✨Zoro’s Sake Bottle✨

you let satoru do as he pleases, threading your hands through his hair as his hand dips between your inner thighs. he hums into your neck when you scratch his scalp. “suguru,” you breathe, “how’d you two even get here? coach toji’s gonna kill you guys.”

“kiss,” satoru interrupts. you tilt your head towards him, eyes still on suguru as gojo presses his lips to yours.

suguru’s face twists in disgust, but he doesn’t comment. “satoru bribed him. paid him a couple hundreds to see you for five minutes.”

“right—” your voice strains when gojo gropes your ass once again. “and you followed him because?”

geto is already looking away. “he bribed me too.”

you snort, but it turns into a shiver as satoru sucks on your earlobe. he hums, pleased, when your fingers tighten in his hair.

“mmh… got an away match,” he kisses your jaw. “wanted to see my girl first.”

you’re not his girl, you know you’ll never be, but you still laugh when he squeezes your waist & presses hurried kisses to your cheek. you shove him away & his grin is cocky.

“gonna score for you,” he tugs you back, dipping his head to your ear. “and then you’ll treat me, yeah?”

you hum when his arms snake around your hips once again.

“only if you score the winning goal.”

2. POST MATCH SEXCAPADES !

satoru comes back too late.

you’re not sure exactly why—maybe overtime, maybe the team stopped somewhere to celebrate their win—but you don’t let the thought plague you. you’re more concerned about the fact that it’s nearly evening & you can hear a ball kicking against the gym walls. you’re still in your cheer uniform, tiny skirt & sheer top, standing at the metal doors as you watch gojo dribble on his own.

he stops dribbling to catch his breath, wiping sweat off his chin. and then he’s off to sit at the bleachers, letting water slide down his neck as he chugs from a bottle.

you take it as your cue.

you have your hands behind your back, padding all slow, steps soft as you make your way to him. gojo keeps his bottle pressed to his lips but he sees it. how your skirt clings to your thighs. how your breasts ripple under the thin material. he lets out a low hum as you sit yourself on his lap.

you loop your hands around his neck. “hi.”

his lip tugs. “hi,”

he squeezes your waist as you press yourself into him. your tits smush against his chest, nipples hardening, and his fingers are already tracing the hem of your skirt & gliding up your thigh.

“how was the match?” you mumble.

“was good,” he mutters, but his thumb has already found your panties underneath your skirt. he rubs a slow circle over the bud. “you miss me?”

“no,” you sass, but he presses his thumb into your clit & your hips stutter. satoru laughs.

“i know what you like now,” he hums, left hand gliding up your side as the other rubs slow circles over your panties. “know it only takes a little.”

his thumb finds your nipple through your thin shirt. he rubs a circle over the pebbled peak, slow, but then he raises a brow. “no bra?”

you can’t respond. your breath hitches as your head falls into his shoulder.

“so cute,” he murmurs softly. he lets you press against him, leaving your panties to grope your heavy tits in his palm. he squeezes and fondles, pressing light kisses to your cheek as you make pretty noises in his ear. your hips buck into him.

“needy,” he scoffs, but his hands come up to guide your hips as you rut against him. he’s already hard and your panties are soaked thin and you let the material cling between your folds as your clit rubs against him. he flips up your skirt to find you drenched & slobbering. he bites his cheek.

“fuck, baby,” he rasps, sliding your panties over your aching cunt. you’re still humping him. “why’s your pussy so fucking wet?”

you only whimper as he presses his thumb to your sticky clit, rubbing hard circles over the bud. his other hand gropes your hip, guiding you faster over him. your breathing shudders as his thumb circles your clit faster and harder, until your hips are stuttering & he’s cupping your pussy so you cum in his palm.

you whimper, tears pricking at your lashes as you come down from your high. satoru kisses your cheek slow. “mmh, good job, baby.”

he’s still rubbing his palm over your pussy, massaging your warmth all slow & lazy. your eyes drop to his bulge, his cock practically twitching in his shorts. you reach a hand to glide over it, palming him so his hips twitch. he inhales sharply, “fuck—”

“not in my uniform,” he steals your hand, kissing your jaw. “gonna be a nightmare to clean.”

you glare at him through your lashes. “it’s already dirty, idiot.”

he laughs at your pretty face glaring up at him. your cheeks are still flushed, lashes wet, and your lips are in a frown but satoru swears you’re the prettiest thing he’s ever seen. he folds his hand over yours and dips his head to kiss you warm & slow. you gasp as his tongue pushes in, a soft moan leaving your lips as his tongue grazes yours.

“another time,” he murmurs against your lips. “no pouting, yeah?”

you pout anyways, and satoru kisses it off.

3. NOT YOUR GIRLFRIEND !

satoru is driving too fast.

his jaw is tight, knuckles white against the steering as you clutch your seatbelt beside him. your heart hammers against your ribs but the engine soon slows, his foot easing down on the breaks as the car comes to a stop at a traffic light.

today’s match went bad, really bad, so bad to the point that afterwards you’d tried to console him and he’d simply walked past. you try not to let it get to you. you know how men are when it comes to losing in sports.

but satoru’s breathing settles beside you, so you try once more.

“you played good today.”

silence.

"i know you're upset," you continue, voice soft. "but it's just one game, and you'll get them next time.”

silence again. his jaw only ticks, face illuminated by the traffic light’s red glow. the seconds seem to stretch into minutes, and you fumble with your skirt.

“you did your best,” you turn to him. “that’s all that matters—“

“can you stop?”

you freeze.

satoru doesn’t look at you. his fingers tap against the steering as he lowers his foot to the gas pedal. he’s not speeding anymore, but the silence stretches & you can feel a lump clawing at your throat.

you bite your lip. and satoru’s mad, yes, but he’s got no right to talk to you like that or take his anger out on you. so you suck in a breath, try to correct him. “i was only trying to help. you don’t have to take it out on me—“

“do you ever get tired of talking?”

“what?”

but satoru continues. “you always have something to say, don’t you? you’re not my fucking girlfriend. and i don’t need your fucking comfort.”

you blink. the words don’t register at first, but soon your throat is closing up, and you’re nodding obediently before you can think any better of it. your skirt bunches in your hands as you try to keep your breathing steady. god forbid you give him a reason to snap at you once again.

“you’re right,” you try for sass but it fails. “and i won’t act like it again.”

but satoru sees you through the rearview mirror. your eyes are on your lap, like you’re still trying to process what just happened, your thumbs fiddling with the hem of your skirt. satoru only swallows, glances away. if he ignores you long enough, you’ll be just fine, right?

your breath hitches beside him and he crumbles immediately.

he’s already pulling over, unbuckling his belt to reach over the console. “no baby, i’m sorry,” he pleads, and maybe he shouldn’t because it only makes tears fall from your eyes. “shh baby don’t cry, i’m sorry, i’m so fucking sorry.”

he smushes your face into his chest, carding his fingers through your hair. you try to push him away but he takes your hand and presses it to his chest.

“didn’t mean to snap at you,” his breathing is ragged as he cups your face. “don’t cry baby, you know i hate it when you cry.”

you sniffle as he swipes a thumb over your wet lashes. “then what are we?”

satoru doesn’t answer. instead he presses his lips to yours, slow and warm, head tilting to deepen the kiss. “you’re my girl,” kiss. “my baby,” kiss. “my everything,” kiss.

he doesn’t say my girlfriend. but he doesn’t need to, right?

footballer!gojo doesn’t do relationships. and cheerleaders like you don’t make good girlfriends anyway. so you swallow the lump growing in your throat & let him part open your thighs.

SCORE, end

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

you knocked on his door, almost pounding on it, letting all your rage out in that single action. you thought he was predictable enough. you didn’t really know him, but his mind had never seemed all that complex. he might have had the best grades in all your classes for almost three consecutive years, but outside of academics, his thought process felt pretty easy to follow. or so you believed.

you kept trying to get him to open the door. it was a saturday morning, so it was obvious he was sleeping in after a long night of doing god knows what. you had only spoken to him briefly once, but everyone seemed to know his routine a little too well. he was extremely predictable, right?

“could you explain to me why the fuck-“ you cut yourself off after a few words came out of your mouth, realizing you weren’t talking to the person you were supposed to kill that morning.

“who are you?” the pitch black haired girl standing in front of you asked in a condescending tone, with all the confidence you had spent hours trying to build vanishing in a few seconds.

“y-yeah, uhm. sorry. i was looking for… jake?”

“he is sleeping.” you could tell she wasn’t going to give you much more information by her lack of justification. could she at least offer to pass the message down to him? while you were pondering about how to even ask her to do so, you couldn’t help but notice her smudged mascara and the faint red marks that were blooming on her neck. didn’t he have a girlfriend? you had heard some people called him ‘the campus slut’, but you didn’t know the title was so literal. you had no interest on speculating on people’s sex lives at that moment, but you prayed someone had told his supposed girlfriend about how this guy was spending the nights.

“anything else?” you thought people would stop being mean for no reason once you got to college, but that wasn’t the case at all. you learned pretty quickly in your first year that all the cliches still existed no matter how old you got, and that’s how you stayed invisible. you were comfortable with being irrelevant, unknown to most people, since that’s how it had been for your whole life. you didn’t speak to anyone unless it was mandatory and completely inevitable, which left you with, to be honest, zero friends. you tried in your first year, you really did, at least during the first month. but you quickly realized people weren’t so friendly there, even less to such an awkward person. interacting socially didn’t come as easy to you as it did to others, but you had no idea how to change it. even if you had tried to for your whole twenty years of life.

all you knew was that you had a single goal. a quiet goal that made you stay up every night, drowning in voluptuous psychology books that you took out of the library’s darkest corners and writing infinite notes that were carefully highlighted in all sort of colours. a goal that always had an obstacle. an obstacle named jake sim, to be exact. and at that exact moment, he was hindering your progress more than ever. “look, uhm… could you tell him i’m his project partner for his social development class and that i need to talk to him? if he doesn’t remember me, tell him he gave me his email, in class. i-i shared a google doc so he also has my email address and he can-“

“who the fuck is at my door at this hour, kyra?” before you could finish your sentence, you heard a deep voice approaching. the infuriating voice you were actually looking for.

“great, you woke him up.” kyra spoke in a fake nice tone, a mean smile pulling at her lips. before you could even process the passive-aggressive comment, a dyed blonde head peeked out from behind the door. your heart jumped. you had spent so long preparing for this confrontation, but now that it was actually happening, you suddenly felt weak. “oh, you.” well, at least it seemed like he remembered who you were. you could skip the embarrassing part in which you reminded him of the only interaction you had ever had, in front of another stranger too. “so… what do you need?” jake questioned in a confused tone, clearly not interested in what you had to say.

“i wanna talk to you. in private.” you said as your gaze turned to the girl who answered the door, trying to subtly get your message across.

“this is fucking stupid, i’ll wait for you in bed.” she rolled her eyes as she entered the apartment again, clearly not happy about your presence. you knew you were being an inconvenience, but he deserved it. it wasn’t your fault she was there to suffer the consequences of his actions.

“so?” you took a deep breath before speaking, as seeing the natural look of confidence he had was already making you furious.

“i did my part the day the project was assigned. tell me why i opened the document yesterday night to see if you had started and, to my surprise, the whole thing is gone. deleted.”

“do you not know how to look at the document history or what?” “d-do you think i haven’t done that?! that is also gone, you know?” you raised your voice a little, trying to hide how anxious you were about the whole interaction.

“and you weren’t smart enough to make a copy of your text?” “why do we use google docs for? it’s supposed to be safe because of the damn history.”

“did you come here just to blame me for your irresponsibility?” you had never met such an infuriating person, you were sure. but before you could even respond, he questioned you again. “how did you even get my address?” you knew that question would come up sooner or later, so you already had your answer prepared.

“i asked your friend who works at the campus cafe. i always see you with him.” you did ask heeseung because you knew he would be dumb enough to just tell you without much reasoning. although you actually didn’t need his help, you couldn’t let jake know you were actually very aware of his surroundings. you were a little too familiar with what his friend group posted on instagram, too. this guy’s information was way too easy to find, you thought. some people might have thought you were obsessed, but to you, it was simply being strategic. analyzing the objective, comprehending how a person so careless could always win. no matter what you did. maybe you were a little obsessed, but you had your academic reasons.

“so my guy heeseung is just giving out my information for free to random people, huh? i’ll talk to him later then.” he thought out loud, while completely ignoring your accusations still.

“don’t you have anything to say for yourself?” “you know, the need to sabotage only exists when there is real competition.” ouch. it wasn’t only the content of his message, it was also the way he delivered it. the calm tone, the cocky smirk and the lack of need of explanation. “look, you must have had a problem with your connection. but since i can physically sense your anxiety from here, i’ll do your part again. happy?” you were enraged. what did he know about your anxiety? he probably didn’t even remember your name. him being so sure about your mental state made you feel furious, and him being correct about it worsened even more.

"i don't need your pity. i just need you to not mess with my work. i don't have time for these kind of things, okay?"

"i'll send you a message when it's fully done. see ya." before you could even think of an answer, the door was shutted right in front of your face without further explanation. you just needed to get through this project and you wouldn't have to share a single word with jake ever again in your life. 

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

three days later, you finally reopened the document after you had only been working on it for a couple hours that same day you confronted jake. you needed to finish your part once again not because you wanted to, but because ignoring it any longer would’ve felt like admitting defeat. you sat down in the library with the same heaviness you had been carrying since that night, fingers hovering above the trackpad for a moment too long before you clicked in. the file loaded and nothing felt different at first. your section was still there, the parts you had rewritten after the frustration of seeing it had been erased. it still felt slightly uneven to you, unfinished in the way only your own work could feel when you knew you hadn’t had enough time to properly shape it again. you scrolled down, expecting the rest of it to still be blank. empty space, his problem. but there was no empty space. the document was... done. not half done, not rushed, not patched together just to meet the deadline. fully done. the methodology section had been expanded beyond what you had originally outlined, your notes reorganized into something clearer, more structured. the analysis had been rewritten in places, not replaced, but refined in a way that still made your ideas recognisable underneath it. even the conclusion was there, clean, direct and complete. you stared at it for a long time, not scrolling, not moving, just reading the same paragraph twice because your brain refused to accept that it hadn’t been there before.

and then you saw the comments. dozens of them. not long messages, not explanations, just quiet interruptions in your work: “this needs more grounding” “unclear reasoning here” “this part is actually strong, keep it” “you’re overexplaining this concept”. there was no tone in them, no praise or sarcasm, no attempt at softness. there was just precision, like he had treated your writing the way you treated data. you leaned back slightly in your chair, exhaling through your nose while trying to make sense of the irritation forming in your chest. not because he had ruined your work, but because he hadn’t. he had expanded it into something much more structured as he had finished his own precisely. maybe his stupid first place at the rankings seemed a little more fair now. you stared at his name for a second longer than you should have, your jaw tightening slightly as you scrolled back through the pages again, slower this time, as if you might find the trick hidden somewhere in the formatting. there wasn’t one. it was just good, annoyingly good. one last comment appeared at the end of the document, letting you know that he was done editing. you followed his suggestions and made the changes you saw necessary, as you didn't agree with all of his opinions. jake was sharp with his work — direct, structured, almost brutally efficient. you, on the other hand, preferred slower reasoning, longer explanations, space to sit with an idea instead of compressing it into something clean and immediate. you almost had opposite ways of writing, but it had worked somehow.

once you read it all again, you opened a new email and attached the file, professor jones’ address going in first. you didn’t overthink it, as it was just the usual submission format for a small assignment. after a second, you also added jake’s email in cc so that he would be notified you had already turned it in. you clicked send, finally allowing yourself to forget about that dumb project and your even dumber partner. although, somehow, he still lingered in the back of your mind anyway.

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

the following days slipped back into routine in a way that almost felt normal again: lectures, library sessions, half-finished readings you told yourself you would return to later. the project stayed somewhere in the back of your mind, present but quiet. until professor jones called you in after class. his office looked the same as always — slightly cluttered, papers stacked in uneven piles, his laptop half-open like he was constantly in the middle of something he hadn’t finished yet.

“come in.” he said warmly as you stepped inside. “i was just reviewing your submission.” you sat down, hands folded loosely in your lap, trying to read his expression before he said anything else. “it’s good.” he said after a moment. “really good. there’s a lot of clarity in your thinking, especially in how you structure social behavior patterns. that’s not easy to teach.” you blinked slightly at the praise, caught off guard. “but more than that,” he added, softening his tone a little, “it shows potential. real research potential.” as you heard his words, your posture straightened without meaning to. “i've been thinking.” he continued, leaning back in his chair. “your work doesn't need to only be small coursework assignments. it can become something more meaningful if you’re willing to push it.”

“more meaningful?” you repeated carefully.

he nodded. “a structured research project over the semester. you’ll expand on what you already always do: methods, data collection, proper analysis. but you’ll actually test your ideas instead of just discussing them.” you stayed quiet, absorbing it all. “and at the end of the term, there’s a student research conference. it’s internal, but it brings in students from different departments who are interested in research work. you would present your findings there.”

that made your stomach tighten slightly. “a conference?”

“yes.” he said simply, like it was the most natural next step in the world. “it’s a good opportunity, especially for someone in your position.” you looked up at him at that. he smiled slightly, not in a performative way, more like he was choosing his words carefully. “you’re doing very well, but you’re also at a point where the work you produce should be seen. it matters for your scholarship, and for what comes after this degree.” that landed differently, since it wasn't pressure, but direction. “you’re capable of more than just maintaining grades.” he added gently. “i don’t want you to only stay at the top, i want you to build something that stays with you after university.” he paused then to continue a few seconds later, more practically. “and i think jake challenges you in a productive way. he forces structure where you tend to stay more exploratory. that balance is exactly what makes strong research.”

you felt it before you even processed it properly. that small tightening in your chest, like your body had reacted faster than your thoughts. you looked down at your hands for a moment, adjusting your grip on the edge of your sleeve without meaning to. the room suddenly felt quieter, not because anything had changed, but because your attention had narrowed too much. jake. you didn’t say anything immediately, just letting the silence sit there, as if waiting long enough might make the idea rearrange itself into something more tolerable. but it didn’t. working with him wasn’t just a line in a document anymore, it was becoming something structured. planned, extended, something you couldn’t quietly ignore your way out of. your throat tightened slightly. “so we’re still working together?” you asked, but it came out more carefully than you intended. less like a question, more like something you were testing the weight of out loud.

professor jones didn’t answer right away, studying you for a second instead. not in a clinical way, but in the quiet, patient way someone does when they already know the answer you don’t want to hear. “i was expecting you to ask that.” he said gently, and that alone made your stomach sink a little further. he leaned forward slightly, resting his hands together. “i wouldn’t keep you as partners if i didn’t think it was beneficial for you.”

your fingers pressed a little tighter into your sleeve. “beneficial in what way?” you asked, though you already had a suspicion you weren’t going to like the answer.

“in every way that matters for where you’re trying to go.” he said simply. “academically, yes, but also in terms of development. your work becomes sharper when you’re challenged. you know that.” a pause. “and jake responds well to direction, you respond well to space. that combination works.”

you exhaled quietly through your nose, but it wasn’t really a laugh. “it’s not that simple.” you said, mostly under your breath.

“i know.” he replied immediately, not dismissing it. “it rarely feels simple when it involves someone you’re not comfortable with.” that made you look up slightly as he continued, tone steady. “but i'm not asking you to like the arrangement. i'm asking you to trust the outcome of it.” silence again. your mind went through it anyway, whether you wanted it to or not. the library. the comments. the way he rewrote your work without destroying it. the way you had hated that you noticed it was good.

you swallowed. “i just… don’t want it to interfere with my other work.” you said, slower now, searching for a more acceptable objection.

“it won’t.” professor jones said calmly. “if anything, it will stabilize it. you’re already thinking about it too much on your own.” that made something in your chest pull uncomfortably tight, because he wasn’t wrong. you weren’t agreeing, but you weren’t refusing anymore either.

"okay.” you said finally, quieter than before. not fully convinced, not fully resistant either, just caught somewhere in between. professor jones nodded once, like that was all he needed.

“good.” he said softly. “i think you’ll see what i mean sooner than you expect.”

you left his office with the word conference sitting in your head, heavier than expected, but not entirely unwelcome. and for the first time, it didn’t feel like you had been assigned something. it felt like someone had seen further ahead than you had.

as you walked across campus, you realized you had left professor jones' office with your chest feeling strangely heavy. you should have been happy, actually happy. this was the type of opportunity people waited years for. actual research as a third year student, actual experimental work, a proper conference. something that would look incredible on scholarship evaluations and future applications, something that could genuinely help build a future. your future. and professor jones had looked so excited while talking about it too. so why did it feel like your stomach was sinking? probably because of him. because for some obvious reason, out of everyone in your year, it had to be jake. you tried convincing yourself it wasn't that serious while walking through campus. you could do it, you could be professional. people worked with classmates they disliked all the time, and it wasn't like you had to become friends. it wasn't like you even spoke to each other outside of a single assignment. still, your mind kept replaying professor jones' words: "he challenges you in a productive way." productive, right. because accusing him of sabotage and showing up at his apartment at nine in the morning on a saturday definitely sounded productive. you let out a quiet breath through your nose as your thoughts kept spiraling without a stop.

whatever. you would deal with it later. except apparently later meant right in that moment, because as soon as you entered the campus cafe, you saw him. jake was standing near the pickup counter with one hand in his hoodie pocket while staring down at his phone. completely relaxed, completely normal and unaffected. you almost turned around, you almost did. but then he looked up and saw you as his eyes narrowed slightly — not in annoyance, more like in realization. you looked away first, because absolutely not. you walked toward the counter while pretending you hadn't seen him, hoping maybe he would do the same.

he obviously didn't. "professor jones talked to you too?"

you stopped. of course he would skip hello. slowly, you turned around. "yeah." a small silence. he looked at you as you tried looking at him back, just to immediately turn your head away. why did he cause so much anger inside you just by standing there?

"so we're doing that." your voice sounded much weaker than you wanted it to.

jake stared at you for a moment. "looks like it."

you hated how calm he sounded. you actually hated how calm he always sounded. because meanwhile your brain was practically running into walls trying to process things. you crossed your arms without realizing. "if you don't want to, you can tell him."

his eyebrows furrowed slightly. "what?"

"the project." you shrugged, avoiding his eyes. "if you don't think it'll work." silence. you risked looking up, noticing how jake was staring at you now.

"why would i do that?"

you frowned. "because we don't exactly get along." "do we not?"

you just stared at him in disbelief. "are you serious right now?"

jake blinked once as his mouth twitched slightly. not enough to call it a smile, but enough to make you want to punch him. "you don't sound very excited." he said in a playful tone.

"that’s probably because i'm not." "then you tell professor jones that."

"why me?" "because you're the one who looks like you're about to throw up."

you stared at him in horror. "i do not." "you do."

"i don't." "okay."

you hated how quickly he gave up. you hated it because somehow it felt worse, now sounding like he simply didn't care enough to argue. another few seconds passed. awkward, horribly awkward. "look," you finally sighed, crossing your arms, "i want to do this project."

jake looked at you. "obviously."

"i'm serious." "i know."

"i just don't think we'll work well together." there, you finally said it.

jake looked at you for a few moments and then shrugged. "probably not. but professor jones wants us to do it." he continued casually, "and i want him to keep liking me, because it means recommendations. opportunities." he looked at you like it was obvious. "and because he also looked way too happy explaining it." your irritation paused for a second, because that actually sounded reasonable — like you almost shared a motive. jake looked down at his drink before looking back at you. "so let's just not kill each other for a few months."

you stared at him and then frowned. "a few months?"

"yeah." he tilted his head slightly. "did you think research happened in two weeks?"

of course you knew research took months, you weren't stupid. you just hadn't thought that far as you had been too busy processing the jake part of it. "right." another silence. you suddenly became very aware of how awkward it was to just stand there looking at him. people kept walking around you both, entering and leaving the cafe while the conversation felt weirdly stuck.

then jake took a sip from his drink. "professor wants us to meet with him on friday."

your eyes snapped back to him. "what?"

"he told me before i left." he shrugged. "to discuss ideas."

"already?" "that's generally how projects work."

you lowered your head with a quiet sigh as a few seconds passed before jake spoke again. "don't make me do the whole thing alone."

"excuse me?"

he looked back at you with complete indifference. "you accused me of deleting your work like four days ago. i feel like i'm allowed to be cautious."

you stared at him in disbelief. actual disbelief. "right." that was it, right. because apparently getting the last word wasn't enough for him either.

"i'll see you friday then." you said flatly, crossing your arms a little tighter around yourself.

jake simply nodded before taking another sip of his drink. "see you." and then he walked away. you stared at his back for a few seconds longer than necessary before turning around toward the counter. you didn't know what annoyed you more — the fact that you were stuck with him for months or the fact that he somehow looked completely okay with it.

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

you had expected professor jones' office to somehow feel different after what he had told you a few days ago. bigger, maybe. more serious. like the room itself would suddenly reflect the fact that this wasn't another regular class assignment anymore. it didn't, though. it looked exactly the same as always. the same crowded bookshelves covered nearly every wall, filled with books you doubted anyone had touched in years and stacks of papers that looked disorganized to anyone except probably him. the same small plant sat near the window, somehow surviving despite looking half dead every semester. the same coffee mug sat on the corner of his desk. everything felt normal, which was ridiculous, because you definitely didn't. you sat in the chair in front of his desk trying not to bounce your leg under it, your fingers loosely playing with the sleeve of your shirt while your thoughts continued moving much faster than they should have. actual research. a conference. recommendations. scholarships. your future. the words had been replaying in your head since he had first mentioned them, and somehow every time you thought about them they felt heavier.

meanwhile, beside you sat jake, who of course seemed to be relaxed. you hadn't expected anything else. he was leaning back slightly in his chair, one hand resting against his jaw while absentmindedly scrolling through something on his phone. he looked like someone waiting for a friend to finish buying coffee, not someone sitting in a meeting that could potentially affect the next few years of his academic life. you hated that. you hated it because you maybe knew it probably wasn't even confidence. confidence implied effort, confidence implied he had considered the possibility of failure and then decided not to care. jake simply looked like failing had never crossed his mind.

professor jones looked between both of you before smiling. "before i start overwhelming you with articles and deadlines, i want to hear what interests you."

the room went quiet. the problem wasn't that you didn't have ideas, the problem was that you suddenly had too many of them and none of them sounded intelligent enough to say out loud. you had spent the last few days imagining this whole thing becoming something important, and now your brain had apparently decided that speaking was impossible. professor jones continued waiting patiently while beside you, jake said nothing, which annoyed you too. because if he was supposedly so structured and organized and perfect, then why was you go first suddenly the strategy?

"...people?" you finally said. the word left your mouth and you immediately regretted existing as you physically felt yourself cringe. people. great, amazing contribution. you cleared your throat. "i mean..." you quickly continued, trying to recover from the disaster you had just created. "relationships, maybe? social development. interpersonal stuff." professor jones nodded thoughtfully, which made you feel relief for approximately one second.

"too broad." your head turned slowly. of course it had come from him. jake wasn't even looking at you, he was staring somewhere near the bookshelves behind professor jones with the most neutral expression imaginable, as if he had simply commented that it looked cloudy outside.

you stared at him. seriously? "okay," you said slowly, "sorry for not arriving with a fully developed research proposal."

that finally made him look over, his eyebrows pulled together slightly. "i wasn't criticizing you." and somehow that annoyed you even more, because criticism you could work with. criticism meant opposition. but this expression on his face, this genuine confusion, like he actually didn't understand why you sounded irritated, somehow felt worse. because then either he was pretending to be oblivious or he genuinely had no idea how he came across. and honestly, you weren't sure which possibility bothered you more.

professor jones looked suspiciously close to smiling, making your eyes slightly narrow. he was absolutely enjoying this. he finally cleared his throat, although the small smile at the corner of his mouth never really disappeared. "okay," he said, leaning back in his chair. "let's narrow it down a little."

you looked away from jake and back toward the desk, crossing one leg over the other while trying to ignore the lingering irritation sitting somewhere in your chest. it was stupid, honestly. you didn't even fully know why his comment had bothered you so much. actually, no. you did know. because he always sounded like that. never rude enough for anyone to call him rude, never arrogant enough for anyone to call him arrogant. he simply said things in this annoyingly neutral tone, like he was reading facts off a presentation slide. there was never enough emotion in his voice to prove he meant anything by it. which meant getting irritated always made you look dramatic. which maybe you were a little, but it was fine as long as you kept it inside your own head.

you stared down at your sleeve for a few seconds while absentmindedly pulling at a loose thread. social development, relationships, interpersonal stuff. none of it felt specific enough anymore. you had thrown the ideas out without really thinking, mostly because silence had somehow become unbearable. but now that the room had gone quiet again, you could feel your brain doing that thing it always did where it started running in ten directions at once. because relationships could mean friendships, family, social behavior, emotional regulation, childhood experiences, attachment. "what about attachment?" the words had simply left out of your mouth. for a second, the room stayed quiet, which made you slowly look up. great, now both of them were looking at you. you shrugged slightly, suddenly becoming very interested in a tiny scratch on professor jones' desk. "i don't know," you said quickly. "we talk about it a lot in class." you paused, then immediately felt the need to explain yourself more. because apparently your brain believed every thought required a full defense. "like... childhood relationships affecting later relationships and stuff." you frowned slightly. "people act weird because of it."

"people act weird?" you turned your head so fast you almost regretted it, as jake was looking at you now. and there it was again, that tiny thing near his mouth. not a smile, you were beginning to realize that jake apparently never smiled normally in front of you.

you narrowed your eyes. "you know what i mean."

he tilted his head slightly. "i actually don't."

you stared at him, because you knew he knew what you meant. there was no way someone who had the highest grades in almost every class suddenly forgot how basic human behavior worked. you crossed your arms. "yes, you do."

"i really don't." for a few seconds, you just looked at each other. and then, very suddenly, you realized something awful. professor jones wasn't interrupting. he was just sitting there, watching. watching like this was some kind of television show. you slowly turned your head toward him and finally, he looked back at the notes in front of him. "i think what she's trying to say," he said gently, "is that attachment patterns influence the way people perceive and interact with others."

you immediately pointed toward him. "yes." then toward jake. "that."

jake looked back at professor jones and nodded once. "that makes more sense."

you dropped your hand back into your lap, because somehow being understood by professor jones and not by jake felt weirdly personal. which was ridiculous, because it definitely wasn't personal. the guy barely knew who you were. still, something about it sat annoyingly in your chest.

professor jones glanced down at his notes again, pen hovering slightly above the page as if he was already organizing your scattered ideas into something more coherent. "attachment could be a good starting point." he said calmly. "but you’ll need to decide what exactly you want to examine within it."

you exhaled softly through your nose, leaning back a little in your chair. that was the problem. everything felt like it connected to everything else, which made narrowing it down feel almost arbitrary. your gaze drifted across the room while you tried to force your brain into something more structured. "emotions?" you said eventually, though it came out more like a question than an idea you fully owned. "like… emotional responses. how people react to others."

it wasn’t great, but it was something. jake shifted slightly beside you. he hadn’t looked at you when he spoke, which for some reason made it easier to listen without immediately wanting to argue. "empathy would fit better than emotions in general." he said after a moment, still looking down at the desk. his tone was even, like he was just adjusting a term rather than rejecting your idea. "emotions is too broad. empathy might be more specific to interpersonal response."

you glanced at him briefly. professor jones nodded slowly, as if that was exactly the direction he had been hoping the conversation would move toward. "that’s true." he agreed. you looked back down at your sleeve, tugging lightly at the fabric again. it wasn’t even that jake was saying anything particularly offensive. he wasn’t dismissive, he wasn’t rude, he wasn’t even trying to take over the conversation. that was probably the worst part, because he just… contributed. you exhaled quietly. "okay," you said, mostly to keep things moving. "attachment and empathy then."

professor jones’ pen paused for a second. "that could work very well." he said, more thoughtfully now. he leaned forward slightly, interest clearly sharpening. "attachment styles influence how people interpret social information, and empathy is one of the clearest ways that gets expressed." professor jones let the words settle for a moment, as if he was already rearranging them into something more formal in his head. the pen between his fingers stopped moving, and for the first time in the conversation, he looked fully focused rather than just mildly entertained. "attachment and empathy." he repeated quietly, testing it. you nodded once, a little slower this time. it still felt strange how quickly the idea had become something real, something that could actually exist beyond this room. a few minutes ago you had been throwing out vague concepts just to fill silence, and now there was a tiny direction forming out of it. you weren’t sure if that was exciting or stressful. probably both. professor jones leaned forward slightly, resting his forearms on the desk. "there’s actually a lot of room there." he continued. "you could look at different attachment styles and how they relate to empathic responses, or even how that changes depending on individual differences."

you stayed quiet, absorbing it more than responding. the structure of it was starting to take shape in a way that made it feel less like an abstract idea and more like something you would actually have to do. collect, measure, analyze. real work. beside you, jake gave a small nod, like he was following the same thread without needing it explained further. it wasn’t showy, just… immediate. like the conclusion had already formed in his head and he was simply confirming it matched the room. you noticed it before you could stop yourself, then immediately forced your attention back to the professor. "so," professor jones said as he sat back again, tone lightening slightly. "if you both agree, this could be the start of your project." the sentence landed more simply than you expected. no ceremony, no dramatic framing, just that. your first instinct was to look at jake again, but you stopped yourself halfway through it. instead, you focused on the edge of the desk, letting the idea settle properly before reacting to it. your project. together. you exhaled slowly through your nose. it wasn’t that you disagreed with the topic, because you didn’t. actually, it was probably one of the better ideas you could’ve landed on in the time you’d been given. it just… came with a complication you hadn’t fully processed yet.

you glanced sideways anyway, just briefly. jake was already standing up slightly straighter, like the decision had simply moved the conversation forward in his head rather than changing anything significant. professor jones smiled, clearly satisfied with the direction everything had taken. "i’ll formalize the assignment and send you the guidelines." he added. "but for now, attachment and empathy. that’s your starting point. so now, go search all the papers and articles you can find about this topic and try to explore what new things you could bring to the table. i trust they will be a lot."

you gave a small nod, slower than before, as the reality of it finally settled properly. and for the first time since walking into the office, the thought that stuck wasn’t the topic itself. it was the fact that this was no longer just an idea you could step away from when the conversation ended.

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

working with jake became an uncomfortable addition to your routine much faster than you wanted it to. not because he demanded constant meetings or sent endless messages about the project. honestly, if it had been up to him, you were starting to think he would've been perfectly fine speaking only through shared documents for the next few months. the problem was professor jones. because professor jones apparently loved words like collaboration and research process and active discussion, which translated into him repeatedly reminding both of you that good research wasn't built by two people independently doing half the work and stapling it together at the end. so now you had meetings. actual meetings. which was why you currently found yourself sitting across from jake in one of the library halls of the the study rooms on a thursday afternoon, surrounded by articles you had printed the night before.

jake had only brought his laptop, of course he had. you had shown up with highlighted articles, sticky notes sticking out of pages at uneven angles, and a notebook full of things you had written at two in the morning that had seemed organized at the time. he glanced down at the stack in front of you, then back at you. “you printed all of those?"

you looked down. "yes?"

he was silent for a few seconds, seemingly lost in thought. "why?"

you stared at him, the answer being too obvious to you. "to read them?"

"right." he nodded once, expression completely flat. "forgot people still did that."

you narrowed your eyes a little. "some people just remember information better when they see it physically."

"mhm." his face didn't change. you couldn't tell if that was agreement or if he had simply made a noise.

you pulled one of the articles toward yourself instead. "okay, so," you said as you flipped through a few pages. "we already know attachment and empathy have been studied a lot."

jake leaned back slightly in his chair. "yeah."

"secure attachment usually correlates positively with empathy." "mhm." "avoidant usually negatively." another nod. you glanced up, wondering if he was going to say anything beyond one syllable words at some point. you looked back down at your papers before you could accidentally look irritated. "the issue seems to be preoccupied attachment." you tapped the article lightly. "results aren't consistent."

jake finally shifted a little. "because it's contradictory." you looked up. he was looking at his laptop screen, eyes moving as he scrolled. "people with preoccupied attachment are hyper-aware of relationships, so you could argue they'd be more empathic." he paused. "but they're also more emotionally reactive." you frowned slightly. "so self-focused distress gets in the way."

"yeah." you blinked, because that was actually exactly what you had highlighted.

you looked down at your article again, then immediately said, "but that's already been suggested."

his eyes moved toward you. "i know."

"so we can't just say that." "i also know."

silence. you hated that somehow you felt awkward when he was the one sitting there acting like human conversation was an optional side quest. jake clicked something on his laptop. "the inconsistency has to be coming from somewhere."

you looked at him again. "well, that's obvious."

"not really." you frowned as he turned his screen slightly toward himself. "people keep treating preoccupied attachment like everyone with it responds the same way." he shrugged a little. "and they don't."

you crossed your arms. "that's too broad."

