I can see whatever shit you’re planning?”

“I got you, sugar, don’t even worry about it. Just hang on,” came the reply, and your brain blanked just a little at the feeling of his servos on you again, picking you up just like they had done on that night two weeks ago. With zero effort — seriously, you didn’t even hear any mechanical creaking — you were scooped upwards.

Your damp clothes clung to your body, a fact both you and Mirage were painfully aware of; the chill of the soaked fabric contrasted against that fascinating living heat of your skin nearly made the sensors in his servos short-circuit. He’d thought about this, exactly this, so much that it had probably worn a path into his neural processors. So soft. You were so soft.

A shudder ran up his spinal strut and he prayed you didn’t notice.

You were set down with your feet firmly on the flat tops of his thighs, ignoring the slight wobble in your knees. Arms raised a bit for balance, you looked down at the living machinery beneath you. The flight paths of the butterflies in your stomach grew more frantic. Broad servos released you from their hold, but they didn’t leave; no, they skated down, down, down until they settled on the flare of your hips and stayed. They were so heavy.

A breath caught in your throat like a wild animal in a trap. “If I fall, I’m gonna be so pissed off. You know that, right?” Anything to make this more normal. You had no idea how you kept the shake out of your voice.

“Relaaax, hot stuff, I’m on it. I got it, I got it,” he replied, his voice a full octave lower than what you were used to. “‘sides, I’m Mirage, remember? Protecting humans is kinda my thing.”

You scoffed. “Not with the way you drive.”

“Hey, I drive perfectly fine! You’re the one who’s scared of fun.” His servos left your hips to brace themselves on the floor. “Mirage, don’t drive so fast! Mirage, that’s a red light! Mirage, there are cops behind us!” His voice pitched up into something high and nasally to poorly, poorly mimic yours.

It was your turn to be affronted, though your mouth was open in a disbelieving sort of smile. “I don’t even sound like that, you fucker! And sorry for trying to keep us from getting arrested!”

“I dunno, you all sorta sound the same to our audio processors.” He was lying, and blatantly so. He had the distinct tone and pitch of your voice memorized down to the wavelength. “And besides, we wouldn’t get arrested.” His own voice took on a smug, self-satisfied edge, accompanied by the raise of his brow ridges.

“Oh, really? Why’s that? Please, enlighten me,” you snarked, crossing your arms over your chest and staring him down. In response, he leaned his head in, closer to you, closer than you expected, and an insufferable smirk crawled across his faceplates.

“Cuz cop cars can’t drive that fast,” he whispered conspiratorially, like it was a clever response.

What should have been a minute movement — just a shift of the head — actually became very noticeable on a twelve-foot-frame; his hips repositioned of their own accord to account for the redistribution of weight, and the change was enough to trip you up. Especially when you had been leaning in already to match his movement.

The world tilted as you started to fall forward; fearing injury or worse by tumbling off your semi-precarious perch, you jammed your hands out in front of you—

And slammed your palms directly on his chassis. It was all very fast after that. Mortified, you stared down at the planes of metal beneath you, feeling heat creep up, up, up your neck and seep into your face. Mirage had cursed above you out of surprise, and you felt the displacement of air as his servo shot up behind your back and hovered. Right there. He was right there, and he always would be.

You raised your head and made eye contact, and you knew it was over. His optics were wide with surprise, and they searched your face for any expression of pain or discontent. They cycled once, seeing none, and then flickered down to your lips.

He was so done for. Something in his expression sagged at your proximity; in his field of view, he saw an alert stating that his internal temperature was rising beyond ideal levels, and he would have laughed if not for you. Finally. Finally. Finally. He was half-expecting this to be a dream, something cooked up by his fried processors that he would wake up from any minute now.

His servo was still hovering over your back.

“Can I—“

“Yes,” you said immediately in a sharp exhale — before he could even get the question out — and there it all went.

He surged forward like a flood from a dam, closing the distance between the both of you with a hungry rev of his engine. Explaining the logistics of it would sound silly; all you could do was go with the flow, just like every other time you’d ever kissed someone. All you knew was that it was satisfying, supremely so, and completely encompassing. Every sense was filled by him, and you realized with a kick of your heart that you never wanted it any other way.

Though your hand shook, you shoved past the fear and indulged in everything you had wanted for weeks, let yourself sink deep into that pit of want and refused to come up for air. Your fingers skated his curves and edges; you brought your palm up to the sharp angles of his jaw and smoothed it upward until it ran over the curve of his cheek.

He reacted to your touch like it was a live wire. Minute jerks of excitement ran through his frame, and when your hand rested on the side of his face, he tilted his helm into the kiss with barely restrained excitement. He was so careful, it made something inside you purr. That kind of caution was only reserved for something precious. You were precious. He couldn’t ever risk hurting you. Especially not by his own hand.

First impression was that his lips were far softer than you’d ever assumed. Pliable, hot metal pressed greedily against your mouth — more, more, more was a mantra echoed wordlessly between the both of you. The hovering servo came to rest on your back, pushing your front against his chassis as you shifted up on your toes to keep the angle of the kiss correct. Digits splayed against the planes of skin they found there, pressing down to feel your warmth — your heart slammed against your ribs so hard that Mirage could probably feel it against his palm.

With a hot flash, you wondered if the metal of his lips would bear the dent of your teeth from a bite. So you bit. It was more of a playful nip than anything, but the reaction you got was so instantaneous it was like Mirage had been waiting for it. Again, his engine throttled, the powerful rumble surging through you as his servo pinned you to his chassis. Against your mouth, his lips ticked up into a smile.

Air. You needed air. He let you pull away with no resistance, though his head did trail after your mouth for a moment.

You let your forehead sink down and rest against the top of his chassis for a moment; the condensation from your breath fogged the metal. Out of nowhere, manic giggles erupted from you. They shook your body incessantly as you rose and fell in time with Mirage’s heavy vents, your knees feeling weak and mind frazzled. From one kiss. One.

Laughter rocked his frame too, short chuckles of disbelief as his thumb rubbed circles into your back.

“Oh my god,” you murmured into the warm metal beneath you through shocks of giggles.

“Not exactly, but, eh, I’ll take it,” Mirage replied above you, and while he laughed at his own joke, you groaned and whacked him lightly with a palm. It wasn’t like he was unaffected though — far from it, in fact, judging from the steadily heating chassis beneath you and the tinge of static fringing his words.

“Bring me up,” you said hoarsely, twisting an arm behind you to paw at the servo on your back.

Without question, his other servo came up and curled under your thighs, hoisting you up so that his face was easier to reach. With most of your body now resting on his chassis and very much secured in his grip, you grasped his face in both your palms; he leaned so far into your touch with a shaky ex-vent that your noses almost brushed.

“Again?”

“Yeah, again,” he agreed, and this time you pulled him in, fingers hooking in some unseen seam behind his jaw as you crushed your mouth against his. Hunger, latent and now finally triggered, drove you closer, as close as you physically could, until your skin was starting to hurt from the random edges being pressed into it.

Curious above all else, you licked your tongue into the front of his mouth. The searing heat inside surprised you; it teetered on the edge of uncomfortable and reminded you very much of your computer at home when it ran for too long, with that special kind of mechanical stress and burning warmth that only came with overworked processors.

“‘S like that, is it?” he murmured into your mouth with a grin, his engine kicking up a notch and the vibration of his chassis hitting you very nicely right where you needed it most. You made some soft noise, half-gasp, half-groan, and hiked one of your legs up so it was bent at the knee, flattening your hips against his chest and fuck, there it was. The consistent rumble of his motor pressed a steady vibration right into your cunt over the seam of your jeans; a particular grind made you gasp and falter as you rolled your clit against the line of denim and held it there.

“Whoa-ho-ho! Heyyy, hot stuff, something feel good down there?” His voice was bursting at the seams with some rich kind of excitement; you breathed into his neck cabling as your hips jerked a little against his chassis. One servo pawed at your ass, clumsy with its eagerness, gripping and massaging the soft flesh it found there with intent.

Experimentally, his servo pressed down, pushing your pelvis down with it, and the pressure on your clit pulled a groan of satisfaction out of you that had his cooling fans sputter.

“Fuck,” you hissed through gritted teeth, and before he could say something stupid, you leaned your head down and pressed kisses to the delicate cabling of his neck.

A delighted noise rattled out of him, and his helm rolled back against the wall to allow you more access. Impatient, your kisses soon turned to bites, playful nips that tugged at the sensitive wiring and made his body jolt beneath yours like he’d been shocked. To your utter delight, you found that Mirage’s proclivity for talking extended to situations like these, too — noises streamed from his mouth as your curious teeth and hands worked over such a fragile part of his anatomy in ways that only a human could.

“Oh, Primus, babe, babe—“ he stammered out, and you lifted your head for just long enough of a window to allow him to swoop down and kiss you again, feverishly now.

Something thick and wet prodded past your teeth experimentally. For just a second you balked— and then remembered it was his glossa. His tongue. Yeah, you remembered that from your anatomy lesson; he’d stuck it out and pointed at it in a dumb way then, but fuck if it didn’t have your thighs tightening now. The hot biomesh probed your mouth, and it was so big you inadvertently drooled around it — but Mirage didn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, you were pretty sure the spit dripping from your mouth around him was getting him even more worked up, judged by the way his digits tightened their grip on your ass.

You had been cold when you’d walked in that garage. Keyword there was had. Now your skin seared with a deep flush and steadily increasing heat; mindlessly, your hips started a slow, staccato rhythm that kept your breathing heavy. The servo on your back slid upwards to the point where it encompassed the back of both your neck and head. He could not get enough of your taste. He wanted it burned into the sensors on his glossa, for all he cared. Spit and lubricant swapped between the both of your mouths — you found that the metallic taste that seeped into your tongue did nothing but turn you on further.

Pulling away again for a deep inhale of air, you propped yourself semi-awkwardly on an elbow to look at him. Open adoration was written across his faceplates, along with blatant want that made his optics cycle frantically.

“I thought you were— fuck, I thought you were supposed to be drying me off,” you said, breaking in the middle of your sentence as his servo carefully started to move you. Just barely — just enough pressure to keep your hips working against him and chasing your pleasure.

“You really wanna?” He grinned at you, spit shiny on his chin. “I dunno about you, but I think I’m likin’ you being wet more.”

“You’re awful. That was terrible,” you laughed, brain foggy with arousal and general swelling affection for the bot underneath you.

“How many more of those you got left in you before you start admitting the truth that I’m the funniest bot you’ll ever meet?”

“I mean, you don’t exactly have stiff competition.”

“Aaand the best-looking.”

“I dunno… Optimus is kind of—“

“Hey!” he interrupted, bringing you up for another kiss to silence your thought before you could finish it. You happily complied, laughing into the heat of his mouth and then moaning in the same breath as his servo ground you down against his rumbling chassis again.

Hot. You were getting really hot. The damp clothes sticking to your skin were not helping; in fact, they felt as though they were going to start steaming being pressed against your skin like this. Against your wishes, you pulled backwards again, bracing yourself against the warm vents that substituted for his collarbones. They cycled hot, dry air against your fingertips, though it didn’t burn. Not yet, at least.

“Mirage,” you breathed, and that got his attention immediately. “…Are we fucking?”

“Please,” he instantly replied, so eager that it made your cunt throb. His enormous blue optics watched you with such intent that it almost made you want to shrink away from the scrutiny — but you steeled your resolve. You had him, and you had him right where you wanted. Opportunity of a fucking lifetime. You were not about to waste it.

You glanced down for a reprieve from the eye contact. “Fuck,” you swore softly, staring at the metalwork beneath you for a few heartbeats before shaking your head and glancing back upwards at him. “Okay, well— I— Okay. Let me just— do this—“

Hands shaking slightly, you balled your fists in the hem of your work shirt and wrestled it up and off you; the damp fabric lingered and peeled off of you, which made Mirage’s motor throttle powerfully underneath you. Other than that, though, you got no reaction, which made all that heat in your abdomen cool rapidly into a dense ball of abject horror.

Oh, you made a mistake. This was too much, you were too alien, too different—

The servo not supporting you against his chassis slid around from the planes of your back to your front, and you gasped sharply as he did the same fucking thing that drove you insane the first time, however many days ago. His thumb, warm on the palm-side, gently passed over the peak of your chest. His optics narrowed in on the indent in your soft flesh his digit created. Nerve endings in the trail it left behind sparked.

“Oh, you don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to do that,” he said reverently, voice steeped in a combination of awe and victory.

Oh-kay! You sucked a deep breath in, a litany of responses running through your head. The boost to your ego was very much appreciated, and it helped lighten the sinking mass of worry that had formed in the pit of your stomach.

Mirage nearly groaned when you placed your soft palm atop the junction of his digit and the heel of his servo. “Do it again,” you decided on, and that worked damn well.

As his servo groped at your chest, he leaned in, tucking his face under your jaw. To accommodate, you tilted your head up and away—

Only to swear into negative space as he very much returned the favor from earlier and began carefully sucking the world’s biggest hickeys into the skin of your neck. Breaths came harsh and choppy as the expanse of his glossa, hot and spit-slick, laved over the gentle bites he worried into your skin with his denta.

“Ah, Mirage, Mirage,” you breathed; every mention of his name spilling from your bruised lips made his circuitry heat just a little more. It was so much all at once — his servos were so broad that their expanse covered huge swaths of skin at once, and his mouth on such a sensitive part of your anatomy wasn’t helping either. Your hands clawed for purchase against his helm and the back of his neck. One palm flattened as much as it could on the back of his head, trying with all of your laughable human strength to bring him as close as possible. The other ended up cradling the side of his head, your thumb brushing over the audial disk there. With no small amount of wonder, you watched the plates of his back ruffle at your touch.

Mirage wasn’t trying to be weird, but he could die happy so long as he had the taste of your skin still registering on his glossa. It was more addictive than any high-grade he’d had back home by leagues. That human flavor of salt and skin and some kind of sweetness had his processors thrumming at maximum capacity; you made his mouth flood with lubricant, a fact you could corroborate by the amount that spilled over your bare sternum. The feeling of his own spit sliding down your front between your bruised breasts made the muscles of your abdomen twitch. Fingers shaped like claws now, you pressed weak kisses against the smooth curves of his helm wherever you could reach.

Your jeans were just getting in the way at this point. The minute shocks of pleasure you derived from grinding your clit against the inseam were just that — minute. You needed something more now or you were going to get frustrated, and you’d dealt with enough sexual frustration over the past weeks to be very sick of that feeling.

“Oh, fuck, okay— Mirage,” you said breathlessly, giving him a light tap on the side of his helm to get his attention. Reluctantly, he pulled away from your chest, optics dimmed with pleasure. They cycled once and returned to their full brightness as he cleared the fog of arousal — barely — away from his processors.

