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#to love him and be loved by him is healing even though it is fictional
hoseoksluna · 4 hours
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VAPOR, pt I. | jjk ft. myg
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pairing: boyfriend!jungkook x steam!oc
genre: smut, a hint of angst
word count: 10.6k
summary: yoongi never promised his healing time would be easy and when he hurts you enough that you need your other "boyfriend", jungkook is quick to rescue you.
pinterest board: blur | playlist: car playlist
warnings: mentions of a sex toy, jungkook is upset and angry at his hyung, public sex, dirty talk, sexual tension and frustration, praise kink, fingering, oral sex (f. receiving), bruising, cum swallowing, going behind someone's back........
note: HI MY LOVES—MY STEAM DRABBLE IS HERE AND I'VE NEVER BEEN MORE EXCITED TO POST SOMETHING, OH MY GOSH. OKAY, before i say anything else, i would like to put a disclaimer here: even though all my characters are fictional, they are still human in this world, which means they fuck up, which means they're not perfect whatsoever and never will be. i would like to really put an emphasis on that before you read and if i receive any vulgar and rude asks about this, i assure you that i will not respond to them. OKAY ALL SERIOUSNESS ASIDE—this was fucking AMAZING TO WRITE and i already CANNOT WAIT to start writing another part, this time with yoongi included. i promise to make everything right and—SPOILER—this couple WILL get a happy ending, so don't worry, my loves. ENJOY READING. SPAM MY INBOX. I LOVE YOU.
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There’s a mango-scented candle rustling in a bag, resting on the passenger seat, and Jungkook is driving very carefully so as to not knock it over and possibly break it. For a moment, one that reemerges in his headspace as he keeps his foot light on the pedal, he wonders if he should buckle a seatbelt around it and ensure its safety that way, his fear of ruining his surprise for you causing his brain to come up with the strangest of ideas—in the name of the love he carries for you. 
Is it love, though? 
Jungkook furrows his brows, that thought seizing his sternum enough that he has to turn his music down and let some fresh air in through the window so he doesn’t crash his fucking car. Icy sweat stings his spine, his stomach churning and without sparing a second longer, his eyes take after the sadness of the weather outside his vehicle. His vision blurs and he rubs his eye, one at a time, to focus on the road.
A red light blinks at him and suddenly, there’s fury that he feels deep within chest. 
Conceivably because slowing down means he has to face the onrush of emotions sloshing in him. Has to hear the rain not just outside, but inside, too. Has to feel the prick of those raindrops along his waterline. The heft of those clouds outside and inside his clavicles as well, tightening and tightening. 
Jungkook sighs, drumming his fingers upon his steering wheel, trying to distract himself from it all. From the invading question that absorbs his body like the vapor rising across the night-clothed street—when did he get so emotional? 
Unfortunately, he knows the answer right away.
You’ve been sad. On your own. 
It’s been a few weeks since all three of you made a deal to stick together. Yoongi has been brave, his good mood clutching him for a lot longer than Jungkook sadly estimated. You’ve spent these past two Fridays and weekends together, out and about, rolling in bed, rolling in Yoongi’s apartment. It was all fun and games until the boss reached a dead end. Somehow. Jungkook still doesn’t know what it was that Yoongi actually saw—what was that one particular thing that caused him to spiral. 
To relapse. 
And you didn’t tell him until it was too late. 
Perhaps, you did tell him—nonverbally, that is. You stopped adding your signed messages whenever he was texting with Yoongi during the week and even those alone stopped coming in as the days went on. There was something wrong and he knew it. His intuition only proved to be right when another weekend showed its face and it contained no undertone of you. And no suggestion of Yoongi either. 
Silence. Dead silence. 
And it wasn’t until Jungkook got an incoming call from an unknown number half an hour ago that he realized the gravity of the situation. 
It was you who called him up, sobbing into the phone, having stolen his number from Yoongi’s device. As difficult as it was to understand what happened, Jungkook tied all the strings of information you gave him between your broken breaths and blubbering: Yoongi hasn’t spoken to you all day and took a shower alone, the latter being the most devastating of the two. 
He felt bad for you, terribly bad for you—but simultaneously, he was upset with you. 
Still is. 
It’s one of the reasons why he’s driving up to Yoongi’s apartment. With a mango-scented candle and a puffed-up bag of cheese balls. He doesn’t want to think what the other reasons are, not when he’s staring down his gift for you, clicking his tongue at last and reaching over for the seatbelt and sliding it into its buckle. Just in time for the traffic light to turn green.
Now, now he’s speeding down the road, turning up the volume of his car playlist. A slow song by the Arctic Monkeys is playing and it’s a movie—the set of circumstances that are happening in the present. The rain, the tightness in his chest, the but faint adrenaline of the momentum. What is he really doing? 
It feels as though he’s following a script, however his eyes haven’t skimmed down the entire thing. He doesn’t know how this is going to end. Hell, he doesn’t even know if he’s doing the right thing because he’s planning on staying outside of his hyung’s apartment. Like hell he’s going inside when his sweetheart—
Jungkook purses his lips. Moves the shift stick. Kills the engine. Closes his eyes. 
His heart thumps. Turbulently. It stirs worry in him. What if he’s going to die? 
This is the first time he’s left in the hands of the unknown. He’s always had the sixth sense of knowing tactness like the back of his hand, although this time he doesn’t know shit. Doesn’t know if he’s breaking his best friend’s trust. Doesn’t know what’s going to happen once he sees you, possibly wearing one of your nighttime robes. The last time you touched him was the last time he had his release. His hand doesn’t feel as good as yours does—and his orgasm isn’t as fulfilling as when it’s shared with you. He’s brimming with frustration, with anger so vast that he could explode and he knows it’s unfair to be mad at Yoongi, when he himself said it wasn’t going to be easy, that it was going to take a lot of work. But Jungkook can’t help his feelings. Can’t help to see you. 
Only you. 
Broken, tear-stained, when it should be blush painting your cheeks red from all the love and happiness your own boyfriend should give you as it’s his duty. Something he’s responsible for. Something he should put above himself. 
“Drunken monologues, confused because it's not like I'm falling in love, I just want you to do me no good and you look like you could,” Alex Turner sings and Jungkook’s chin quivers, his heart gaining tempo, his perturbation rising—owing to the violence of that muscle, owing to the state of your feelings. 
He wonders if you’re still crying. 
He’s outside of Yoongi’s apartment. Didn’t even realize it, mind too fucked up, too full of you. 
Grabbing his phone, he sends you a text. 
I’m here. Come outside 
A reply pings right away. 
SWEETHEART: ? 
SWEETHEART: it’s raining 
He’s halfway typing his response that he doesn’t want to go inside, but he decides against it. Doesn’t want to make it worse for you. If you knew of the dark corners of his mind that don’t particularly like Yoongi at the moment, you wouldn’t look at him with those pretty eyes of yours as you always do. 
He can’t afford that. 
I have an umbrella
As his thumb hovers above his phone, waiting for your reply, he can almost hear your sigh. Can feel your breath on his clammy palm as he rubs it on his pants in effort to rid himself of the nerves crawling in his veins. The breath he was favored enough to hold in his grasp the last time he had you to himself—clamping your mouth shut as he spanked your clit for being so beautifully responsive to his touch, rubbing it until your eyes whisked back while Yoongi slept beside you, unaware. 
It’s engraved in his brain. It plays on loop before sleep overtakes him at night and it’s his first thought in the morning once consciousness reminds him that you’re not his. 
SWEETHEART: is it cold outside?
He figures you’re asking the question in order to decide whether you should change or not. It seems as though warm pajamas don’t exist in your world, for the beginning of September is in the process of blooming. It nudges his anger; provokes it enough to fill it with a lethal dose of a yearning to buy you the warmest pair of pants he could find. He clenches his fist, thumb quick to type a response. 
Wear something that covers your legs or stay home. 
The same thumb shakes at the expression of his firmness, his anger disturbed, wholly—wholly disturbed. If you come out wearing your little shorts—
A reply pings again. 
SWEETHEART: ok ill change
And another one right away. 
SWEETHEART: ill text u when i come down
That’s a good girl. 
He almost types it right then and there, but something within, despite the slowly calming storm of his feelings, despite his cock tightening in his pants at the swift image of your bare legs, at the lingering perception of you being a good girl and listening to him, drags his thumb to his emojis. A sudden renewal of his sixth sense, and he doesn’t understand how it’s happened as it dawns on him, makes him realize that’s not exactly what you need right now. You didn’t call him for a fuck. 
You called him for emotional support. 
👍🏻
And like the good girl you are, you merely take five minutes. Stay true to your words, text him as you’re coming down and Jungkook grabs his umbrella from the backseat. Doesn’t forget to unbuckle the seatbelt in the passenger seat. Saves himself from the embarrassment. 
The trees sway in his direction, inviting him in, once he takes two steps at the time, coming up the stairs. He watches them through the clear roundness of his shield, beckoning him closer. The rain pelts against it, but softly this time. Merciful as it knows you’re about to emerge from the ocean of such unfathomable sadness. It doesn’t wish to frighten you, rather it desires to soothe your escaping, make it less harrowing. Even the wind that whips at him stills as soon as you open the door, bathed in light. 
And Jungkook is struck with the notion that he wants to do the same. 
You’re wearing flared leggings. Gray. With sneakers of the same color and a white top that hugs your waist, that seems way smaller than the last time he touched it. He gets a glimpse of it, and it unnerves him, as you lift your hand to curl a strand of your hair behind your ear because otherwise your body is shrouded in a flannel that’s too big for you. Too robust for you and your particular liking of tight, little clothes. 
He doesn’t want to know who that garment belongs to. Doesn’t even want to come close to unfolding that thought, to even let it get a taste of his burning blood. Because there’s another matter at hand. 
You’ve lost weight. 
And he’s going to kill his hyung for it. 
You step out and it’s an instinct, the way his arm draws closer to you so you don’t get touched by the rain, even if it means the raindrops get to trace the back of his head and the nape of his neck. Yet even that invigorating, tender liquid doesn’t cool the scorching lividness that takes place beneath his skin, beneath his bones. But then you touch his hand, left to left, drag it away and hide yourself in his chest. Everything changes when you do that. 
Jungkook explodes. Silently. Gently. His chin quivers again and he doesn’t care that you can hear the tremor of his heart as you lay your ear against it. Doesn’t care that his grip might hurt you as he hugs you back, thinking he could wrap his arm twice around your much different waist. And he takes you like this. Back to his car. He doesn’t even feel the wetness pooling in his waterline, leading you as you walk backwards. And you laugh, you laugh softly while he inhales your mango scent that has somehow even crept up to your scalp, and he doesn’t believe it’s that easy. 
It can’t be that easy to make you feel better. 
He opens the door for you, a façade of nothingness plastered on his face as he tries his hardest to remain stoic so you wouldn’t see the turmoil churning within every perimeter of his body. And it’s an instinct, too, the way he catches your little purse when it slips off your shoulder, even though he doesn’t see it, too busy devouring your gaze—afraid, awfully afraid that tonight might be the last time he sees your pretty eyes, considering the contempt he’s now showing his hyung. 
If Yoongi finds out about this, it’s over. 
His life is over, too. 
Anger, frustration, sadness, love—how is he able to feel all of those emotions at once? You purse your lips, your weary eyes skip his features all the way to his mouth, stopping at his lip ring and the question rises again in his brain. 
Is it love? 
The rain falls harder. And so does he, unfortunately. 
“I got you something. It’s right there.” He tips his chin to the passenger seat without taking his gaze off of your busy eyes. They’re still looking at his mouth, watching every word come out. He finds it so endearing that there’s nothing more he wants to do than grab your cheeks and kiss you for it. Maybe his frustration would loosen a little bit if he did it. “Don’t sit on it.” 
It’s that addition to his previous sentence that causes you to flick those pretty irises of yours up to his. And he studies it as the double meaning uncoils in your brain, even though it was by accident that it tumbled out of his mouth. The weariness in your orbs parts like clouds upon the heavens, though no sunshine spills through them. There’s still a lingering blankness, something unknown, something foreign. Then, the tiniest of smiles curls your mouth and it jolts through him, his heart thudding harder—to the point that even more profound discomfort settles in. 
“Did you get me a dildo? I could use one right now.” 
The perplex that seizes him almost causes his legs to give out. And he can’t help it, the way his eyes roll back and his hand, with your purse hanging from his forearm, runs down his face. Jungkook wants to get drenched in the rain—maybe if the raindrops put out the sudden fire licking at his every nerve ending, maybe then he’ll come to understand how you manage to be in the mood when your state of mind can’t possibly let you have dirty thoughts. 
His cock tightens again and he calls you by your name, firmly. He can’t have this. Not right now. He needs to be sensible. You need it. “Get in the car.” 
You listen, but your smile falters. Grabbing your bag from his forearm, you turn around, bending over to wrap your fist around the bag on the passenger seat. Jungkook doesn’t mean to look at your delicious round cheeks and once he discovers that they’re hidden under that layer of the hideous flannel, he sighs a breath of relief. He can’t look at you that way. Averts his gaze, immediately. 
As soon as you’re seated, he clicks the door shut. Considers letting the rain have him. Did he make a mistake, being firm with you? 
Inside his car, his favorite song is mellowly playing. In the mere few seconds, you’ve managed to suffuse the entire atmosphere with your mango scent and Jungkook inhales it. It takes him into a whole different world, one filled with eternal sunlight as the song portrays it. He finds himself in a country of spring that has been briskly rained upon and now is being softly seared with those shafts of light and speckles of heat, the details of your beauty. 
“For the love of my life, she's got glow on her face…” the singer sings and the lyrics plod into his mind. Jungkook wishes the description applied to you at this very moment like it had before, like it had every single time he stole a glance at you. He misses your glow and your glitter and it pierces his unstable heart that he finds no traces of those particles of shimmer on your cheekbones and eyelids as you’re rummaging through the bag, not even on your cupid’s bow as you gasp, gently, discovering he bought you your favorite things. 
You’re looking at him with such smothered joy and it would relieve his feelings if he didn’t feel such guilt, if he didn’t feel as though he was a crumbling pillar, a failure undeserving of your time. 
You take the candle into your small hands. Such a stark contrast—his heart aches at the sight of it. You pop the lid open, sniff the aroma and your mouth rounds in a terribly, terribly cute manner. Jungkook is glad for the lack of light in the space of his car, which hides his growing manhood. He props an elbow on the door and pinches his nose, trying to regain his composure— 
“It’s mango-scented,” you say in disbelief, pouting and Jungkook can’t breathe. “And cheese balls, are you kidding me?” You open the bag right away, plopping the treat into your mouth. He’s surprised you eat just one—it doesn’t feel right. “Thank you. Honestly. Thank you.” You cradle it into your chest and Jungkook has to look away. 
What has Yoongi done to you that you react this way to such silly things? He needs to ask, but he fears your answer. And what’s worse, he fears what he’ll do to him once you tell him. 
“What did you tell him?” He needs to get away from this place, but it has to correlate with your plan, if there even is any. If not, he’ll handle it. Figure something out. 
You take a sharp breath, loading your gifts back into the bag, keeping it nice and safe on your lap. Then, you lick your lips and look at him with an intention that causes his heart to jump right there onto the wonderfully clothed flesh of your thighs. “I told him I was going home.” 
Home. Since the moment he knew of your existence, your home has been the place wherever Yoongi resided. It never mattered where. Jungkook grips the steering wheel, knuckles white. “Where do you live?” 
You tell him your address. He knows that from this day on, he’ll never, ever forget it. He starts the engine, wondering in the meantime about the ordinariest things of your life. Do you live there during the week and spend your weekends at Yoongi’s apartment? Or has he completely overtaken your life that you spend every hour of it in his presence? He wants to know. And he wants to get some food in that slim tummy of yours. “Do you have any food there? When was the last time you were there?” 
It’s you who looks away now, staring ahead, playing with your fingers while the rest are still wrapped around the bag. “I don’t live there anymore. Haven’t been there in months.” 
Jungkook bites his lip. Too, too many questions are hovering in his brain—he barely has the capacity to think about them, let alone hurl them at you. “What did he say when you told him you were going home?” 
You snivel and his heart on your thighs twitches in pain. He has to grip the steering wheel harder in order not to jump out of this car and kick down Yoongi’s door. 
“Nothing.” 
Jungkook puts the car in drive, wordlessly, seething inside. He’ll invent another plan while yours will remain its prototype. Will keep you safe.
Safe, fed and tearless. 
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The drive is quiet, save for the euphonious melodies emitting through his never-ending playlist. The rain has become less severe, soft in nature, only adding to the background noise—adding to the process of your mollification that he’s overseeing. He’s put a stop to the questions. Has figured you have enough of them, for the only reason you decided to lie to your own boyfriend and go behind his back was because you needed to get out of his clutches. 
A decision he approves of. 
The quietness has helped him regain his composure fully, set some things straight in his brain as the anger in him slowly dissipated. Space is good, for both his hyung and you and he’s proud of you for allowing yourself to get to this point that you walked away. Yoongi, evidently, has returned to his hermit tendencies and Jungkook knows very well that it’s something that he needs in his healing time. It’s who he is; who he always has been. He didn’t push him away too many times for him to be possibly wrong about this and while the information he gained from you that Yoongi changed his ways shattered Jungkook’s heart and glued it back together, he knew, somehow, deep within him, that it was just an effort. For you. 
He didn’t think it was a façade because Yoongi is certainly not a phony person. 
He did it for you. Tried his hardest. And succeeded. With your help, he’s sure—which makes it all the more beautiful—but Yoongi is still Yoongi. 
Someone who deals with things on his own. 
And although the distance he needs hurts other people, he doesn’t mean it. Jungkook knows this just as well, despite the fact what he truly thinks is that Yoongi should try harder. 
For you. 
He needs to tell you this. Needs you to know. But he doesn’t think you’re ready to hear it just yet, which is okay. The plan is constructed, he’s here for you and he will make you feel better. He will caress your heart and make your belly full. Will make you forget for a little while before he gently brings you back to reality. 
You deserve this. After everything you’ve been through. Because of him. Because of Yoongi. 
And because of this, he no longer feels guilty that he has you to himself without Yoongi knowing. Even if that means he risks his brotherhood, even if that means he risks his affection for you seeing the light of day. 
You’re more important. 
It’s this thought that gets interrupted by a sudden ring of your phone. You jump, zipping your purse open and Jungkook keeps his eyes on the road. He doesn’t really want to see the kind of picture you have Yoongi saved under. He has to keep his feelings intact. Remain calm. 
Your breath shakes. “He’s video calling me.” 
Sparks of electricity nip at his fingertips. A surge of adrenaline, the threatening, false notion that he’s doing the wrong thing. Jungkook almost smirks. It’s so fucking thrilling to him. 
He lets you decide on your own what to do, but you grow unsure, nerves burdening you. He feels that heft and it’s quick to sober him up. 
“Should I get out of this car? Say I’m taking a walk?” you ask, your pretty, pretty eyes wide, your pupils so tiny. Jungkook wants to take your hand in his, take your fear that makes you think these silly thoughts and crush it. 
He’s here. He’s going to take care of this. Of you. 
“Let it ring.” 
You look back down at your phone, lip between your teeth, but Jungkook keeps his eyes on you, the red of the stoplight pervading you with the danger of your girlish freedom. And it does ring two more times before Yoongi gives up. 
Good. 
You have the right to need to distance yourself just as much as he does. Give him the same silent treatment like he did to you.
There’s a smug smirk plastered on his face when he catches you putting your phone back into your purse before the light turns green. He speeds down the road, driving with just one hand, ready to unfold his plan. 
One he’s already shared with you. 
He’s taking you to the mall. 
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His hand itches to take yours as you walk beside him. Strangers stare you down, but you keep your attention on the myriads of shops lining the side of the promenade. He doesn’t understand how it’s possible that there’s so many people wasting their Thursday at such a place like this. At this hour, especially. It kind of makes him regret that he took you here, despite the fact the sole purpose of it was to feed you until you were full. The lights are too bright, children are screaming and running around and it’s giving him a headache, but one look at you changes his mind in an instant. The glow he missed has found its way back to your cheeks and there’s a glint to your eyes that he hasn’t seen in a long while. The paleness is gone and he’s not really ignorant to the way a bush of roses begins to bloom in his chest at the realization. 
You stop dead in your tracks all of a sudden. Your little purse slips off of your shoulder. As attentive as he always is, he slides it back up, a smile tugging his mouth to the side. He thinks it’s just so damn cute. And the fact you don’t pay any attention to it as well. Probably used to it. 
Red posters of sale adorn the storefront that has caught your eye. Jungkook is unfamiliar with it, but you seem to be completely enthralled by it. 
“Where do you wanna eat?” he provokes. Already knows what restaurant you’ll be feasting at, obviously, but poking you is a matter of enjoyment for him. “There’s so many food courts to choose from.” 
You look at him and clutch your stomach, as if the mere mention of food made you hungry. A faint, faded light flashes across that glint in your irises before it dwindles away and Jungkook is ready to throw you over his shoulder and push people off of his path to get you there right now. 
“Can we… go here first?” you ask, hesitatingly, grabbing a hold of his elbow, but he feels as though you’re squeezing his heart, wringing it out of all that liquid emotion that he swallowed down earlier in the car. Your touch is warm, like the pond water kissed by the sun back at his cabin, seeping into his skin and languidly streaming through his body. 
It’s automatic, primal and right, the way he clasps his other hand across your fingers wrapped around his bicep and the way your body draws closer to his. It should be normal to do this when he’s seen you bare—when he’s seen you feral, needy and disappear into your pleasure, one he’s the creator of. Why does it feel so thrilling? So dangerous? 
You can meander through as many stores as you want. And he tells you that, or at least tries to, as he smiles at you, softly, and nods his head, letting you lead him inside the shop that has so vehemently caught your attention. 
A trillion styles of jeans, tiny tops, skirts and shorts of the same size, Jungkook understands your fascination as he takes it all in. And he’s pleasantly surprised when you indulge him as you fondle every material of every clothing you like, telling him how pretty you find it. You’re not timid to show him your disappointment either, wrinkling your nose, when the fabric is too frail or too expensive for the price, muttering vulgarities directed to capitalism and leading him away. 
It isn’t until your sight stumbles upon a rack of dresses that your breath, audibly, hitches in your throat. And you unlink your arm from his, going straight for your seemingly new obsession. 
A red dress. A sheer fabric, more like. With roses sewn in, a split in the middle, one strap covering only a part of the hanger. It’s the only piece of clothing you actually take into both of your hands, putting it against your body, as if to see what it would look like on you. Fuck if he knows what you’re doing—all he knows is that his throat is dry, the image of you wearing something like this making him a living, breathing corpse. 
Jungkook clenches his fists. Even more so when you disappointingly click your tongue upon seeing the price tag, putting it back where you found it. The thought of you not having that dress causing his heart to lodge, tightly and disturbingly, in the shriveled walls of his throat. 
Not happening. Not under his watch. 
That dress was made for you. 
Jungkook licks his lips. Doesn’t stop the words from spilling out. “Why don’t you try it on?”
You give him a look as if he was a mad man. And he is. That he certainly is. “Please, this costs more than I can afford. I’d only go home crying if I tried it on and had to put it back.”
He stifles a laugh at how ridiculous you sound. Picks up the price tag. Less than two hundred thousand wons. It wouldn’t even make a dent in his bank account. 
He grabs the hanger. Hands it to you. “Go try it on, sweetheart.” 
You roll your eyes. Don’t look amused at all. Your brows knit ever so adorably and the corners of your mouth curl downwards, arms crossing over your chest. Oh, he’s going to wipe that expression off of your face. Paint it in pretty, pretty colors. “No, thanks. I think I cried enough today. Let’s go.” 
You walk past him, but Jungkook stops you. Grabs your arm. Calls your name, firmly. “I’m not gonna repeat myself.” 
You huff. “Is there something wrong with your ears?” Your brows quirk and he thinks he died again. Might melt into a putty. Just for you. 
He smirks, showing his teeth. “It’s no issue for me,” he says, speaking of money, taking your hand in his and enveloping your fingers around the hanger. “So be good and try on this dress for me. Off you go.” 
Jungkook turns you around and, with his palms on your shoulders, he leads you towards the dressing rooms, not stopping until he finds one that’s unoccupied. You huff and puff again, but he gently pushes you inside. And when you open your mouth to say something, he drags the curtain to the side. A laughter bubbles in his chest. 
“You’re not buying this for me.” 
Jungkook shakes his head. “Strip.” 
There’s no witty remark, no exhales of your exasperated breaths, only the obnoxious music blasting through the speakers and he assumes that you gave in to him. A tendril of proudness, not of his actions but for you and your good behavior, swims in the hot bloodstream of his veins and it’s now, now that he’s almost alone and you’re out of view, save for your feet clad in pink socks under the curtain, that he perceives that he’s coated in sweat. The disorder of his colorful, all kinds of feelings has turned him so numb that he doesn’t even feel grounded in his body. He needs a strong sip of alcohol. And a good meal. 
He begins to flutter the sides of his leather jacket, just to alleviate himself of how hot he feels, when he hears you gasp, your footsies shuffling on the carpeted floor. He takes a step towards the dressing room, a trembling hand reaching for the curtain and stopping there—a spasm of nerves zaps his abdomen, spreading iciness to the tips of his fingers. He knows what he’s about to see will make him a dead man for the third time this evening and because of that, he takes a deep, soundless breath, closing his eyes for a mere second before his hand pulls the curtain away. 
Nothing, absolutely nothing could have prepared him for the sight before him. 
And nothing is what you’re wearing underneath the dress. 
Abruptly, there’s no music. There’s no gasps emitting out of that marvelous mouth of yours. And the film in front of his eyes is in slow motion, accompanied by the winged fuckers going equally mad inside his stomach. You’re twirling. From side to side. Patting down the material tight against your slender body. A grin on your face, one that he’s last seen during that time joy rested in you, bathes you in a glow that he longed to see. The glint, the light in your eyes takes on a whole new intensity and it shoots embers into his bare hands, burning him ferociously and curtly—just for him to find that he likes it and that he wants more. You turn around, facing him, and you swathe him with that flaring, almost raging light. It’s the sole thing he senses amidst the numbness of his headspace. 
Except for one thing. 
The ruffle of the sorry excuse for a rose beneath the singular strap of the dress is but an inch above your stiffened nipple while the other, just as excited, is left bare for his eyes—as if the principle of being exposed like that awakened your body. But it’s the vast, stitched red buds of that flower across your small waist, stomach, mound and the apex of your thighs that brings his attention to this other thing that he’s aware of. 
He’s hard for you. 
This image of you will perpetually haunt his dreams. Your little, carmine rose tattoos as if lining your skin, mainly. His throat swallows, dryly. 
Jungkook cups himself in an effort to hide his arousal and his bafflement from your stark, astonishing beauty. He thinks you’re unquestionably otherworldly, so far beyond his reach and his league that it aches. As much as the apprehension that if you wore anything else in this fucking dressing room, he’d fall to his knees just the same.
And then you speak and somehow you bring sharpness back into his reality. 
“The socks go well with the dress, don’t you think?” 
Jungkook glances at your feet and what he sees makes him pinch his eyes and let out a rumble of laughter. There’s a fucking Pikachu on your socks, grinning up at him, mocking him for getting hard for you for the third time. 
He can’t look back up and be a witness to the magnificence of your body. If he allows himself to do so, he will combust. Bring the whole building down—
A set of footsteps sound behind him and, with a racing heart, Jungkook steps inside the dressing room, shrouding you with his body without touching you, pulling the curtain shut. You startle, backing away until your spine leans against the mirror and there’s no space, none whatsoever, for him to run from you because when he turns back around, it’s your eyes he meets first. Nose to nose, breath to breath. 
When did they start making dressing rooms so fucking small? 
His breath picks up speed. He wants to pretend he doesn’t see the thick veil of your feminine carnality shunning out the light in your irises, because he can’t afford this, not when you’re sad, not when you need a friend, not when he needs to be stable for you. But the more you look at him, the more you draw him in and he has very little strength to fight against it. 
Averting his gaze, he props a hand on the wall beside your mirror. Notices your clothes, untidy, sprawled on the bench. Finds no traces of you taking off your underwear, which means only one thing.
His heart nearly skips a beat. 
“Where’s your underwear?”
Your grin forms into a smirk and you latch both of your hands onto the sides of his jacket. Danger mingles into that carnality in your eyes and Jungkook knows, right at this instant, that he’s fucked. “Didn’t take any.” 
His cock hardens even more in his hand. A brief flashback of the way he ripped your panties off at his cabin when you disobeyed him fills his mind, and he grows weak. It’s still a private pleasure of his, one that he likes recollecting, no matter the events that took place after. And the whole escapade has caused him to form a certain attachment to your underwear—or lack thereof. Knowing you didn’t take any on your first, secret night out with him suffuses him with delectation, one that intertwines with a rising question in him. 
Did you choose not to wear it for the sake of the old time or did you choose not to wear it because you’re expecting something from him? 
He yearns to know. Needs to. 
“Why?” 
Your fists bunch up his T-shirt underneath the jacket, tip of the tongue darting out to lick across your top lip. Your eyes follow the way you squeeze the fabric and Jungkook catches your long lashes quivering at your discovery of his quite prominent problem. A blush scatters along your nose and cheekbones and he doesn’t have to look down to know that his hand scarcely conceals his imprint. He’s grown harder for you in this close proximity and, peculiarly, light pervades him now that you know about his arousal, even though he doesn’t expect you, nor demand from you, to do anything about it. 
“Oh, you know.” Palms flat, you drift them down his stomach. Jungkook stiffens, a forest burned by you. “It would only get in the way.” 
He sucks in a breath, pressing his other hand beside your head, caging you in, his cock in full clothed glory for you. His head spins, but paradoxically, he feels himself gaining strength, as if you managed to rejuvenate him by laying out your cards on the table in such a filthy, electrifying manner. 
“Get in the way of what?”
You mirror him, sucking in a breath of your own. “Get in the way of you fucking my brains out?” 
A quirk of his brow. A twitch of his cock. He can’t breathe—you’ve taken all of the remaining oxygen in his lungs when you sucked in that breath and uttered those dirty, dirty words. How are you capable of this? What has Yoongi done to you? Jungkook drags his teeth up his bottom lip, although it attenuates close to nothing. His arousal only blossoms, the bush of roses in his gut thickening, so akin to your little, feigned tattoos. He yearns to feel them under his palm. 
A dead man, for the fourth time. 
His knees might give out. His hands are clammy.
Though his mouth acts on its own. “Have you forgotten what I’m capable of doing?” 
He watches the flashback swim past your irises and it connects to your mouth, expanding it into a coy smile. “I guess I have.” 
Bad, bad girl. It’s you who’s fucking his brains out, trembling like a little leaf, longing for his touch, calling out for his hands. He feels them buzz, interwoven with your senses and your desires. Even if you didn’t move an inch, if you remained still as a sculpture, his hands would still know you want them and it drives him to the peak of insanity—enough for him to consider taking you right here and there, in all seriousness. In spite of the fact he still has a mind of his own and is aware that he shouldn’t. For Yoongi’s sake, yes—but mostly for your sake. 
The tips of his fingers tingle with the craving to rip that flimsy fabric off of you and make you remember what he did to you, even though you fully remember. Something about that fills him with an onrush of vigorous energy, one that needs a release. It whispers, most intensely, its plea for it within his skin. 
“Do I really need to remind you?” Jungkook asks, playing your little game after all, digits clenched into fists on either side of your head. You nod, briefly, seemingly becoming smaller in his captivity, hands drifting lower, rooting by his hips. He’s surprised he’s letting you touch him like this, but then he’d let you do anything you want. He sweeps a glance at your form, just once, before he bores his gaze back into yours. It did something to you and he draws closer, senses you squeezing your thighs together. Such a cute, bad girl. “It would be a pity to rip this dress off of you. What would they think, hm? If you walked out of this dressing room and had to explain to them what happened?” 
Jungkook drags a finger down your neck and at the first physical contact, you release a breath that wafts over him, deepens his heat. He traces the line of your strap until he reaches the frilly bud of the rose and tugs at it, just once. 
He’s about to continue taunting you, but you catch him off guard. 
“I dunno, I’d tell them I wanted you to do it. That I needed the reminder,” you whisper and your low tone of voice curls unfathomably somewhere within his gut, forcing him to double over. You hook your fingers around his belt loops and Jungkook brims with gladness that he didn’t wear a belt. “What was it that you did to me?” 
He nearly, nearly rolls his eyes back. The effect you have on him—he craves to bunch your hair in his fist, teach you a lesson regarding what you’re doing to him. 
And he just might. Take full responsibility while he’s at it. 