"why?" "because individual differences can explain literally anything." "doesn't make it wrong."

you opened your mouth to just immediately close it. you had your doubts on where to take this. "okay, but if we say individual differences, that's not specific enough for a study."

he looked at you for a few seconds, then nodded once. "fair." jake glanced back at his screen. "gender?"

you looked up. "how?" you said in a genuine way, being curious about his thought process.

"women generally score higher in empathy." he said it casually, like he was reading weather data. "if previous studies ignored gender, maybe that's part of the inconsistency."

you stared at him for a second, then slowly looked down at the article in front of you. "if we include gender," you said slowly, mostly thinking out loud now, "then we'd be arguing that the reason findings are inconsistent isn't necessarily because preoccupied attachment itself is inconsistent." jake looked up. you kept going, eyes still on your notes. "it could be because previous studies grouped everyone together." you flipped the page absentmindedly. "so if women with preoccupied attachment generally score higher in empathy than men with the same attachment style-"

"you get different results depending on who ends up in the sample."

you stopped and looked up. jake was leaning back in his chair, one arm resting against the table, eyes on his laptop screen even though he'd just finished your sentence like he'd known where you were going before you did. you stared at him for a second. "right."

he nodded once and that was it. no exactly. no yeah, that's what i meant. nothing, just that tiny nod like the conclusion had been obvious. and maybe that was what annoyed you. because if you had connected those dots, you would've at least looked a little pleased with yourself. not in an obnoxious way, just in a normal human way. there would've been some visible sign of satisfaction, but jake looked like he had remembered something so casual it wasn't worth a reaction. you looked back down at the article, except now you weren't reading anymore. you were staring at the highlighted lines while a much more irritating thought sat in your head. had he already thought about this? because if he had, then why was he sitting there acting like he'd just casually thrown out a possibility? you kind of hated people who did that. people who already had an answer but acted like they were arriving there naturally with everyone else. "wait." you couldn’t help but ask. "did you already think this?"

jake's eyes lifted from his screen. "think what."

you stared at him. "this." you gestured vaguely between the papers and his laptop. "the gender thing."

his expression barely shifted as he looked back at the screen. "a little."

a little. of course. because apparently every answer with him had to feel like you were trying to pull information out of someone being questioned by the police. "define a little."

he glanced at you, then back at the screen. "i mean, professor jones already said we needed a gap in the literature." click, scroll. "there's inconsistent findings around preoccupied attachment." click. "gender isn't really addressed." click, another shrug. "it wasn't that hard."

you stared at him. it wasn't that hard. something in your eye twitched, not physically, more like emotionally. because there was absolutely no chance he meant it in a condescending way, and that was the problem. if he'd smirked, if he'd looked smug, if he'd sounded even remotely pleased with himself, then you could've comfortably decided he was irritating and moved on. but he didn't. he said it with complete indifference, like he genuinely didn't think he had said anything worth noticing. you couldn't even be mad at him for being cocky — he wasn't being cocky. he was just casually smart in a way that made you feel stupid for needing more time, which was significantly more annoying. you crossed your arms. "okay, well, i think it's a little more complicated than that."

jake finally looked up properly. "how?"

you sat up slightly. "because if we immediately assume gender explains the inconsistency, then we're forcing the data to fit an explanation before we've even looked at it." his eyebrows moved a fraction, the tiniest amount. you felt strangely victorious. "there are other possibilities," you continued. "differences in measures, sampling issues, social desirability bias-"

"those aren't mutually exclusive. we’re looking at gender because we want to focus on a possible variable that is shown to have a differential impact on empathy in previous literature." he continued as you looked at him. "gender can matter and those things can matter too." he said it so simply, so annoyingly simply. like you'd somehow overcomplicated something that, in his mind, had never needed complicating.

you frowned. "i know they're not mutually exclusive." "okay."

you stared at him, because there was something uniquely irritating about the way he did that. the way he said okay like he had accepted what you said while simultaneously sounding like he thought you had taken the scenic route to arrive somewhere obvious. and maybe you were imagining it, you could be imagining it. you had personally known this guy for what, a few weeks? maybe less? if you didn’t count all your social media stalking and the horrible image you had already made up in your head about him, of course. there was a very real possibility that you were projecting an entire personality onto him because his face gave away approximately nothing and your brain apparently hated unanswered questions. except maybe, just maybe, you weren't completely imagining it. because there had been that tiny eyebrow raise earlier, that microscopic thing. that i'm waiting to see where you're going with this expression. and now there was this, this stupidly calm okay. you narrowed your eyes a little. "you know that's annoying, right?"

jake looked up from his laptop. "what is?"

"that." you pointed vaguely at him, which wasn't helpful at all, but you honestly didn't have a better explanation.

he looked down at himself for a second, then back at you. "me sitting?"

you stared at him as he stared back, and for a whole second you genuinely couldn't tell if he was serious. you let out a small breath through your nose. "you seem to do this thing where you act like you don't care about the conversation and then suddenly say something that completely changes the direction of it."

he blinked once. "i'm literally just discussing the project."

"that's not what i mean." "then what do you mean?"

you opened your mouth just to immediately close it. because annoyingly, you didn't know exactly what you meant. you just knew there was something frustrating about the whole thing. about sitting there with someone who looked detached enough to be mentally planning dinner while somehow keeping up with every point you made and responding with irritatingly concise answers that kept making sense. because if he had been openly pedant, if he'd corrected you every five minutes, you swore it would've been easier. but jake just sat there looking half-asleep while dropping comments that made you rethink your own arguments, and somehow that felt unfair. you looked down at your papers again. "nothing." you muttered.

silence. you started reorganizing the articles in front of you, even though they had already been organized, because your hands suddenly needed something to do. paper slid against paper. outside, footsteps passed down the hallway. someone laughed somewhere in the distance. the library air conditioning hummed softly overhead. and then — "you do it too." your hands stopped. slowly, you looked up, but jake wasn't looking at you. his eyes were still on his screen.

"do what?" "act like you don't care."

you let out a tiny laugh of disbelief. "what?"

he shrugged. "you keep pretending you're just thinking out loud."

your eyebrows pulled together. "i am thinking out loud."

"not really." his eyes lifted then. "you say something," he said evenly, "then you look at me for like three seconds waiting to see if i agree."

you stared at him. and for one horrible second, your brain replayed the last twenty minutes. you saying something, looking up, waiting. saying something else, looking up, waiting. oh my god. heat crept into your face, hopefully not enough to be noticeable. you looked down at your papers again. "i do not."

"mmh." there it was again. you looked down at your papers once more as you tried to sound normal, which unfortunately for you often meant sounding more defensive than intended. you closed your eyes for a fraction of a second and opened them again, because there it was, that same infuriating calm. the same complete lack of effort in sounding like he was trying to win the argument, which somehow made him more annoying than if he had actually been trying. "and for the record," he spoke again as you spiraled inside your mind, making you look cautiously. "you were right before."

you blinked. "about what?"

"social desirability bias." he clicked something on his laptop. "if we're discussing explanations for inconsistent findings, we should include it in the literature section." a pause. "it's relevant."

you looked down at your notes again before he could catch you staring for too long, suddenly becoming very aware of yourself in the way you sometimes did around people. where all at once your hands felt oddly placed and your face felt too visible and you became convinced that if you spoke then, you would sound strange somehow. which was stupid, because you were just discussing research methods. you had spent years doing presentations and group projects and class discussions. you knew how to talk, technically, although you never became fully comfortable to do it in a natural way. you were just forced to do it to keep up, to maintain your grades, your scholarship and, subsequently, your ranking. your ranking, which was casually right behind jake’s. the top two students who had never interacted before up until now, up until they were basically forced to. you wondered if he had ever noticed you were second, or if he had heard your name before. you wondered if he even cared about the rankings or just couldn’t help but get first every single time without trying. you always wondered about his position there, about how he seemed to be untouchable.

there was also a difference between knowing how to talk and actually talking. and for reasons you did not fully understand, talking to jake felt like walking into an exam you had forgotten to study for. the silence had now reached that stage where you had become aware of it, and once you became aware of silence, it became impossible not to think about it. and then you started wondering if the other person was aware of it too, and then you started acting weird because you were thinking about acting weird. "so..." you said.

jake looked up and your brain immediately emptied. absolutely nothing. why had you spoken before knowing what you were going to say? you had an idea in your head literally two seconds ago. where had it gone? jake waited. one second, two seconds. "...so?" he said.

you blinked. "right." you looked down at your papers quickly, pretending to search for something. "i was gonna say something."

"i figured." you grabbed a random article and looked at it despite not reading a single word. "take your time."

you looked up and jake was already looking back at his laptop. his expression hadn't changed at all, completely neutral. which somehow made it impossible to tell if he was making fun of you or not. you narrowed your eyes slightly. "was that sarcastic?"

he looked up slowly. "no." a pause. "should it have been?"

"you're doing that on purpose." you muttered.

"doing what again?” you looked up despite yourself. he was still looking at his screen, still typing. still acting like this whole conversation was happening in the background of something more important. that should have made you feel less nervous, but somehow it didn't, because the fact that he could say something that pointedly and then go right back to his work without changing expression made it feel worse, not better.

"saying that." you said, a little more quietly this time, because saying it out loud had made it feel more ridiculous than it already was. jake finally looked up then, just briefly, as if he was checking whether you were serious or just reacting out of habit.

his face didn't change. "you're the one who keeps looking for a reaction." you opened your mouth, then shut it again, because you had a perfectly good response in your head and it had somehow become impossible to access the second he actually looked at you. which was deeply unfair, because you had spent the entire meeting trying very hard not to look at him too much, and now he was acting like he had some kind of quiet evidence against you.

you crossed your arms and leaned back slightly in your chair, trying to look less thrown off than you felt. "maybe because you keep talking like you're not even in the room."

jake looked back down at his laptop. "i am in the room."

"you know what i mean." "not really."

you stared at him again, and this time you were fairly sure you were doing it because you were annoyed, not because you were waiting for approval, even if the distinction felt a little blurry right then and you did not appreciate that one bit. the thing was, he wasn't exactly wrong, and that was the irritating part. you were trying to see if he agreed, because the whole point of sitting there together was to figure out what actually fit and what didn't, and if he made a face or paused or looked like you were completely off base, you could usually tell before you said something worse. except he never really looked like that, he just listened. and then, when he bothered to answer, he said things like they had always been obvious. which made you feel like you were the one making a big deal out of everything. you hated that feeling. you also hated that you were starting to understand the shape of his attention a little better, because it wasn't warm, and it wasn't especially generous with you, but it was there in a way that made him harder to ignore than if he had been openly hostile.

jake glanced at the clock on the wall, then back at the screen. "we're done for today."

you looked up automatically. "already?"

he nodded once. "we've got enough for a first outline. this is actually the first meeting where we got somewhere useful, to be honest.”

you stared at the page in front of you, at the notes you had actually managed to organize without fully realizing the time had gone by. "fine." you said, a little too fast, because you suddenly needed the meeting to end before you could think too much about how much of it you had spent watching him instead of the article in front of you.

jake already started closing his laptop, no wasted movement, no hesitation. you gathered your own papers more slowly, still trying not to think about the fact that you had just spent an entire afternoon disagreeing with him, only to realize that the disagreement itself had finally got you "somewhere useful". "send me the list of studies you want for the literature section." he said, slipping his laptop into his bag.

you looked up. "i was going to do that."

he glanced at you once, expression still unreadable. "i know."

so you didn't respond at all. you just nodded and looked back down at your notes, pretending to be very busy with the papers in your hands, because if you looked at him too long you were pretty sure you would either say something stupid or stand there doing nothing like an idiot, and neither option felt acceptable. when you finally looked up again, he had already slung his bag over one shoulder and was heading toward the door. he paused only once, hand on the door handle, and looked back at you for a brief second. "friday."

you nodded before you could overthink it. "friday." then he was gone. you sat there for a moment longer than necessary, staring at the empty chair across from you, trying very hard to convince yourself that the only reason your chest felt oddly tight was because the room had been stuffy and you had spent too long inside it.

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

friday happened. and then the next tuesday happened. and then another thursday. and somewhere between opening shared documents and arguing over article inclusion criteria and listening to professor jones remind both of you for the fourth time that research is collaborative by nature, something deeply irritating started happening. you and jake developed a rhythm. not a friendly rhythm, but a rhythm built entirely on disagreeing with each other. because apparently neither of you could say yes, that works without first trying to dismantle the other person's point from at least three different angles.

which was why, on a tuesday afternoon two weeks later, you were sitting across from him again, staring at your laptop screen with growing irritation. "i still don't think we should only use overall empathy scores."

jake didn't even look up immediately. he kept typing for another few seconds before saying, "why." not why? like a question. just why, flat. like he had dropped the word onto the table and was waiting for you to do something with it.

you frowned immediately. "because empathy isn't one thing." he finally glanced up as you shifted in your chair slightly. "i mean..." you gestured vaguely toward your screen. "the test separates cognitive and affective empathy for a reason. perspective-taking isn't exactly the same thing as emotional response."

jake leaned back a little. "okay."

you narrowed your eyes, already suspicious. "okay what." "okay, keep going."

"why do i feel like you're about to disagree with me?" "because i'm about to disagree with you."

you stared at him. of course he couldn't just let you have three seconds of peace. "why?"

"because if our main question is whether gender moderates the relationship between preoccupied attachment and empathy, adding separate dimensions complicates the interpretation." he rotated his laptop a little toward himself. "if one dimension changes and another doesn't, then suddenly we're discussing three different questions instead of one."

you crossed your arms. "that's literally how research works." "not always."

"yes, always." silence. you stared at him and he stared back. and there was something genuinely horrible about arguing with jake because he never looked irritated. you, meanwhile, could physically feel your face making expressions. your eyebrows pulling together, your eyes narrowing, your mouth doing that thing where it pressed into a line. meanwhile jake looked exactly the same as always, which you hated. you hated it because you couldn't tell if he wasn't affected or if he was just better at hiding it. and somehow the second possibility irritated you even more. "you're oversimplifying it."

he tilted his head slightly. "how."

"because if we separate dimensions and one changes while another doesn't, that's still useful. that tells us something." "about what."

you blinked. "what do you mean about what?"

"i mean exactly what i said." his eyes moved back to the screen briefly. "what does it tell us."

you stared at him. because you had an answer, you absolutely had an answer. you did. you — you had one like two seconds ago. why did your brain keep doing this? why did it keep functioning perfectly until someone actually looked at you? you hated this so much. your eyes dropped to your notes immediately, pretending to search for something. you could feel him waiting, not impatiently, which almost made it worse. because impatient people interrupted, impatient people looked on edge. but jake just sat there, waiting, completely comfortable with silence. and silence had always felt like some kind of social punishment to you, as it happened way too often because you never could actually find the proper words. your brain started doing that thing where it became aware of itself. okay say something. why aren't you saying something. he's waiting. oh my god you've been quiet too long. say literally anything. "because..." you started. great, excellent opening. very strong. "...if affective empathy changes more than cognitive empathy then maybe-" you stopped and jake's eyes lifted. you looked away immediately. "maybe... preoccupied attachment influences emotional responsiveness differently than perspective-taking." silence. you looked down at your laptop, then up. then immediately wished you hadn't, because jake was still looking at you. and for some reason you suddenly became weirdly aware that he was actually listening. he wasn't typing, wasn't scrolling.

then he nodded once. "that's actually good."

you stared. you had spent the last fifteen minutes preparing for disagreement. you had mentally arranged counterarguments that you probably wouldn't be able to fully explain out loud. you had been half ready. and now suddenly — that's actually good? just like that? you narrowed your eyes slightly. "you're agreeing with me?"

jake looked confused. "a little."

you stared harder. "a little?"

he looked at you for a second. then one corner of his mouth moved, barely. honestly it could've been your imagination. "don't look so surprised."

you blinked, because the thing was that you were surprised. somewhere over the last few meetings, without realizing it, you had apparently started expecting disagreement. expecting him to immediately pick apart whatever you said. expecting another why, another not really, anotherokay. and now your brain had already built the response before it even happened, which was ridiculous. completely ridiculous. because you weren't paying attention to him like that, obviously not. except — except lately you had started noticing things accidentally, things you weren't trying to notice. like how he tapped his fingers twice against the table whenever he was reading something carefully. or how he leaned back when he disagreed with something and leaned forward when he actually found it interesting. or how he somehow greeted every single person outside the library. because you knew jake was social, but you didn't fully know he talked to everyone. every single time you walked a few meters out of the library with him after meetings, somebody knew him. "jake!" "hey, man." "are you coming friday?" and every time he would answer easily, naturally, like conversations required absolutely no effort at all. which had honestly felt vaguely offensive to witness, because around you he acted like human interaction had been assigned as coursework. you had seen it now enough times that it wasn’t accidental anymore. he would leave these meetings with you, walk out into the corridor, and immediately become… lighter. someone would call his name and he would look up instantly, respond without delay, like he had been expecting interruption rather than treating it as one. a girl from your seminar group once stopped him mid-walk to ask about an assignment and he had answered while still moving, already halfway into another conversation with someone else behind her, like his attention didn’t have to be gathered first before being distributed. and every time it happened, you found yourself with the same thought you didn’t particularly like having, which was that you didn’t know where that version of him went when he sat across from you. like everyone else got the full version by default and you were just interacting with the edited one. which was ridiculous to think about, objectively.

you looked down at your screen again. you kept your gaze on there a moment too long, not because there was anything left to read, but because looking back up felt like admitting you had been thinking about him at all. which you absolutely had not been doing in any meaningful or concerning way. but you did feel like a creep sometimes, somehow. you had always been aware of jake because he was quite the definition of perfection, almost turning him into a figure you looked up to. you had known he was great at communicating when the situation could obviously bring him something valuable, and he was precise and unreachable in all sort of ways. you already also knew he had no idea of who you were before this, you knew it all. but now, your observations were becoming much more elaborated, detailed and what you felt was more accurate. you couldn’t stop observing because he was everything you wanted to be and somehow found perfect balance within it.

outside the glass wall of the study room, someone laughed too loudly in the corridor and the sound slipped through the silence like it belonged there more than you did. you suddenly became aware of how still the room was when neither of you were speaking, how jarring it was compared to the constant low-level motion of everything else on campus, and how jake didn’t seem to experience that shift at all. he went back to typing — no reaction, no follow-up, no “expand on that” or “explain it better” or even a minimal acknowledgement beyond what he had already given you. which was, annoyingly, enough. you shifted slightly in your chair and tried to refocus on the article in front of you, but your eyes kept snagging on lines without processing them properly, which was frustrating in a very specific way. you knew you understood the material, you knew you were capable of following this conversation, and yet somehow your attention kept slipping sideways like it had decided there were more important variables in the room than the paper. you exhaled softly through your nose and dragged your cursor down the page again, forcing yourself back into the text with more intention this time, as if you could physically outpace your own attention if you tried hard enough.

“okay.” jake said suddenly without looking up. you straightened a fraction too quickly, because your brain still hadn’t fully adjusted to the fact that he didn’t announce transitions the way other people did. he paused his scrolling. “we should probably decide if we’re treating empathy as a moderator or a mediating variable before the next outline, otherwise we’re going to keep looping on the same interpretation problem.” he spoke like he had already done the internal version of the argument and was now reporting the result.

you stared at him for a second longer than necessary, then looked back down at your screen as if the answer to your own competence was printed somewhere in the margins. “i think it depends on what we’re prioritising.” you said, and you hated how careful your voice sounded when you said it, like you were checking every word before letting it exist outside your head. jake finally looked up properly this time, not immediately responding, just watching you in that brief, neutral way of his that didn’t give anything away and somehow made you more aware of your own phrasing.

“go on.” he said.

you leaned forward slightly, because if you were going to say this, you were going to say it properly. "if we treat empathy as a moderator,” you continued, slower now but more controlled, “then we’re basically saying it changes the strength or direction of the attachment relationship depending on its level, which makes sense if our goal is to explain variability in findings across samples. but if we treat it as a mediator, then we’re implying attachment influences empathy, which then influences whatever outcome we’re implicitly assuming is downstream, and that shifts the entire theoretical framing of preoccupied attachment in a way i don’t think we’ve actually justified yet.”

silence again. jake didn’t respond immediately. “moderator makes more sense for the scope.” he said finally, like it had been reduced down to something that simple. “we don’t have longitudinal data anyway, so mediation would be speculative at best". that was it. not wrong, not corrected. not reframed in a way that made you feel like you had missed something obvious. just… aligned. that again felt more disorienting than when he disagreed with you.

you nodded anyway, because you didn’t know what else your face was supposed to do in response to agreement that didn’t come with any emotional signal attached to it. “right.” you said, a beat late. “yes. that makes sense.”

jake had already turned back to his laptop. “cool.” he said as he resumed typing like the conversation had simply been another step in a process he was moving through, not something that had required negotiation at all. you sat there for a moment longer than you should have, staring at the same line in your document, realizing with a slow, uncomfortable clarity that you were starting to adjust your thinking in real time just to keep up with the pace at which he seemed to arrive at conclusions.

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

the thing about working with jake was that it never actually felt like it started. there was no clear beginning, no moment where you agreed to become whatever you were now. it just… kept happening. friday turned into tuesday turned into another thursday, and suddenly your shared document had folders inside folders, and your notes had actual structure, and professor jones had stopped reminding you what “collaboration” meant because he assumed you had figured it out. you hadn’t, you were just surviving it better. sampling hadn’t even been finalized yet, which was the worst part of it. every time you thought you were close, jake would ask one question that made you realize you were still missing something fundamental. “why are we excluding first-year students again?”

you didn’t look up from your notes. “because attachment measures are unstable in early adaptation phases.”

“that’s not a source.” he said immediately.

you sighed through your nose. “it’s implied in the methodology section of-”

“no,” he cut in, calm as ever. “it’s not.”

you stopped typing. not because you didn’t have an answer, because you did. you just hated when he was right in a way that required you to actually go back and verify your own confidence. you clicked your pen once against the table. “fine,” you said. “then we include them and control for year variance.”

jake nodded once like that was the obvious outcome the whole time. “fine.” he said and went back to typing. that was the rhythm now. not agreement, just adjustment. you said something, he poked at it until it either collapsed or stabilized. you did the same to him. neither of you ever called it teamwork, you just called it necessary.

except it wasn’t just that anymore. because somewhere in between building sampling criteria and arguing over scale reliability, you had started noticing even more things that had nothing to do with the project. like how you both had begun asking things that weren’t strictly necessary, even when neither of you fully ever answered. “you usually stay up late before deadlines?”

you looked up from your laptop, suspicious immediately. “why?”

he didn’t even look phased. “just asking.”

you narrowed your eyes. “that’s not a research question.”

“it is if it affects output consistency.”

you stared at him. “you’re insane.” you said finally.

he nodded once. “dramatic.” and then went back to the document like he hadn’t just casually asked about your sleep schedule. you didn’t answer him, but you started noticing that he stayed online later too. not in a way that felt performative. if you were still editing at midnight, his cursor would still be there in the shared doc, quietly adjusting formatting or fixing citations without saying anything.

the ranking came up sometimes. not between you directly, never directly. but it always affected how you saw him, no matter how much time you spent together. someone in your lecture would gasp when they saw the board. “jake’s even more insane this semester.” “he’s literally top one again.” and then — “is that girl still second tier?” "who?". you would pretend not to hear it, you were very good at pretending not to hear things. you didn't know if jake ever heard them too.

“did you finalize the variables list?” “are we locking the likert scaling or adjusting for cultural bias?” “did you check the cronbach alpha ranges for similar studies?”. jake interrupted your train of thought with a million questions every time you got lost inside your own head thinking about it. still, you would answer. and then there were the moments that made your brain feel like it was misfiring entirely. like when you realized he had started noticing some of your patterns too, in a way that made you uncomfortable in a very specific direction. at least you weren’t the only one going insane because of how many evenings you were spending on doing that damn project, you thought.

you had stayed late alone in the library one night, rereading the same paragraph for so long you stopped processing it. he casually arrived, not saying hello immediately. he just sat down across from you and looked at your screen for a second. “you’re not reading that anymore.” he said.

you didn’t look up. “i am.” “you’ve been on the same line for how much time?”

silence. you clicked your pen harder than necessary. “i’m fine.”

he didn’t respond immediately. “you always seem to do that when you’re overwhelmed.”

your fingers paused as you looked up. “what?”

he shrugged slightly. “you repeat sections. like it resets something.”

you felt something uncomfortable move in your chest. not because he was wrong, but because he was accurate in a way you hadn’t authorized him to be. “it’s just focus.” you said.

“no,” he replied, simple again. “it’s more like avoidance.”

you shut your laptop slightly, not enough to close it. “you’re reading too much into it, i fear.” you said.

jake leaned back. “maybe.” but he didn’t sound like he believed that, and that was worse. he spoke like he had noted something and decided not to touch it further as if it wasn’t his place. which was new, because he seemed to have a place in everything. your thoughts started doing that thing again, where they tried to categorize him. you started packing your things too quickly, suddenly deciding it was time to go home.

“we should split spss variables next week.” you said.

he nodded. “already started it.”

you froze slightly. “you did?”

“just coding structure.” he said. “didn’t run anything.”

of course he had, of course he had already started without telling you. “send it to me.” you said as you stood up.

he nodded. then, he spoke again after a pause. “did you sleep last night?”

you stopped your movements to look at him. “what?”

he didn’t look up from his laptop screen. “you didn’t sleep last night, right?”

it wasn’t a question. denial felt pointless when he said it like that. like it was already observed, already logged. “it’s fine.” you said instead.

he nodded once. “okay.” but he said it like he didn’t believe that either.

you looked at him for a second too long after that, which was becoming one of your more irritating habits around him. because the problem with jake was that he could say something that sounded like nothing and somehow make it feel like he had seen more than he should have. not in a sentimental way, not in a dramatic way. just in the quiet, inconvenient way people did when they noticed details you would have preferred to keep unregistered. you looked back down before he could catch you still thinking about it. the library was almost empty by then, the kind of late that made the air feel flatter and the lights feel too bright for how little of the room anyone was actually using. jake was still packing up and unpacking nothing in that casual, efficient way of his, one hand resting against the edge of the table while he kept half a eye on the document as if he could will the dataset into finishing itself. you should have gone back to picking up your things, but you didn’t. “you always say that.” you muttered before you had fully decided to speak.

he paused. “say what.”

“okay,” you said, mimicking him badly on purpose, which was the closest you ever got to being openly petty around him. “like that.”

jake glanced at you briefly, his expression unreadable in the exact way that made you immediately suspect he had understood more of your tone than you wanted him to. “it was a fine answer.”

“fine as in?” you made a small sound of frustration through your nose, then shut your laptop a little harder than necessary. not enough to make a scene, just enough to feel like you had done something with your hands.

the thing was, you had started to recognize the structure of this, too. the way neither of you ever really let the conversation stop at whatever it was initially about. it would begin with variables or scales or sample criteria, and then somehow, without either of you fully meaning to, it would drift into something else, something less concrete. which was how you ended up saying, “you’re one to talk, anyway. do you ever actually sleep? i always see you here, or around, or logged into the doc.” like it was a research question and not, very clearly, not that.

jake looked up. “yes.” “that was too fast.” “you asked like you wanted a fight.”

you stared at him. “i always sound like i want a fight to you.” “because you do.”

“i’m asking because you’re always here.” you said after a beat, more carefully now, like you were trying to step around the shape of your own curiosity before it became obvious. “which is not the same thing as sleeping.”

jake leaned back slightly in his chair. “you’re always here too.”

you looked up immediately. “that is not the same.”

“why not?” “because i have reasons.” “i also have my reasons.”

that made you pause. you hated that he had said it so easily, so neutrally, because now it sounded like you were the only one who had turned this into a personal pattern when, apparently, he had one too. you looked away first, which was getting embarrassing in its own way, because it happened almost automatically now. “sure.” you muttered. “your reason is probably just being annoyingly productive.”

he didn’t react right away, and for a second you thought maybe that was too close to a compliment and he had decided not to dignify it. then he said, “and your reason is probably panic.”

you turned your head so fast you almost regretted it. “excuse me?”

he looked at you now, completely calm, one eyebrow moving just a fraction like he was genuinely amused by the reaction and not the content. “you look more alive when you’re stressed.” he said.

you blinked. that should have sounded insulting. maybe it was insulting, maybe that was the point. but the way he said it made it land in a different place, somewhere too specific to dismiss and too strange to take seriously. “that’s a weird thing to say.” you said carefully.

“it’s true.” “no, it’s weird.” “both can be true.”

you stared at him for a second, then looked back down at the floor because if you stayed looking at him, you were pretty sure your brain would start doing something stupid like trying to decide whether he meant that in a clinical way or an observant way. there was a stretch of silence after that that didn’t feel hostile, which was somehow worse. so you decided to change the topic of discussion. “we still need to finish the sampling justification before friday.” you said, a little too quickly, because you had the uncomfortable feeling the conversation was moving somewhere you didn’t know how to stay in.

he nodded. “i know.”

“and the staffing numbers.” “mmh.” “and you need to send me the spss stuff.” “yeah.”

you looked up at him. “do you always answer like that when you’re tired?”

he paused, then glanced at you. “like what?”

“like you’re doing me a favor by remaining conscious.”

for one second, nothing happened. and then, to your absolute horror, he laughed. not a lot, not enough to make a big deal out of it. just one short, unexpected sound that slipped out before he could stop it, and it was so unlike the usual tone he used with you that it made your stomach drop in a completely different way than the argument did. you froze. he froze too, if only for a second. then his face settled back into that familiar neutral expression like the sound had never happened. but you had heard it, you definitely had. you stared at him as he looked down at his laptop. “what?”

you opened your mouth, then shut it again. because for one awful, amazing, deeply inconvenient second, you had laughed too. it came out sharp and surprised, barely there, the kind of laugh that felt like it had escaped from somewhere you didn’t mean to open. you pressed your lips together immediately after, as if you could pretend it had not happened if you became physically still enough. jake looked up at you again, but this time his expression had changed by the smallest amount. not a smile, exactly. just that tiny shift at the mouth that made you think he was aware of what had just happened and not sure whether to acknowledge it. “that was not funny.” he said.

you huffed, still trying not to look too pleased with yourself. “you laughed first.”

“barely.” “you still laughed.” “you did too.”

you stared at him and he stared back. and then it happened again, worse than before because now you were both trying not to do it and failing in the exact same moment. your shoulders shook once, his mouth twitched. you both looked away almost immediately, like eye contact had become a liability. “this is stupid. this thing has officially made us lose our minds.” you said, voice too tight to sound convincing.

“agreed.” he said. you stood there for a second, trying to rearrange your face into something more normal, while your brain replayed the sound of it over and over like it was trying to memorize a mistake.

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

you opened your laptop again because that was what you were supposed to do. because the project still existed. because spss still existed. because the sampling still needed cleaning and your regression outputs were still an unholy mess and no amount of accidental laughter was going to change that. and because you were suddenly, painfully aware of how little sleep you had been getting. you had been aware of it before, obviously. but it had been sitting in your body more loudly these days. the weekend shifts on top of the project work, the reading, the note-making. the constant checking of the ranking board when you passed it in the corridor, pretending not to look while your stomach still tightened every time you saw your own name underneath his. the scholarship renewal form waiting in your email draft folder like a quiet threat. you were tired all the time. not enough to stop, just enough to feel yourself fraying in increments. and somehow the worst part was that jake noticed before you said anything. not dramatically, not as some great emotional insight. he just seemed to clock when your answers got shorter, when your attention slipped, when you started rereading the same sentence too many times. and every time he noticed, he said something like it was normal. “you missed the same word twice.” “you haven’t moved from that tab in ten minutes.” “you look like you haven’t eaten.” you hated that those things were true more than you hated that he said them.

he still talked to everyone outside the library, still moved through the campus like he belonged to it in a way you never fully did, but now you also noticed that he always, always pretended not to be tired until the last possible second. he asked you once, very casually, “do you still work on saturdays?”

you looked up from the screen. “why?”

“just asking.” “but you don’t just ask. so why?”

he looked up, briefly, as if surprised you had said that. “because if you’re working every saturday and then coming here afterward, it explains why you keep looking half-dead.”

you hated that your first instinct was not to deny it. you hated that your second instinct was to ask how obvious it was. instead you said, “i don’t look half-dead.”

“you do sometimes.” “sometimes.”

“fine,” he said, almost mildly. “most times.”

you made a face at the screen. “you’re being rude.” “i’m just being accurate.”

and because you were tired and your defenses were thinner when you were tired, you heard yourself say, “well, sorry i can’t afford to look fresh and academically superior all the time.” the sentence was meant to be sarcastic, but it landed and went quiet for a second. jake looked at you then, really looked at you, and there was something in the expression that made your throat tighten before you could stop it. not pity. thank god, not pity. just recognition. you immediately regretted the whole sentence. “i didn’t mean-” you started.

“i know.” he said, very quickly and very flatly, like he was cutting off the part where you would start overexplaining and making it worse.

you blinked. he had said it like a clarification, not a reassurance, which somehow made it easier to accept. you looked down at your laptop. “okay.” you said, quieter.

and because he apparently couldn’t leave anything completely alone, he added, “you should probably eat something before you start another round of edits.”

you stared at the screen. “are you my mom now?”

that got him again, that tiny almost-laugh, the one that wasn’t quite one. “no,” he said. “my mom would tell you to sleep.”

you stared at him for half a second too long, and the thing was you could have left it there. you should have left it there. “good to know you think i’m below sleep deprivation standards.” you said.

“you are.” “wow.”

he shrugged lightly. “it’s not an insult.”

“it kind of is.” “only if you’re proud of this.”

you stared at him. and then, despite yourself, despite the exhaustion and the rankings and the scholarship and the fact that your life had been measuring itself against a list you couldn’t stop looking at, you laughed again. quieter this time, because the way he said it was so absurdly dry that your body didn’t even have time to resist. jake looked at you for a second, then went back to the screen like nothing had happened. but his mouth had that tiny thing again, that almost-not-smile he wore like it cost him nothing. and you hated how your body didn’t seem capable of stopping your wait for the next one.

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

the thing about finally reaching the results stage was that both of you had spent so much time preparing for it that it almost felt anticlimactic when it actually happened. because there had been weeks of articles and coding structures and sample discussions and methodological decisions that had somehow managed to generate fifty arguments over things that normal people would probably not even recognize as real issues. and now suddenly there were actual numbers in front of you. actual output tables, actual things to interpret instead of endlessly preparing to interpret things. it should have been satisfying, except jake had apparently decided to become unbearable. “okay,” he said, scrolling through the output with the kind of confidence that immediately made you suspicious. “so the effect sizes aren't that strong, but they're still meaningful enough to support the direction.”

you looked up slowly. “what?”

he glanced at you. “what what.”

you stared at him. “you cannot just say that.”

he blinked once. “why not?”

“because that's not-” you physically leaned closer to look at his screen. “jake.”

he looked back at it, then at you, then back at it. “what?”

“you're literally making conclusions before we even finish checking assumptions.”

he looked unconcerned, almost amused. “i'm not making conclusions.”

“you just said "support the direction".” “because it does.”

“no,” you said immediately, “it suggests a direction.”

“same thing.” “absolutely not the same thing.”

he leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms as if he was waiting for you to keep talking. you narrowed your eyes immediately, because there it was. that stupid thing he did, that look that said explain. that challenge that somehow always sounded like he was handing you a microphone in front of an audience you hadn't prepared for. you hated it and you hated him for it. you leaned forward toward your laptop. “because you're already writing like we proved something definitive.” you pointed at the screen aggressively. “results sections don't interpret outcomes like that.”

“they literally interpret outcomes.” “not like that.”

he raised an eyebrow. “okay.”

you looked at him suspiciously. “don't okay me.”

“i'm listening.” “no, because you're doing that thing.” “what thing?” “the thing where you sit there and pretend you're not disagreeing while very clearly disagreeing.” “i'm not disagreeing.” “jake.” “y/n.”

you stared at him, realizing how much you hated how calm he always looked. you could feel your mouth pulling and your eyes narrowing like they always did, probably making you look ridiculous. meanwhile, he looked so pretty it made you feel envious of a man. you could see his eyelashes from the proper distance your chair was at, casually fluttering at you in a mesmerizing manner. his lips looked glossy, almost as if he had applied something to them, although you knew it was all just natural for him. his bangs were down in a perfectly messy way, like gravity was his hair’s biggest ally every morning. gosh, you hated him so much. you quickly shook your head as you tried to physically snap yourself out of your trance, trying not to look like the weirdo who was just analyzing every detail of his appearance. “results sections are descriptive,” you continued while trying to act nonchalant, pointing at his screen again. “you're good at synthesizing information and making broader arguments, but that's discussion section stuff. you're skipping steps.”

he looked at you for a second, then glanced back down. “i'm not skipping steps.”

“you are.” “i'm being efficient.”

you let out a dry laugh. “that's a really interesting way to say overconfident.”

he looked offended for approximately half a second. “overconfident.”

“yes.” “that's harsh.” “just like you said, that's just accurate.”

silence. you watched him with crossed arms, trying very hard not to look smug because you already knew that stupid face. the hold on face. the i might actually be checking if you're right face. he stared at the screen another second. "...okay maybe."

you stared. "...maybe?"

he glanced at you. “don't make that face.”

you almost laughed. “what face?”