“All systems go, sugar?” Static hissed underneath his words.

You tried and failed to stifle a snort of a laugh. “Corny ass,” you mumbled, although you were absolutely close enough for his audial sensors to pick up on it. He made a sound of indignation, but you pushed forward regardless. “I, um, I need to get these off.” Hooking your thumbs in the waistband of your jeans to emphasize your point, you glanced up at his optics again.

Blankness for a second. Then it registered. “Oh, right, right, of course, haha! You, uh, want help? Or you got it?”

“I think I can manage taking my pants off,” you laughed. “Just— let me sit on like— the top of your chest, there we go,” you instructed, and the hand under your ass pushed you up until you were turned around and seated on the lip of the top of his chassis. For a second, you wrestled with the denim — still not fully dried — but you managed to kick both your jeans and your shoes off. They were thrown somewhere in the direction of the door. God, you were so glad you locked it.

Underwear went next. There was a beat of hesitation — for what, you weren’t sure — but like you’d done so often as of late, you just ignored your trepidation and worked the elastic down your legs. A laugh barked out of you when you lifted the fabric up and saw the downright ridiculous wet spot that stained the gusset.

“Jesus Christ, look what you did to me,” you said with a faux accusatory tone, holding your panties out for Mirage to inspect. Two digits delicately took them from you; he held them up to his face, so close that it made you blush from sheer embarrassment.

“Wow. You weren’t kiddin’ ‘bout all the wet being in one spot, huh?” He examined them with no small amount of fascination, much to your mortification.

“Mirage! Put those down, oh my god,” you said, covering your mouth with a choked noise.

“What, I can’t admire my work?”

“No you can not.”

Mirage pouted at your denial, and mumbled something about you being no fun, but he still lifted you off his chassis regardless. Like he was helpless to your draw, he pulled you in for another kiss, though he couldn’t stop his mouth from wandering. Down, down, down, until his nose was nestled in your chest and he spoke into the soft flesh of your stomach. Shaky ex-vents tickled the damp skin there.

“Shit, baby, tastes so good,” he mumbled, and you were impressed by his ability to sound completely sex-drunk without even having done anything yet.

Your hips rolled against nothing; they bumped into his neck cabling and the top of his chassis fruitlessly, and a noise of frustration eked out of you. Mirage seemed to get the memo and pulled you away. Your body was brought down until your ass was sat firmly on his hips — his interface panel nestled right in front of your dripping cunt — and your back was leaned up against the flat support of his thighs; his knees were tucked up and his pedes placed firm and flat on the floor to give you the most stability. Fumbling for a second before you found somewhere to place your own feet, the enormity and absurdity of the situation brought more of those breathless giggles to your mouth that seized your chest and shook your shoulders.

Toootally breaking Hynek’s scale here. So beyond abduction. Way beyond abduction.

A few careful digits slipped around your knee, wormed their way between your legs. “Can I—“

Your thighs fell open without a word.

What had made you fall for Mirage the hardest was his motormouth. He never stopped talking; he always had something stupid to add, something to pitch in with, some silly joke to crack. There was a lightness he teased out of you that even you didn’t expect. But now? Now, for once, he was speechless. It made uncharacteristic shyness flare in your gut and heat your face as he studied your very bare, very human form with slightly parted lips and enormous optics.

His body caught up before his mouth did. The servo on your knee slid over it until it gripped your bare thigh; he watched the flesh shift back and forth under his touch with no small amount of fascination.

“Is it— it’s okay?” Your voice sounded very small. It was a special kind of insecurity to be faced with.

“Oh, yeah, it’s okay. It’s cool, you’re just— just different. A lot different.” He jiggled your thigh again playfully.

“Good kind of different though, right?”

“Very good.” To punctuate it, his engine snarled again, seemingly in response to the drool of your cunt on the hot metal of his interface panel. “Primus, you look good, babe. Shit.”

Ego boost! You smiled. Any other partner — any person — and this would be too much, this position too unflattering, your everything too open… With Mirage, though, it just felt like it always did. Easy.

One of your hands rested atop the servo still holding onto the meat of your thigh. The other slid down over your shining chest, passed over your stomach and pubic mound, and brushed past wiry hair, shiny with slick, in order to slide a finger up your folds. A whine ripped its way out of you at direct contact with your clit after mere heavy petting, and you couldn’t stop yourself from drawing tight circles with your fingers and twitching your hips forward to eke out more of that delicious pressure.

The servo on your thigh dug into your skin. Mirage’s vents became far heavier at the open display of your arousal; it has always been him vying for your attention. Now that it was the other way around, he wasn’t sure if he could handle it. Transfluid was seeping between the seams of his interface panel, joining your own fluids in a shiny pool that sent sparks up his struts. He made you like this, made you so wet you dripped, made your clit swollen enough to be visible, made your cunt tight with heat and Primus, he needed you on his spike so bad, he thought he might die without it.

He verbalized these thoughts with an unintelligible noise of adoration.

It was enough encouragement for you to slide down from your clit and venture two fingers into yourself. Zero friction. They glided. Christ, when was the last time you were this wet? You’d slept with a handful of people, especially in your first couple years of college, but you’d never been soaked like this. Mirage’s cooling fans choked at the sight of your fingers vanishing into you. His thumb dug into the crease of your thigh and hip as he leaned just a little closer to watch.

Very little time passed before it devolved into your fingers working inside your walls, crooking against that one spot that made your breath hitch and hips jump. Mindlessly, you ground against your palm, catching your clit on the heel of your hand with a sweet moan that nearly shorted out his processors. He had to hear that again. Without thinking, he moved his servo over, resting the digits on your lower stomach and gently, gently nudging the heel of your hand out of the way to replace it with his thumb.

“Ah!” spilled from your lips at the insistent, broad pressure of his thumb, and your hips jerked against it, working your fingers that much deeper. Tears pricked at your eyes from pure sensation. “Mirage, mmm, just— just rub, up and down— or circles, just move, I don’t ca—are,” you floundered, the last word breaking as he did as he was told, carefully sliding his thumb up and down on the bead of your clit and sending twinges of searing pleasure up your spine.

You found quickly that just your fingers weren’t enough. Not when the reminder of his servo lay heavily on your lower stomach, tips of his digits digging into the soft fat there insistently. Although you were loath to part with your hand, you pulled your fingers out with a sigh. Mirage froze, optics flicking to your shiny hand as you spread your fingers, examining the strings of fluid that connected them with a far-off feeling of pride.

“Sugar, you’re killin’ me here,” he groaned, and you saw, for one endearing second, a puff of actual steam rise from the vents near his shoulders as he ex-vented harshly.

“Okay, well, here,” you said, unable to come up with anything clever with the purr of arousal in your cunt fanned by the heat of his interface plate and consistent, maddening rumble of his engine. Your hand, still shiny and wet with your fluids, grasped the top of his servo and gently pushed it downwards, until the tips of his digits rested against your drooling entrance. To fight the whimper that threatened to claw its way out of your throat, you nearly chewed a gash into the inside of your cheek. A gasp of an in-vent jolted his frame in awe.

“You sure? I mean— it’s cool?” His flustered stammering was so damn endearing; supreme affection for him swelled in your chest.

“I’m sure. Just— just go slow.” His adoration was fueling your bravery. You knew he wouldn’t hurt you; if he did, it would never be intentional, and it would never be something he couldn’t fix.

He paused for a second before remembering the position of your own hand and flipping his servo so it was palm side up; you dragged a large enough breath in to balloon your lungs fully at the sight. Anticipation danced in the burn of your spread thighs. For a few seconds, it was just exploration; his digits slid over your silky folds, collecting the gathered slick with minute trembles. One delicious slide all the way up from entrance to clit had you gasping. Mirage silently thanked Primus above that your whole set-up was similar enough to his valve to know at least some of his way around it. It was just hotter. Wetter. Softer. So much softer.

“‘Raj, just— fuuuck,” you groaned out, your head rolling back as the tip of one digit sank into you, soon followed by the rest as it slid all the way to the base. Stars flickered behind your eyelids. The width matched the two fingers put together you’d just pulled out of yourself, though the texture was so wildly different to anything you’d ever put up there that it made your brain stutter for several moments as your nerve endings processed the feeling. The individual ridges and articulations of his knuckles dragged against the silk of your walls in a way that pulled the breath right out of you; your chest rose and fell rapidly with shallow breaths as your thighs twitched.

You were a mess. Mirage was in love. “Holy shit, baby, I get you this bad?” It was only partly teasing. “l— fuck, a second one good?”

“Good, yes, please.”

All thoughts were wiped clean from the forefront of your brain with the addition of a second digit. Slick noises and the sound of dripping fluids landing on metal and concrete filled your ears over the steadily climbing racket that Mirage’s entire body was making — his cooling fans competed with his engine to make the most noise, over top of the typical whirs and clicks that came with his motion. You couldn’t look, could only feel with your eyes squeezed shut as Mirage pumped both digits in and out, in and out, in and out. One arm was thrown up behind you, hooking loosely around his knee to ground you somewhere. The other was occupied: your hand clutched his wrist like a lifeline, white-knuckling it even as your sweaty palm slipped over the metal cuff. When his thumb returned to your clit, swirling clumsy but eager circles on top of it, that only contributed to the tight, hot coil building in your gut.

Mirage had half a mind to pop his interface panel right then and service himself, because the sight of you, shining with sweat and slick with his spit as you rode his digits, was almost too much to bear. The plush folds of your cunt, tight with arousal, were so soft against the hard planes of metal that comprised his servos; the contrast was short-circuiting him. Under his paneling, his spike was already pressurized. Had been for what felt like hours. Your ass was beginning to slide back and forth just a little due to the transfluid collecting underneath you; the rippling motion of your flesh was driving him insane. As were your walls, Primus, your walls that sucked greedily around his digits as they glided in and out of the tight ring of muscle that made up your entrance.

Your name left his lips in a groan that was an octave too high to be suave. The thought of your cunt clamping down on his spike — so soft, so hot, so wet — like it was doing on his digit had his hips rolling against nothing, working fruitlessly for friction they weren’t getting.

Sweat collected wherever skin touched skin. Condensation fogged wherever skin touched metal. The combination of his digits stretching you, curling in you when he realized what a dramatic reaction it incurred, and his thumb working your clit was getting to be too much. Heartbeat roaring in your ears like the rain outside, you clawed a grip into a seam in his leg and jerked your hips against his servo with breathy noises and gasps that you certainly wouldn’t be proud of later. For now, though, all it did was fuel Mirage’s ego and go straight to his spike.

Almost there. You were almost there, grinding your way towards it, sweat beading on your hot skin—

He pulled out. He pulled his digits out. A keen tore out of you at the loss of feeling, tears springing to your eyes as the hot edge you were so fucking close to fell away, your hips working unconsciously against a servo no longer there. With a gasp of a breath, you wrenched your eyes open, blinking away the collected tears and nearly baring your teeth at the bot beneath you — until you saw what he was doing.

In utter astonishment, you watched as the digits that were just inside you slid into his mouth, peeks of his glossa flashing as it worked them clean.

“Oh fuck,” you said before you could stop yourself. One of your hands slapped over your mouth; you tasted sweat and metal. His optics slid to you, lidded and cycling frantically as he processed your taste. A harsh ex-vent slumped his shoulders — the servo not preoccupied with his mouth clutched your hip like you were something precious.

“Sugar,” he breathed, static grating on the word. “Fuck, c’mere.”

Servos hefted you up, and you clutched onto them out of instinct as he helped you up to his face. Without thinking, you lunged forward to kiss, your tongue seeking out his glossa and tasting yourself with a resurging thrum of arousal. He cut it short, though, ignoring your protests as he cupped your ass in one servo and held you aloft.

For a second, you stared at him in confusion. “What are you—“ Then it hit you. “Oh.” Your heart rate skyrocketed.

The grin stretching his faceplates was downright devious. “Hang onto something, wouldja? Not that you’re gonna fall. Just want you to enjoy the ride.” A short, heady chuckle rounded out his words.

“You’re insane— oh!” Your lighthearted scold was immediately interrupted by the press of your hips against his face and the slide of his slick glossa over the entirety of your sex. “Oh my fuck!” sobbed out of you as your upper body jackknifed over his helm. One arm curled around it with clawing fingers; the other slammed, palm flat, against the concrete wall.

A groan of satisfaction rumbled into your cunt as the taste of salt and sweat and girl bloomed on his glossa — just like earlier but so much stronger now. The proud line of his nose bumped your clit for a second before his glossa followed, narrowing so he could flick at it experimentally. Lubricant spilling from his mouth mixed with your own slick and ran down his chin; his cooling fans sputtered and spun weakly for a second as he pushed up further against your hips, malleable mesh drawing shapes between your clit and your hole.

Your fingernails scraped against the wall as your hips jerked of their own accord; the edge stolen from you earlier had very much returned, and the feeling of his faceplates sliding over the plush, soft skin of your inner thighs was doing something terrible to you.

“Mirage, ah, ah— I’m— fuck, fuck!” Broken syllables and curses streamed from your lips as a substitute for real words. When he closed his lips around your clit and sucked, it was over. It was so quick, embarrassingly quick. The orgasm that had been building suddenly snapped free and tore through you like a fucking hurricane, leaving spasming muscles and a wonderful endorphin afterglow in its wake. As you sobbed out his name, he slid two digits of his free servo back into you just to give you something to clamp down on, and it made tears spill down your burning cheeks from pure stimulus. Mirage drank you; he wanted nothing more than this, to swallow you down and leave your taste buzzing on his glossa like high-grade. Several thundering heartbeats later found you hunched over his helm as his glossa continued to work lazily against you, forcing twitches out of your thighs from pure overstimulation.

“Okay, okay,” you managed to croak, voice hoarse from weeping moans and boneless from what was probably one of the most insane finishes of your life. You tapped out weakly on the side of his helmet. Reluctantly, he pulled your pussy away from his face and cradled you in both servos, one noticeably damper than the other, in front of him.

His chin was shiny with you, his grin wide and completely self satisfied, and his optics dimmed with pleasure. If you were being honest, he’d never looked better, but in your frazzled state you weren’t sure if you had the capacity to string together enough words to form a compliment.

“I gotta say, compliments to the chef,” he hummed, and you stared at him, words not processing.

“Did you seriously— you just gave me head and that’s what you’re gonna say?”

“Uhh, yeah, babe. And I meant it.”

A genuine laugh shook you. “Oh my god. Ohhh my god. Okay. Well, put me back down there, you corny fuck,” you said with a gesture back at his hips.

“Oooh, keep sayin’ that. I’ll start thinkin’ you mean it.” Your body, errant trembles still running through it, was set carefully down back near its original position. This time, you sat in something closer to a straddle, back straight instead of leaning.