Two responses swirl on his tongue, however. 
One to scold you for provoking him in public, but he knows it would stall the aroused energy and back it away into a corner. The other to keep going and drive you to his level of insanity. 
It’s a crossroad and he’s standing in the middle, a man in charge, his morals questioned and at absolute fucking risk. His blood pumps at full speed and sweat lines his forehead. He’s on the verge of bursting. Time and tension presses against him and with all that energy and strength pulsating in him, it’s scarcely the one he needs to put a stop to this all. It all leads into a far different direction, leading him away from the clearness of his morals. 
Fuck. 
Then, your chest lifts in desperate staccatos and that’s it for him. That’s the breaking point. 
No way out. 
Only way in. 
For you. 
Jungkook wets his lips. “How well can you keep a secret?” 
In the same trembling staccatos, you exhale in relief and he’s ready to give you everything. Absolutely fucking everything. “I’m the best in the game.” 
A flash of light in his being. He’s immensely pleased with your answer, growing hotter and hotter. He inches closer to you, flush to your body, lips by your ear. Feels your little nubs pressing against his upper abdominal muscles. Craves to sink his teeth into the delicious flesh of your ear. “You can’t tell anyone about this,” he starts, mimicking your low tone, speaking of the evident elephant in the room, hoping you catch onto it. “And if they ask, you have to come up with something else. Can you do that?” 
He pulls away a tiny bit, just to study your reaction. Your hold tightens on his belt loops while your mouth parts and your head nods in agreement, ever so needy but patient for his next move. He wants to lick you all over just for that, reward you until you lose your voice. 
“You teased me with your words, with your little bratty mouth, and even though you listened well when I told you to lick your finger for me, you disobeyed me when I instructed you to not wear panties at my place,” he starts, lips mouthing your ear and he feels the need of your body to stabilize at the memory. Offering you his own, he presses closer to you until he pins you against the mirror, until both pairs of lungs sync in movement, his fingers skimming, barely, over the sides of your hips. Though something resistant takes place in the middle of that entwinement. Something that gives his mouth the aftertaste of copper. “And when I found out, I ripped them off of you. Fingered you so fast you came in seconds and made a mess on my hand. And then…” he pauses, an inkling regarding how to get rid of his uneasiness plaguing his mind. “Then I made you apologize and you did. You did it so sweetly that I made you come so many times until you lost count,” he alters the memory, concluding the reminder finding the aftertaste rapidly increasing, transmitting down to his heart, burdening it with a heavy load that he doesn’t know the contents of. 
“Can you show me what you did? I think I might remember better if you do.” 
He almost sinks to his knees, but the resistance, the coppery aftertaste in his mouth immobilizes him, keeps him glued on his spot and his hands begin to tremble. An image of Yoongi blazes in the back of his mind and, fleetingly, Jungkook sees a swift movement, a memory of getting hit. If his hyung is in as bad a mental state as he is, it’s inevitable that history will repeat itself. You haven’t received his blessing. Neither has he. 
But at this very moment, he thinks knuckles to his cheek will simulate the act of a kiss. 
Secrets are secrets and he’s weak.
Awfully, awfully weak. 
“Is this what you want me to do?” he asks, looking you dead in the eye, lifting his chin, hoping you see his frailty—hoping you see that he’s hanging by the thread. “Finger you in this dressing room until you ruin that pretty dress?” 
A smile. “Well, you didn’t get me a dildo, so your fingers will have to do.” 
A sharp inhale of breath. “What about this cock, huh? You don’t want it?” 
You drag a finger along his jean-clad length, barely touching him. Jungkook twitches all over. 
“It’s too big for me, you know I can’t take it.” 
A deep chuckle. He’ll ruin his jeans himself. “If my mind serves me well, you’ve always taken it well. Came around it a lot of times.” 
You whine. This, this is your breaking point and all of Jungkook’s muscles tighten at the recognition. He’s gonna give it to you. Say fuck it to it all—his life was damned the moment he set his eyes on you. Knew he was going to die prematurely. Thinks dying in Yoongi’s hands is quite merciful. It’s his best friend after all. 
“Please, Jungkook, I—”
He grabs your waist, tightly. His thumbs touch and his stomach drops. “You what?” He’s going to make you say it, he doesn’t care. He needs it. He craves it. 
A mewl, one that coils around his length. “I’m so wet. I need you. Please, do something. Anything. Let’s get out of here.” 
He turns you around and because you didn’t expect it, you gasp—loudly. Angels must be by his side, for your sounds get instantly swallowed by the blasting music. You can be as loud as you want, as he wants and he makes a mental note to remind you that when the time asks for it. 
His fingers gather the flimsy fabric, bunching it at your waist. In the sharp light, shining down at you most perfectly, he has a splendid view of your drenched thighs and swollen clit. He presses you against him, needs you to feel how hard you made him, how rock solid his cock is at the sight of your mouth-watering filthiness. He needs you in his mouth, he needs you. 
“Where?” Jungkook asks, staring you down in the mirror, brows furrowed, head tipped to yours, lips in a tight line, parting with every hardened exhale. “Where do you need me? Show me.” 
You moan, ever so softly and he can’t help but grind against your ass, fingertips making dents in the flesh of your waist. You take your hand and drift it down to your sweet little cunt and Jungkook holds his breath. You rub your center, your adorable lips wrapping around your small fingers and you show him the thick sheen of your arousal, glistening in the light. Just like you did the first time he set his eyes on you, even though the paradisiacal sight wasn’t meant for him. 
Now it is—and he’s nearly about to weep in joy. Such spiritual experience, swathed with gratitude and mercy, healing him through and through. This is for him. You’re willingly giving it to him. He never thought he was ever deserving of it, but now in your hands, at your service, it feels too good to be true. His eyes wet, his arousal taking a new form, becoming something bigger, more profound, something that will change him, cling to him for the rest of his life. 
“Here. I want your fingers.” 
He takes your palm in his, planning something with it. “Just my fingers?” 
You lean your head back against his chest. “All of you, please, please.” 
At your service. 
Jungkook wraps his lips around your fingers, sucking your dew, swallowing it, needing more. You grow more desperate, watching him in the mirror, and your little index finger grazes his lip ring, smiling sweetly, pleased with yourself. He coos at the sight, but then you turn around, pressing yourself against him, your cunt against his thigh, his cock against your tummy, and you grab the back of his neck and pull him in, harshly, for a kiss. 
You eat his mouth. He’s barely able to reciprocate your hungry kisses, the roll of your tongue, your moans at your own taste and he decides he will simply slow you down. 
Reaching behind you, his fingers tease your entrance. In response, you lift your ass for him, arching your spine as much as you can. He knows that if he were to pull away, he’d see your juices in the mirror, in the stark light, but your starvation and your craving tastes too good and he physically can’t. 
Gathering your slick, he drags his fingers past your parted lips towards your clit and you swirl your hips for him, outrunning him—making the tip of his digit give you the circles you want. He groans into your mouth, out of breath and it isn’t until he rubs your bud rapidly, with deep pressure, and you moan so loud that it alerts him enough to pull away. 
The music did not, in fact, swallow that sound. 
Jungkook clamps your mouth shut.
Without stopping his movement. Watches your eyes roll back. And he’s greedy, unfortunately so. 
Turning you around, he props your leg on the bench and he looks at your pretty cunt. Swollen red clit, like your feigned tattoos, parted lips, dripping hole and equally soaked folds, glistening in the direct light. He swears, can’t help it, fondling your femininity, all four of his fingers gliding with ease, back and forth, everywhere. Down to your other hole, to your inner thighs, back up to your seashell, to your mound and lower tummy. He cakes you with your arousal, one he’s the creator of, bunching your dress higher until he’s holding you right underneath your breasts that spill over his forearm. So full and perky—he’s unhinged. Utterly, utterly unhinged. 
He wants to smear your slick over those clothed nipples as well. 
Fuck. 
Jungkook rubs your clit again, with the same speed as before. Your eyes lid, but keep the eye contact in the mirror, ravaging him through and through. He submits to it, even though he has the upper hand, even though he has the capability to make those eyes go cross. And they do—when he sinks his fingers inside of you, middle and ring, stuffing you full. Your walls suck him in so hard that he almost loses his footing, squeezing you so hard against him that he’s sure he will leave bruises on your tender skin. He silently promises he will kiss them later. 
“Is this what you wanted?” He lifts your leg, hoists it up in the air and begins to fuck you speedily, fingers curling in your spot every once in a while. He doesn’t want to make you come fast, but then time is pressing against him and he knows the mall will be closing soon. He still has to fill that belly. Would prefer if you came around his cock. “My fingers fucking your needy little princess parts, hm?” 
You moan his name and Jungkook shushes you in your ear, rewarding you regardless by abusing your clit with circles, alternating between those and swiftly fucking you in your tight hole. 
“I’m gonna come, Jungkook, I’m gonna come.” 
He withdraws his fingers. All of them—even those wrapped around your leg. You sway on your feet, heady, panting, and he stabilizes you with a hand on your arm. He smirks at you in the mirror, fingers in his mouth and you give him a dirty look. 
Before you can tell him off, he explains himself. “You’re coming around my cock, I don’t give a fuck, sweetheart.” 
His words wipe your face off of that scowl and you smile at him. A sunshine personified. Jungkook chuckles, pushing you against the mirror with his hand on your sternum and getting on his knees. 
He places your leg on his shoulder. “Hold your dress for me.” 
You listen right away, ever so eager. One hand clutches the hem, the other sneaks to his hair. Jungkook likes it so much that he doesn’t waste a second and envelops his mouth around your little clit. 
Just briefly. He has your dew to drink. 
He swipes his tongue along your slit. Over and over, until his sweat drips in pearls down his temples and he makes new bruises on the sides of your hips. Even goes one step further and fucks you with his tongue, letting out short little breaths and soft moans against you, gone feral by your taste and your fleshiness. He takes your lips in his mouth, plays with them with his tongue. Pulls away, stares lovingly at them and spits on your clit, sucking it inside his mouth and rubbing his face in your dripping juices, licking up everything you’re giving to him. 
And when your knee gives out, he catches you in time, standing to his feet. Doesn’t kiss you. Is selfish. Wants your taste perpetually on his tongue. Your eyes sink to his wet chin and you lick your lips, a feral look on your own gracing your features. You resemble a horny little animal, one that he craves to own and make his. But he can’t burden his heart with that thought. Doesn’t have the strength for it, not when he’s still hanging by the thread. 
“How do you want my cock?” he asks, his own eyes lidded, darkness consuming him. “Like this or from behind? You decide. I’m giving it to you. It’s yours.” 
You’re left speechless. He taps your cheek, gently, to make you talk. If you don’t, it will be his ruination and he will die. At your Pikachu-clad feet. A sweet, sweet death. Ideal. 
“I—I can’t take it from behind.” A deer in the headlights, terribly cute. 
He chuckles, caressing your hair. “But you have.” He grins, but it’s an answer for him. He’ll take you from behind in the safe confines of your home. “Like this, then. It’s more than perfect, sweetheart.” He kisses you, deeply, but he doesn’t give you his tongue. His heart expands, his affection crawling all around the kiss. He wonders if you can feel it. 
Pulling away, he unbuttons his pants and takes out his length. He’s soaked his underwear, but he doesn’t mind. His arousal drips down and he rubs it along his tip to make it as painless for you as he can when he enters you. 
And once he does, your eyes roll back and you break into whines, ones that fuck with his brain. Your leg is wrapped around his torso, but he joins the other one, holding you by your splendid little cheeks. Like his fingers, you suck him in, even though he hasn’t given you all of it yet. He’s already losing it. Doesn’t know what’s going to happen to him once he’s balls deep. He won’t last. He physically can’t. 
Jungkook bites your lower lip, sucking it into his mouth. “You want all of it?” 
You tug at his hair. “Yes, all of you.” 
At your fucking service. 
He sinks deeper into you, hissing, furrowing his brows, sweat dripping down every perimeter of his body. Your mouth latches onto his neck and he’s gone. Even more so, when you graze your teeth upon his skin before you suck it—like he sucked your lip. He fucks you hard for it, making you let go of his neck and moan against the column. It pleases him so much that he does it again, a warm pressure coiling in his lower belly. It creates a cacophonous sound, your body colliding into the mirror and it mingles, beautifully, with the music playing. As well as the squeaky noises of your slick gliding along his cock every time he draws out. 
“Who do you belong to tonight, huh?” Jungkook rasps, filling you balls-deep just like you wanted, driving into you slowly until his pelvis kisses yours. “You can be as loud as you want, sweetheart. Nobody’s gonna hear you but me.” 
Rapid, whiny moans. He mimics their speed while maintaining eye contact with you and he groans when your eyes go unfocused, mouth parted. You’re just as gone as him. He pecks you for it, so terribly pleased. His orgasm inches closer, enveloping him with even deeper, thicker darkness. 
“To you, Daddy,” you cry out and because you called him by the title, he maneuvers you. Hoists you higher on his cock, with your legs now dangling from his forearms. And like this, he drags you up and down his length, his own moans breaking at the feeling of you tightening around him. He’s gonna come now and it’s your fault. 
“No, sweetheart, you can’t call me that when we’re here,” he scolds, shaking his head, brushing his lips against yours. “I can’t ruin you the way I’d like. They’d kick us out.” He kisses you, slowing down his tempo, stalling his orgasm. “Now apologize or you’re not coming.” 
“I’m so sorry. I won’t call you that in—in public.” 
A rewarding kiss to your neck. A hard stroke. One that blankets his vision with colorful stars. “Good girl,” he praises, looks down at you and kisses you without breaking the stare. “Now you need to be the best girl and come around my cock. I can’t fill you up—you didn’t wear your panties. I’d ruin your leggings for everyone to see.” You cry out again, the idea dizzying your mind as much as his and you tug at his hair, scratching your fingernails down his neck, touching him all over. “Can you do that for me? Can you come for me and not make a mess like the last time, hm?” 
He pounds into you, the strokes so hard that the sound of skin slapping turns disturbing and he holds his orgasm for your sake, all of his muscles clenched, stars dancing across his vision, pecking your features. And that’s it for you. 
You come so hard around him—and you are the bestest girl in the world because you manage to keep your eyes on him throughout the entirety of the wave of your orgasm washing over you, licking up at your body. Mouth parted, his name slipping past, a deep tinge of red, deeper than your dress, flushing your cheeks, eyes dazed, so gone, so fucked out, dark and alluring, so akin to his.
His bestest girl. His sweetheart. 
He needs to pull away. He needs to come. 
“Sweetheart, I know you’re tired but I need you to take off your dress and get on your knees.” 
You do it so quickly, without talking back, that even his own flush finds its way to his cheeks, his heart growing even larger and hotter, winged fuckers zapping his stomach. He fucks his fist in your face, loving the way you’re watching what he’s doing for a little while with a lingering hunger before you flick your eyes to his, beckoning his orgasm out of him. 
“Good girl,” he whispers, muscles straining, movement quickening. White clothes the colorful stars, the warmth in his stomach on the very brink of exploding. “Open your mouth.” 
And he paints your mouth in the same shade of white. You’re so good that you wrap your lips around him, sucking him softly, making popping sounds that prolong his orgasm and he grasps your hair in his fist, gently, despite the violence of his release. He’s not just giving you his cum; he’s giving you all of his affection and when you swallow and smile at him in such a kind, beautiful manner, it wets his eyes in a way that he can’t explain. 
He helps you get on your feet and you worsen his state of emotions. Like earlier, you fold into his form, hugging him skin to skin, squeezing him so hard that he stops breathing altogether. And when you begin to weep and smear his chest with your precious tears, he weeps with you. 
Never in his life before has he experienced such embrace, such love unraveling in the form of tears and quiet sobs. And he doesn’t want to absolve this again. With you, it’s perfect. And right now, he could die with the utmost certainty that you’re both crying for the same reason. 
Love unable to be real, to be fulfilled. 
He senses it. Senses it in the way he cradles your head and wipes your tears away. In the way your lips wrap around his, kissing him as if this was the very last time. You don’t have to say a word. He knows. And it’s enough. 
Jungkook dresses you. Runs his fingers through your hair in effort to fix it and make it look as nice as it did before he ruined it. And his eyes drench again when you zip him up in the meantime. No one has ever done that for him. 
The warmth in his heart heightens. He doesn’t understand how it’s possible. 
Taking your hand, purse and your dress, he leads you to check out. Pays for it. Carries the bag. Pretends you’re his; pretends his duties are nonexistent and his morals have different colors—just for this night. Doesn’t let go of your hand, even as he orders a good bowl of soup for you and himself, even as you sit down together and wait for your food. Even as you look at him deep in thought. 
“You saved me,” you unravel, a soft, tender, drowsy mien gracing your face and his heart thuds against his ribcage, gratitude surrounding it, eyes wetting again. “Thank you. And for the dress. I’ll only wear it for you.” 
The thuds halt. And it’s the only thing that does—a tear rolls down his cheek and he can’t truly believe he’s baring his feelings like that for you, in front of you. He feels as though he was dreaming and he fears he’s going to stir to awakening any moment now. 
A waiter brings your food. None of you pay him any kind of attention, though you don’t forget to say your thank you’s. 
Jungkook opens his mouth to say something, despite the fact no words rise on his tongue, but something interrupts him. 
His phone rings. 
And it’s none other than his hyung himself. 
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senualothbrok · 4 months
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"It was easier to stare at the celestial abyss than recognise the emptiness within myself. Easier to pretend my destiny lay among such stars, than work to salvage a life on solid ground. You changed all that.
You see me as I am, and do not find me wanting. With these stars as my witness, I swear - you will always be enough for me."
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llycaons · 2 years
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jc isn't my favorite character but at this point I'm so sick of the really dedicated haters most of the time they're just so obnoxious and narrow-minded
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16woodsequ · 7 months
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100 Asexual Books Rec List
For this list the goal is fiction books with a main character or significant secondary character that is on the Asexual spectrum, or non-fiction books about being Aspec.
Junior Novels
1. Rick by Alex Gino An eleven year old boy starting middle school begins discovering his asexuality admist the school's rainbow spectrum club. Also features transgender and crossdressing side characters, as well as a LGBTQIAP+ supporting cast.
2. Sal & Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Alberto Pablo Hernandez In order to heal after his mother's death, Sal learned how to meditate. But no one expected him to be able to take it further and 'relax' things into existence. Turns out he can reach into time and space to retrieve things from other universes. Asexual Sal.
3. Hazel's Theory of Evolution by Lisa Jenn Bigelow Hazel knows a lot about the world. But even Hazel doesn't have answers for the questions awaiting her as she enters eighth grade. What if no one at her new school gets her, and she doesn't make any friends? What's going to happen to one of her moms, who's pregnant again after having two miscarriages? Why does everything have to change when life was already perfectly fine? Hazel (main character) is asexual and aromantic (it isn't said in the book, but it is specified in the author's note at the back of the book).
4. The Trouble with Robots by Michelle Mohrweis Evelyn strives for excellence. Allie couldn't care less. Together, these polar opposites must work together if they have any hope of saving their school's robotics program. Allie is asexual and/or aromantic. Junior graphic novel.
5. This is Our Rainbow by Editors Katherine Locke and Nicole Melleby Featuring contributions from Eric Bell, Katherine Locke and A.J. Sass, this first LGBTQA+ anthology for middle-grade readers presents stories of queer fantasy, historical and contemporary stories for every letter of the acronym.
6. Every Bird a Prince by Jenn Reese After she saves the life of a bird prince and becomes their champion, seventh grader Eren Evers must defend a forest kingdom, save her mom, and keep the friendships she holds dear--if she is brave enough to embrace her inner truths. Eren is aromantic (and I'm guessing asexual, though that isn't discussed).
YA Fiction
7. When Villains Rise by Rebecca Schaeffer With her best friend, Kovit's, life in danger, Nita is determined to take down the black market once and for all. Latina asexual and aromantic main character (Nita).
8. The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee Henry "Monty" Montague was bred to be a gentleman. His passions for gambling halls, late nights spent with a bottle of spirits, or waking up in the arms of women or men, have earned the disapproval of his father. His quest for pleasures and vices have led to one last hedonistic hurrah as Monty, his best friend and crush Percy, and Monty's sister Felicity begin a Grand Tour of Europe. When a reckless decision turns their trip abroad into a harrowing manhunt, it calls into question everything Monty knows, including his relationship with the boy he adores. Aro/ace secondary character (prequel to a Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy).
9. The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee A year after an accidentally whirlwind grand tour with her brother Monty, Felicity Montague has returned to England with two goals in mind—avoid the marriage proposal of a lovestruck suitor from Edinburgh and enroll in medical school. A highly loved book in regards to asexual portrayal, Felicity’s journey does a fantastic job of exploring the struggle of navigating a world where marriage is expected of women in order to function in society. Even more refreshing is Felicity isn’t just avoiding getting married out of a sole rebellion against the patriarchy (though those themes are also present), but simply because she doesn’t have an interest in sexual or romantic relationships at all.
10. Silver in the Mist by Emily Victoria Asexual Devlin has grown up in the shadow of her mother’s impressive spy network—and the shadow of the kingdom, too. A magical mist is eating away at their borders, weakening their magic and making them vulnerable to attacks. Devlin is tasked with infiltrating the royal court of the wealthier neighboring kingdom, but when she befriends their most powerful magic wielder, she discovers an ancient mystery that may hold the key to defeating the mists for good. Victoria prioritizes strong friendships between queer characters and an examination of wealth disparity in this fantasy full of twists and turns.
11. Not Good for Maidens by Tori Bovalino Beneath the streets of York, the goblin market calls to the Wickett women-the family of witches that tends to its victims. For generations, they have defended the old cobblestone streets with their magic. Knowing the dangers, they never entered the market-until May Wickett fell for a goblin girl, accepted her invitation, and became inextricably tied to the world her family tried to protect her from. Told through dual narratives in different timelines, the book essentially has two protagonists: Lou and May. Between these two characters, we have some great queer representation for both asexuality and bisexuality.
12. A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger Themes of magic, family, asexuality, and traditional storytelling dominate in Lipan Apache author Darcie Little Badger's delightful and uplifting second YA novel. A Lipan girl named Nina collides with Oli who is from the land of spirits and monsters. But some people will do anything to keep them apart. This is a wholesome, elegantly written read guaranteed to warm your heart! 
13. Arden Grey by Ray Stoeve Arden Grey is a novel about different kinds of abusive relationships, as well as the strength of family and friendships. Following her parents' separation, Arden is depressed and coming to accept herself as being on the asexual spectrum.
14. It Sounds Like This by Anna Meriano Yasm Trevi didn't have much of a freshman year thanks to Hurricane Humphrey, but she's ready to take sophomore year by storm. That means mastering the marching side of marching band--fast!--so she can outshine her BFF Sofia as top of the flute section, earn first chair, and impress both her future college admission boards and her comfortably unattainable drum major crush Gilberto Reyes. But Yasm steps off on the wrong foot when she reports an anonymous gossip Instagram account harassing new band members and accidentally gets the entire low brass section suspended from extracurriculars. Rep: Biracial Latina fat asexual-questioning cis female MC, Jewish gray-aromantic gray-asexual male side character with ADHD and APD.
15. One for All by Lillie Lainoff In 1655 sixteen-year-old Tania is the daughter of a retired musketeer, but she is afflicted with extreme vertigo and subject to frequent falls; when her father is murdered she finds that he has arranged for her to attend Madame de Treville's newly formed Acadaemie des Mariées in Paris, which, it turns out, is less a school for would-be wives, than a fencing academy for girls--and so Tania begins her training to be a new kind of musketeer, and to get revenge for her father. Rep: disability, asexuality, sapphic side characters, POTS and PTSD.
16. The State of Us by Shaun David Hutchinson When Dean Arnault’s mother decided to run for president, it wasn’t a surprise to anyone, least of all her son. But still that doesn’t mean Dean wants to be part of the public spectacle that is the race for the White House—at least not until he meets Dre. The only problem is that Dre Rosario’s on the opposition; he’s the son of the Democratic nominee. In a moment of solidarity and high emotions, Dean tells Dre that he has been questioning his sexual orientation. He isn’t sure if he’s asexual or demisexual. Dre puts a messaging app on Dean’s phone so they can stay in touch.
17. Scavenge the Stars by Tara Sim When Amaya rescues a mysterious stranger from drowning, she fears her rash actions have earned her a longer sentence on the debtor ship where she’s been held captive for years. Instead, the man she saved offers her unimaginable riches and a new identity, setting Amaya on a perilous course through the coastal city-state of Moray, where old-world opulence and desperate gamblers collide. Amaya wants one thing: revenge against the man who ruined her family and stole the life she once had. Desi, demisexual female protagonist. 
18. Camp by Lev AC Rosen It’s Randy’s fifth year at Camp Outland, a camp where queer teens get a chance to be themselves. Hoping to win over Hudson’s heart—who’s masc and straight passing and only seems to date other guys like himself—Randy has spent the past year reinventing himself: workout regimen, new haircut, new carefully curated wardrobe. His friends and camp counsellor all think it’s a terrible idea, but what can they do but support him anyways?
19. Little Thieves by Margaret Owen Once upon a time, the daughter of death and fortune was a teenage girl and she was the worst. Little Thieves is, as the dedication says, for the gremlin girls, never has there been a more gremlin girl than Vanja Schmidt. A brilliant and brazen swindler, Vanja could give Kaz Brekker a run for his money. But Vanja has bigger fish to fry. As her body rapidly turns into the gemstones she craves, Vanja must put things right and face her greed head on all while juggling her engagement to a terrible margrave, an investigator with his own magic, and the princess whose face she stole. Vanja’s relationship with junior prefect Emeric could not be more demisexual if it tried, with both sides of the romance experiencing asexual spectrum existence in different and complimentary ways. One part Germanic fairytale, one part ensemble heist, Little Thieves is an unhinged romp of a book.
20. Everyone Hates Kelsie Miller by Meredith Ireland Rom-coms and the asexuality spectrum...two great things that go great together. Kelsie and Eric have been competing against each other their whole lives. But desperation forces them to work together. Kelsie’s best friend stopped talking to her and Eric wants to rekindle his relationship with his ex-girlfriend, and since both will be at UPenn at the same time, Eric and Kelsie decide to go on a road trip together. Sparks fly.
21. You Don't Have a Shot by Racquel Marie Valentina "Vale" Castillo-Green's life revolves around soccer. Her friends, her future, and her father's intense expectations are all wrapped up in the beautiful game. But after she incites a fight during playoffs with her long-time rival, Leticia Ortiz, everything she's been working toward seems to disappear. Queer asexual biracial (Colombian, Irish) protagonist.
22. Foul Lady Fortune by Chloe Gong In 1931 Shanghai, two Nationalist spies pose as a married couple to investigate a series of brutal murders causing unrest in the city. Rep: demisexual Chinese protagonist, bisexual Chinese protagonist, bisexual Chinese main character, Chinese trans woman main character, aromantic asexual side character; (Chinese-Kiwi author).
23. The Spy with the Red Ballon by Katherine Locke Siblings Ilse and Wolf hide a deep secret in their blood: with it, they can work magic. And the government just found out. Blackmailed into service during World War II, Ilse lends her magic to America’s newest weapon, the atom bomb, while Wolf goes behind enemy lines to sabotage Germany’s nuclear program. It’s a dangerous mission, but if Hitler were to create the bomb first, the results would be catastrophic. Gay demisexual Jewish protagonist.
24. Beneath the Citadel by Destiny Soria Cassa, the orphaned daughter of rebels, and friends Alys, Evander, and Newt, fight back against the high council of Eldra, which has ruled for centuries based solely on ancient prophesies. Alys, an apothecary-in-training and the level-headed one of the crew. She identifies as asexual.
25. Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia Eighteen-year-old Eliza Mirk is the anonymous creator of the wildly popular webcomic Monstrous Sea, but when a new boy at school tempts her to live a life offline, everything she's worked for begins to crumble. Asexual main character, not explicitly stated in the book.
26. Technically, You Started It by Lana Wood Johnson When a guy named Martin Nathaniel Munroe II texts you, it should be obvious who you're talking to. Except there's two of them (it's a long story), and Haley thinks she's talking to the one she doesn't hate. Demisexual main character.
27. Now Entering Addamsville by Francesca Zappia Zora Novak is framed for a crime she didn't commit--in a town obsessed with ghosts, will she be able to find the culprit and clear her name before it's too late? It's a brief mention, but Zora is ace.
28. Fully Disclosure by Camryn Garrett In a community that isn’t always understanding, an HIV-positive teen must navigate fear, disclosure, and radical self-acceptance when she falls in love–and lust–for the first time. One of Simone’s best friends in the book, Claudia, is an asexual lesbian. The unwavering support she gives to Simone is heartwarming, and she is also openly sex-positive—which flips the script on its head regarding what most people would assume of asexual people.
30. The Art of Saving the World by Corinne Duyvis When Hazel Stanczak was born, an interdimensional rift tore open near her family’s home, which prompted immediate government attention. They soon learned that if Hazel strayed too far, the rift would become volatile and fling things from other dimensions onto their front lawn—or it could swallow up their whole town. Hazel Stanczak identifies as asexual, though she spends time in the book questioning it. The book presents a unique way to show that there is not one single way to be asexual—that it exists on a spectrum and can look different for each person.
31. Let's Talk About Love by Claire Kann Alice had her whole summer planned. Non-stop all-you-can-eat buffets while marathoning her favorite TV shows (best friends totally included) with the smallest dash of adulting–working at the library to pay her share of the rent. The only thing missing from her perfect plan? Her girlfriend (who ended things when Alice confessed she’s asexual). Alice is done with dating–no thank you, do not pass go, stick a fork in her, done. Alice is a biromantic and asexual black woman who starts off very confident in her identity as asexual, yet has experiences that have her questioning her orientation and how to talk about it.
32. In the Ravenous Dark by AdriAnne Strickland A pansexual blood mage reluctantly teams up with an undead spirit to start a rebellion among the living and the dead. This book features Japha, an asexual nonbinary character who serves as the best friend to the MC.
33. Seven Ways We Lie by Riley Redgate Life at Paloma High School is much like any other high school, with petty drama, judgmental assholes, and mind-numbing schoolwork. Until it isn’t. A scandal emerges: a student and teacher had an illicit affair. At the center of the scandal are seven teenagers, each with their own secrets, whose lives are transformed as a result of this scandal. One of the characters can be read as asexual (and possibly neurodiverse). He never explicitly labels himself as such, but the way he describes his experiences of [non-]attraction strongly point to him being on the ace spectrum.
34. Quicksilver by R. J. Anderson Tori thought she had left her past behind when she and her family started a new life in a new city. But then Sebastian Faraday reappears in her life to tell her that she’s not quite as safe as she thinks: the relay is still operating and a genetics lab is trying to track her down to figure out the secret behind her unusual biology. Tori is going to have to use all of her considerable technical expertise to escape her past and live the normal human life she’s always wanted to have. Asexual main character.
35. Hullmetal Girls by Emily Skrutskie Aisha Un-Haad, seventeen, and Key Tanaka, eighteen, have risked everything for new lives as mechanically enhanced soldiers, and when an insurrection forces dark secrets to surface, the fate of humanity is in their hands. In Hullmetal Girls, Aisha is not only ace/aro but she is also happy with her identity. Crucially, so is everyone else.
36. Not Even Bones by Rebecca Schaeffer Nita's mother hunts monsters and, after Nita dissects and packages them, sells them online, but when Nita follows her conscience to help a live monster escape, she is sold on the black market in his place. Aro/Ace main character
37. Before I Let Go by Marieke Nijkamp When Corey moves away from Lost Creek, Alaska, she makes her friend Kyra promise to stay strong during the long, dark winter, and wait for her return. Just days before Corey is to return home to visit, Kyra dies. The entire Lost community speaks in hushed tones, saying her death was meant to be. And they push Corey away like she's a stranger. With every hour, Corey's suspicion grows. Lost is keeping secrets-- but piecing together the truth about what happened to her best friend may prove as difficult as lighting the sky in an Alaskan winter. Aro/Ace main character.
38. If It Makes You Happy by Claire Kann Winnie is living her best fat girl life and is on her way to the best place on earth. No, not Disneyland–her Granny’s diner, Goldeen’s, in the small town of Misty Haven. While there, she works in her fabulous 50’s inspired uniform, twirling around the diner floor and earning an obscene amount of tips. With her family and ungirlfriend at her side, she has everything she needs for one last perfect summer before starting college in the fall. …until she becomes Misty Haven’s Summer Queen in a highly anticipated matchmaking tradition that she wants absolutely nothing to do with. Aro/ace secondary character.