“that i was right face.” “i don't have a face.” “you absolutely have a face.”

you physically felt your mouth trying to move, but you stopped it immediately. you were not smiling over winning an argument about statistical reporting. that was embarrassing, deeply embarrassing. still — “so i was right.”

jake sighed dramatically, which almost never happened. “fine.”

“jake admitted i was right...”

he looked up. “once.”

“i need to write this down.” “okay now you're annoying.”

you smiled a little before you could stop it, small enough that maybe it didn't count. “you know,” you said, leaning back slightly now, “you do this all the time.”

he narrowed his eyes. “do what.”

“you jump ahead.” he looked confused. “in general.”

“what does that mean.”

you gestured vaguely toward his laptop. “you get excited about an idea and then immediately start connecting everything before it's even there yet.” he stared at you and you stared back. then added, “you're good at putting things together. too good.”

he looked down at the table for a second, tapping his fingers lightly against it. “and you're annoying.”

you narrowed your eyes. “excuse me?”

“you slow things down.” you stared as he absentmindedly kept speaking. “every time i think something makes sense, you start questioning it until i have to actually justify it.”

you blinked. "that's literally criticism."

“mmh.” “was that an insult anyway?”

“not really.” you stared harder, because his tone hadn't changed at all. he was still typing, still looking at the screen. still acting like he hadn't just said something weird enough to throw your brain slightly off balance. “you're basically quality control.”

you looked at him. "now it sounds like a compliment.” “don't make it weird.”

“you did.” you stared at him for another second to immediately look back down at your laptop, because suddenly your brain had decided to become strange about something that objectively wasn't strange. because it wasn't, obviously.

jake had an ego, a massive one. and over the last few months you had confirmed he knew he was good at things. he knew he was smart, he knew he could walk into a room and make people listen. and yet, he had looked at you after realizing he was wrong and hadn't fought it, hadn't defended himself into the ground. he had just adjusted, which felt weirdly significant. you were still thinking about that when he suddenly looked down at his phone. and then there it was, that tiny shift you always saw. that tiny thing you'd started noticing more lately. he looked at the time, locked the screen again and then looked back at his laptop. then at the time again. and for some reason you already knew what he was about to say before he opened his mouth. he was definitely leaving earlier. not dramatically, not enough to be called out. just enough that you noticed because the first few times he had stayed until nearly closing, the library doors glassing over with the dark outside while he still had his sleeves pushed up and his notes scattered in front of him like he had nowhere else to be. now he would start closing his laptop before you did, check his phone once, and give you a vague time estimate that sounded almost too casual to matter. “i’ve got to go in twenty.”

“mmh.” you only murmured.

he looked at you for half a second, then back down at the document. “plans.”

that should have been the end of it. you nodded without looking up, because of course he had plans. it would be deeply strange if he didn’t, he was not you. he had actual social skills and wouldn’t only spend the entire week trying to outrun a scholarship deadline, a project deadline, a weekend shift, and the constant low-grade panic of knowing the rankings board would be updated again soon and that your name would likely still be sitting under his like a fact you could not afford to ignore. he had friends, he had people who wanted him elsewhere. and if he could leave the library earlier because he had somewhere to be, then that was just him being a functioning person with a life outside the project. there was nothing to get hung up on. nothing. still, when he stood up ten minutes later and reached for his bag, your eyes did that stupid thing where they tracked him before you could stop them. “you’re leaving?” you asked, and you hated how flat it sounded, because it was not really a question and it was not really casual either, which made it the worst possible version of both.

he glanced at you, one hand still on the chair. “yeah. i told you.”

“you said twenty minutes.” the words came out of your mouth without much thought put into them, which you quickly regretted.

“it’s been twenty.”

you looked at the screen, looked back at him and looked down again, because you could not, under any circumstances, let the irritation in your chest become visible on your face for something that objectively did not concern you. “right,” you said. “yeah.”

he paused. not long, just enough to make you aware that he had noticed the tone shift, though he did not seem interested enough to comment on it. then, after a beat, “do you need anything else before i go?”

you looked up at that. not because the question was surprising, because it was not. he asked practical things like that all the time. the surprise was that it landed in a way that made you suddenly more aware of how little of the project he actually left unfinished when he did this. he always asked, always checked, always made sure there was no immediate loose end. and because of that, it would have been ridiculous to say yes just to keep him there, which was not something you would ever do because you were a rational person who did not need to manufacture reasons for anyone to stay in a room with you. so instead you said, “no.” and then, because silence suddenly felt too pointed, you added, “you can go.”

his eyes moved over you for a second. you hated that. you hated being looked at long enough to start wondering what expression you were making. but then he nodded once, unsurprised. “okay.” he said.

and that was it, he left just like that. which, objectively, was fine. you told yourself it was fine while staring at the empty chair across from you and pretending to reread the same paragraph for the fourth time. he had plans, you did not own his time. you did not want his time. you just needed his timing to be more consistent because it made the work easier, which was all this was, all it had ever been. the fact that his leaving earlier now felt like the shape of something missing was just your brain being inconvenient and tired and, frankly, a little overdramatic. you worked for another hour after that, but the page kept blurring at the edges in a way that had nothing to do with the text. somewhere down the hall, someone spoke out loud. somewhere else, chairs scraped across the floor. the library was still full of people who had somewhere to be, and that should have made you feel better, or at least normal. except all it really did was remind you that jake had simply gone somewhere else, and you were there, which was also normal, and therefore should not have felt so pointed. you hated that he got to be nonchalant about it. you hated, more than that, that he had every right to be. and because you were not going to let yourself think too hard about that, you did what you always did when something pressed too closely against a thought you did not want: you changed the subject in your own head. there was still work to do, there was always work to do. and if you stayed long enough in the quiet of it, maybe the feeling would wear itself thin before you had to name it.

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

the realization happened completely by accident. which was annoying, because if there was one thing you had learned over the years, it was that the discoveries that managed to get under your skin were never the dramatic ones. they weren't the revelations, they were the offhand comments, the things people said when they weren't paying attention. it happened three weeks later. the project had reached the stage where every task somehow generated three additional tasks behind it. every answer created a new problem, every cleaned variable revealed something else that needed fixing. you had spent most of the afternoon correcting participant coding because someone had apparently decided that following instructions was optional. you were tired, more tired than usual, actually. the kind of tired that sat behind your eyes and made every conversation feel half a second slower than it should have been. you genuinely didn’t want to be there or anywhere that wasn’t your room, which was an emotion you were feeling a little too often lately. but instead, you and jake had been sitting in the library for almost two hours, arguing. again.

"i'm telling you, that's not an outlier." "it literally is." "it doesn't meet the threshold." "because you're using the wrong threshold." jake leaned back in his chair as you leaned forward. somewhere in the distance, a printer made a horrible mechanical noise.

"you're impossible." "you're dramatic." "i'm correct."

"again, those aren't mutually exclusive." you glared at him and he ignored you completely, which somehow made it worse. you opened your mouth to continue the argument when somebody appeared beside the table.

"jake." both of you looked up. it was one of the guys you knew you both shared a class with, but you couldn’t fully remember which one. you vaguely recognized him.

"hey." "did professor wilson move the deadline?" jake immediately switched into that version of himself, as if a switch had been turned on. easier, lighter, like social interaction operated on a completely different set of rules for him.

"yeah, yeah." "to monday?" "pretty sure."

the guy groaned. "thank god." jake laughed. you looked back at your laptop, because this wasn't your conversation. because there was no reason to pay attention. "honestly," the guy continued, dropping his backpack onto a nearby chair, "i thought i was cooked. especially with rankings updating this week." your fingers paused, just for a second. rankings. you kept staring at your screen. didn't react, didn't move. "you're still first anyway."

jake made a face. "don't remind me."

the guy laughed. "what? scared somebody's finally coming for you? you've literally been first for more than two years."

"yeah." "so?" you clicked your mouse. kept looking at the same paragraph, the same sentence, the same word. because suddenly you were listening, which you knew was stupid.

"so eventually people get weird about it."

the guy snorted. "people are already weird about it."

"exactly." you heard papers shifting, chairs moving, conversation continuing somewhere above your head. and then —

"besides." jake's voice, speaking casually. "i've had somebody sitting right behind me since first year." everything inside your head stopped. just enough that the next few words arrived strangely, like your brain needed an extra second to process them.

"yeah, but she's not catching you."

you stared at your screen, your cursor blinked. jake shrugged. "you don't know that." something tightened unpleasantly in your chest.

the guy laughed. "come on."

"what?" "she's been second forever." "and?" "and you're still first."

you heard jake exhale through his nose. not annoyed, not defensive, just certain. "that's not really how that works."

silence, a short one, the kind that only lasts a second. but it was enough. enough for the guy to look confused, enough for you to stop reading entirely and enough for your stomach to do something uncomfortable. because suddenly you weren't hearing the conversation anymore, you were hearing one specific thing. i've had somebody sitting right behind me since first year. you had always assumed the rankings mattered differently. you checked because you had to. because your scholarship depended on it, because staying second was survival and becoming third was a problem and dropping lower than that was unthinkable. you checked because every semester felt like standing on the edge of something. but jake? jake didn't need to check, jake was first. he had been first forever. you had always assumed he occupied that position carelessly, without thinking about it. without noticing it, without needing to. and yet — i've had somebody sitting right behind me since first year. which meant he knew. not just now, not just recently, he had known. the thought landed strangely. because the truth was you had spent an embarrassing amount of time assuming that you barely existed in his academic universe before your first little social development project encounter. you had never imagined he paid attention to it from the other side.

you became aware of the conversation ending. the other guy leaving, the chair scraping against the floor, the room returning to normal. jake sat back down, opened his laptop and looked at the document, completely unaware that your brain had become stuck on something deeply stupid. or maybe aware, as it had been getting harder to tell these days. you stared at the same line for another ten seconds. then twenty. "what?" you looked up. jake was watching you, so you immediately looked back down.

"nothing." "you've been staring at the same sentence."

you hated that he noticed that. "it's called reading."

"it's called not reading, actually."

you clicked your pen, trying very hard not to ask a question that would immediately reveal how much attention you had been paying. because that would be deeply embarrassing and objectively unnecessary. "you check the rankings?" the words escaped before you could stop them.

jake blinked, like the question itself was strange. "yeah."

you stared. that was it, yeah. like you had asked whether he checked his email. "why?"

he looked genuinely confused now. "why wouldn't i?"

and somehow that answer was worse, because there was no arrogance in it. no competitive edge, just simple confusion. you looked away first again, which was becoming a problem. "i don't know."

"mmh." he returned to the document. conversation over, just like that. you sat there staring at your screen while your brain performed increasingly unnecessary calculations around a piece of information that should not have mattered.

"it's useful." jake suddenly spoke, explaining himself.

"useful." "yeah." "for what?" "seeing where people are."

you stared. "that's incredibly vague."

"it's rankings." he looked back at the screen. "they're literally designed to show where people are."

you looked away before he could see the involuntary twitch at the corner of your mouth. he was annoying. the conversation again should have ended there. instead you heard yourself ask, "so you actually pay attention to them?"

his fingers paused briefly over the keyboard. "depends."

"on what?" "who."

your stomach did something unpleasant. you immediately focused very hard on the document in front of you, which unfortunately did not stop you from hearing your own voice ask, "who?"

silence, not a long one. just enough to make you aware you had probably sounded more interested than intended. "people near me." there it was again, simple, easy. like the answer should have been obvious.

you nodded slowly, pretending that explained absolutely everything. "and apparently you've had somebody right behind you since first year."

jake glanced up, and for the first time since the conversation started, something shifted slightly in his expression. not surprise, more like realization, like he had finally figured out what you were actually asking. "yeah." you looked down at your laptop.

"i thought you didn't pay attention to that stuff." "why?" "because you're first."

he leaned back slightly, thinking. "those two things don't seem related."

you hated how quickly he said that, like it had never occurred to him they might be. "i just assumed you wouldn't care."

"you assume a lot when it comes to me. and i didn't say i cared."

you blinked. that answer threw you off immediately. "then why look?"

he shrugged. "same reason everybody does."

you almost laughed. "that is absolutely not true." "okay." "most people aren't first."

"and?" you stared and he stared back. calm, patient, infuriating. eventually he looked away first. "you're making rankings sound way more dramatic than they are."

you nearly choked. because if there was one thing in the entire world that had never been casual for you, it was rankings. rankings determined scholarships, rankings determined funding. rankings determined whether next semester would be manageable or impossible. rankings determined whether all the hours were worth something. rankings had never once been casual. meanwhile jake was sitting there talking about them like it was nothing. you looked down before your face could betray anything. "easy for you to say." the words slipped out before you could stop them.

silence. when you looked up again, he was watching you. and suddenly you wished you had said literally anything else. "i guess." you couldn't tell whether he understood what you meant or whether he had decided not to ask. after a minute, he said, "i knew who you were before this whole thing, you know?"

your eyes immediately lifted, but jake didn't. he was still looking at the spreadsheet, still typing, like he hadn't just casually inserted himself into the worst thought process you'd had all week. "what?"

"you seemed surprised. and since you assume a lot, you had probably assumed i didn’t."

you stared. "we had basically never talked until all of this. so yeah, i don’t think it was such a crazy guess."

he shrugged. "i still knew who you were. you sometimes answer questions in class. not often, but when you do." your brain immediately supplied every lecture hall from the last three years. every time a professor had waited too long for somebody to answer, every time silence became unbearable. every time you'd reluctantly spoken because of participation marks, because there was no other option.

"you always sit near the aisle. you leave immediately after class." your stomach tightened, slightly. "and." he paused, then added, "you never talk to anybody before lectures start. see?" you looked away immediately. because that one landed too accurately, too directly. the silence stretched and jake looked back at his laptop, apparently finished. meanwhile your brain was still stuck three sentences ago, because none of those observations sounded important, they sounded ordinary. the kind of details people noticed accidentally, which somehow made them harder to dismiss. and for the first time, you found yourself wondering something you had never really considered before. had he been watching you just how you had been watching him?

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

you were tired. and the thing about burnout was that nobody ever told you how boring it was. people talked about breakdowns like they happened all at once. like one day you were functioning and the next day you were crying in a parking lot or failing all your classes or staring dramatically into the distance while your life collapsed around you. but mostly it was just repetition. it was waking up tired, then waking up tired again, then waking up tired enough that you stopped being surprised by it. it was reading the same paragraph four times and only realizing afterward that you hadn't processed a single word. it was opening your laptop with a headache that never fully left. it was drinking coffee because you were tired and then being too anxious to sleep because you had consumed enough caffeine to chemically alter your blood type.

and the worst part was that none of it looked serious from the outside — you were still getting things done, your grades were still high, the scholarship was still intact, you still showed up. which meant nobody out of the two people you talked to really had a reason to worry. including you, especially you. because every time the exhaustion started feeling noticeable, there was always something more urgent waiting behind it. an assignment, a shift at work, the project. the rankings, always the rankings. the ranking board had become something you checked constantly, feeling like it was the only thing you had some control over. every other day your eyes went to the same two names. jake. you. sometimes the gap changed, sometimes it didn't. sometimes you gained points, sometimes he gained more. but he always stayed first, and you always stayed second, and every single week you told yourself it didn't matter. every single week your stomach tightened anyway. because second place sounded impressive until you realized first place existed. and first place had a name.

and unfortunately for you, first place also kept asking if you had eaten lunch, which somehow made the whole thing worse. the semester kept moving and you kept moving with it, mostly. until one afternoon your phone buzzed while you were halfway through finishing coding participant responses. you ignored it, but it buzzed again. then again. finally you looked down. jess. for a second you just stared at the screen, because you hadn't spoken to jess in almost four months. not properly, not beyond the occasional reaction emoji or one-word response she dropped into conversations before disappearing again. the funny thing was that the sight of her name didn't even surprise you anymore. there was a pattern to these things, there always had been. jess vanished, jess travelled somewhere, jess forgot everyone existed. jess reappeared, repeat. you opened the message.

jess: oh my god jess: are you busy jess: i need to tell you something

you stared at it, then at the typing bubble that appeared immediately afterward.

jess: it's an emergency

you already knew it wasn't. or rather, you knew exactly what kind of emergency it was. three dots appeared, then disappeared, just to appear again.

jess: i think ethan is actually the worst person alive

there it was. you leaned back in your chair. somewhere in the distance a professor was explaining something to a student. somebody dropped a pen, somebody laughed. you just stared at your screen. and suddenly a memory surfaced so clearly it felt recent. first year, late-night study sessions, sharing notes, getting coffee between lectures. jess talking for hours while you listened, back when friendship had felt reciprocal. or maybe when you had simply been too optimistic to notice it wasn't. after all, she had been the only friend you had made during your college years. 

your thumb hovered over the keyboard, because the thing was you already knew how this conversation would go, you could practically predict it. you would listen, jess would vent and you would help. she would feel better, then she would disappear again. and in a month or two there would be another emergency: another boyfriend, another friendship drama, another crisis. and somehow there would always be room in her life for your attention, just never actual room for you. the realization arrived so quietly that it almost didn't feel like a realization at all, more like finally reading a sentence you had been skimming for years.

your phone buzzed again.

jess: hello??? jess: are you alive

you stared at the messages, and for the first time in a very long time, you didn't immediately answer. instead you looked at the clock, looked at the spreadsheet, looked at the participant responses, looked at the list of assignments due next week. looked at the exhaustion sitting permanently somewhere behind your eyes. you felt something unpleasant twist in your chest, like disappointment that had finally gotten tired of disguising itself as understanding. because suddenly you couldn't stop thinking about all the messages you had sent over the years. all the conversations that had ended with no reply, all the updates she had forgotten, all the times she had said sorry i've been busy before immediately disappearing again. and the worst part was that you had accepted it, every single time.

because having part of a friendship had seemed better than having none. and when it was good, it was really good. jess was one of those people that made everyone comfortable no matter what. one of those people that saw much more from you than your initial single word answers said in an anxious manner. she was someone who gave you an opportunity when no one else did, and the thought of that was sometimes, or most times, enough. 

your phone buzzed once more.

jess: seriously i need help

the messages started becoming ridiculous. at first, you ignored them because you were angry, then you ignored them because you didn't know what to say. which was how you ended up with twenty three unread messages from jess spread across almost two weeks. some were memes, some were photos. some were random observations she apparently felt compelled to share despite receiving absolutely nothing back. another was a screenshot of some guy's text messages followed by:

jess: am i insane or is he insane

you had stared at it for nearly five minutes before locking your phone and putting it face down. the next day there had been another message.

jess: wow thanks for the support

you hadn't answered that either. then there had been silence for almost four days, and for some reason those four days had felt worse than the messages. because it made you realize you had spent the entire time expecting another one, which was humiliating.

then friday night, after finishing a shift that had lasted too long and dealing with a customer who had somehow managed to ask for four different managers despite being wrong every single time, you unlocked your phone while waiting for the bus and saw:

jess: okay jess: i know where this is coming from

your stomach immediately tightened.

jess: and i know you're mad jess: and honestly fair enough

you stared. jess almost never admitted fault immediately, and that alone made you suspicious.

jess: but i think we're both being stubborn now jess: and i think if we actually talked we'd fix it in like ten minutes jess: so jess: surprise jess: i'm back next week jess: and before you ignore this too jess: yes i'm serious jess: yes i'm coming to campus jess: yes i'm finding you jess: and no you're not allowed to disappear

another message appeared.

jess: we're fixing this jess: even if you hate me right now

you locked your phone just to unlock it again. read the messages a second time, then a third. you still didn't answer, but you also didn't delete them, which felt like its own kind of weakness. because the truth was that a very small, very pathetic part of you had immediately felt relieved, and you hated that. you hated that after everything, after months of being forgotten whenever she found something better to do, after every unanswered message and every time you had watched her life continue without you, some stupid part of your brain still reacted to her name like a starving dog being handed scraps. you hated it, and you hated yourself for it. somehow that made the exhaustion sitting in your chest feel even heavier.

she found you four days later, which you should have expected. you were leaving a lecture hall when someone suddenly wrapped both arms around you from behind. you nearly had a heart attack. "oh my god."

"there she is." you immediately knew it was her. same perfume, same voice, same face no one, not even you, could ever say no to. same irritating ability to behave like she had never been gone at all.

there she was, smiling like nothing had happened, like months had not passed. like you hadn't spent entire semesters watching your messages sit unanswered. for one awful second your chest actually hurt, because you had missed her and that was the worst part. "hi." she said softly.

you stared. "hi."

her smile faltered slightly. "wow."

"what?" "you really are mad."

you looked away immediately, because somehow hearing it out loud made it feel childish. "i'm just busy. can’t stay much time here."

"you always say that." "because i am."

jess rolled her eyes. "see, this is exactly what i'm talking about."

you frowned. "what are you talking about?"

"this." she gestured vaguely. "whatever this is."

you laughed once, a short humorless sound. "you disappeared for months."

"i didn't disappear." "okay." "i didn't!"  "mmh."

"stop doing that." "doing what?!" "that!"

you stared at her. "jess, you literally stopped answering me."

"i was in another country."

"phones exist internationally and for a reason, you know?" that finally made her go quiet. and for a second you thought maybe she actually understood. maybe she got it.

"i thought you knew it wasn't personal." and there it was, the reason this conversation had always been impossible. because for jess it wasn't personal. for jess, friendships were elastic — they stretched, they shrank, they disappeared and then they came right back. and somehow they always remained exactly the same. but for you they didn't. for you every absence left marks, every ignored message sat in your chest for weeks. every unanswered attempt became evidence.

"that's kind of the problem." jess blinked and you immediately regretted speaking. because now the words were moving, and once they started moving they rarely stopped. "i know it wasn't personal for you." your voice sounded calmer than you felt. "i know you weren't sitting there trying to hurt me."

"then-"

"but i was still there." silence. "i was still your friend while you weren't answering."

jess's expression changed slightly. "y/n-"

"and every single time something went wrong, you came back." your throat tightened. "every time."

"that's not fair." "it is fair." "no."

"yes." you looked away, because suddenly you couldn't look at her anymore. "you only miss me when something happens." the words landed harder than you expected. and for the first time since she arrived, jess looked genuinely hurt. and for some reason that didn't make you feel better, it just made you tired.

"that's not true." "okay." "stop saying okay like you've already decided i'm guilty!" 

you laughed again, smaller this time. "haven't i?"

jess looked down, then back up. and for the first time all afternoon she seemed unsure. "i missed you." your chest twisted immediately, because she sounded sincere, and that somehow made everything worse. "i did." you didn't answer. "i know i'm bad at this, but i did miss you." the problem was that you believed her, and the problem was that believing her changed absolutely nothing. because people could miss you and still leave, people could care and still disappear and people could love you and still make you feel lonely. you had learned that years ago, but jess just happened to be the latest example. eventually she sighed. "you're impossible."

"i've heard that." "are you just… going to stay mad forever?"

you shrugged. "depends." "on what?"

you looked at her and suddenly realized she genuinely thought this was fixable with one conversation. like all she had to do was show up, smile, say sorry and everything would reset. the way it always had before. except this time you were too tired to pretend. "i don't know." and all of a sudden, neither of you had anything else to say. which was probably answer enough.

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

your life had somewhat become structured around jake’s, often ending up in the same spaces. same library, same project, same professor. same increasingly concerning amount of time spent staring at statistical outputs. you arrived already tired, even more tired than usual, which was saying something. the scholarship paperwork still wasn't finished, you had missed breakfast again and you had slept four hours. jess had texted you three times before nine in the morning, and you had spent most of the walk to campus pretending not to see the notifications sitting on your lockscreen. by the time you dropped into the chair across from jake, you felt like your body was running entirely on momentum. he looked up once and paused, then looked back at his laptop. "you look awful."

you dropped your bag onto the table. "good morning to you too." "i'm serious."

"thank you." you said in a sarcastic tone, not being able to deal with his shit at that point. still, there was a silence, and the comfortable kind. or whatever the closest version of comfortable was between the two of you. until eventually, after some time typing, you noticed he hadn't moved for almost a minute. which was unusual, because jake was always doing something. you looked up and he was staring at the screen. not reading it, just staring. "what?"

his eyes shifted. "nothing." “mmh.” you immediately went back to your laptop.

he frowned. "that's it?" "what?" "you're not going to ask?"

you looked up. "you literally said nothing."

"yeah." "so?" "usually people ask again."

you stared. "usually people should answer properly the first time."

that got the smallest twitch at the corner of his mouth. then he sighed, longer this time. and he suddenly looked older, not physically, just tired. the kind of tired you only noticed when someone stopped performing for a second. "my independent project is a mess."

you blinked, because that was not what you expected. "the lab one?"

he nodded. "i've been working on it for almost a year."

you knew the project because everyone did, you were sure. it was one of those ambitious research proposals professors liked bringing up when they wanted to motivate students. jake's project, jake's future publication, jake's possible master's application. jake's future everything. "so… what happened?"

he leaned back as he rubbed a hand over his face. "nothing happened." which sounded suspiciously similar to disaster.

"jake."

he laughed once, without humor. "i spent eleven months collecting data. and now i'm not sure the question was even worth asking." you froze, because that wasn't frustration, that was something close to fear. the kind that sat underneath months of work and suddenly asked whether any of it mattered. he looked away. "i keep trying to force something interesting out of it." another pause. "and every time i look at it i hate it more."

you watched him carefully, because this wasn't the version of jake most people saw. the version everybody else saw walked around campus looking annoyingly competent, like things simply worked for him. like success arrived naturally and confidence was his default setting. but this version looked frustrated and uncertain, which somehow felt more vulnerable than if he had outright admitted he was struggling. "i’m just going to be honest."

he snorted. "that sounds dangerous."

"might be. but i think… your problem could be that you keep trying to make it impressive." he looked up, immediately. but you continued before he could interrupt. "every time you talk about a project, you talk about what it could become." 

his eyebrows pulled together. “because that's the point."

you sat forward slightly. "you're doing the same thing you did with the results section."

he groaned immediately. "don't bring that up." "i'm bringing it up, jake." "of course you are."

"because you're doing it again." he leaned back, watching you as you continued. "you keep jumping ahead. you're trying to write the conclusion before you've looked at what's actually there."

his eyes narrowed slightly. not defensive, just thinking, which was different. "maybe the data isn't exciting."

you shrugged. "most data isn't."

"great." "but maybe it's useful, and maybe that's enough."

silence stretched, long. he tapped his fingers against the table. "you’re really annoying and that's a really annoying answer."

your mouth twitched slightly. "i know. feelings are mutual."

"and i also hate that you're probably right."

"i also know." you finally smiled, not being able to control your facial expressions anymore.

"stop enjoying this."

you looked back down at your laptop. "i'm not." but you absolutely were.

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

after a few days, you met up again. it was one of those days where everything felt wrong before it even started. jess had called, which already felt aggressive, and somehow the conversation had made everything worse. because she sounded normal, excited, exactly like somebody who had not disappeared from your life for months at a time. and by the time you arrived at the library, you could feel the anger sitting underneath your skin. jake noticed immediately, which was becoming irritating. "okay."

you didn't look up. "what?" "you look like you want to commit murder today."

"yeah, and you’re about to be my next victim.” jake just looked at you in shock, making you think he might have believed it. “i looked like that last week too, anyway." you said while avoiding eye contact.

"this is definitely different." you ignored him, but he ignored your attempt to ignore him. "who is it?"

you sighed. "what? nobody." "that's a lie and we both know it."

"why ask if you've already decided then?" you said in a passive aggressive tone, more aggressive than passive.

he shrugged. "fair." after a minute of silence, you heard his voice again. "is it a guy?"

you immediately stared in shock. "what?" "i'm asking." "why?"

"because people usually look like this because of a guy. and i would know, because i am a guy… a guy a lot of girls get mad at, actually."

you rolled you eyes as you heard him admit to that so easily. "your reasoning is stupid. and your reasoning should maybe make you a little more self aware for the sake of others too." "mmh, okay."

you looked back down, annoyed. then heard yourself speak, feeling the need to clarify it. "it's not a guy, for the record." "good."

you frowned, confused at his comment. "why?" "because i wouldn’t have been helpful. i’m on the receiving end when it comes to that stuff, so i don’t understand those situations.”

you stared. "and you understand this one?" "try me."

you rubbed your eyes, already regretting speaking. "it's an old friend. jess."

his expression shifted slightly. recognition. "jess?"

"yeah." you hesitated. "you might know her."

"how exactly?" "well, apart from the fact that you talk to basically everybody on campus including the trees, she used to… visit one of your friends?"

he immediately looked confused, raising one eyebrow. “visit?”

“as in, intimately.” you awkwardly said, making it all even more awkward, which was one of your not-so-hidden talents.

"that doesn't narrow it down at all." 

despite yourself, you laughed. "fair."

after a second, you heard him speak again. "oh."

"you know her." "i remember we talked a few times, yeah. she used to hook up with jay, i think. it’s hard to keep up." 

you blushed at his words like a stupid girl, as if you weren’t a full grown twenty year old woman. you felt the need to move on with the conversation, which somehow meant oversharing a little. "she just disappears. for months." you stared at the table. "sometimes longer. then comes back." your throat tightened. "and every single time she acts like nothing happened." you laughed, short and sharp. "like i'm supposed to be waiting exactly where she left me." jake didn't interrupt, so you kept talking, which was probably a big mistake. "she goes traveling, does exchange. somehow the exchange ends and she still doesn’t come back? she meets new people and simply forgets i exist." your voice sounded flatter now. "then something goes wrong and suddenly she remembers my phone number." silence. you looked down. "and the worst part is i always answer." there it was, the embarrassing part, the part that actually hurt. because the problem wasn't only jess, it was you. always accepting less than what you needed because some version of friendship felt better than none.

jake was quiet for a moment. but when he finally spoke, you immediately wished he hadn’t. "i kind of understand her."

you looked up, instantly regretting opening your mouth. why had you even told him about that? why would you ever talk about something so personal with jake? you genuinely wondered what had gotten into you, what stupid spell you were under to suddenly speak about something so important to you with this person. "forget it."

he didn't seem bothered by your reaction, which somehow made it worse. "listen. i’m just saying i understand why she might disappear."

you laughed, actually laughed in disbelief. "seriously? that's your response."

he frowned. "what?"

"i tell you all that and your first instinct is to defend her." "i'm not defending her." "you literally are." "no?" "jake."

he leaned back, annoyingly calm. "i'm saying i understand it."

"those are not different things." "they are."

"not right now they're not." you raised your voice a little, not being able to keep up with his nonchalance.

"people get overwhelmed." his voice remained steady. "people avoid things."

"for more than a year?" "sometimes." "well, that's ridiculous." "it just happens, y/n."

you laughed again, angrier this time. "easy for you to say."

he frowned. "why are you so sure about that?"

because you have people. because people stay and because nobody forgets you. because you don't spend months wondering whether someone cared about you in the first place. you thought all of that but said none of it. "because you're not the one waiting." that landed and you saw it. 

jake's expression shifted slightly. "fair."

you quickly looked away, because suddenly your eyes were burning. because suddenly you remembered why you didn’t like talking to jake. "i'm just tired of being understanding." the words slipped out before you could stop them.

he just sat there for a second, looking at you with that frustratingly neutral expression he always wore whenever he was actually thinking about something. "i know."

you almost laughed. not because it was funny, because it was irritating. "i don’t think you do." you wished you hadn't said that, because now the conversation was no longer about jess. it was about you. silence stretched between you, making you look down at the table. 

jake looked at you and said, carefully this time, "i'm just saying i've done that before. not answered people." your eyes lifted. he wasn't looking at you anymore, he was looking somewhere over your shoulder, somewhere vague. like he was talking to the room instead of directly to you.  "you get busy." he shrugged slightly. "or stressed. or something happens and you keep thinking you'll answer tomorrow." you didn't say anything as he continued. "then a week passes, then two." another pause. "then it starts feeling weird. and then the longer you leave it, the more embarrassing it gets." something uncomfortable twisted in your chest, because he didn't sound defensive, he sounded familiar. like he wasn't really talking about jess anymore, like he was talking about himself. "and eventually," he said, quieter now, "you know you've waited too long." your throat tightened unexpectedly, because there was something strange about hearing that from him. jake, who always seemed so put together, so socially effortless. so capable of moving through every room without friction. you had never really considered that he might be the kind of person who avoided things. or people, or conversations. he leaned back slightly. "but i'm not saying it doesn't hurt."

you immediately looked away, because that wasn't what you wanted, it wasn't what you needed. you didn't need understanding, you needed someone to tell you that you were right. that jess was selfish, that disappearing for months was selfish. that coming back whenever she felt lonely was selfish and that you had every right to be angry. instead he was sitting there calmly constructing reasons that almost sounded like excuses. "okay." your voice came out flat. "so what?"

he frowned slightly. "what do you mean?"

"i mean so what." you looked at him again. "so she was embarrassed." he immediately knew where this was going and you could tell, but that didn't stop you. "so she got busy. so now i have to be there every time just in case she felt that way, because of course she didn’t give any solid explanation either. great." you laughed once, sharp.

"that's not what i'm saying." "it kind of is." "no, y/n."

"then what are you saying, jake." you called his name back as if trying to prove a point, unconsciously arguing at this point.

he rubbed his jaw, already looking mildly annoyed. which somehow made you even more annoyed. "i'm just saying life gets messy." you stared at him and he stared back, completely calm, completely composed. and suddenly you wanted to shake him, just a little. just enough to make him react properly.

"you don't get it." "maybe not." "no, you definitely don't."

he frowned. "then explain it. explain whatever you want me to get."

and there it was. you could tell exhaustion had been eating holes through your self-control for weeks now as you spoke without a filter. "because it's always me." you looked down, immediately regretting it, immediately wanting to take it back. but now it was already out. "i'm always the person who understands and the person who's supposed to wait until everybody figures their shit out." your chest felt tight, too tight. "and somehow nobody ever seems worried about whether i have things going on too." the words sounded pathetic the second they left your mouth. you hated yourself for saying them, because this was jake. jake wasn’t even your friend, but there you were trauma dumping on him for some strange reason.

he was quiet for a moment, long enough that you wished he would just let it go. "have you told her that?"

you blinked. "what?" "any of that."

you stared. "that's your takeaway?"

"it's a question." "obviously not." "then how would she know?"

you actually laughed in disbelief. "jake, seriously?" "yeah."

your irritation flared immediately. "because she should know."

he sighed. "people don't magically know things." "she should."

"why?" you stared at him, because the answer felt obvious. because if somebody mattered to you then you noticed, and if somebody mattered to you then you checked. you would remember they existed even when your life got busy. but suddenly explaining that felt impossible because it sounded childish and needy, it sounded exactly like the thing you spent years trying not to be. you looked away but, unfortunately, jake kept talking. "look." his voice softened slightly, which somehow made it worse. "i'm not saying she's right. i'm saying people aren't always good at being what other people need. and honestly," he hesitated for a moment, just enough for you to notice. "i don't know. if she's basically the only friend you've got." your stomach dropped, violently. he didn't mean it cruelly and that was the problem. he said it like an observation, like a fact, something practical and logical. "maybe expecting perfection from her isn't realistic."

that was the exact moment everything inside you snapped, quietly. somehow he had managed to take the ugliest fear you carried around and say it out loud like it was reasonable. if she's basically the only friend you've got. you stared at him, and suddenly all you could hear was that sentence. you wondered if he realized what he had just said, if he realized how true it was. your chair scraped against the floor, which made jake immediately looked up. "you’re right." your voice sounded strange, even to yourself. you started shoving your laptop into your bag too fast, too aggressively.

"y/n." "no, you're right."

his eyebrows pulled together. "that's not-"

"no." you stood up as the library suddenly felt too bright, too loud and too exposed. "i should probably lower my standards."

"i didn't say that." "you kind of did." "that's not what i meant." "it's fine." "y/n."

you slung your bag over your shoulder, avoiding his eyes. because you knew if you looked at him right now something humiliating would happen — either you'd cry or you'd say something cruel, and you didn't want either.

"i've got work." "we're literally working right now." "not this."

"that's not what i meant." he said quieter this time, more serious.

you nodded once, short and mechanical. "just leave it, okay? i don’t give a fuck at this point." you turned around and left before he could say anything else. before he could explain or clarify, before he could make it reasonable. because the worst part was that maybe it was reasonable and maybe that was why it hurt so much. because somewhere underneath all the anger and embarrassment and exhaustion, there was a small ugly part of you that had heard his words and immediately thought: he's right. and you hated that part enough that you spent the entire walk home trying not to listen to it.