The garage air had gone from temperate and warm to fucking scorching. Outside, the rain droned on, occasional rumbles of thunder sounding so far away that they may as well have not been real. Your entire world had been compressed down to one point — a gravitational singularity in this garage, crushing space and time down until only bricks and concrete stood between you and the oblivion outside. All you knew was living metal and Mirage’s voice, trembling with excitement and fuzzy with static, and that was all you wanted to know. His chassis was making so much noise that you probably, under any other circumstance, would have been concerned; if he blew a gasket fucking you, though, you would wear that with pride.

Pure adoration reflected right back at you from his optics as his servos settled on your hips, his thumbs stroking your slick skin. Any concerns he had about Prime’s reaction to you, or to this — well, maybe not to this specifically, but to the both of you being together — were completely null and void in your presence; the reality of your soft weight in his lap was enough to short out his circuits.

Your hands slid down from the cooling fan in his abdomen spinning at maximum speed towards his soaked interface panel; glancing up at him demurely through your lashes, you spoke.

“You gonna let me return the favor?”

“Huh?” He broke out of his reverie. “Oh, right, um— yeah. Yeah, please.”

A smile crawled over your face at the reminder that despite all the poetic words you could come up with in your head, Mirage was still, and always would be, Mirage. Dazed already, he ran the subroutines to open his interface panel. Machinery shifted with a few clicks, and there was a hiss and an outpour of steam as his spike swung up before you, clearly aching for some kind of touch.

You heard more plates shifting lower, too, and out of curiosity peeked downward; something slick glowed lower down, but the nervous shifting of Mirage’s hips and his closed thighs obscured it from view.

Probably better to just focus on what’s in front of you. Your eyes roamed the length of his array first, your mouth going dry just at the size of it. It was bigger than any toy you owned, anyone you’d slept with, and bigger than his digits, too. Still, though… what were humans if not persevering?

And flexible?

You wrapped a hand around it right below the tip, and a full shudder lanced up Mirage’s frame; it was so thick that there was still space between your fingers and thumb left over. Transfluid, milky in consistency but pearlescent pink in color, spilled from the flared head. Curiosity overtook you, and you swiped a thumb up to catch an errant bead of it as it trailed down the side. The fluid was semi-oily, and smelled… fairly innocuous. Metallic, sure, but that came with the territory.

The array itself was as impressive as it was pretty. Like everything else about Mirage, it was fancy, mostly chrome with blue striping up the sides that led to a fully blue head. The biomesh it was made of — similar to his glossa — gently throbbed with alien pulses as you stared at it. Oh, that was hot. Why was that so hot?

Exploration in full was rewarded with soft noises spilling unbidden from Mirage’s lips, his hips twitching uncontrollably as you carefully slid your hand down from the tip to the base in one fluid motion, feeling the transfluid slick under your fingers. “Mmph, I— ah,” he choked out through gritted denta as you observed him.

Oh. Oh. The realization of the power you held over the big mech made a special kind of arousal thrum through you. Another slow pump had his hips jerk up once and a servo clamp over his mouth.

“This was not included in your anatomy lesson,” you said pointedly, a cheshire grin on your face as you hovered dangerously close to his spike. It throbbed in your grip, working another bead of transfluid out of the tip.

“Oh shit, babe,” he groaned, rolling his helm back against the wall. “Uh— hands— hands-on learning?” he offered weakly, unable to focus on anything other than the soft, damp skin of your palm around his spike.

He made the mistake of looking down as you let spit drool out of your bruised lips and spill over his spike for additional lube, and he snapped his optics shut to avoid from a spontaneous overload right there. The noises he made as you slid your tongue over the head were pitiful.

“Fuck, baby, fuck, fuck, fuck,” he hissed, spinal struts clicking as they arched. Primus, was he seriously about to overload in your mouth? Your lips closed around the head and sucked lightly, and he yelped. A servo shot out and carefully grabbed your shoulder, though the tremors running through his digits told you of the restraint he was barely employing. A string of spit and transfluid connected your mouth to his spike as you lifted your head, and he had to force himself to look away for a second with that same servo clutched over his mouth to keep steady. “‘m not gonna last like that, you— can we just—“

“Fuck?”

“Primus, yes.”

“Yeah, we can. I guess.” Despite the leap of excitement in your stomach, you rolled your eyes.

“Don’t even start with that, c’mon,” he said fondly, one servo supporting you as you lifted yourself above his spike and stared down at it with no small amount of trepidation.

It looked a little more manageable from above, but working with something the size of your forearm would cool anyone’s heels, even if there was slick drooling down your inner thighs. Mirage’s servos settled heavy on your hips and you braced yourself on first his knees behind you, then his wrists as you tilted your pelvis to align your entrance as best you could. You sank. The head pressed insistently against your hole. Relax. Relax. Relax.

A deep breath filled your lungs, then whooshed out, deflating your shoulders. Unable to help himself, Mirage inched one of his servos over and ran his thumb through your folds, rolling over your clit and jolting your hips enough to slip the head inside. A long sigh of “Fuuuuck.” was all that managed to come out of your mouth, your toes curling at the stretch and then the pop of the flared head sliding past your entrance.

Mirage’s entire frame trembled. His vents became shallow and sharp, and the tips of his digits clamped onto the soft meat of your hips desperately as the sensors on his spike reckoned with the realization of just how wet and warm humans really were. “Babe, babe, babe, shit,” he stammered out. “That’s— um, fuck, that’s good!” A weak laugh escaped him as his chin sank down to his chassis, cooling fans hiccuping from stress.

“Hold on, just hold on, I can… shit.” Sweat-dampened palms slid off his wrists for a second before you resituated yourself and leaned back a little, letting your upper back rest against his tucked up thighs. Whatever you were doing worked, because you sank further, and you thanked whatever god was listening that you’d already finished once, making your body quite boneless and that much easier to maneuver.

Mirage, on the other hand, was as taut as a fucking bowstring, made helpless to his own pleasure and completely powerless to you. His optics first scrunched shut, unable to look at you for fear of overloading at the sight of you finally on his spike; then they flew open at the realization that he wanted this burned into his visual processors forever.

Your skin shone with sweat and lubricant; rivulets trailed down your body like a visual pointer to your slick sex, nestled within wiry hair and stretching so beautifully around his spike that it tore an honest-to-Primus whimper out of his vocal synthesizer.

“Mirage, I need you to— mmnh, fuck, I need you to just touch— please,” you gasped, his spike punching the air right out of your lungs. Although your words were broken, he seemed to get the memo, and despite his minute tremors, brought his thumb back to your clit and pressed down. Just the surface area alone made you sigh and roll your head back in pleasure, and it loosened you enough to take him right up until the head nestled against your cervix and your ass brushed his hip plating. There was maybe an inch or two left, but you felt immense pride at managing to work most of his spike in — and immense pleasure, too. If he moved his thumb at all, you were done; you were so fucking full you could barely breathe, and you felt the slow, rhythmic pulses of his biomesh throb through you.

Mirage had never been one for restraint. He did things all-in, one-hundred-and-ten percent, all with a flourish to top it off; the feeling of the hot silk of your walls flexing around his spike just sitting there was enough to quite literally kill his cooling fans via a micro-short in an attempt to divert more power towards keeping his hips still. Senseless praises streamed from his lips, voice whining and roughened by static fuzz. “Yes, yes, yes, sugar, Primus, that’s good— feels so good, please, can I move, please,” he fumbled, jaw slack and optics flickering with the power surges cascading throughout his frame.

“Just— let me start,” was your response, tears pricking at your eyes, and although Mirage groaned pitifully underneath you, he listened.

You had a fair amount of experience with riding toys, and you knew what felt good; the lightbulb above your head became apparent. A shift in your position pushed further weight to the back so that the ridges and nodes of his spike pressed insistently toward the front — though, to be fair, it pressed everywhere — and oh, fuck, right there. Now shoved against that sweet spot inside you, the pleasure teetered on the edge of pain, and you dragged yourself up with a vicious grip on the seams of his thighs behind you. Mirage whined and shifted his hips just slightly; it was enough to pull a moan from your lips as you slid upward. Thick, sluggish droplets of slick swirled with transfluid oozed down his spike. He watched — it was all he could do — with an open mouth and rapidly cycling optics.

The flared head caught against your entrance; a spike (ha!) of pleasure lanced through you. “Okay, now, you can— help me, please,” you stammered out, dizzy with pleasure already and feeling a loopy kind of open-mouthed grin situate itself on your face.

Your words were all he needed. Although he desperately, desperately wanted to snap his hips up and chase the vice-grip of your slick walls, he’d rather take on Megatron alone with his servos tied behind his back than risk hurting you. Especially while interfacing. He did not want to have to explain that to anyone.

Thumb slowly working your clit, his servos gripped your hips just a little too tight and assisted; you could feel the tremors lancing up and down his arms as he helped you establish a rhythm. At a word, the dam would break, but for now, you maintained tenuous control over the mech and over yourself as you rode him with his help.

Well. Rode was a strong word for it; he all but dragged you up and down the length of his spike, earning each of you luxurious groans from the other, but your quivering thigh muscles assisted as best they could. Heat surged through your body at the drag of his nodes against your walls, and you realized with a hot flash that Mirage was going to fucking ruin you for anybody else, and you liked that. Which was good, because he could have stayed buried in your cunt for the rest of his life and offlined happily just like that.

It was good. It was really good. But even the overwhelming stretch wasn’t enough. Just like earlier — it seemed like light years away now — when you’d still had pants on and hadn’t been completely lost to metal-on-skin debauchery, the grind of your clit on the seam of your jeans had been good, but not enough. Your fingers clawed at his wrists. The burn of your thighs from exertion seared through you, mixing with the jolts of pleasure from your clit to create some new, terrible monster that had you twitching with shameless ecstasy.

“Mirage, Mirage,” you croaked, as he slid you down his spike again and pushed it into your lungs, “I’m— fuck, please, faster, please, please.” In any other scenario, your begging would have immensely embarrassed you; now, though, it seemed like the only viable option to get him to fuck you like you needed him to.

“Shit, baby,” he hissed, and you gasped as he kept moving you, legs jerking uselessly. “You— fuck, you sure?”

“Yes, please, just— oh, fuck!” The cry — and the air in your lungs — was knocked right out of you by a single desperate snap of his hips upward, his spike driven straight home. Your entire upper body crumpled forward, kept upright only by a tenuous grip on his wrists, and then he really started fucking you, and you were gone.

His cooling fans surged back to life as he slammed into you, power no longer diverted towards holding the actuators of his hips back. No, now he was fucking jackhammering into you, and you were barely moving as his spike pistoned in and out of you, slick drooling from your cunt. Like he remembered himself, his thumb began to work furiously against your clit, and you rewarded him with a gasp and more than a few uncontrollable moans of his name, which only served to fuel him more.

Not like he was being quiet, either. You were glad that the building was solid brick and the rain continued to pour outside, because the amount of noise coming from his chassis and spilling from his lips was worrying. Praises and broken mentions of your name streamed from him; he tossed his helm back against the wall with his optics squeezed shut to keep from overloading prematurely. It was too much— it was way too fucking much. Your poor overworked cunt was nearly bruised with sensitivity, barely able to keep up with the stretch of his spike as the nodes pulsing along it raked that sweet spot inside of you mercilessly. Neither of you were going to last long; not your fragile human body nor his torqued-up frame could handle much more of this.

Every sharp thrust paired with the frantic, messy circles he pressed into your clit brought you viciously closer and spilled tears from your eyes. All you could really do was hold on as Mirage wrung pleasure from both your body and his. Impossibly, his thumb worked faster, his pace got even more brutal, and you were almost seizing from pleasure as your nerve endings were frayed raw. That peak was building in your gut, that familiar tight coil of heat, for the second time that night, and you knew it was going to completely destroy you, and you wanted it to.

Without warning, Mirage spread his knees apart, slammed his pedes flat on the floor, and thrusted up. His spinal struts arched again to get his spike that much further inside of your yielding body, his overload imminent and warning signs flashing in his optics’ periphery. “Fuck, yes— yes, baby, yes, yes, ah, shit!” His frenzied whine rang in your ears as steam from his vents heated the air around you; the only thing that rang in your ears besides your thunderous heartbeat was the heady slap of skin against metal, everything slick with your combined fluids.

You responded in kind at the new angle with a cry of his name and some noises that resembled words, but the way he sheathed his spike inside you — fuck, was it all the way in? — and ground his thumb against your clit was too much— too much— you couldn’t—

You shattered. Doubling over from pleasure, you sobbed incoherently as your climax slammed into you. Pleasure crackled through your veins like lightning; a fog of pleasure dulled your senses until the only thing you could focus on was his spike pulsing in your cunt and his thumb still grinding against your clit. Tears pricked at your eyes, joining the ones already wetting your cheeks, as jolts of pleasure lanced up your spine. Maybe you moaned his name, maybe you didn’t. You couldn’t tell.

Mirage went soon after you, because the feeling of your walls clamping around his spike as if trying to suck him in impossibly further did him in instantly. His optics snapped open wide before slamming shut and he cried your name as the best overload of his life wracked his frame; the actuators of his hips trembled violently, along with his servos, as transfluid gushed into you and was immediately forced out by the pure lack of room inside your cunt. Engine snarling, cooling fans nearly spinning off their axles, he held your hips as flush to his as possible while the both of you rode out your respective climaxes, twitching around each other violently. Minute jerks of his hips attempted to work more transfluid inside of you. Brain still wiped blank with pleasure, all you could do was make soft noises and let the aftershocks spasm through you.

Consciousness eventually came back to you in gritty waves. Mirage had set your body down, leaned back against his thighs, his spike still seated within you but depressurizing slowly. Transfluid seeped out of your puffy folds, and you lifted a shaking hand to collect some of it and taste it. Metallic. Like you’d expected.

Enormous vents whooshed through his frame as he attempted to cool his chassis; coolant dripped from him, some of it turned to steam by the pure heat of his internal mechanisms. Body shaking and feeling very small and human, you stroked a thumb over his wrist where you held it, feeling both its ambient warmth and a surge of affection. And satisfaction.

You were absolutely going to feel this in the morning, holy shit. Thank God you didn’t have work tomorrow.

Mirage eventually came back down to earth, his optics cracking open and cycling a few times before they flared to their usual brightness. Lids heavy and a dopey grin on his face, he carefully lifted you off his spike — it slid out of you with a slick noise that made you flush — and brought you up to face-level. With one servo, he held you tight against his torso; he planted the other flat on the floor and resituated his hips so he could slump down further against the wall, his entire frame lax.

Self-satisfaction beamed at you from his faceplates. “Oh, that was good, huh?”

You scoffed, too tired to get riled up at his teasing; you knew he was feeling the same as you. “Yeah, pretty good. I don’t know if I’ll be able to walk tomorrow, to be totally honest.” An exhausted laugh left you.