39. Dread Nation by Justina Ireland An alternate history where the Civil War was put on hold when zombies started to rise. Almost finished with her education at Miss Preston's School of Combat in Baltimore, Jane is set on returning to her Kentucky home and doesn't pay much mind to the politics of the eastern cities, with their talk of returning America to the glory of its days before the dead rose.But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy, one that finds her in a desperate fight for her life against some powerful enemies. And the restless dead, it would seem, are the least of her problems. The word asexual is not used, but that fits with the setting, and the explanation goes into a fair amount of detail, also ruling out that she likes women instead.
40. Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson When her convent is attacked by possessed soldiers, Artemisia defends the Gray Sisters by awakening the revenant bound to a saint's relic, even though she runs the risk of being possessed permanently by the powerful ancient spirit. Non-explicit romantic asexual main character. Fantasy.
41. Archivist Wasp by Nicole Kornher-Stace A postapocalyptic ghosthunter escapes her dire fate by joining the ghost of a supersoldier on his quest to the underworld Aromantic asexual main character. Dark fantasy/dystopian.
42. Summer of Salt by Katrina Leno While anyone would love to have a bit of magic, what happens when magic turns dark? Georgina Fernweh will come into her magic someday soon. Before she does, Georgina faces a tragedy that tests the islanders' trust. In this book, Georgina’s best friend Vira is aroace, and it’s addressed somewhat in the story at different points. There is a sweet strength between Georgina and Vira, full of loyalty and support that is lovely to see.
43. The Summer of Bitter and Sweet by Jen Ferguson In this moving and complex narrative, Lou learns to draw boundaries, stand up for herself, all while coming to terms with her demisexuality.
44. The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow One-third of the human population has died and now the world is about to end. Ellie, a fat, Black, disabled, demisexual girl with access to an illegal library teams up with a music-loving alien to risk their lives to save the world.
45. The Grimrose Girls by Laura Pohl Pohl serves up a veritable smorgasbord of queer fairytale goodies in Grimrose Girls. This tale as old as time follows four students at the prestigious boarding school Grimrose Academy—Ella, Yuki, Rory, and newcomer Nani. When the former three’s best friend dies, all four girls are swept up in a dark and twisted mystery full of old fairytale magic. They must work together to unravel the secrets between them and break an ancient curse that dooms them to a fairytale ending (and not the fun kind). Yuki’s aromantic asexual identity is explored in her relationship to expectations, beauty, and friendship throughout the novel.
46. Radio Silence by Alice Oseman Frances has been a study machine with one goal. Nothing will stand in her way; not friends, not a guilty secret – not even the person she is on the inside. Then Frances meets Aled, and for the first time, she’s unafraid to be herself. So when the fragile trust between them is broken, Frances is caught between who she was and who she longs to be. In this book, Aled identifies as demisexual while Frances identifies as bisexual. The story really pays homage to the importance of friendship, and romantic storylines move to the background in a way we don’t often get in YA literature.
47. This Golden Flame by Emily Victoria Forced to serve her country’s ruling group, Karis wants nothing more than to find her brother. But family bonds don’t matter to the sole focus of unlocking the magic of an ancient automaton army. Karis is ace and other LGBTQ+ characters are introduced throughout.
48. Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand A horror novel centered around three girls facing off against an unseen monster that preys upon the young women of the island of Sawkill Rock. Features a black asexual girl fresh out of a romantic relationship, as well as a f/f relationship.
49. Love Letters for Joy by Melissa See Less than a year away from graduation, seventeen-year-old Joy is too busy overachieving to be worried about relationships. She’s determined to be Caldwell Prep’s first disabled valedictorian. And she only has one person to beat, her academic rival Nathaniel. But it’s senior year and everyone seems to be obsessed with pairing up. One of her best friends may be developing feelings for her and the other uses Caldwell’s anonymous love-letter writer to snag the girl of her dreams. Joy starts to wonder if she has missed out on a quintessential high school experience. She is asexual, but that’s no reason she can’t experience first love, right?
50. Not Your Backup by C. B. Lee Part 3 in the Sidekick Squad series by C.B. Lee. Follows a questioning aromantic asexual latinx superhero sidekick fighting to prove her worth on the team despite her lack of superpowers, all admist the team's battle against the corrupt League of Heroes.
51. Belle Révolte by Linsey Miller Noble-born Emilie des Marais, 16, wants to become a physician, a role usually forbidden women of her class because of the corruptive toll the magical "noonday arts" exact. Common-born Annette Boucher wants to escape her domineering parents and master the less physically costly "midnight arts" of illusions, divination, and scrying, normally reserved for those who can afford the expensive education. At Emilie's urging, each girl takes the other's place. Miller (Ruin of Stars) writes in lush, dense prose that can require a careful read, but her protagonists' awareness of privilege and desire to challenge the status quo shines through. LGBTQ representation--including gay, trans, and nonbinary characters (Annette identifies as asexual biromantic)--further widens this tale's appeal.
52. Tarnished Are the Stars by Rosiee Thor A secret beats inside Anna Thatcher's chest: an illegal clockwork heart. Anna works cog by cog -- donning the moniker Technician -- to supply black market medical technology to the sick and injured, against the Commissioner's tyrannical laws. Determined to earn his father's respect, Nathaniel sets out to capture the Technician. But the more he learns about the outlaw, the more he questions whether his father's elusive affection is worth chasing at all. This YA novel features an aroace character gradually coming to accept his orientation in the midst of everything else that is happening in his life. Perfect for older teens who also enjoy WLW representation and dark themes.
53. Aces Wild: A Heist by Amanda DeWitt An all-asexual online friend group attempts to break into a high-stakes gambling club and commit a heist together. Includes a male asexual character navigating what love looks like for him, an aromantic asexual Latinx gender-nonconforming boy, a Vietnamese American and German asexual nonbinary teen, and a black asexual girl.
54. Planning Perfect by Haley Neil Summer vacation quickly becomes complicated for Felicity Becker as she tries to plan a perfect wedding for her mom, figure out her feelings for her friend Nancy, and wonder what dating will look like for her as an asexual person.
55. Ace of Hearts by Myriad Augustine Everyone around Alvin seems to be obsessed with one thing-- sex. Alvin finds it uncomfortable to think and talk about it and he knows he isn't ready and may never be. His friends, however, think that all Alvin needs is to hook up with the right guy. But the closer Alvin gets to being physical with someone, the more he's uncertain that this is for him and he begins to wonder if he's asexual. Can Alvin find the love that's right for him?
56. Beyond the Black Door by AdriAnne Strickland Everyone has a soul. Some are beautiful gardens, others are frightening dungeons. Kamia comes to know more about her identity as she decides to battle the forces of evil, no matter the cost... Asexual and demi-romantic main characters. Dark fantasy. Kamai is asexual, but isn’t aromantic—she has an interest in relationships that isn’t always depicted for those who are ace.
57. Loveless by Alice Oseman A queer coming of age story featuring a romance obsessed aromantic asexual main character discovering her sexuality and coming to terms with what that means, and a variety of other queer characters that support her on her journey.
58. Summer Bird Blue by Akemi Dawn Bowman Rumi Seto spends a lot of time worrying she doesn’t have the answers to everything. What to eat, where to go, whom to love. But there is one thing she is absolutely sure of—she wants to spend the rest of her life writing music with her younger sister, Lea. Then Lea dies in a car accident, and her mother sends her away to live with her aunt in Hawaii while she deals with her own grief. While not the main focal point of the book, Rumi does grapple throughout the story about where exactly she lands on the ace and aro spectrum—and whether she has to label herself at all.
59. Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee In this queer rom-com, a transgender teen must decide if he's dedicated to romantic formulas or open to unpredictable love after an internet troll attack on his blog compels him and a fan to start fake-dating. Through an unlikely friendship with sweet, grounded Devin, who is Cuban American, asexual, and experimenting with pronouns, Noah--initially self-centered and standoffish--learns to value communication and empathy.
60. The Reckless Kind by Carly Heath In 1904 Norway, Asta runs away from her horrible fiancé to live with her two best friends. The three misfits set out to win the annual Christmas sleigh race to prove that they belong together. Queer asexual hard of hearing protagonist with heterochromia of Norwegian descent.
61. Forward March by Skye Quinlan How can band geek Harper have the chance of becoming the First Daughter with a fake dating profile? However, Harper does know that the drumline leader swiped right. Come along with Harper as she explores her truth during her last year of high school. Asexual-questioning cis female MC with anxiety and asthma.
62. Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger What if America had monsters, magic, and interdimensional beings? For Elatsoe, this is real, and she has to uncover her cousin's murder! She can do this with the help of her ghost dog, Kirby, but has to remember not to wake human ghosts. Aromantic ace main character. Paranormal mystery. Casual representation which extends to Ellie’s identity as Lipan Apache. This identity is asserted more often and firmly than her asexuality, and Little Badger drops in nuggets of education for us settlers about what Indigenous people, and the Lipan Apache in particular, suffered at the hands of settlers.
63. All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages by Editor Robin Talley A collection of short fantasy stories, featuring a variety of queer characters across multiple sexualities and genders. Features an asexual roller-skating girl from the 70s struggling to explain her identity to her crush.
64. Black Wings Beating by Alex London Twins Brysen and Kylee live in a world that revers the power of the falconers, but in a world where war approaches, they aren’t safe. Hunted for their power, they work together to trap the Ghost Eagle. Kylee is an ace character, focused on protecting her brother.
Graphic Novels
65. A-okay by Jarad Greene Eight grade can be tough, especially if you have acne and bullies, and lose friends. But our relatable asexual and aromantic protagonist, Jay, pulls through. This is a relatable memoir with colorful artwork.
66. How to Be Ace: A Memoir of Growing up Asexual by Rebecca Burgess A comic memoir detailing the author Rebecca Burgess's experience with growing up asexual in a world obsessed with sex. Also talks about her experiences with her own mental health and OCD.
67. Jughead, Volume 1 by Chip Zdarsky A comic book reboot of the Archie comics centered around Jughead Jones. Follows an aromantic asexual main character in typical Archie-style shenanigans. Part 1 of a 3 part series.
68. A Quick & Easy Guide to Asexuality by Molly Muldoon A charming introduction to asexuality, created to shed light on the misconceptions surrounding sex and being asexual. Told by writer Molly Muldoon and cartoonist Will Hernandez, both on the asexual spectrum.
69. Is Love the Answer? by Isaki Uta A poignant coming-of-age story about a young woman coming into her own as she discovers her identity as aromantic asexual. A complete story in a single volume, from the creator of "Mine-kun is Asexual."
Domestic Fiction
70. Have You Seen Luis Velez by Catherine Ryan Hyde Raymond Jaffe feels like he doesn't belong. Not with his mother's new family. Not as a weekend guest with his father and his father's wife. Not at school, where he's an outcast. After his best friend moves away, Raymond has only two real connections: to the feral cat he's tamed and to a blind ninety-two-year-old woman in his building who's introduced herself with a curious question: Have you seen Luis Velez? Mildred Gutermann, a German Jew who narrowly escaped the Holocaust, has been alone since her caretaker disappeared. She turns to Raymond for help, and as he tries to track Luis down, a deep and unexpected friendship blossoms between the two. Raymond is asexual (to be precise, he is aroace) And he is depicted as kind, loving, sensitive and realistic.
Fantasy
71. In the Lives of the Puppets by TJ Klune In a strange little home built into the branches of a grove of trees, live three robots--fatherly inventor android Giovanni Lawson, a pleasantly sadistic nurse machine, and a small vacuum desperate for love and attention. Victor Lawson, a human, lives there too. They're a family, hidden and safe. Protagonist: Vic, A curious, loving, & asexual human.
72. The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon In the mid-21st century major world cities are controlled by a formidable security force and clairvoyant underworld cell member Paige commits acts of psychic treason before being captured by an otherworldly race that would make her a part of their supernatural army. Demisexual main character.
73. The Perfect Assassin by K.A. Doore Divine justice is written in blood. Or so Amastan has been taught. As a new assassin in the Basbowen family, he's already having second thoughts about taking a life. A scarcity of contracts ends up being just what he needs. Until, unexpectedly, Amastan finds the body of a very important drum chief. Until, inevitably, Amastan is ordered to solve these murders, before the family gets blamed. Amastan is asexual and, as it turns out, homoromantic.
74. The Bruising of Quilwa by Naseem Jamnia Firuz-e Jafari was able to escape the slaughter of traditional blood magic practitioners by immigrating to the city-state of Qilwa. But now a terrible disease is spreading through the city, and Firuz believes it comes from ineptly performed blood magic. Now they must find a way to break a cycle of prejudice in order to survive. From the author: it's about an aroace nonbinary refugee healer who is trying to cure a magical plague in their new home while hiding their blood magic.
75. The Midnight Bargain by C. L. Polk The Midnight Bargain is a story "set in a world reminiscent of Regency England, where women's magic is taken from them when they marry. A sorceress must balance her desire to become the first great female magician against her duty to her family. Ysbeta has a clear goal for her life: to discover and share magic. Besides loving learning for its own sake, Ysbeta is asexual, and wealthy in her own right, so the bargaining season offers her literally nothing.
76. Every Heart A Doorway by Seanan McGuire Set in a world where a group of children have the ability to find and enter doorways into magical worlds, and now must find who's targetting them for this ability. Lead by an female asexual main character, with a trans love interest. First book in a series of novellas.
Science Fiction
77. The First Sister by Linden A. Lewis She's a priestess of the Sisterhood, traveling the stars alongside the soldiers of Earth who own the rights to her body and soul. When her former captain abandons her, First Sister's hopes for freedom are dashed and she is forced to stay on her ship with no friends, no status, and a new captain she knows nothing about. When the Mother, leader of her order, asks her to spy on Captain Saito Ren, First Sister discovers that sacrificing for the war effort is so much harder to do when your loyalties are split. He climbed his way out of the slums to become an elite soldier of Venus, but now he's haunted by his failures and the loss of his partner Hiro. But when Lito learns that Hiro is alive, but a traitor, and he's assigned to hunt Hiro down, and kill them, Lito must decide what he is actually fighting for - the society that raised him, or himself. As the battle to control Ceres reaches a head, Lito and First Sister must decide what - and whom - they are willing to sacrifice in the name of duty, or for love. Hispanic panromantic asexual protagonist (Lito).
78. Firebreak by Nicole Kornher-Stace Mal is one of many war survivors in the old town working multiple jobs to scrimp by, one of which is her team's streaming video game play. The team lives with several other roommates in a converted hotel room run by Stellaxis, the company that owns half of town, and is the only legal provider of drinkable water. When Mal catches sight of an elusive SecOps character, special non-player characters (NPCs) modeled after Stellaxis' twelve bioengineered operatives, the team pursues her inside the game to catch her on video for two seconds before their power curfew kicks in. By the time Mal heads down for her daily ration of water, they've secured a lucrative contract, involving an in-person meeting and a conspiracy theory, paying them to capture images of the three living SecOps characters. When Mal returns to find out why the next payment failed, she becomes involved in a fracas that will endanger everyone she knows. Aroace main character.
79. To be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers Four astronauts set out to explore the galaxy. This journey spans centuries and many worlds. A thought provoking read that explores the themes of loneliness and sense of purpose. Excellent cast of diverse characters and vivid world building. Chikondi is asexual and the text is careful to note that his relationship to the protagonist is no less emotional or vital than those she shares with people she is sexually involved with.
80. The Circus Infinite by Khan Wong What better person to take down a crime boss than a mixed-species fugitive! Join Jes on this exciting tale of espionage, torture, demolition. Sex-averse panromantic asexual lead character
Historical Fiction
81. Kaikeyi by Vasihnavi Patel The only daughter of the kingdom of Kekaya, she is raised on grand stories about the might and benevolence of the gods. Yet she watches as her father unceremoniously banishes her mother, her own worth measured by how great a marriage alliance she can secure. And when she calls upon the gods for help, they never seem to hear. Desperate for some measure of independence, she turns to the ancient texts she once read with her mother and discovers a magic that is hers alone. Kaikeyi is asexual and aromantic. Although the words "asexual" and "aromantic" aren't used in the book.
Western
82. The Complete Lady Ruth Constance Chapelstone Chronicles by L. C. Mawson If you’re looking for steampunk magic, the Lady Ruth Constance Chapelstone novellas are the place for you. Read them individually or all together in this compendium. Chapelstone is interested in her inventions, not love and romance.
Paranormal
83. The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Homes by Joseph Fink Told in a series of eerie flashbacks, the story of The Faceless Old Woman goes back centuries to reveal an initially blissful and then tragic childhood on a Mediterranean Estate in the early nineteenth century, her rise in the criminal underworld of Europe, a nautical adventure with a mysterious organization of smugglers, her plot for revenge on the ones who betrayed her, and ultimately her death and its aftermath, as her spirit travels the world for decades until settling in modern-day Night Vale. Asexual secondary character.
Romance  
84. All the Wrong Places by Ann Gallagher After his three ex-girlfriends in a row leave Brennan because he's not fulfilling their sexual needs, he seeks out advice from Zafir, the owner of a sex shop. Zafir introduces Brennan to the concept of asexuality and slowly something more blossoms between them.
85. That Kind of Guy by Talia Hibbert Rae needs a fake date to take to her ex's wedding and convinces Zach, a close friend who has recently discovered that he is demisexual, to play along.
86. The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood In an attempt to convince her best friend that she really is over her ex-boyfriend, grad-student Olive panic kisses stern associate professor Adam in the hallway. (Olive is coded as demisexual/graysexual, but that label is never used in the book).
87. Far From Home by Lorelie Brown The oddest of odd couples finds unexpected joy in Brown’s warm, sweet contemporary romance. American citizen Rachel, a not-quite-asexual assistant film producer struggling to make a living in L.A., is drowning in student debt; Indian immigrant Pari Sadashiv, a lesbian logistics manager, needs a U.S. green card to advance her career. When Rachel offers to marry Pari in exchange for funds, it’s just party banter at first—but what’s to stop them from crafting a friendship with legal and financial benefits? Their platonic plans quickly go awry as Pari’s mother moves in to help plan the wedding, forcing them to live their lie. As Rachel feels herself awakening to an attraction she didn’t even know was possible, Pari has to decide whether she can live with the possible fallout of Rachel’s tentative first foray into same-sex love.
88. Kiss Her Once for Me by Alison Cochrun Last Christmas, Ellie met Jack in Powell’s when they both went for a copy of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, and over a cute argument over “shared custody”, and Jack poking gentle fun at Ellie (who had been crying alone and talking to a footstool as if it were her friend) they start to bond. Jack asks Ellie for coffee, and then they end up spending the whole day together. This is a big deal for Ellie, who is demisexual, and rarely develops attractions to anyone. And then Jack breaks her heart. Fast-forward to this Christmas when Andrew, the landlord who owns the building she works in, asks her to fake-marry him so he can access his inheritance, and shenanigans lead to her agreeing to this and to going home with him for Christmas, and surprise! Jack is Andrew’s sister.
89. The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun Tech wunderkind Charlie has never really been interested in dating, but agrees to join the cast of reality show 'Ever After.' While there he finds himself charmed by his producer, Dev, and questioning his sexuality. The Charm Offensive includes a conversation discussing asexuality and its spectrum.
90. Never Been Kissed by Timothy Janovsky Wren Roland has never been kissed, but he wants that movie-perfect ending more than anything. Thanks to Mateo’s boyfriend, he learns about demisexuality and realizes that when he came out as gay, he had not finished realizing truths about himself and intimate relationships.
91. How to be a Normal Person by TJ Klune Before The House on the Cerulean Sea blew up, Klune wrote this quirky and delightful story of two asexual people finding each other and their happily ever after.
92. Soft on Soft by Mina Waheed This super sweet, low-angst romance centers on two fat, queer women of colour (one Black and one Persian-Arab) who fall in love and find their happy ending with hardly any drama. There’s also anxiety representation. It’s just pure fluffy romance goodness. Demisexual protagonist.
Non-Fiction
93. Ace and Aro Journeys: A Guide to Embracing your Asexual or Aromantic Identity by The Ace and Aro Advocacy Project What does it mean to be ace or aro? How should I approach the challenges that come with being ace or aro? How can I best support the ace and aro people in my life? Join the The Ace and Aro Advocacy Project (TAAAP) for a deep dive into the process of discovering and embracing your ace and aro identities. Empower yourself to explore the nuances of your identity, find and develop support networks, explore different kinds of partnership, come out to your communities and find real joy within. Combining a rigorous exploration of identity and sexuality models with hundreds of candid and poignant testimonials -- this companion vouches for your personal truth, wherever you lie on the aspec spectrum. You are not invisible! You are among friends.
94. Being Ace: An Anthology of Queer, Trans, Femme, and Disabled Stories of Asexual Love and Connection by Editor Madeline Dyer Discover the infinite realms of asexual love across sci-fi, fantasy, and contemporary stories From a wheelchair user racing to save her kidnapped girlfriend and a little mermaid who loves her sisters more than suitors, to a slayer whose virgin blood keeps attracting monsters, the stories of this anthology are anything but conventional. Whether adventuring through space, outsmarting a vengeful water spirit, or surviving haunted cemeteries, no two aces are the same in these 14 unique works that highlight asexual romance, aromantic love, and identities across the asexual spectrum
95. Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen A non-fiction research book about the asexual perspective on society's facinations with love and sex, and the misconceptions about what being asexual really is and what it means to a person.
96. The Invisible Orientation: an Introduction to Asexuality by Julia Sondra Decker An introduction to what asexuality is, both for people who don't know what that means and for people that may be questioning their own sexuality. It aims to puts asexual people's experiences in context, as they move through a very sexualized world.
97. Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe A graphic memoir about author Kobabe's growing from adolescence to adulthood, as e explores eir gender identity and sexuality. Features a gender queer and asexual main character that uses e/eir pronouns.
98. Ace Voices What it Means to Be Asexual, Aromantic, Demi or Grey-Ace by Eris Young This is the ace community in their own words. Drawing upon interviews with a wide range of people across the asexual spectrum, Eris Young is here to take you on an empowering, enriching journey through the rich multitudes of asexual life.
99. I Am Ace: Adice on Living Your Best Asexual Life by Cody Daigle-Orians Tackling everything from what asexuality is, the asexual spectrum and tips on coming out, to intimacy, relationships, acephobia and finding joy, this guide will help you better understand your asexual identity alongside deeply relatable anecdotes drawn from Cody's personal experience.
100. Sounds Fake But Okay: An Asexual and Aromantic Perspective on Love, Relationships, Sex, and Pretty Much Anything Else by Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca Drawing on their personal stories, and those of aspec friends all over the world, prepare to explore your microlabels, investigate different models of partnership, delve into the intersection of gender norms and compulsory sexuality and reconsider the meaning of sex - when allosexual attraction is out of the equation.
I haven't read all of these books, so I can't guarantee all of them. But I did my best researching all of them. I was making this list on my own and I was amazed that I could find over 100 books with asexual characters and I wanted to share it!
The Aromantic Book List is now out!
Tagging some people who were excited about this list: @sweetspiderstew @majorgenerally @shayberri789 @53rdcenturyhero @knightoflodis @neonghost39 @rosaazulina
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spider-stark · 2 months
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INFINITELY YOU
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part one // back at the beginning
SUMMARY - In every universe, Peter Parker seems destined to fall in love with you. And, in every universe, he realizes it too late. When universes collide and two of them are granted a second chance at rectifying their biggest mistake, neither of them are willing to let the opportunity go to waste–even if you end up not being the person they thought you were.
WARNINGS - 18+, story will contain mentions of blood, broken bones, weapons, suggestive language, and more. all versions of peter are between the ages of 19-23 in this story. I will try to update warnings accordingly for each chapter, but please read at your own discretion
WORD COUNT - 5.4k
// masterlist // series masterlist // send me your thoughts // playlist // no way home fan fiction //
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The world seemed to slip out from under you, fracturing beneath your feet and leaving you to sink into a deep, dark hole.  
It was quiet—so unbearably quiet—and the tension between you and your estranged friends had become so thick that you feared it would soon take form and seep into your lungs. Maybe that would be for the best, you thought, wondering if suffocating on your collective grief would somehow be easier than whatever came next.  
“Aunt May…” You sputtered, unable to force the words out. Shaking your head, you asked, “Are you sure?”  
God, what a stupid question. You almost wanted to slap yourself for asking something so mindless.
Ned’s lips pressed into a thin line, trying to swallow his own sorrow. “I wish we weren’t,” he said with a small, wistful chuckle, still too shocked to fully acknowledge the gravity of it all. “But… yeah, we’re sure. She’s… She’s gone.”  
Your heart sank, unable to think of the right string of words to form a reply.  
With your mind reeling, you couldn’t stop yourself from thinking that this was some sort of cruel joke–the kind where the punchline would never quite hit. But all it took was one look at the red-rimmed eyes and tear-stained cheeks of Ned and Mj to know that they were telling the truth.  
She was dead—Aunt May was dead.  
And, somehow, it seemed as though that wasn’t even the worst part of the mess your friends had gotten themselves in.  
“I know that it’s a lot to take in all at once,” Ned started back up, perhaps noticing the way the color seemed to drain from your face. “If you need me to go back over it or explain anything then I can-”  
You stopped listening to him, staring blankly at the doormat beneath their feet. They hadn’t even bothered to come inside your apartment, too panicked to waste any time before delving into the details about Doctor Strange and the multiverse and other Spider-Man’s.  
But honestly, you didn’t care about any of that.  
You didn’t care about string theory or whatever multiversal villains had apparently slipped into your world—because you couldn’t stop thinking about what Ned had said about how May died. It hurt to think about it, the shrapnel and debris that had torn her flesh, the glider that had punctured her side and left her bleeding out in Peter’s arms…  
Aunt May had died a horrific and brutal death, and you weren’t sure that there would ever be any way for you to come to terms with that.  
“Peter,” you finally spoke, fire raging in your eyes as you looked at Ned. “Where is Peter?”  
He spared Mj a sidelong glance, as if silently asking for her permission to answer. Frustration began to prick your skin, crawling up your spine as your stare turned harsh, offended that he didn’t just tell you outright. You knew that things between the four of you hadn’t ended well, but this… 
Mj crossed her arms, looking almost as frustrated as you were with Ned’s choice to look to her for permission, and decided to answer in his place.  
“Downstairs,” she told you, her tone purposefully clipped as a way to show that the wounds sustained in the downfall of your friendship had not yet healed–and you didn’t care, because you knew that yours hadn’t either.  
“Is he…” you trailed off, not sure how to say it. If May’s death had been so brutal, then God knows what kind of injuries Peter might’ve sustained in the fight?  
But you didn’t have to speak, because whether the two of you liked it or not, you had been friends—and she always knew what you were thinking. “He’s safe,” she told you, quelling your nerves just a little. A reluctant sigh slipped her lips, shaking her head as she added, “But he’s not okay.”  
You knew what she meant—physically Peter had survived the fight with this Goblin man that they had told you about, but mentally…  
You understood why she was hesitant to tell you about it, too. Of the three of you, there was only one that had ever been able to delve down into the depths of Peter’s trauma and help him claw his way back out of the gnawing pit that threatened to consume him—and it wasn’t either of them.  
And, just as Mj knew you, you knew her. 
She didn’t want you around Peter, not anymore—and so if she was willingly telling you that he wasn’t okay, then it meant that she knew how much he truly needed you right now.  
“You guys should’ve told me sooner,” you grit your teeth, desperately trying to bite back against the resentment rising in your throat. “You should’ve told me as soon as all of this started, instead of waiting until everything went to shit.”  
It wasn’t your intention to sound bitter, but that didn’t stop you from coming across that way. Ned recoiled from your tone like a blow, but you didn’t have it in you to feel guilty right now.  
They had been dealing with all of this multiversal crisis bullshit for nearly a week now—and yet none of them had thought to say a single word to you until now. And while you knew that your presence likely wouldn’t have changed the course of events that had unfolded, it still hurt.  
And it still made you angry.  
“What do you need me to do?” You asked after realizing that neither of them intended to respond to your sharp statement.  
“Well,” Ned started, nervously rubbing his sweaty palms against his khakis, “it’s gonna take us some time to figure out where the villains are hiding, and even longer to work out what to do with them. And, since these other Peter’s have dealt with these guys before, we could really use their help…”  
He trailed off, once again looking to Mj, this time to silently urge her to finish his sentence.  
She rolled her eyes. “We need you to let them stay here.”  
Your brows furrowed, glancing between the two of them as if once again waiting for some sort of punchline to hit. It didn’t.  
“It might take us a bit–a few weeks, maybe—to find all of them and stop them. And now that Happy’s complex was literally blown to pieces, we don’t have anywhere for the two of them to stay while they help out.” Mj tried to explain. She looked defeated when she said, “We didn’t know who else we could go to that would actually understand.”  
Understand.  
If you weren’t still reeling from everything they had just told you, then you probably would have laughed at the word. You would hardly say that you understood what was going on—but you knew what she was getting.  
Mj’s dad would hardly allow two random men to stay in his house with them, and Ned’s Lola probably wasn’t too keen on the idea either. With Happy’s place destroyed, they had nowhere left to turn.  
You weren’t sure how to feel now that you knew they had only come to you because you were their last choice.  
At the risk of aggravating Mj, you said, “I wanna talk to Peter.”  
“I don’t know if now’s a good time,” Mj swiftly shot back. “I told you that’s he’s not okay—”  
“But he’s here,” you stated, nodding your head towards the stairs somewhere behind them that led back down to the lobby. “And you’re insane if you think I’m gonna agree to let two random ass men stay in my house without at least knowing what his plan is.”  
Mj bristled at the harshness of your tone; and so did you.  
You weren’t used to this.  
Mj had been your friend for far longer than she had been whatever she was to you now, and neither of you were used to this—to your once special connection being reduced to nothing more than strained conversations and fractured feelings towards one another.  
“Fine,” Mj surrendered, her hands lifting slightly. “Do whatever you want.”  
It wasn’t until then that you realized that you had been waiting for her permission, even though you didn’t believe you truly needed it. Peter was your friend—and he had been your friend long before he even knew Mj. If you wanted to talk to him, then you had every right to.  
Yet you still hadn’t been able to will yourself to push between the two of them until she had spoken, side-stepping to let you pass. When you started descending the stairs to the lobby, you were shocked that neither she nor Ned followed, offering you a sense of privacy with Peter that you hadn’t expected—as if she still held some shred of trust in you.  
You didn’t want to think about it though, unsure of how you felt about that, too.  
Halfway down the dank stairway of your complex, you felt a shiver dance along your spine. It prickled your skin and set your nerves on edge, but it didn’t catch you off guard. You always felt this way when Peter was around—as if your body could always sense when he was around, even when you hadn’t yet seen him.  
The last step creaked when you placed your weight onto it, and from across the poorly maintained lobby, Peter’s neck snapped in your direction at the sound.  
It felt like ice skittered across your bones at the sight of him, your heart lurching against your ribcage.  
You had gotten used to seeing Peter battered and bruised years ago. Even before he became Spider-Man, he often found himself the victim of bullies and assholes, rarely going more than a few weeks without a busted lip or a new bruise. But this…  
This was different, somehow.  
It wasn’t just the blood-stained suit that set your heart racing, nor was it the lacerated skin or his sweat-matted hair. No, those things were normal—in the same way that being bitten by a radioactive spider was normal.  
It was even normal to see him standing before you, his chin high and shoulders back, presenting a perfect image of strength even after experiencing something as traumatic as losing May.  
Peter’s relationship with trauma had been intimate enough these past few years that you weren’t shocked to see him like this, standing tall rather than balling up and crying on the floor. You figured that was what most others would do if they were in his situation.  
But Peter wasn’t like other people.  
Peter was a hero—and if you had learned anything about heroes in your lifetime, it was that they were incredible liars.  
His eyes couldn't lie, though.
Bloodshot and ringed with exhaustion, his eyes were what had made you feel so sick, your stomach twisting itself into knots.  
They lacked the life and hope of the boy you had loved so dearly, replaced with something like rage—a pure, unbridled and unrelenting type of rage. Looking at him now you couldn’t ignore the burning talon that seemed to rake against your mind, filling your brain with thoughts you didn’t want to think right now—telling you that looking at Peter now, with the light draining from his eyes, was the same as looking in a mirror.  
“Peter,” a metallic tang danced on your tongue as you dug your teeth into your cheek, biting back against the tears threatening to well-up in your eyes.  
Letting your instincts guide you, you rushed across the lobby to where he stood by the front door, reaching for his hand without a second thought.  
His suit had been torn along his palm, and as you felt the warmth radiating from his calloused skin, you tried to take some comfort in the fact that at least he had survived—even if you still weren’t ready to accept that May hadn’t.  
“Don’t,” He yanked his hand back from you, his voice hoarse. “Don’t say you’re sorry.”  