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

you didn’t want to see jess, and you wanted to see jake even less. the conversation with him had left you feeling like a whiny, annoying person, which somehow felt like it was both of their perception when it came to you. you still didn’t understand why you had let him know all that personal stuff, why you hadn’t second guessed saying it like you did with everything else. why had you all of a sudden let something real slip out so carelessly when you had spent most of your life making sure nothing slipped out at all? although once you reflected on it, you realized jake was the closest thing to a friend you had at that moment. you kept telling yourself he wasn’t one because you knew he didn’t consider you as such, but that didn’t mean it was as easy for your brain to interpret it all in the same nonchalant way as his did. and maybe that was the reason why you had been so careless, because at some point of spending countless hours with jake as a project partner, you had begun to spend time with him as a person too, even if it was a one sided experience. you had to stop that, though. he had clearly shown you he thought it was stupid to even bring up the thing with jess as a problem. he wasn’t your friend in reality, and although he had told you about some of his worries as well, you obviously didn’t have that kind of connection.

the project document sat untouched for longer than it should have. you told yourself you would get back to it tomorrow, but then tomorrow became the next day, and then the next. same thing happened with texts that went unanswered, cancelled meetings and skipped classes. eventually you emailed your professors about a “debilitating cold” that technically existed but probably wasn't severe enough to justify missing class or being absent from life in general. you had never missed class, not voluntarily, not unless you physically couldn't move. but exhaustion had started settling somewhere deeper than tiredness. it wasn't sleep, because sleep didn't fix it. sleep just delayed it until the morning. the strange thing was that once you stopped going, you discovered how easy it would be to keep stopping, which terrified you. because rankings, scholarships, deadlines, projects and all the things that normally sat in your chest screaming for attention suddenly felt distant, muted. like somebody had wrapped your life in several layers of fabric. and you knew enough about yourself to understand how dangerous that feeling could become if you let it stay.

so on wednesday morning you got out of bed, because whatever else you were, you were not a quitter. you got dressed, packed your bag and ignored the fact that everything felt heavier than usual. you promised yourself you wouldn’t allow yourself to have those kind of thoughts anymore because they would only bring you down. emotional repression was your favorite kind of unhealthy coping mechanism, you thought. once you were back on campus, all you could think about was how you couldn’t handle seeing neither of those two people you couldn’t get out of your head at that moment. which was genuinely stupid, because one of them was a former friend who had apparently decided to reappear in your life after treating it like a waiting room, and the other was your project partner to put it simply. those were the facts — simple, reasonable, adult facts. the fact that both situations somehow occupied an unreasonable amount of your brain space lately was a separate issue entirely. you shook in fear just by imagining it, already feeling awkward because of conversations that had not happened yet, expressions you had not seen yet, and possibilities your brain had already managed to rehearse a dozen different ways.

so when you casually looked up on your way to class just to see both of those two people, your entire body froze. you stood still like a rodent in fear, trying to process the scene you were watching. jake. jess. together. you were standing far enough away that neither of them saw you. thank god, because you suddenly felt like an intruder. jess was leaning against one of the walls near the notice boards, talking about something with her hands moving the way they always did when she got animated. her hair was down and she looked effortless in that way she always did. jake was standing across from her. he was smiling, genuinely. that small version of it that showed up when he was actually entertained by something. you hated that you recognized the difference now. your stomach tightened, probably because you were annoyed. that was the explanation, the obvious explanation.

you kept walking a little slower without meaning to. jess said something and jake looked down for a second before looking back up. she touched his arm, briefly, the way extroverted people touched everybody. which meant absolutely nothing. except your brain immediately decided to remember every single time jake had ever touched you, which took approximately half a second because the answer was basically never. you looked away, then looked back. and you knew you were acting ridiculous. you should just have gone to class, but instead you found yourself lingering beside a column further down the corridor. not hiding, just... standing there for a second. a completely normal amount of time. jess laughed as jake said something that made her shove his shoulder lightly. and there it was, that impossible-to-define thing. you couldn't hear a word they were saying, but somehow the conversation felt familiar anyway. easy, comfortable. like they already knew where the other person's jokes were going before they arrived there. you noticed jess occupied space easily, exactly like you never had. jess laughed loudly, but you usually laughed like you were apologizing for it. jess flirted with people the way other people breathed. and even from across the hallway you could see the familiar rhythm of it. the slight lean forward, the eye contact held a second too long, the teasing smile, the confidence. she had always been good at that.

you weren't even friends with one of them anymore, and the other had never been your friend to begin with. so why did it feel like watching something you weren't supposed to be seeing? why did it feel like standing outside a room with the door cracked open? why did it feel like everybody else had somehow received instructions for a social world that you were still trying to decipher years later? jess laughed again. jake looked down and shook his head. and there it was, that tiny almost-smile, the one you had spent months accidentally memorizing. your stomach dropped, hard. you wished you had the strength in you to go tell him how much you hated him, but you knew they would just look at you like you were crazy. because maybe you were a little, but you believed you had your reasons. it felt like he was doing it on purpose — you had explicitly told him that she had hurt you, he had dismissed it and now he was luring her in. he couldn’t be doing it on purpose, right? he couldn’t dislike you that much. he didn’t even seem to care, for god’s sake. so why would he go out of his way to do something so mean to you? you were taking it personal when deep down you knew it had nothing to do with you, which probably was what hurt the most. you weren’t in neither of their minds and you had to accept it.

you hated how bitter every thought you had sounded. you hated it enough that you immediately started walking again, faster this time, before they could notice you. before your brain could turn the whole thing into something even uglier. because whatever this feeling was, you didn't want to examine it. you had enough problems already, you really didn't need another one. especially not one you couldn't even name.

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

jess: can we just hang out like old times? pls girl lets fix thisss

you stared at the message, your desperation for friendship coming through. just two weeks ago, you were sure you couldn’t forgive her. you didn’t think acting as if nothing happened was too respectful to yourself. but you wanted a girl friend, you needed someone who would keep you distracted for a little while. someone you could share a tiny part of your 20s with, even. loneliness was getting the best of you and although it felt pitiful, you couldn’t help but miss human connection. and maybe, just maybe, jake’s words had also had an effect on your thoughts about the situation too. and maybe, it was also about seeing them talk in such a friendly manner and not being able to get what kind of interaction it was from where you were standing. maybe it was about getting mad at him because of it, because it felt like you accidentally shared way too much with him and he didn’t take it as a serious matter. as something that had hurt you deeply, as something you almost considered betrayal. he indirectly told you so, and then turned around to use his charm on her just like he did with every other girl, choosing to ignore your vulnerability. maybe it was a way of showing him that you also didn’t give a fuck. that you had realized you were being dramatic, just as he implied. was it better to spitefully prove him right by talking to jess or to feel stupid as a salty girl who cannot just forgive and forget? you thought that you at least would gain a friend back with the first option. you were being extremely irrational. the thought of jake even noticing who you talked to or not was simply dumb in the first place.

you: okay. when and where?

done decision. this could either go extremely wrong or make you a little less depressed for an evening.

jess: ik youre not going to like this, but there is this party… jess: it will be really fun and you can meet new ppl !! ill help you out plssssss

you: jess you know im too awkward for ts

jess: take it as a challenge bby jess: well leave as soon as youre uncomfortable promised jess: pick you up at 10 🥳

at least she had a car that she could pick you up with. it was hard to take anything else as positive out of this stupid situation you had chosen to get yourself into. you were extremely anxious to talk to her. still remembering how to act like a regular person, still knowing how to actually let your personality out. the fact that the only social interactions you had had for the last few months had been about your shared project with jake didn’t help at all. you knew the best you could do was not to overthink it. do not overthink it, you repeated to yourself. do. not. over —

“girl, snap out of it please. you need to get a little hyper, we’re going to a party, remember?” “sadly.”

“you’ve changed so much. i miss brighter you, you know?” your heart ached a little when you heard jess’s words being said in such an endearing tone. you missed her too.

“swear i won’t ruin it. don’t worry, you’ll have fun.” you smiled at her while she drove her mini car. it looked so chic. she looked so chic. the wind that came out of the rolled-down window somehow blew her hair perfectly without it sticking to her lipgloss, and you felt stupid for noticing those details. you always admired her, always prayed you could exude even a quarter of her elegance.

“it’s not only about me having fun. it’s about us having fun. you and me, both. understood?” she said as she pulled her car over, parking in a seemingly unknown street to you. but as you walked closer to the location, jess leading the way, it started to get a little more familiar.

“jess?” “mmh?” “is this a house party?”

“well… maybe. i thought if i told you before you wouldn’t even think about coming.”

“you know i hate this vibe. this is stupid, jess. you’re going to be socializing and i’m just going to be weirdly standing in a corner!”

“hey! i’m not going to leave you alone, okay?” “no. i don’t want you to babysit me. i told you, i want you to have a great time.”

“i’ll have a great time as long as you stop anticipating. come on, we’re already here anyway.” you knew at some point during the night she would leave you. you knew you wouldn’t go home “as soon as you get uncomfortable”. you wouldn’t even ask to leave because she deserved to have a great time without you being in her ass about it. gosh, you wished you could be normal about everything for just one night.

as soon as you entered the house, you knew who was throwing the party. you didn’t ask before, afraid of the answer jess would give you. it was the same apartment complex you once visited to bang on a boy’s door about some deleted google doc. it was jay’s home. jake’s friend. jess entered first, her beaming smile making her look even more magical. you wished you were a ghost in that moment as you genuinely couldn’t take being looked at. but there you were, too deep in the lion's den to get out now. “jay!” jess ran up to the familiar face you always saw jake with. you walked a little faster, trying to keep up with jess’ excited run. you awkwardly stood next to her, waiting for the perfect moment to include yourself in their conversation. you swore no matter what the interaction was, there was never a right time for your stupid brain.

“aaaand this is y/n! we’ve been friends for almost… how many years now?”

“three and half.” you finally added something to the conversation, trying to politely smile to jay without showing too much of your nerves.

“oh my god, it’s been so fucking long, girl. anyway, she’s such a sweet girl, right babe?” jess looked at you with her deer eyes and a light smile, almost pleading you to speak with just a look.

“never as sweet as her. i hope you’ve had a great chance to get to know her properly, jay. it’s extremely worth it.” jay smiled genuinely, nodding yes with his head.

“oh babe! i missed my girl so much!”

“girls are too fucking sweet to each other, god. i feel pre-diabetic already.”

“oh, shut up! it’s not our fault you guys don’t have a single ounce of emotional intelligence!” jess punched jay’s arm in a friendly way, making him laugh while dramatically exclaiming how painful it felt.

“anyway, make yourself at home. there is plenty of alcohol, so get drunk and have fun. those are the house rules.” jay winked while he left to walk to a bigger group of people, which seemed like his friend group. his friend group. jake.

“jake!” your biggest fear came true. having to awkwardly stand at a house party while your friend talked to another person. and that person was the guy you had a project to finish with. and the guy you had been avoiding for about three weeks for various reasons. the guy who looked extremely confident while walking towards your friend, probably knowing he already had her wrapped around his finger. the guy who didn’t even spare you a glance, as if you hadn’t shared information that you considered very personal with him. as if he hadn’t opened up too. for a moment, your brain had even tricked you into thinking he was your friend. loneliness makes you a little too delusional, you thought.

jess hugged him tightly, almost doubtful of letting him go. you hadn’t addressed it since you were pretty sure she didn’t even know you were aware of them knowing each other, or even jake and you knowing each other. but you had your suspicions about the sexual tension you could feel between them. you kind of knew both jake and jess, and you were aware they both didn’t do serious. and although you weren’t judging, it kind of hurt knowing that your old friend no longer trusted you enough to update you about her intimate life like she used to. it wasn’t about the intimate life part, it was more about the fact that you two didn’t talk anymore, didn’t know about each other’s general life anymore. you weren’t close enough for her to tell you and that interaction had made you more conscious of it.

you glanced at jake for a moment, trying not to make it too obvious. was this how it was going to be? pretending not to know each other because you were in a social setting instead of that damn library? he looked so alive while talking to jess, you didn’t think you had ever seen him interact with you that way. it wasn’t a new feeling, noticing how people’s behavior changed when they were actually comfortable talking to others. although you wanted to lie to yourself and act like it didn’t matter, your emotions were hard to miss.

“and this is y/n! my old time beautiful friend. y/n, this is jake! he’s my friend too, i met him around your dorm actually!” jess could be so innocent at times, it made you feel maternal. you awkwardly smiled, not being able to bring yourself to say something. jake finally addressed you with his eyes, confirming your earlier wish of becoming a ghost hadn’t come true. sadly.

“yeah. we actually know each other, we’re partners for a shit project our teacher assigned us because of our grades.” ouch, shit project. you actually had had your fun while doing all the research and creating your own little experiment. it turned out it wasn’t the same for everyone involved.

“what?! you hadn’t told me, y/n! this is so cool! you must have become friends during this, right? you two are too nice to not be friends. and so fucking smart, god!” you knew she had the best intentions, you really knew. but that didn’t stop you from wanting to choke her with your bare hands in that exact moment.

“not really. your friend here has been a little… distant. and we didn’t even have much time to talk, anyway.” you couldn’t stop yourself from directly looking at him. did he really have to say that? you already were well aware of the fact that you two weren’t friends, but he didn’t have to be so mean about it. you needed a drink. or a whole bottle.

“y/n! jake is soooooo sweet. you need to start opening up more! he’d be a great friend when i’m not around.” your eyes were already burning, as it all felt like a humiliation ritual. everything that could go wrong in your head went even worse in reality. you just laughed it off, focusing on not looking like you were about to have a meltdown.

“jess, i need a drink.” “sure, babes! jake, show us the drinks.”

jake opened the fridge, not looking at you still. he had some great talent to avoid eye contact, you had to give him that. “i’ll prepare you whatever you desire.” jake said as he dramatically reverenced, making jess giggle cutely. you were pissed and you genuinely couldn’t pinpoint what was actually making you feel that way. you just felt it, which meant nothing he said or did was fucking funny no matter how hard you tried. you hadn’t been this irrational since you were a teen, and it was all jake sim’s fault.

“i’ll take a rum and coke, sir. and you, y/n?” “a rum and coke is fine too.”

jake giggled at jess addressing him as sir, and you could tell he was already a little tipsy. his cheeks were flushed, his lips were even plumper than usual and his movements weren’t as controlled. as they casually spoke, you couldn’t help but look around anxiously, already zoning out. you quickly took the drink into your hands as soon as jake finished making it. even your basic manners were being tempered by your irritation, since you weren’t even able to bring yourself to thank him. you were sure neither of them would notice your lack of appreciation for the below average drink he had just made you, so you didn’t need to feel guilty about it.

you basically chugged your drink, finishing it whole in one swallow. you needed some strength to somehow flee from the extremely awkward situation you were in. a good escape would be using the opportunity to socialize with new people, you thought. but that would definitely require at least one more drink. the bathroom was the right option until then.

“i’m going to the bathroom, jess.” “okay, pretty. we’ll be here.” jess answered casually.

“upstairs. first door to the left.” “thanks.” first and probably last interaction of the night with jake. how friendly the two of you were.

as you fled from the scene, you finally let your body relax a little. you were so tense your muscles were actually hurting, and it all felt like a fever dream. as you were walking upstairs, you suddenly felt a body crushing into yours, while a wet stain formed in your shirt.

“oh, fuck! i am so sorry!” you looked up, seeing one of the prettiest boys you had ever met holding a now half emptied cup. he looked familiar, but you weren’t too good at recognizing faces since you didn’t look around that much.

“don’t worry. i have an excuse to leave now.” you said calmly, not wanting him to feel guilty about a drunk accident. your drink was already kicking in as you were a bit of a lightweight for alcohol, so you didn’t feel like reacting at all. he giggled lightly, still murmuring sorry repeatedly.

“i think i know you.” “you also look familiar.”

“i’m sunoo. does that ring a bell?” of course it did. even if someone knew nobody like you did, you would still know sunoo. he was always mentioned somehow, and you now recalled seeing him being part of jake’s friend group. he reminded you a little to jess, as he was one of those people that could light up a room as soon as they entered it.

“mmh, it does. i think we have statistics ii together.” “oh, right! give me your contact and i’ll pay for the laundry service, i swear!” “there’s really no need. the top isn’t good quality anyway.”

“still! we’re in the same class, we should have each other’s contact. let’s be friends, yeah? i should know your name first, though.” you admired nice extroverts, people who could make everyone comfortable even if it was somebody as awkward as you.

“y/n. and i would really like to be your friend. i’ve heard nice things about you.” you smiled politely, trying to reciprocate his kindness back as he passed you his phone with his contact list opened. you added yourself as a contact, saving it as “y/n stats ii”.

“it was so nice to meet you, y/n. and i will pay for that dry cleaning, i don’t care what you have to say about it.” you laughed at his half-threat, saying bye to sunoo as you entered the bathroom. you took a deep breath as you stared at the mirror, seeing how much of a mess you looked like in your reflection. your eyes were bloodshot, your cheeks were flushed and your hair looked a bit frizzy, and now you had a big stain right in the middle of your white shirt. you tried to clean it up with some water, which made it a little less noticeable, but your top was almost drenched now. you needed to leave. you breathed slowly, building up the courage to tell jess you wanted to go and to convince her of not coming with you. she was having a good time, a marvelous time even, and you didn’t want to be the one ruining that. although you felt a little selfish for wanting to leave so early, you just couldn’t push your feelings away. you grabbed the doorknob, taking one more deep breath as you twisted it open.

someone was waiting, though. jake was waiting. “oh, sorry i took so long. all yours.” you walked around him with your head down, not making it too far before you heard his voice.

“we need to talk.” you fully stopped in your tracks, praying you were just hearing voices.

“really? about?” you turned around with a confused expression, because you genuinely didn’t know what he had to say to you after he had been so clearly ignoring you for the whole night. he walked a few steps forward, opening a door that you guessed led to a bedroom. you felt your heart beating in your throat as he just stared at you while waiting at the door, threatening you to go in with a single look. it seemed like you didn’t have many more options, so you walked through the door after him, entering what you thought was jay’s bedroom. he had two guitars hanging on the walls, a bunch of band posters and some workout equipment on the floor. the place smelled like expensive cologne and just boy scent in general. you were so out of place, feeling like you were entering such a private space where you didn’t have the right to be. “i really shouldn’t be here.”

“yeah, you shouldn’t. so why are you here?” your stomach dropped. this was such a different jake from the person you saw talking to jess just twenty minutes ago.

“look… jess didn’t tell me it was jay’s party. she didn’t even tell me it was a house party, okay? if i had just known that, i wouldn’t even have accepted the plan just in case. i know i’m not invited, but you already know her, right?” jake stared at you in silence. did your presence really upset him so much? you hadn’t even spoken to him, but you guessed they only wanted certain people to come to their parties and that may have been his problem. the awkward silence forced you to keep talking, feeling like you had to explain yourself because of his judging look. “the last thing i want is to be an inconvenience, okay? i don’t want anyone to be upset. i was going to leave right now, but if i tell her that i’m going now she will try to come with me because she’s not drunk enough to ditch me yet. so, i’ll go and you’ll tell her my stomach felt upset when she asks about me, okay?” you had a hopeful look in your eyes, wanting the situation to be over as soon as possible. instead, jake kept staring, an unreadable expression on his face. you were becoming even angrier by the minute. he was the one who dragged you to that damn bedroom and made you explain yourself in the most embarrassing way possible just to say nothing back. “so what else do you want me to say?”

“so you’re friends with her now?”

“really? and what about you? can i ask about what you two are?” you would regret saying that later. you shouldn’t have had that drink, as it made your brain-mouth connection malfunction a little, but it was too late already.

“i wasn’t the one who said you didn’t know if you could forgive her. or the one who got upset for some stupid fucking reason.”

“i’m not upset!”

“then why have you been avoiding me for weeks now, huh? do you think i enjoy wasting my time on this project, y/n? i want to forget it just as much as you do, but we have a compromise with professor jones and i can’t let him down!”

“i have been doing my parts, though! it’s not like i’m not working on it.”

“you know it’s not the same thing! it’s a fucking mess right now because we haven’t sat down to actually do it together in so long. look… i don’t care about whatever shit you have going on with jess, i just want this to be over.” you had been in your own head for so long now that you had completely forgotten about what this project could mean to you. about how important it was for jake to have your professor’s trust and stay top of the class. about how it wasn’t fair for him to go to meetings with mr. jones by himself and take it upon himself to explain your work all alone when you were supposed to be a pair. all of a sudden, you were realizing how horrible you were being as a working partner and the consequences it could have for jake. although all that didn’t erase how unmotivated you felt. how it had been so extremely hard to get out of bed every morning, how you were giving up on that too. still, you would make an effort for him.

“you’re right. i am now seeing it’s not fair to you, and i am sorry. i’m available this whole week though, so we can meet whenever you can and as much as you want. we’ll finish it soon, promised.” you successfully held your tears in as you smiled politely, knowing you had to leave right in that moment if you didn’t want to have a meltdown in front of him. “i’ll text you tomorrow so we can schedule, okay?”

“why did you get so mad at me just to forgive her and act like nothing happened?” “jake, i-i need to go.”

“no! i deserve an explanation. why are you not even coming to class? rankings are coming out soon, you know?”

“i know.” “is this all about jess? about the conversation we had?”

you knew that was just the tip of the iceberg. you were sinking for the first time in years and the whole jess thing and seeing them together was the last drop you needed to let yourself go. “things happen, jake. it’s not only that, but it doesn’t matter. what matters now is that we’re finishing that project together, i promise.”

“leave the fucking project now! are you not taking uni seriously anymore?”

“stop.” “have you even thought about your scholarship?”

“stop it!” tears came out uncontrollably, not being able to hold it together anymore. jake’s expression changed to a surprised one for a few seconds, quickly turning it back to his cold demeanor. “you know nothing, so stop it.”

“you won’t let me know anything.” “the moment i fucking told you something about someone, you went right to that someone and charmed her like a fucking…” you cut yourself off before the words slipped out of your tongue, although the damage was already way more than done.

“so it is about that.” “no! for fuck’s sake i’m just saying!”

“why are you so mad if you two are back to being friends? did you really forgive her?” you looked at him, an incredulous expression in your face. you wondered why he was so mean to you but so kind to everyone else. you knew you had fucked up, but you were actually trying to clean up your mess.

“i have nothing else to say to you, jake.”

“did she tell you she came to my apartment?” so they were that close and she hadn’t told you a single thing. she had the right to, but it confirmed you two weren’t friends like you used to be. knowing that made your heart sting a little, not being able to stop the tears anymore.

“guess you two aren’t such close friends after all.”

“you just told me you don’t care about what jess and i got going on.”

“just giving you updates.” jake shrugged his shoulders as if he had said nothing too important. you tried to compose yourself, not wanting to embarrass yourself in front of him anymore.

“she’s going to leave anyway. you two are adults so enjoy it while you can. i have nothing to do with this and like i said before, i’ll text you tomorrow to talk about the damn project.” you turned around, not being able to listen to his voice for a second longer.

“for fuck’s sake, y/n! i just want to-“ as jake stopped talking, you heard a loud thud and a groan right behind you, making you quickly turn around. before you could even react, jake was already on the floor, his nose bleeding nonstop.

“what happened, oh my god!”

“t-the dumbbell! fuck…” you looked around, noticing one of the dumbbells you saw earlier scattered on the floor. you rapidly guessed he had tripped and fallen face-first on one of the bed corners. he was holding his nose with both of his hands while whining in pain, making you immediately run up to him, forced to ignore the mess of a conversation you had just had.

“here, let’s get you to the bed.” you offered him your arm for support, trying to forget about the way your heart was thumping in your chest once he held onto you. jake wasn’t heavy, but you still struggled to carry him as he wasn’t making much effort to help. “did you hit your head? tell me you don’t have a concussion, please.” only groans came out of his mouth, so you sat him in the bed and held his face tightly, staining your whole hand with blood in the process. “jake.” he finally looked at you in the eyes, making you feel nauseous. “do you know where you are?”

“party. jay’s room.” “okay, good. does your head hurt?”

“mmh.” “yes or no?” “yeah.”

“okay, lay down. stay here and don’t get up, i’m going to get you some stuff, okay?” you got no answer, but you needed to make sure he was listening to you. “jake, okay?”

“come back.” he finally replied with a trembling voice that made your heartbeat spike even more, given not only the way he spoke, but the content of what he said.

“what?”

“after. don’t leave me here alone.” you were really confused at his sudden need to be with someone, let alone you.

“jake, i’m not going to let you be alone. i’m pretty sure you have a small concussion.”

“but you. you’ll come back.”

“you definitely have a concussion. but yeah, don’t worry.” as your legs were trembling, you ran down the stairs trying to find sunoo. he looked not too intoxicated before, and he would probably know where things were in that stupidly big apartment. he also seemed really sweet, and although your whole body was shaking from anxiety, he was probably the best option of a person to talk to. once you found him, you saw him talking to two girls, which made you even more scared to go up to him. still, you remembered the bloody mess a certain boy was making in his friend’s room, so you gathered all the courage you had inside you to go and talk to sunoo.

“sunoo!” “oh, hey y/n. how is it going so far? i see the stain got a little better.”

“yeah, and i told you not to worry about it! anyway, this is going to sound a bit weird… but do you know where there could be some painkillers and towels?”

“i do know, but first i need to know why you could possibly need all that for? because it sounds a bit suspicious.”

“your dear friend jake hit his head while we were arguing.” what were you supposed to do? lie on the spot? you were pretty dumb to assume he would just not question your request at all, but you weren’t too conscious either at that point.

“did you have anything to do with that injury or…?” sunoo asked while laughing, finding the situation quite entertaining.

“no! i mean, he was just tipsy and tripped. i shouldn’t have added the arguing part, it makes me look guilty now that i think of it.”

“okay, okay. i’ll believe you, i guess. come on, i’ll get you everything.” sunoo hugged the two girls he was having the conversation you interrupted with, following him into the kitchen right after. “didn’t know jake and you talked. even less, argued.”

“we were assigned a project together because of our grades. that’s why.”

“oh, so you are the project partner.” sunoo simply said while looking around the cabinets, leaving you even more confused than you already were with this whole situation.

“what?” “here.” sunoo ignored your inquire as he extended his arm out while giving you a small box of pills, which you quickly took. “towels are in the bathroom, top cabinet, you’ll see them. and please tell jake to stop being so damn inconvenient all the time.” you smiled at his comment, not being able to hold back your reaction to his annoyance.

“i will. it would also really benefit me too, you know.” sunoo laughed as he said bye once again, leaving you to face jake all alone. you walked upstairs, knowing you did not have too much time before he would get dizzy from his nosebleed. as you took the towels from the bathroom, you could hear some light voices coming from the bedroom next to it, which was also the room you had left jake in. you approached the half-closed door once you had everything you thought jake might have needed, hearing the voices more clearly then.

a familiar silhouette was on the floor, right in front of a smiley jake that sat down on the same bed you told him to lay down on ten minutes earlier. jess was assisting him with a small piece of cloth, which looked like more than enough to make him have a better appearance. that was all you needed. your sign to go now that the two people you had to give explanations to were entertained with each other. you left that suffocating place, the walk to your dorm being around 30 minutes long. it was definitely peaceful, but you couldn’t help shedding a few tears on your way back, not knowing the exact reason why, but also not being able to make the strange feeling in your stomach stop. you sent a text to jess once you were halfway there, telling her not to worry and to have fun, and that your stomach was feeling a bit upset because of your period. she didn’t respond until 45 minutes passed, so you were already in the safety of your room by then. you guessed they must have had some sort of pretty interesting conversation for her not to see the messages before.

jess: you shouldng have lefy alone jess: well tslk jess: jakes mad too jess: youre too irrespinsible

although it hurt to admit, she wasn’t that wrong. responsibility had been your strength once, but it all felt like it wasn’t worth it anymore. you didn’t respond to the messages, just telling her you had made it safe. you went to bed while being aware of all the important things you would have to face once the week started, making you wish you could just stop time and go to sleep for a few weeks straight. a few months would have been great too.

you texted jake on sunday night, feeling obligated to. only a day had passed since that awful conversation you two had had, but you had sadly promised him you would actually show up for the project.

you: hey. i told you i am free all week to finish the project, so i am checking in to see if maybe you were available tomorrow after class?

three hours went by before your phone vibrated at one am.

jake: ok

you already knew this was about to be the most awkward experience you'd had in a long time.

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

you arrived at the library on monday right after your classes ended, entering the usual spot you had been frequenting before the whole thing had gone down. you waited around forty five minutes before jake decided to show up, walking towards you in an extremely calm manner. it was infuriating.

“hey.” you forced yourself to say, as he only nodded with his head without saying a word back. the day you actually finished that punishment of a project would be the same day you would feel free for the first time in a while. you wasted no time in order to leave as early as possible, not even making a remark on his late arrival. you reread all the parts you had made at home on your own, trying to get his opinion on how you could connect it all together. but you didn’t get a word back. jake kept looking at his phone while mindlessly scrolling on his laptop, not even sparing you a glance. you had had enough, though. you wanted to lay in bed and dissociate for hours as you had been doing for the past few weeks. but instead, you had consciously dragged yourself to that damn library knowing what you had talked about in that nightmare of a conversation the night before. you had done it for him just to stupidly show up to not even speak to you. “why are we here if you’re not even going to listen? i have better things to do, you know.”

“really? what could those better things possibly be?” you stiffened. was he still mad about what you had talked about at the party? what were you supposed to do about it anymore? you were trying your best to show up as a project partner, but he wasn’t even allowing you to do it.

“what is your problem?” jake stayed silent, still scrolling through his phone as if you didn’t even exist, ignoring your presence. “you know what? i’m leaving. we’ll try again tomorrow if you’re in the mood by then.” you started packing your things hurriedly, needing to flee from the awkwardness.

“do you ever stop running away?” “what?” you stopped all your movements, shocked at his words.

“you heard me.”

“i don’t know what this is about, but i don’t care either, so.”

“have you ever cared about anything i’ve said, anyway?”

“what is this sudden victim complex you’ve got going on, jake? i already told you i realized i’ve been a shit project partner but i’m trying to fix it! what else can i do? i can’t turn back time, you know?”

jake humorlessly laughed at your words, making you have that weird stomach feeling again. “the fucking project…”

“what?! i’ll fucking tell mr. jones to just assign someone else to work with you if i need to. i don’t care about our progress anymore at this point. i’m not even going to be second on rankings anymore, anyway. so it doesn’t even make sense for us to do this shit together, right?”

“you’re giving up, just like that?”

“i can’t keep up, so. you win.”

“i win?!”

“it’s been three long years of trying to get to you up there. you probably already did, but now i know it won’t ever happen for sure. so you win, yeah.”

“then i hope you’re proud of the fact that you can’t keep promises. neither to yourself nor to others.”

“what are you even saying, jake?”

“you told me you would come back.” you stared at him as your throat went dry and your palms became sweaty. you couldn’t understand why he was bringing up that moment all of a sudden.

“t-the other night? i asked sunoo for painkillers and towels but once i got back you were already assisted. you didn’t need my help anymore. do you think i didn’t make sure you weren’t bleeding out before i left? is that why you’re so mad?”

“you promised you would come back. and you just fucking left without saying a word to anyone, god knows at what fucking hour and all alone?”

“for fuck’s sake! was i supposed to knock while jess was practically on her knees for you and give you the fucking painkillers? do you know how awkward that is for someone else, jake?”

“she wasn’t.” you held your tears back once again as a dry laugh escaped your throat. you couldn’t comprehend what he could possibly want to gain from that argument, making it feel pointless to explain yourself.

“she was on the floor, jake. you were practically drooling all over her. i saw you guys and that’s fine, but don’t expect me to just interrupt… that! to fucking say bye? like?”

“i was waiting for you.” his voice sounded softer when he said that, confusing you even more.

“why does it matter when someone helped you anyway? not even someone, jess! i knew she would take good care of you. way better than i ever could.”

“why do you keep bringing her up?”

“because she’s… she used to be my best friend. and because you’re… something with her now. it makes sense.”

“we’re nothing.”

“i don’t need to know that. just make sure she knows that.”

“you do need to know.”

“what?” jake suddenly stood up, his figure looming over you while he breathed rapidly. you could tell he was furious, although you still didn’t exactly get why.

“if i did something, you would need to know.” “can you just… talk normally?” you tried to step back, still not looking at him directly as it felt like he could murder you with a look. you suddenly felt his hand pulling your wrist, not allowing you to take that step while tugging you forward.

“tell me you don’t feel it.” “w-what are you even saying, jake?”

“you fucking mess me up.” you looked up at him then, not knowing if you were understanding him right. you were so scared, but maybe it was all you needed to finally stop thinking about him. maybe your instincts were finally working for someone and this was your sign to let go. although you couldn’t understand why he would want that too, and you still weren’t sure if he was hinting at it, you still allowed yourself to look at his lips. they were plumper than usual, reminding you of two nights ago when he was fighting you while tipsy. you were starting to wonder if he was drunk at that moment too.

“what do you want from me?” you were almost whispering, not being able to find your voice anymore. you felt him so close you were going insane by the minute, hating him for having so much power over you.

“tell me to stop.” “jake-“

“just say no and i’ll fucking let go.” but you didn’t. you didn’t say anything, letting him drag you to an empty secluded classroom as if it wasn’t jake. jake, who you couldn’t even look in the eye. jake, whom you had had a one sided competition with for years now. jake, who had fucked your old best friend after you had told him how deeply she had hurt you. jake, who was now cornering you between a table and his body, making you feel helpless.

“we’re going to regret this.” you whispered again, afraid of hearing your own words.

“i can’t fucking stop thinking about it though.” after a beat of silence, you finally spoke.

“then do it.” he wasted no time after you said that, taking your words as a forward sign. he suddenly kissed you, letting all his hunger out in a single motion. he was harsh, grabbing you steadily by your neck while crushing his mouth onto yours. you couldn’t help but moan at the sudden intrusion, not being too confident in your kissing skills either. still, it felt like he was too out of it to question your form.

“wait-“ you tried to pull back, but he suddenly spun you around, his heavy breath on your neck as his crotch pressed onto your back.

“you feel it, huh? i’m so fucking mad at you, i think it makes it worse.”

“jake, fuck-“

“i hate you so much.” he kept desperately grabbing your whole body, moans coming out of both of your mouths as he ground himself against your ass without a stop. he kept your head forward, turning your neck with his hand whenever you unconsciously tried looking behind you.

“just take off my fucking pants.” you said between whines, feeling much needier than ever before in your whole twenty years of life. he suddenly undid your jeans and dragged them down, as his long fingers entered your wet cunt. it all felt so rushed and rough, not a single care being taken by either of you. you could practically feel the shame you both were experiencing, wanting it to be over but unable to make yourselves stop simultaneously.

“can you ever stop giving orders, huh?” jake kept rubbing circles around your clit, making you feel so good but so overwhelmed by his presence. you couldn’t believe he was actually inside you. the sim jake was finger fucking you, and it all seemed so surreal that you already felt like you couldn’t hold your orgasm in for much longer. “have we finally discovered the only way to shut you up, mmh?” you suddenly felt him whispering in your ear, making it all feel even more intimate. his words were more than enough to make your whole body tremble in pleasure, completely drenching his fingers in the process as you bit your lower lip to not moan at full volume. you had experimented with your own fingers before, but it was nothing like what jake had made you feel in a few minutes. he kept his rhythm steady as you heard him panting in your ear, being able to feel the desperation through his breathing only. your legs were shaking, so you mentally thanked him for holding your body still without dropping you to the ground. he kept using his fingers inside you, the overstimulation making you whine into your own palm as an attempt to muffle your sounds. your cheeks were burning, ashamed at how quickly you had come while only using his fingers.

“how about you go on your knees for me?” jake kept talking in your ear as your body still trembled from the overwhelming stimulation. you were now panicking about your absolute lack of experience, but you still complied, feeling too out of it to put coherent thoughts together. you slowly went down so that your knees didn’t give out, watching him put the same hand he had just had in you inside his mouth, dragging his tongue around his slender fingers. you still weren’t looking at each other for some reason, so you quickly took your eyes off him while waiting for instructions.

as he pulled his pants down, you felt the need to say something before fucking it up completely. “i have never…”

“i know. i’ll help.” jake spoke between pants, his throbbing tip leaking pre cum in front of you. you didn’t confront him about how on earth he would know that so surely, although you obviously had the urge to. if you ever talked to him again after all that, you might ask. “open wide.” you obeyed, genuinely feeling like you were under a spell that didn’t allow you to control your own actions. he introduced himself into your mouth, making you quickly taste the salty liquid on your lips. as he tangled his fingers between your hair strands, he began to push your head deeper and deeper, obliging your throat to adapt to the shape of his cock. you couldn’t help but make a gag sound, looking up at him to be faced with closed eyes and an unrecognizable expression.

“f-feels so fucking good… fuck…” he wasn’t letting you go, the lack of oxygen quickly catching up to you. you tapped on the back of his thigh as a signal for your much needed release, but he seemed to be in trance. after a few more seconds, tears started to spill down your cheeks, making you panic while whines came out of the same mouth that was full of his cock. "you look so dumb like this. you're always such a smart girl, but look at you now..."

he finally let you go, quickly stealing a glance of your fucked-out state. "d-don't call me dumb." you said after catching your breath, not being so sure about who you were trying to convince anymore. he smirked at your words, which only confirmed that he also knew you didn't really dislike it. jake kept stroking his cock at a rhythmic pace right in front of your face, making you mentally prepare yourself for what you thought was about to come. he whined, sounding so needy it made you weak. sweet sounds kept coming out of his mouth, which made you understand a tiny bit better why everybody wanted to have a special moment with him so badly. he suddenly looked at you in the eyes, making you freeze instantly as he spoke. “stupid slut can only not argue when she has a dick right in front of her face, huh?” your breath hitched, somehow finding pleasure in the degrading words he had decided to use.

you kept looking up at him as you reached out to switch his hands for yours, causing him to let out a high pitched moan that only made you even needier. “is that good?”