“Gonna count that as a win.”

“You… do whatever you want.” You waved a limp hand at him dismissively, letting the rise and fall of his chassis with his vents rock you.

“Well, then, I wanna do this,” he purred, and brought you in for a kiss that communicated all his smug affection without any of his stupid jokes. You returned it gratefully, a smile on each of your mouths as you basked in that pleasant post-sex glow.

The rain still droned outside. A boom of thunder rolled through the building; the lights flickered. Both you and Mirage glanced upward. His optics slid back down to you first.

“You thinkin’ about going anywhere in this weather?” he asked, raising a brow ridge.

“I dunno, do I have a ride?”

“Nah,” he replied playfully, kissing you again, and you found that it could storm for the rest of your life, and you wouldn’t really care. So long as you had your favorite — yes, your favorite, not that you could ever admit around him — to keep you company.

#mirage rotb #mirage x reader #transformers rotb #transformers x reader #mirage x you #valveplug #tf mirage #maccadam #nsfw////#transformers #rise of the beasts #i wrote this entire thing on my phone in like 4 days so excuse any spelling mistakes LMFAO #doq.fic

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bambisnc · 2 months

Text

off the record [ft. j.wy]

pairing : wony x reader genre : fluffyy/crack + fake dating trope! cw/tw : kissing mention ;-; wc : idk it was a page in google docs :/

“hey. don’t look at him. he’ll get weirded out.”

“ah yes of course, because your ex showing up at your birthday party uninvited and with a girlfriend of her own is totally not more than enough to do that.”

wonyoung rolls her eyes at you. sure she’d asked you to become her girlfriend; her fake girlfriend but that was for a very good reason okay?!

it was all her ex’s fault. she hadn’t really even liked the guy that much, but the fact that he went from a blinded, lovesick puppy to be the one breaking up with her made her furious. and an angry her did not always have the most logical ideas…

when she saw him drop off his new girlfriend in front of the girls washroom (was it just her or was that highkey weird..) she lost it completely. grabbing you by the shoulders, a girl she vaguely knew from.. chemistry was it?, she immediately pulled you into a stall with a curt, “i need you to pretend to date me.” dropping from her delicate lips.

oh okay, you thought, just an average wednesday. the literal love of your life drags you into a bathroom stall (?!?@?#?$?@#) and asks you to date them. well, fake date them. it’s the same thing really, c’mon.

which is what lead to a major series of unfortunate events (not for you, to be honest – you get to spend time with The jang wonyoung, hell she can use you for whatever nefarious schemes she has cooking up in that pretty little head of hers <3) ending up with you here..

..stuck between a wall and a hard place. quite literally. with wonyoung having placed her hands on the wall, effectively trapping you against it; almost as if in a protective manner. you knew she’d been boasting about you to everyone who’d listen – there was hardly anyone who wasn’t interested in the school princess’ romantic affairs – before you’d arrived.. rather late, unfortunately.

“so are you planning on explaining why you’re late? or will you only be making sarcastic quips at everything i say~?” she asks with the sweetest smile but you will not be falling for that. the nicer her expression is, the more scared you should be is the one thing you’ve managed to learn from having had her arm wrapped around your waist for around 3 weeks now.

“i told you there was just an .. issue. nothing you need to concern yourself with.” you reply back, avoiding her piercing gaze to the best of your abilities. (spoiler you're not really very successful in doing that...)

she’s never been one to back down or leave a matter though, “i’m your girlfriend. how can i not concern myself with every single thing about you.” you’re just about to point out that you are, in fact, just a fake girlfriend but before you can wonyoung interrupts you, tilting your face towards her in a way that leaves your lips inches away from hers (and leaves you completely breathless), her tone dripping with urgency, “he’s looking. kiss me now.”

[series m.list]

notes : creds for idea and honorary dedication to ml @kyuusberry!!! ♡︎ + [m.list]

#order's up~! 📋⋆𐙚 #cakes.♡︎🥮#[something secret n dizzying]#limasxx + 2592 + parisinvlogs pics creds and benkeibear for divs #ive x reader #jang wonyoung #wonyoung #wonyoung x reader #jang wonyoung x reader #ive headcanons #ive #girl group imagines #kpop gg x reader #kpop gg #wonyoung ive #ive wonyoung #wonyoung x you

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just-a-torn-up-masterpiece · 4 months

Text

back in town

part one of home for christmas

natasha romanoff x reader

The hallmark movie inspired Christmas story that nobody asked for.

Natasha Romanoff fell out of love with Christmas, but perhaps a certain someone could help her find the festive magic once again.

Coming home to her small hometown from her life in New York City, the children’s author is reunited with the people of her past; some are happier to see her than others.

But, will rekindled relationships inspire the Christmas story she’s struggling to write? Or will she go home empty handed?

fluff, lots of Christmas, hallmark movie cringe

for the sake of this fic, all characters are the same kind of age; ≈mid 20s

wc: 1.4k | part two

Serving customers their coffee has been an opportunity for a moment of peace lately. Wanda, as well as the remainder of your insufferable friends, had taken it upon themselves to set you up on dates. Somehow, their lack of success so far hasn’t managed to convince them of their matchmaking deficits.

So, during work hours, you’re bombarded with suggestions to which you decline time and time again. Apparently, being the Christmas season and all, it was a matter of extreme importance; the so-called ‘Christmas magic’ had to have a source of focus and, according to them, that was you.

You’d tried; the amount of boring and unsuccessful dates you’ve embarked on is almost embarrassing. You’ve had short lived relationships, fleeting flings, and so many blind dates you can’t even count them with all ten fingers. But none of them were right for you. None of the options were worthy to ‘cuddle up with by the fireplace’ or ‘entwine souls with beside a decorated tree’. Wanda had an optimistic take on your love life - you’d all be lying if you didn’t call her obsessed.

“C’mon, that girl in the bookstore was totally obsessed with you,” she spoke as soon as the customer in front of you had left with a smile and a cup of coffee in their hand.

“Wanda, please,” you groaned, busying yourself with the messed up counter, wiping down the surface hoping it’d will her away.

“She could be the one.”

“You say that about all of them,” you huffed with a laugh. She truly was a hopeless romantic. You hypothosise her obsession with your romantic endeavours is some haphazardly disguised attempt to draw away her own infatuation with a certain bookstore owner. It’s no coincidence you’re both in there so often and it’s definitely not because you have a crush on anybody there.

“Maybe this one’s different.”

“You always say that too,” you laughed. “What about you anyway? How about we get you a date with that woman you ogle, huh?”

“What woman? There isn’t a woman,” she defended, you saw right through her.

“The one that likes to give you discount on all those books you buy and never read. Agatha, is it?”

“Oh, look, you have a customer. I better get more coffee from the back,” she hurried out before rushing away.

Luckily your best friend seemed to have taken the hint for the time being and the next couple of hours passed with you working in your regular harmony.

“That man is always late, I swear,” Wanda spoke with a glance at the clock. Sam was meant to be in for his shift twenty minutes ago, though you find his lack of punctuality to be an endearing trait. And, as though his ears were burning, the man in question burst through the wreath-decorated door with quickened breaths from what you assumed to be a sprint into work.

“You will never guess who I just bumped into,” he shouted to you both as he pulled his coat off to replace it with the coffee shop apron.

“Santa?” Wanda grinned with an excitement an adult likely shouldn’t present herself with at the prospect.

“Better.”

“Nobody’s better than Santa,” she pouted.

“If it wasn’t an old guy in a red hat you’re gonna have a real sad boss to deal with,” you responded with a laugh.

“Well now I don’t wanna say,” he answered with a chuckle of his own.

“You can’t lead with that and not tell us,” Wanda countered with a poke to his arm.

“Natasha Romanoff.”

“You’re kidding.”

The pair of you answered him at the same time, a mirrored disapproval in your tones.

“Nope. She’s here for the holidays.”

“What, New York’s not good enough for her anymore?” you uttered in annoyance, rolling your eyes before plastering on an appeasing smile to the customer that approached.

“I didn’t think the small town Christmas vibe fit her new Scrooge persona,” Wanda added with an equally annoyed voice.

“I dunno, I didn’t talk to her much, I came to tell you two. You know I like the gossip,” Sam answered with a smile, though he wasn’t so pleased with her appearance either.

“You can put your matchmaking shit on hold,” you stated. “All focus is now on ‘operation avoid Romanoff’.”

“Mission accepted as long as you come up with a better title,” Wanda returned. “A Christmas themed one.”

—

“Oh my God, I need to tell you all who I saw in town this afternoon,” Kamala practically squealed as she took her seat in the booth with the rest of the group. A girl’s night out at the local bar was a no brainer after the news.

“Let me guess,” Monica voiced. “Red hair, expensive suit, kinda scary, and a knack for ghosting certain people?” She added, tapping her chin with her face contorted into one of faux musing and a pointed look towards you with her final words.

“Pretty good at breaking poor innocent hearts?” Carol added with a teasing nudge to your shoulder to lighten your mood.

“She didn’t break my heart,” you scoffed.

“Just stomped on it a little,” Kate said with the same joking tone - if there was one thing you adored your friends for it was their way of making even awful situations fell a little less dire.

“Poked at it with her expensive stilettos,” Wanda added.

“Oh, so I’m the last to know,” Kamala sighed. “That’s cool, I guess. Not that I wanted to come in here with big, dramatic news or anything.”

“No, please, go on,” you laughed. “Who was it that you saw?”

“Natasha. Romanoff,” she exclaimed with all the dramatic flare she’d hoped to achieve. And, of course, you all gasped just as you knew she’d enjoy.

“You’re kidding,” you deadpanned.

“I know!”

“I’m gonna get us some more drinks,” Kate spoke as she stood up. “No gossip whilst I’m gone, you know all the drama gets my blood up.”

And so you all talked. And talked. And talked. Every detail of your relationship - or lack thereof - was explored. Her departure and the toll it took on you was examined and you remembered just how grateful you’ve always been for their support, they’re truly the best friendship group you ever could’ve asked for.

“Oh my God.”

The phrase was grumbled out by the three of you positioned in the line of sight of the door, the faces of you, Carol and Wanda all laced with discontent at the sight.

“Alright, look behind you but be subtle,” Carol instructed. “I’m talking to you, Kamala.”

It started off discreetly to begin with, Monica glanced over her shoulder with a scoff at the image behind her. Kate, somehow, was just as discreet but, of course, Kamala being Kamala an obnoxiously loud gasp followed her gawking. It drew the attention of those at the eye of the display you were staring at and two pairs of eyes looked back at you.

“What a surprise,” Yelena grinned as she approached with her sister in tow.

“Yelena, you were literally invited,” you grumbled. “You said you had plans.”

“There’s been a change in plans,” she shrugged, clearly amused at the awkward situation she was dragging you into. “My dear sister and I are joining you.”

“I’ll get more drinks,” Natasha mumbled. The first words you’d heard from her in years and she kept her eyes everywhere but directed towards you; something about the way she still buries her hands in her coat pockets when she’s nervous stirred up a stinging familiarity.

“Lena, what the hell?” Wanda whispered when the blonde smugly took her seat in the already crammed booth.

“What?” she shrugged, feigning obliviousness at her clearly deliberate actions. “It’s Christmas, even the grinch needs a drink.”

Speaking of, the redheaded grinch in question approached with a tray of drinks and an awkward yet fleeting smile gifted to you when she pulled a chair up to the end of the table. To your surprise, she even held your gaze as she slid your glass over to you though you couldn’t muster much more than an almost inaudible thank you.

“So, you’re back,” Carol spoke, leaning forwards with her arms resting on the table.

And that began the awkward evening. There was an obvious tension between the pair of you; Natasha answered any questions she was asked and you pretended not to notice the way she’d steal looks at you over the edge of her glass. You, however, barely spoke.

How do you talk to the woman that left you behind? Especially when she comes back into town looking even more perfect than before; you scold your lustful eyes for tearing your mind apart.

#natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff x fem!reader #natasha romanoff fanfic #natasha romanoff #marvel fanfic #au: home for christmas

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hoesplay · 1 year

Note

Hello ♡ may i request itoshi sae picking up his s/o from school But finds them being confessed to in the back of the building? Thank you!!

𝕊𝕒𝕖 𝕀𝕥𝕠𝕤𝕙𝕚 𝕩 𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕖𝕣

𝘚𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘰 𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦 :( 𝘐 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯'𝘵 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰 𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘥𝘳𝘢𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘐'𝘭𝘭 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘶𝘱 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘪𝘵. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘐 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘸𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 ^^

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 𝟏𝟏𝟔𝟏 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: 𝐟𝐥𝐮𝐟𝐟 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐰: 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐮𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮 (+ a hickey might be hinted)

The situation you are in right now is something you foresaw. The moment you opened the locker and a red envelope fell at your feet, you rolled your eyes in exasperation. Classes ended and it was finally time to confront the boy who watched you with heart eyes. You couldn’t run any further from this problem. You knew that he had the biggest crush on you since forever. Everyone saw that and you are not blind. He was a good kid, you got to work with him on a couple of projects. Nothing significant happened, but lately the guy seemed to be more and more attracted to you. Despite your efforts to not give him false hope, there you are, in the back of the school listening to your classmate stuttering out a confession. Maybe you shouldn’t have been so friendly, but you felt bad shutting him down, when he was always so nice and considerate of you.

You made the effort to let him finish what he had to say, resisting the urge to interrupt him and cut to the point. It’s the least he deserved, you thought. No matter how much you missed receiving any type of attention, you still have a boyfriend that you love and stay faithful to. Because of how often Sae travels, you’re pretty sure most of the school isn’t aware that the two of you are in a relationship. Therefore, you don’t blame the guy standing in front of you for shooting his shot.

You snapped out of your thoughts when you realized he stopped talking, waiting for your answer. You took a second to choose your words, so you can turn him down gently. “I’m really flattered that you feel this way, you’re really nice. However, I can’t reciprocate them. I’m in a relationship.”, your answer was short, precise, and you were quite pleased with it. Now you can breathe lightly after solving this situation as amicably as possible; or so you thought.

“You don’t have to lie to me just so that I don’t feel like shit.”, this wasn’t the reaction that you were expecting; your jaw dropped a little. You questioned his statement. “C’mon, (Y/N). Everyone in schools knows you are down bad for that Itoshi guy, but he’s obviously not into you. I don’t understand why all the girls are mad about him, but I know you are different. If only you’d give me a chance, you’d see how well I can treat you.”

Unbeknownst to you, this entire ordeal was being watched. Talk about timing. Sae came back a little earlier from his trip and made his way to your school, baggage and all, in hopes of surprising you. After waiting for a while in front of the gates, he took the liberty to enter the grounds, in search of you; and there you were, staring dumbfoundedly at the boy in front of you, as if he spoke a different language. Truth to be told, in that moment his ego spiked upwards. He always knew you were gorgeous (he would die before admitting it), but the fact that other people are taking interest in earning a place in your heart is tickling his self-esteem. Furthermore, he trusts you completely, no one can snatch you so easily from under his grasp. He listened further for his amusement.