You froze for half a heartbeat, your hand hanging awkwardly in-between the two of you. “I wasn’t going to.”  
You weren’t sure if you were telling the truth, but it didn’t seem to matter either way.  
Either way, you tried to understand his reaction, even as you winced from the sting of rejection. What good would an apology really do for a boy who had already lost everything?  
It wouldn’t bring the light back to his eyes.  
It wouldn’t bring May back to life.  
“Ned told me everything,” you told him, unwilling or unable to say Mj’s name right now. You clenched and unclenched your fists, painfully aware of the absence of his warmth. “You know I’ll do anything I can to help, so just tell me what needs to be done and I’ll do it.”  
Peter scoffed, his jaw tensing. “We both know that what I want doesn’t matter,” he said bluntly. Motioning to your surroundings, he continued, “If what I wanted mattered, then we wouldn’t even be here. We wouldn’t be asking for your help—wouldn’t be dragging another person into this and asking them to risk their life!”  
You did your best not to react, knowing that he hadn’t meant it quite as bad as it sounded. It already hurt knowing that you had been Mj and Ned’s last choice for help, but knowing that Peter didn’t want you to be a choice at all hurt far worse—even if it was to keep you safe.  
“Well, you’re here now,” you told him, keeping your voice steady. “So you might as well tell me what your plan is—or at least tell me how long I’ll need to play bunkmates with strangers.”  
You were lying when you had told Mj and Ned that you needed to talk to Peter before agreeing to let the alternate Spider-Men stay in your apartment—you didn’t care about housing with strangers, aware that there was nothing they could do to you that you haven't endured before.  
Selfishly, you had just wanted a reason to come down and talk to him. To see him. To know that he was alive. You didn’t care about anything else.  
Sometimes you worried that you didn’t even care about your own life, only Peter’s.  
But Peter cared about your life—far more than you would ever want him to.  
“My plan doesn’t matter,” he said, his tone clipped, “cause I don’t want you getting involved. And I definitely don’t want you to let those guys stay here, alright? We don’t know them.”  
You steeled yourself, resisting the urge to argue with him and instead asking a simple question. “Do you have anywhere else for them to go?”  
He didn’t respond, huffing out a breath, already frustrated with the defiance he knew you were about to display.  
“You might not want my help, but if Ned’s right–” you told him, gesturing backwards towards the staircase, “–which he usually is—then you’re gonna need these guys.”  
“But that doesn’t mean we need you,” Peter protested gruffly.  
Your chest tightened, but you kept shoving back against the hurt. Later, you would deal with that later.  
“It doesn’t matter if you need me,” you retorted with a defiant tilt of your chin, unwavering as his rageful gaze seemed to pierce through your skull, “because you’re stuck with me either way.”  
You hadn’t expected the statement to affect him, but it did, his voice softening slightly. “I always have been.”  
“Exactly. So you might as well make this easy on the both of us and not fight me on it,” you declared, trying to conjure up the most convincing smile you could offer. “Let me help, Peter.”  
A sigh slipped his lips, heavy with reluctant resignation as he realized he wasn’t winning this battle. “We’ve already lost so many people… I’ve lost so many people. And there’s already enough blood on my hands,” he said, lifting his hands to display the torn, blood-stained fabric, driving his point home. “It doesn’t matter what I say—so let them stay here or don’t, I don’t care. But just know that whatever happens to you, it’s not on me. Because I told you to stay out of it, alright?”  
He took a step closer, and you didn’t dare move a single muscle as his lips hovered just inches from your own. “Do whatever you want,” his voice was barely a whisper, laced with a venomous edge that nearly made you tremble, “but don’t expect me to come running to save you when it all goes to shit.”  
His words hung in the air like a curse, lingering in the lobby for far longer than he did. As soon as the promise had left his lips, he was already turning on his heel and shoving the door open, abandoning you in the dim space.  
You knew better than to think he meant it.  
But knowing didn’t make it hurt any less.  
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You stuck your hands beneath the running faucet, scrubbing the blood from a jagged cut on your palm. It wasn’t all that deep, shallow enough that it probably wouldn't even leave a scar once healed. When you were done rinsing it, you cupped your hands and gathered the water in them, splashing your reddened cheeks.  
Crying would have been a normal part of grieving for May, and when you forced yourself to look back at your reflection in the bathroom mirror, you couldn’t help but wish that you could’ve been a little more normal.  
But tears hadn’t been the cause of your flushed appearance—no, because you had never been very good at expressing the more delicate emotions, like sadness.  
You were good at expressing anger, though.  
You were very good at expressing anger.  
After Peter had stormed out of the lobby and abandoned you to choke on his cruel promise, it had taken you several minutes to work up the nerve to go back upstairs and face Mj and Ned. By some stroke of luck you had managed to keep a tight leash on your often volatile attitude, telling them your decision to let the other Peter’s stay with you.  
And then you lost control as soon as they left, loosening the reins on your anger and taking the uncomfortable feelings out on a nearby potted plant, shouting curses as you tossed it at the wall.  
By the time you thought to clean it up, after finishing another string of irate profanities, your hands had been shaking so bad that you cut yourself on one of the dirt-covered shards. And maybe, once you felt the jagged ceramic dig into your palm, you should’ve hissed or cursed more or stopped cleaning to patch yourself up.  
But you didn’t. You stayed quiet, continuing to pluck the shattered fragments off the floor until you had gotten them all, dumping them into the trash before grabbing the broom and dustpan and cleaning the dirt and scattered leaves, too.  
There were more important things to deal with than cleaning a dirty wound.  
Like making sure none of your friends could see that you weren’t nearly as composed as you tried to seem.  
The familiar rhythmic rapping of Mj’s knuckles against the front door made you forgo the bandage you were going to fix to your palm, tossing the rag you’d used to dry your face into the sink and heading straight to the living room.  
Carefully shoving your injured hand into your pocket, you opened the door and tried not to look surprised when Peter wasn’t standing in-between Mj and Ned. Of course he hadn’t come with them—why would he? He had already made it clear how he felt about all of this.  
It did become significantly harder to mask your shock however when a tall, messy haired boy stepped into view from behind them, clad in a crimson and cobalt webbed suit.  
“Get inside,” you hissed a bit harsher than intended, stepping aside and waving the three of them into your apartment.  
The last thing you needed was your neighbors seeing an unmasked, alternate version of Spider-Man standing in front of your door. It had already been risky enough that Peter had come here in his suit, standing in the lobby and sticking out like a sore thumb.  
Once they were inside, you shut the door and turned to Ned. “I thought you said there were two of them,” you noted, avoiding looking at the lanky Spider-Man who seemed just as desperate to avoid you, busying himself with walking around the room and studying the art on the walls.  
Ned shrugged. “He didn’t wanna come.”  
“Not that he didn’t want to come,” Mj pointedly corrected him, frowning at his bluntness. “He just wanted to keep patrolling. The Goblin, the one who…” she cut herself off, unable to force the words off her tongue. Scrapping the sentence altogether, she started again, “The Goblin’s from his world, so he seemed to think that he had the best chance of hunting him down. But we gave him the address.”  
You didn’t bother giving her an actual response, a subtle nod the only sign you had heard her at all. She didn’t seem to care much, just as unsure of what to say to you as you were to her.  
“So,” Ned clicked his tongue, trying to cut through the growing tension. “This is Peter 3!” He announced, gesturing to the other Peter, who was picking up a frame that had been face down on an end table. “That’s what we’re calling him, at least. Y’know, to tell them apart. The other one is Peter 2.”  
You gave him a tight-lipped smile. “Creative.”  
Done dawdling over Ned and Mj, you forced yourself to look at the un-masked hero from another world. He was placing the frame back onto the table—not face down, as he had found it, but up-right. You frowned at the photograph it displayed, a picture of you, Ned, Mj, and Peter from sometime last year.  
“You’re awfully nosy,” you told him, your voice like ice.  
His muscles tensed, hesitating as he faced your gaze. “Sorry,”  
His voice was slightly deeper than Peter’s, his hair a shade or two darker, his features a bit less soft, but still noticeably young, putting him in his early twenties at most. Truthfully, if it weren’t for the suit he was wearing, you would’ve never guessed that he was supposed to be the Peter Parker of another world.  
You had expected him to be more… Peter-like, in appearance, and yet as far as you could tell the resemblances were very slight, if they even existed at all.  
The mannerisms were there, though. The subtleties of Peter Parker, the things that most people never noticed and yet were ingrained in your mind. He licked his lips, a nervous tic that left you always carrying chapstick in your pocket. His hands hung at his sides and you saw the way his thumb tapped against each of his fingers, starting with his index and ending with his pinky, only to start over again.  
Watching him, taking note of every familiar twitch and tic and habit, made something in your chest tighten.  
And, when you told him your name, it was as if your icy tone had melted altogether. “It’s nice to meet you.”  
For a moment you thought he wouldn’t respond, his throat bobbing as he swallowed roughly, eyes darting around the room. But then, suddenly, he gave you a weak smile. “You too.” A trace of amusement laced his response, too subtle for you to detect.  
“We’ve gotta go,” Ned suddenly spoke, jutting a thumb towards the door. “Peter’s waiting outside so he can make sure we get home safe, but-” he stopped, brows furrowing as considered whether he should finish. “But text us later, okay? Just to let us know that you’re okay.”  
Your heart stuttered at the mention of Peter’s name, at knowing that he actually had come—even if it hadn’t been for you—but you didn’t mention it.  
Instead, you focused on Ned, giving your sweet friend the kindest smile you could muster—which, admittedly, didn’t feel like much. Despite everything that had happened with your friends in the past few months, your fight had never been with Ned. He was just caught in the middle, unfairly forced to pick sides.  
And you couldn’t bring yourself to be mad at him for picking Peter. Not when you knew that you would’ve done the same.  
“I will,” you promised.  
Ned gave you an equally somber smile before opening the door to leave. Even once Ned was in the hall, already descending the staircase, Mj lingered in the entryway—not for long, a heartbeat, maybe—turning back towards you just long enough to mutter, “Keep your guard up.”  
You didn’t have a chance to say anything back to her before she let the door slam shut, following quickly after Ned and leaving you alone with… this guy.  
The other Peter had abandoned his spot by the end table, seemingly done with investigating your apartment and left to do nothing but stand awkwardly a few feet away from you, clearly unsure of what to do or say now that it was just the two of you.  
“So,” you breathed out, popping your lips. “Peter 3, yeah? Good name. You go by that back home, too?”  
He laughed, a suit-clad hand nervously rising to the back of his neck. “Uh–yeah, no, definitely not. Just plain ole’ Peter Parker over there.”  
The nervous energy radiating from the boy almost seemed contagious as you started to pick at your nails. “Do you have a nickname?”  
He blinked, looking as if he hadn’t heard a word you said. “Sorry, what?”  
“A nickname,” you repeated, only for your brows to then furrow. “You have those where you’re from, don’t you? Nicknames? Like, you know, something you go by other than your actual name?”  
“Oh! Yes—sorry, yes we have nicknames in my world,” he exclaimed, his pale skin starting to flush.  
“I just thought that this whole numerical system thing that Ned’s going with to keep track of who’s who seems a little dehumanizing, yeah?”  
“For sure,” he agreed, sucking on his lip as he nodded along with you.  
You gave him a second, waiting and waiting for an answer to your apparently long-forgotten question, before asking, “So… Do you have one?”  
The slight blush that had tinged his skin instantly darkened, suddenly the same shade of crimson as his suit. His grip on the back of his neck tightened, too, his fingertips prodding into his own skin.  
“Sorry-” he apologized for the millionth time, more nervous laughter spilling out alongside it, “I do! I mean, sort of, I think. I don’t know if it’s really a nickname, but back in my world you really just called me by my last name most of the time anyway, so–I don’t know—maybe that would work?”  
The sheer quantity of word vomit spewing from his mouth was impressive and likely hard-to-follow for most, but you consider yourself a bit of an expert in the anxious ramblings of Peter Parker.  
“In your world?” You echoed, instantly catching the subtle mention. “We know each other?”  
Maybe it shouldn’t have been shocking to learn that there were other versions of you throughout the multiverse as well, and yet it was. You figured that it was plausible, of course, considering that two variations of Peter had just been thrown into your world, but for some reason it just didn’t feel right.  
You reasoned that anyone would feel that way, though.  
“Yeah,” the boy, Parker, answered, a bit clipped. “We do.”  
“Interesting.” Your brows lifted, “Are we friends?”  
Parker scrunched his nose, his head tilting slightly.  
“Yeah,” his voice was an octave higher than before, and if you knew him better, then you likely would’ve called him on the obvious tell. But you didn’t know him, and so you didn’t say anything when he decided to double-down on the lie, “Yeah, we’re friends.”  
“Well I guess that means that this is just as weird for you as it is for me, then.” You laughed, trying to add some humor to the situation.  
Parker gave a tightlipped smile. “Definitely weird.”  
The seconds felt like they stretched into minutes after that, silently racking your brain for something to say, hoping that he might say something—but, eventually, you settled on offering an escape from the situation instead.  
“You’re probably exhausted from the whole multiversal travel thing, so if you want, I can just show you the guest room and give you some privacy or something,” you told him, vaguely gesturing towards the hallway.  
Parker seemed to relax a bit at the prospect of being alone, loosing a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “Uhm–yeah, that’d be great, actually.”  
He followed you down the short hall, his hand finally falling from his neck and his skin returning to its normal complexion as his nerves began to wane.  
“This is it,” you told him, the hinges crying out as you shoved the door open. “It’s not much, but it’s somewhere to sleep, at least.”  
Wasn’t much felt like an understatement, though the room was typical for a New York apartment.  
A tad bigger than your average shoebox, there was just enough space to fit a full-sized bed, a small armoire, and a single nightstand adorned with an old desk lamp and a little pink teddy bear—a gift from Peter, years ago.  
Parker walked into the room, looking around and brushing his fingertips against the emerald quilt. It was a bit old and somewhat thin, but it was better than nothing you supposed, and Parker certainly didn’t seem like he was going to complain about it.  
“It’s great,” he assured you, and even though he did sound genuine, you couldn’t help but snort. He looked over at where you still stood in the doorway, giving you a timid smile as he said, “Way better than sleeping on the streets.”  
You returned the gesture, lazily lifting a shoulder. “We’ll see if you still feel that way in the morning. That mattress is about a hundred years old, so it’s probably the equivalent of sleeping on really lumpy cement.”  
Parker hummed his amusement, carefully perching on the edge of the bed, his smile seeming to deepen when he caught sight of the little bear on the nightstand.  
“I guess I’ll let you get some sleep,” you told him, reaching for the door handle, “if you need anything—extra blankets, or something—just let me know; my room’s right across the hall.”  
He muttered his thanks, but as you went to pull the door closed, you heard your name fall from his lips. It was strange sounding, strangled and foreign, like he didn’t quite know how to say it. When you turned back to face him, a subtle wince seemed to etch across his face.  
“Can I… Can I ask you something?” Parker stammered out the question, his voice faltering like a candle flame in the wind.  
You nodded once, fingers still wrapped around the knob, savoring the coolness of the brass against the now-clotted wound on your palm.
He took a breath, his gaze momentarily flickering back to the teddy bear on the nightstand. His thoughts felt heavy on his tongue as he tried to force them out of his mouth, “Are you happy?”  
You blinked at him, unsure of what to make of the hope that seemed to cling to each syllable and half-wondering if you’d heard him right.  
“I-” you tried to start, only to realize that you had no clue what to say.  
There was a fleeting moment where you realized that you could tell him the truth. You could tell him that happiness felt like a distant shore far from your reach, forever obscured by the fiery tempest of a brutal and ancient rage—a rage that, sometimes, didn’t even feel like your own.  
But then he looked at you with those big, expectant eyes; eyes that should have been foreign to you, and yet felt so familiar—and you realized that he wouldn’t like that answer.  
Sucking in a breath, you evaded his question as best you could. “Ask me again when all of this is over,” you told him, your lips curving into a soft, playful arc, “and maybe I’ll tell you the truth.”  
This time when you went to close the door, he didn’t stop you.  
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a/n - i wish that i could properly express just how amazing (and terrifying) it has been to rewrite this story. first created at quite possibly the lowest point of my life, infinitely you has provided me with a necessary escape at a time when i desperately needed it. now that i'm in a better position, i found it necessary to give it the plot, writing style, and dedication that it deserved. i'm aware some people might not be interested in a rewrite and that's ok, but for those that are i just wanna say: thank you, thank you, thank you for giving infinitely you (and me) another shot. you're incredible.
if anyone would like to be added to the tag list, just let me know! as of right now, chapters will be posted every other monday, though i may switch that to weekly soon!
part two, titled "crullers & constants", to be released april 1st
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vulpisnocturna · 7 months
Text
Binding Vow
This is purely self-indulgent because I was consumed with the idea of Chrollo and specifically, Yandere!Chrollo. So here it goes. This is filthy and Chrollo is unhinged. Nothing new.
Read on AO3
Part II
Part III
I do not condone this behaviour in real life. This is purely fictional. Please read warnings and avoid if any of them are triggering to you.
Warnings: Yandere Chrollo, dom Chrollo, coercion, dub con (I mean it), psychological manipulation, kidnapping, captivity, possessiveness, obsession, fingering, oral sex (f!receiving), vaginal sex, creampie, praise, slight humiliation kink
Summary: Abducted because Chrollo could not steal your Nen ability, you are ready to give in and trade your power for your freedom. But the choices Chrollo decides to lay in front of you are wholly different. One would say, the illusion of choice. You make him swear a vow to let you go as you make your choice. But one should pay close attention to the words used in a binding vow...
Word count: 7k
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One would think so many candles would be a fire hazard, to be frank. They were everywhere, on every wooden surface, on every shelf that wasn’t overcome with books of all sizes with leather spines, on the nightstands and even on the ground. It was as though the leader of the Phantom Troupe had an obsession with a certain type of aesthetic, and would not refrain from littering his surroundings with candles every time he found a new place where his gang could crash. Perhaps, he had a candle for every person he had ever killed.
Though you supposed one would lose count after a while.
If you were to ingratiate him, you knew what he would appreciate having as a gift; although who needed gifts when your profession was stealing whatever you wanted, whatever thing you had a passing whim for?
As far as you were aware, you were the last passing whim Chrollo Lucilfer had stolen. You had known of his power to steal abilities, and even though you had tried to escape when the Troupe had come to abduct you, it seemed he hadn’t been successful in stealing your power. Yet.
Your Nen power wasn’t meant to fight, really, so the possibility of forcing your way through the Troupe had been preposterous. Your ability was that of having regenerative power, to the point where you could heal fatal wounds to yourself and others. He obviously must have wanted it for himself, and you hadn’t exactly had any way of escaping his wishes.
After a month of captivity, though, you weren’t sure you could bear it for much longer. If all he wanted was your power, why not let him “borrow” it, as he so nonchalantly put it? So you could go back to your own life, so you didn’t have to be locked up in that house, so that he would let you go? Would he even let you go, if you gave him the ability? Or would he want to tie loose ends and get rid of you? You shuddered in the cold air of the bedroom you had been confined to in his absence. 
He had left you to your own devices that day for the entirety of the morning, whilst he had spent all his time with you previously. Studying you, asking you questions, letting you know between the lines that he knew who you were, who your loved ones were, where they lived. He had called you a “treasured guest” in the same sentence, with such audacity that you had been left stunned at the complete lack of morals that man had.
But then again, he also seemed to have some twisted attraction to you. They did say the forbidden fruit was always the sweetest, and because you knew of his power, he couldn’t get to your Nen ability if you did not reveal how it worked and fulfilled his conditions. In the last two weeks, he had taken to something you could only define as an attempt at seduction.
He would sit with you in the living room, inviting you to get closer to him, reassuring you he had no intentions of harming you. He would stare at you with those stormy eyes of his that seemed to burn through you like electricity, and his gaze would rake over your body like he was appraising some kind of rare, expensive object he planned to take for himself. Which he probably was.
Despite knowing who he was, despite knowing how sticky with blood his hands were, you were only a fallible human. And he was... a murderer, a manipulator, a thief; and he was also cunning, intuitive, soft-spoken, caring with you in a sick way, and the most handsome man you had ever met. Despite all of your efforts, it was not possible to deny the effect he had on you. And it was not possible to hide it from him. Observant as he was, obsessed as he was with watching your every reaction, every little twitch of your body, every time your breath faltered when he was too close, every time he commented casually how your pupils were dilating, every time his long, willowy fingers grazed your skin, he could see all of it. And all of it was a twisted game of cat and mouse to him.
Another heist, another plot to strategise and accomplish. He was always composed, always neutral, if not for his sly looks, wily smirks and piercing eyes. He always seemed to have the upper hand. It did not matter that he did not have your power, he seemed to be a patient man.
Until that day.
You had assumed he was waiting for you to break by keeping you captive, although treated with enough civility and never physically harmed, because he had not mentioned wanting your Nen power since the one time he had told you he wished to borrow it. In your mind, he was simply determined to stir the pot and then leave you to stew in it for a while, knowing at some point, your desire for freedom would overcome your attachment to your ability. Letting you run your mind wild with suppositions and conjectures that led nowhere as you tried to analyse his reasons and predict his behaviour. And it was working. You were almost done with it. If he asked you to choose between your power and your freedom, you knew what you would pick.
When he came back from whatever the hell he’d been doing that morning, his appearance was pristine. He was wearing his hair down, no headband in sight, a white shirt with the first two buttons undone and smart black trousers. All in all, he was the picture of what you could only define as sex appeal and sophistication mixed together in a heady blur of sharp eyes, chiselled, angular features and a mellow voice that still managed to sting.
He unlocked your door using a Nen ability he’d probably also stolen and closed it behind him, smiling softly at you as he appraised you.
‘Hello, darling. I hope you did not feel too lonely without my company’ he said easily, conversationally. You disliked the pet names he had started to throw at you in the last two weeks. They made it seem like there was more to this relationship than a prisoner and their warden. More he wanted. But not your ability. No. You. And it made your stomach churn every time. 
You decided to ignore him, because what else could you do? You were locked in a room with him, with no escape, and you had been held captive for a month now. What could possibly make it worse than it already was?
But you were so very naïve. You should have paid heed to his shrewd grey eyes, to the way his lips twitched as though he delighted in knowing something you didn’t, in watching you rack your brains in trying to figure him out.
You had been so naïve in thinking that he had kidnapped you and held you captive to steal your ability. After all, he could torture it out of you. 
Did he just enjoy the game? What did he want? Was there another condition that needed you to be willing to share it with him? That must have been it. He needed you to give it to him willingly, that was why he was going after your mental sanity instead of torturing it out of you.
‘You seem quite tense. Sit with me. I have a proposition for you’ he said, gracefully stepping to your side, brushing his fingers on your lower back, sending shivers down your spine just as your nose caught a whiff of his expensive cologne. His scent was just as intoxicating as he was, something masculine yet refined, a blend that made your lower stomach hot. You fought to keep eye contact as he sat on the plush loveseat by the fireplace, tapping the empty space right next to him, his eyes boring into you with curious amusement. 
You grimaced, feeling weak and dizzy as you sat down on the armchair, the only other surface available to you aside from the bed and the loveseat, which was out of the question. Chrollo’s lips twitched in amusement, his eyes glinting with interest as he rested his cheek against his fist. 
‘I have a few choices for you. I assume you are quite unsatisfied with your current predicament, therefore, I am giving you the chance to escape all the doubt that must be swarming your mind by now’ he said calmly, that little smirk still on his lips. You did not give way to hope. You did not lower your guard. Thieves did not return goods. If they got rid of them, it was after getting something else in return. So what was he playing at? What was his angle?
‘Your distrust is quite strong, dearest. You should learn to hide your emotions more, if you plan to attempt to play me. Though I must admit the thought of it is quite thrilling. So feel free to try it. Your first choice is to give me your Nen ability in exchange for the end of this predicament. Your second choice is to give yourself to me now. I trust you understand the meaning behind my words. If that is your choice, you can start by getting up and walking over here’ he said, smoothly, easily, seductively, his eyes mischievous. 
You blinked, swallowing heavily, your lips parting. He… was making you choose between your Nen ability or having sex with him in exchange for your freedom? The choice was not really that. It was an illusion of it. Perhaps he merely sought to humiliate you, because of course, the reasonable choice would be to get it over and done with, have sex with him just that once and walk away with your life and your ability intact. Who in their right mind would pick the first choice? 
He was hot, charming, attractive. So long as you could separate the part of you that knew what he was, what he did, and the shame that came with prostituting yourself to your captor, it would not be that bad. It would be over quickly, you only had to focus on his physical attributes, shut out his horrid persona.
‘You want me to prostitute myself to you’ you said, your cheeks burning with humiliation. He let out a wilful sigh. 
‘That is an uncouth appraisal of it. It is quite clear from your reactions to me that you desire me, too. Is that prostitution? More of a mutual desire, I’d wager. Rather a small price to pay to retain your power, is it not?’ he asked, smiling sweetly, smugly. You ground your jaw, your whole face feeling hot, your eyes stinging with the embarrassment of your current predicament, as he loved to call your captivity.
‘Why would I want to... have sex with someone like you? A... murderer- a thief, a kidnapper?’ you spat, repulsed, sitting rigidly in the armchair, quite the opposite picture to his nonchalant lounging. He let out a soft laugh.
‘Oh, darling. Are you pretending to have steadfast morals now?’ he crooned, voice soft and mellow. Completely unbothered by your accusations.
‘What are you trying to imply?’ you chewed on the corner of your bottom lip, a movement he followed with a hint of ravenousness in his silvery eyes.
‘Your morals seem somewhat flexible to me. You have been eating food paid with stolen money for a month, sleeping in a stolen mansion, wearing stolen clothes. I trust you were clever enough to know this from the beginning of your sojourn here’ he said casually, seeming almost enthusiastic about debunking every argument you could bring to the table. It was as though he found pleasure in discrediting your beliefs and making you vacillate. Perhaps it stroked his ego.
 ‘I had no choice about sleeping here. Should I have starved? Should I have wandered around naked for a month?’ you snapped, regretting your words immediately when you saw him look at you so intensely. As though he was undressing you himself with his eyes.
‘Well, you certainly could have tried to starve yourself. I would have admired your efforts to cling to your pride and ethical dilemma, and you would not be in this moral conundrum now if you had. You would be able to blame me for it. As to your last point, that would have certainly been a sight. Again, the choice was there. I would not have stopped you’ he said slyly, his voice getting lower and more seductive, like a caress on your spine. You bristled.
‘Those are not choices. Like these aren’t’ you pressed, and he sighed, still smiling like nothing could make him waver.
‘Are they not? You have two paths before you. Every human being is offered choices. Now, be a darling and make one. What will you choose?’ he mused. You closed your eyes, your fingers curling on the fabric of your skirt.
‘You will not steal my power if I- give my body to you now. Right?’ you asked slowly, trying to find a loophole in his words.
‘I will not. If you choose to indulge me now, I will not steal your power’ he said. You gulped. You did not want him to lose his patience and take away your opportunity. You also wanted his word that you would be let out alive and unharmed.
‘And this- this predicament will be done once I do that too. You will not kill me- nor harm me after that. I will be allowed to leave this place alive’ you said cautiously, weighing your words. He smiled.
‘Of course. In order to ease your worries, why don’t I make a vow with you? A condition, if you will. And if I break it, I will die. If this is your choice, and you want reassurance before you continue with it, I will of course be willing to ease your worries. Stand up and come closer’ he said, and you tried not to show your relief. If he was promising, there was nothing to worry about. You could do this, keep your life and your well-being, leave with your power. It was not a bad deal. Not a bad deal at all. You should be happy that he seemed to be attracted to you. That he was even giving you a choice in the matter.
You slowly got up, and your legs felt weak as you stepped closer to him, feeling like his gaze was burning through you. You stopped in front of him, tense like a violin string as a grimoire appeared in his hand.
‘Sit on my lap, darling’ he murmured, and you found yourself feeling all kinds of things in your body, from nerve-wracking anxiety to butterflies in your stomach to warmth in your gut and weakness in your legs. You inched closer to him, gingerly sitting sideways on his lap.
You were immediately engulfed by his enthralling cologne, and his arm wrapped around you, fingers curling on your waist to keep you in place. You squirmed, gulping when he dipped his head to breathe against your neck, making goosebumps appear on your exposed skin.
‘Your scent is intoxicating, dearest’ he breathed, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear to expose the side of your face to him. You could not deny how seductive he could be, how tantalising his touch felt. But you would not be swayed from the promise he’d made.
‘The vow first’ you said somewhat nervously, and he smiled, nodding and keeping an arm around your torso as he picked up his book of stolen abilities and flicked through it, stopping in front of a binding vow.
‘Now, I vow that I will not make your Nen ability mine and steal it from you. It will remain yours. I vow I will not kill you, nor will I ask anyone else to do so for me. Should you respect the terms I have presented to you, you will leave this place unscathed within a day, with your power still in your hands. Should I fail to respect these terms, I will die on the spot. Do you accept?’ he said, and you tried to find any loophole that would allow him to kill you or steal your ability in his words, even though his fingers stroking your ribcage were distracting, but you could not find anything. You nodded.
‘I accept’ you said, and he picked up a small dagger from his pocket, shushing you when you gasped and tried to get away. He pricked his thumb, showing you the small droplet of blood that was forming on the surface of his skin.
‘I won’t hurt you. I just need a drop of your blood. Your hand, if you will, darling. Or the vow won’t work’ he said, and you gingerly let him lift one of your hands and prick your thumb. He pressed yours against his, and you could see the aura surrounding your fingers working. You relaxed a little when he threw the dagger away, supposedly letting it pierce the wood of the highest bookshelf so you could not reach it in an attempt to attack him.
He wiped your thumb and his with a handkerchief, tossing it on the table and letting the grimoire disappear.
‘I hope I was successful in easing your worries. Now, where were we?’ he murmured, round, pretty eyes heavy-lidded, lust-laden as they scanned your face. You felt as though you were in the lion’s den for the first time, or more fittingly, a small butterfly trapped in a spider web. Just waiting to be devoured.
He cupped your jaw, stroking your cheek with the pad of his thumb, leisurely taking his time in savouring you. Part of you wished he would just get it over and done with, another part of you, a shameful one, burnt at every action he took, at his stifling seduction. You might as well enjoy it and hope he was good at the very least, right? No one could blame you for it. Your survival was at stake, after all.
You stopped thinking altogether when his lips grazed your jaw, your cheek, the corner of your lips. He was slow and sensual in all of his movements, but there was something that slipped through the façade, something possessive about the way his fingers curled around your throat, trapping you in place as his lips pressed against yours.
They were soft. Soft and smooth, warm and demanding. You could not deny the pull they had. You were coaxed into seeking them out whenever he pulled away slightly, pressing them against you again, more and more passionately each time, almost manipulating you into wanting him to get rougher.
And he did. His teeth sank into the pliant flesh of your bottom lip, pulling lightly, and his tongue was quick to soothe the sting, taking advantage of your little gasp to slip in your mouth and lay siege on your tongue. It was all akin to a game of pull and push with him. He wheedled you into letting go more and more with each time he gave you something only to take it away and revel in how you sought it again. Just as he had presented the illusion of you wanting this from him, he was now making you act on it as though you had always desired nothing more.
Until your fingers were tangled in his soft raven hair, pulling lightly at it, and you were seeking his soft lips and their taste reminiscent of rich red wine to suck on his bottom lip languidly. Until his teeth nipping at your bottom lip had you mewl in his mouth.
‘Eager, are we? How sweet’ he breathed, and you felt the trap snap, the mechanism trapping you like a helpless doe caught by pincers. All of his teasing had led to this, to making you see that you wanted him, wanted this to happen. And as much as you could deny it, your actions spoke loudly, and your body’s reaction did too. The knowledge that you were already turned on and that if he decided to reach between your thighs he would see just how responsive you were to him made the mortification burn in your chest.
You had wanted to keep your dignity and show your distaste for what was happening, but he had managed to reduce you to a docile doll just by kissing your lips. And his sardonic smile and eyes told you that you were right in that assumption.
And before you could hope to collect yourself, his mouth was on your throat, hungry but still slow, leaving you wanting more. He licked a long stripe along your pulse, making it shoot up as his fingers curled around the roots of your hair and pulled, exposing your vulnerable neck to him. You could not restrain the whimper that escaped you as he kissed and started sucking a sensitive spot between your neck and your shoulder, sure to leave a mark to remind you of what you had done, of your flexible morals, as he’d called them.
His fingers clutched your side, wandered down to your hip and the swell of your ass, grazed your thigh and snaked under your skirt to grope at the plump flesh of your backside. You were too lost in the pleasure of his mouth and tongue on your throat to truly consider your situation and who it was that was touching you so possessively, so greedily. If anything, it only stoked the fire within you.