“please… don’t fucking stop.” jake groaned as he breathed even faster, making you realize he was probably close. although he had his eyes closed again, you kept looking at his face, being fully captivated by his facial expressions. it was pure lust and pleasure, the kind of face you would have never thought could be caused by you. but there you were, jerking the sim jake off right after he had made you come on his fingers only. “oh my god… you fucking… i’m gonna…”

“do it, jake.” jake suddenly moaned so loudly you were sure people on another floor could hear. you shushed him in the process, the anxiety of being caught together not leaving even when you seemed to have bigger problems. like most of your upper body being covered by his cum, for example. your hair felt sticky and your mouth was full of spit, while your shirt was stained and your mascara was runny. what had just happened looked so physically obvious, it made you feel so ashamed you couldn’t even look up. both of you were silent as your breathing slowed down, the tension being so palpable it made you want to vomit. it was the textbook definition of awkward.

you tried to get up from the floor while balancing yourself on a nearby table. jake didn’t look at you neither, pulling up his pants as he tucked himself in in pure silence. it had almost been like a dissociative experience for you both, only becoming conscious of what had just happened once it was over. once you were up on your two feet, you reached for your bag to look for tissues, wanting to at least get out of that classroom without jake’s cum dripping down your chin. you quickly wiped what you felt was more visible, letting the rest to be fixed in the bathroom with a mirror available. “i’ll go first. j-just… stay here for a moment, just in case.”

“you’ve got… a little bit of… right there.” jake pointed at your cleavage, some drops of his release still on there.

“y-yeah. i’ll go to the bathroom now to clean up.” “good.”

“okay.” he looked down while fixing his shirt, an unreadable expression on his face as if nothing had happened. it seemed like the two of you wanted to pretend nothing had happened, actually. “then bye.” you found your most polite smile to show him, making the situation even more awkward for both of you. you fled from the scene as you shut the door right behind you, quickly running off to the bathroom. once again, tears started to run down your cheeks as soon as you entered the stall, feeling too overwhelmed to just ignore it. you felt guilty and stupid and ashamed all at once, having the need to never see his face ever again. how were you supposed to just finish the project? to meet up with him all alone and not address it? to act as if it didn’t affect you at all? you knew he was experienced when it came to hook ups, so it would obviously be too ordinary for him to even give it a second thought. but for you, it was your first sexual experience, and you had decided to give that moment to jake. you knew virginity was a stupid concept and it all didn’t matter once you looked at the bigger picture, but it still felt like such a waste to share such an intimate moment with someone who could not give two fucks about you. to someone who actually told you he hated you in the act. and although your feelings were mutual and you hated him too, it still hurt.

there was also the fact that he was fucking the girl who used to be your best friend. and although you knew they weren’t anything serious, it still didn’t feel fair to let yourself be touched by the same man without telling her. but you couldn’t tell her, you couldn’t tell anyone. no one could ever know about that encounter and you knew jake would feel the same about it. you wished you didn’t even know about it yourself, so acting as if nothing had happened was the only option left. blocking it out of your memory was all you needed to do, right?

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

days passed and neither of you talked about it. neither of you talked about anything, really. the project was left untouched, as if you hadn’t been fighting about how important it was for both of your futures a week ago. you hadn’t gone back to class either, but you knew you were at your limit with the number of classes you could miss. you basically were about to fail because of how absent you were, which kind of was a reality check for how much you wanted to give up on life. still, you had a bit of rationality left, which made you actually get up that morning and attend your classes. you would send emails later as a sad attempt to get your professors’ trust back.

you didn’t want to see him. you successfully blocked everything out of your mind for those few days you didn’t go to uni, but being in that building again gave you so much whiplash it was impossible to ignore. you wandered through the halls with your head down, since you needed to avoid everyone now more than ever. the fact that that place was becoming hell by the minute made you extremely upset, knowing you once were so excited to even be accepted into it. as you were walking out of your first class while having a whole breakdown inside your mind, you started hearing a commotion in the hall, instinctively catching your attention while obliging you to put your head up. you then saw a big group of people looking at the wood panel on the wall all together, quickly making you realize what it was. the rankings.

“how the fuck am i up there?! yo!” “dude, you’re right under jake. that’s crazy.” “you’re actually second, sunghoon?!”

although it was obviously bound to happen, it still didn’t feel real until you actually saw it. seventh. you had slacked so much you had moved five ranks down. and the difference between first and second place was now bigger than ever before. you stayed still behind everyone else as you stared at the printed out numbered list. all the voices became muffled while you quietly dissociated, almost having an out of body experience. you were probably going to get kicked out, you couldn’t afford it. you would have to use all your savings to only be able to pay for half a year. jake had moved up a decimal. he had got even better, while you miserably failed to keep up. still, you couldn’t find the energy to despise him. you didn’t have the energy to shed tears, to even be upset. you just wanted to go home and lay in bed, no matter if you were second, sixth or last. you were drained.

“y/n. i haven’t seen you around at all lately.” a familiar voice interrupted your pathetic train of thought, making you turn to the side to face a slightly worried looking mr. jones. you were acting so stupidly you hadn’t actually planned how this encounter would go. and now, it was happening right in front of you.

“y-yeah. i am so sorry about that, professor. it has been a rough… month. i’m trying to be more present now, though.” your professor lightly nodded with his head in an understanding manner, making you pray that that was the end of your conversation. you quickly realized it was not, as he kept calmly speaking.

“i haven’t seen jake this week neither, which is strange considering he’s the only one who comes to our reunions. is the project going well? it’s supposed to be tutored by me, do not forget that. you need to come and see me so that we can discuss it, y/n.” being nagged by your university professor was definitely a humbling experience. still, you couldn’t deny he was right. “jake! we were actually just talking about you. come here.” no, it couldn’t be. you closed your eyes and took a deep breath as your whole body completely froze in fear. a tired looking jake appeared in frame, politely smiling back at your excited professor. he didn’t look at you, which you were extremely grateful for, as you couldn’t stand maintaining eye contact with the guy you had had your first sexual experience with while supposedly being your academic rival right in that moment.

“i need to see a report on basically the whole project now by the end of next week. we need to keep this going, okay? i trust you a lot, you guys are my top students for a reason.” not anymore, you wanted to say. could sunghoon do this with jake now that they were top one and two together? you wanted to ask. instead, you quietly nodded your head yes, too afraid to say it out loud. you would maybe send an email later. “congratulations, jake. your progress is just outstanding and you always have the strength to overcome yourself somehow. it’s beautiful to see you grow. and y/n, a setback is not a reason to give up. you’ll be up there again soon if you keep working like you’ve always done. do not think this is going to make me regret my decision on choosing you for this project, i know your potential.” you felt even worse now. how could you have ignored this sweet man who was actually the only person in this world rooting for you? you smiled at him with teary eyes as you repeatedly murmured thank you, getting too emotional to fight it back. “you two can always email me if you need anything, project related or not. i’ll see you at the end of the week, try to have fun.” you didn’t miss how he only maintained eye contact with you while he said that, confirming he knew that something was definitely not right.

you saw him walk away, leaving you standing right next to jake all alone. you didn’t have the strength to say anything, to anyone really. “so… i’ll go now.” you were ready to immediately run off, but jake’s voice unexpectedly stopped you.

“are you going to talk to professor jones?” “about?”

“giving up on the project.” you knew he was wording it like that on purpose. you also knew he was right, but his words still made your chest tighten.

“i-i thought about sending an email later, yeah. to consider it all, see what he thinks.”

“and what about what i think?”

“since sunghoon is now second, he could take on the rest of it with you. it’ll be the most comfortable option for you too, surely.”

“could you please stop assuming shit? it’s getting really annoying at this point.” you saw his jaw tighten as his tone got harsher, already too used to his mean stare to care. maybe you were assuming, but you also knew you were right. you had been fighting since the beginning of all of it and only really got along for a few lucky weeks, in which you still bickered with each other every single day. and now you were so depressed and unmotivated you couldn’t find the strength to simply care, which you knew he would not understand and would only make him more pissed. there was also the fact that you had half fucked and had not touched the topic at all, which only made it even more awkward. so yeah, you were pretty confident to assume he would be more comfortable working with someone who was his childhood friend. you didn’t understand why he was presenting it as such a wild guess.

“i’ll probably have to go anyway, so.”

“what do you mean go?”

“like, leave uni.” “what are you saying? have you officially lost your mind?”

“no. but there’s a big possibility i’ve officially lost my scholarship. and you know, being a part time server on the weekends does not make you a millionaire.”

“mr. jones said it. a setback is not a reason to give up.”

“mr. jones and you live in a different world from mine, it seems.”

“in my world, you’ve always been able to be up there. so what changed now?” the halls were pretty empty by then, making jake’s slightly raised voice sound louder.

“a lot, actually.“ “yeah, i’ve noticed.”

you both fell quiet, a heavy silence coming between you two as you didn’t know how to end the conversation. you were so desperate to leave that building and most importantly, to leave his side. “why did it change, though?” jake suddenly spoke, half whispering his words as if they were slipping from his mouth without his permission.

“jake… it’s just hard to explain.”

“but why won’t you try? try to explain it. what is it? do i have anything to do with it? does jess? please, y/n.” you were shocked at the desperation in his voice, making your chest tighten as you tried to build an answer for him. the truth was that everything had exploded right in your face and you had finally realized that maybe, just maybe, you couldn’t keep up. you weren’t strong or smart enough, and you were trying to make amends with the fact that it had been haunting you for years without end. you had simply reached your limit.

“i-it’s… i mean… jess coming back obviously made me be a little too emotional. irrational, even. but that’s obviously not all of it.”

“and me?” “you what?”

“did you change because of me?” you slightly opened your mouth just to close it again. you were trying to choose your words carefully, because yeah, jake had changed something inside you that you were too scared to confront. something irrational that felt stupid to even contemplate for a second, so him not being in your life anymore had definitely helped you not think about it. although you obviously couldn’t tell him that.

“i-i don’t know. i just know i can’t keep up. i can’t keep going like this.” “like how?”

“killing myself to reach you. i don’t see why i should keep doing this shit. life doesn’t make sense right now, to be honest.”

“so is it uni? or is it life?” “i just know i need time, jake.”

“well, we don’t have much of that.” jake went back to sounding cold and direct, making you wonder why he was inquiring so much if he would just get mad at your sad attempt to give him honest answers.

“that’s why i’m going to ask mr. jones to assign it to sunghoon if they both want to. if i had known i would get like this, i wouldn’t have accepted it from the beginning. and i am sorry. you deserve a good, responsible partner, and right now i’m everything but that.”

“do you think i would ever want that?” “i think you should.”

“you always think for me. and somehow you always get it wrong.” you wondered when you could have possibly thought so much on his behalf. even if it was a sensitive moment, you couldn’t help but always get a little annoyed at jake’s words. “so you’re just going to drop out?”

“i don’t know if i have many more options, jake.”

“you could always work as hard as you’ve always done and come back to your rank.”

“i just told you! i’m killing myself living like this, jake. i am not like you. it doesn’t fucking come naturally to me, at all. nothing. neither studies nor being a fucking functional human being, it seems.”

“do you think it is that easy? that it’s all instinctive?”

“i think you’re a smart person. truly intelligent, and a lovely guy. and me having to compete against that just to be able to study here means having to constantly fight a losing battle. and i’m just so tired i wish i could stay in bed forever right now. so yeah, i am giving up. and if you want to judge me about it, go ahead. to be honest, i don’t have the strength to care about anything anymore, so you are free to do so.” you quietly spoke as you tried to be honest with your feelings while putting it all into words, which was not an easy task.

“this is not me judging, y/n. this is me trying to… make you stay.”

“i don’t have a real reason to.”

“we’re all here for a reason. we’re all needed here.”

“that’s easy for you to say.”

“what do you mean by that?”

“nothing. let’s just… leave it.”

“no! say it! you’re not running away like you always do.”

you sighed at his insistence, giving up on your attempt to not voice your thoughts. “you are for sure needed here, jake. meanwhile, there are other people who have no one. not everyone’s life experience is the same, you know.” you shrugged your shoulders up in annoyance, knowing he would never understand where you were coming from.

“you are needed too!” jake kept raising his voice in an angry tone, obliging you to take a deep breath in order to supress the primal instinct you were having to beat the shit out of him.

“whatever, jake. this goes nowhere.” you tried to speak in a fake calm tone, knowing it did not make any sense to keep the conversation going.

“i need you.” jake suddenly spoke more quietly, making you doubt of what you had just heard coming out of his mouth. you stayed silent, trying to make sense of his confusing words. “i need you to be up there just a decimal away, trying to beat me to keep me grounded. i need you to argue and fight back and i need you to humble me and give me a different perspective because we’re so similar but so different all at once.” you couldn't stop looking at him, feeling as if you were under a spell that didn't allow you take your attention off him. it felt like he was under a spell too, one that forced him to only be able to speak nonsense. “i need your presence. in class, in the library, even at a stupid party that you didn’t want to go to, even if i ignore you there. and i need you to finish this project with me because it won’t ever be the same without you.”

“you don’t mean that.” you quickly said, not comprehending why he was so eagerly trying to make you write the project with him all of a sudden. you didn't understand why the sim jake would be so insecure about presenting the project with someone else that he would give you that fake sappy speech you definitely didn't need to hear.

“then why am i saying it? do i look like the kind of person to just go around saying that kind of shit to everyone?”

“you told me you hate me.” you couldn't hold back at this point, having to get it out of your chest to prove your point.

“because i do. you make me hate you because you make me feel so unsure of everything i was so confident about. you make me question myself and i fucking hate the uncertainty of it.” as you heard his words, you couldn't help letting out a dry laugh, making his expression turn even sharper.

“the thing is you’ll always be better than me. you’ll always win. you’ll always have the power of talking to people and being likable and being truly intelligent, and i won’t ever have that. this was never a true competition because i was the only one fighting to change the end results. so what are you so uncertain of?” you pointed at him in an accusatory manner, knowing you wouldn't let him win this one. “don’t worry though, because it is mutual. i’ve hated you for years now because you are everything i’ve ever wanted to be. everything i’ve fought for and haven’t fully got, you effortlessly have it. everything i know i can’t be, you just are. and being your partner only made me realize that the lines between admiration and hatred are a little too blurred.” the bitter tone in your speech was so noticeable it was kind of pityful, but you couldn't contain your emotions anymore. “so i think i have my reasons to hate you because i see you as a threat. but you? how could i ever cause you trouble when i can’t even reach you?”

“do you genuinely think that’s what you make me so uncertain of? academics?”

“then what is it?! why is it that you dislike me so?”

“because i fucked your friend to feel something and still, all i could ever think of was when our next library hangout would be.” jake whispered with a heavy voice, now being the one who was pointing his finger at you. he took a deep breath as you stayed silent, trying to process everything he was implying in such a rushed way. you weren’t prepared for this at all, since you would have never guessed you would be even be sharing a single word with him at that point. “all i could think of was why you were pulling away, and then making excuses, and then not coming to class. all i can think of is you because you won’t give me answers.”

“answers to what?!” “is you not wanting to accept it part of why you disappeared?” 

“accept what exactly?” you raised your eyebrows in a challenging way, not wanting to accept that maybe you knew what he was talking about, and maybe he already had your answer.

“that you feel the same. that you can’t stop thinking about me.” jake kept trying to keep his volume steady, since you were still in the middle of the hallway where you bumped into your professor. no one was around, but both of you were too afraid of someone hearing your little discussion, given the content of it. “you have to feel something, come on.”

“how could i not?! we… we did that. and i know it’s not the same for you, but to me it’s a big deal.” you automatically put your hands in your head as you remembered your encounter with jake. every time a brief flashback came to your mind, you felt the need to shake it off physically, as if trying to get the memory out of your body. “i can’t believe i actually did that with you, fuck.”

“do you regret it?” jake was now staring into your eyes, making you look around while trying to avoid his gaze at all cost. you just couldn’t do it, couldn’t look in the eyes of the man who was confronting you about your possible regret for having your first sexual experience with him.

“let’s just not. please.” as you pleaded to let the topic go, you saw his expression change instantly. his brows frowned and his jaw clenched, making you comprehend he hadn’t liked that answer at all.

“so are we ever going to actually address anything?! you’re fucking impossible, i swear.”

“where does that take us, jake? i address how i feel and then what? i have to keep seeing you and act as if nothing is going on?”

“if we address it, then maybe we can do something about it!” jake suddenly spoke out loud, making you jump in fear of what anybody could hear, even if nobody seemed to be around.

“do not raise your voice, fuck! and what exactly are we going to do, huh? go ahead, enlighten me.” jake stayed silent as your voice trembled, knowing he had no idea what to answer. “exactly. so stop acting like anything you are saying actually makes sense.” as he heard your words, you noticed a slight change in his demeanor for a second, making your chest automatically tighten.

“fine! this is fucking stupid anyway.”

“yeah, fine. the report will be done by the end of the week, so don’t worry about it. and you don’t need to come to mr. jones’ meeting, i’ll cover up for you since you’ve been going alone these past weeks.”

“yeah, whatever.” jake turned around and left the building, parting ways while mad at each other once again. some things may never change, you thought.

⋆.˚˖࿔ ࣪

as you opened your laptop to miserably continue writing what felt like your death statement, you received a notification that made your phone vibrate, which wasn’t that usual for you on a friday evening.

unknown number: hey this is sunoo !!! unknown number: from the party and stats ii unknown number: im calling u okay ??

you didn’t have much time to react before your phone rang repeatedly, making your heart jump inside your chest from the near fatal levels of anxiety you were suddenly experiencing. you could have just let it ring, act as if your phone was silenced and send a text back later. but maybe, this was your opportunity to show someone you could be nice, that having embarrassing amounts of social anxiety didn’t mean you were unapproachable. fuck it.

“hey, sunoo?” “hi, y/n. sorry for the sudden call.” sunoo giggled lightly, as if he knew he had startled you and was genuinely sorry for it.

“that’s okay! no worries.” you tried to play it off, knowing you were actually feeling so anxious you could crawl up the wall.

“so… since you probably won’t let me take the top i accidentally destroyed to the cleaner…” “sunoo! first do not say you “destroyed” it. could that be any more dramatic? and second, yeah, you’re right. i won’t let you.”

“well... then i thought i should make it up to you somehow. so how about we hang out? i know it's not a big deal, but since i don't see you around much, i thought i could help distract you from uni a bit." your mind started spinning as you tried to make sense of what he was saying. that was the last thing you thought sunoo would call you for, so you weren’t ready for it in the slightest. “you can say no, you know. i know you are a really busy student.” sunoo giggled again in an attempt to make things less awkward given your previous silence, which you really appreciated. you did want to hang out with someone though, even more with someone as cool as him. even if you were on the brink of a panic attack, you wanted to.

“n-no! i mean, i do want to hang out. i’m actually like, super grateful right now. i was just… surprised.” “surprised? i told you we should be friends, y/n! how can we be friends if we don’t ever see each other?” you laughed at his sweetness, becoming mesmerized at how good he was at socializing. he definitely needed to teach you his ways.

“anyway, so the plan is... a small get-together at my apartment. i invited a few people over and i thought you could come too?" "when you say "small get-together"... how small are we actually talking?" you said in a doubtful tone, not trusting you and sunoo shared the same concept for small when it came to being social.

"mmh... i would maybe say fifteen people? if nothing gets too out of control, yeah. i would say about that many." "is that what you consider small, sunoo?"

"is that what you consider big, y/n? we need to find you new guys, then." sunoo said as he giggled in a mischievous way, making you chuckle too.

"sunoo!" "sorry, sorry. now seriously, it's going to be fun. you know i'm good with people and i'll literally force you to have fun. so...?"

there was a pause after that, but it didn’t feel empty like the ones you were used to. it felt full, actually, like someone had filled the silence with intention instead of expectation. you found yourself sitting a little straighter without really noticing, staring at your screen like the answer might already be written there if you looked hard enough. something in the way sunoo said it, the casual certainty, the assumption that you could just exist somewhere else for a night and it would be fine, it made your chest tighten in a way that wasn’t entirely unpleasant “i don’t really… do parties, sunoo. last time it went soooo horribly, i don't even want to remember it.” you said finally, quieter than you meant it to be, immediately hating how predictable it sounded, like you were repeating a line you had rehearsed for years instead of answering a simple invitation.

“i know.” sunoo replied, and there was no judgment in it, just acknowledgement. “but that’s kind of why i’m inviting you, y/n, not because you already do it well.” that made you stop, fingers hovering over your keyboard, because it should have been simple, just a yes or no, just another thing to decline and forget about and return to your increasingly collapsing routine. but your life had started feeling so small lately that even the idea of refusing something that wasn’t required felt like reinforcing the walls around you. “it’s not going to be overwhelming.” he added quickly, as if sensing the exact direction your thoughts were spiraling. “and if it is, you can literally just come to me and i’ll get you out, no questions, no drama, i promise.”

you almost laughed at that, because you didn’t really believe in exits that clean, not anymore. not with jess, not with jake, not even with yourself. but still — “okay.” you said before you could overthink it out of existence, the word slipping out too quickly, too final, like your brain had briefly disconnected from its usual committee of warnings

“okay?” sunoo repeated, like he wanted to make sure he had heard correctly.

“yeah.” you swallowed, already feeling the familiar panic of commitment creeping in but forcing yourself to continue anyway. “i’ll come.”

there was a beat of silence on the other end, and then sunoo laughed, bright and immediate, like you had just agreed to something normal instead of something that felt like stepping off a ledge you had been standing on for months “you’re actually coming.” he said, almost disbelieving. “okay wait, this is big, this is actually big, y/n. i’m proud of you right now.”

“now, don’t make it weird.” you muttered automatically, but your voice had softened without permission.

“i’m not making it weird, i’m making it true.” he said, and then, lighter again, “i’ll send you my address, okay? and i’ll make sure you don’t end up standing in a corner the entire time like a tragic main character.”

“i am not a tragic main character.” you said, even though your entire life recently had been arguing otherwise.

"i know! so that's why we're proving it tonight. see you later, y/n!" and then he was gone, the call ending as quickly as it had started, leaving you staring at your phone like it had just made a decision on your behalf that you weren’t entirely sure you were qualified to make. you turned back to your laptop, cursor blinking at you like nothing had changed, like you hadn’t just accepted an invitation into a space full of people you didn't know, all alone. for a second you considered undoing it, sending a follow-up message, pulling back into the safety of your own excuses. but your fingers didn’t move. instead, you just sat there, feeling something unfamiliar settle in your chest, not quite hope, not quite relief, more like the brief illusion that you might still be allowed to exist somewhere outside of exhaustion and expectations and the quiet weight of always being second to everything you wanted.

by the time you arrived, you almost turned around twice. once while standing outside the building, once while waiting for the elevator. neither attempt was particularly convincing, though. they felt less like genuine decisions and more like ritual, the predictable final stage of any plan that involved leaving your comfort zone. your brain offered excuses automatically now, producing them with the efficiency of a machine that had been trained on years of avoidance. you could still go home and nobody would be angry, you thought. sunoo would probably understand. you could return to the familiar rhythm of proving your worth through productivity until you were too exhausted to think about anything else. or you could just lay in bed for hours just how you had been doing lately. the thought should have been comforting, but instead, it just made you tired. when the elevator doors opened, you stepped out before you could change your mind again. music drifted faintly through the hallway, voices too. you stared at the apartment number for a moment, then knocked. almost immediately, the door flew open.

"holy shit." sunoo looked genuinely stunned. "you actually came."

"shut up."  "no, because this is history."  "it's not history!"

"for you?" he pointed dramatically. "this is absolutely history." despite yourself, your mouth twitched, making sunoo gasp. "oh my god, and she's smiling too."

"i'm leaving."  "no you're not."

before you could protest, he grabbed your wrist and pulled you inside. the apartment was warm, that was the first thing you noticed. warm and loud and alive. not overwhelmingly so, but enough that it immediately felt different from the quiet apartment you had left behind. people occupied every available space, so you quickly realized there were a bit more than fifteen people inside. it didn't even surprise you, to be honest. some sat cross-legged on the floor, others crowded around the kitchen island. music played from somewhere deeper inside the apartment, blending with conversation and laughter until everything became one continuous sound. you froze for a second as your brain immediately began scanning for danger. where do i stand. where am i supposed to look. i don't know anyone. what if everyone can tell i don't belong here. what if —

"hey." you blinked. sunoo was watching you. "breathe."

you frowned. "i am breathing."

"debatable." you rolled your eyes, which seemed to satisfy him.

"good."  "good?" 

"you rolled your eyes."  "and?" 

"that's normal behavior. we're aiming for normal behavior tonight."

"you're more annoying than i thought. you lied to me, sunoo." you said in a sarcastic tone, a light smile appearing without permission.

"that's even better." you couldn't help laughing. just a little, but enough. sunoo grinned like he had personally solved depression, which was deeply annoying but strangely comforting. the next hour passed differently than you expected. within ten minutes, you had been introduced to more people than you usually spoke to in an entire month. and somehow, none of them seemed particularly interested in judging you. a girl complimented your earrings, someone asked about your major. another person immediately started complaining about one of their professors, someone spent ten full minutes passionately arguing about the correct way to eat instant ramen. you found yourself listening more than speaking, but nobody seemed bothered by that. for once, silence wasn't treated like a problem that needed fixing. halfway through a conversation, you caught yourself laughing at something and immediately felt a strange ache in your chest. the realization hit unexpectedly, because you couldn't remember the last time you had done that. the thought lingered longer than it should have, because it wasn't happiness exactly. happiness felt too large a word, too permanent. this was smaller, more fragile, like finding a patch of sunlight in a room you had forgotten contained windows. for a moment, you stood near the kitchen holding a drink you hadn't touched much, watching people move around the apartment. laughing, talking, living. and suddenly an uncomfortable thought appeared — what if this is what everyone else had been doing? what if life wasn't supposed to feel like an endless attempt to stay afloat? what if there were entire versions of adulthood that didn't revolve around endurance? the thought should have been hopeful, but instead, it made your throat tighten. because if that was true, then somewhere along the way you had missed it. you had become so focused on surviving each week that you had stopped asking whether survival was supposed to be the goal. for a second, you felt strangely disconnected from yourself, like you were looking at your own life from a distance. the pressure, the loneliness, the way every achievement seemed to dissolve the moment you reached it. all of it suddenly appeared not tragic but absurd. you had spent so long waiting for life to begin after the next deadline that you hadn't noticed it was already happening. around you, without you. you took a longer sip from your drink, just enough to make you decide that, for tonight, you didn't want to think about it anymore. for tonight, you didn't want to measure your worth, you didn't want to compare yourself to anyone, you didn't want to think about the conference. or the scholarship, or the future, or jess, or jake. for one night, you wanted to be a person before you were a project. maybe tomorrow morning everything would return exactly as it had been, but standing there in the middle of a crowded apartment, surrounded by people who expected absolutely nothing from you, it felt like enough. for now, enough was more than you had been allowing yourself lately.

the small pocket of sunlight sunoo had cleared inside your chest actually stayed for hours, expanding into something that felt dangerously close to real happiness as you leaned against the kitchen counter. you took heavy gulps from a plastic cup filled with cheap vodka, chasing it with laughter you didn't have to force. you were drunk, the good kind of drunk where the sharp edges of the room start to blur and the music becomes a warm weight pressing against your shoulders, keeping you grounded in a way you hadn't felt in months. you were actually having fun, tasting a tiny sliver of what a regular twenty year old life was supposed to feel like, right until the heavy front door swung open and the cold air from the hallway cut straight through the warmth. it was that same involuntary, miserable instinct that made your eyes snap up, immediately tracking the shift in the room's energy as jake walked in. of course you had thought about the slight possibility of him being there, but you hadn't let it stop you from coming, which you were now regretting a little. he looked different, his hair falling into his eyes and wearing a oversized black hoodie that made him look smaller than usual. but you didn't run this time as the liquor in your veins gave you a stupid, stubborn sort of bravery. you just stayed in your corner, deliberately turning your back to him and pouring another heavy splash of alcohol into your cup, determined to ignore him. for two long hours, it became a silent, agonizing war of avoidance, both of you staying on opposite sides of the crowded apartment. you heavily drank down cup after cup just to find the nerve to exist in the same breathing space without completely losing your mind. you watched him out of the corner of your eye as he threw back shots at the kitchen island, his eyes dark and completely fixed on you whenever you laughed at something sunoo said, until the air in the room became so thick with unspoken venom and burning liquor that you couldn't breathe. you desperately needed to escape the suffocating heat, your head spinning violently as you stumbled your way through the back corridor, pushing open the heavy metal door to the fire escape just to let the freezing night air shock your system.

the click of the door behind you was almost immediate, and you didn't even have to turn around to know it was him because the sharp scent of his cologne was mixed with the heavy smell of alcohol breathing off his skin. "not now, jake." you whispered into the wind, your hands gripping the freezing metal railing to keep yourself steady as the world tilted slightly from the sheer amount of alcohol you had consumed. "i was having a good time for once. i was actually fine until you walked through that door."

jake didn't answer with his usual sharp arrogance. he just stumbled slightly as he stepped up next to you, his face flushed and his eyes wild with a messy, drunken desperation that matched the chaos in your own chest. "you were pretending i wasn't there." he rasped, his voice rough and completely stripped of his neat academic precision. his fingers suddenly caught your wrist with a loose, heavy grip that you didn't even have the strength to pull away from. "can't believe you've been doing it for weeks now, y/n. you've vanished from class, you've left me alone with all the data. and now you show up here smiling at everyone like i didn't touch you like that in that room."

your heart thumped in your chest at the mention of that, allowing you to see how drunk he was at that moment too. you let out a sharp, bitter laugh, the vodka burning the back of your throat as you finally looked at him. "because it meant nothing, jake. we are nothing. why are you even here? sunoo didn't say you were coming."

jake's grip tightened, his eyes narrowing as they became teary, completely unprompted. your body froze entirely at the sight of it. "because i told him to invite you. i told him everything, y/n. i told him because i was going fucking insane trying to figure out why you left."

the humiliation that washed over you in that second was heavier than any academic failure you had ever experienced. your stomach dropped so hard you felt physically sick, your heart hammering against your ribs like a trapped animal as you stared at his beautiful, desperate face through a blur of fresh tears. that classroom had been your rock bottom, the secret place where you had completely dismantled your own dignity and given your first time to a boy who claimed he hated you. and now that same boy was telling you he had taken that fragile, private moment and handed it over to his friend like it was just some casual gossip. "you told him?" your voice came out as a pathetic squeak, your hands coming up to your head as a sob tore through your chest. "you fucking told someone, jake? i trusted you to at least keep that between us, to let me pretend it was just a nightmare. and you went and exposed me to your friend? your friend who also happens to be the only person that i can call a friend right now too?!"

"no, y/n, it wasn't like that, i swear to god it wasn't." he panicked, his hands flying up to grip your upper arms, his fingers digging into your skin through your thin top as if he could force you to understand the chaos inside his head. "i didn't laugh about it, i didn't treat it like a joke. i was drowning. i've never felt like this about anyone in my entire life, and you locked me out so completely that i thought i was losing my mind. i needed help. i asked sunoo to bring you here so i could just look at you, so i could know you were still real and not just something i ruined."

"but you did ruin me!" you screamed, your voice cracking completely as you pushed against his chest with all your might. he barely moved though, his grip only tightening as his own tears finally spilled over his eyelashes, tracking down his flushed cheeks. "you ruined my head, you ruined my focus, and now i can't even look at sunoo without knowing he's picturing me on that classroom with you! you take everything from me, jake. you always take everything until there's absolutely nothing left for myself."

"then take something from me!" he yelled back, his voice breaking into a ragged, desperate sob that shook his entire frame. his forehead came down to press against yours until you could feel the heat radiating off his skin, his breath hot and ragged against your lips. "hate me, hit me, scream at me, do whatever the fuck you want, but stop acting like i'm the only one pulling the strings here. you think you're the only one drowning? look at me, y/n. look at my fucking hands."

you looked down involuntarily, seeing the way his fingers were trembling against your arms, his knuckles white. the untouchable number one, the golden boy of the behavioral sciences department, was completely falling apart on a freezing fire escape, stripped of his ego, his composure, and everything that made him superior to you. "i don't care about you or your stupid fucking hands, jake." you whispered, the alcohol making your head spin as the cold wind whipped your hair across your face. "i don't have the energy to care anymore. look at the wood panel on the wall inside. go look at the printed list. i moved five ranks down. i'm seventh."

"it's just one semester." he pleaded, his mouth moving against your skin as he spoke, desperately trying to catch your gaze. "mr. jones said it himself, it's just a setback. we can finish the report this weekend, we can present, and next term you'll be right back up there. you're too smart to let a stupid ranking define you."

"i don't have a next term, jake." you said, your voice dropping into a flat stillness that completely cut through his frantic energy. you stopped fighting his grip, letting your arms hang uselessly at your sides as you looked at him with empty, exhausted eyes. "my scholarship is gone. the criteria says you have to maintain a position in the top three to keep the funding. i checked the portal before i came here tonight. next month, my tuition doubles, and i have exactly seven hundred dollars in my savings account from my weekend shifts. i'm dropping out. i have to pack my bags and go home."

the silence that followed was suffocating, the muffled bass from the party inside the apartment suddenly feeling like it belonged to a different universe entirely. jake just stared at you, his mouth slightly open, his hands slowly loosening on your arms as the harsh reality of your words finally cracked through his sheltered world. hard work wasn't going to fix the variables and a low grade didn't just mean studying harder, it meant packing up your entire life because your bank account was empty.

"i can pay for it." he said suddenly, his voice rising in a frantic, terrifying pitch as he grabbed your wrists, his grip turning clumsy and desperate. "y/n, listen to me, i can help. i can call my family right now and we can talk about it. it's nothing to them, it's just a phone call. you can stay in the dorms, you don't have to leave, we can just fix it-"

"stop it!" you shrieked, pulling your hands back with such violent force that you scraped your knuckles against the metal railing. the sheer humiliation of his offer felt like a physical blow to your chest, exposing the unbridgeable gulf between the two of you. "do you have any idea how pathetic you're making me feel right now? you think you can just buy my survival? you think my entire life's tragedy can just be solved by a wire transfer from your parents?"

"i'm just trying to keep you here!" he shouted back, his face twisting in absolute agony as the tears poured down his face, his chest heaving under his hoodie. "because i don't know how to exist in this place if you're not here! i don't want sunghoon to challenge my data, i don't want anyone else sitting across from me in the library bickering about methodologies. i need you, y/n. i need the only person who actually looks at me and sees someone worth fighting instead of someone to admire."

"but it was never a fight for you, jake, i told you." you whispered, a final, heavy tear falling down your chin as the alcohol gave way to a cold clarity. "it was effortless for you, you wake up and you're brilliant. and i've spent three long years completely destroying my mental health just to stay some decimal points away from a guy who i thought didn't even know my name until some months ago. i am completely empty. i have no more money, i have no more friends, and i have absolutely nothing left inside of me to give to this university, or to mr. jones, or to you."

jake's shoulders completely collapsed inward, making him look so small under the flickering orange light of the fire escape. "did you really hate me that much?" he whispered into the dark. "the whole time? even in that classroom?"

"i hated how much i admired you." you murmured, stepping closer to him one last time, your hand moving automatically to touch the soft fabric of his hoodie before dropping back down. "and i hated that when you touched me, for a split second, i forgot that i was drowning. but we can't keep doing this, jake. we're just two broken people using each other to feel something stable, and it's making us toxic. it's making us mean."

he didn't argue. he just reached out, his trembling fingers gently tracing the line of your jaw, his thumb wiping away a stray tear with a tenderness you had never seen in him. when his lips met yours this time, there was no hunger, no harshness, and no anger like there had been the first time. it was a slow, mourning kiss, a silent acknowledgment of everything you could have been if the world had been a little more fair, tasting of cheap alcohol and the salty weight of a shared grief. you let yourself sink into it for one last, agonizing second, breathing in the sharp scent of his cologne and the warmth of his skin, memorizing the exact weight of his body against yours before you firmly pulled away.

"the report is finished." you said softly, backing toward the balcony door, your hand reaching behind you to grip the cold metal handle. "i formatted the final citations before i came here tonight. i'll send the file to your email when i get back to my room. submit it under your name, jake. you deserve the top spot."

"i don't give a fuck about the spot." he whispered, his eyes wide and completely vacant as he stood in the freezing wind, his hands hanging uselessly at his sides. "don't go. please. just... let me walk you back."