At your classmate’s words, your brain froze. How are you even supposed to respond? You tried to reason with him to save the little bit of the class camaraderie that’s left. “I’m not sure if the news reached you, but me and ‘that Itoshi guy’ are in a relationship.” It was all futile, since the boy who confessed started laughing, as if you told him the funniest joke ever. The gesture was insulting by itself, but his following words were damaging his ‘good guy’ appearance even further. “Yeah, you and the other female students at this school. Don’t be delusional. I don’t understand why you keep lying, just say you don’t like me for fuck’s sake. Am I that bad that you prefer to pretend you’re dating someone you never will?”. At this point you are lowkey offended. You came to the conclusion that he won’t take no for an answer, so it’s pointless to waste your breath trying to convince him otherwise. You took a turn to flee the scene, but the classmate grabbed your wrist harshly. Your dear boyfriend got restless, preparing to leave the spot from where he was eavesdropping to come to your rescue, but he wasn’t fast enough. Before he even made a move, you slapped the harasser across the face with all your force, shouting a loud “go fuck yourself”, before making a run for it.

In your hurry, turning the corner, you bumped into a familiar figure. No other than Sae, standing there looking all smug with a big smirk blessing his features. He was waiting for you to jump in his arms, but got jabbed in the sides multiple times instead, while you kept complaining how he didn’t even move a finger to interfere. “Why would I, you seemed to handle it pretty well by yourself.”, you realized you are too tired to further argue, considering you just had your boundaries overstepped, so you gave in to your urges and went in for the hug with an exasperated sigh. Sae’s embrace was warm, comforting, despite his usual cold demeanor. You felt yourself relaxing as he stroked your hair, placing a kiss on the top of your head. The silence was interrupted by your boyfriend’s raspy voice. “What are you staring at? Get lost, trash.”

He was probably talking to that boy, but you couldn’t find it in you to care enough to remove your head from where it was nuzzled in his chest. You’re sure that you don’t have to explain yourself, but something in you keept pushing blabbering words out of your mouth. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before about this guy. I knew he had a crush on me, but somehow, I let it get to this point. I even was stupid enough to think he was a genuinely kind person.”

Itoshi pondered over his answer. “Yeah, you kinda are stupid. I should put a collar on your neck with my name on it.,” his joke was met with another slap on his shoulder. He caught your wrists, before leaning in and placing his lips on your neck, sucking on the skin and grazing it between his teeth. The next day, he did not buy you a collar, but he did purchase a lovely silver necklace that had his initials engraved on it.

After that, rumor spread like wildfire and soon everyone knew about your relationship with the famous footballer. The news, of course, got some backlash from some butthurt girls and from your classmate, who forgot your name and kept calling you a slut instead. Not that you would care anyway.

𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠! :)

#sae itoshi #itoshi sae fluff #sae itoshi x reader #sae itoshi x you #blue lock #bllk sae #bllk x reader #bllk x y/n #bllk x you #itoshi sae #bllk angst #itoshi sae x you #sae x reader #sae x you

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2knightt · 10 months

Note

if you havent already, request for the outsiders boys with a super sweet sunshine s/o?

↳i love you, so let me get to you!₊˚✧

──IN WHICH, the gang dates a happy go-lucky reader!。✦

||✰ — the gang, separately

Johnny Cade ;

your kindness probably frightened him at first, he wasn’t used to anyone as nice as you.

but when he gets to know you are—he can’t get enough.

your happiness probably rubs off on him.

johnny’s smiling more, opening doors for people, and has a little spring in his step.

the gang definitely knows about you and teases johnny about it.

“you gotta stop hangin’ ‘round y/n. you’re starting to get their smile.”

“yeah, johnnycakes. i swear—i ain’t never seen you this happy.”

“get used to it, i dunno.”

you refuse to see the bad in people, and honestly johnny kinda likes that mindset.

but he doesn’t at the same time.

he knows people in the world suck, he knows how cruel it can be—but with you by his side, you make it bearable.

you make him feel actual hope that he can get out of this place.

make him feel like he has a future.

“thank you.”

“for what?”

“..everything, y/n.”

Dallas Winston ;

opposites attract dare i say?

i can see you calming dallas down, just a bit though.

not too much. just a lot.

he stops beating up people for no reason, yelling so much, and even helps a few old ladies cross the street.

only when people aren’t look though. this is still dallas.

“jus’ get outta ‘ere, punk!”

“aw, dallas! you let ‘em go! ‘m so proud.”

“whatever.”

he mumbles, snaking an arm around your waist with his other hand stuffed in his pocket.

the gang was so fucking shocked when they found out you two were dating.

“…for real?”

“you ain’t pulling our legs, are ya?”

“no? what the hell would make you guys think that?”

“they’re sweet while you’re—you.”

“fuck’s that ‘posed mean?”

“nothing.”

i feel like a lot of people would judge you for being so happy, especially with the situation with soc’s and greasers.

but dally shuts them up real fast.

“they gotta be on drugs. no way someone can be that happ—“

“who? who’s on drugs? c’mon, you can tell me.”

“uh—no one, dallas.”

“you sure?”

“yeah.”

punches them anyways.

but i don’t want you to scroll with a bad taste in your mouth.

just know, you’re the only relationship dally has been serious about in a long time.

a very, long time. so—he loves you to death.

Ponyboy Curtis ;

admired you somewhat.

he loves the aura that surrounds you. he thinks it’s different—way different than what he’s used too.

he’s used to people beating others, spitting on people, mocking, teasing.

but you?

you go out of your way to help those who were pushed down, bullied, spit on.

he admired that. he admired you.

he loved that about you.

tries to pick up your habits—but ends up failing.

“pony, when’d you become so…happy go-lucky, huh?”

“is it bothering you?”

“a little.”

“…fuck you too then.”

i feel like he’d look for a partner like that.

his type??? possibly???

you just,

give him hope.

hope that he can leave tusla and live the life he wanted on the country side.

Sodapop Curtis ;

same thing, different font.

you two get along so well it’s sickening.

when the two of you walk in a room together you blind everyone with how bright the both of you are.

im not joking.

“did he really, soda?”

“yeah! can you believ—“

“JESUS CHRIST!”

“what?”

“get out.”

“WHY?!”

“what?!”

“y’all are ruining my bad mood. screw off.”

“is he always like this?”

“yeah. just ignore two-bit.”

takes after you a lot.

like a lot.

started fighting less, helping out more costumers at the DX, etc.

he loves talking about you.

he just

does.

you’re all he talks about. i’d know, cause i’m literally writing this rn.

Darry Curtis ;

THIS DYNAMIC IS SO CUTE OH MY GOD.

cold, closed off darry with a cute, kind and sweet reader.

i’m crying just thinking about it.

you force him to open him to others.

literally.

“how’s your day, darry?”

“okay.”

“just okay? didn’t something happen at work today?”

“well yeah.”

“then tell, em! he’s your brother, babe.”

people always chuckle, seeing you cling to his arm—all smiles while he sits, looking like a guard dog.

but as soon as darry glares at them—they stop laughing.

everyone calls you sunshine after darry mockingly called you that. sorry i don’t make the rules :/ (yes i do.)

“hey, sunshine!”

“oh—hey, dal!”

“don’t call them that.”

“why not, superman?”

“because.”

Steve Randle ;

Guard dog 2.0

you gotta hold him back all the time help.

“steve! you know violence isn’t good—i hate it!”

“LEMME AT ‘EM, BABE! C’MON!!”

isn’t also—not used to people being so nice to him.

so you being so affectionate, looking out for him, loving him—just being so nice to him in general is so..shocking.

“you did so good today, love. ‘m so proud.”

“what?”

“oh? did you not hear me?”

“no—i did. it was just, outta nowhere. kinda spooked me a lil.”

please just love him.

please. he needs it.

he needs someone like you in his life and he’s so glad you are in his life.

he would’ve lost his mind a long time ago if you weren’t.

Two-bit Matthews ;

YALL ARE SO CUTE.

silly goofy guy with a sweet loving partner.

you let him ramble about anything and everything. he couldn’t be more happy.

“and they dance, like all the time!”

“even the dog?”

“EVEN THE DOG! he got his own moves, y/n!”

brags about dating the kindest person in Tulsa 24/7.

like, actually.

if you don’t like his drinking cause you know it’s slowly killing him, he’ll slow down on it.

“two, you know i don’t like you drinkin’ this stuff!”

“i know. but it’ll be my last one tonight, promise.”

“better be, ‘m worried for you.”

you’re like all he talks about.

he’s just so blessed to have an angel in his life!

like, what’d a guy like him do to get a person like you? save a country?

#2knightt #leo’s anons🤍#the outsiders #the outsiders x reader #johnny cade x reader #johnny x reader #dallas winston x reader #dallas x reader #ponyboy curtis x reader #ponyboy x reader #sodapop x reader #sodapop curtis x reader #darry x reader #steve randle x reader #two bit matthews x reader #two bit x reader

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hp-hcs · 6 months

Note

That picture of Mattheo on a post you reblogged recently both makes me want to bite him (affectionately) and hug him very innocently. Mattheo x male asexual Reader would be very Self indulgent of me 🤭 so pls

i just want to lightly pat him on the head and put him in my pocket

self-discovery — manwhore! mattheo riddle x gn! asexual! reader

tws: lots of talk of (underage) sexual situations, sexual innuendos, sexual harassment(?), homeboy does not know how to take no for an answer

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

“God, Riddle is so fucking attractive.”

You look up from your phone, following your friend’s gaze. “I…guess?”

Mattheo was leaning in close to a Ravenclaw girl, talking to her in a low voice with a rather sly smile. She giggled and blushed, covering her mouth with her hand and fluttering her eyelashes.

“Ew.”

Your friend just sighed dreamily. “I wish he’d talk to me like that.”

“Ew.”

You watch as Mattheo takes the girl’s hand, leading her through the throng of people clogging up the common room to, presumably, the girl’s dorm.

You grimace and shake your head.

~~~ “…because I was- oh. Hello there, pretty boy,” Mattheo caught your eye as you squeezed past him, navigating the aisles of Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes.

You spare him a glance, looking him up and down before rolling your eyes.

“Hey- now don’t be like that, love. What’s your name, darling?”

You ignore him, breezing past.

~~~ “Hey darling,” a voice calls, an arm suddenly being slung over your shoulders.

You startle, glancing over to see Mattheo Riddle.

“What do you want?”

“Ouch. Just wanted to say hi, no need to be rude, sweetheart,” he pouts, his hand sliding down to rest on your waist.

You stiffen, smacking his hand away. “Yeah. Just say hi. And then what, flutter your eyelashes and make me stumble and fall into your bed?”

You storm off, leaving him standing there with his mouth hanging open.

~~~ “What’s up with Riddle?” Your friend asks. “He’s burning through boys and girls left and right. If he keeps this up, he’ll have hooked up with everyone our year by Yule.”

You grimace. “That’s so gross, dude.”

“I heard someone rejected him,” another friend of yours interjects, leaning over the table to talk in a conspiratorial whisper. “Can you imagine?”

“Not in the slightest,” you say dryly.

“Whoever turned Mattheo Riddle down must be blind or stupid, I swear,” your friend shakes their head. “Half of this school would kill for the chance to sleep with that fine specimen of man.”

You tune out their conversation, your eyes finding a Ravenclaw boy spotted with fresh hickeys following the man of the hour himself around like a lost dog. Mattheo ignores the boy, brushing him off with a sour look.

You tune back into the conversation just in time to catch one of your friends saying, “…he goes through partners like Hogwarts goes through DADA professors, I swear.”

~~~

“Oh c’mon, L/N. Won’t you just go on one date with me?” Mattheo trots after you, following you down the covered bridge.

“No. Stop asking,” you sigh. “This is the fourth time you’ve asked me this week, and it’s only Wednesday. Take. A. Hint.”

“You know, people practically throw themselves at me anyways,” he snaps suddenly. “It’s not like I need to chase you. I just want to.”

“Good for you then,” you retort. “At least you have other options for company rather than just your right hand, hm?”

He catches your wrist, pulling you to a stop. “C’mon, Y/N. I’m a nice guy, I swear. Give me one good reason why you won’t go out with me.”

“Cause you’re a fuckboy, and that’s not gonna work for me.”

“Are you calling me a manwhore?” He asks, pressing a hand to his chest in a mock-offended manner.

“Yes.”

“C’mon, why wouldn’t we work out? I might be a fuckboy, but I’m not unfaithful,” he raises his eyebrows. “You could have all of my fuckboy-ness to yourself.”

You scoff and curl your lip up in a sneer. “Oh my Merlin- Sir, I’m ace.”

He gives you a blank look. “Ace?”

“Asexual. I don’t like sex. I’m not sexually attracted to anyone.”

Mattheo blinks. “That’s an option?”

“Yeah?”

He looks bewildered. “You can- you mean- what?”

“Just because you’ve fucked half the population of Britain-”

“I…” he trails off. “I- I have to go. Uh. Look some s-stuff up.”

You watch, baffled, as he turns around without a further word and hurried back towards the castle.

#harry potter #fuck jkr #hp #hp x male reader #x male reader #gay #x reader #hp x gn reader #mattheo riddle x reader #x gender neutral reader #mattheoxreader #mattheo riddle #mattheo riddle x male reader #gn reader #gender neutral reader #hp x enby reader #enby reader

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cinnamostar · 5 months

Text

01: home

part two.

pairing : minho x gn!reader

summary : minho had waited in front of the entrance of the forest for you until the sky darkened, his eyes welling up with tears as he came to accept that you had forgotten about him that day. maybe you needed to go home that day and forgot to tell him before school, he thought. although, he realized something far greater than that had happened as he arrived at the front of your house, the for sale sign standing in the yard without a trace of human presence in the home.

wc : 3.8k

cw : childhood friends, arguing, angst, sadness, mentions of bullying + racism/xenophobia, mentions of alcohol, idk what else

a/n : tried a new writing styles, lmk what you think!!! also pls let me know if you guys are interested in a part 2 :3 this fic is very much inspired by the movie past lives heheheh

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈• ｡ﾟ

The low buzzing of mosquitoes filled your ears while you wandered down the dirt trail with trepidation as the vast forest surrounded you the deeper you ventured in. Tufts of grass tickled your ankles as your clammy hands clenched your best friend’s, who had dragged you out against your will, insisting it would be a fun adventure to test your bravery.

Every now and then, he’d look back and shoot you a wide, childish grin, a gap taking the place of the front tooth he had just lost last week. “C’mon, Y/N! Walk faster!”