‘Good girl’ he crooned, sending a jolt to your clit with the dirty praise. You squirmed on his lap, eliciting a soft chuckle from him and a graze of his thumb over your stiff nipple. You were wearing a simple satin shirt with a flimsy bralette, and the friction of the material was torturous against your nipples.
Chrollo pulled the shirt out of your skirt, making quick work of the buttons with one hand whilst the other was still kneading your ass and his mouth was still on your throat. He slipped the garment off you, pulling away to observe you. You gulped, averting your eyes at the sight of his hungry stare, quivering as his fingers ghosted your sternum, your ribcage, the swell of your breasts.
‘You are so beautiful, darling’ he murmured, his lips softly pressing against your collarbone, his fingers deftly lowering the straps of your bralette and unhooking it. He tossed it aside, groaning softly as his hand cupped your breast, kneading it in his fingers, pinching your nipple and rolling it between thumb and index finger.
You tried to stifle a moan, to which he seemed to take offense, because he stopped and bit down hard on your shoulder, making you whine in the process.
‘I want to hear you. The more you stifle your voice, the longer I will tease you. Understood?’ he said, and you meekly nodded, only to speak up when he gave you a meaningful glance.
‘Yes’ you hissed, and he seemed pleased, because he hummed and made you arch your back so that his tongue could lick your stiff nipple and flick it. You were careful not to stifle the small whine that left your lips, and he rewarded you by sucking your nipple in his mouth, scraping it with his teeth and making you cling onto his shoulders.
He bunched up your skirt up to your waist, leaving you exposed as he trailed his fingers to your inner thighs, in a silent request to spread your legs. You were not wholly aware of how swiftly you complied, you only knew that when he first cupped you through your panties, your eyelids fluttered and a soft moan poured out of you.
‘You are soaked for me, pet. Your morals do not seem to extend to your body. Try as you might, you want this, and you cannot lie to me’ he purred, dragging his fingers and pressing against your clit, holding you still when you squirmed away from his touch. You let out a loud moan, your hips jerking. He pulled your panties to the side, rubbing your clit and dipping two fingers inside you, curling them, making your head drop on his shoulder as you moaned against his neck, enveloped by the scent of his cologne.
‘That’s it. That’s my good girl. If I knew how much you liked being fingered on my lap, I would have done this much sooner. No matter. I’ll make it up to you, darling’ he breathed, voice slightly strained as though he was holding back something much more primal from taking over, but you were too dazed to take much notice of all the filth he was spewing and how he sought to humiliate you further, because his touch admittedly felt like heaven. His willowy fingers inside you kept pressing against all the right places, and you could not help but clench around them, your hips twitching into his hand every time his palm rubbed against your sensitive clit.
You were lost in the motion of his fingers as you rutted against his hand, shamelessly chasing your own high as he continued to praise you and kiss you, rewarding every sound you made with a curl of his fingers that had you melting in his arms. Until you could not take it anymore.
‘Can’t- ‘m close’ you huffed out, breathing erratic, chest heaving as his fingers pumped inside you, and he hummed, licking your neck and sucking on it again.
‘Cum for me, pet’ he urged, and your eyes scrunched up, a lewd moan ripping through you as you tensed up on his thigh, sound fading away as you came undone.
You slumped on him, breathing heavily, your cunt throbbing around his fingers as he lazily fucked you through your aftershocks, your hair clinging to the back of your neck from the light sheen of sweat that had formed there.
‘Suck’ you heard, and dazed as you were, you obediently opened your mouth when he presented his fingers, sucking and licking the pads of his fingers, tasting yourself. You had to cling to him as he stood up and walked over to the bed, lowering you on it and observing you as he unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off.
There was no denying it, he was attractive. Lean but toned, with graceful abs adorning his flat stomach, jutting collarbones and well-defined biceps; with the way the candlelight danced on his pale skin, making it glow with soft orange hues, he truly looked like he might be a fantasy of sorts.
You supposed he looked like a fallen angel, as his name suggested. Like the Alexandre Cabanel painting of the fallen angel, dangerous but so tempting. It was unfair that he should also be able to make you come undone so easily, when you had vowed to not give him the satisfaction.
He smirked at you, undoing his belt, slipping it through the hooks, catching you staring first at the clear dampness on his thigh, then at the evident bulge of his erection.
You supposed he would fuck you now. If you were being honest, you had thought he wouldn’t have taken such interest in your pleasure, but now, it seemed only fitting: it was all to aid his game, to stroke his ego in humiliating you by showing you how you could not abide by your morals, how you’d moaned and whined to be touched by those blood-stained hands.
Instead, he kept his trousers on, only going so far as to unbutton them to give himself more space. He seemed... quite gifted in that area too, you thought with a grimace. Was there anything that did not favour him? It seemed that fortune graced the wicked in that nonsensical world, because he had it all.
He caged you underneath him, his hair tickling your face as he drew you into a heated kiss, his hands roving down your body, fingertips digging into your hips, tongue pressing against yours.
He was quick to unzip your skirt and slide it off you along with your panties, leaving you completely exposed whilst he still retained his power by not undressing completely.
‘You were so precious squirming on my lap, so good for me. You deserve a reward’ he crooned against your ear in that soft, melodious voice of his, making you swallow heavily as you wondered what he might do to you now.
He did not leave you guessing for long. His mouth traced your collarbone, his head lowering as he licked your sternum and left a dark lovebite above your nipple, another reminder that would bring you back to this room, to what he was doing to you for the following week. He seemed intent on marking you whenever he could, and until he had littered your chest with purple brushstrokes, until you were but a moaning mess, he refused to move on, no matter how much you tried to squirm away and whimper at some of the harshest ones on your ribcage.
He continued to kiss down your stomach, massaging your thighs, cupping your ass and lowering his head to kiss your thighs. You were rendered breathless and unable to stop thrashing and moaning as he sucked another lovebite on your inner thigh, keeping you pinned down and at his mercy. You just wanted him to bury his head between your thighs, you were close, close to begging for it, were it not for your pride. Were it not for who he was.
Fortunately, you did not need to stoop that low. His tongue flattened and dragged up your cunt, tensing and flicking your clit from underneath as he got to the top, tearing a breathless moan from you.
‘You taste so sweet’ he huffed out against your skin, blowing cold air on your clit and making you whine and scoot away. He dragged you back, a wicked light in his stormy eyes as he glanced at you and licked your clit, rolling it on his tongue.
‘F-fuck’ you breathed, your hands shooting to his hair, pulling lightly, trying to ground yourself as he continued to toy with your clit, sucking it and licking it fervently. You could not hold yourself. If he was amazing with his fingers, he was incredible with his tongue. Judging by how he seemed to have a way with words, you should not have been surprised that he was so maddeningly good at pleasuring with his tongue. It was making you lose your mind.
Even if you had tried, you would not have been able to restrain the need to keen, whine and moan every time he sucked your clit, dipped his tongue inside you or drew figures around your clit.
He was insatiable as he flung your thighs on his shoulders, seemingly unbothered with the way you trapped his head and rutted against his face. In fact, he seemed thrilled to follow the movement of your hips, giving you more and more until you were babbling and keening incoherently, unable to even speak.
‘Fuck- Ch- Chrollo...’ you whined longingly, unable to realise your slip of moaning his name in the throes of pleasure. But he heard you loud and clear, because he groaned, and his name on your lips only seemed to spur him on. In a few seconds, he was sucking on your clit, giving you more pleasure than you’d ever thought was even possible, until the torturous knot in your stomach snapped and released and you came with a cry, tears prickling the corners of your eyes, your hair tousled and messy on the pillow, your muscles tensing, toes curling and fingers clawing at the sheets.
You kept your eyes closed for a while, easing into your breathing, feeling as though your body had completely melted, feeling as though you couldn’t even move.
‘You can still take my cock, can’t you, darling? After all, I have made you feel so good. It’s only fair. Do not worry, you will not mind. You seem to love being fucked by the one you spoke of with such revulsion. It’s quite endearing, watching you struggle with your morals’ he crooned, and you opened your eyes, watching him stroke his cock a few times. It was quite long and fairly thick, slightly tilted upwards.
You were too fucked out to consider his taunting, but you knew he was right. Both mindsets could not peacefully coexist in your mind: how could you be so willing and find so much pleasure in someone like him? How could you hate him and love what he was doing to you? It might have been an involuntary physical reaction, but you should have had more resolve, more restraint. Otherwise, what did that say about you?
Chrollo lined himself between your legs, rubbing his cock along your labia, on your clit, instantly making those thoughts fade in the haze of pleasure as you let out a soft sigh and automatically tried to hook your legs around his slender hips.
He gripped your thigh, pushing the tip of his cock inside you, easily slipping inside inch by inch with how shamefully wet you were, and yet, you already felt so full, like he was stretching you to the limit. You clawed at his back, raking your nails across his shoulder blades, gasping and whimpering along with his soft moan.
‘Fuck. So tight... so wet. Such a perfect little cunt’ he huffed out, his lips parting in pleasure, dark eyebrows furrowing. You tried to steady your breathing, tried to relax your muscles to accommodate his size, clung to his shoulders for support.
He wiped a tear from the corner of your eye, continuing to push inside you, albeit slowly, until he was buried to the hilt. You clenched around him, and the soft groan he let out made your stomach drop with a surge of pleasure. He bottomed out and slammed back in, tearing a broken moan from you as he set a ruthless pace, his eyes darkening with lust and the slip of his mask, hunger palpable in his every movement and the way he sought to fully claim you.
He lifted your legs higher up around his waist, his fingers tightening around your throat, not pressing on the front, leaving you room to breathe but making you even more dizzy than you already were.
His pelvis kept slapping against your clit, drawing out whines and pants from you, and with every thrust, he seemed to grow more accustomed to where you liked to be touched, because as soon as his cock pressed against your g-spot, your back arched and your head thrashed from side to side, a lewd moan echoing in the room as you clamped around him.
‘There, huh? Let me do it again, darling’ he breathed, one hand lifting both your legs and bending them at the knees, letting you rest them against his chest as he rammed into you, hitting the same spot again and again, relentlessly building the pressure inside you, making you see stars.
‘Mhh- too much... Chrollo’ you whined, trapped underneath him, feeling as though you might implode if he didn’t stop- or if he stopped, for what it was worth.
‘Moan my name again, pet. Let me hear how filthy it sounds on your lips’ he grunted, the sound of skin slapping against skin both enticing and dirty as he continued to fuck you into the mattress.
When you didn’t reply, suddenly aware of how you were moaning his name, reinforcing how you knew- wanted it to be him to fuck you at that moment, he let out a breathless laugh.
‘Looks as though you might need some convincing’ he said, slowing down and eventually slipping out of you, letting your legs down. You whimpered, desire clawing at your gut, your cunt clenching around nothing as you opened your bleary eyes and set them on him. He gave you a smirk, flipping you on your stomach and lifting your hips, spreading your knees with his and pushing on your lower back to make you arch into him. You lifted yourself on your elbows and heard his tongue click against his teeth condescendingly before he pushed your head against the mattress and smacked your ass with a resounding slap.
You yelped, biting down on your lower lip, mortification once again mingling with pleasure as he pushed his cock back inside you, letting out a soft groan.
‘Use your hands one more time and I will tie them up behind your back. It will feel better like this. For me- and for you’ he said, fisting your hair and gripping your hip, starting to pound into you from behind once again.
It did feel better like this. Deeper. Unbearable. He stimulated your clit with every thrust, the tip of his cock kept pressing against your cervix, and you did not know if you could bear it much longer.
You found the bridge of your nose damp with tears, and struggled to recognise your own voice in the filthy moans you were letting out. It was humiliating and it was impossibly pleasurable, and the mix was somewhat addicting, tainting. It was ruining every shred of sanity left in your brain.
Until he got what he wanted. Because it seemed as though he always did. He could steal anything, including his name from your lips said with such want and bliss that had you not been fucked stupid, you would have wanted to die.
‘Ahh- Chr- Chrollo! Fuck. Gonna cum’ you screamed, sobbing, clenching around him, getting even closer to a mind-shattering orgasm with every moan and groan he graced you with.
‘Good girl. My girl. Mine. You love this, mh? Tell me how much you love this. Tell me how badly you want to cum all over my cock’ he urged, voice possessive and low, and you could not stop yourself, could not do anything but acquiesce, because you needed- needed to cum.
‘Yes! Please. Please let me cum. Please. Need it so bad’ you whined, sobbed even, desperate for reprieve, hoping he would have mercy on you, hoping he would let you finish. His fingers reached under you to rub at your clit, and you could hardly contain a sob of wild pleasure and the jolt of your hips.
‘Since you asked so nicely. Go on, pet, cum for me’ he huffed out, still thrusting inside you at that unrelenting pace, and as though he had power over your own body, you felt the release hit you like a wave of overwhelming pleasure that made your vision white and your ears fill with static.
He was quick to cum with a breathy moan as you squeezed his cock through your orgasm, holding you tightly as he spilled inside you. He continued to push in and out slowly, until you stopped throbbing and squeezing around him.
‘Fuck’ he breathed, letting you collapse on the bed and doing the same next to you. You both stayed silent for a minute or two, catching your breath, feeling the cool air on your feverish skin.
‘Let me clean you up, darling’ he said, and you didn’t have the strength to object as he got up and walked away, the sound of his footsteps quiet as you kept your eyes closed until he came back with a glass of water and a wet towel, his trousers back on, but still shirtless. He wiped your inner thighs gently, with more care than you wanted to admit someone like him could be capable of, and carefully lifted you up so you could drink the water he’d brought you.
You took small gulps, finding it felt amazing trickling down your dry, raw throat after all that crying and screaming. He only put the glass on the nightstand when you had finished it all.
‘Thanks’ you said absent-mindedly, your mind slowly coming back to you in coherent thoughts as you attempted to cover yourself with the duvet. He gave you a languid smile, tucking your hair away from your face and lying next to you.
But it was finally over now. You could leave. Your deal had revealed itself to be better than you wanted to admit, but now, you were finally free. You could put this all behind you.
You tried to get up and gather your clothes, but your body felt like a ragdoll. He had really done a number on you.
‘Careful, dearest. You should wait a little’ he said, smiling at you, his eyes soft, his expression unreadable. You let out a shuddering breath.
‘Want to get... my clothes, and leave’ you said, getting up and hastily putting on your clothes, feeling a little dizzy. You walked back towards the bed, retrieving your underwear and your skirt, putting them on, almost falling were it not for his arms catching you and holding you still.
You felt weird. It had surely been intense, but so intense that your vision was slowly darkening around the edges and your arms and legs felt as heavy as lead?
He pulled you on his lap, and you protested weakly when he started to stroke your hair and kissed your forehead.
‘No- you said I would be free after this. Let me leave’ you slurred, and he shushed you, tenderly stroking your back in soothing gestures.
‘Oh, darling, I never said you would be free’ he said softly, still holding you. You blinked, confused, his face blurry as you stared at him.
‘You said- I’d be leaving this place- with my power... un...scathed within... a day. What d’you do to me?’ your words were garbled together, slurred like you were drunk. And you felt so heavy and tired.
‘I put a few sleeping pills in the water I gave you. Nothing that will harm you, so don’t worry your pretty little head. I don’t need to steal your power if I keep you. You will leave unscathed, but I never said you would leave alone. You should really pay more attention to the words of a vow, my love’ he said, stroking your hair, his soft voice lulling you into sleep despite how horrified you were in your mind. He had tricked you. Had no plans of freeing you. You hadn’t considered he might keep you. Hadn’t considered the depth of his obsession with you. Hadn’t considered there was more than one reason why he had kept you captive.
‘I cannot be parted from you, my love. Your place is by my side. Now close your eyes. Sleep. We have a long journey ahead of us’ he said gently, soothingly. And you could not help but do as he said, your eyelids growing heavier and heavier, your thoughts muddying and fading away along with your consciousness.
Part II here
Part III here
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maybankswhore · 10 months
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Can u maybe do something we're the reader says something like "I feel so safe w u" to bf jj and it kind of js makes him super happy because he knows she has trust issues
𝐒𝐀𝐅𝐄 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐄.
pairing: jj maybank x fem!reader , pronouns used are she/her
summary: jj likes knowing he’s your safe place. basically really , really lovey-dovey couple.
warnings: mentions of anxiety , drug use ( smoking a joint with jj on the beach )
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The air felt like a blanket as you laid underneath the sky decorations. Staring at the stars that twinkled in the dark , lighting up the high points of your face. Your head rested in JJ’s lap , inhaling the joint that he had rolled for the two of you earlier in the Twinkie , your body feeling at peace.
It was hard for you to relax most of the time. With everything happening , with everything that had happened already , you were constantly on edge. Looking over your shoulder , wondering when the next big wave of disaster would come and wipe you away. You lived in your anxiety , feeling swallowed.
Moments like these were rare. The moments where nothing else mattered. Where you didn’t think of the things that made you sad. Or the things the choices you’d have to make. Your brain felt empty of all things , and it felt so good.
The weed settling in your bloodstream , warming up all those aches and pains that bothered you. Settling the nausea in your stomach and helping you release all those negative energies.
JJ’s presence enveloped you , shielded you from all the bad things the world could create and throw your way. He anchored you to real life , to bring you back to reality when things got too hard. With him , no matter where you were , but especially there— on the beach , in the designated spot the two of you had claimed , was easily your safest and comfiest place.
You were snapped out of your trance , humming when you felt JJ’s calloused fingertips trace over the skin of your face gently. Your eyes fluttered open , looking up at him as he stared at you. His cheeks were flushed and his hair was messy— and looking at him caused your heart to lurch , to feel all the good things being in love could make you feel.
“What’re you thinking about?” JJ questioned , pinching at the scrunched part of your nose.
“You.” You answered softly , reaching up to mirror his actions. Your hands felt every detail of his face , memorizing the way they felt so you’d never forget him , never forget how soft and beautiful he looked even if you’d go blind and never see it again— you’d remember him in the purest part of your soul.
Your answer made him blush , a sheepish smile on his face as he captured your hand and kissed the palm to hide his embarrassment. “Me?!”
“You.”
“About how sexy and hot I am?” JJ joked , making you giggle.
“No.” You shook your head. Sitting up , you crossed your legs and turned to face him , lazily draping your arms around his shoulders. You leaned into him , kissing at his lips softly. He tasted of weed and stale beer , a hint of caramel from the sundae the two of you shared earlier. JJ kissed you back , falling into the way your lips molded with his in it’s own perfect way. Feeling like finding the missing piece to a puzzle you had been working on for years.
“I was just thinking about how I feel.” You said once you pulled away , cupping his cheeks. “How I always feel so safe , so comfortable.” You felt as though your heart was singing. Every book you read , every movie you watched that you used to complain about how cliche they were , how a love like that was only ever in fiction. But it was real , and it was now and you felt JJ heal every part of you that you didn’t know needed healing. He took the bad parts of you and loved them anyway.
Your words had caused a dull ache in JJ’s chest. Not the ache that hurt , but the kind that settled there. The kind he’d only ever feel for you , about you. He always felt like you deserved more because he only had so much to give— but he had never felt more right for you right now. Because to know that you had been able to find safety within in was worth way more than anything money could buy. Hearts swirled in his eyes as he stared at you , taking a mental screenshot of you with your beauty raw— eyes hooded and red , face bare with soft imperfections littered around the skin.
“I feel the same about you.” JJ told you softly , a sweet grin on his face. “I can be whoever I am , in the deepest parts of me that I’m too scared for anyone else to see. You make me feel seen.”
It was just you and JJ there on that beach , under the stars that watched two lovers fall in love over and over again , for as long as they could. For as long as the world allowed.
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sunboki · 5 months
Text
⎯ CHRISTMAS BLUES a Hwang Hyunjin fiction
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🎄 : Hwang Hyunjin x implied! fem. reader
TROPE. enemies to lovers, exes to lovers, reader is a writer, one bed au, forced proximity au, hyunjin is an artist(not mentioned a ton), coincidences
WORD COUNT. 7.3k words ☆ 40 minute read
WARNINGS. cursing, angst galore, mention of sex (non desc.), breakup, hurt feelings, making up, mentions of getting drunk
AUG'S NOTES. this is a stupidly lovestruck hallmark christmas mindset talking, whatever you read below is definitely not me… definitely. anyway, happy holidays to everyone that celebrates! this has been sitting in my drafts for months now, initially planned to be a smau, then a fic!! hope this fic exceeds your expectations, feel free to leave a reblog or comment of your thoughts!
PLAYLIST.
SYNOPSIS. You thought getting a call from Hyunjin was the last thing you needed during the holidays, but when he reminds you of your non-refundable tickets to Paris you had booked seven months prior to your earth-shattering breakup, you realize that his call was the least of your problems.
or alternatively :
Just a week over Christmas with your ex in Paris, what could go wrong?
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Every circumstance has a question that goes along with it.
How did I get so lucky? Why did you leave?
As for yours, it’s fairly simple.
Where did we go wrong?
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December 18th – Seoul, South Korea.
Holding onto what could’ve been is stupid, you agreed upon that mindset a long time ago. However, the past, Him being the past, lingered around you like the scent of citrus still clinging beneath your fingernails even after washing your hands. Everywhere. He was everywhere. And no matter how hard you tried to erase the memories of what was, they served their memory purpose and disfigured your mind all the same.
And so, you replaced it.
Replaced the hurt, the searing burn, with someone else. Who turned into someone else, and someone else after that till the only thing sufficing any weekly relationship was a no-strings attached notion.
Until you met Seungmin.
He was your vice, the person dragging you out of your self-made hole of false sanctuary and safety. He laid all his flaws on the table, showed himself to you. Seungmin was gentle and kind, he was patient— more patient than anyone else in this world— and loving. Oh so loving.
But behind your undying affection for your boyfriend, he saw something you didn’t. Perhaps in your eyes, perhaps in your soul, bared to him on an onslaught of occasions.
Longing.
He saw longing in your treasured hues, longing for someone that wasn’t him.
Because some scars take longer to fade away, but yours hadn’t even begun to heal. Masked with his many layers of band-aids only to never staunch the cut, the one Hwang Hyunjin left on you.
“Seungmin I’m so sorry—“
“You love him, I know,” He nods his head, a sad, soft smile holding place on his lips.
Tonight was the night he officially talked about it. The unforgivable thought continuing to incessantly plague his mind.
Although, he didn’t regard you sourly for it. That connection you had with Hyunjin was something no other person could return nor deliver, and he had to accept that if he really loved you.
If Seungmin really loved you, he wanted the best for you, even if that meant the best were when you weren’t with him.
You were shocked when he brought up the matter, asked if you really missed him, asked if you still loved him. Yes, you had of course discussed your previous relationship, but never to this extent, never so blatantly.
Though the absolute kindness in both his tone and the way he looked at you, seated at the dinner table, kept you from lying.
It’s not fair. Not fair for Seungmin, your boyfriend, to have to take responsibility for your tormented feelings. But here he is, assuring you nevertheless.
Because he’s known. He knew from the start you weren’t over Hyunjin. Knew that, despite so much ache and anguish he caused, your heart can’t help but beat at his pace, fruitlessly connected.
And he knew in the end things would fall apart just like this, and his spot as a placeholder would fall apart along with it.
That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt though.
“He hurt you, but you love Hwang Hyunjin, I know.” He whispers, fingers tightly twined beneath the table. There’s a sort of hiccuping sound bubbling up from your throat. You stave it down.
“I’m sorry.”
He smiles, smiles when you don’t deny it, reaching forward for your trembling hands to take in his own.
“I want you to be happy, Y/N. I’m not the one you’ll be happy with though.”
A soft squeeze before he rises and curves to where you sit, free-flowing tears threatening to cascade past glossy eyes.
Without hesitation you wrap your arms around him in a hug, chest wracking with unfiltered sobs. Guilty. Guilt is devouring your soul. You don’t deserve Seungmin, nor does he deserve to be hurt so cruelly by someone he loves. But here you are, ruining him.
He’d never admit it, but the pain in his eyes—the ones you’ve stared at countless times—will always remain evident. No amount of smiling or laughing can hide that.
Pulling back while your arms stayed hooked upon his shoulders, you savor the kiss he places on your lips, the ones he delicately pressed to each of your wrists.
Sad. It’s a sad kiss. A kiss that causes your entire body to wilt against him, crashing deeper and deeper into his warmth, his comfort. He’s not false, he’s real. A real, unadulterated love you’re undeserving of.
Guilty.
“If you’re happy,” He breathes, leaning in to land gentle pecks all over your face, forehead connecting with your own. “I’ll be okay.”
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December 20th – Seoul, South Korea.
Your room is still exactly as it has been. Pillows faced the same way, sheets still tousled and hanging halfway off the bed. Hell, he hasn’t even touched the blinds — staying open throughout countless nights, your perfume lingering.
Like he was afraid his touch would break apart what he had left of you.
He hopes, swallowing down the remainder of wine in his glass, you’ll be able to look back and laugh at what used to be, find the matter childish and ridiculous.
What you used to be.
Lovers.
Not kids anymore, you taught him once before. You also taught him how deep a love could be. There’d always be a space for you here, just as you left it. Although, he doubts you’d come back. In fact, you’ve probably moved on with your life. Found someone else to fill the space he did.
But maybe, if he keeps the room as it was for long enough, your room; if Hyunjin keeps those tiny paper notes you wrote for him long enough, you would come back.
What a lie.
Wishful thinking takes you far then drops you into festering despair over and over, he’s learned this the hard way.
Starting with a text.
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He blinked once, then twice, then three times—picking apart his brain in order to recollect anything, any details whatsoever that could decipher this random message on a Monday morning.
Paris.
Paris?
Paris.
It hits him, evidently.
Immediately clutching his head and simultaneously slapping an aghast hand over his mouth, a sensation recognizable as utmost horror obliterates his soul into pieces, quite literally rocking his world.
Months ago, he remembered.
You’d been stupid, you’d been drunk, and impulsively booked the tickets, laughing off the “no refunds” reminder as if nothing would’ve ever happened.
It did though. And now he’s dealing with the karma in return for that idiotic decision. Soon enough you both will.
Non refundable tickets to Paris, two days from now, together.
What were the chances?
Blindly tapping his password into his phone, he (just as blindly) jams his finger to the first caller he sees, who turns out to be Minho, seeming like both a blessing and a curse in unison.
Never before had Hyunjin so clearly lost his mind and control of his words, but there’s always a first time for everything, right?
“Minho, what the hell am I supposed to do? She hates me and the flight is booked two days from now. This is just.. Fuck!” Hyunjin pours, slamming his hands against the steering wheel, burying his head into the leather as if that would magically make his endless desperation disappear.
He didn’t usually curse, so when he did, whatever had happened was serious. He carried his words elegantly, proficiently.
He'd be the last picked candidate for elegance right about now.
“If I were Chan I would’ve said you should still try talking to her about it, but in my opinion that wouldn’t change a thing. So suck it up Hwang, it can’t be that bad.”
Ah. Remind me why I ever decided to call you hoping for advice.
‘Hwang’ was the name his friend had reserved for him, coming from a long line of tissues in the mouth and other ways Minho would pick fun at the blonde. But he was at least trying to help, somewhat.
How he got himself into this situation is honestly laughable, situation being your nasty breakup and a plane to Paris.
Great. Paris is great, right? Wrong.
Because this stupid, stupid trip to Paris isn’t one he’s going on alone to enjoy the sights and delicacies there, it’s one with you, the girl who ripped his heart in half two months ago. The trip you’d planned while you were still head-over-heels, not hating his guts.
Oh, and your tickets were nonrefundable. Couldn’t forget about that part.
“.. What am I gonna do?”
“Suck it up, duh.”
“And please enlighten me on how the hell I'm supposed to ‘suck it up’ in a plane seat right next to her for thirteen hours and spend every day glued to the hip, your honor.”
The mental picture of Minho’s fraud-innocent face through the line grated his nerves like nothing else. Brows lifted, mouth slightly open. He wanted to punch that imaginary face so badly right now.
"Then follow Chan’s tutorial on making it up to your now-ex. You asked me for my opinion, and you got it. Look, all I’m saying is this is a good chance to get some level ground between you two, even if you still fly back hating each other—"
“I don’t hate her,” Hyunjin quickly quips.
Honestly, truthfully, he doesn’t hate you, he can’t hate you and he doubts he ever will. You were the one responsible for years upon years of the best moments of his life, how could he hate you for that?
Although, by the way you looked at him that night, he doubts your response would be the same.
Minho sighs.
"Even better, you could fly back with her hating you slightly less."
For once the snarky man he was spilling his problems to had provided decent reason, it was terrifying.
From a spectators point of view, his utter fit had to be quite a sight. For the record, witnessing thee calm and collected Hwang Hyunjin go insane in his car wasn’t a sight you’d see on a regular day.
But today wasn’t a regular day. Instead, it was the day he found himself trapped in a loophole of love and war with his ex.
What were the chances?
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There’s no book that could wholly describe Hyunjin.
Even as a writer yourself, not even Shakespeare could depict him to the full extent. He’s flawless but so flawed, kind and yet malicious in terms of his brilliantly unfair beauty.
Every day you run into Hwang Hyunjin. The first few times, you called it coincidence, told yourself his meeting happened to be at the same time, maybe he was headed to a neighboring coffee shop.
Well, before those few days turned into every day on your commute.
And when a breakup is as nasty as yours was, it’s not too refreshing constantly seeing your ex on the daily afterward.
Today, Hwang Hyunjin is wearing a tan trench coat that reaches down to his knees. He’s wearing the same tennis shoes as always (except his usual camera is absent from the picture), and his hair is pulled up, soft, sandy strands framing either side of his face. He stands on the other side of the crosswalk, occupied with his phone while you internally ridicule him.
Staring daggers into his frame, the frigidly cold beverage in hand doesn’t aid in warming up chilling temperatures burning your fingertips, signs of winter’s impending approach.
He looks up.
You avert your gaze to your shoes. You can feel his eyes on you; feel them traveling over your body, then to your face, boring into your skull. He’s waiting, watching.
And somehow, you know you’ll eventually have to make eye contact. Because on your normal route, your turn left on Harrison street, then right on Fords. He’s there. Unbelievably, wildly, he’s there.
It’s the one factor in your (almost) perfect life without him that makes things hell.
Back then, you were like clockwork. Not a minute going by without someone being awake. You taking a nap after spending two hours searching synonyms on Thesaurus, Hyunjin just waking up, heading out with his signature Canon camera loosely hung around his neck.
Two perfect oppositions leaving their cluttered love scattered all over a cheap apartment.
For Hyunjin, it was the mug you’d gotten him last christmas labeled in bold font: “ART WHORE”, while yours was an equally degrading “SHE WOULD RATHER FUCK THE MEN IN HER BOOKS” sticker print slapped on the back of your laptop.
Little did you know you’d be desperately scraping the sticker off seven months later, that you’d leave your chapter unfinished since breaking up and that he had likely thrown away that mug.
Or maybe not. Maybe he painted over it, scribbled it out and somehow made it look good. Hyunjin has a way of making anything catastrophic look pretty.
You, on the other hand, are an erupting volcano. One that cries its lava onto the earth and doesn’t leave a pretty photograph. One that froths and rumbles, and destroys things as it goes.
Perfect opposites, exactly.
Now for the real question, the monumental “where did we go wrong” part that served as an explanation.
Three little words.
I love you.
You lied.
Those are big words, big words for somebody. Big words for yourself, words you spoke to Hwang Hyunjin, looped in his apartment, making love on the couch.
Big words he didn’t return.
Big words that kept your heart stilled in your chest, left your lips blue, drowned as you collected your discarded clothes off the floor.
And you left.
You didn’t need the awkward silence, the “let me think about it”, the bullshit they spouted Kissing-Booth-style. You needed him, his reassurance when you were your most vulnerable. His three words that told you your three years together weren’t one sided, not wordlessly confessed through actions though too scared to say aloud – a feared incantation.
Words he never said. Because you did love Hwang Hyunjin, so much it consumed you into his favorite muse, him your inspiration. Then came the doubt. The recollection of your favorite, dearest moments. Was it all a lie?
Those hour-long seconds, tangled on his sofa, kept that incessant anxiety alive.
You thought you found the one when your drunk night didn’t turn into an orgasm you can’t remember, but rather being coaxed into a warm shower despite your complaining about your pants being too tight.
Somehow, you can still feel his tender kisses like a ghost of a presence, littering the skin of your shoulder instead of the sloppy alcohol ridden ones you’d known before, and for once you had woken up beside the person responsible — not to a note saying they had to leave early.