"i want to." you whispered, the admission slipping out before you could stop it, tasting like the bitter vodka and the salt of your own tears as you looked at him. you suddenly saw the raw loneliness that he had been carrying at the top of that pedestal for years, a weight that was just as heavy as your own even if it looked different from the outside. "god, jake, you don't understand, i want to stay more than anything, i want to go back to the library and argue about variables. i want to stay here and keep fighting you for the top spot until we both lose our minds, but i can't." your hand trembled against the cold metal handle, the friction of the iron biting into your skin. his posture looked completely ruined in a way that made him look so human, so terribly fragile, that it made your chest ache. "i don't have a choice. i never had one. i'm just... out of time, jake. i'm so sorry." you didn't give him the chance to find more words or offer more pieces of a world you couldn't afford to live in, turning around with a quiet sob and pushing the heavy door open. you stepped back into the warm, blurred chaos of the apartment before your resolve could completely fail you and make you stay.

as the heavy metal door clicked shut behind you, cutting off the freezing wind and leaving jake standing entirely undone under the flickering orange bulb, you started walking through the crowded hallway. the bass from the speakers vibrated deep inside your hollow chest while people laughed and spilled drinks around you, entirely oblivious to the fact that your time there had just officially ended on a fire escape. you felt a terrifying wave of clarity wash over you, the alcohol finally settling into a cold finality that made the past three years of sleepless nights, skipped meals, and agonizing anxiety feel like a tragic joke of a sacrifice made for a numbered list that didn't even matter anymore. you thought about sunoo standing somewhere in that crowd, about the crushing humiliation of knowing jake had exposed that to him. but even that anger felt exhausted now, swallowed up by the heartbreaking realization that jake hadn't done it to hurt you — he had done it because he was drowning in his own isolated, perfect tower. it filled you with a heavy ache to realize that the one intimate piece of yourself you had kept protected through all the loneliness of your academic life now belonged to a boy who you were going to love and miss in the dark for the rest of your life. a boy whose effortless privilege allowed him to offer your entire tuition like a casual favor while you were left to pack your life into cardboard boxes with seven hundred dollars to your name.

but as you grabbed your coat and stepped out of the building into the quiet, dark street, the cool air hitting your face felt less like a punishment and more like a slow expiration. it was like a quiet release from a beautiful trap you had been building for yourself since the day you arrived. and though your chest felt entirely empty and your future was a terrifying black void of uncertainty, you took a deep breath of the night air and finally let yourself weep for the library nights that were gone, for the competition you had lost, and for the boy on the fire escape who you were leaving entirely alone at the top.

the week before had been pretty standard for jake, which meant a lot of nothing. monday night he was at heeseung’s place, half watching a game and half playing fifa with sunghoon until three in the morning. tuesday was drinks with sunoo and niki at that bar near campus. wednesday he skipped his morning lecture, slept until noon, and then spent the rest of the day hanging around jungwon’s dorm because jay had ordered pizza and jake didn’t feel like cooking. thursday was another party (he couldn’t even remember whose) and friday he woke up with a headache and a random girl’s hoodie on his couch.

it was the kind of week he’d been having for most of his college life, just bouncing between his friends’ places and his own small one-bedroom apartment. the lease was almost up, and he’d already decided he wanted to move. not because he hated it, it was fine, but the walls were thin, the neighbors complained too much, and he wanted more space. he’d been looking for a bigger place, just for himself, no roommates, no shared fridge, no awkward small talk.

the plan was simple: find a one-bedroom close to campus, maybe a little more expensive, but worth it for the peace. but then the housing office screwed something up. the unit he’d signed for got pulled last minute because of some “maintenance issue,” and by the time they told him, everything else on his list was already taken. they offered him a spot in a two-bedroom to “hold him over until something opens up,” and he took it, assuming they’d find some random guy to fill the other room eventually.

they didn’t. instead, they gave the second key to you.

“a girl?” heeseung asked, glancing over like he wanted to make sure he heard it right.

“yep,” jake said, “and before you ask, no, i don’t know anything about her. could’ve been some random dude from campus, but no, they put me with a girl.”

“it’s not the end of the world, you know.”

“yeah, except it kind of is,” jake said. “what if she’s, like, one of those people who tells you to keep it down because she’s got an 8am? i don’t need that kind of energy in my space. my place is supposed to be… my place.”

“your mojo dojo casa house?” jake shot him a look while heeseung giggled. “look, maybe it’s good for you,” he continued. “maybe you’ll stop bringing home random girls every other night.”

jake smirked. “or maybe i’ll just have to get better at sneaking them in.”

heeseung shook his head. “do you even know her name?”

“uh… i think it’s y/n? never seen her around campus. at least, not that i remember.”

“you could ask jungwon,” heeseung said. “he knows everyone.”

“yeah,” jake muttered, already half-distracted. “guess i’ll text him later. just… hope she’s not an asshole.”

heeseung gave him a look. “pretty sure she’s hoping the same thing about you. and she is probably right.”

so the rest of that week, jake was milking every last second of living alone. he left dishes in the sink without guilt, blasted music at 2 a.m. and walked around in just a towel after showers. it was good, chaotic and messy, but his kind of good. in a few days, there’d be another person in his space, and even though he wouldn’t admit it out loud, he wasn’t sure how much of himself he’d have to hide.

by wednesday, he had a lecture he couldn’t skip. attendance was part of the grade, and he’d already missed two. the class was one of those electives that pretended to be chill but always devolved into debates that dragged on way too long. he was used to zoning out, tossing in a comment or two just to keep his participation points. that day, though, the professor brought up some case study about media ethics, and jake, half out of boredom, half for fun, threw in a take that was just controversial enough to get people talking. what he didn’t expect was someone immediately firing back.

“that’s a terrible point,” a voice cut through from somewhere to his left, sharp enough to pull his attention off the professor.

jake turned his head, eyebrows lifting. you were a few rows over, leaning back in your chair, arms crossed like you’d been waiting for him to slip up just so you could pounce. you didn’t look nervous, or even slightly unsure, more like you were daring him to keep going.

“no, it’s not,” jake said easily, because there was no way he was letting some random girl dismantle him in front of the whole class.

“it is,” you said, tone flat, almost bored. “you’re just defending it because you think sounding confident is the same thing as being right.”

he scoffed, leaning forward in his seat. “and you’re disagreeing because you think being loud makes you smarter.”

for half a second, your mouth twitched, like you were fighting the urge to smile, but instead you sat up straighter, eyes locking on him as you launched into a rapid fire breakdown of why his take didn’t hold up. it wasn’t just a counterpoint; it was methodical, and you didn’t give him a second to slip in until you were done. he waited for the last word to leave your mouth before firing back, picking apart your logic, throwing in examples just to push your buttons. you didn’t flinch. if anything, you seemed more energized by the challenge, cutting him off mid-sentence, shaking your head with this smug little tilt that made his jaw tighten. within minutes, the rest of the class wasn’t even pretending to follow along with the lecture — they were watching you and him volley arguments. the professor didn’t step in right away, probably curious to see who would outlast the other. when he finally did, there was the faintest smile on his face. “alright, i think we’ll stop here. thanks to jake and y/n, for the spirited contribution today.”

the name landed like a coin dropping in his head. y/n. so this was you. his new roommate. he sat back in his chair, eyes still on you as you looked away like nothing had happened, like you hadn’t just gone toe-to-toe with him for fifteen straight minutes. for a moment, jake just sat there, letting it sink in. of all the people they could’ve stuck him with, it had to be you: sharp-tongued, unshakable, clearly not the type to let anything slide. he wasn’t sure if he was annoyed or impressed. maybe both. he’d expected his new roommate to be some background character in his life — someone who paid their half of the rent and stayed out of his way. instead, he’d gotten someone who looked him dead in the eye and called him out without hesitation. and now he couldn’t stop wondering if you’d be like that all the time, or if it was just a class thing.

later that day, he found jungwon in the campus café, earbuds in. “yo,” jake said, walking up. “you know a girl named y/n?”

jungwon pulled out one earbud, narrowing his eyes like he was trying to place the name. “yeah, i know her. why?”

“she’s my new roommate,” jake said. “met her today in class. well— ‘met’ is generous. more like she tried to shame me in front of thirty people.”

jungwon’s mouth curled into a small smile. “yeah, that sounds like her.”

“great,” jake muttered. “anything else i should know? is she, like… intense all the time?”

jungwon shrugged. “depends. she’s smart, doesn’t take crap from anyone, so, if you’re expecting her to just let you do your thing without comment, good luck.”

jake sat on the chair beside him, letting that sink in. “awesome. love that for me.”

jungwon smirked. “maybe you will.”

jake didn’t know what jungwon meant by that, but he was annoyed anyway. he was already holding a grudge against you, and not just because you’d tried to embarrass him in class. it was the fact that you were about to invade his space. his space. his mojo dojo casa house. the one thing he’d been looking forward to keeping entirely his own. and he was almost sure you didn’t even know he was your roommate yet. maybe they’d just hand you a key and let you figure it out when you showed up at the door. honestly, part of him wanted to see your face when you realized you were going to be living with the guy you’d gone toe-to-toe with for fifteen minutes straight in class.

except he didn’t get to see it. instead, later that night, his phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number:

[you]: hey! this is y/n. i got your number from the housing office

[you]: i’m gonna be your new roommate

he stared at the screen for a second, frowning. the message was friendly, almost too friendly. not at all what he’d expected from someone who’d been ready to verbally fight him to death earlier that day. so he typed back:

[jake]: so i’m guessing you didn’t realize i’m the same jake from that elective class

your reply came fast:

[you]: cool

[you]: so saturday work for you to move in?

that was it. no sarcasm, no smug comment, no acknowledgment beyond the bare minimum. like you couldn’t care less. so jake typed back. 

[jake]: yeah

[you]: i was thinking around 8 a.m.

jake blinked.

[jake]: 8 am? seriously?

[you]: yeah that’s usually when people start moving otherwise it gets late and we won’t finish in time

he stared at your last message, already annoyed at how matter-of-fact it was. eight in the morning. on a saturday. clearly, you were going to be a problem. the way you just stated it, like there was no room for discussion, like you knew exactly what you were doing, it rubbed him the wrong way. he could already tell you thought you were smart and sharp, the type who always got the last word. still, he agreed to the time. whatever. it was just one early morning. he’d deal with it. except, on friday night, he found himself in a situation where dealing with it became unlikely.

niki texted first, asking if he wanted to go to a frat party at yeonjun’s. normally, jake could’ve said no, but if niki was going, sunghoon was going too. and if sunghoon was going, sunoo would end up there. if sunoo was going, jungwon would tag along. and if jungwon was going, jay wouldn’t miss it. and once jay was in, heeseung was coming too, which meant heeseung was bringing weed. and if heeseung was bringing weed, jake had no choice. so, yeah, he was going.

the night was exactly what he expected, and every time he thought about leaving, someone shoved another drink in his hand, or heeseung started laughing at something and somehow convinced him to stay another hour. by the time he got home, it was late. way too late for someone who’d promised to be functional by eight a.m. still, he felt pretty good about himself. he’d packed up most of his apartment earlier that week, stacked boxes into his car, even cleaned the kitchen. all that was left was to wake up on time, meet you, and help move. except he didn’t wake up on time. in fact, he didn’t wake up anywhere near eight.

he woke up at— well, “woke up” is generous. it was noon. the sun’s already rude through the blinds and his phone battery’s dying because he forgot to charge it. but when he grabbed his phone, the first thing he saw was the time, and then immediate, gut-level panic set in. he shot out of bed, tripping over the pile of clothes from last night, and threw on whatever was closest: sweats, shirt inside out, mismatched socks. somewhere between shoving his wallet into his pocket and finding his keys, he finally noticed the one missed call from you. and one single text.

[you]: where are you?

with no follow up, no all caps rage, no triple question marks. he had you pegged as the type to spam twenty messages and call until his phone caught fire, so the sheer chill of it threw him off. so he typed back, “sorry, woke up late” and all you did was leave it on read. weird. still, he loaded himself into his car, already stuffed with boxes, trash bags of clothes and drove to the new apartment.

when he got there, the front door was locked. which, okay, fair. except… he didn’t have a key yet. and judging by the silence and total lack of life inside, you weren’t home. he started texting, but nothing. sent a couple more, still nothing. called, rang out. now he was sitting in the driver’s seat, engine off, staring at his steering wheel like it was gonna give him the answers. that was it, he was homeless now. he was alone, in a parking lot, surrounded by his own boxed-up belongings, slowly spiraling because you were ghosting him before you’d even officially met.

after four hours of torture, of sending countless messages to different friends asking if they had a spare couch for him to crash on, you finally pulled into the parking lot. before you could even close the car’s door behind you, he was already out of his own car, walking fast toward you with this mix of relief and frustration written all over his face. “where the hell were you?” he asked, his voice somewhere between annoyed and breathless.

you just glanced at him, locking your car, throwing your bag over your shoulder, and said, “out.” no explanation, no detail, just a flat answer that somehow irritated him even more.

“out?” he repeated, following as you started toward the building. “i’ve been sitting here for hours. i thought you were gonna be here when i got here.” 

you shrugged, not even slowing your pace, and said, “i finished my move this morning, then i went to do my stuff. what do you want me to do, sit around all day waiting for you?”

he blinked, because as much as that annoyed him, he couldn’t exactly argue with the logic. “you could’ve at least answered your phone,” he tried again, his tone still sharp but quieter now. “you could’ve told me where you were.” you glanced at him like you couldn’t believe he was making this a big deal. 

“jake, you woke up late. that’s not my problem. i texted you once, called you once, you didn’t answer, so i went on with my day.” 

he ran a hand through his hair, exhaling slowly, feeling this weird mix of embarrassment and irritation because you were right, he knew you were right, you didn’t owe him a play-by-play of your day, but still, he’d been stuck in the car for hours thinking you’d ghosted him or forgotten he was moving in. so you handed him the key without ceremony, and then you walked him through the apartment, pointing out the light switches and the laundry schedule for the building. it was clear you’d already settled in enough to claim your space, and when he asked about the rooms, you didn’t even try to sugarcoat it — because he hadn’t shown up on time, you’d gone ahead and picked yours, and obviously you’d taken the one with the ensuite. makes sense, he’d thought, even though in his head he was trying to figure out if there was a polite way to argue for it without sounding petty. there wasn’t. 

so he just nodded while you explained which cabinet in the hallway was his and which shelves in the fridge he could use, and he kept thinking about how he’d imagined this moment going differently, maybe a little more friendly, or a little less efficient. by the time you were done showing him around, he was still standing there with his bag in hand, realizing you’d already turned back to whatever you were doing before he got here, like the whole moving-in thing was just one more item on your to do list.

and it was weird, the first day. jake was still figuring out where to put his stuff, boxes half open in the living room, one duffel bag sitting on the couch. you were around, but not really. sometimes he’d hear you moving in the kitchen, sometimes a door closing. you kept yourself busy with other things, like tidying up shelves, rearranging stuff in the bathroom, but never really lingering around him. he’d try to make some small comment about anything or how heavy the box was, but you’d just hum or nod without looking up. not rude, just minimal.

around dinner time, he was sitting on the floor, pulling cables out of a box, when you passed by. he decided to try again. “so, uh... is it okay to smoke weed in here?”

you stopped mid-step. “what kind of weed?”

he blinked like he wasn’t sure if that was a trick question. “what kind?”

“yeah. what do you smoke?”

“uh, just some pressed weed i get from a friend.” the friend in question was heeseung.

you looked at him like he’d just admitted he eats microwave fish every day. “no. get hash or something that doesn’t stink up the whole place.”

he stared at you, half surprised you knew the difference, half offended you thought he could casually drop money on that. “you think i’ve got hash money?”

you didn’t bother answering. just kept walking down the hall like the conversation was over. he let it go for a while, partly because he was too tired to argue, partly because you clearly weren’t the type to back down on random rules like this. so later, after he’d unpacked most of his stuff and was starting to feel like maybe the apartment wasn’t a total maze, he found you in the kitchen. you were leaning against the counter, scrolling on your phone, looking way too relaxed for someone who’d just finished telling him his entire stash was trash. “so what if i wanna smoke?” he asked, like the thought had been simmering in the back of his head since you’d walked away.

you sighed. “fine.” you got your bag, pulled out a small pink hello kitty case, unzipped it, and handed him a vape pen. “here. so you don’t make the place smell like cheap weed.”

he took it carefully, holding it between his fingers like it might break. “you’re just giving me this?”

“yeah. consider it a gift. welcome to the apartment.” you didn’t wait for a reaction. you just turned and went straight to your room, shutting the door behind you. he stayed there for a while, standing in the middle of the kitchen with the pen in his hand, staring at it. he couldn’t tell if you were insanely generous, weirdly controlling, or both. all he knew was that he suddenly had a vape pen and absolutely no idea who the hell his new roommate actually was.

and as the first week passed, jake still had no idea who the hell you were. and it passed with a lot of unpacking, awkward silences, and jake slowly realizing that living with you was going to be a whole different kind of challenge. he spent most of his mornings moving boxes, setting up shelves, and trying to figure out which things actually belonged in the apartment and which were just random trash he’d been holding onto too long. you kept mostly to yourself, your own rhythm never really syncing with his. sometimes he’d hear the shower running, the clink of dishes, the sound of you tidying up, but you didn’t really say much. he tried to make conversation here and there, asking if you knew where the extra hangers were, joking about how one of the light bulbs kept flickering. but you’d just hum, nod, or give a short answer before disappearing back into your room. it frustrated him more than he expected, and yet he couldn’t deny that there was something compelling about how unbothered and self-contained you were.

by the end of the week, he’d made more progress with his stuff than he thought he would, but he was still adjusting to the fact that you were this constant, quiet presence that refused to be read. he didn’t know if it was intimidating or fascinating, or maybe both. whatever it was, it made him more aware of how he moved, how he spoke, and how quickly he could lose himself in trying to get your attention, even when you weren’t giving him much to work with. he couldn’t quite place it, but there was a pull there, subtle, like he was slowly cataloguing all the little details about you without meaning to.

“didn’t you say you didn’t want a roommate who’d constantly be in your business?” heeseung caught up with him on campus later that week, walking a few steps ahead before turning with a teasing grin.

jake shot him a look, half annoyed, half exasperated. “yeah, but dude, she’s way too quiet. i can’t tell if she’s judging me or just ignoring me.”

heeseung shook his head, smiling. “so you wanted someone quiet and now you’re mad because she actually is?”

jake ran a hand over his face, exhaling slowly, knowing full well how ridiculous he sounded. he had spent days complaining about the idea of a roommate, imagining someone annoying, loud, constantly in his space, and now here he was, griping about someone who literally did what he asked: kept to herself, stayed out of his way, didn’t force conversation or attention. and yet, it frustrated him more than he expected. 

there was this weird tension in his chest, part irritation, part curiosity, part… something else he couldn’t quite name. he hated admitting it, but he found himself noticing the smallest things about you, and it was confusing, because on one hand he wanted the space, the quiet, the low-maintenance roommate, and on the other hand, he couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that you did not give a fuck. he was aware he was contradicting himself, and that made him feel unsettled. part of him wanted to shake himself out of it, to remind himself that he wasn’t supposed to care this much, and part of him was quietly, stubbornly intrigued, wondering just how much of you he was going to notice before the week was over.

then, friday night, his phone buzzed. it was a message from minjeong, a girl he sometimes hooked up with, asking if she could come see the new apartment. he stared at the screen, a grin creeping onto his face. of course, no problem. before replying, he hesitated for a second, realizing he should probably check with you first, but the thought of minjeong seeing the place and giving him a little validation was too tempting. he typed a quick yes and hit send, already anticipating how you might react when he mentioned it. he wasn’t sure if you would care or just shrug it off, and part of him was curious to see which way it would go. it was a small test, really, to see where you stood in his world now, after a week of careful observation, silent judgments, and that inexplicable pull he couldn’t ignore.

so he walked out of his room ready to find you and give his very casual, very “oh by the way” announcement, only to be met with an empty apartment. no shoes by the door, no faint sound of your music bleeding through your bedroom walls. you hadn’t mentioned going anywhere — not that you had to, you weren’t friends — but still, it was weird. so jake pulled his phone out, thumb hovering for a second before typing:

[jake]: hey, just so u know, i invited someone over 

a beat later, your reply came in: 

[you]: ok 

just that. his brows knit, an odd twist forming in his chest. 

[jake]: where u at? 

he typed, almost without thinking. the answer was immediate and annoyingly vague: 

[you]: out

he stared at it, something about that one word sticking under his skin. you were out. out where? out with who? and why didn’t you care that he was bringing someone here? so now he’s pacing around the living room for a while. it’s not like he expected you to drop your location or anything, but something about it just sits wrong in his chest. and now he’s overthinking. where could you even be? and why is he suddenly caring this much? he tells himself it’s just curiosity. except he keeps checking his phone like you might send a follow-up.

and by the time minjeong shows up, he’s still in his own head about it. she walks in all confident, tosses her hair, does the whole slow smile thing she always does. “nice place,” she says, already looking him up and down like she’s rating him along with the apartment. he smirks back, plays along, but it’s half-automatic. she leans on the kitchen counter and asks if he missed her. he says “of course” because that’s what he’s supposed to say, but his eyes flick to his phone sitting on the coffee table, dark screen staring back at him.

they sit on the couch, she slides closer, her hand on his thigh, and he’s doing the whole flirty banter thing but it’s on autopilot. every time there’s a sound from the hallway, his head snaps toward the door. minjeong notices after the third time and laughs, “what, expecting someone else?” he shakes his head, “nah, just… thought i heard something.” she raises an eyebrow but lets it go, moving in again. he’s responsive, sure, but his brain keeps circling back to the same two questions: where the hell are you, and why does it bug him so much that you didn’t care about this?

eventually, she’s kissing him and he’s kissing her back, and they’re headed toward his room. he’s still glancing toward the door every few seconds like you’re going to walk in at any moment. when they get to the bed, his phone is still in his hand for a second before he remembers to toss it on the nightstand. she notices and smirks, “you waiting for a more exciting guest?” he laughs it off, pulling her down with him, but his ears are still half-tuned to any noise outside. it’s ridiculous, he knows it, but the whole thing feels a little off-balance, like part of him is still in the living room waiting for the front door to open.

and the front door didn’t open that night at all. unless you count when minjeong left. it was late, way past midnight, after they’d already done enough to wake up the entire building if anyone had been around to hear it. and that was the thing, no one was. or at least, you weren’t. and jake kept coming back to that, the quiet in the apartment that wasn’t just because minjeong was gone. you hadn’t come home. you hadn’t been home all night.

he sat on the couch for a bit after walking minjeong out, phone in his hand like he was expecting some kind of alert, something that would tell him where you were without having to actually ask. he scrolled aimlessly, checked the time, opened and closed your chat three times without typing anything. he told himself it wasn’t his business, you were an adult, you could do whatever you wanted. but the longer he sat there, the more he kept glancing at the door like maybe you’d just appear. so around three in the morning, after deciding he wasn’t gonna sleep unless he knew for sure, he finally gave in. he typed out something short:

[jake]: ur not coming back tonight? do u have ur key? i’m locking up 

it didn’t take long for your reply to come through: 

[you]: not sleeping at home 

[you]: i have my key 

short, no explanation as always, just enough to make him stare at the screen for a while. he locked the door like he said he would, but even then, he stayed in the living room a bit longer, phone face down on the coffee table, wondering why the hell it mattered so much. he told himself it was just because he liked knowing who was in the apartment at night. that was all. just basic roommate awareness. nothing else.

when he woke up the next morning, you were already home, the house smelled faintly of coffee. it was quiet, a lived-in silence. he could almost map your movements from his room. you’d been up for a while, moving like someone who didn’t feel the need to announce their presence. he padded into the kitchen barefoot, hair still sticking up from sleep, and found you leaning against the counter with a mug in hand. you were watching the coffee swirl lazily inside it, eyes still heavy but mind clearly elsewhere. for some reason, that annoyed him a little, how comfortable you seemed in your own head. “would be nice if you told someone when you’re sleeping out,” he said, tone casual, but not casual enough. “so no one gets worried.”

you looked up slowly, brows pulling together just a touch. it wasn’t defensive, more like you were trying to understand why he’d say something like that. “why would you be worried? it’s not your problem.”

he blinked at you, caught off guard by how flatly you said it. “it’s… common courtesy,” he said after a beat, shrugging like it was obvious. “worrying about where a woman is. world’s dangerous out there.”

you laughed. it wasn’t polite or restrained, and it was the first genuine sound like that he’d heard from you. light, unguarded, almost surprised at him. “wow. you’re quite the gentleman.” you took another sip of coffee, your mouth curling faintly at the rim of the mug. “did you at least invite the girl from last night to stay over?”

his brows lifted slightly. “how do you know there was a girl here?”

“you said you’d invited someone. i assumed.”

“could’ve been a friend.”

“was it?”

he hesitated. “…no.”

“and you didn’t let her sleep here? sent her home in the middle of the night? what a gentleman you are.” and the way you said it was easy, amused, not mocking exactly, but you knew it would get under his skin. and it did.

you brushed past him then, and you disappeared into your room. he stood there longer than he should have, eyes fixed on the doorway you’d gone through. something about the whole thing stuck in his chest: the way you’d turned his comment back on him, the ease with which you’d disarmed him, that little smile like you were in on a joke he hadn’t been told. and jake wasn’t entirely sure what the hell was going on with him. he didn’t like people poking around in his life, didn’t like having to explain himself, didn’t even like the idea of anyone thinking they could read him. and yet something about you was getting under his skin. it was irritating.

so he told himself it wasn’t that deep. just curiosity, right? he wanted to figure you out. that was it, nothing more. but still, when he realized you had that same morning class together — the one you’d already gone head-to-head in a couple weeks ago — he caught himself planning for it. the class started early, and usually he’d drag himself out of bed last minute, throwing on whatever shirt that didn’t smell and heading out without a word. this time was different, he set his alarm for an hour earlier, got up without hitting snooze, even made coffee before you could. it wasn’t about impressing you (he wouldn’t admit it even to himself if it was) it was about… timing. so by the time you emerged from your room, hair still a little mussed from sleep, jake was leaning casually against the counter, mug in hand, already dressed and ready to go. casual, like he hadn’t been waiting. like this was just how his mornings worked.

“you’re up early,” you said, almost suspicious.

“yeah. felt like it,” he replied, too quickly, then took a slow sip of coffee to make it seem effortless. but the truth was, he’d calculated this perfectly. if he left when you left, that meant you had to walk together. and if you walked together, maybe he’d get another piece of whatever puzzle you were. so you’re halfway through your coffee when you notice he’s still there. jake’s on the couch, legs stretched out, phone in hand, not even pretending he’s in a rush. you’re moving around the kitchen, rinsing the mug, tying your hair back, checking the time, and he’s just sitting there. you give him this look, a suspicious glance, like, shouldn’t you be gone by now? but he doesn’t move.

when you finally ask why he hasn’t left yet, he says he’s waiting. you keep getting ready, slipping on your jacket, and ask what for. he says for the time to go. you stop for a second, frown at him, then keep going. “we have class together,” he adds, like it’s a fact that explains everything. 

you shrug. “and?” he looks at you like the “and” is obvious. 

“and it’s easier if we go together.” you stare at him a little longer, just enough to make him shift in his seat, then go back to your routine without answering.

in his head he’s already decided it was a bad idea. not the worst one he’s ever had, but bad enough that he’s starting to think he should’ve just left first, slipped out before you were done, because now it’s getting weird. the kind of weird where you’re both in the same room but not really in the same moment. he’s slouched on the couch, not even pretending to do anything else, just letting his eyes follow you while you get your stuff. when you’re finally ready and moving toward the door, you stop halfway like you remembered something. he waits, thinking you forgot your phone, but you just stand there looking at him. “what?” he says, his voice almost casual but not quite. 

you blink at him, like you’re surprised he even had to ask, and then you say, “aren’t you coming with me?” and for a second he doesn’t know how to answer, because he wasn’t planning on it, and somehow you asking makes it feel like he should’ve been. you grab your bag, holding the door open just enough to make it obvious you’re waiting. he gets up slower than necessary, like maybe to prove a point, and follows you out into the hallway. you lock the door, check the handle once, then start walking without looking at him. he falls into step beside you, hands shoved into the pockets of his hoodie, posture easy like he’s just strolling instead of heading to an 8am lecture. 

and for a while it’s just the sound of your shoes on the pavement and his occasional sniff. the air’s still got that sharp morning chill, and you pull your jacket a little tighter. he glances at you sideways, like he’s got something to say but he’s holding it back until it’ll land the way he wants. “remember the last time we had this class together?” he finally says, the corners of his mouth lifting.

you don’t look at him. “no.”

“yeah you do,” he presses, and you can hear the grin in his voice. “we ended up arguing for, like, half the lecture. i don’t even remember what it was about.”

“then maybe it wasn’t important.”

he laughs under his breath. “probably not. but i remember you getting all serious about it. it was kinda—” he tilts his head at you, “—entertaining.”

you stop at the crosswalk, eyes fixed on the blinking red hand. “you only think that because you never have anything real to say.”

he looks at you shocked. “…what?”

“you heard me,” you say, and it’s not even mean, just matter-of-fact, and jake at this point this is how you always make your point.

the light changes, and you step forward before he can come up with a comeback. he walks next to you, but there’s a pause now, and he can feel it settle in his chest, strange. because you’re not wrong, but you’re also not someone who usually just says things like that. he’s half smiling, but inside he’s turning the comment over, wondering if you’ve always thought that or if you just decided it today. so by the time you’re halfway down the block, he decides to poke at it. “so… you think i talk just to hear my own voice?”

“no,” you say, not looking at him. “i think you talk because silence makes you uncomfortable.”

he lets out a low whistle. “wow. brutal.”

“also true.”

he kicks at a crack in the sidewalk. “and here i thought we were bonding on this nice morning walk.”

“we’re walking to class. that’s all.”

but you say it without any heat, and that messes with him more than if you’d snapped. he’s used to people either feeding into his teasing or shutting it down, but you do neither. you just keep going, like he’s background noise. and the whole time, he’s thinking about how he doesn’t actually know where you stand on… well, anything. he knows the shapes of your reactions, the expressions you make, the way you close off when you’re done with a conversation. but the why behind it? no clue. and for someone like him, who’s so used to reading people, that’s almost infuriating. almost. because if he’s honest, it’s also the most interesting part.

once you get to the class, you’re sitting two seats to the left of him. the class today is some big group discussion thing, and the professor has just announced the topic: social media and whether it’s made society better or worse. jake’s leaning back in his chair, tapping his pen against the desk, already plotting his moment. he doesn’t really care about the actual topic, he just wants to say something dumb enough to make you whip your head around in disbelief. he figures you’ll roll your eyes, maybe sigh loudly, maybe mutter something under your breath. that’s the payoff he’s after.

when his turn comes, he clears his throat, and with this fake casual tone goes, “i think social media’s the best thing to ever happen to humanity. like, if we didn’t have it, we’d still be living in caves or something.” he even throws in a little shrug, like, yeah, obviously. he’s waiting for you to bite. but you don’t. you don’t even look at him. instead, from across the room, some guy he vaguely recognizes — sunghan or sungchan, something like that — immediately jumps in. “that’s literally the dumbest take i’ve heard in weeks,” the guy says, and then launches into this rapid-fire list of points about misinformation, mental health crises, economic inequality, all tied back to the rise of social media. it’s brutal. sunghan/sungchan has stats, examples, quotes from studies. jake tries to cut in once or twice with a “yeah but—” or “that’s not really—” but he gets steamrolled every single time.

the professor looks mildly entertained but doesn’t intervene. the rest of the class is clearly enjoying the free show. by the time the guy is done, jake has been verbally drop-kicked into oblivion and is now just sitting there, staring at his notes like they might save him. that’s when he catches you trying so hard not to laugh. your head is tilted slightly down, your hand covering your mouth, but your shoulders are shaking just enough to give you away. he can see your eyes flick toward him for a split second before you look back at your screen. it’s not loud, it’s not mean, but you’re absolutely laughing at him, and somehow that’s worse than if you’d just called him an idiot to his face.

so when class ended, jake lingered by the door, pretending to check his phone but really waiting to see your reaction. he didn’t quite know why he cared at all, but he did it anyway. you were gathering your bag slowly, methodically, like you weren’t in a rush to leave. he caught your eye for a second, trying to gauge if you were mad or impressed or whatever it was he felt. “so… that guy kind of roasted you,” you said as you slung your bag over your shoulder, not even looking at him. your tone was flat, but there was something in it that made jake pause. probably because he never thought you could possibly initiate a conversation, but you did. 

“i was just… making a point,” he said, a little defensively, leaning against the wall. “i thought it would… shake things up.”

you glanced at him, brow slightly raised. “you mean irritate everyone in the room?”

“that’s… partially true,” he admitted, smirking. “but also, come on, he kind of came at me with like ten facts and three graphs and this is, frankly, your fault.”

you finally looked at him, eyes narrowing a fraction. “what? why?”

“erm, yeah,” he said quickly, rubbing the back of his neck. “you were the only person i wanted to see annoyed.” he paused, realizing he sounded ridiculous, but didn’t care enough to fix it.

you snorted softly, almost a laugh, and jake’s stomach did that weird flip. “you’re really trying to get my attention like that?"

jake blinked at you, caught off guard by how direct you were. he opened his mouth to say something clever, then closed it again, realizing anything he said would sound stupid. he ran a hand through his hair, trying to look casual, like he wasn’t suddenly hyper-aware of every word you were saying. “uh… i mean, no, not really,” he said finally, shrugging in a way that was supposed to be nonchalant but probably came off awkward. “i was just… paying attention, that’s all.”

you just shook your head slightly, a faint smirk playing on your lips, and muttered, “sure, keep telling yourself that,” before turning and walking out of the room without another word. jake stayed where he was, frozen for a second, watching you move. he told himself he was just observing, making mental notes, like a perfectly normal, totally innocent thing to do. but the second he saw you from behind, the way your jacket shifted and the rhythm of your steps, he caught himself glancing lower than he probably should have. he immediately chastised himself internally, straightening up and trying to act casual, pretending he wasn’t noticing anything at all, but the truth was, his eyes had betrayed him, and now he couldn’t stop tracking you. he followed you with a mix of fascination and mild guilt, half annoyed at himself for reacting like that, half unable to look away of your ass. he was trying to convince himself it wasn’t a big deal, that he wasn’t being creepy, that it was just instinct or habit or some excuse he could believe. 

jake ran a hand over his face, rubbing at the tension that had built up since he’d watched you leave. heeseung caught up with him in the hallway, leaning casually against the railing, and immediately smirked. “dude… were you checking her ass?” when the fuck did heeseung get here?

jake blinked, caught off guard. “no, not like that, i—i just… it was unavoidable. she walked past me.” he tried to sound convincing, but the explanation sounded thin even to his own ears.

heeseung raised an eyebrow, that teasing grin still in place. “so you did check your roommate’s ass.”

“you’re making me sound like a creep,” jake protested, heat rising to his face despite his attempt at nonchalance.