You nodded meekly at your friend, admiring how he fearlessly marched forward, while you anxiously trudged behind him, biting your lip to release some of the tension in your body. Every rustle of leaves or snap of a twig would cause you to jump, afraid that something would jump out at you in the next second, but Minho’s gentle grasp would always bring you back down with a reassuring squeeze, reminding you that you were not alone as you hiked into the unknown. You weren’t sure where you were heading, neither did you know if the seven year old boy ahead of you knew, but his presence was enough to ease you, trusting that everything would be okay as long as he was there.

“It’s okay, Y/N, we’re almost there! You’re going to love it.”

Although only ten minutes had passed, it felt as if this journey was lasting for an excruciating amount of hours as anxiety loomed over you. All you could see was the different hues of green leaves enveloping you, the site of the park you had come from no longer in view as the forest swallowed you whole, only bits of the sunlight made its way through the dense leaves above you, coloring the dirt path with shadows and lights. You looked above, hoping to find the comforting blue sky looking down on you, but not even the heavens were there to accompany you on this trek. It was just you, Minho, and the eerily quietness of the woods.

You decided to put your blinded trust in Minho, shutting your eyes closed as the daunting feeling of claustrophobia began to bubble up your stomach, not daring to take in any more of your surroundings. Suddenly, Minho had come to a stop, causing you to collide into his back as you slowly opened your eyes, unsure what you’d be met with.

“We’re here,” Minho whispered to you breathlessly from all the walking, turning his head to look over his shoulder, “Look, I found it the other day, it reminded me of you.”

You reluctantly peeked your head out from behind him, a small and excited gasp escaping your lips as you marveled at the sight before you. It was like a photo from one of your nature books had come to life before your eyes. There laid a pond with clear waters and lily pads floating atop of it, soft ripples forming in the water as tadpoles swam just beneath the surface. Just to the right of the pond was the faintest stream of water cascading into the pond, bubbles forming where the brook met the pond as the light trickles of it accompanied the low hum of the forest.

You had forgotten you weren’t alone as Minho’s giggles brought you out your trance, his eyes beaming with affection as he watched your frightful expression turn into one of amazement and discovery.

“See, I knew you’d like it. Sometimes you need to pass a test of bravery to get something cool at the end.”

For a seven year old, Minho often said profound things as if he had lived a life full of experiences, things only an adult from a movie or book would say, but in his own childlike vocabulary. You didn’t always quite understand what he meant, but always kept those small tidbits of profundity with you, hoping one day you’d grow to learn the meaning behind his words.

“But jeez, you’re such a scaredy cat. You should’ve seen the look on your face,” he teased as he now faced you, a hand pinching one of your cheeks.

And sometimes, he would just be like any other kid who was messing with his friends, saying something outrageous and nonsensical the next second. He was a strange kid, but you had grown to adore his unpredictability throughout the years of your friendship. You rolled your eyes playfully at his remarks, knowing he meant well, “So what if I was scared?”

“I think it’s cute when you’re scared. You always hold my hand when you are.”

Your face grew warm at his comment, an innocent smile gracing his features as he looked off to the pond. You pouted as butterflies fluttered into your stomach, making their presence known for the umpteenth time today, “Whatever…”

You returned your attention to the pond, walking to its edge as you squatted down with an arm and head resting on your knees as the other reached down to touch the cool water. Your fingers dipped beneath the surface and waved underneath, hoping you’d catch the attention of the tadpoles, but instead the sudden movement shooed them away.

“Minho?”

“Hmm?”

“How did you find this?”

The boy stood in his place from earlier, opting to admire the scene from afar, “Well, I went out exploring with my dad the other day and it was just here. I learned the path back to show you. Do you like it?”

“It’s so pretty. Can we come here again?”

“Of course.”

Since that day, it had become a small ritual between the two of you, stopping by nearly everyday after school to spend time by the small pond as you slowly learned to appreciate the peaceful quietude of the wilderness. On the days your mother would tell you she needed you home after school, you’d always approach Minho with big, teary eyes and trembling lips, disappointed that you’d have to miss out on a time you had cherished so much with him. And every single time, Minho would pull you into his embrace, place a small kiss on your head, (a gesture he had learned from his own mother), and reassure you, promising that you both would go the next day.

This routine had lasted for a bit over a year, until one day your parents sat you down and told you that the family was moving away to the United States later that month. You had known this was going to happen eventually, as your parents mentioned this in passing to you over the last few months as they prepared for the move, but your child brain couldn’t comprehend the passage of time and just how fast this had all come. You immediately broke down into tears, begging your parents to let you stay, not wanting to leave all your friends behind so soon, not ready to confront the uncertainty this new country had. You were scared, terrified for what this had all meant, and the worse part of it all was that you wouldn’t have Minho holding your hand through it all this time. He was staying behind, you were leaving him.

Days had gone by as the day you were moving had come close, and you still hadn’t told Minho that you were moving. You didn’t know how to, you were afraid he would cry or be angry at you, so eventually, weeks had gone by without you saying a word.

Then, you left without a word, never telling your best friend you were leaving and never giving him the chance to send him off with a proper goodbye.

Minho had waited in front of the entrance of the forest for you until the sky darkened, his eyes welling up with tears as he came to accept that you had forgotten about him that day. Maybe you needed to go home that day and forgot to tell him before school, he thought. Although, he realized something far greater than that had happened as he arrived at the front of your house, the for sale sign standing in the yard without a trace of human presence in the home.

Panic settled into his body as he sped his way home, not being able to understand what was going on as he rushed to his mother, tears falling down his face as he screamed that something happened to you and your family, how you never showed up to the pond that day.

His mother leaned down as she pulled him into a tight hug, a comforting hand rubbing his back in an attempt to soothe him, “Oh, sweetie, didn’t Y/N tell you?”

Minho looked up at his mother, his face reddening as he continued to sob, a confused look on his face as he shook his head no. His mother cooed at him with a saddened look, pressing a kiss on his forehead, “I’m sorry, sweetie. I thought they did. Their dad got a job in America, so their family is moving there.”

Minho stood there in shock, sniffling as he croaked another sob, “What? Does this mean they’re gone? They’re never coming back?”

“No, baby, they’ll come back eventually. I don’t know when, but they will.”

You had abandoned Minho with no warning, consequently breaking his heart as he mourned the loss of his best friend.

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈• ｡ﾟ

While your parents kept in contact with one another, Minho refused to ever speak to you over the phone whenever he had the chance, as the love and adoration he once had for you festered into anger and resentment for leaving him without warning.

It hurt you every time you asked over the phone if Minho could talk, and all you would hear was a loud, upset no from the background after his mother would ask. Your eyes would water up each time, his mother apologizing for him and saying he would soon get over his feelings.

You hated living in the United States. It was an entirely different culture you were not prepared for as you struggled to communicate with other kids your age, unable to make friends due to the apparent language barrier. Everyday after school, you’d come home in a flood of tears, exhausted and upset at how difficult everything was.

You couldn’t understand your teachers and lessons, always performing poorly even though you knew you could do well. You couldn’t make friends, always being made fun of by other kids due to your accent and jokes constantly flew over your head. Everything about you had become a weapon everyone else had used against you, and the parts of you you once loved and once were proud of became something you rejected, something you felt ashamed of. Back home, you were so smart and witty, always the center of attention, yet here, you were just a stupid kid who didn’t fit in.

You missed Minho so much, wishing he was here with you to help you fight through it all with your hand in his. If he was there, he would’ve told off all the kids for you. He was much braver than you ever were, and you needed him there. Although, as time ran its course, you eventually gave up on the idea of ever reconciling with Minho and thought he would reach out to you whenever he was ready.

Except that day never came, and he had long become a memory of a past life you no longer knew.

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈• ｡ﾟ

Years have gone by since you left your home country and all you had left of it was the faint outlines of memories that faded away with age, much like how pencil marks slowly disappear from paper as time wears it down. Well into your adult years now, you have grown accustomed to life in the United States and have eventually learned the language, made friends, and even lost touch with roots as many immigrant children do. Although, as you grew older, you began to yearn for the country you once called home and remember where you had come from, feeling ashamed that you had neglected such a crucial part of your identity for so long.

Today, for the first time in years, you and your parents returned to your home country as a small celebration for your college graduation, deciding it was appropriate to revisit your childhood before embarking on your journey as an adult. You already had a job lined up once you returned to the states, so you were going to take advantage of the limited time you had here.

Much like you, everything here has changed through the passage of time, yet the familiar comfort of home remains as your eyes scan over each detail through the car window. Even the humid air smelled the same, your face smiling as memories slowly crept their way into your mind. As the car drove you to your aunt’s house, you were catching glimpses of the past as convenience stores, parks, and even your old school greeted you, still looking the exact same as you remembered, but just a little dulled down as the years weathered on them.

The car came to a halt at the front of your aunt’s home, your parents and you taking your luggage from the trunk as you bid the driver a goodbye. As you were approaching the front door steps, your aunt came bursting out with an excited gasp, tears filling her eyes as she pulled you into a familiar embrace, “Oh, Y/N! Look at you! You’re all grown up now!”

She pulls away as her hands rest over your shoulders as she takes a moment to beam at your face, taking in every detail she had missed over the years, “My, aren’t you adorable too! I’ve missed you all so much,” she laughed cheerfully as she then went over to greet your parents in the same fashion.

“I missed you too, auntie,” you breathed out a content chuckle as you enter her home, admiring how it still looked the same way you remembered it, just a bit more modernized.

After settling down in the guest rooms, your family sat with your aunt to eat a dinner she had prepared for you all, even going as far as making some of your childhood favorites. Each bite sent shivers down your spine as your eyes rolled back with nostalgia rushing over you, reminiscing all the times you spent as a child eating each of these dishes at the very table you were sitting at.

“Wow, this is all so good,” you mumble after taking a huge bite of meat, letting out a pleasured hum as you chew.

“Y/N, honey, please don’t talk with your mouth full,” your father scolds, shooting an apologetic and embarrassed look to his sister.

Your aunt let out a belly laugh as she waves you dad off, “Nonsense! Let them enjoy their food. I am just glad you have you guys back.”

Your mother smiles at her comment, nodding her head in agreement, “Us too, it’s good to be back, even for a bit. Thank you for having us.”

“Oh, of course. How could I ever say no to my brother?” smiles your aunt, before turning to you, “Is there anything special you wanted to do while you were here? Do you have anything planned?”

You shake your head, “No, not really. Just kinda wanted to spend time with family for the most part.”

“Oh, what about Minho? I know you two were close as kids. Are you going to see him? He still lives here.”

Your heart stops for a moment as your brain recalls your old best friend, a name that hadn’t crossed your mind in years as fragments of your memories began to resurface, ones that you didn’t even know you have. “Wow, I forgot about him, honestly.”

Your mom gives you a comforting smile, noticing a slight sadness in your eyes, “Well, I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to catch up with him, no? Aren’t you curious to know what he has been up to all these years?”

You nod, feeling uneasy at the thought of coming face to face with your former friend after the stunt your younger self pulled on him, “Ah, maybe. We’ll see.”

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈• ｡ﾟ

You had spent the last few days catching up with your cousins, letting them take you out wherever they thought you had to see and show you what you’ve been missing. Unfortunately for you, that meant you were dragged off to a night of drinking and while you had fun with lots of laughs, you were beginning to regret all the alcohol you had ingested the night before as you woke up with a pounding headache.

Since the day your aunt mentioned Minho over dinner, you couldn’t help but wonder what he had been up to nowadays, what he looked like, if he had changed much, your heart yearning for the boy you once loved as a child. While you could’ve easily asked any of your family members where to find him, you were also dreading having to face after so long. What if he was still mad at you? What if he was disappointed in who you’ve become? What if he had become an insufferable asshole over the years?

The insurmountable what-if’s were too much for you to bear, choosing it was best to avoid the subject much as you both have all these years. Yet, you couldn’t ignore the pang in your heart as you looked through your old memories of him, part of you wishing to relive that childlike innocence you lost when you moved away.

That’s when you remembered the old pond Minho and you once frequented as children and thought maybe this was the respite you needed for not only your hurt soul, but your hangover too. Maybe you needed the peace and tranquility of mother nature today.

You felt your heart swell with anxiety as you approached the start of the trail you had become so acquainted with, noticing the same trees decorating the entrance, the only difference was their thickened trunks and roots that had overgrown onto the poorly maintained path.

You begin to make the trek into the forest, enjoying the gentle zephyr that kisses your skin, inviting you back into your old safe haven as if it recognizes you. The familiar buzzing of mosquitoes greets your ears, along with the songs of birds filling the rest of the space.

A gentle smile melts onto your face as you arrive at the same pond that somehow remains unchanged over the years, just like how you remembered it all those years ago. It was as if you were going back in time as you took in your surroundings, your mind replaying memories of the days you and Minho spent here as children, recalling the first time he had forced you out here and how glad you were that he did.

There are still tadpoles swimming in the water, your smile widening as you realize the frogs are still laying eggs here, even after all these years. You feel at home again seeing how this was like your own little time capsule, a feeling of safety and comfort taking over you, one you hadn’t felt in years. You don’t know how much had passed, but the sound of crunching leaves and twigs startled you from your daze, visibly jumping in place as you turned to see the source of the sound.

Behind you was a man about your age standing there, surprise and confusion painting his face, scanning you from head to toe while analyzing your features. Your face mirrors the same expression he wore as you took him in, your eyes widening as you recognize the man standing before you as none other than your childhood best friend, Minho.

Somehow, he still looks like the boy you once knew, the only difference being that he grew into his feature with a more matured air around him, his eyes tired from god knows what.

“Y/N…?” he spoke with disbelief, not entirely believing the sight before his eyes.

“Minho?”

For a moment, both of you could only stare at each other, unsure how to react or what to say in the moment, as it felt like you both had just seen a ghost appear in front of you. Your mouth dries as you search for the right words, resisting the overwhelming urge to just jump into his arms and cry out a mess of an apology between tears.

“You’re… here? You’re back?” he questions with a gleam of hope in his eyes, all the memories of his youth flooding back in as his heart swelled with joy, the bitter resentment he had held for so long disappearing for a moment.

“Just for a bit,” you whisper nervously, “I’m just visiting with family.”

The soft smile on Minho’s face began to drop as disappointment colored his face, the hurt he felt all those years ago as a child bubbling back up in his tummy, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth while feeling foolish to think you had moved back home.

“I… Y/N, why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?”

You felt your heart contort from guilt and agony as you watched Minho’s smile dissipate, his eyes now shining as they watered while recalling the painful memory of the day you left.

“Minho, I’m sorry, I really am. I tried to apologize to you after, but you never wanted to talk after.”