He was the one responsible for teaching you how to paint, propping you in his lap, hand guiding your own while tracing careful strokes on the canvas. It was hardly possible sitting on his stool together, though neither of you noticed (nor cared), too busy savoring the intimacy of the moment.
That was Hyunjin. He was the glass of water placed in front of you after one too many at happy hour. He was the relaxing bath when everything hurt, the shoulder to cry on.
But you were mistaken. He wasn’t the one. Seungmin was the one, the one you had left behind only to chase after a toxic remedy.
In fact, Hyunjin never was the one.
And it fucking hurt remembering that.
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December 21st - 22nd – Seoul, South Korea.
The last news you’d anticipated slammed into you like a bus.
Cozied up at your desk, a number pops up on your screen, interrupting the one moment of silence you managed to enjoy. Most people didn’t call during your work hours, except Seungmin, who, for the record, called before work.
The number you’d memorized by heart was not normal either.
Him.
“Before you curse at me,” He begins, and your hand hesitantly hovers over the call button, jaw clenched beyond reason, silence shouting loud. No strength in your bones allowed you to reply. Was it fear, hatred? Both most likely.
Taking the time to continue, his silky tone lulls along the line.
“Do you remember the tickets?”
Hatred seemed the dominant factor.
“What are you talking about?” You rhetorically snap, obviously annoyed albeit confused.
Tickets? It’s been three months, why the hell are tickets the first thing he’s mentioning?
He sighs. “The tickets to Paris. You remember, don't you?”
It takes you a moment, then, aha.
How could you forget? The tip of the iceberg of what two naive, lovestruck idiots thought would be forever. Little did they know everything would slip past their fingertips.
”Well um, did you know they’re non-refundable?”
Huh.
“WHAT?!”
You’d just managed to convince yourself free of Hyunjin, but he simply dragged you further into his labyrinth.
Or so you thought.
You had grown since he broke you (with the help of your better-ex, Seungmin). You evolved better (or so you told yourself). So out of the plentiful lessons you’d learned during your reflection, the factor that stuck with you most was that nobody is there to pick up for you. No matter how much you think they will.
You swore yourself into the belief Hyunjin would mend you, but you lived blind to the truth that he was just as broken as you were, a dog chasing its tail.
And so, you dealt with it.
In ways.
Whether that was incessantly talking to yourself, fanatically checking the date, contacting Felix on the verge of tears for him to laugh and then attempt at consoling your doom, or googling the best ways to run away from your predicament, fate had it out for you.
A disgustingly impertinent, unfairly fair fate.
Packing wasn’t all too stressful, unless you count trying on an entire entourage of outfits descending from dinner to snow-attire, then focusing on simple.
And it really shouldn’t have been so awful getting into your car, nonetheless waking up to realize today was the dreaded day, but it was, and you seriously deserved an award for the amount of times you checked your clock.
Although, you at least expected to have a little bit of time before having to face him again. Talking and interacting, not just drilling holes into his head. Little bit of time as in, a few years at least.
You were wrong.
Not the first time that’s happened.
“Hi Hyunjin.”
Answering his awaiting call with unsteady pitch, your eyes immediately gravitate to the blond-haired man. Taller in stature, leaning against a nearby pillar by your gate, staring directly at you.
Never had it felt so terrifying.
“Hey.”
You hesitate, never breaking eye contact with the man you’re speaking to a few meters away.
“Are we…Are we doing this again?”
He’s solemn. He’s not the same. Different.
“I don’t know. You decide for me.”
Never for a second does your gaze stray to his lips that barely move as he utters the line. Not the same either.
Before, you’d always been mesmerized by his lips. Then he’d notice and tease you prior to delivering the long-awaited kiss, again and again till you were breathless and your head became dizzy.
But this wasn't before; this is now, filled with grudges and sourness.
“You know I can’t make big decisions.”
That isn’t him. Isn’t the Hyunjin who would always provide endless tips and support, opinions unable to be held back without duct tape.
“Because you don’t want to get hurt knowing we chose this?” He whispers, and you tug your bottom lip between your teeth hard enough to bleed.
“Because I want better for us.”
“Y/n,” He sadly laughs, and your name rolling off his tongue sends an ache clawing your chest. It’s humorless, bitter in his throat.
“There is no us, only you and me, remember? So who do you want better for?”
There’s no twinkle in his eyes or his charming smile, it’s dry and painful, like he’d been crying.
You don’t want to think about that.
“Tell me something, okay?” Holding your phone to your ear with an iron grip, you slowly inhale through your nose, sparing a fleeting glance to the floor.
“Anything.”
“If I cry, will you hug me?”
“Do you want that?”
Question after question. He reaches in further, ripping out pieces of your soul with each inquiry. Stupid, sure. But genuine, all the way from the shrouded depths of your mind did you ask.
Of course you want that, want what’s so bad for you. No strength can make you admit it.
He knows the answer.
You hang up the call, fiddling around with your suitcase prior to wheeling the blundering thing over and ensuring you find a comfy spot out of Hyunjin’s sight.
Only five minutes of talking and you already feel as if your body is splintering into little pieces he’ll arrange into the perfect puzzle, ideal and pleasing.
He won’t. Not anymore he won’t.
And in that stead you’ll remain shattered.
What a shame.
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Now boarding Group Five. All passengers in Group Five are welcome to board.
The hailing announcement earns a muffled groan through your mask, begrudgingly rising to your feet while directing your attention solely upon the bridge and your tightly held boarding pass. Luckily, Incheon International Airport isn’t half as hectic as you anticipated, but you have a gnawing feeling Paris will have a lot more to say.
Truth be told, you thank every lesson on task focus you once deemed useless as you shuffle among Paris-goers to find your seat.
One that obviously had to be right by Hwang Hyunjin.
“How’s you and Seungmin?” He fixes the length of his headphones, sparing a quick look at you while speaking. You despise how easy he treats this, how easy he’s treating everything at the moment.
Unfortunately, booking this hell-on-earth back when either of you were in your demented fantasy-land meant sitting beside each other also, in assigned seats.
Cupid really needs to give up by now.
You grunt beside him, uttering a hushed, “We broke up.”
Tilting his head, Hyunjin presses his face closer, craning. Close enough that you hold your phone up as a barrier, shrinking away nearer to the window.
“…Who broke up with who?”
Asshole.
Sighing boisterously, you shove in your own earbuds, rolling your eyes. Hyunjin, cocking a brow, dejectedly slouched back. Although he doesn’t ask any more questions, and you successfully get through your first three hours in silence.
Well, prior to the flight attendant strolling by with her cart, mandatorily beckoning orders from each row.
Wheeling her cart over where your seats are, Hyunjin takes a ginger ale and the customary pretzels they hand out. So when she gets to you and you order a Sprite, the man to your right’s head snaps to you, giving you quite an incredulous cock of his brow.
“No ginger ale?”
You wrinkle your nose.
“I don’t like it,” Biting back, you interrupt him upon accepting the canned soft drink, expression bitter and unwavering.
“You always got it when you were with me” or “Wasn’t it your favorite” was what you expected to come out of his mouth, positively obliterating any ounce of peace of mind remaining inside your rattling skull. You weren’t about to sit another seven hours sulking about something your ex said.
The ex you were very much over.
Right.
Your new goal? Avoid genuine conversation for as long as possible, at least on this flight.
So, given the chance to be deep in thought, you came to a conclusion.
You were clockwork, just like before. Except now instead of just equaling the time of day, he was the hour hand and you were the minute hand, always chasing after one another only to briefly touch and start all over again in an endless cycle of time.
Although the rockier the air gets and the more your grip squeezes the armrest does your initial goal falter, finding his considerate gesture asking if you were alright practically impossible to keep from responding to.
Especially when a huge drop has his hand racing atop yours, both too nervous to truly let go.
Just the circumstances, you blame, as if this plane was the sole cause of your slamming heartbeat.
Bullshit.
Four days and this trip was going to be one for the books for a multitude of reasons, that’s for sure.
Let’s just hope you can land first.
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December 23nd – Paris, France.
His assuring hold on your hand guiding you through the bustling crowds of visitors and locals storming Charles de Gaulle Airport gives you this disgusting nostalgia, festering in your gut the longer you focus on his dark head of hair in front of you, kind, magnificent almond eyes flickering back to catch sight of you time and time again — like you’d magically sift from his grasp.
It’s a miracle you managed to hit ground in one piece, nevertheless end up with the notorious artist-jerkface named Hyunjin navigating you through an supremely overpopulated airport.
Perhaps it’s the scent of wispy pine or faint cigarette smoke that tinges the atmosphere such a rosy hue, perhaps everyone’s anticipation for the holiday’s. Either way, it certainly doesn’t help fuel your “absolutely NO touchy-feely-ness Hyunjin agenda”.
Well, you had no doubt you’d have to stick to your morals on this trip in the first place, and it’s not like the odds were supposed to work in your favor. Although, a little assistance would‘ve been nice.
Guess you’ll just have to make due.
Lovely.
“Thank you!” You shout, forcing your voice to sound chipper speaking to the Cab Driver (opposing the twenty-two hours of traveling you managed to survive through). Except now, you didn’t know what to do nor what to say standing outside the hotel entrance, especially not when Hwang Hyunjin was going to be biting your ass for the next few days.
Much to your luck though, it seemed he was just as clueless as you, both prioritizing just checking into your room first and foremost.
Thankfully, the sights are a wondrous source of distraction, and you devise a plan to go walking more often than not (and not just to avoid Hyunjin). Each building appears as if it’d been expertly carved from stone, historically aged beige, awnings titled a bottomless array of Grand Seiko and Jaeger-LeCoultre.
To add, huge paneled windows are placed in each room, allowing a breathtaking view of the city as evening dawns. Whether it’s a quaint bakery hitched right below a bookstore or the bell tower seated comfortably in the middle of a square—you could never get bored.
Seems your interest tore you away from an unwelcomed reality until Hyunjin cleared his throat, thick eyebrows raised questionably.
“..We could go ice-skating?” He offers, index pointing to the huge rink a few blocks to the left.
You don’t have to speak for him to know your response, unzipping your suitcase to gather a new change of clothes without a word.
“Look, I know you want nothing to do with me, but I doubt either of us will ever have enough money to come to Paris again, so just, do it for the experience, not for me.”
That’s it.
“For you? You think I’m doing this for you? Are you really that conceited to think I’m still catering to you, Hyunjin? I’ve changed whether you like it or not, and I’m not the girl that’s willing anymore,” You toss your clothing to the side, giving him a downright venomous stare. Loathing. “I’m not yours anymore.”
“In fact,” Spitting poison, you stab your index to his chest, causing him to back up the more you advance forward. “You don’t know shit about me.”
He appears torn. His nose scrunches, and his lips form a squabbled line upon his face, evidently troubled.
Somehow, those actions that normally earned your sympathy only reared your deftly oiled gears more, angrily roaring without fail.
“Because if you did, we wouldn’t be like this.”
Gesturing around, you retreat back a few steps, arms slapping your sides irritably. Meanwhile, the tall man remains silent, attention magnetically directed down at his shoes. And for a swift moment, mere seconds, you feel sorry — apologetic even.
It makes you sick to your stomach.
You exhale. “I’ll go, and not for you. Understood?”
Hyunjin doesn’t reply, biting his cheek as he watches you disappear into another room.
You thank the refreshing scent of peppermint for its momentary relief upon entering the bathroom, practically drenching your face in ice cold water over and over as if it’d clear your head.
For you; you’re doing this for you, nobody else, you remind yourself, prepping a washcloth and your toiletries whilst praying the warm shower water eases your blaring jet-lag.
Yet, you didn’t expect a visitor to suddenly pop in while you were mid-shampoo, and it seemed he didn’t expect it either.
You swore the prolonged eye-contact went on for centuries, absolute terror embracing every aspect of your face through the clear shower door.
“Fuck! Get out!”
Scurrying like a character off a cartoon, Hyunjin manages – through spilling apologies – to blindly ram himself into the door, hands gripping his skull.
Suddenly, he pauses, hesitating.
“Wait but I’ve seen you naked befo–”
“GET OUT!” You scream.
“Okay! Okay.” He hurriedly slips out, leaving you to rethink every decision made with his name involved. A recurring thought at this point.
And with that, you quickly accept that your jet lag isn’t even close to gone and likely won’t be as long as the artist sharing your hotel room is within a six-foot radius.
Oh, and you don’t know shit about ice-skating.
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Of course, Hyunjin is a natural on ice. He glides like a snow spirit, freer than ever. Meanwhile, your nails are embedded into your vice of a railing, knees shakily attempting at balancing with little success.
He’s the princess, and you’re the frog. It’s decided. Walking while you crawled, running while you walked. A step ahead that was at some point motivating, now plain humiliating.
The ice rink is jam-packed, citizens and tourists alike savoring the crisp winter, the faded twinkling of lights glittering in the distance.
“C’mon, just one?”
You, clawing the icy edge, confusedly avert your focus to where the voice came from.
It’s Hyunjin, gesturing to his camera while you piece together his request before childishly whining your despair. He lifts his toboggan upward, a few endearing tufts of golden peering out to hang over crescent moon eyes, evidently smiling.
Leave it to this man to test your sanity. How could anybody say no when he looked that cute.
“Fine, one.”
Not like I could run off anyway, you mentally consider, finding the fact your legs are quite literally flailing as a good enough sign to give in.
“Yes!” He chirped happily, hurriedly fiddling with his camera.
Watching him with that kind of expression, you witness your Hyunjin again, fumbling around, so excited about the smallest of things.
It hurts.
“I..” He trails off, voice barely audible whilst winking to see through the lense. “Don’t want to miss a moment of you.”
“What was that?”
The camera flashes, and you wonder if you heard him correctly.
“Oh nothing.” His lips curl into a sheepish grin, easing toward you and unexpectedly prying your hand into his own, involuntarily pulling you along.
Panickedly, you clutch onto any article of clothing available (another goodbye to your no-touchy-feely-ness Hyunjin agenda) similar to the handrails, squeezing your eyes shut while painfully awaiting a harsh slam against rock-hard ice.
A harsh slam that never happens.
You cautiously open an eye.
“One, two, one, two.” He counts steadily, soaring across the ice, unable to contain the huge beam the longer he watches you. Captivating.
You fight the urge to smile, the sensation of wind whipping your hair and his warm, reminiscent touch setting your nerves into a dopamine frenzy, making the routinely frown much harder than need be.
Nevertheless, perhaps staying in Hyunjin’s grasp would’ve been the safer option. Because with confidence comes failure (at least in your book of life), and your knees would’ve definitely appreciated not getting ruined.
“Are you alright?” Hyunjin murmurs, sympathetically regarding your black and blue frame, looking worse for wear, skates in hand.
“Amputation has never sounded more tempting,” Grumbling, you hobble to return your skates, the man tailing behind you choking back his giggle, kindly waiting in case you stumble.
From the way things are going, the probability is high. Except, Hyunjin walks on eggshells, worried you might rip his head off in the case he asked the question sitting tentatively on the tip of his tongue.
Keeping himself contained had never been as unbearable as when with you, constantly having to refrain from wrapping your precious self into his arms, witness those warm, beautiful hues blinking at him like globes.
Five minutes into the walk back and your near-face-plant-turned-catastrophe was his last straw.
“Can I at least carry you?”
Your head snapping back was almost comical, ogling at Hyunjin as if he told you he’d been neutered or something.
Insane. He’s officially gone insane.
So have you, apparently. Because after getting all too familiar with the icy side walk for a fifth time, you give in, stifling your thoughts from erupting out of your skull—feeling like your entire earth was slowing down on its axis when he easily swept you off your feet.
Cute, hell, romantic too, until you arrive back at the hotel and the curious looks sent your way have your cheeks burning.
“This is so embarrassing.” You whine, burying your face in your hands. Of course, Hyunjin just laughs.
You missed his laugh.
And he cares for you that night, transporting you from room to room in his arms despite your complaints you could do so yourself (although you secretly preferred it, and no, not because it was Hyunjin, only because of how bruised your legs were).
Plus, the mental exhaustion was practically debilitating, sleep beckoning you into its cozy embrace as the clock ticked on the wall. The man before you knelt in front of where you sat on the side of the bed, gently applying antiseptic to your cuts while you blanked in and out of consciousness.
Any common sense had completely abandoned you. Certainly, since you hadn’t noticed only one bed sat dead center in the room. Nor had you noticed through your half-asleep eyes how sweetly he maneuvered you around, pulling the comforter snug over your body.
His hand strays, wistfully smoothing some hair from off your eyebrow.
“I’m sorry,” He whispers, gathering spare pillows and blankets.
He’ll sleep on the floor.
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December 24th – Paris, France.
Apparently, there was much more to this Paris dilemma than just the “going to Paris” part (excluding, y’know, the havoc that’s occurred over the past three days).
This fantastic surprise came in the form of a booked Louvre Museum date, now a bit more like a punishment with your current state of soreness merely rising up from bed. And, in turn, seeing Hyunjin sawing logs on the floor below, an action you were inaudibly grateful for.
You two are a different kind of romantic if that’s what you want to call it, especially when Hyunjin practically barricades the bathroom door, nonsensically shouting that he won’t make the same mistake of walking in ever again.
Sweet gesture, but it gets a tad bit irritating when you have to basically charge the door in order to move the chair situated behind it, making you doubt if it was to keep Hyunjin himself out or keeping you in instead.
Yeah. Different kind of romantic. Exes kind of romantic.
Once 5pm rolls around, you’re already dressed and ready to leave, trying your darndest to pretend you’re doing something on your phone to evade conversation. A middle school move, though your ego is on the brink of becoming extinct anyway.
Seems the final act is when Hyunjin steps out of the bathroom, wearing that tan trench coat he always did.
He notices you analyzing, stifling a very tempting smirk.
“I thought you’d like this jacket. Y’know, since you stared at it all the time.”
With a sentence you watched your endangered ego obliterate in real time, embarrassment swallowing you whole. The cycle is neverending.
Thankfully, at least one factor in your unsolvable equation proves itself useful, the factor being your already purchased tickets, granting an earlier entrance into what felt to be a new world.
A new world you recognized as Hyunjin’s world. Vast, expansive. A place you can get lost in and be okay with. Stories hidden behind gold-rimmed frames, so much to tell if only you’d listen.
He lingers by the Psyche and Cupid sculpture longer than usual. Briefly, he told you about them many moons ago. Their love awakening from something much more tragic, apocalyptical.
What a coincidence.
You spend what feels to be days in there, daylight from the lengthy windows overhead falling dark by the time you’re finished. The temperature dropped exponentially while you explored, ignorant to the frigid conditions till realizing you still had your trek back.
Curse the taxi service for not running twenty-four hours.
“You grew your hair out.” You comment, but it’s not really a comment, more like an observation you already knew and felt the need to point out for some odd reason. The awkward silence is suffocating enough.
Granted, you’d known his hair had grown. You saw him every day coming to and fro from work, so any adjustments he made you saw, some of which you remember loving oh so much.
This adjustment was his hair.
Hyunjin’s lips quirk ever so slightly, fingers straying up to tousle a strand.
“You used to love it when I grew it out.”
He continues to walk ahead, ignoring how you had stalled behind, numb grip desperately clutching your puffer jacket as if it’d magically allow you inhalations.
“You would tie it up for me, and stick my paintbrushes in the bun.”
This time, he spins around, seemingly unaffected by your (both literally and figuratively) frozen finger that simply blinks at him — robotic-like.
Like Hyunjin is a stranger. Like your Hyunjin, the old one you were mad for, is now a stranger.
“And I,” He sniffs in, his exhale causing a cloud of air to comprise in its stead. “Really wanted to marry you.”
There’s your breaking point.
He’s pulled you thread by thread closer to an unthinkable free fall, a freezing free fall. Unfurling your strings of yarn to no point of repair. So as you teeter on the edge, your defense mechanisms kick in. And before you can logically consider your options, you smack him.
Right. Across. The face.
He’s stunned, you don’t blame him for that, but there’s also a crinkle in his brows, a look of utmost hurt beginning to stain any somber expression left.
“You have no right to say that when you’re the one that caused all of this.” Your volume increases, unaffected by the glances from passerby.
You have no doubt the two of you are quite a scene, though common sense had long abandoned you, and no thought but fiery rage curls around you, tendrils alight.
“Why the hell did you want to marry me if you can’t even love me? Quit hurting and confusing me Hyunjin, I can’t keep doing this.” Practically pleading, he pulls his palm from where it babied his cheek, instead retreating to your wrists, keeping you in front of him.
“Listen.”
“No!” You screech, trying your hardest to escape.
“Listen.”
You pause, gingerly allowing him to adjust the scarf over your pink nose and ensure your gloves trap warmth for your fingers.
He bites his lip, gaze dancing across your features.
“I love you.”
You shakily exhale, wishing everything would just stop. Time would simply diminish into nothing but stillness, easiness.
Your anguish and anger was easy, and staying mad was a whole lot easier than this—confronting the pains of meeting him again, nonetheless this trip.
He’s finding the pieces to your puzzle.
You want to hide.
Worst of all? Especially hearing him say the words that ended you two months prior.
Cruel.
“I loved you,” His voice wavers. “More than anything, Y/n. And I still do. But when you said that, I got scared.”
He shakily inhales, the grip on you lessening a bit.
“Because when I say I love you back, that means I have someone to lose.”
It’s hypocritical, you know.
Hell, you know what it’s like to be a hypocrite more than anything right now. From hearing the godforsaken news to sitting in an airplane together after wholeheartedly promising yourself you’d never let him have you once more.
Yet here you were, dragging him by his collar into a kiss.
He kisses you back, like an idiot, childishly grasping his clothing-cladden frame against your face and savoring the small bit of heat huddled between where your lips meet.
His trench-coat, you remember, despite so many adjustments, is the same as usual, and it’s almost comforting to find he smells the same as well—floral, with hints of jasmine (mainly thanks to his favorite perfume). You remember that too.
Guess some things never change.
Perhaps he kept that mug after all, drank from it every day like he used to.
And perhaps, right now, he’s wishing back all the time you’ve spent apart, just like you are. Wishing you would’ve just talked like mature, capable adults. Figured things out.
Newsflash, you’re not mature adults. You’re two broken lovebirds fighting to find their song after being caged together, searching high and low for the perfect pitch when all you needed was a single note, a single start.
Positioning you where an arm wraps around your back, the other holding your cheek, he dips you as if in a ballroom dance, not kissing beneath a street light.
Everything is pretty in Hyunjin’s presence.
“Hwang Hyunjin,” You whisper, nostrils burning the longer you’re surrounded by snow, falling in hefty sheets at this rate.
He hums into your lips, maneuvering his head to kiss away the chilled tears beginning to froth upon your waterline. And in those moments, you feel so fragile, so weak in his touch.
Almost instinctively, his grip tightens oh so slightly.
“I really don’t want to lose you.”
And he laughs, a muffled laugh that nonetheless causes his shoulders to shake before delving further into your kiss, melting away every bit of anguish you felt, all the hurt and ache. Dissolved into nothingness by his lips.
Figures briefly illuminated by the light of the street lamp, you remain ignorant to the encroaching nightfall, the way the stars seamlessly blend with white snowflakes. Something out of a fairytale.
You’re certain you could’ve stood there forever, all numb and freezing cold.
But in love. So very in love.
For him you would’ve stood there. And the you still in denial without understanding this entire story would’ve died before admitting that.
This time, you’re okay with letting him finish the puzzle, create a song as lovebirds.
“You won’t, I promise,” He traces your cheek with his thumb. “Now let’s get someplace warm, shall we?”
Landing an affectionate peck to your burning red nose, he takes your hand, guiding you through climbing snow toward your hotel, sign reading “Hôtel de Vendôme” glittering in the distance.
In your opinion, however, it was too fleeting. A kiss you hadn’t realized you’d been waiting for until it actually happened, till you pathetically craved it again and again.
Although, that didn’t mean you didn’t enjoy gaining feeling back in your fingers and toes, treasuring the flicker of the fire crackling beneath a brick mantel. A few guests litter the lobby, dishing paper cups of hot chocolate left and right, taking the opportunity the mistletoe hanging above a long forgotten stairwell provides.
Christmas Eve and you’re beside the ex you swore you’d never spend it with, spend any time with generally. So surreal you simply cannot stop thinking about it, enough that you become too distracted to notice the mischievous glint in Hyunjin’s vision.
Well, before he points upward and you notice the dangling mistletoe.
And he kisses you again just like you wanted. Deeper, slower, like separating would cause you to break apart, carving your kiss into his memory for a second time.
Standing there, too lost in him to ever consider anything better than this, you begin to think maybe you’ll be able to finish that stagnant book of yours. Maybe it’ll be about two lovers turned two exes, whose trip to Paris might just have been the cherry on top to hurt feelings and broken love. Because, at the end of their tribulations, Cupid falls in love with Psyche.
And you begin to think—as the clock’s ringing announces midnight has arrived—maybe this Christmas will pass by on a good note.
No, you’re certain of it.
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sunboki, may 2022 ©
FIC TAGLIST. @slut4colinbridgerton @armystay89 @shujohajohaminnie @minhosbitterriver @callmedarlingsstuff
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sindar-princeling · 2 years
Text
between the newsletter’s entry where we learn the ponies are okay, me picking apart rings of power and analysing why it doesn’t fully feel like tolkien, and this one gifset of frodo and sam i reblogged, i felt like i finally have to gather my thoughts regarding what makes tolkien tolkien
and while there are many things that do, i’d argue that the most special one is its earnestness.
characters in LOTR care unabashedly, with all their hearts, and love so easily, whether it’s platonic, familial or romantic.
the hobbits feel like the most obvious example - merry, pippin and sam follow frodo for as long as they’re able; their loyalty goes deep to their bones, and their relationships are so full of trust, joy, devotion, fondness.
but all of LOTR is just more examples of the same thing. after the war legolas spends the rest of his life in middle-earth with gimli - they travel together for over a hundred years - and then he decides he won’t just say goodbye when gimli dies! and he does something that hasn’t been done before and just takes gimli to valinor, but not before aragorn dies. because they both loved him, too. faramir asks “do you not love me, eowyn?“ and she realises she does, and he says he’ll marry her and they’ll grow a garden and heal, and he kisses her even though everyone can see them. sam loves frodo, and he loves rosie, and he spends his life with her, then joins frodo in the undying lands after she dies.
and it shines through in the movies, too! it’s thanks to both the direction and the acting skills of the cast, of course, that so, so often all emotions are on full display - whenever sam and frodo interact, when aragorn kisses boromir’s forehead, when the hobbits say goodbye at the grey havens, when pippin finds merry at the battlefield, the way gandalf reacts when frodo says he’ll go to mordor, the way theoden breaks down at his son’s grave, the way he cares about eowyn like she’s his own child, the way eomer reacts when he finds eowyn and thinks she’s dead. those are just examples off the top of my head.
it’s also very special to me because in many fictional works (not only in fantasy) people just aren’t allowed to be that open - mostly men, but not exclusively - meanwhile this earnestness is something i always look for in fiction.
it stands out especially if you consider some fantasy creators (not naming any names but you know who i mean ajsjdjfjf) saying they “just want to reflect the misogyny of the period” (which is just bullshit and also demeaning to people of all genders in so many ways), because while LOTR is heavily male-dominated, tolkien managed to do something very, very interesting and important there.
he says, “war is the province of men”, but it doesn’t mean you’re supposed to want to be there. you’re not supposed to want to go to battle, suffer and/or die. eomer wants eowyn to stay home because he loves her, and couldn’t stand to see her die in a cruel, gruesome way (and when he thinks she’s dead, it’s the most devastating display of grief in the whole movie trilogy).
the heroes go to war because there are things that need defending, and dying for a noble cause is honorable, but again - it’s about defending, not about fighting. the clearest villains of LOTR are people who want the war to happen. many of the heroes, most of whom are men, just want peace for their people, want companionship (one of the first things aragorn says to the hobbits is that he’d be happy to have more friends, because being a ranger means he’s lonely), or want a good meal and a good drink like the hobbits. they want comfort and warmth. they want to finish a book like bilbo. they want to live in a garden among all things that live and grow like faramir. they want to marry and have a home and kids like sam.
and the things is, it’s not always that common in fiction, but it’s absolutely common, you know. IN REAL LIFE? BECAUSE MEN ARE PEOPLE? so it’s just really good to have tolkien absolutely divorce masculinity in his works from how his characters show emotions, or how much comfort they crave. and that is a realistic approach i’m interested in.
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m1d-45 · 7 months
Text
my love, my god
summary: the ‘tomorrow’ you’ve been putting off finally comes, but not how you expect it to
word count: 2.6k
-> warnings: spoilers for baizhu lore/story quest, you have several nosebleeds
-> gn reader (you/yours) and aether as the traveller
taglist (+those that asked for a pt 2): @samarill || @thenyxsky || @valeriele3 || @shizunxie || @boba-is-a-soup || @yuus3n || @esthelily || @turningfrogsgay || @cupandtea24 || @genshin-impacts-me || @chaoticfivesworld || @raaawwwr || @fleurdawn || @extremelytoastybread || @ambermondy || @loyal-to-dottore
<< first part || < masterlist >
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living with aether was supposed to be easy.
you’d established a routine, your days simple. you spent your time in his library for plausible deniability, surprised at how expansive his library was. a lot of the books seemed like gifts, with little notes scrawled in the front covers. you honestly spent more of your time reading the notes than the book themselves, tracing over the handwriting.
barbara had given him a copy of a medical handbook, with notes in the margins from both of them for replacement herbs since the book was intended for use within mondstat. you didn’t try to memorize it, just skimming for a few details. some you knew, like wolfhooks or onikabuto helping to close wounds, but some was new. apparently, a diluted solution of cor lapis shavings in water could help heal broken bones, though it was noted that this shouldn’t be used in excess if the receiver didn’t have high enough elemental affinity.
a book of liyue’s local specialties, given from someone with exceptionally sloppy handwriting. there was a whole row dedicated solely to various recipe books, the one from liyue with a few extra pages tucked in.
aether liked to write in his books, you noticed, even the fiction ones. you had yet to encounter a single book that didn’t have at least one note in the margins, each in his sharp, quick writing.
‘cut lavender melon thinner than you think.’
‘who actually talks like this?’
‘when cooking for paimon, add slime concentrate to the broth.’
it was endearing. you saw so little of him in the game, most of the dialogue given by paimon. while you’d certainly gotten to know him in your time here… it was different, seeing his notes like this. it cemented the idea that you were really in your game, since what dream of yours would include the fact that ningguang had given him a journal of advice on how to deal with various poisons someone might try to use on him?
despite his expansive collection of books, he had very few historical records. the ones he did were well worn, filled with pages of notes as he tried to decipher the history of teyvat. it was sad to see, his writing becoming more desperate the further through the books you got.
‘ask zhongli for clarification.’
‘kokomi doesn’t recognize the name ‘istaroth.’ ask miko?’
‘dahri = khaenri’ah?’
‘ask zh ask dainslef. where would i even find him?’
‘even if i knew everything, would it make sense?‘
tears pricked at your eyes, and you closed the book in your hands before you smudged the writing. you wiped at your eyes, sniffling as you put it back on the shelf. it was hard not to feel bad, but even if you told him everything you knew about teyvat, would he believe you? would he still be as kind to you as he was? he was your one real anchor here, what with the world in chaos after you stopped playing… you couldn’t even point him in the right direction, since even that would raise suspicion.
maybe that was enough reading for today.
you wiped at your nose, walking for the exit to the library. when you reached for the handle, however, you spotted a smear of glittering blue across the side of your hand.
it took another drop of blood hitting the wooden floor before you realized what was happening, quickly plugging your nose and rushing to the bathroom. you took care to wipe up the drop that landed on the floor, both so it wouldn’t stain and so that nobody saw it.
you weren’t trying to die today. and even if, somehow, aether was fine with your constant lying to him, you didn’t want to ruin what you had.
not today, thank you.
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despite it being where you’d first ‘landed,’ you had never been to mondstat. ever since your run in with zhongli, it was the nation you were avoiding going with him most, second only to maybe sumeru. venti, kaeya, and diluc, three of the most perceptive people in game, all in one place… it was a recipe for disaster.
unfortunately, aether was an excellent cook.
he’d decided to take his commissions from mondstat today, and only one required combat. plus, he wanted you to see the city.. and you couldn’t exactly say no to him without reason.
the first was helping wyatt find his key in dadaupa gorge. you’re not sure why he was drinking out there, but you’re not gonna ask too many questions. the gorge was beautiful in person, cranes nearly everywhere you turned… though that might just be because you were there. the wildlife had been getting more daring lately.
the second was delivering connor some mist flower corollas, carefully moved from aether’s inventory to a thick, special made bag. you got a strange look or two from the maids, but within a few minutes aether was teleporting you to the city, tunner‘s prescription in hand. mondstat was much more lively than in the game, though you supposed that was for convenience. having hundreds of npcs roaming the city, each holding their own conversations, would likely hit performance.
paimon told you all about the city, though all of it was things you already know. there’s the adventurer’s guild, there’s bennett—you both waved—and there’s ellin! that’s the statue of barbatos, boasting a height of…
paimon scratched at her head, looking up at the statue. “how tall is the statue?”
aether shrugged, holding one hand to block the sun as he tried to guess. “nobody ever said. do you think one of the sisters would know?”