“you are a little bit creepy, to be fair,” heeseung said flatly, shrugging.

jake groaned, spinning his hand through his hair again, knowing he wasn’t going to win this argument. and yeah, he knew he’d looked. he was painfully aware of it. he couldn’t deny that you were attractive: your build, your posture, the way you moved with this effortless, contained confidence. and then there were your eyes, sharp and perceptive, the kind that seemed to see everything, even if you said nothing. he was aware of all of it, aware that you had this pull on him he didn’t want to admit, aware that your quiet, self-contained presence made every glance he stole more intense than it should be.

heeseung laughed, shaking his head like he’d just figured out jake’s secret. “man, you’re doomed,” he said, nudging jake lightly. “you’re already halfway in over your head.” jake rolled his eyes, but inside he was already replaying the way you’d walked past, how the jacket shifted over your shoulders, the calm, almost indifferent way you moved. he’d caught himself staring, yeah, but he didn’t care to admit it, not to anyone. it was one more thing about you he couldn’t figure out, one more reason he was quietly, stubbornly fascinated, and even though he’d never say it aloud, part of him couldn’t wait to see what else about you would catch his attention.

and that first month after jake checked you out, went by in a weird blur. not weird in the sense that anything dramatic happened, but in the way where jake kept catching himself noticing things he swore he wouldn’t care about. you were quiet, which he expected and knew. what he didn’t expect was how the silence wasn’t awkward, but it was steady. you didn’t give much away, not about your life, not about your family, not even about basic stuff like what you did on weekends before moving in. you always had this wall up, and he couldn’t tell if it was intentional or just the way you were. still, every once in a while, out of nowhere, you’d drop a sarcastic comment that was so perfectly timed it threw him off. it wasn’t often, but when it happened, he caught himself laughing harder than he probably should’ve.

he tried to test the waters sometimes, inviting people over just to see if you’d react. girls, friends, whoever. and honestly, you didn’t. if anything, you were almost too chill about it. you’d disappear into your room, door closed, headphones probably on, and not make a sound. the first time it happened, he thought maybe you’d get annoyed, or passive aggressive, but you didn’t. you didn’t even seem to care. and that made him feel guilty in a way he couldn’t explain. like, you were being way too decent about it for him to even think about making noise on purpose. he considered it once, just to see if you’d snap, but then he imagined how shitty it would be if you did that to him, so he didn’t.

with his friends, you were a little different. sometimes you’d come out and say hi, mostly if jungwon was around, since you already knew him. you talked to him more than the others, and jake noticed that too. you weren’t rude to the rest, but you didn’t go out of your way to interact either. it wasn’t that you were antisocial, more that you just didn’t give out pieces of yourself easily. and that became the part jake couldn’t stop circling back to.

what threw him most was how the tension kept building, even when nothing was really happening. the more you stayed closed off, the more he wanted to know. it didn’t help that every time he called someone over, it felt emptier than it used to. he didn’t know when it shifted, but it did. before, having a girl over was automatic, easy. now, after a couple weeks, it just didn’t feel the same and he didn’t even know why. the excuse he told himself was that he was busy, but deep down he wondered if it was because of you. he hated that thought, so he shoved it down, but it lingered anyway.

some nights he caught himself with the dumbest thing in his head, thinking you were kind of a shadow holding him hostage. he’d laugh to himself, because obviously it wasn’t that deep, but then again, the words fit in a way he didn’t want to admit. he’d think about it when he was lying awake, about how he hadn’t wanted a roommate in the first place, and now that he had one, he couldn’t stop thinking about all the things he didn’t know about you. 

and then you told him you were having someone over. first time ever. no warning, no buildup, just said it casually like it wasn’t a big deal. but it was for him, at least. he tried not to make a face, though his brain immediately went into overdrive. someone over? who? what kind of someone? was this, like, a friend situation or more than that? he didn’t know if it was his place to even ask. you’d made it pretty clear from the beginning that there was space between you two, that you weren’t looking to blur lines. and since you never asked him anything about his own business, it felt wrong to pry into yours.

still, the curiosity was eating him alive. he asked the only question that came to his head: if you wanted him to leave. the second he said it, he regretted it, because there was nothing in the world he wanted less than leaving. but he said it anyway, tried to make it sound casual, then added if you wanted him locked in his room instead. you barely looked up from what you were doing. “do whatever you want,” you said, and that got him. it was nothing, just three words, but it stuck like a thorn.

later, when the knock came at the door, he was already in his room pretending to be busy, except he wasn’t. he was standing near the door with his phone in his hand, not even scrolling, just waiting. he opened it a crack when he heard your voice, enough to press his ear to the wood like some kind of loser. the voice that answered you was familiar: beomgyu. of course, it made perfect sense. he knew him from campus, mostly through heeseung, since the two of them were basically glued together in that haze of weed smoke. he wasn’t surprised you knew him too, and it also tracked. he remembered the vape pen you’d handed him the first day you moved in. he’d never actually seen you smoke in the apartment or even outside, but he had the sense you did. actually, jake never really saw you doing anything at all. so he listened in without shame. your voices were close, just muffled enough through the wood to make him lean harder. “you’re not alone?” beomgyu asked at some point.

“no,” you said. “jake’s here.”

there was a pause before beomgyu spoke again, casual, almost nosy: “you guys getting along?”

“it’s not like we interact that much,” you replied easily, like it wasn’t anything. “but i’d say yeah, it’s fine.” and he froze at that. not like we interact that much. it was true, technically. still, hearing it out loud made something twist in his stomach. it wasn’t an insult, not even close, but he stood there staring at the door like he’d just been punched. so he waited for more, but you and beomgyu moved on to something else he couldn’t quite catch. he didn’t realize until then how ridiculous he must’ve looked: half crouched, ear glued to the door, but he stayed there anyway.

eventually, you and beomgyu went to your room. the realization left him with this strange knot in his stomach. he couldn’t tell if it was jealousy or just curiosity, or maybe both at the same time. he hated that he couldn’t put a name to it. he tried to ignore it, lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, but the longer he sat there, the worse it got. eventually he gave up and got out of his room. he told himself he just wanted water, and that if he happened to run into beomgyu on the way, it wouldn’t even be weird. as long as beomgyu had his clothes on, it would be fine. he padded out into the kitchen, pretending to be casual, but his ears were tuned to your room. that’s when he heard your laugh. not the polite little chuckle you gave, but a loud laugh, the kind that broke out without you trying to hold it back. and it was beomgyu who made you laugh like that. jake stood there with the fridge door open, not even grabbing anything, just frowning at the sound like it personally offended him.

and then there was the smell. faint at first, but it didn’t take long to confirm. weed. you and beomgyu were smoking inside your room. jake shut the fridge, leaned on the counter, and tried to process that. he could feel himself spiraling, pacing a little, walking back and forth because he couldn’t sit still. the laugh still echoed in his head, mixed with the smoke that somehow seeped into the hall. after a while, the sound died down. no more laughter, no more voices, just silence. that was worse than hearing you laugh. jake went back to his room and then left it again almost immediately, too restless. he didn’t know what to do with himself. he hated the idea that out of every guy you could have decided to let into your room, it was beomgyu.

the thing was, jake actually liked beomgyu before this. he thought he was funny in that stupid way that worked in groups. he wasn’t the kind of guy jake ever thought of as competition, because why would he? beomgyu was the type who got away with everything because no one could ever be mad at him for long. but now that jake knew you were close to him, suddenly all the little things he’d brushed off about beomgyu started to bother him. his jokes weren’t that clever, he laughed at his own comments too much, he had this way of talking like he knew everything, and it grated on jake’s nerves. and the fact that you, out of all people, thought he was worth laughing with made jake’s chest feel tight. 

and after a while, beomgyu left your room, you right behind him. jake was sitting on the couch with the tv on, some random show playing, though he hadn’t registered a single line of dialogue. he just wanted to be there, in plain sight, like some kind of silent reminder that this was still his apartment too. beomgyu walked out looking way too comfortable, way too casual for jake’s taste. he greeted jake like they were the best of friends, clapping him lightly on the shoulder. and sure, they weren’t strangers. they’d hung out a couple times, he was funny, easy to get along with. but right now jake didn’t care. he forced a smile, threw out a polite “hey man,” but his jaw was tight, and he knew his expression wasn’t fooling anyone.

you followed close behind, hair a little messy, eyes bright, clearly in a good mood. when beomgyu said goodbye, he leaned down and hugged you, pressing a quick kiss to the top of your head. “later, we’ll finish severance,” he said casually, like it was already an established ritual.

that one line stuck to jake’s ribs more than he wanted it to. severance. he didn’t even know you were watching that. now apparently you were watching it with beomgyu. his brain started filing through everything he knew about you, like he was trying to build some complete picture and somehow come out on top of it. he knew you had those hello kitty mugs in the kitchen, the kuromi dish towel, the snoopy blanket folded on your bed. so he knew you liked hello kitty and snoopy. he’d seen you drink coffee so watered down he almost called it tea. he’d heard you listening to old one direction songs, he knew you wore vanilla perfume, he knew you were friends with sakura and that once you’d worked on some project with jungwon, and that is how you got to know him. he knew all that. and now he had to add this new thing to the list, you were watching severance with beomgyu. and he didn’t know what you and beomgyu had, or if he even wanted to know. but it gnawed at him anyway, the idea that beomgyu had a piece of you he didn’t.

when beomgyu left, he said “see you, bro,” and jake nodded with the fakest polite smile, jaw tight. he wasn’t mad at beomgyu specifically, not really. but he was mad. he didn’t even know at what. maybe himself. maybe the fact that he didn’t know what the hell was going on in the room next to his.

when the door shut, you came back into the living room, and jake turned his head, voice low and even, like he was casually making conversation. “you were smoking?”

you froze for a second and then shrugged, reaching for something in the kitchen. “yeah. sorry if the smell bothered you.”

“didn’t bother me,” he said quickly. “i smoke all the time and you’ve never said anything.”

you looked back at him, eyebrows raised. “as long as you’re not smoking weed that stinks up the whole apartment, i don’t care.” you laughed a little, and jake felt the sound sit differently in his chest, lighter than before, like the tension had finally shifted. so he just tried to shoot his shot, because you were apparently in a good mood. and he hated that this probably had something to do with freaking beomgyu.

you busied yourself in the kitchen, pulling things out for a late snack, and jake found himself staring, debating if he should shut up or just ask. he leaned back, pretending casual. “so… you and beomgyu, then? i wouldn’t have guessed.”

the second the words left him, you burst out laughing. not a small laugh either, but a full, loud one that echoed through the place. you turned around, hand still holding whatever you’d grabbed from the fridge, and shook your head at him. “jake. beomgyu is my cousin!”

his brain short-circuited. he sat there, stone-faced, but inside he wanted to hit his head against the wall. hours. he’d spent hours stewing, imagining you making out with someone in the room next to his. all that, just for you to be hanging out with family. “oh,” he said finally, trying to keep it cool, but his voice cracked slightly at the end. he cleared his throat. “i—”

you were still laughing, wiping under your eye like you might tear up from how hard it hit you. “you thought—oh my god, you thought we were…?”

“i didn’t think anything,” he cut in, sharp, defensive. “just asked. chill.”

you grinned at him, knowing you’d hit a nerve. “yeah, sure. you didn’t think anything.”

jake pressed his tongue to the inside of his cheek, eyes flicking back to the tv, but all he could hear was your laugh ringing in the kitchen and the absolute humiliation settling in his stomach. maybe he was losing it. maybe he was reading way too much into things. maybe he just really, really hated not knowing anything about you so he was starting to make things up. so later that night he ended up doing the worst possible thing, which was talking to sunghoon and heeseung about it. and those two should not be trusted with advice, ever. they were sitting around in heeseung’s living room, controllers in hand, when jake let it slip, just needing to get it off his chest. “dude, if you wanna know more about her, it’s not that deep,” sunghoon said, not even looking up from the screen. “just… ask. or, i don’t know, pay attention.”

“yeah,” heeseung added, stretching. “you follow her on instagram, right? that’s step one.”

jake shook his head. “i don’t follow her.”

both of them turned to look at him like he’d confessed to a crime. “but you’ve stalked her, obviously,” sunghoon said.

“yeah,” jake admitted immediately. “of course i did. but she doesn’t have anything posted. she’s super low profile. it’s useless.”

they nodded like this was the biggest tragedy they’d ever heard, and then heeseung leaned in, annoyingly calm. “the only reason you’re going crazy about this is because you don’t know if she’s single.”

“that’s not it,” jake snapped back a little too quickly, a little too defensive. but it was kind of it. not all of it, but a piece. the truth was he’d been catching himself noticing you in ways he didn’t want to admit. at first it was just the obvious things, like your face, the way your hair always looked like you didn’t think about it too hard but it still landed perfectly. then it was smaller things, like the way you tilt your head when you’re listening to someone, or how your hands move when you’re talking, like your words can’t quite keep up. he didn’t want to be one of those guys who sits there cataloging every detail, but he couldn’t help it. he’d catch himself watching the way you crossed your legs, or the way you leaned forward when you laughed, and then immediately look away like he hadn’t been staring. it wasn’t even about being smooth or making a move, it was just the fact that you were magnetic in this casual, almost annoying way. and he hated that he noticed all of it, hated that every time you walked out of a room he was replaying little flashes of how you looked without meaning to.

so yeah, he wanted to know if you were single. he didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, but it just stuck in his head after the whole beomgyu thing. so later that week, he brought it up to jungwon in the most casual way he could manage, like it was just some random passing thought. he mentioned the whole situation, how he thought beomgyu was something else and how embarrassing it was to find out he wasn’t. jungwon listened, eyebrows slightly raised, and then cut straight to the point. “so you want to know if she’s single?”

jake nearly choked. “no, no, i mean, not really. i was just curious because i thought beomgyu was, you know, something. but i was wrong, so…” he trailed off, trying to look unbothered.

jungwon, who was sharper than he ever let on, tilted his head. “look, i don’t know either. she’s pretty closed off. but i don’t think so. never saw her with anyone.” so that was useless. jake got nothing out of it, except more confusion. but then he remembered something heeseung had said the night before, in one of those stupid conversations they always had. heeseung had said, if you want to know how a girl feels about you, just see how she reacts to your body. which was ridiculous advice, borderline dumb, and jake wasn’t going to actually be weird about it. but the thought stuck in his head anyway.

so on friday, he decided to test it. he walked out of the bathroom with only a towel around his hips, though he had underwear on underneath just in case of a worst case scenario. he slowed his pace on purpose, trying to look normal but also making sure he was giving enough time for it to register. you were on the couch, legs curled under you, your kindle in hand. you looked up the second he stepped out, and your eyes went wide. “what the fuck.”

he froze mid-step, doing his best to look surprised. “oh my god, sorry, i thought you weren’t home.”

you stared at him, unimpressed. “you literally saw me when you went into the bathroom.”

he pressed his lips together, pretending to think. “oh, did i? must’ve forgot.” he said it with that smug little edge to his voice, and then walked off to his room like nothing happened. but he noticed the way your cheeks went a little red. you didn’t choke on air or drop your kindle obviously, but it was a reaction, just this tiny shift, like your body betrayed you for a second. he saw your eyes flicker over his torso quickly before darting straight back down to your kindle, like you hadn’t seen a thing at all. like you weren’t even aware you’d done it. and jake, being jake, stood there for half a second longer than he should’ve, towel secured, trying not to smirk too obviously. because yeah, maybe heeseung’s advice was dumb. actually, no — heeseung’s advice was dumb. but for the first time, jake thought it might not have been completely useless. 

so after that day, he started testing it, but nothing obvious, nothing that would make you call him out. he’d come back from the gym and not bother putting on a hoodie, just a loose tank that clung a little too much, shoulders still damp. he didn’t say anything, didn’t try to flex, just walked past you while you were on the couch and pretended not to notice when your eyes flicked up and then back down to your kindle or your phone. and he pretended even harder not to notice the way your ears went pink. sometimes he’d just hang around shirtless longer than necessary, instead of immediately throwing on a t-shirt. and maybe you didn’t say a word, maybe you didn’t even move, but he always caught the tiniest shifts, like the way you swallowed before answering him, the way you suddenly focused harder on whatever was in front of you.

one afternoon you were in the kitchen, standing at the counter making something to eat. he came up behind you to grab something from the cabinet, leaning just close enough to tower over your shoulder. you didn’t turn around, you didn’t step aside, but he noticed the way your shoulders tensed when his arm brushed past. he reached up, pulled down the box he needed, and that’s when he saw the tag sticking out from the back of your shirt. “your tag’s out,” he muttered, and before you could react he just pushed it back in with two fingers. but he felt the way goosebumps rose on your neck, the way your body stilled like you weren’t sure what to do with that touch. he didn’t say anything else, neither did you. he just stood there for a beat longer, holding the box, trying to act normal. but inside, he was wired. because you never said anything out loud, never gave him words to work with, but your body did. and he felt it, he felt it every single time.

and jake was convincing himself he was only doing it because you didn’t react badly. if the first time he’d tried something like that you had rolled your eyes, made a sharp comment, or told him to knock it off, he would’ve laughed it away and never tried again. that’s how it always went with you; if he pushed, you pushed back harder. you had a quick tongue and zero patience for his nonsense, and he’d seen you cut other people down in a heartbeat when they stepped out of line (him included). but with this, you let it happen. and that made him think, it was throwing him off because it didn’t fit the version of you he knew. you were sarcastic about everything, and if you weren’t shutting him down, then maybe he wasn’t crossing a line.

but then, over the next few weeks, he began to notice that it wasn’t just him anymore. or at least that’s what it felt like. little things turned into bigger ones, impossible to write off as accidents. like you’d bend down to grab something off the floor right in front of him, slow enough that his eyes didn’t have anywhere else to go. jake would clench his jaw, forcing himself to look away, but not before heat rushed straight to his ears (and pants). you’d sit on the arm of the couch instead of the empty cushion, your knee brushing his shoulder, your perfume sinking into his hoodie. one night you padded into the kitchen in just a tank top, stretching on your toes to reach the top shelf. jake had to press his palms against the counter behind him, knuckles whitening, because you didn’t ask for help, no, you just let him watch, every line of your body outlined under the dim light.

and jake thought maybe nothing was going on. maybe it was all in his head, even though it didn’t look like coincidence anymore. the way you brushed against him, the way your eyes lingered for just a second too long. it felt like you were teasing him back, in your own quiet, calculated way. and that awareness — knowing full well how fucked he was — made everything worse. because you see, you didn’t let people in. you kept yourself locked tight, doors closed, curtains drawn. he knew barely anything about you outside these four walls. you never volunteered details about your life, never invited him to tag along, never acted like you wanted to be friends. you weren’t close, not in the normal sense. you were just roommates, nothing else. but still… something was shifting. 

he remembered the first time he tested the waters when you walked past him in the hall and your perfume lingered long after you’d gone. he’d said it out loud, without thinking, a bold comment about how good you smelled. you froze, and you didn’t even say a proper thank you, you just mumbled something about liking vanilla, your voice a little too quick, a little too uneven. and then you disappeared into your room, shutting the door like nothing happened. but jake stood there for ten minutes after, heart hammering, because that reaction told him everything. 

and then came the touch. he’d been struggling with this stupid package, a cardboard box of instant ramen, taped shut like fort knox. he was grunting under his breath, fighting with the seal, when you stepped in. annoyed, you muttered something about him doing it wrong, and before he could argue, your hands were on him. your fingers wrapped around his wrists, guiding his movements until the box tore open with ease. you sighed, and for a moment, all he could focus on was how close you were. the heat of your body pressed into his arm, the faint brush of your hair against his jaw when you leaned in. and then you looked up at him. eyes wide, impossibly soft, lashes catching the kitchen light. there was that tiny smirk ghosting over your lips, playful, smug, like you knew exactly what you’d just done to him. “there you go,” you murmured, almost teasing, before slipping away, leaving him standing there with his pulse thundering in his ears.

after that, he couldn’t stop thinking. he went over it again and again, trying to decide if it meant anything or if he was just imagining things. he told himself it was probably nothing. just you being impatient. just him reading into it too much.

but the confirmation came later. he came home one night, the door clicked shut behind him. his shoes made a sharp sound against the floor as he walked inside. the apartment was still. no tv, no music, no movement. then he stopped, because there was a sound. faint and muffled. it came from the end of the hallway, where your door was closed. he stood still, listening. it came again. a short, broken sound. a soft whimper.

jake first thought he was imagining things. but when you did it again, he froze. this time he thought maybe you were hurt, maybe something was wrong. but the one after came too soft, too broken, too close to pleasure for him to mistake it. he checked the shoes at the door. only his and yours. no one else in the apartment. and there was no way you hadn’t heard him come in. jake knew how loud the door was. you always heard it, you always knew. and still, you were moaning in your room. that pushed it somewhere else entirely. if it was teasing, it was nothing like before. 

so he stomped back to his bedroom, jaw tight, every step heavier than the last. he felt like a freak for listening, for even standing there. his head kept repeating this is wrong, this is way past what i thought it was. but his body didn’t match, his pants told the truth. they were tight, uncomfortable. jake was hard. and that was the part that made him feel even worse. it wasn’t just that he’d overheard you; it was that the sound had hit him so fast he hadn’t even had time to deny it. it was automatic. one second he was frozen in the hallway, ears straining, the next his cock was pressing against the front of his jeans like his body had made the decision for him.

he sat on the edge of his bed, hands on his knees, trying to steady his breathing. what the fuck is wrong with me. she’s in there. she knows i’m home. she knows. the thought circled, sharp, louder than the blood rushing in his ears. he pressed his palm over the front of his pants like maybe the pressure would calm it down, but it only made him notice how hard he really was. he wanted to block it out, pretend he hadn’t heard anything. he wanted to tell himself you were just on the phone, or crying, or anything else that would make sense. but the sound was burned into his head already. too clear, too close. there was no mistaking it. and that was what fucked him up the most, that his body had answered to you before his brain could even think.

he leaned forward, elbows digging into his thighs, palms pressed together so tight his knuckles turned white. he squeezed his eyes shut, like maybe if he just forced himself still, forced himself quiet, it would go away. the hardness, the heat, the ache curling low in his stomach. don’t. don’t be that guy. don’t even think about it. but he was already thinking about it. not even a picture, not even a scene, just the sound of you. broken and soft, leaking under your door, and now stuck in his head like it belonged to him. his cock pulsed against his zipper at the memory, like it knew exactly what it wanted. he unbuttoned his jeans, just to breathe. just to make the pressure stop, at least, that was what he told himself. but the second the fabric loosened, the relief hit so hard he nearly groaned. his cock pressed against the thin cotton of his boxers, straining, and his hand hovered there like a magnet.

his breath caught when another sound drifted from your room, faint, muffled, but loud enough, enough to knock the last bit of reason out of him. he doubled over, biting back a curse, his hand slipping under the waistband before he could even think about stopping. the heat of his own skin made him shudder. just the first brush of his palm had his hips jerking up, desperate, like he’d been holding back for hours and not minutes. his head dropped as his fist closed around himself, slow, testing. fuck, this is wrong, so fucking wrong, he thought. but his body didn’t care. it only cared about the sound of you in his head, replaying again and again, and the slick drag of his hand working him through it. his thighs tensed, breath coming out rough and uneven. every time he told himself stop, stop, stop, his wrist only moved faster, harder, chasing after the relief he knew was coming, the one he couldn’t hold back now even if he tried. his hand sped up, and he couldn’t keep quiet anymore, with small, choked sounds slipping from his throat, swallowed quickly into the dark of his room. his other hand gripped the edge of the mattress so tight his knuckles hurt, grounding himself against the pull in his body.

your sounds were all over him now. they weren’t even real anymore, not in this moment, just echoes, broken pieces his brain kept inventing, filling the silence with the way he thought you’d sound. higher, sweeter, sharper. he couldn’t shake it. he didn’t want to. “fuck…” he whispered, teeth sinking into his lip. his hips started lifting off the bed, chasing the glide of his fist, faster now, desperate. every stroke made his cock twitch, leaking into his palm, slicking his movements until he couldn’t stop even if he wanted to. his abs tightened, legs spread wider, the knot low in his stomach pulling so tight it hurt. his mind screamed wrong, wrong, wrong but his body begged more. he let his head fall back, throat bared, jaw clenched as his pace turned frantic. he was so close it scared him, his whole body straining, toes curling against the floor, veins standing out along his arm. then a low, guttural sound ripped out of him as he came, hot and messy over his hand, spilling across his stomach in heavy spurts. his body jolted with each pulse, hips jerking up uncontrollably until he had nothing left.

he collapsed back against the bed, chest rising and falling, his hand still sticky and trembling where it rested over himself. for a long moment, he just stared at the ceiling, shame burning behind his eyes, sweat cooling on his skin. what the fuck did i just do. and he spent a solid ten minutes just lying there on his bed, trying to convince himself that it made sense. he told himself he was just hard because he hadn’t had sex in a whole month, that was it, nothing more. it was perfectly normal. of course, he conveniently ignored the fact that the reason he hadn’t had sex for a month was entirely because of you, but no, that part didn’t factor in. he told himself he would only realize that connection in a few months, when he could actually think clearly.

the problem now was practical. he needed to get cleaned up. he needed to go to the bathroom. the thought of leaving his room in this state, cock still leaking, cum smeared across his stomach, was unbearable. the hallway was a risk, what if he ran into you? that was not happening. there was no way he could explain this, and he wasn’t ready to see your face right now. so he grabbed an old, stained shirt, the only thing he could find, and used it to wipe himself off the best he could. it was messy and gross, and he hated every second of it, but it was the only option until it was safe to move. he stayed in his room, waiting until it was late enough that he could assume you were either asleep or completely out of the house. only then did he finally step into the bathroom for a long, careful shower, making sure to clean every part of himself.

all the while, he kept thinking about what had just happened. he knew it was nasty, he knew it was a mess, but he also couldn’t shake the fact that you probably knew he had been there, probably knew he had heard everything, and that knowledge somehow made the situation even more intense. the idea that you had been aware, that you might have noticed, hung in his head, refusing to let him relax. he wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened, wanted to convince himself that it was just a random, unfortunate incident, but the truth was stuck there, and now everything about being in the apartment, the quiet, the sounds, even the thought of you, carried a weight he wasn’t ready to deal with.

and in the next morning, jake didn’t expect to see you up this early. when he stepped out of his room, the smell of coffee hit him first, sharp and warm, filling the hallway and pulling him toward the kitchen. there you were, standing by the counter, wearing those stupid short pajama shorts. his blood rushed instantly, and he felt the familiar tension in his pants. he tried to take a deep breath, trying to remind himself to get a grip, telling himself you were doing absolutely nothing, that this was normal, mundane, everyday morning stuff. but the truth was, you had never worn that in front of him before, and the coincidence of it being now, after everything last night, made it impossible to ignore.

he watched you stretch, reaching for a cabinet, the shorts riding up slightly, the way your hair fell around your shoulders as you moved. his mind betrayed him immediately, going places it shouldn’t have. he pictured what you’d do if he bent you over the counter, if you’d make the prettiest sounds, whether you liked being praised or degraded more, if you— what? he had to force himself to stop before getting hard again, before thinking any further, because it was already too much and he couldn’t let it go any further in his head. the thoughts hit him so fast that he had to take a step back and shake his head, trying to stop himself before it got worse. he let out a quiet, frustrated sigh, and that’s when you noticed him. your eyes went wide, and you mumbled, almost under your breath, “oh my god… you scared me.”

“sorry,” he said quickly, voice a little rough, trying to sound casual. “good morning. uh… need to go to the bathroom.” without waiting for a response, he turned and stomped off, moving down the hall as if he owned none of the tension in his body, leaving you standing there in the kitchen with no clue what had just happened in his head.

he could still feel the heat from seeing you like that, the pressure in his pants not going away, the way his brain refused to let it drop. every step toward the bathroom was a fight against his own thoughts, and he kept telling himself over and over: it’s just coincidence. nothing happened. nothing’s happening. but deep down, he knew that wasn’t entirely true.

“bro, i don’t think i wanted to know that,” heeseung said flatly when he and jake met up after class later that week. they’d been walking out together, just talking about random shit, and jake had dropped everything on him like it was nothing. “i don’t fucking care about when you jack off or why you did it,” heeseung added, shaking his head, “but just leave me out of it, man.”

“i need to get this out of my chest, and it’s your fault it happened in the first place,” jake said, frustrated.

“my fault???” heeseung looked at him like he’d just grown a second head. “how the hell is this my fault?”

“you said that i needed to see how she reacted to my body,” jake shot back, way too fast. “so i tested it out, and she started teasing me back.”

heeseung stopped in his tracks and let out a laugh that was half disbelief, half amusement. “i can’t believe i was the butterfly effect to this.” they started walking again, but heeseung kept looking at him like he was ridiculous. “ok, look. if she’s doing it on purpose, if she’s teasing you back, then you have something to begin with. that’s not nothing. she’s not single, right?”

“yeah,” jake sighed, “i think that’s obvious. i would’ve known by now if she wasn’t.”

“so why don’t you just shoot your shot then?” heeseung asked simply, like it was the easiest thing in the world.

jake didn’t answer right away. he shoved his hands in his pockets, stared at the ground while they walked. he wanted to say something like, “yeah, maybe i should,” or laugh it off, but the words didn’t come. the truth was, he knew exactly why he wasn’t doing anything about it. he wasn’t stupid, he could tell there was tension there, maybe even mutual. but acting on it was a whole other thing. it wasn’t just about making a move, it was about what came after, and that thought scared the shit out of him.

yeah, he wanted you. he couldn’t stop thinking about you. every little thing you did stuck in his head way longer than it should. but then he imagined putting it all out there and being wrong, or worse, being right and not knowing what to do next. it was easier to keep it in his head, easier to let it build up until he was alone. heeseung’s words replayed in his mind even after they split ways. shoot your shot. it sounded simple. to jake, it wasn’t. he wasn’t sure if it was fear of rejection, or fear of what it would mean if you said yes. maybe both. either way, the answer was the same: he was too much of a pussy to do it.

so that week jake decided to do the most mature thing to do: hide. in his mind, the only way to deal with this was to make himself disappear. if he didn’t see you, he wouldn’t have to think about what had happened, and if he didn’t think about it, he wouldn’t have to deal with the way his body reacted every single time you walked into the room. so he avoided you. he knew the time you usually left the apartment in the morning, so suddenly he was waking up earlier just so he could sneak out before you. he knew you usually came back in the afternoon carrying way too many grocery bags for one person, so he started timing his trips to the gym right around then, making sure he wasn’t there when you struggled with the door. if you were in the kitchen, he was in his room. if you were in the living room, he was suddenly showering for the second time that day.

it wasn’t subtle, heeseung probably would’ve told him he was being obvious if he had seen it himself, but jake didn’t care. he didn’t trust himself enough to be around you casually. the worst part was that he couldn’t even look you in the eyes anymore. because if he did, there was this very real chance he’d remember how easy it was for his mind to run away with him, how easy it was to cross that line in his head. and yeah, maybe it sounded dramatic, but the truth was, jake was exhausted. he couldn’t deal with walking around half hard just because you existed near him. the hiding, in his mind, was damage control. it wasn’t him being a coward, it was him protecting himself. at least that’s what he kept telling himself when he ducked out of the apartment five minutes before you got home.

well, that was what he was trying to do before he got a random text from you.

[you]: hey

[you]: is everything alright?

jake immediately froze. you never reached out first, at least, not like this. usually it was him asking if you wanted takeout, or if you’d seen his charger, or if you could please stop leaving your shoes in the hallway before he tripped over them again. but you? starting the conversation? something was definitely off.

[jake]: yeah, why?

[you]: you left the apartment 5 times today already

[you]: do you need anything?

yeah, jake thought. i need you to stop being so fucking desirable all the time so i can concentrate on being a functional human being. but that wasn’t something he could say. and now, on top of everything else, there was the fact that you’d clearly noticed him doing laps in and out of the apartment like a maniac. the whole point of this plan was for you not to notice. so he figured the only way out was the classic jake strategy: an excuse.

[jake]: yeah heeseung went through a breakup so im just making sure he is not miserable so ill just go there everytime he texts smth depressing

the excuse rolled out faster than he could think it through. he just needed something that sounded believable enough. heeseung was safe territory, always the guy to blame when jake needed a reason for anything. if you asked questions, he could throw in a few vague details about ronnie, that girl heeseung’d mentioned ages ago. technically, it wasn’t even a total lie. ronnie had existed. jake could stretch the truth from there if he had to. but you didn’t ask. you just read the message, sat with it for a moment, and then typed back:

[you]: thats a bummer

nothing else. no digging, no casual oh, what happened? just those three words that landed in his chest heavier than they should have. and he felt this weird mixture of relief and panic. relief because you hadn’t pressed him on it, and panic because you’d noticed him enough to text in the first place. he had to admit that part of him almost wanted you to push. almost wanted you to call him out, make him explain himself, force him to say out loud the things he’d been dodging. but you didn’t, and maybe that was worse.

so later that week, niki had dragged jake into saying yes to another party. the way niki put it was, “you either come with me or you keep sulking around your room like a creep,” and honestly, jake couldn’t even argue. he was tired of hearing his own thoughts, tired of looping back to the same memory over and over again. so yeah, fine, a party at yeonjun’s house sounded better than being left alone with his brain. at least there’d be music and people he barely knew to keep him distracted.

and yeonjun’s parties weren’t your typical college movie kind of parties. they always looked like they weren’t supposed to be fun, but somehow were. it was messy but it had its charm, and jake, for the first time in a while, actually felt his shoulders loosen up. he started doing what he usually did at these things, standing with niki, making dumb comments about everyone around them, drinking just enough to not think too hard. and it worked. for a good while, it worked. the noise and the conversations around him felt like a cushion, keeping his thoughts away from you. it wasn’t until he caught a glimpse across the room that it all fell apart.

you were there. of course you were. you stood in the corner, not even trying, and still managing to make everyone else look like background characters. you were wearing this dress that was simple but unfairly perfect, paired with over-the-knee boots that jake knew he shouldn’t be noticing but he did anyway. your hair was pulled back into a ponytail, leaving your neck bare in a way that made him immediately uncomfortable with how much he was staring. and then there was some guy, leaning too close to you, talking about something jake couldn’t hear but didn’t need to. the sight of it landed in his chest harder than he expected. it wasn’t jealousy, or maybe it was, he couldn’t tell. it was more like a sharp reminder of why he’d been avoiding you in the first place. because if just looking at you from across the room was enough to make his chest tighten and his hands curl into fists, then he was in more trouble than he wanted to admit.

so he stood there, trying not to react, pretending to listen to whatever story niki was telling beside him. but his eyes kept dragging back to you, to the way you laughed at something the guy said, to how your body angled slightly toward him. and jake realized, in that exact moment, that no party was ever going to be enough to keep his mind off you. what should he do? it’s not like he had the kind of intimacy to just walk up and say something, so he just stared, completely giving himself away. heeseung noticed, of course he did, and followed jake’s eyes until he landed on you. he laughed, shaking his head. “she’s here?!” heeseung asked. 

“i thought i was imagining it,” jake said, almost under his breath. “but yeah, apparently she’s here.”

he kept telling himself to look away, to stop being obvious, but he didn’t. he was stuck there, stuck on the way your hand brushed the guy’s arm when you laughed, stuck on how unfair it was that someone else got to stand in front of you while he sat there pretending not to fall apart. and then you looked over, right at him. your smile dropped just a little, your eyes widened, and it was clear in your face that you weren’t expecting to catch him staring.

so the guy in front of you was still talking, and honestly he might as well have been reading a grocery list because you weren’t paying attention anymore. you nodded at whatever he was saying, but your eyes weren’t on him, they were on jake. and that was enough to make jake’s stomach flip because what the fuck were you doing here? he’d never seen you at one of these parties before, not once. and he would’ve noticed, of course he would’ve noticed. he kept staring, which he knew was weird, but it was either that or look away and pretend you weren’t there, and clearly he didn’t have the strength for that. you were looking right at him, and suddenly the room felt smaller. after a few beats of mutual staring, you let out a small polite smile, muttered something to the guy in front of you, and then walked straight toward him, and jake’s brain short-circuited. don’t freak out, don’t freak out, don’t freak out, he kept repeating to himself, but his body wasn’t listening because all he could do was stand there like an idiot, face blank, while you got closer.

“hey,” you said, a little breathless, like you’d rushed it out before you could change your mind.

“hey,” jake replied, and his voice cracked just a little, which killed him instantly inside.

“i didn’t know you were coming,” you said.

“i didn’t know you were coming,” jake said back, immediately regretting just copying you word for word, but it was too late. you squinted at him for a second, like you were deciding whether to call him out on it, but instead he just said first, “i don’t think i’ve ever seen you at parties before.”

“maybe you weren’t noticing before,” you shot back quickly, and jake felt that one in his chest. he wanted to respond but his brain was buffering, so the silence hung there until you turned to heeseung, who was standing right next to him. “heeseung, are you feeling better?” you asked softly, touching his shoulder with that concerned look on your face.

the problem was, heeseung had no idea what you were talking about. he blinked at you, confused. jake had completely forgotten he’d told you that heeseung was going through a breakup. he hadn’t exactly mentioned to heeseung that he said that. so now jake was trying to silently signal him, making weird eye contact and tiny nods, but that only made heeseung look more panicked. “uh… yeah, yeah, thank you for asking,” heeseung said finally, with a forced smile that looked more like he had no clue what was going on than confirming he was okay.

you nodded, satisfied with the answer, and jake was standing there next to him, internally screaming. so jake said it without thinking, “i didn’t see you leaving,” and as soon as the words left his mouth he already wanted to take them back. 

you didn’t even blink though, you just said, “i went to yunjin’s to get ready,” and he nodded like an idiot, and then of course, right on cue, niki and heeseung decided to wander off and leave the two of you there, which only made everything worse. jake felt the silence press down between you, and it wasn’t like he could suddenly think of something casual and clever to fill it with. he couldn’t, his brain was blank.

it was awkward, no way around it. he kept reminding himself you were his roommate, that was literally all this was supposed to be. you two shared an apartment, you ate the same snacks sometimes, you argued about whose turn it was to take out the trash. that’s what it was. normal. except, yeah, there was the tiny detail where he had jacked off to the sound of you moaning in your room and then couldn’t look you in the eye for two days straight. that was the part he left out of the roommate definition.

you reached over suddenly, grabbed the beer out of his hand, and took a sip. jake just stood there frozen, staring, trying not to think about your lips on the bottle, trying not to think about your throat moving when you swallowed. and when you looked up at him with those wide, innocent eyes, like you hadn’t just completely wrecked his self control in two seconds flat, he actually felt his body betray him. his brain started spiraling in every direction. if he let this go, if he just stood there, he’d be fine. he could laugh it off, make some comment about how you owed him a new drink, let the moment pass. but if he kept staring at your mouth like that, if he noticed the way you leaned your hip against the counter next to him, he was done for. his self restraint was already stretched thin, one more move from you and it was game over.

so he forced himself to say something, anything, even though it came out a little too fast. “you know you can’t just steal my drink like that, right?” he tried to sound casual, but you tilted the beer back into your mouth and handed it back to him like it was yours now, not his, and jake just stood there holding the wet rim of the bottle, looking at the way your lip gloss was now on the glass. and then you moved closer, enough that he felt your shoulder brushing his arm every now and then, and he swore you were doing it on purpose. you were smiling at something across the room, acting so casual, and he kept thinking maybe he was imagining it. but then you looked up at him with that expression, and your lips were parted like you were about to say something stupid, except you didn’t. you just held his gaze long enough that jake started to feel the heat crawling up his neck. he finally leaned in a little and said under his breath, “are you drunk?” it came out a little harsher than he meant, like he was scolding you, but he couldn’t help it.