“I waited for you that day. I waited for you to come here, but you never showed up. I went all the way to your house and saw it was empty. My mom had to tell me,” you were wishing the world would swallow you whole as tears streamed down your face, “Y/N, did you not want to say goodbye? Did you not even miss me?”

“Of course I missed you, Minho. I wanted to stay here with you, but telling you I was moving was scary and I didn’t know how.”

His eyebrows furrow at your words, his lips trembling as he tried to hold back a cry as he croaked out with a mixture of sadness and anger, “You left me, Y/N. It wasn’t fair, you don’t know how much I cried for you. Did you even care about how I felt?”

“Minho, I know what I did hurt you and I regret it so much, you meant so much to me, but I was just a kid. I didn’t know any better.”

Minho focuses his gaze to the ground as tear drops roll off his face, the fabric of his shirt darkening as they make their landing, shaking his head side to side, he whispers, “You know, I was a kid too.”

With that, he looks at your face with a hurt expression one last time, turning his back towards you as he walks away, not failing to leave you with a gut-wrenching thought, “Maybe you shouldn’t have come back.”

This wasn't the hangover cure you came looking for.

#cinnamostar writes #skz #fanfic #skz angst #skz fanfic #skz x reader #stray kids #stray kids x reader #stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #skz imagines #skz leeknow #stray kids lee minho #stray kids lee know #skz lee know #lee know #lee minho #lee minho x reader #lee know x reader

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its-time-to-write · 6 months

Note

Could you write a fic with a writer who’s just found out that the guy she’s seeing really isn’t what she thought he was and she’s feeling really down about it/him and Jamie comforts her?

hope this is what you were looking for😊 thanks for the ask!!

we could be so good

It’s a sad drive from the restaurant to Jamie’s house. You walk straight in and crash on the couch.

“That bad, huh?” Jamie says.

You nod. “We’ve been going out for over a month, and it’s like a switch flipped. He’s a complete prick.”

Jamie awkwardly pats your head. “I’m sorry love.”

“How could I be so- so- blind?” you continue. “I should’ve known he was too good to be true. I fucking hate dating and I never want to fucking do it again.”

“You’ve been with a lot of shit blokes,” Jamie muses. You’re both silent, thinking back on all the guys you’ve dated over the past eight years.

He snaps his fingers. “Ronald Spencer.”

You sigh. “Ah yes. Ronald Spencer. The absolute love of my life. Fuckin’ shame we met so early in life.”

Jamie shrugs. “You were pretty mature for a pair of five year olds. ‘Course, I’d already had two girlfriends at that point, so I was way ahead of you.”

You wrinkle your forehead. “Okay, you were eight. You had three years on us and he broke up with me because you scared him away.”

“It’s my job to take care of you, and I think you could’ve done better. Speaking of-” Jamie gets up off the couch. “You want a snack?”

“Ooh, yes please.” You follow Jamie to the kitchen and hop up on the counter. He rummages through his cupboard and pulls out two bags of crisps and a chocolate bar.

“Told Roy these were for you so he wouldn’t throw them away,” he tells you. “Fucking mental, that one. Went through me whole house and got rid of so much shit.”

Jamie hands you the prawn cocktail chips, keeping cheddar for himself. “Don’t tell Coach.”

You zip your lips as he sits on the counter next to you.

“Oi.” He knocks his shoulder against yours. “Forget about that fucking nutter, yeah? You can do better.”

You shrug and say, “Don’t really think so at this point. Maybe I’ll just move back to Manchester.”

Jamie whips his head around to look at you. “Fuck. No. This house is too fucking big and too fucking quiet. Plus, I save so much money on house sitters.”

“Like you need to save money,” you snort.

“I’m serious,” Jamie insists. “The fuck would I do all alone here?”

You give him a strange look. “Um, I don’t know, bring a girl ‘round? Go out at night instead of watching telly with me? Not listen to me complain about shit dates?”

“Or,” he suggests, “I could not do any of that and we could go on un-shit dates together.”

You laugh. “Un-shit? That’s the best you could come up with? Wait- what?”

Jamie’s words finally register.

It’s silent except for the crinkle of the chocolate wrapper. Jamie hands you half and you snap it into smaller pieces.

“Yeah, I mean, might as well shoot my shot now, right? Not to be fucking weird, but I’ve had a crush on you for ages. Since we were kids. Like I said, didn’t want to make it weird ‘cause, like, we live together. Didn’t want things to be awkward. Or for you to fucking move back home. I mean c’mon love, with your mum? Wouldn’t do that to you.”

You smile. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Jamie parrots.

“Yeah, okay. I guess- I think I always figured we’d end up here. I liked you since I was six and you kicked a football through the window, then picked all those flowers to apologize. I kept every article that was ever written about you. I dunno, I thought either we’d figure it out in our thirties or maybe just be weirdly platonic for the rest of our lives.”

Jamie cocks his head. “That’s weirdly specific.”

You shrug. “Am I wrong?”

You’re not.

Jamie says, “So…” as he swings his legs.

You turn to look at him. “Yes?”

“Can we like, kiss? Because I’ve been thinking about it for fucking years.”

“My breath smells like crisps,” you warn.

“Don’t care,” Jamie replies as he hops down from the counter. He pulls your legs to hook around his waist as he tilts your chin downward.

“Is it too early to say I love you?” he murmurs.

You wrap your arms around his neck and smile. “I think it’s the perfect time.”

#jamie tartt x reader #jamie tartt fanfiction #jamie tartt imagine #jamie tartt x y/n #jamie tartt x you #jamie tartt #ted lasso

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quizzicalwriter · 5 months

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HIIII!!!

ok since you said in your a03 comment you enjoy fluff and angst, by any possible chance would you write angst with dal👀👀

My Love Mine All Mine

Pairing: Dallas Winston x Fem!Reader

Summary: It was supposed to be a fun night out, yet somehow Dallas found himself carrying your limp body into the emergency room.

Warnings: Angst. Descriptions of violence, blood, injuries, and puking. Repressed feelings. All that jazz.

A/N: Oh how I love to break my heart with angst, thank you for the request!

Word Count: 5.1k

It had happened in a second; Dallas had been driving you both home after a night spent with the guys, the night having been spent laughing and reminiscing over memories you all shared over the years. You might've drank a bit, but Dallas had stayed sober, save for one beer.

Dallas had driven you back to your apartment enough to do it with his eyes closed, not that he ever would, but he certainly could if someone dared him to. You had been talking about your plans for the upcoming weekend, and how you were excited to see Dallas again. He wanted to reply and tell you how he had enjoyed spending the day with you, how he hoped to have you to his lonesome, a day with only you.

But he couldn’t. Something had stopped him, and as he turned to give you a silent smile, he saw it - that damn truck veering off the side of the interstate, barreling over the midline and directly toward you. All he’d had time to do was press his forearm against your chest, his eyes meeting yours with enough fear to scare you.

Neither of you had felt the impact, not truly. The truck hit the passenger side of Buck’s T-Bird with enough force to send it careening into the guardrail with a sickening screech of torn metal. Just your luck, right?

The persistent tick of the turn signal woke Dallas’s groggy mind, the sudden rush of consciousness sending him into a near-blinding state of pain. He groaned, squeezing his eyes further shut as he tried to gather his bearings, hands fumbling with the tattered remnants of his seatbelt.

Heat covered his face, wet heat. He knew it was blood, he’d had his eyebrow busted enough to register blood the second it touched his skin. With a quiet groan, he wiped the back of his hand over his brow, using all of his strength not to cry out at the burning sensation of an open wound being touched.

“The fuck-“ He whined, eyebrows screwed together as his eyes blinked open, vision slightly blurred from what was undoubtedly a concussion. The car was ruined, there was no doubt about that. Out the passenger side window, he could see the other car, their fucked up bumper and busted windshield, headlights flickering on and off in the midnight air.

It took him a moment to notice you, crumbled up against the dashboard. He knew the car had hit your side, he’d known that before he passed out from the impact, but seeing it - the damage, you, with your hair sprawled across your blood-drenched forehead, glass coating your clothes.

“Hey-“ He whispered, wincing inwardly as he turned toward you. From your position he couldn’t tell if you were breathing, there was no glass near the dashboard to fog up, no windshield, nothing. Panic rose in his chest as he brushed your hair from your face, taking in your state.

“C’mon, kid.”

This wasn’t supposed to happen, this was supposed to be a calm night where he showed you a good time - not a night where he’d inadvertently gotten you killed. With a shake of his head, he pushed himself from his seat, using his shoulder to push the door open. The air reeked of gasoline and burnt rubber, the scent an assault on his senses as he clamored over to your side of the car.

The passenger side was wrecked, wholly and utterly. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to pry open the door, but he tried anyway. He didn’t want to risk dragging you over the center console, not with how twisted your body was, the glass - all of it, he couldn’t risk hurting you more.

His heart thudded in his chest, hard enough to be felt in his throat as he pulled at the passenger side handle, knuckles white with effort. The sound of metal on metal creaked in the night air, causing Dallas to wince subtly as he continued his attempt at pulling your door open.

Adrenaline seemed to be his friend, aiding in his efforts to jerk your door open, even as blood poured from the gash across his forehead, blinding his right eye. Despite the burn, the deep-set ache in his bones, all he could focus on was you and his desperate need to help you.

He braced his foot against the back passenger side door, giving himself a moment to catch his breath before pulling with as much of his body weight as he could muster. The sound of metal on metal filled the air once more, loud enough to make Dallas groan as he finally made leeway, opening the door enough to maneuver himself between you and the broken window.

“It’s okay-“ He whispered, words catching in his throat as he choked back a mixture of bile and tears. He wasn’t sure if he was speaking to you or himself, either way, you weren’t conscious to hear it, not with the way your head rolled in his grasp as he gently lifted you into his arms, the scent of blood overpowering your once sweet perfume. “It’s okay, doll. We’re fine, see?”

You were limp, reminding him of a ragdoll he’d seen Two-Bit’s sister playing with, how the limbs dangled freely, lifelessly. He knew it was bad, he could tell from the sharp wheezes that left your lungs as he began the walk down the interstate.

Whether it was morally gray to leave the man behind in the other truck, Dallas didn’t know, nor could he bring himself to care, not with you in his arms. He’d tell whoever he came across about the crash, but from the looks of the truck, he didn’t gather that the man was living.

It was nearly a twenty-minute walk to the nearest hospital, that Dallas knew of for sure, he’d been to damn near every hospital in Tulsa enough to know their location like the back of his hand. He could feel every breath you took in, your lungs crackling with a mixture of blood and spittle that caught in your throat.

Halfway through the walk, he felt warmth soaking his stomach, his forearms, steadily dripping down the front of his jeans. He didn’t have the strength to check if it was his own, or, God, yours. The thought made him nauseous. Dallas had been in fights, he’d been knocked silly hard enough to leave him whining in the grass, begging his head to cease the feeling of his brain swelling. He’d been cut, hell, Dallas knew pain - and by association, he knew blood.

“You’re bleeding.” He mumbled, more so speaking to himself than you, but he found himself hoping you’d reply, talk back with your usual joking tone. “You hear me, kid? Bleeding all over my shirt.”

His words ended in a laugh, but not one he found himself meaning. He was exhausted, judging by the way his vision kept giving way to a blurry mess of black dots and smeared lights, he knew he was in a bad way as well, but he’d rather die than stop walking.

It seemed like hours in his mind before he saw the familiar fluorescent sign of the local hospital. The parking lot was borderline empty, save for three cars parked near the entrance. He continued walking, his grip on you tightening, hoisting you up further onto him.

Your breaths fanned across his neck, ever so featherlight, almost as though you weren’t breathing at all. The thought terrified him, twisting his stomach and its contents into something sour as he pushed his shoulder against the entrance door, tracking blood and grime underneath his shoes across the white tile flooring.

“Help-“ He called, catching the attention of a nearby nurse and doctor, both paling at the sight of you both. Dallas found himself thankful that he didn’t have to scream for someone, he didn’t think that he could, his throat felt as though he’d swallowed glass.

“Jesus Christ-“ The nurse whispered, quickly moving behind the counter. The overhead speaker buzzed to life, calling for everyone available to come down to triage. Dallas looked over to the doctor who quickly approached him, his arms outstretched, wanting to take you.

He found himself freezing, not wanting to let you go. His fingers dug into your side, the feeling pulling a wheezed-out cough from your unconscious body. Only then did Dallas relent, eyebrows furrowed together in an emotion he couldn’t put into words as the doctor rolled you into his arms. He seemed to whisper something to you, but Dallas couldn’t pick it up, not over the sound of feet hitting tile, followed by shouted medical jargon that he couldn’t even begin to repeat even if he wanted to.

“Sir?”

A gentle hand against his shoulder snapped him from his following gaze. He looked down, finding a much shorter nurse standing before him. She spoke to him, hand gently wrapped around his forearm as she tugged him to a nearby bed.

Throughout it all, he watched you. Another doctor had come around to check on him, telling him that he was in a state of shock. But he couldn’t listen to them, not when two men tilted your head back to push a tube down your throat. You didn’t move, your facial muscles didn’t twitch, nothing.

And then they wheeled you away.

Dallas jerked from his bed, quickly finding a firm hand against his chest, the same doctor who had told him only moments prior about him being in a state of shock.

“Sir-“ He started, eyes filled with a genuine level of concern that Dallas had never seen from anyone besides you and the guys, it made him pause. “You need to be seen, do you understand me?”

All he could do was nod as he sat back down against the hospital bed, letting the doctor and nurse hook him up to a nearby machine, before snipping his clothes off. He could’ve taken his shirt off himself, but the words wouldn’t move to his mouth. He watched the doors you left in, waiting for you to return as they wiped down his chest with something that made his skin flush with pain.

“Is there anyone we can call?” A nearby woman asked, her hands nervously fumbling with a clipboard. Dallas stared at her for a moment, in a way she reminded him of Mrs. Curtis, those same eyes, he was sure the guys would agree.

“Yeah, I-“ He replied, clearing his throat halfway through the words, the motion causing a fresh sear of pain in the back of his throat. “My brothers, I can write their number.”

Time passed in a murky fashion once Dallas had been admitted to a nearby room. They had taken him down the hall for an assortment of tests, none of which he’d had the mind to pay attention to the results for. He’d only heard a few words; concussion, eye damage, fractured ulna - whatever the hell that was.

All he knew was they’d patched him up well after shining enough lights in his eyes to leave him seeing circles for the next fifty years. They gave him medicine through an IV, telling him how lucky he was, how they’d seen much worse out of much less. He gave them scowls as he debated on whether or not he should tear the tubing from his arm, after all, how lucky could he be when he was left to rot in a damn hospital room with no knowledge of your wellbeing?

The morphine was nice, he’d quickly made friends with the steady drip being mainlined into his veins, scouring any pain that attempted to surface. It felt like hours before Dallas saw another face, but in truth, it had only been roughly thirty minutes.