“hm, paimon thinks our best bet is venti! he sits up there all the time, doesnt he?”
you looked over the statue, taking in all the details not present on it’s in-game model. even from ground level you swear you could see individual feathers carved into the rock. “you said he flies, right? i think we should ask the knights, they-” copper landed on your tongue, and you put a finger to your top lip. it came away blue.
shit.
you covered your nose quickly, the other two thankfully getting the message without you needing to talk. a napkin was pressed to your hand, and you were careful not to let any of the blue show as you switched your hand over it.
two nosebleeds with barely two weeks between them. were you sick? were the foreign bacteria finally showing face? you didn’t feel sick—if anything you’d been feeling much better physically, since coming to teyvat—but what if you were? what if it was some illness that only targeted outlanders- no, aether would have told you about that, he was too kind not to. but then why…?
you were sat in one of the pews of the cathedral, paimon sitting by your side. your eyes tracked aether to one of the nuns, but were quickly distracted by the beautiful stained glass set in the windows. shades of blue and green decorated the walls, coloring the inside of the cathedral. you couldn’t quite make out the scenes depicted, but it gave the room so much more *life* than its model. it was lived in, not just another location on a map.
“my my, traveller, you look different than i remember.”
you’re given little warning before kaeya speaks, his steps having not made a single sound. both you and paimon turned, her hands lifting in a wave while yours tightened around your stained napkins.
“hey kaeya! what are you doing at the cathedral? paimon doesn’t remember there being a service today…”
“just going for a walk.” his eyes shift to you, and you look away, in the direction aether left. the nun was back, but he was nowhere to be found. he wouldn’t leave to the winery already, would he? “who’s this?”
“a friend.”
a hand sets on your shoulder, and you jump. was it some unspoken rule not to let your steps be heard in a cathedral, or did it come with the territory?
aether passes you a small vial of a clear blue liquid, moving to stand between you and kaeya. “i talked to barbara about your nosebleed, this should stop it. a small sip will do.”
you don’t ask why he did that, instead just doing as he said. kaeya gave you an odd look but you were quick to follow paimon out of the cathedral, leaving them to it. soon enough aether joined you, and you all went back to the teapot for lunch.
it was a fluke. it had to be.
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it wasn’t.
you were sitting at a table at wanmin, listening to xingqiu talk about his latest idea for a novel. paimon had helped you order, picking you out a minty drink that was as refreshing as it was delicious. you took a sip, sharing a look with aether over the rim right as a drop slid down your top lip. thankfully, the blue streak was explained by the tint of the drink, though chongyun did give you a few more odd glances than you preferred.
running into the arataki gang in inazuma city, itto excitedly showing you and aether the new beetles he found earlier. he stuck by your side, holding your hand in his as they switched to talking about tcg. they patted their pockets, searching for the cards they’d won today. a cough into your elbow was all it took for blue to mark the inside of your sleeve, and shinobu was quick to pass you a napkin coated with onikabuto dust. it felt funny against your fingers, but apparently the gang used them to patch wounds all the time when a friendly wrestle went too far.
the more people were around, the worse they were. your nose was near constantly itchy, like the world was channeling every irritant in a mile radius right into your face. any minor bump would cause at least a drop to spill down your lip, leaving you overcautious and aether forever worried. the bottle barbara gave you ran out quick, and though she ended up giving you the recipe, it was clear that something more serious was going on.
you laid on the couch, pinching a napkin around your nose while you waited for aether to finish your medicine. he’d gone outside to get the rest of the ingredients with paimon, leaving you to your thoughts.
you hated teyvat for doing this to you. you’d bet good mora that simply showing him the color of the stains on your napkins would solve whatever phantom illness ailed you, but you didn’t want to. you were happy with the life you had! you didn’t need a shining palace or the worship of the world, you just needed aether. him and paimon and your teapot, with the small herbs growing in the windowsill and crystalflies fluttering outside. why was the world so determined to get you to spill your secret? it wasn’t like he’d hate you for keeping it—at most he’d be surprised, or maybe even a bit apologetic himself.
it was stupid. shouldn’t you be the one to decide whether this was shared or not?
you sighed, the sound of the door pushing that train of thought aside. aether tapped your shoulder and you sat up, accepting the medicine thankfully.
“sorry about the delay, baizhu was dealing with another patient.”
“you went to the pharmacy?” you hand him back the bottle, looking away as you wipe off your nose.
“yep! when we got there he was mixing up a nasty smelling poultice for some other lady—paimon swears she can still smell it, even after all this time!”
“really?” you look up, satisfied you got it all off, but freeze. aether is standing beside you, and paimon’s sitting on the arm of the couch, but behind them is baizhu, changsheng loosely coiled around his shoulders.
oh no.
“one of the ingredients in barbara’s medicine is qingxin,” aether explains, “i only had so many, so i started buying them from the pharmacy. he got curious and asked about you… i hope you don’t mind?”
you barely hear him, focused on the lift of changsheng’s head as she whispers something into baizhu’s ear. he looks surprised, mostly, but also confused, and you know exactly why.
after all if he can sense god remains, he can surely sense the god.
“is there a problem, doctor?” you ask, and wait until both aether and paimon turned to him to raise a finger to your lips.
keep quiet. don’t tell him. i don’t want to lose this yet.
he looks between you and aether, clearly conflicted.
please.
after a moment, he sighs, shaking his head as he adjusts his glasses. “nothing is wrong, my apologies. changsheng, if you will..”
he begins to search through his inventory while changsheng slithers past paimon, curling around your wrist. baizhu takes out a notepad, pulling over a chair.
“aether, you’ve been coming to the pharmacy for qingxin for a little over 3 months. is that a good estimate for the length of time this has occurred?”
he glanced at you, and you nodded.
that was a lie, technically.. but it was for the greater good. baizhu would mark you some anomaly, recommend you just keep taking barbara’s medicine, and everything would be okay. you’d be fine. no stresses of godhood, no giving up your peaceful life in the realm within, nothing.
changsheng uncoils from your hand, climbing onto aether’s shoulders to get to baizhu. he doesn’t so much as blink, letting her wind back into place. what did she go to you for, then? “do any other symptoms come with them, such as nausea or headaches?”
“no, not really.”
“have you noticed anything strange about the blood? clots, maybe, or discoloration?”
you meet his pointed look, ignoring how your heart picks up. call it selfishness. “nothing.”
baizhu sighs. “are you certain? if you want this to go away, you need to be honest.”
at least you were right on one front. to get back the life you had, you’d need to give it up. while you knew neither aether or paimon would resent you—they’d dealt with gods disguising themselves before, surely they couldn’t hate you—their attitude toward you would certainly change.
your silence is clearly worrying, and you shake your head before anybody asks questions. “i’m certain, there’s nothing.”
he again looks conflicted, and paimon looks between the two of you, frowning. “uh, is paimon missing something…?”
“i’m sorry,” baizhu says finally, “but it’s for your own health.”
before you can protest, he reaches up towards changsheng. she shifts, revealing the napkin you used earlier hidden between her body and his, clearly marked with blue.
when did she-?
baizhu flicks out the napkin and paimon gasps. “i can tell they’re getting worse, and while i understand it’s your choice, i value your life more.”
aether turns to you, and you can’t read the expression on his face. “is that really yours?”
“…yeah. i put it together that teyvat wants me to tell someone, but i didn’t want to lose what we had.”
he smiles, holding out his hand. when you took it, he pulled you up off the couch and into a hug.
“you’ll never lose me,” he promised, “not even if you’re a god. not even if you’re my god.”
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jinwoosungs · 6 days
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{ 157 }
headfirst for halos.
yandere!jinwoo sung x fem.reader
warnings + disclaimers: obsessive behavior; dark content; i do not condone this behavior in real life, but in fiction, anything goes.
notes: reading solo leveling and seeing how hard jinwoo goes to protect his family and those that he loves-
it’s not impossible for him to have some yandere tendencies. i’ll try to write this to the best of my abilities, even though this really isn’t my strong suit 。゚(TヮT)゚。 this will be written for the anon that wishes to see me write for yandere!jinwoo... so i hope this meets your expectations...
{ well, let’s go back to the middle of the day that starts it all | i can’t begin to let you know just what i’m feeling. }
there she is, the girl that stole my heart the moment i first laid eyes on her.
my breathing comes out as uneven gasps, and i was actively struggling to breathe at the mere sight of her. along with my labored breaths, my heart could be felt pumping quickly, racing as my palms began to sweat the more i looked at her-
an almost crazed expression paints my features, eyes never straying too far away from that lovely woman. from my viewpoint, i could see that she was simply enjoying her day with a book in hand, taking casual sips of her coffee while running her hands through her hair.
and oh, how i long to sit across from her! to simply bask in her radiance while listening to the gentle sweetness of her voice...
but not yet.
i cannot approach such a perfect goddess just yet.
i still have not reached my full potential.
so, i'll simply stand right here, hidden within the shadows with my hood pulled over my face. from this point onwards, i will never allow my goddess to leave my sights-
"wait for me, my love."
{ ... }
the day sung jinwoo had confessed his feelings for you was the day you had labeled as being the best in your life.
after your meeting with the association's chairman, jinwoo had waited for you all while donning an expensive, black suit. in his hands was a bouquet of red roses, signifying his true intentions as he gifted you the precious blooms with a single statement.
"i am deeply in love with you, please, tell me that you'll be mine."
you thought nothing of the sheer desperation heard in his voice, finding yourself becoming captivated by the mere sight of him. and truly, could anyone really blame you for being so starstruck at the sight of him?
here was this perfect specimen of a man, with features that could rival any idol, and a body that was sculpted to perfection thanks to the many battles he had faced. neat locks of ebony hair falls perfectly across his face, with his full lips tilted up in an unassuming smile (let's not forget that adorable blush, too!)
within seconds, you held the bouquet of roses close to your chest while accepting his confession.
and just a few moments later was when you found yourself immediately brought into jinwoo's embrace. a gasp escapes from your lips as it felt as though he were crushing you to his chest-
like he wanted to somehow meld your body together with his-
your slight cry of pain was what ultimately makes jinwoo let go of you, eyes glowing a startling purple hue while looking down at your arms to see the roses he had purchased for you ruined as the thorns managed to pierce through the skin of your arms.
you swore you could never forget the look of utter devastation seen within his eyes, his apologies being repeated over and over again before taking the broken bouquet and smashing it to the ground with his feet.
"no no no, this was supposed to be the perfect day! the roses were meant to convey my deep and passionate love for you, but it ended up hurting you- i need to get rid of it, need to get rid of anything that harms you-"
by the end of his panicked rants, you were the one that had to calm him down, promising that you could heal yourself and that such a minor injury was no problem at all. you could see the look of pure relief reflected in his gaze as he squeezes your body to his chest once more, embracing you while standing over a broken bouquet of roses.
despite how strange it was, you were truly staring at him through rose-colored lenses, thinking nothing of it.
now that you were together with him for roughly 6 months now, you began to notice tiny details pertaining to jinwoo and his behavior when it came to you.
for starters, you had only been dating for a month when he practically demanded that you move in with him, successfully convincing you to terminate your lease with your current apartment while seducing you with promises of financial stability and a large penthouse to share with him.
"sarang, i know that you're a capable healer, but your earnings are no match for mine! please, let me take care of you."
despite not even dating for a year, you moved in with him anyways, allowing jinwoo to further spoil you.
along with his constant presence, you realized one other detail-
now, jinwoo owned a journal of some sort, seeming to write in that thick notebook on a near daily basis.
during the times you had seen him before you began dating, jinwoo had never once kept a diary. he appeared calm, cool, and collected, with his status as korea's latest s-rank hunter putting him to nearly famous heights. due to his growing fame, you figured he had no time to do such a mundane task.
yet now, without fail, he would never cease writing so furiously within the journal, only slamming the pages shut and stopping when you would walk into the room. you had a sneaking suspicion he was writing about you, but each time you asked about it, he would simply harden his gaze and give you a scowl.
"with all due respect, this has nothing to do with you. am i not allowed the privacy to write down my own thoughts?"
his biting words nearly makes the tears stream down your face, your apologies coming out into broken syllables. upon realizing that he has hurt your feelings, jinwoo would push himself away from the table, leaving behind his journal before comforting you by taking you in his arms.
"i'm sorry, i'm so so so sorry, your monarch didn't mean to make you cry. forgive me, my love?"
being comforted by his warmth and blinded by the sheer love you still had for him, you merely nodded your head in response, accepting his kiss as the gesture erased all of your thoughts pertaining to his journal.
and that was how your days typically went with your boyfriend.
he would take you out on dates and spoil you with gifts-
each time you were scheduled to attend a raid, he would take over and finish each dungeon solely on his own without even giving you and your team a chance-
and when nightfall came (when jinwoo believed you had fallen asleep), he would continue to write (with a strange fervor) within the pages of his journal until the early hours of the morning.
it wasn't until now that you decided to do something about your growing curiosity.
jinwoo was currently away on what you could only deem as a 'business trip.' the american branch of the hunter's association had reached out to him, and he would be gone for roughly a week-
leaving you alone within the confines of the penthouse.
your eyes were staring blankly at the television screen, not really paying attention to the show that was currently being aired. instead, your heart was pounding with anxiety, trailing your eyes towards the bedroom.
within your shared master bedroom, you were aware of the desk jinwoo kept against the wall, being filled with various paperwork and checkbooks that kept track of his earnings as a hunter-
and settled inside the desk was a locked compartment that you were certain his journal was kept hidden. you always saw the key to the drawer somewhere close to his body as an extra precaution to make sure that you would never be able to read its contents while he was away.
but truly, you were nothing if you didn't have some tenacity.
clasped within your hands were two needles that were going to serve as your tools for picking the lock within jinwoo's desk (and you could only hope that whatever shadow soldier he had placed within your shadow wouldn't alert him.)
you knew of the risks that came with unlocking the drawer-
however, you could not stop yourself.
with a determined expression, you swiftly head towards your room, turning on the lights before marching towards jinwoo's desk. kneeling before it, you place the two, slender needles within the keyhole all while gently maneuvering it-
you bring the needles closer together within the keyhole-
then proceed to turn it around just a little bit more-
only to let out a surprised gasp upon hearing something click.
the two needles remain rooted in place when you managed to open the drawer, seeing jinwoo's diary settled within the deep confines of its space. as your hands lean down to grab it, the sudden memory of his ice cold gaze and voice dripping with fury stops you-
with all due respect, this has nothing to do with you.
your breathing comes out as labored, with your heart felt twisting just the tiniest bit in anxiety-
but sadly, your curiosity had won, taking over as you extracted the diary from the safety of the drawer before opening the cover to its first page-
making you regret it instantly.
for what lay before you was pure and utter darkness-
may 6, 16:41 she's mine. she's finally mine! the woman i have longed for- the woman who has saved me when i was a mere e-rank hunter accepted my flower and my love. now she is mine to hold. mine to love. mine to cherish for all eternity. my heart feel so happy, so free. today is truly the best day of my life. SHE'S FINALLY MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE....
june 7, 12:42 i asked my soulmate to move in with me today, yet felt ANNOYED at the slight hesitance in her gaze. she has no right to refuse me! here i am, spoiling her with everything she could possibly want and need, yet she still wants to live in a space AWAY FROM ME? unacceptable. i refuse to tolerate her defiance. if she loves me, she'll cut off her lease and be with me. only i can give her what she wants- ONLY I CAN GIVE HER WHAT SHE NEEDS. despite my anger that was felt mounting, i manage to calm down and speak to her with my normal tone, making sure that it was honey sweet while coaxing her, promising her that i will take care of her and provide her everything that she needs. and oh, i truly am so lucky! she agreed to move in with me by the end of the day. life cannot get any better than this.
june 9, 0250 i couldn't help myself- the moment she lay in my bed, i made love to her. i perfectly slotted myself between the softness of her thighs while basking in her warmth. i can feel myself getting harder at the memory. fuck, i need her. despite taking her for several hours, i can't get enough of her. i'll finish up this entry and place my hands between her slick sweetness- don't worry, i'll make sure she's awake and needy for me so that i can look back at this entry and smile at the memory. I WILL FOREVER MARK HER AS MINE I WILL FOREVER MARK HER AS MINE I WILL FOREVER MARK HER AS MINE I WILL FOREVER MARK HER AS MINE I WILL FOREVER MARK HER AS MINE I WILL FOREVER MARK HER AS MINE
august 18, 20:00 that damn hunter keeps bothering her again, shamelessly flirting with her while constantly begging her to heal him. i bet he wants her. i bet he has thoughts of fucking her. why else does he keep leading her hands toward his shoulder like that? and why are his eyes shining with lust for her like that? i'm going to have to teach him a lesson- after all, my love doesn't know any better, so there's no way i could ever punish her. it's my duty to protect her. to save her from all men that wish to use her- ah, he's here. i'll end my entry for now.
after reading those few entries, your head began to spin, recalling each of those days with perfect clarity. after those entries, jinwoo seemed to lose all coherent thoughts, spending the next hundred of pages detailing your every activity-
from how you slept-
to what you wore-
even going down to such minuscule details like what you had for your meals and what you were constantly doing marked by the hours-
and now, you had context for the sudden disappearance of the hunter you had healed all those months ago-
nausea was felt coursing through your veins as you shoved the journal away from you, running into the bathroom as you threw up the contents of your breakfast and lunch into the porcelain toilet. even when your stomach was emptied of its contents, you kept on dry heaving, trying to get rid of the sourness felt deep inside of you.
time passes seemingly in a sluggish manner, with you flushing the toilet before crawling out of the bathroom. when you tried to stand back to your full height, a wave of dizziness hits you-
but one thought still remains-
i need to get out of here!
those words were what ultimately pushes you forward, with your uneven breaths filling at the air as your feet pounded against the floors, about to reach the front door when a sudden shift was felt in the air.
"i knew that it was best for me to save my shadow exchange for moments like this."
a silent scream escapes from your parted lips when jinwoo suddenly appears before you. he simply holds your arms tightly within his hands, not even using his full strength when he manages to fully apprehend you.
tears stream down your face as you actively fought against him, but to no avail...
all you managed to do was further tire yourself out, slumping back down to the floors as jinwoo coos at you, using his full weight against you while bearing you down against the cold, hardwood floors.
"it's okay... it's okay... i'm not mad at you for reading my most private thoughts. in fact, i WANTED you to read them someday! that way, you will know the full extent of my pure love and devotion to you!"
your tears were trailing down your face in cascades now, the sobs wracking through your body with such visceral and potent fear that violent tremors began taking over your form from beneath him. yet still, jinwoo keep staring down at you with those glowing, violet gaze, never once looking away from you.
"you're mine..." he says your name in a bit of a drunken haze, "it doesn't matter how you feel about me now, because i'm never letting you go!"
crazed laughter echoes throughout the area, with jinwoo drowning out your sobs and cries for help by kissing your lips deeply-
in mere seconds, the rose-colored lens had finally shattered the moment you tasted something coppery and bitter from within his lips...
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a.n. - while re-reading solo leveling, the panel used as the preview of my story genuinely scared me, which was what further solidified mine and everyone else's belief in the yandere potential he had 😭
all stories are written by rei; reposts, translations, and plagiarism are not allowed.
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justporo · 8 months
Note
My new bestie, I honestly would love to see you write Father!Astarion 🤤🤤
How would he react to the news? Would he want a little girl or boy? How would he react when they are born, and they look just like him, but pre vamp eyes?
(Vampires can sire babies, with the highest chance after they are fully well fed)
Hello my tadpole bestie and thanks for the request! Astarion as a father really seems to be on people's minds, hm?
I get it, I like it too, but let me put this out there (yeah yeah, I know it's all fictional, but let's be real for a second): I would much rather imagine this when Astarion has done some much needed healing. This man hasn't had autonomy in two centuries and really needs to find himself again and work through trauma - with Tav on his side of course. And children are a huge responsibility - mentally, physically, emotionally, financially - I imagine (I wouldn't know, I'm not a parent...). I'd really wish for him to be ready for something like that.
But the thought is incredibly sweet, so let's go:
Headcanons about Astarion being a father
When Tav tells him she's expecting, he's truly speechless for perhaps the first time in his life; and then he can't sit still: swinging from delusionally happy to overthinking and being worried; but Tav takes his hand and reassures him that they'll be in it together
Has he thought about having kids? Yeah sure, but he'd never thought of it being possible until it happened, although when Cazador forced him and the other spawn to behave like a family he'd sometimes thought about what could've been
He's absolutely overprotective when Tav's pregnant: "Oh no, no, darling, you are not carrying that around, think of the baby!" "Astarion, it's A MUG OF WATER!"
Also he adores her body that is creating such a miracle: "You're glowing, my heart. You are truly a goddess!"
If he was handsy before there are now no moments where his hands aren't on Tav's body and on her belly
When he feels the first movements, he cries, and then Tav cries and then there's just a fountain of happy tears and lots of "I love you"s
He's taking such good care of Tav; especially when she doesn't feel well or when she's exhausted - she'll get all the herbal teas and massages
Birth though is scary - for both of them; but I'm sure he'll have some friends by his side (because think about the adventure troupe waiting with him while he's pacing the room like a panther: Karlach's biting her nails off, Gale's just blabbering to distract himself, Shadowheart is praying for everything to go well, Wyll tries to calm Astarion down (unsuccessfully), Lae'zel is unusually silent with crossed arms hoping everything will be okay, Halsin's keeping the group fed and all because "Nature will make it all right")
Boy or girl? Doesn't matter at all, all that's important is that Tav and the baby are healthy and ready to receive all his love
First time holding his child - he can't even cry because it's such a miracle; "This... this is the best thing I've ever had and created!"
The tears come later when you're alone - just the three of you
He's absolutely a very loving father, caring so much about his kid - and also equally taking on responsibilities and care with Tav
When the kid's eyes become their real colour and it sparks a memory Astarion had long forgotten, he's too stunned to acknowledge what he's seeing: the kid has his eyes - the way they were before he was turned
Later, when the child's already a little bigger he loves to show them stuff, teach them, read to them; also inciting them to go and annoy Mom - which makes Tav want to push him off a cliff but also hug him to death - because who'd have thought it would ever be possible?
Alright alright - I've gotten almost off the rails with this one. Because honestly, there's a lot to imagine there. Also maybe I wasn't prepared for the things that would make me feel (and I don't mean baby fever).
Alright, hope you enjoyed this headcanons, time for me to go to bed!
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pennyellee · 8 months
Text
CHAPTER IV - ustulation
LACRIMOSA | MYG MAFIA YANDERE AU
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pairings: mafia leader!yoongi x f!reader genre: mafia!au, yandere au, historical au
summary: Their interlocking gaze served as a butterfly effect on his heart, stirring it to the core. She, in turn, only dreams to find a way to escape. But perchance, over time she might forcefully learn to love the man who has taken so much from her.
Thus unfolds a twisted tale of love and loss, of hope and despair, of life and death. The music reverberated through the dimly-lit streets. Tears of sorrow, weeping symphony - reflects the hurt, the scars that linger deep within and the wounds that never healed. Lacrimosa.
chapter warnings: minors dni 18+ | mafia au, dark!yoongi, mafia!yoongi, yandere, kidnapping, mentions of God, blood, incision wound, fictive mafia clan traditions, manipulation, possessive/obsessive behaviour, angst, mentions of death, overwhelming, violence, threats, intimate encounter, kissing
beta read by @chaoticpuff17
word count: 5,6K
disclaimer: this story is purely fictional, it does not depict real-life events or involve any actual members of BTS. This story will contain depictions of violence, blood shed, death, mentions of abuse, smoking, alcohol drinking, illegal activities, old social norms and traditions, which we do not condone.
m.list CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III GAME OF GO CHAPTER V
ustulation (n.) a burning lust
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In the hidden embrace of a secluded mountain valley, a village of hanoks stirred to life on a tranquil winter's morning. The air was crisp, a symphony of silence. The Song of the Dead toned down for some time.
The dawn’s gentle light bathed the valley, wisps of mist from the frost-kissed earth, adding an ethereal veil to the scenery she watched carefully from the closed window.
The majestic mountains, ancient pines and stoic rocks stood as sentinels of the valley's serenity. She could see them from this side of the house. Y/N sighed, holding a cup of tea in her two small hands, warming herself up on this chilly morning.
“Is something bothering you, my love?”
Yoongi had tried his hardest the past month to get under her skin. There were times when he thought perhaps, she would welcome him into her heart one day. However, her repeated escape attempts made him think otherwise. He was giving her the space she needed with carefulness in every action he took. The young leader knew well that she wouldn't be able to escape while they resided here, in the core of the village. That did not stop her though.
As if nature herself wished to bestow a gift upon him, the first snowflakes began to descend from the heavens just as they were returning from that unfortunate, eventful day in Seoul. The snowflakes floated gently, even now, like fragile dreams.
“Are you feeling well? You spent a lot of time in the snow yesterday.” He murmured after she didn’t grant him an answer to his previous question. They had to postpone the wedding as the snow and frost reigned, making it unsafe to pass through the tunnels. The passage was being cleared by workers for more than a week now. Time seemed to stand still as they absorbed the grace that enveloped their world.
“I feel fine,” she muttered back, not even looking his way at the table.
“I’ve been good to you, haven’t I?” He asked, demanding to speak to her.
“After all the stunts you pulled, you’re still free to roam around without anyone guarding you. Not speaking of the fact that I’m letting you sleep alone—” he was going on rumble.
The young leader is patient, but he longed for her more than ever. The fact that they’re still not newlyweds, and he cannot show love to every inch of her body, make her swell with his child, was frustrating him beyond repair. She had let her guard down once and allowed him to take the chance and kiss her on the cheek, startling her yet again.
“—you’re so blinded,” she said suddenly, turning back to face him.
“Excuse me?” said he, very surprised.
“You go on about how you’re good to me, how this is God’s doing, and that I should be grateful—” she threw her hands in the air, frustrated by his demanding nature.
While the leader thought he was granting her the time she needed, Y/N felt more and more anxious every day. Her heart is still itching to be free, yet she cannot stop thinking about what her selfishness would cause if she indeed managed to escape.
“Well maybe if you didn’t run every time, I tried to show you affection, I wouldn't have to remind you of all this.” He spat angrily, smashing the chopsticks on the table, standing up.
“I’m patient—” said he, getting closer to her standing form by the large windows. “—but I swear to God, you’ll disobey me again, and that’s where my hospitality ends, Y/N.”
“I just—” she stammered, making him stop in his attempt to close the distance between them. “I’m scared,” she whimpered. Y/N didn’t know why these words came out of her, nor why there were tears. All she felt was exhaustion.
The scarred leader’s expression softened. Is she finally confiding herself to him, opening up?
“My love…” He approached her, taking the cup from her shaking hands, putting it aside and lastly taking her face into his hands, his thumbs wiping her tears away.
“I can make you happy. You just have to let me in.” He whispered, moving his face closer to hers. Y/N knows they will cross the boundary sooner or later. The winter is making it impossible for her to both run away and survive. Should Y/N listen to her mother’s words and let him make her his queen? The older female’s proclamation circled her mind at night while listening to the cracking of wood in the fireplace.
“Please let me in, dove.” He pleaded again, his eyes filled with sincerity and longing.
And once she nodded her head in approval, he didn’t hesitate to press his lips softly against hers. Time stood still, and the world around them faded into a blur of insignificance. Their hearts pounded in sync for a brief moment. She felt a warmth she couldn't admit, even to herself. Y/N wanted to hate him so much. Despite her inner conflict, she could sense the unspoken longings from his side, his desire to deepen the kiss carefully without overwhelming her. He wished to never let her go and feared that she would vanish in his hold. His lips were tender and tentative, like the brush of a butterfly's wings upon a fragile petal. Y/N knows he is holding himself back. The kiss was addictive, momentarily lifting the burden from her chest.
As he went to slide his hands on the swell of her heart-shaped bottom, a sudden cough interrupted the intimate moment. Y/N quickly pulled away, feeling shame and embarrassment wash over her caused by the sudden intrusion. She stole a single glance at the man standing by the door, grinning mischievously. Her cheeks turned crimson as she felt shy and exposed, but the young leader kept holding her in his embrace, not letting her go so soon after their first shared kiss.
Smiling like a teenager, he said: “What’s going on Hoseok-shi.” Y/N could imagine he is smiling widely as she had observed when she apologised to him for hitting his head with the stone. He waved it off quickly stating ‘I would be a fool to not forgive my new sister.’ She pretended not to be affected by his words, but it made the man she was to marry smile even more mischievously.
“I need to speak to you, and Y/N should get ready for Hyung’s wedding,” Hoseok said, his eyes gleaming with some secret knowledge.
Y/N exchanged a puzzled glance with Hoseok before nodding and extracting herself from the young leader's embrace, her cheeks still flushed from the kiss. Uncertainty hung in the air as Yoongi let Y/N go and walk away, admiring her graceful figure.
“What?” Yoongi asked, turning his attention to his trusted friend, who wore a smirk that hinted at hidden amusement.
“Nothing,” Hoseok replied, still smiling under his nose.
“Shall we?” Yoongi said, collecting himself and walking towards his brother.
“You won’t fancy what news I bring, brother.”
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Silk banners fluttered in the breeze, announcing the joyous union to all who ventured near. The bride, a vision of grace and elegance, is adorned in a hanbok of flowing silk and intricate embroidery.
The groom, dressed in the timeless attire of a traditional hanbok, stood tall and resolute. His eyes fixed unwaveringly upon his beloved, as though she embodied the very essence of his being — a force that fuelled his heart.
Amidst the enchanting spectacle of celebration, the weight of tradition resonated with each uttered word.
The outside picture portrayed the unbreakable bonds of family and the beauty of two souls finding solace in one another. Y/N, however, couldn’t help but have a feeling that the poor girl the doctor was marrying did not find herself at the altar because of true love but fearful coercion. It reminded her of her circumstances — a pawn in a larger scheme.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, casting a warm golden glow upon the snow-covered land, Y/N sat beside her to-be husband, observing his unusual joy. Accordingly. Today, one of his brothers was finally taking a wife and his bride in a momentary vulnerability that had allowed him to share a tender kiss with her, amplifying his joy to an even greater extent.
Her ears perked up once she heard the celebration of the union before her. She couldn't resist side-eyeing the other brothers she had encountered over the past month, and her gaze locked with Kim Namjoon, Kkangpae’s right-hand man.
Y/N remembers Kim Namjoon. His piercing, cold gaze bore into her soul, especially so during one of her escape attempts, when he forcefully brought her back to the main house, reprimanding her for disobedience.
‘I can either give up my life to save you or I can be your enemy Y/N.’ Namjoon had warned her on a night when she sought solace near the fireplace in Yoongi's office, wrapped in blankets to warm herself even more. She was rarely allowed in this sacred room unless her actions demanded attention.
That night, Yoongi was dealing with business matters. He came back to the main house to her shivering and crying form. It is breaking his heart every time he sees her in such a state but simultaneously, he wishes she would cross the border of submissiveness and obey him.
Y/N ignored his warning just yesterday when she attempted to run away again. Hence, the gaze. If she was afraid of his next steps, she wouldn’t let him decipher that.
She snapped out of her mind as Yoongi rose from his seat, taking her hand to help her up. Y/N looked at him with a mixture of confusion and concern. He gently nudged her behind him, positioning himself as a protective shield. She looked around her, seeing that everyone else was still seated. Their looks show emotions —excitement, joy, and pride.
Her confusion heightened when Yoongi began unbuttoning her fur coat that was hiding her long red qipao, and panic swelled within her.
"What are you doing?!” She whispered in distress.
“Behave.” He whispered back to her, leaving the coat open revealing her breasts and tummy.
Leaving her standing close to him, he held her hand tightly, as if afraid she might flee at any moment. Y/N noticed that Namjoon's attention had shifted to Seokjin's new bride. The bride's trembling form approached them, and Y/N observed the gleaming knife in Seokjin's hand, quickly realizing what was about to happen.
It whispered promises of power, of secrets that could be revealed with a single stroke, but it also carried the weight of consequences and a toll on the bearer's conscience. As the girl's hand was carefully sliced with the knife, Y/N couldn't help but empathize with her pain. Her father had a similar tradition; however, women weren’t involved; she was still left in the dark about her role in all this.
The girl then knelt, extending her bloodied hand toward the leader, reciting her pledge of loyalty to Kkangpae Min. Yoongi covered her hand with his other one, acknowledging her devotion and signaling for her to continue with the moving tradition.
The leader then used his left hand to guide Y/N forward, leaving her yet again puzzled and bewildered. A moment later, she gasped with shock as she felt the girl's bloodied hand touch her lower belly. Yoongi held her firmly in place, preventing any instinctual step back.
"I, with my blood, pledge my loyalty to you, Min Buin. Blessed be the fruit of your future legacy, Kkangpae Min," the girl recited, her words carrying both reverence and a touch of melancholy. The significance of the moment and the responsibility it bestowed upon Y/N left her grappling with a maelstrom of emotions.
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“Well you handled that well,” a voice came from behind her, and Y/N turned to find Namjoon standing there, watching her by the fireplace in Yoongi's office. She had been curious when he would approach her, knowing that Yoongi had gone to check if the tunnels were passable.
Y/N couldn't quite discern the tone of Namjoon's remark—whether it held irony or genuine praise. Such was the enigmatic nature of this man.
“I suppose,” she muttered, hugging herself for comfort.
“I personally thought you’d slap her hand off. Such an act would undoubtedly stir up trouble,” said he as he settled down in one of the armchairs.
Her mind replayed the events of the pledge, and she confessed truthfully, “I was too shocked to do so.” The new bride's pledge of loyalty to her and her empty womb had caught her off guard, leaving her uneasy.
“Your father is not demanding newcomers to pledge loyalty?” He asked, curious about their inner circle practices. She smirked, sensing his attempt to pry.
“Yes, but not to my mother,” she revealed.
“You hold an important position within our ranks,” the right-hand man noted. “And that, my dear, is why we are having this little conversation.” Y/N looked up, finding him extending a glass filled with what she presumed to be rice wine or soju.
“I genuinely want to be your friend Y/N—” he said while passing the glass to her. “But you’re very hard to please, princess,” he exclaimed.
“By ‘wanting to be my friend’, you mean the part when you threaten me again,” she retorted with a scoff, alluding to his past warnings.
“That is a necessary evil,” he conceded. “But on a serious note, Y/N,” he drew closer, taking a seat slightly further away to grant her personal space, “Why?”
“What do you mean, why?” she asked, feeling dumbfounded by his question.
"Is life here truly so terrible that all you can think of is escape?" he sighed, genuinely curious about her state of mind.
“Not all I can think of—” she began, trying to defend herself.
"Oh, so you did not attempt to escape just a day ago, and two days before that, and so on," he interjected, pointing out her recent attempts.
“What do you want to hear from me Namjoon?” she countered, feeling the pressure of his questioning.
“Hoseok hyung overheard your conversation,” he finally gave away the one piece of information he sought to address “What are you afraid of?”
Y/N gazed into the dancing flames, his words echoing in her mind. Memories of the recent kiss with Yoongi and the ensuing events flooded her thoughts. She felt her spirit on the brink of collapse, her attempts to escape repeatedly thwarted, causing harm to others in the process. Y/N was exhausted.
“I suppose I expected my life to take a different trajectory than this,” she admitted, reflecting on her circumstances.
“I can assure you that this will be the best that ever happened to you—” Namjoon insisted, trying to be reassuring.
“And that, Namjoon, is where my disbelief lies,” she interrupted him, peering straight into his eyes. He sighed, running a hand across his face, expressing a sense of frustration mixed with genuine concern.
“You didn’t give it a chance!” He raised his voice, unable to hide his emotions. He wanted this clan to function as it did for countless years and what’s more, he wanted his hyung to be happy.
“I’m going to ask you once again, and I want the truth,” he implored, trying to get to the heart of the matter. “What are you so scared of?”
Y/N decided to remain silent, knowing that her response would likely incite further frustration from him. "Is it sex?" he suddenly asked, shocking her with his explicitness. "Are you scared to be punished for your sins?”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” she returned his rage, denying his accusation.
“Am I?” he continued probing.
“Yes, Namjoon! You are! You think I’m this shallow?!” she lashed out.
“No, but all you let us see is the shallow version of you. Apart from this morning,” he declared, referring to a rare moment of vulnerability she had shown.
“And it wasn’t meant for anybody to hear nor see that,” she snapped back at him.
“I understand your reasoning, Y/N. But we’re your family now, you don’t have to shield yourself against us,” he pleaded, hoping to break down her walls.
“He loves you, Y/N,” Namjoon continued, trying to make her see the sincerity in Yoongi's feelings.
“That’s very hard to believe too.” She remarked, still sceptical, looking right through his eyes. He took a deep breath, lifting his hand to touch his face.
“Alright, let’s make a deal,” he proposed, catching her by surprise and piquing her interest.
“About?” She asked, curiously.
“Give it a year,” said the right-hand man. By making a deal with her, he is going behind the back of his leader and, even more importantly — his dearest friend. Nevertheless, he felt obligated to do this for him.
"If you're still 'scared' of whatever you say you are, and this is not the life you'll be comfortable living, I'll personally see to it that you'll be transported to America," he promised, leaving her momentarily speechless.
“What is the catch?” Y/N wasn't naive. She knew there must be some ulterior motive.
"You'll stop being a flight risk. If you attempt to run again, the deal is off, and I will personally eliminate each person foolish enough to aid you since your arrival—one by one, ending with your cousin," he stated, laying out the condition.
Her heart pounded in her chest as she absorbed his chilling words. Her mind raced as she contemplated her choices. "That's the only condition?" she asked, ensuring she understood the terms before giving her answer.
"Well, naturally, I expect you to genuinely give it a chance, meaning that you will accept Hyung as your husband, leader, and lover," he emphasized the last noun, urging her to take his words seriously. Y/N stopped for a moment to collect her thoughts together.
“This is a one time offer Y/N. I won’t be this generous again,” he added. She struggled to read him, but she couldn’t. Namjoon was well known for being unpredictable — a quality that made him a perfect fit as the right-hand man. No one could ever say with certainty what his next move would be.
“Fine,” she finally relented, her voice barely a whisper. Namjoon extended his hand, sealing the deal with a firm shake. He leaned in closer to Y/N.
“I trust that you’ll be on your best behaviour from now on.” He whispered to her. There were so many emotions in her eyes right now that she was working hard to process. She barely nodded and averted her gaze down. Y/N couldn’t bear to look into his intimidating eyes no more.
“Very well,” he murmured, his gaze still fixed on her. “The tunnels have been cleared, and the wedding will take place this week." He told her.
Y/N's heart skipped a beat at the mention of the impending wedding. She was praying that perhaps she has more time to think of what to do with her situation. According to Seokjin, who came to visit and spent some time on occasion with her when his leader could not, the tunnels wouldn’t be cleared out until the end of December, giving her another month in total.
“Brother!” exclaimed Namjoon suddenly, breaking her train of thought. Y/N followed his gaze to the sliding door, where Yoongi stood, undoing the cufflinks of his shirt, the suit jacket already gone. "I was just telling Y/N the good news," Namjoon smiled at him.
Throughout this month, Y/N observed the strong brotherhood among Yoongi's most trusted and closest men. The deepest connection Yoongi shared was undoubtedly with Namjoon, which explained why he was the right-hand man.
Yoongi displayed a particularly protective nature towards his younger brothers. She had yet to meet Jungkook, the youngest, who had been recently assigned as captain of the front unit, as she overheard. On the other hand, Jimin was more involved in the open, managing the front business and whatever lay beneath it. The Chosen Hotel was highly popular among Koreans but was eagerly open to international guests too. Y/N suspected that the true core of the business was settled elsewhere, and she was eager to uncover it.
Seokjin, recently married, primarily served as the inner family's doctor. However, the Min clan also faced a shortage of actual medical staff like, so he had to run between the sanctuary, as she had learnt this place was called, and a front hospital.
Taehyung remained a mystery to her, despite seeing him in family pictures and hearing Yoongi mention him occasionally. He was supposed to represent the law in Yoongi's business dealings, ensuring the safety and legitimacy of their operations, including the handling of illegal earnings. Therefore, Taehyung is the safety pin of this organization. Whomever fucks up, he is there to defend them.
And lastly, Hoseok, a surprising contrast of joy and darkness. Y/N was taken aback that such a buoyant personality could be involved in such sinister activities. He was the arsonist who also took care of assassinations. Additionally, the clan engaged in money laundering, and Hoseok was responsible for collecting debts, often involuntarily.
Her eyes swelled with tears she was refusing to let out. Yoongi’s eyes met Y/N's, and she could see a mixture of concern and worry flicker across his face. A silent understanding passed between them, and they knew that they would need to have a private conversation later.
“Well, it seems you two need more privacy,” said Namjoon while he was collecting himself from the cushion he was sitting on.
“Did Tae call?” Yoongi asked before Namjoon could leave. “He did before Hyung’s wedding, to send his good wishes and—” he gazed over to Y/N who was carefully listening to their conversation, hanging on every word.
“—and?” Yoongi asked as he unbuttoned his shirt, a sight she had seen far too often for her liking. He was not shy with her; he could easily undress before her without a second thought. His attempts to walk in on her while she was changing didn't go unnoticed either, though she made sure to show her displeasure by throwing vases at him to keep him out.
Only now did Y/N remember the glass of alcoholic beverage that Namjoon had offered her, remaining untouched in her hands. She decided to take a sip, trying to ease her nerves before the conversation she was dreading.
“—and everything went well, as expected,” said Namjoon observing her as she downed the burning soju.
“Send telegraph to Wang and other families. We’re leaving for Chosen in two hours.” Y/N straightened herself, eyes wide open in disbelief.
“W-what do you mean in two hours?” She stammered. It was just past eight when she gazed at the clock on the wall. That would mean they'd depart at ten and arrive in Seoul around midnight.
"—I thought they just cleared the way. Why are we—" Yoongi cut her off abruptly. "I am waiting no more," he said firmly, locking his gaze with hers, leaving her in shock once again.
"On your way, please inform the maids to pack, and I want the cabin ready," Yoongi instructed Namjoon, who memorised every task with a sense of responsibility, seemingly disregarding Y/N's shattered spirit in the wake of this sudden rush.
“Can we at least talk about it?!” she raised her voice, causing the two men to stop in their tracks. They exchanged knowing looks, making it clear that this was non-negotiable. Yoongi clicked his tongue, biting his cheeks from inside, then turned to face his fiancée with a deceptive sweetness in his tone.
"Of course, my love," he said.
He nodded to Namjoon, who immediately took off, glancing at Y/N with a silent reminder to behave.
“What’s wrong?” Yoongi asked nonchalantly as if this were a perfectly normal scenario.
“I don’t know, do you think this is right?” Y/N kept her tone tense, signalling her discontent.
“Nothing is more right than this,” he answered, pouring himself a drink while taking her empty glass and refilling it with soju.
"Yoongi—" she began to protest, but he didn't let her speak further, having heard her excuses countless times.
“No Y/N. I’m not negotiating this time. We’re getting married tomorrow afternoon and that’s final,” he stated sternly.
"You could at least wait a day! Do you think everyone will just jump because you said it's happening right now? And more importantly, let me mentally prepare for it?!” Her frustration grew, and she gestured wildly, almost knocking over the refilled glass that Yoongi handed her.
“They are already in town. The telegraph is just a confirmation that it will happen tomorrow.” Her distress and panic were understandable; she had believed she had more time than a few hours.
“And you didn’t think of telling me first?!” she raised her voice even higher. That she was in distress and panic was very understandable. Y/N thought she had more time than a few hours.
“No, because you were finally letting me in—” said he, downing the contents of his glass in one go.
“You knew this would happen for a month, and you would have had more time to prepare yourself if running away fifteen hundred times a day wouldn’t be on your mind,” he fired back, raising his voice at her, and immediately asserting dominance.
"I'm getting very tired of this. One step forward and ten million miles back, damn it!" he cursed, slamming the glass down on his desk in frustration. The tension in the room was palpable, and Y/N felt her heart sinking as she realized that her hopes of a slower pace for their relationship had been shattered.
“I have a very easy solution to that—” she said, raising herself to stand up to him.
“—Let me go,” she emphasized every single word, her frustration boiling over, and momentarily forgetting about her deal with Namjoon.
Her emotions were running high, and she went to pull the ring off to prove her point, but he forcefully grabbed her right hand, stopping her in her tracks. Anger filled his eyes as he crossed his other hand, grabbed her by the back of her neck, and crashed his lips onto hers, pressing their bodies against the nearest wall. He didn't give her a chance to catch her breath as he passionately bruised her lips.
He let go of her hand once he was sure she wouldn't resist. With his now free hand, he lifted her leg, wrapping it around his waist, squeezing her ass cheek, making her yelp and by that creating an opening to slip his tongue into her mouth. Y/N had no idea how long their intimate encounter lasted, but she could feel her head spinning from the lack of oxygen. Just as she managed to stop his other hand from slipping under her dress, aiming for her pulsing heat, he parted from her, both of them breathing heavily.
“I’m sorry. I got carried away,” he apologised, his eyes fixed on her now swollen lips. Y/N was taken aback, her head still spinning, and she couldn't think straight. He had such a powerful effect on her, and this aspect of life was entirely new to her, having been kept away from such experiences.
"I wish, —" he started, nibbling at her lower lip while he continued to speak, "—you would acknowledge my love for you." Yoongi kissed her again, not giving her a chance to recover or speak up, moaning softly into her lips.
"We are too close. I will never give you up.” he declared, wiping her tears away gently.
“I can’t have you running though—” he leaned into lavish attention on her neck, placing butterfly kisses up to her jaw and stopping at her lips again—
"I'll overlook this lapse of senses if you keep up this good behaviour, my love, but the next time you disobey me, I won't only discipline you; someone will lose their head.”
She trembled against him, feeling lost, scared, and vulnerable. Her breath hitched as she tried to speak up. Yoongi was beyond himself for getting her into this state where she didn’t dare to oppose his words and stopped fighting him. If she won’t let him in willingly, he will force her to open up to him.
“I told you to not take that ring off your finger ever again.” She remembers the words he uttered to her in the garden where he proposed to her. That she agreed still feels surreal to her. Running got her nowhere, but she still had a selfish feeling inside her that he was bluffing and wouldn’t dare to seriously hurt anybody.
“Now be a good girl and apologise for disobeying me.” He tightened his grip at her waist, finally staring right into her teary eyes. Y/N felt lost, scared and vulnerable. Her lips were trembling, and her breath hitched again once she opened her mouth to speak.
“Shhh, it’s okay baby, just say it.” He cooed, lifting his hand to caress her cheek gently.
“I-I am sorry,” she finally sobbed. If there was one thing the scarred boy excelled at, it was getting his way. He smiled at her, pleased with her response.
He smiled at her. “That’s more like it, baby.”
Y/N longed to curl up in her small apartment, where she resided while studying at college. She desperately wished she could turn back time.
“I have something for you,” he said suddenly, looking for any sign of curiosity from her. Yoongi stepped away to his desk, leaving her pressed against the wall, hesitant to move an inch. He opened one of his drawers and pulled out an envelope. Y/N couldn't make out the handwriting, but her eyes widened as she recognised it.
“Your aunt entrusted me with this letter when we came to the conclusion that you should be mine one day,” he said, holding the envelope in his hands. Y/N desperately wished that the answer and a solution to her fears would be contained in that envelope. She was mulling over the platform of this match-making her aunt orchestrated.
Wang Xiaoqing very much upheld the meaning of her name in the time she lived. Blessed with intelligence. And she was a fearless mafia wife who brought pride to her late husband. There are other intriguing things about Y/N’s beloved auntie. Xiaoqing is by far the only member in her large family tree that married for love. Y/N admired her aunt and, perhaps, seeing that it was possible to marry for love, made her blindly believe she could also have the freedom to choose her partner.
She dreamt of a little house in the woods, not far from a lake or a small town. Growing some goods in the garden, by night sitting near the fireplace, the love of her life holding her. She would work in a nearby hospital, or study overseas to become a doctor were all part of her fever dream. She knew it was unlikely to come true, given her family's ties to the syndicate.
But she could least dream about it. For a moment, when she was on the ferry to Jeju Island, she thought she would make it. Y/N knew the risk she was taking once she entrusted her well-being to Chan-yeol. She knew his role was insignificant and not a threat to any syndicate and it wouldn’t certainly attract Yakuza, but she was also aware that he could have been the only one to send her to the far land. She believed that God chose this path for her instead of being an arm jewel to some Yakuza brute.
Reality snapped her back from her swirling thoughts as he put the envelope back in the drawer.
“W-what are you doing?” she asked, taking a step forward.
“I will give it to you—” he promised “and tell you everything you want to know—” locking the drawer with a key.
“—After you’ll walk the aisle to me, without any of your misfits,” he finished his sentence.
"To strengthen your cooperation for tomorrow, I'm having your cousin and her husband at gunpoint during the ceremony," he added, making her scream in protest.
"I won't do anything stupid," she pleaded, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Just let them be, please. They have little son, Yoongi.”
“I know, that’s why they are the perfect bargain to make you obedient. If this doesn't work, you still have other family members—," Y/N couldn't bear it any longer; she closed the distance between them, standing just inches away from him.
“If you would love me—” she started but before she could finish, he grabbed her waist and pulled her even closer, pressing his body against hers. She could feel his torso and lower body. He bowed down next to her ear.
“I’ll stop this necessary coercion when you’ll learn your place, my love.”
Yoongi loved making her squirm and overwhelm her. He was basking in the effect he had on her. The fact that she will be his wife in less than twelve hours was a source of satisfaction for him.
“You were my woman for a long time now, and you will be my woman till death do us apart.”
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I N T E R L O G U E
“—And you’re certain that the man is on his way to Seoul.” The leader inquired of his trusted friend and partner, seated in the quiet confines of his home office.
“Yes,” Hoseok affirmed with a nod.
"Is there any additional information that I need to be aware of?” Yoongi's voice carried a hint of tension, his teeth gritted in anger.
"As of now, there's nothing more to report," the younger male replied, keeping the conversation concise.
“Do you want me to eliminate him?” Hoseok offered, waiting for his leader's command.
“Not just yet, I was hoping to have the pleasure myself.”
to be continued
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author’s note: so here we are at chapter IV!! ♥ Thank you all so much for for sticking around chummers ♥ They kissed and much moreee!!! We'll see what we'll happen next. I hereby promise to post the chapter sooner than the end of Semptember, or I hope so xD Tho I have some wips to write and if I'll finish some then I'll post something new too ♥
Massive shout-out to Bex, the queen @chaoticpuff17, for beta another chapter!
Love you!!!!
Don't be a silent reader, comment, re-blog, heart, asks are more than welcome ♥
keep in mind - I'm not an expert on chinese, korean and japanese culture, but I tried to research everything realistic I wanted to add to the story. Nonetheless, take it as a fiction.
let's be friends chummers ♥
lots of love,
𝖕𝖊𝖓𝖓𝖞𝖊𝖑𝖑𝖊
taglist: @beautifulcloudfestival - @chaoticpuff17 - @honsoolgloss - @jingerbreadoutofstock - @moscow778 - @januara26 - @dinosolecito - @yoongislatinagff - @xyahrinx - @hi12345567 - @nochuel - @deltamoon666 - @bbkissme99 - @darkuni63 - @nansasa - @sazsazsaz - @missmin - @strxwbloody - @royallyjjk - @jaiuneamesolitaiire - @shadowyjellyfishfest - @bbgniecyy - @elayne321 - @seojunandsoju - @bun-27 - @whipwhoops - @wobblewobble822 - @whofan88 - @haneyyy - @lostgirlinthewoodss @secfir @btspurplesky @elleflying07 - @pamzn - @megseungmin
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kiisstuff · 3 months
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The Bakshi Family
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Summary:
"The Bakshi Family" is an interactive fiction inspired by the sitcom Full House. After the untimely death of their mother, Rakesh Bakshi finds himself navigating the challenges of parenting his four children— The twins Alisha & Asim, Bevis, and the youngest, Darsh. The family's dynamics are further complicated by the arrival of their 25-year-old aunt/uncle, the MC, who must balance their own life while helping the Bakshi family cope with their loss. Amidst the chaos, the MC encounters five potential romantic interests: Bo Wu, Rakesh's best friend; Rakesh himself; Grace Clarke, a celebrity; S Smith, the neighbor; and Charlie Andrew, the teacher. As the MC forms bonds and supports the Bakshi family, they discover that love and laughter can heal even the deepest wounds in this heartwarming and entertaining interactive narrative.
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Aunt/Uncle MC: Play as the 25-year-old aunt/uncle, juggling personal life and responsibilities to support the Bakshi family in the aftermath of their mother's death. (decide to play male or female and create a personality and a appearance)
Diverse Romantic Interests: Choose from five distinct romantic interests, each with their own personalities and backgrounds. Will you pursue a relationship with Rakesh, the best friend Bo, the celebrity Grace, the neighbor S, or the teacher Charlie?
Coping Mechanisms: Witness how each family member copes with grief in their own way. Delve into the emotional nuances of the characters as they navigate the healing process.
Parenting Challenges: Assist Rakesh, the father, in overcoming his chaotic and embarrassing parenting style. Navigate the ups and downs of family life while trying to understand the needs and emotions of each child.
Slice-of-Life Situations: Experience everyday situations reminiscent of the Full House sitcom, including heartwarming family moments, humorous mishaps in the kitchen, and the joys and challenges of raising children.
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Bo Wu:
Personality: Bo is a 28-year-old Asian-American with a flare for the dramatic. He exudes arrogance, flirts unabashedly, and considers himself the coolest person in the room. Despite his rude exterior, there's a mysterious charm that draws people in.
Appearance: Bo has fair skin, dark brown eyes, and shoulder-length black hair tied in a small ponytail. Standing at 6'0ft, he embraces a relaxed and effortlessly cool style.
Rakesh Bakshi:
Personality: At 36, Rakesh is the Indian father of the Bakshi family. Despite his embarrassing and chaotic parenting, he is genuinely nice and friendly. He enjoys baseball, snowboarding (though it always ends badly), and casual cooking sessions that often result in culinary mishaps.
Appearance: Rakesh has tan skin, messy brown hair, a casual stumble, and stands tall at 6'4ft, giving him a laid-back and approachable look.
Grace Clarke:
Personality: Grace, a 23-year-old British celebrity, is sweet, insightful, outgoing, and enthusiastic. She enjoys singing, acting, dressing up, surfing, yoga, and cooking. Grace brings a positive and vibrant energy to every situation.
Appearance: Grace boasts porcelain skin, mid-length wavy auburn hair, and ocean-blue eyes. Standing at 5'3ft, she carries herself with a sensual and graceful demeanor.
Scott/Skye Smith:
Personality: S a 29 American Person, is the athletic neighbour with a shy, spontaneous, logical, caring, and strategic personality. They have a love for various sports and photography, bringing a unique dynamic to the neighborhood.
Appearance: Scott, at 5'8ft, features blond, bald hair, a beard, sharp features, rosy skin and an athletic, sporty look, while Skye, standing at 5'6ft, has blond hair in a loose bun, sharp features, rosy skin and also an athletic, sporty look.
Charlie Andrew:
Personality: Charlie, the 28-year-old Native American teacher, is efficient, reliable, playful, and intellectual. They enjoy reading, hiking, and drawing.
Appearance: Charlie has shoulder-length aqua blue hair, brown eyes, golden brown skin, and a professional look, standing at 5'8ft. They radiate a calm and intellectual aura.
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demo: tba probably April
forum: tba probably April
other: soulmate-if , TBFamily-If
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amomentsescape · 7 months
Note
I would like to know what a slasher relationship would be like with a hybrid fem witch/vampire. Sorry if it makes no sense, English is not my main language
Slashers with a Feminine Witch & Vampire Hybrid
A/N: This a great Spooky Season Request!
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Freddy Krueger
He thinks it's hot, of course
Wants you to bite him just for the hell of it
His blood doesn't taste very good though (he's dead) so he tries to make up for it in other ways
Always brings home a body for you
But if that's not really your style, he'll happily come back with a jug of blood instead
Wants to see the types of spells you can cast
He turns it into a competition sometimes
You both go back and forth using your powers to change things around
Secretly wants you to use your powers on his victims with him during his murder sprees
If you enjoy feeding on bodies, he wants to be there to watch
Everything about it turns him on to be honest
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Michael Myers
Probably the most neutral of the slashers
He kinda just lets you do your own thing for a while
Is not too sure about you feeding off of him at first, but he secretly loves it now
He thinks your spells are pretty cool too, but he just doesn't show it much
Will definitely take advantage of your powers though if he is having trouble with a victim
He hates asking though since he very much wants to do everything himself
You insist on healing him whenever he is injured even against his objections
As long as you don't intervene too much with his killings, he lets you do whatever for the most part
Just don't kill his target first
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Jason Voorhees
Will definitely supply you with enough blood to last a lifetime
He's very giving with everything
You're hungry? He's sure he can find a lost soul in the woods
Need a certain plant for a spell? He'll keep an eye out for it while he wanders around
Likes to sit with you while you learn new spells and listen to you explain everything you're doing
Honestly, you being a hybrid makes him feel more comfortable
He knows that you can take care of yourself while he's gone
And you living within nature where people and animals pass through is perfect
Unlimited food and seclusion to work on your magic is exactly what you want
It's a win win all around
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Thomas Hewitt
When he first learns about what you were, he was honestly kinda confused
He had heard of witches, and he had heard of vampires
But only through a fictional sense
And even then, he didn't know that someone could be both
Would need you to sit down and explain everything to him
The whole family is supportive of your taste in food (clearly)
They just use the meat, so they're happy to give you all the blood first before going to work
They're a bit iffy about your spells and powers though
Satanic spells would be a hard no in their books
As long as you use your magic outside of their home, then they all couldn't care less on you being a hybrid
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Bubba Sawyer
You eat people? Cool, same.
But the witchcraft thing is going to take some getting used to
He grew up being told that all forms of witchcraft are evil
So you'll need to sit him down and explain everything you do
Has a weird fascination with watching you drink blood
The first time you casted a spell in front of him, he jumped
But just like a little kid in a toy store, he was quick to show his curiosity and want to see more of your spells
Slowly grows to love it
He has never met anyone supernatural before, so having you around is like living in a movie every day
Will go out with you to pick plants and herbs
May even help you set up a little garden out back
He has quite the green thumb
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Brahms Heelshire
His family was pretty religious growing up, so the witchy part is pretty concerning to him at first
The vampire thing is also a bit annoying
He wants to be able to sit down and eat a normal dinner with you every night
But your diet is very particular
Living in the middle of nowhere is nice since you can go out and find plenty of animals to eat if needed
But the lack of people and Brahms never wanting to leave the house makes it difficult for you at times
You probably have to venture outside alone a lot which he doesn't like
But when at home, he grows to appreciate your spells more
The home is clean in a snap, his food is ready in just a second
Definitely becomes even lazier and wants you to do everything for him
He's still a child at heart after all
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Norman Bates
He's honestly a little scared of you at first
Vampires and witches are in every evil tale, and he grew up correlating them with monsters
But he cares about you too much to let you go completely
Prefers for you to drink blood outside of the home
But if there happens to be a body left in one of the motel rooms, he's fine with you venturing in there and doing what you need
He just doesn't want to see it
You've tried using your powers to help clean the motels rooms, but he honestly prefers to do it the old fashioned way
Avoids telling his mother about you being a hybrid
He knows it will just be her screaming in his head every day if he does
He does show quite an interest in the different plants and herbs you collect however
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Billy Loomis
Doesn't really believe you at first
"Prove it"
When your fangs pop out and your spell is cast, he is quick to widen his eyes
"Do it again"
Has a thing for you feeding on him
He finds it quite pleasurable honestly and would rather keep the bite mark than have you heal it up
Likes to join you outside at night and hold you while you conjure up spells
May want you to join him and Stu during their sprees to help them out from time to time
Invites you inside whenever they're done with all their victims so you can eat
Lays in bed with you at night and watches you use your magic to make pretty light shows on the ceiling
Thinks it's sexy
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Stu Macher
Also needs you to prove it to him
Gets the biggest grin on his face once you do
"That's hot"
Likes watching you feed from his arm
Wants you to go to every killing spree with him and Billy
If you can't, he brings back a couple containers of blood for you
Watches supernatural films with you and constantly asks if each scene is realistic
"Can witches do that?" "No, that's clearly fake, Stu"
Wants you to use your powers to pull pranks on people in public
Also wants you to use your powers to help him steal things from the store
Buys you cute crystals for your room
Asks you to conjure up a puppy on a daily basis
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Eric Draven
Loves the aesthetic of it all
The candles, plants, night time adventures, everything
If you're hungry, Eric may beat up a bad guy and let you finish the job
Just don't kill anyone innocent (or cats)
Doesn't mind if you feed from him
Kinda finds it romantic and always holds you close to him, rubbing his hand down your hair
Likes to see the spells you can cast
The ideal night for you two is sitting out on the roof together, him playing guitar and watching you try out new spells and casting your magic
Likes when you use your powers to send him little love messages in the night while he's gone
Enjoys laying in bed with you and watching you create little images on the wall
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houxe · 2 months
Text
Regarding my SBI/DSMP Fics
TW: Abuse, Trauma, and Mentions of Suicide.
With all that has happened, I did want to come out here and make my stance clear. I will always stand with Shelby (Shubble) and all of the victims who are speaking out against Will Gold (Wilbur Soot). If you still support that bastard, unfollow me and leave my blog and whatever small community I made.
I've already stated this is my Discord channel, but I want to put it here too.
For me, c!Wilbur is so far removed from cc!Wilbur that I don't connect the two. The characters are vessels for my own characterizations and stories. It's a bit like writing Supernatural*, Twilight, or Hazbin Hotel fanfics. I don't support the guy, monetarily or otherwise, he does not interact with fanfics, I have plans to be very vocal that I'm on Shelby's side no matter what/make it clear that what Will did is wrong, and I don't use his real life events as plots in my stories. At least, I certainly don't try to. It's why I typically change traits about the characters. (I.e. Tommy is shorter, Phil is taller, Techno is bulky, and Wilbur always has golden/hazel eyes.)
I'm aware that it's a tad different because it's rp and not something like a full on book or an actor in a movie, but DSMP has also been over for over two years and the characterizations I make for SBI are not at all based on the CCs. Real life Techno isn't a literal terrorist, Phil ain't a father married to a goddess, Tommy is not a traumatized child soldier, and Wilbur isn't suicidal and blowing up countries.
I think I'll likely focus more on Techno, Tommy, and Phil for a while, but I'm not gonna let one dude ruin a fandom and things I've made for myself. Nothing I write is ever made for Wilbur, as I've seen people saying. Additionally, Wilbur was not the only writer. Technoblade, Philza, TommyInnit, and so many others made that story what it was. Not him.
However, if any CCs come forward saying they don't want their old characters interacting with his, I will respect that.
Though I do think there is a tendency to take real life events (i.e. Techno's cancer, LJ's music, Tommy's real life parents, etc.) and put them into fiction about DSMP. I, however, don't try to do that and have stated before that I don't feel comfortable doing so. The truth is that we have not gotten any genuine SBI content outside of DSMP for years. The dynamic in real life is very different from what was presented in the DSMP. Did personalities still bleed over? Yes, I'm not going to deny that, but I'm not going to act like they're exactly the same between character and person either. We've had that conversation like in 2021, it's why we have C! and CC!.
The rather sad truth is, SBI is what got me really into writing and it's a comfort for me that nothing can compare to. Obviously, I don't think it's appropriate to be writing certain types of stories right now or to be involving characters made by CCs outside of the DSMP. I think it's up to everyone else to decide on what they want to do, however, rushing it also isn't the way to go either. Give yourself time to heal and think it over first instead of throwing away something that gives you comfort and has not been associated with by the creators for over two years.
Anyways, fuck Will Gold. Fuck the fact that he hurt so many people, and fuck that he lied and manipulated his way around the damn internet. ESPECIALLY fuck the fact that he tried to diminish what he did and not take proper accountability.
Go and support Shelby so so much, she and everyone who spoke out really deserve it. I'm glad silence on these types of issues is not being normalized.
Here is a list of (American) resources for DV help:
TNLR
RAINN
WOAR
Love is respect
The Trevor project
Futures without violence
National domestic violence hotline
Resource on what DV and abuse looks like
*Changed it from Harry Potter to Supernatural because Harry Potter is a significantly worse and more problematic franchise, even just within the content of the books. It'd be better left in the dust. I've talked about it before, but it was the first thing that came to my mind at the time and was a poor comparison on my part, I'm truly sorry for that.
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