Darry was the first to poke his head into the room, his face twisted in worry at the sight of Dallas laid up in a hospital bed, wires connected to his chest and his arms, left arm wrapped tightly in a concoction of gauze and medical tape. Dallas would’ve smiled, truly, he would have. But morphine weakened every fiber of his being, leaving him only able to quirk up the side of his lips.

The others poured in after, all of them whispering words to Dallas as though they were afraid being any louder would injure him. He didn’t want well wishes, he wanted you. With a grunt, he sat himself up, half-heartedly shoving away Two-Bit who moved forward to help him up.

“How is she?” He asked, knowing damn well they’d all been briefed on your condition before they headed down to his room. “Tell me, man. I’m goin’ crazy here.”

When they all turned to Darry, Dallas felt his stomach sour just as it had when he saw them wheel you away. He felt his chest lurch, throat tightening with a gag that ripped its way from his mouth. Johnny fumbled for a nearby container, holding it steady for Dallas as he vomited up the remnants of his drink he’d had hours prior, mixed heavily with enough stomach acid to leave his eyes watering.

The taste was acrid, causing him to groan as they moved around him, tossing Ponyboy a cloth. Ponyboy quickly handed it to Dallas, murmuring something Dallas didn’t quite pick up over the sound of the plethora of machines he found himself hooked up to. As he wiped the cloth against his mouth, he looked at Darry, eyes begging for the truth.

“Ain’t lookin’ good, Dallas.” He replied, moving forward a step to pat Dallas’s calf. “They said somethin’ about internal bleeding, got her hooked up to a machine that’s breathin’ for her. It’s supposed to help her recover.”

Whatever composure Dallas had tried to secure for himself was lost the moment Darry uttered those words. His brows furrowed in confusion and frustration as he grumbled about you under his breath, hands tearing at the bedsheets to move to his legs. Every effort was met with one of the guys pushing him back, trying to calm him down, it didn’t help that his legs didn’t seem to cooperate.

“Dallas-“ Darry stated, tone stern enough to pull his attention. He motioned down to his legs, hands gentle as they pushed him back into the bed. “You can’t go see her, none of us can. You need to rest, you hear me?”

He didn’t want to, none of him wanted to admit that Darry was right, but he reluctantly agreed with a slow nod. The rest of the night passed slowly, filled with quiet conversations and a few held-back retches on Dallas’s part.

Once visiting hours were up Dallas found himself alone, yet again, listening to the nonstop hum of life outside of his room. The nurse's station bubbled with gossip, some of which Dallas inadvertently listened to as the hours passed him by.

Only when the sun began to peer through the window blinds did he feel an inkling of exhaustion. He gave into the feeling, willing himself into a dreamless sleep in hopes of seeing you sooner.

It had only been two days, two damn days and Dallas had decided he hated the sound of his heart monitor more than he had ever hated anything in his entire life. Was it dramatic? Sure, but he figured he had a damn good reason to be dramatic. The day before he’d spoken to a kind doctor, an older man who kept eye contact throughout the entirety of their conversation.

He was cleared to go home within the week, albeit with a cast and a prescription for pain medicine, but still - he had a set discharge date. He had asked about the pain medication, and if he could be taken off of it sooner, which earned him a low laugh from the older male doctor who only patted his calf and uttered something about him not being able to tolerate the pain.

It was bullshit. Maddening bullshit.

All he wanted was to see you, to hear about how you were doing. He had somehow managed to get on a nurse's good side, she gave him infrequent updates on your condition, but they were frequent enough to keep him from ripping the wires from his body to go check on you himself.

As if God himself had answered his silent prayers, that very nurse walked into his room, a smile perched on her thin lips. She moved over to his bed, taking a second to check his vitals as he looked up at her expectantly, each second of silence only adding to his existing impatience.

“They’ve moved her to another room.” She stated, eyes focused on a nearby monitor. “I can take you today if you want. She won’t be awake, but you can see her.”

He nodded before his mouth could form the word, “Yes.”

You were a painful sight; lying on your back, tubing down your throat, skin ashen. The only thing that seemed different was your hair, no longer mottled down by aged blood, but instead clean and brushed from your face. Your heartbeat was steadier than his had been, the beep almost maddeningly slow.

Bruises lined your skin, deep, as if ingrained into the etches of your face and throat. Blankets were draped over you, something he found himself appreciative of, at least you weren’t cold. You’d felt cold when he had carried you all those miles, so cold that he’d considered wrapping you in all the clothing he’d had on him.

The nurse pushed him closer to your bed, giving you both a moment of privacy as she stood near the door, facing outward toward the nearby nurses station. He lifted his hand, placing it against your hospital bed, willing himself to hold your hand. With a shaky breath, he brushed his hand against yours. You were so warm, skin still soft despite the wires connected to every stretch of bare skin.

“You look rough.” He croaked out through a laugh, shaking his head halfway through his sentence as he moved his hand from yours, feeling a pain he’d never experienced before ripple through his chest like wildfire. “Fuck-“

His eyes burned, just as they had that night when gasoline filled his lungs and the stench of burnt rubber nearly blinded him - it was all too much. Dallas wasn’t a weak man, he wasn’t. He’d seen horrible things and hadn’t shed a tear, but you - you would stick with him. Even if you recovered, the sight of you connected to seemingly every medical device known to man would haunt him until the end of his days.

He wiped at his eyes, pawing hard enough to see stars behind his eyelids as his breath caught in his chest. Warm tears coated his skin, trickling down the inside of his wrists as he continued batting at his face, willing himself to stop crying.

Not in front of people, he thought. Not in front of these people.

It didn’t work. Tears dripped down his cheeks and he found himself choking on his breath. The sound alerted his nurse, she quickly moved to his side, a move he rejected with a harsh pushback of his arm. She didn’t lecture him, instead, she moved back, watching with a saddened look on her face as Dallas tried desperately to shove back the tears that kept spilling.

In a move fueled by sheer desperation, he grabbed your hand, holding tight enough to whiten his knuckles. He watched you through bleary eyes, blinking away stubborn tears as he willed you to be alright. In his mind it would work, you’d wake up and you’d be alright - he could tell you what he’d wanted to that night, and he wouldn’t choke up like he had.

“C’mon, kid.” He urged, shaking your hand as he gave it another squeeze. “C’mon.”

A flutter, something he might’ve missed if he hadn’t been holding your hand so damn tight. Your fingers twitched in his hold, your thumb brushing against his. And for the first time in days, Dallas smiled. His hand squeezed yours again as his thumb brushed against the back of your palm.

“Hey-“ He whispered. As the word left his mouth your eyes shot open, wide and full of horror. “Kid?”

Your chest lurched, a horrid sound torn between a retch and scream tearing its way from your chest as your hands scrambled to your face. A nurse held your arms, loudly pleading with you to calm down. The nurse that had wheeled Dallas in smacked a button on the nearby wall, and it seemed as though every medical practitioner in the hospital poured into your room.

Dallas could still hear your ragged gasps for air as someone wheeled him from the room, muttering something about giving the doctors enough space to work. He couldn’t focus, not with the sound you’d made rattling his mind, the look of pure terror in your eyes as your hands wrapped around your intubation tube. If it hadn’t been for the pain medicine still coursing through his veins, he would’ve scrambled to his feet to be by your side - yet there he was, stuck out in the hallway as your legs twisted up, kicking at the thin sheets draped over your body as every doctor in sight pleaded with you to calm down.

And then it was silent, your body went limp. Dallas felt his throat tighten in panic, but everyone in the room seemed to take a collective sigh of relief.

“Sedative administered.”

He didn’t fight back as they took him back to his room.

Dallas refused pain medication after he visited you. His inability to move to his feet, to do anything to help you, it bothered him enough for him to shout at any doctor who tried to push the mind-numbing medication onto him. The doctors had been right, the pain was blinding, enough for him to catch a crick in his jaw from clenching it nonstop.

It was worth it in his mind. The next time you needed him he wouldn’t be bogged down, he’d be alert, he’d - he’d be better than he had been when he was driving you home. That’s all it boiled down to, really. The guys continued to visit the both of you, spending enough time at the hospital to be known on a first-name basis by all of the night-shift staff.

It had only been four days after he witnessed you choking on an intubation tube when he got the news that you were awake, awake and alert. Darry had been the one to tell him, both him and Sodapop sitting adjacent to his hospital bed as Ponyboy and Johnny no doubt chatted your ear off.

“You want to see her?” Darry asked. “She’s awake. We already went and saw her, figured you’d want to know.”

Dallas shook his head. He didn’t know why he did, but he did. The thought of seeing you terrified him, he had heard nurses babbling about how certain patients would perk up a day before their death. What if you were like that? Why would Dallas get his hopes up just to lose you all over again?

“Dal-“ Sodapop whispered, words crudely interrupted by a glare from Dallas - one that Darry quickly shot down with a look of his own. Sodapop cleared his throat then. “Dallas, she’ll want to see you. This- this ain’t your fault, you know that.”

Dallas furrowed his brow, grimacing at the words as though he could taste them on his tongue. With a look over to Sodapop, he replied, “How could it not be my fault, Soda? I drove- I, Christ, I drove the damn car!”

He hadn’t meant to raise his voice, hell, Sodapop was the kinder of the guys. But he couldn’t help the emotions bubbling in his chest, nipping at his heart and mind in a ruthless manner that left him restless.

“You couldn’t have known.” Sodapop responded, eyebrows raised as if he couldn’t believe what Dallas was saying. But Darry stayed silent, a knowing look on his face. Dallas looked to him as a kid would an older brother, a silent plea for help, for the truth, for anything other than a blind rationalization of what had happened.

Darry sighed, smoothing his hands down the front of his jeans. “I blamed myself for what happened to my folks. It wasn’t right, I figured I could’ve done somethin’ to prevent it, somethin’ to stop it.” He took a moment to rub at his face, a faraway look in his deep-set eyes. “I still do sometimes. But there’s a difference between us, Dallas. She’s alive.”

There was truth to Darry’s words, enough to leave Dallas silent as he sulked, not wanting to admit his foolishness. Darry noticed his silence, and with a quiet grunt, he moved near Dallas’s hospital bed, placing a firm hand against his shoulder.

“She ain’t dead, so don’t treat her like she is.”

With a curt nod, he shrugged off Darry’s hand.

The feeling of being back on his feet was beyond what relief could provide. Pain medicine be damned, he’d grit his teeth if it meant he’d be able to walk to your room instead of being accompanied by a too-kind nurse.

Nobody moved to stop him as he maneuvered through the halls, mumbling the passing numbers under his breath until he reached your room. The door had been propped open, yet the curtains were drawn, shielding you from anyone who might pass by. His hand, as much as he didn’t want to admit it, trembled to hell as he grabbed the curtain, slowly pushing it to the side to reveal you.

Flowers adorned the tables beside your hospital bed, wildflowers, surely having been picked by the guys to make you feel more at home in a room drastically different from everything you’d grown accustomed to. He cleared his throat as he pushed the curtain further, hardly exposing the left side of his face.

It may have sounded foolish to anyone who didn’t know Dallas, but you recognized the cough as soon as it left his lungs. After years of friendship, you knew him instinctually, the beat of his heart, the rumble of laughter that’d echo in his chest - it was him, and you knew him better than you knew yourself.

Your eyes, albeit bruised, searched for him. He saw you before you had seen him, carefully taking in your fragile state. It wasn’t like you, to look as breakable as you did in that hospital bed. He could sense the frustration, the worry lines evident on your forehead as you struggled with another wire connected to your chest, the tape pulling at your stitched skin.

“They suck, don’t they?” He asked, the sudden noise having startled you enough to show a spike on your heart monitor, the sight pulling a genuine laugh from Dallas as he closed the door behind him. He pretended to not notice the way your heart rate steadily increased the closer he got to your bed, but he’d be a lying fool if he said his wasn’t doing the same.

Despite it all, you were still you - and God, if you didn’t have his heart skipping right out of his chest.

“Hi, Dal.” You whispered, a smile so bright on your face he was worried it hurt your lips. He moved to sit beside you, hands gently helping you further over in your bed so he could hold you close.

You didn’t stop him, why would you? After you’d woken up the first thing you’d asked for was Dallas. The nurses and the guys had done you a courtesy by not telling him, but you were sure he had an inkling of it by the way his arm wrapped loosely around you, carefully minding the wires attached to you.

His scent calmed you, although it was mute compared to how it usually was, it was still him - that familiar scent of cologne and tobacco, it was heaven in a world filled with rubbing alcohol and flickering fluorescent lights.

“I’m so sorry.” He whispered against your hair, pressing a kiss to your forehead in between each word. You furrowed your brows, tilting your head back to look at him, your hand raised to cup his jaw. He found himself leaning into your touch, having missed your warmth as though he’d been starved of it for years.

“Why are you apologizing?” You asked, shaking your head as though the idea made you sick. He looked down at you, shocked by your lack of anger.

“I-“ He started, stuttering over his words. “I drove, I could’ve, I-“

You placed your thumb over his lips, clicking your tongue against the back of your teeth. “Dallas, that wasn’t anybody’s fault, alright?”

For once he found himself at a loss for words. He didn’t back away from your touch, instead, he watched as you lifted yourself, a slight wince flashing across your features as you moved your thumb, placing your lips to his a second later.

His eyes fluttered shut as he savored the feeling of your lips on his. Nothing could have prepared him for the relief he’d feel in that moment, knowing you were safe, awake - alive. It was almost too much for him to bear, but you kept him grounded, lips soft enough to leave him craving more of you.

You pulled away with a gentle smile, a giggle passing your lips at the sight of Dallas’s eyes fluttering open, pupils fully blown. You lifted your hand, brushing his hair from his forehead, fingernails gently scratching at his scalp as you brushed the tresses back.

“You’re stupid.” You laughed out quietly, shaking your head as you spoke. “Stupid for thinkin’ this was your fault.”

He nodded in reply, a laugh of his own joining yours, filling the silence in between the racket of medical machinery. Everyone in the damn world could have told him the wreck wasn’t his fault, but he wouldn’t have believed it unless it came from you.

“I would’ve been, too.” You whispered, as though admitting a secret. “We’re alright.”

He leaned forward, placing a kiss on your forehead, letting the moment linger as he closed his eyes, thanking every deity that may have been listening to his broken prayers for your health for the past several nights. You were alright, as was he.

“Yeah,” he breathed, placing another kiss on your forehead. “We’re alright, doll.”

A/N: My first angst on here! I hope you guys enjoyed it! I’ve been writing this one for a while, I think it might be my longest writing on here (not counting chapters.) I’m pretty dang happy with this! As always, thank you all for the continuous love and support you have shown me and my work! You can find all of my stuff over on my AO3, “Unscriptural.”

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