“no,” you said, almost laughing at the question. “that was literally my first sip of alcohol tonight. from your bottle.” you looked smug about it too, like you knew exactly what kind of effect you were having on him.

jake blinked at you, trying to find something to do with his hands. he ended up holding the bottle a little too tight, staring at the floor, then at you again. “then what are you doing?” he asked, quieter now, like he was testing the waters.

“talking,” you said easily, like it was the most normal thing in the world, and you gave him this small grin that wasn’t helping. you nudged his shoulder with yours again, deliberately this time, and he knew it. he felt his patience thinning, like he was standing at the edge of something dangerous.

and then it slipped out before he could stop himself. “who was that guy?” his tone was sharper than he intended, but he couldn’t stand it anymore. he hated the way he had watched you smile politely at some random dude five minutes ago.

you tilted your head at him, clearly amused at the question. “what guy?” you asked, even though you knew exactly who he was talking about.

“the one you were with when i saw you,” he muttered, eyes narrowing slightly as he tried not to look too obvious. 

you let out a soft laugh, not mean, just entertained, like you couldn’t believe he was actually asking. “oh. him. he’s no one,” you said simply, and the way you brushed it off so casually should’ve been reassuring, but it didn’t make him feel any better. and you didn’t give him the chance to respond either. instead, you leaned in just a little closer again, your voice dropping lower. “why? are you jealous?”

jake almost choked on air. he wasn’t prepared for you to throw that at him so directly. his jaw tightened as he tried to think of something to say that wasn’t a dead giveaway. he looked away, shook his head slightly, and managed a quiet, “no.” but the problem was that his ears were red, his hand was still too tight around the bottle, and he couldn’t look you in the eye anymore. and you definitely noticed, you always did. “just looked like you were… into the conversation.”

“you were staring at me,” you countered, not even hesitating.

“and what if i was?” he asked, testing the words out like they might bite back. that made you pause, which was rare, and jake noticed. it pressed on his chest in a way that didn’t feel casual at all. he could’ve laughed, shrugged, deflected like he always did, but instead he leaned in. not a lot, just enough for you to notice, and you did. 

you just looked at him, and you were close enough now that he caught the mix of your perfume and the faint smell of your shampoo. “then maybe i didn’t mind,” you said, quiet but steady.

jake’s jaw worked, and he had to glance away for half a second, his thumb tapping at the neck of the bottle. you leaned in too, closing that small gap. he turned back, met your eyes again, and his voice came out low, steady. “you shouldn’t tease me if you’re not serious.”

your head tilted a little, and you didn’t look away. “who said i’m not serious?”

that one hit him harder than he wanted to admit. he froze, his thoughts tangling up, but the silence between you wasn’t awkward this time. it was heavier, charged, and you didn’t back down. you stayed right there, waiting, like you wanted to see what he’d do. his grip on the bottle tightened and he finally said, “you know what you’re doing right now?”

“do i?” you asked, pretending you didn’t, but your tone gave you away.

and jake just stared at you for a moment too long, his chest tight, heat crawling under his skin. he couldn’t decide if you were messing with him or if this was actually happening, but either way, his restraint was hanging by a thread. jake finally swallowed, the tension in his chest making it hard to breathe normally. he shifted his weight, stepping just a fraction closer without realizing it. “i’ve been… i don’t know, noticing things,” he said, voice low, careful. “things you do. stuff that makes me… i don’t know.”

you raised a brow, tilting your head like you were trying to read him, he clenched his fist around the bottle, but it did nothing to calm the heat in his body. “like what?” you said, voice low.

he exhaled sharply. “like… how you look at me sometimes.” he paused, searching your face, seeing no judgment, no obvious teasing. “and honestly, i think you’ve been… i don’t know… teasing me. on purpose.”

you didn’t flinch, you just leaned slightly, so close now that he could feel your presence, the faint warmth radiating from you. “oh really?” you murmured, voice calm, but there was a sharp edge to it, a challenge. “and what makes you think that?”

jake had to stop himself from stepping even closer, from crossing the invisible line that both of you were dancing around. “it’s not subtle, you know?” he said, low. “you know exactly what you’re doing.”

“do you think so?” you whispered, almost a challenge.

he blinked, heart thumping, trying to keep it together. and then he took the plunge, voice rougher than he wanted, trying to gather the courage to ask about the thing he had in his head for weeks now. “the other day… i heard you. you were—” he paused to think, and then continued. “moaning. you knew i was home, didn’t you?”

you held his gaze, calm, unflinching. “yeah,” you said softly. 

“so you did it on purpose?” he asked, the words out before he could stop himself. the heat in his chest was thick now, almost painful.

you smirked just a little, teasing but controlled. “did it work?”

“yeah. it worked,” he admitted, voice low. “and it’s not just that. it’s driving me insane.”

you leaned a little closer. “is that supposed to be a warning or a compliment?”

he swallowed, voice tightening. “both,” he said, letting the words hang between you. “i can’t stop thinking about what i’d do if i could do something about it.”

your eyes darkened slightly, unafraid, curious. “and what would that be?”

he stepped closer, close enough that his chest nearly brushed yours, lowering his voice until it was barely above a whisper near your ear. he could feel the tiny shivers running down your neck, the goosebumps rising under his words, and it made his pulse spike in a way he didn’t fully understand. “i’d have you pressed against the counter, hands on your waist, keeping you still… telling you exactly what you’re doing to me. i’d hear you, feel you, watch you react. i’d make you feel like this, just like you make me feel.”

your head tilted slightly, lips parting, your voice dropping low, soft, whiny even, “and would i like that?”

jake’s heart thudded, heat crawling under his skin. he had no idea where this sudden, bold courage came from, why he was standing this close, whispering things he had only imagined a hundred times before. the sound of your voice so small, so caught in the edge between curiosity and teasing, made him feel both terrified and unstoppable at the same time. he was aware of the sharp intake of your breath, the way your body subtly responded to his nearness, and it sent a jolt straight through him, making him realize just how much he wanted you in ways he’d never let himself admit out loud before. “fuck yes,” he admitted, almost hoarse. “i’d hear every little sound you make and i wouldn’t stop until you couldn’t think about anything else.”

you breathed out softly, close enough that he could feel it on his neck. “then maybe i should do it again,” you said, voice low, teasing, confident.

he felt his chest tighten, and the edge of control slipping further. “yeah,” he whispered back, stepping just a fraction closer, the air between you thick. “but you better be ready… because i’m not holding back next time.”

the two of you stood there, close, quiet but tense, words hanging, neither moving away, both testing boundaries, the space between you a trap neither wanted to leave. you stepped back finally, just enough to put some space between you, giving him a chance to breathe again, and smirked just a little. “let’s see about that then,” you said, turning and walking back toward the crowd, letting the music swallow you up. jake watched you go, every step of yours making it harder for him to think straight. he could feel the tightness in his pants, painfully aware of it, and he knew with full clarity that he wouldn’t survive the rest of the party without losing control or wanting to drag you into a quiet corner somewhere.

he sighed and looked over at heeseung, who was laughing at some dumb conversation across the room. jake waved him over, trying to keep his voice casual, even though it wasn’t. “hey… i’m gonna head out,” he said, shrugging like it was no big deal. 

heeseung raised an eyebrow, obviously confused. “this early?”

he didn’t explain further, and heeseung didn’t press. it was easier that way. jake grabbed his jacket, feeling every second of the walk through the apartment buzzing in his pants, a reminder that nothing had changed, nothing had slowed down. he left the house, the noise of the party fading behind him, and the quiet of the night hitting him immediately. he had gone to the party to stop thinking about you, to get out of his own head, and now he was heading home to do the exact same thing, except this time there’d be no music, no distractions, no crowd, just him and the chaos of his thoughts, and the lingering, infuriating memory of you.

when he got home, jake just stood in the middle of the apartment for a second, staring at nothing, trying to make sense of the mess in his head. he couldn’t figure out what was going on, couldn’t tell if he was coming or going. was this really happening? did he actually just… say all of that to you? the words he’d let slip, the way he’d leaned in, the low whisper, the way you hadn’t flinched but had leaned in just enough to let him feel. that part of his brain that usually kept him grounded was completely gone.

every time he closed his eyes he could see you again, the way you’d looked at him, that quiet, teasing confidence that made him question everything he thought he knew about boundaries. he tried to rationalize it, telling himself he was insane, that he was overreacting, that this was all just a weird, freaked out moment. but no matter what he told himself, the tightness in his pants, the heat in his chest, the way his mind kept drifting back to what he’d whispered, reminded him that rationalization wasn’t even in the room. he flopped onto the couch, arms stretched over his head, staring at the ceiling, heart still racing. part of him wanted to laugh at how completely screwed he was, part of him wanted to throw something, and the rest just wanted to crawl back into bed and pretend none of this had ever happened. except he knew, with full certainty, that pretending wasn’t an option, not after tonight.

so jake had two options at this point: fuck you, or jack off. and obviously, he went with the second option, even though every nerve in his body was screaming for the first. the problem was, he couldn’t just do that. it wasn’t like you were some random girl he’d met at a party, or someone he could just call over without consequences. you were his roommate, the person he shared a space with every day, the one he had to see in the kitchen, on the couch, in the hallway. it was complicated, messy, and borderline ridiculous if he stopped to think about it, which he wasn’t.

so he did what he always did when he was desperate and desperate was now: he went to the bathroom, closed the door, and tried to focus on the one thing he could control. he leaned against the counter, hands moving on autopilot, mind filled with everything he couldn’t have and everything he wanted from you. he imagined every detail he’d memorized over the weeks, the way you moved, the way you sounded, the way you’d leaned in tonight, letting him whisper things he hadn’t even thought he’d have the courage to say out loud.

he kept telling himself this was a temporary solution, a coping mechanism, but the truth was, it was both comforting and torturous at the same time. each movement, each imagined response from you, was a reminder of what he was actually craving and why he couldn’t have it. not yet, maybe not ever. and when he finally stepped out of the bathroom, spent and flushed, he didn’t even try to get more water or check his phone, he just crawled into bed, muscles still tense, thoughts still tangled, finally letting himself collapse completely, knowing he’d wake up with the same tangled mess of desire, confusion, and frustration waiting for him the next morning.

and it did, because when he woke up the next morning, you weren’t home. and that alone would have been enough to throw him off, but then he checked his email and saw a message from the housing office. they’d found an apartment for him to live by himself. right. he remembered now, vaguely, that when he’d moved in, they’d said he’d have to wait and live with you until they found him a spot. he had gotten so tangled up in this mess with you, so wrapped up in every look, every word, every single move, that he had completely forgotten that part.

did he want to move out? he didn’t know. he wasn’t sure about anything right now. all he knew was that he needed to get a grip, a real one, because the way he thought about you all the time wasn’t just distracting, it wasn’t even remotely sane. he felt like his brain had been hijacked, running in circles that always led back to you. even when he tried to picture anything else, any normal part of his life, it always got twisted into thoughts of you leaning over the counter, your voice low, your eyes catching his without warning. like he was living some sort of stockholm syndrome at this point. 

and the apartment being empty for the first time in weeks didn’t calm him down. it just made the absence of you even louder. he felt like he was teetering on the edge of losing control entirely, and the only thing he could do was take a deep breath and remind himself that he had to get a motherfucking grip, because otherwise, he was never going to survive another day in his own head without completely losing it over you. he wanted to text you, ask where the hell you’d been, but he knew he shouldn’t. he didn’t know what to do with the knot in his chest, didn’t want to say the wrong thing or make it worse. 

it was saturday, so he did what he did best (better than lying, better than hiding, better than making up excuses): he grabbed a joint. he didn’t even bother going to heeseung’s this time. he was just going to do the thing he always did on saturdays when you weren’t a part of his life; smoke a joint, watch some dumb tv show, and pretend his brain was a harmless ball of static for a few hours. that was the plan. just him, the couch, and the faint high that would let him stop thinking about you for a while.

and then, of course, you came back. he was mid-laugh at some ridiculous scene on tv when he heard the door open. he glanced up, half expecting it to be empty hands, bags, nothing of consequence. and then he saw you. same clothes as the night before, casual but somehow, it hit him harder than it should have. your eyes caught his the second you stepped in, and he froze, trying not to read too much into the fact that you’d obviously slept somewhere else.

you paused in the doorway for just a second, like you noticed him noticing, and for a fraction of a second, he thought about asking if you were okay, where you had been, but the words didn’t come. instead, all he could do was sit there, high and stiff in a way he didn’t want to admit, trying to pretend the joint was helping him relax while secretly his chest was tightening. the air between you was a quiet tension, and just that brief meeting of your eyes said more than either of you spoke. he couldn’t tell if it was curiosity, annoyance, or something else entirely, and part of him wanted to lean forward, ask questions, touch, do anything to break the quiet, while another part of him was just terrified of what he might do if he let that part win.

“hey,” you said, closing the door behind you. the sound made him shift slightly, awareness snapping back to the room.

“hey,” he said back, voice low, leaning back on the couch with his arms behind his head, legs spread out in a way that screamed casual but didn’t fool anyone, especially not him. he was staring at you, trying to look effortless, but every part of him was alert, tracking you. “you didn’t sleep home last night,” he added, tone flat, pretending it was nothing.

you let out a small laugh, a sound that made him tense a little despite himself. “yeah, i thought i was going back home with you, but you disappeared.” his eyes went wide. he opened his mouth to say something, probably a defensive excuse, but before he could get any words out, you added, pulling at the hem of your dress like it was too short, “don’t worry though, i slept at yunjin’s. all of my stuff was there as well, so…”

he tried not to notice your bare thighs as you adjusted the dress, but it was impossible. his brain, already foggy from the joint earlier, immediately betrayed him. focus, jake, he told himself. just focus. he hummed something that might have sounded like okay, though he doubted you heard, and tried to put the thought of how you looked out of his head.

“i’m gonna take a shower,” you said, starting toward your bedroom. the movement was casual, natural, but it made his chest tighten in a way he couldn’t control. he watched you walk away, the sound of your footsteps fading, and just sat there, legs still spread, pretending the weed made him calm while in reality he was more worked up than he’d been in days. his thoughts were messy. he replayed last night, your eyes meeting his, the way you hadn’t flinched, hadn’t pulled away. the way your voice had carried a teasing edge, subtle but enough to make him question everything about his self control. he exhaled slowly, trying to steady himself, aware that the second you stepped out of sight, every rational thought was already collapsing. he was stuck in that limbo between wanting to reach for you and knowing he shouldn’t, between craving more of the teasing he hadn’t even fully understood and trying to convince himself he was fine. 

after a while that felt like hours, you stepped out of your bedroom, hair still damp, a big t-shirt hanging over your shoulders, and the tiniest shorts barely peeking out underneath it. jake tried to slow his breathing, pretending he wasn’t looking at you, though every instinct in his body was screaming otherwise. you moved toward the kitchen to do whatever you were doing, the casual way you carried yourself making him even more aware of every inch of you. he muttered from the living room, more to fill the silence than to communicate anything real. “i got an email from the housing office today,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady.

“yeah?” you murmured back, barely glancing in his direction. “what did it say?” he asked, exhaling slowly before answering himself, like the words carried weight he wasn’t ready to face.

“they said they’ve found me a new place if i still wanted to move,” he finally said, voice quiet, almost like saying it out loud made it more real.

you walked back toward the living room, stopping a few feet from him, your eyes locking onto his. at this point, jake knew you, he knew your style of responses, knew it would probably be “ok,” or “cool,” or maybe just “let me know if you do.” that was your thing, leaving people guessing. but now, the look in your eyes was different, a little sharper, a little more present. “do you want to?” you asked, soft, but it cut through the space between you.

jake’s chest tightened. he ran a hand through his hair, trying to avoid reading too much into the moment, trying not to let himself drift the way he always did when you were near. “i don’t know… do you want me to move out?” he replied, careful.

“you can’t answer a question with another question,” you shot back, eyes not leaving his. the tension between you was tangible now.

“i don’t know, that is my answer,” he said, voice low, trying to keep casual but failing. he could feel the weight of you standing there, the subtle shift in your stance as if you were reading him, waiting for him to crack, to slip, to give away what he really wanted. and even as he said it, trying to make it sound harmless, he felt himself unravel a little, conscious of the heat creeping up, aware that he wasn’t just thinking about moving out anymore. he was thinking about you, the way you always had this effect on him, the way being near you could make him lose control while pretending he wasn’t already lost.

“i thought you did,” you moved slowly toward the couch where jake was sitting, the way you walked catching his attention immediately. his legs were still spread, casual, confident, and he was leaning back, joint in hand. when he exhaled, he set the joint aside and looked up at you, eyes locked, smirk playing on his lips like he was trying to make a joke out of something far from funny.

“yeah, you see… look what you’ve done to me,” he said, tone serious, but that smirk betrayed the chaos beneath it.

“what do you mean?” you asked, tilting your head slightly, innocent, but there was an edge to your voice that made him pause.

“you know what i mean,” he replied, voice lower now. his gaze was steady, unapologetic, like he was daring you to test him. you stayed there, barely moving, just watching him. jake’s eyes were fixed on yours, smirk fading into something heavier, more serious, like he was holding back a lot of things at once. 

and at this point, jake didn’t know that you were confused inside too. he had no idea that every time he did something small, like leaning over to grab something from the fridge, brushing past you in the kitchen, or even just looking at you too long when you were on the couch, he was setting off this whole chain reaction inside you. honestly, it freaked you out. sometimes you caught yourself staring when you didn’t mean to, or laughing at something that wasn’t funny just because he said it, and then you’d have to stop yourself, walk away, act cold, shut down a little, just to keep yourself from completely losing it. it wasn’t that you didn’t like him, it wasn’t even just that he was attractive (he was annoyingly so), it was more like your body and your brain were completely misbehaving around him. that tension had been building, quietly, for months, and it made it hard for you to just be casual, to just be normal. 

and now here he was, looking at you like this, voice serious, his eyes holding something you weren’t fully ready to confront. and part of you wanted to melt into him, wanted to say something, anything, that would admit everything, but another part of you freaked out. it was exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. it made you feel alive and ridiculous all at once. and jake had no idea that the reason you sometimes seemed distant or cold was because of this exact thing. not because you didn’t like him, not because you weren’t curious, not because you were bored or uninterested, it was because every time he was around, the tension inside you was so intense that you had to protect yourself from completely losing control. sometimes you’d lock yourself in your room just to stop your mind from spiraling, sometimes you’d act indifferent in front of him, because you couldn’t handle the way your own body reacted. it wasn’t just teasing him, it was trying to survive yourself.

and now, standing there, barely moving, just watching him, feeling the weight of him, you realized exactly how messed up and complicated everything between you had gotten. your instincts screamed at you to do something, but instead, you shut down again. you turned, walked to the kitchen, moving like you’d done a hundred times before. jake’s eyes widened the moment he saw you retreat. he couldn’t help it, he wasn’t going to let this go without pressing, without getting something out of you, anything. so he followed, until you reached the counter, your hands splayed flat against it, looking down like you were trying to disappear. he stopped just behind you, close enough that you could feel him, close enough that your spine stiffened.

“are you gonna still pretend nothing is going on at all?” he asked, voice low and calm. the words hit somewhere inside you, and you felt it immediately, shivering slightly, even though he wasn’t touching you. you didn’t move, didn’t answer, just let the tension hang for a moment. he waited, letting the pause stretch, then asked again. “or are we going to talk things through?”

you tried to speak, voice small and hesitant. “i… i don’t know what you want me to say,” you whispered, and the act of saying it made your chest tighten even more. he shifted closer, and every fraction of an inch made your body react. your muscles tensed without permission, your mind spun with what you should do, what you could say, what you weren’t allowed to admit.

“you don’t have anything to say?” he asked, a little firmer this time, not moving away, letting you feel the presence of him looming just behind. his shadow fell over you without him touching, and you could feel the heat of him, the quiet authority in the way he stood. his body was fully towering behind yours now, your breath catching when you realized just how close he was.

you exhaled, low and shaky. “i… i don’t know,” you whispered again, words barely audible, but enough that he caught them. and even in that tiny confession, there was weight.

“funny, you were pretty bold last night,” he said, leaning in even closer. you couldn’t see it, but you knew he was grinning, could feel it in the weight of him behind you. his breath brushed the back of your neck and made your skin tighten. “why are you acting so shy now?” he asked again, and even though he hadn’t touched you yet, your body reacted like he already had. you were aware of every movement he made, the closeness, the subtle press of his torso behind you.

“i’m not shy,” you whispered, your voice just audible, betraying none of the heat building inside.

“no?” he said, tone sharper now, leaning closer without really moving, letting the space between you shrink even more. “then why don’t you tell me what you want, mhm?” he asked, voice low and teasing.

his body was fully behind you now, pressing into your back in a way that made your muscles tense automatically. his presence alone was enough to make your skin react, goosebumps rising along your arms and down your spine. you arched your back slightly without thinking, just from the sound of his voice, and his body was fully behind you now, and you could feel him, hard, obvious against your ass, and it made your chest tighten. he shifted slightly, pressing more insistently, and the bulge in his pants rubbed against you in a way that made your thighs clench without thinking. a low, rough fuck escaped him, almost a growl, and it twisted your stomach, made your core tighten in response.

“see,” he murmured, his mouth near your ear now, “this is what you do to me.” his hand brushed the counter near yours, fingers curling into the edge. then he pressed a little closer,  his body pushing into yours in a way that made you shift automatically. you felt the weight, the pressure of him against your back, the bulge pressing hard against your ass. your head tilted back slightly without thinking, and a small, strained whimper slipped out before you could stop it. “mhm? are you gonna tell me what you want now?” he asked, his voice steady in your ear. the sound, the proximity, the way he was so close, made your brain scramble.

“jake…” you whispered, voice trembling a little as your restraint started to slip.

“yeah?” he replied.

“what are you gonna do?” you asked.

he chuckled softly, leaning just a fraction closer so the tip of his nose brushed your hair. “oh, y/n, you can’t answer a question with another question,” he said, smirking, repeating the exact words you’d used on him earlier. there was a pause, just a beat, as he let the weight of it settle, his body still pressing against yours, still holding back more than he wanted to.

"i want you to do something..." you confessed, your voice almost breaking, low but desperate enough that he leaned closer to hear.

"like what?" he pushed, his tone steady but he moved his hands away from the counter to your hips, the grip on your hips wasn’t steady, holding you not so gently, fingers digging in just enough to keep you against him. you could feel how hard he was, the press of his bulge against you, and before you even realized, your hips started to move, unintentional, but enough to drag against him. his breath caught, almost a groan, and then he pulled you in tighter. "come on," he said, voice rougher this time, "tell me."

"anything, jake, please," you whispered, tilting your head back until the back of your head rested on his chest. you could feel how fast his heart was beating, his breath uneven above you.

his hands moved then, sliding slowly from your hips up to your stomach, hovering lower with each inch, testing how far he could go before you stopped him. your body reacted before you could think, leaning into his touch, chasing it. "tell me," he repeated, his lips brushing so close to your ear now that you shivered, "i need you to say it."

"fuck," you muttered, unable to form more than that, your voice messy with how badly you wanted it.

he chuckled against your skin at your reaction, low and knowing. "that all you got?"

you shook your head quickly, the restraint slipping out of you in pieces. "touch me already, jake, please."

this time, he didn’t hold back the groan that left him, deep and frustrated. "fuck… yeah, okay," he breathed, nodding slightly against your temple like he was finally giving in. his hands moved lower, deliberately slow, teasing you with every drag of his fingertips against your skin. one palm spread across your stomach, keeping you pressed to him, the other inching down, tracing the edge of your waistband like he wanted you to break first.

he let his fingers linger at the hem of your shorts, brushing just beneath the waistband, making you twitch. the other hand was already under your shirt, sliding up your stomach. when his palm reached higher, his thumb skimmed over your breasts until he realized. “fuck,” he muttered under his breath, squeezing a little harder, “you’re not even wearing a bra.” his voice carried a mix of surprise and satisfaction. “you wanted this, didn’t you?” he pushed, hand cupping your breast now, thumb dragging across your nipple slowly, making you whimper. you didn’t answer right away, but your breath told on you. he chuckled softly, enjoying the way you melted back against him.

“go on, tell me,” he pressed, his mouth right by your ear, “where do you want me to touch you, princess?” the name slipped out of him almost too naturally, and it made you shiver. the word clung to your skin, had your knees weakening, and he knew it.

“you know where, jake,” you whispered, voice breaking slightly, “please.”

his free hand slid down, inside your shorts now, the edge of your underwear dragging under his knuckles as he explored lower. he hummed against your ear, satisfied with how easy you gave in to him. “so needy,” he murmured, “tell me… what were you thinking about when you touched yourself for me, mhm?” his fingers flexed lower, pressing just enough to make your breath catch. you froze, shame and arousal mixing fast. “that day,” he kept going, relentless, “when you wanted me to hear you. what did you imagine, baby?”

his question left you dizzy, your head tilting back harder into his chest, your mouth opening but no sound coming out. his hand stilled, deliberately waiting. he wanted you to say it, to give him exactly what he asked for, and you knew he wouldn’t move until you did. “jake…” you muttered, your voice wrecked, your body already giving itself away even without the words.

“yeah?” he prompted, mouth brushing your ear, “don’t go shy on me now. tell me what you thought about.”

you swallowed hard, chest heaving against his hand, every nerve in your body screaming at you to give him what he wanted. his fingers were right there, waiting, unmoving, teasing you with the weight of his patience. “i was…” your voice cracked, almost a whimper, and he squeezed your breast harder, forcing you to spit it out. “i was imagining you touching me. like this.”

he hummed low in his throat, a cruel little sound that vibrated against your ear. “yeah? go on.” his hand slid lower, pressing down, reminding you where he could take this.

your thighs squeezed around his hand but you forced yourself to keep speaking. “i imagined… you putting your fingers inside me.”

he let out a quiet laugh, smug, hot against your skin. “fuck, that’s what you were thinking about? me—fucking you with my fingers while you moaned loud enough to let me know? you wanted me to hear, didn’t you?”

“jake—” your protest melted into a whimper when his fingers finally moved. he propped them under the thin fabric of your underwear, dragging slow circles right where you ached for him.

“so wet,” he muttered, almost in disbelief, “all this because of me? jesus, baby.” he didn’t even rush, dragging his fingers in lazy motions, slow and deliberate, like he wanted to drive you insane before giving you more. “this is what you were thinking about that day, huh?” he pressed, his voice sharp now, almost mocking. “lying there, knowing i was listening, spreading your legs and wishing it was me?”

your mouth fell open, a broken sound leaving your throat as he slipped two fingers between your folds. “fuck—” he hissed when he felt how you clenched around nothing, desperate. “you’re so ready for me. you don’t even need to be prepped, do you? just begging to be filled.” his fingers finally pushed inside, slow, deep, curling just right. you gasped, nails digging into his arm, and he groaned softly, enjoying how you reacted to every move.

“that’s it,” he whispered against your ear, thrusting his fingers in a steady rhythm, “take it. that’s what you wanted, right? me finger fucking you till you can’t even think straight?” your head fell back, a whimper catching in your throat, but he didn’t let up. “go on,” he ordered, curling his fingers again, dragging a broken moan out of you. “say that’s what you wanted me to do to you.”

“yes—” you breathed, desperate, “yes, jake, i need you.”

his smirk pressed into your skin, his pace picking up just a little. “good girl. finally telling me the truth.” every word out of his mouth was filth and command, his tone dripping with satisfaction. “you’re dripping all over my hand, baby. you hear that? fuck—” he drove his fingers deeper, curling hard, his palm grinding against your clit. “look at you,” he whispered, low and rough, “squirming for me. needy little thing.” your body trembled, your words dissolving into broken gasps, and he laughed again, cruel and soft. “don’t worry, princess. i’ll give you exactly what you were begging for.”

he started to move rougher, his fingers sliding in and out of you in a steady rhythm that kept building faster, deeper, harder. the way he pressed into you from behind, his hips flush to your ass so you could feel every bit of his hardness grinding against you, made your whole body tense. your back arched without thinking, desperate to take more, and your arms lifted, searching for something to grab onto, finally tangling in his hair, pulling at the back of his head just to ground yourself. he groaned at the tug, but didn’t slow down, curling his fingers inside you just right, the wet sounds between you filling the kitchen.

your moans grew louder, shameless, every sound spilling out only making him worse. “you make the prettiest sounds.” his lips brushed your jaw, his breath hot as his pace turned merciless, his fingers pumping into you with no pause, no relief. “fuck, look at you,” he said, grinding harder into your back while fucking you with his hand. 

you whimpered his name, and he chuckled darkly, his mouth right at your ear. “who would’ve thought, hm? sweet little you, letting me finger you like this.” your body jolted when he curled his fingers deeper, and your grip on his hair tightened, head falling back onto his shoulder. “yeah, that’s it,” he whispered, teeth grazing your skin. “you like that? you like when i fuck you like this?”

you moaned and nodded, and the thought hit you hard: jake was nothing like you expected. way filthier, rougher, better than anything you ever pictured, and it only turned you on more, made you want to give him everything. “fuck, i knew you’d be this good,” he growled, fingers moving even faster, slick and deep. “shit, y/n, you’re perfect.” his pace grew ruthless, relentless, every push making your body jolt against the counter. you could feel your limit building, pressure winding tighter and tighter in your stomach until it was almost unbearable. “do you want to cum for me?” he rasped against your ear, breath hot on your skin. you couldn’t form words, just a broken moan leaving your lips. “say it, baby, or i’ll stop.” his tone dropped, sharp, commanding, even as his fingers kept pounding into you, and your whole body burned at the thought of him actually pulling away.

“fuck—yeah, jake,” you gasped, your voice cracking. “please, let me cum.”

he chuckled darkly, the sound vibrating against your shoulder as his lips brushed your skin. “aw, such a good girl,” he cooed, his voice dripping with filth. “asking for permission like that.” his pace didn’t slow, if anything, it grew harsher, fingers sliding in and out of you so fast the sound of your wetness filled the room, obscene and loud. his free hand gripped your waist, holding you right where he wanted you as he fucked you with his hand, grinding his cock into your ass with every thrust. “come on,” he urged, his voice rough. “cum on my fingers, baby, give it all to me.”

you cried out his name, trembling, your whole body arching against him. “fuck, your pussy’s clenching around my fingers, baby,” he groaned, his head dropping back for a second, overcome with how tight you felt. “so fucking tight—so desperate for me.”

the way he talked to you, the filth in his voice, the pressure of his cock grinding against you, it all crashed down at once, your body shuddering as you came undone on his hand. it was loud, messy, overwhelming, the kind of orgasm that left you gripping his hair like you might collapse if you let go. jake moaned with you, his fingers still moving deep inside to drag out every last wave. “fuck, that’s it,” he muttered, lips pressed to your neck. “fuck, i could do this to you forever.”

your body trembled against him, still clenching around his fingers, your moans breaking into soft whimpers as he finally slowed, dragging his soaked fingers out of you with a filthy sound. he hummed, bringing them up to his lips just to taste you, his tongue sliding slow over his knuckles before he smirked against your ear. “you taste even better than i imagined.”

he spun you around so fast you gasped, his grip on your hips rough, possessive, like he couldn’t stand another second of not having you face him. your back hit the counter and you stumbled, breath caught in your throat as you looked up at him, his chest heaving, his jaw clenched, his pupils blown so wide it was like he’d lost all sense of restraint. you were flushed, trembling, your ruined underwear sticking uncomfortably between your thighs, but the only thing you could think about was him towering over you, the outline of his cock straining against his pants, pressing against your hip like it was begging for you.

“fuck, look at you,” he whispered, forehead brushing yours as his lips trailed hot kisses along your cheek, down your jaw, to the corner of your mouth, teasing, just out of reach. “ruined, all for me.” his voice broke on the last word, ragged with hunger. “please…” his voice cracked, and for a second you thought you were imagining the desperation in him. but then he said it again, firmer this time, his breath ghosting over your lips. “please, let me kiss you.”

your head tipped back a little, chest rising and falling in erratic waves, and his hand slid up your side to cup your neck, thumb dragging under your jaw. he was trembling, but not from hesitation, from restraint. “you don’t get it,” he muttered, almost like he was confessing something against his will. “you’ve got me fucking obsessed.” his nose brushed yours, lips still barely touching, his words vibrating against your mouth. “come on, please” he demanded, his grip on your neck tightened slightly, not enough to hurt, but enough to make you shiver. “say you want me to ruin you.”

you couldn’t even form the words, too breathless, too lost in the heat of him. but you nodded, desperate, clutching his shirt like he was the only thing keeping you grounded. he groaned, finally smashing his lips against yours, messy, hungry, teeth clashing, tongues desperate. it wasn’t gentle, it was need. pure, raw, suffocating need. his hand dragged back down, pawing at your waist, your hip, like he couldn’t decide where to touch first. he was everywhere, kissing you like a man starved, whispering against your lips between frantic breaths, “my girl. my perfect fucking girl.”

his arms tightened around you, hands firm on the curve of your thighs as he pulled you up with ease, making you gasp when your legs instinctively wrapped around his waist. you could feel how strong he was, the way his grip claimed you, as if he’d never let go. his mouth didn’t leave yours, lips bruising, tongue sliding hot and desperate against yours while his chest vibrated with a low groan. by the time he settled onto the couch, dragging you down onto his lap, your pulse was a mess. your body fit perfectly against him, straddling his hips, every shift pressing you harder onto the thick bulge straining through his pants. you whined into his mouth, the friction intoxicating, every grind pulling a deeper sound from his chest.

“fuck,” he hissed, breaking the kiss just long enough to press his forehead against yours, breathing ragged. his fingers dug into your hips, holding you still even as you tried to roll down on him again. “don’t do that. i can’t—” his words broke off into a groan, eyes fluttering shut as your heat pressed against him through the fabric.

you tilted your head, lips brushing his jaw as you whispered, smug and breathless, “can’t what?” and then you rocked against him again, slower this time, deliberately teasing, watching his composure crack.

his eyes snapped open, dark and wrecked, a strained chuckle escaping him. “you think you’re funny?” his grip tightened, pulling your body flush against his, making you feel every inch of his arousal grinding back up into you.

you only grinned, licking your lips, whispering like a dare, “maybe.”

his answer came as a guttural sound in his chest, one hand flying up into your hair, tugging your head back just enough to expose your throat as he kissed it hard. “keep testing me, baby,” your breath hitched as his hand tangled tighter in your hair, guiding you down between his spread legs. his eyes burned into you, pupils blown wide, chest rising and falling with ragged hunger. he looked feral, undone, and you couldn’t help but shiver at the sight of him like this, so desperate, but still in control, every move deliberate. “on your knees,” he rasped, voice dripping authority. “show me how good you can be.”

the tone made your stomach flip, heat rushing through your body. you sank down slowly, your knees pressing into the carpet, never breaking eye contact. his grip on your hair loosened just enough for him to cup your cheek with his other hand, thumb stroking across your swollen bottom lip. “fuck, look at you,” he groaned, leaning forward just enough to press another bruising kiss against your lips before pulling back. “my pretty girl, already wrecked for me. and i haven’t even fucked you yet.” his words made you whimper, thighs pressing together instinctively. he noticed, of course, chuckling low in his chest, the sound dark and mocking. “needy little thing. you’d do anything i tell you, wouldn’t you?” he asked, tilting your chin up with his thumb.

“yes,” you breathed, without hesitation. “anything.”

“good girl,” he smirked, his thumb pressing against your lips, slipping just enough inside for you to suck. you did, obediently, hollowing your cheeks around him, watching the way his head tipped back with a guttural moan. “shit, you’re gonna ruin me.” he let you go just as quickly, his hand moving to unbuckle his belt. the metallic clink filled the room, sharp, electric, making your pulse race. you licked your lips as he tugged his zipper down, freeing himself, his cock straining against the thin fabric of his boxers. he was so hard it almost hurt to look at, and you felt your mouth water instantly.

“is this what you wanted, hm?” he rasped, shoving his boxers down far enough for his cock to spring free, flushed and heavy in his hand. he stroked himself slowly, deliberately, eyes locked on yours. “you grind on me like a desperate little slut, and now look at you—on your knees for it. go on, baby. show me how bad you need it.”

you didn’t hesitate. your lips parted as you leaned in, tongue dragging up from his base in a long, slow lick that had his jaw clenching. his hand shot into your hair, tightening until it stung, forcing your head down so his cock slid between your lips, thick and aching. “fuck,” he groaned, his hips jerking forward despite himself, the sound almost breaking into a laugh at how quickly he lost control. “that’s it. open wide. choke on it, just keep those pretty eyes on me while you do.”

you hummed around him, and the vibrations made his thighs flex under your hands, his breath catching in a sharp curse. his head tipped back for a moment, chest heaving, but then he forced his gaze down again, eyes dark and wild as they burned into you. “jesus fuck,” he groaned, hips rolling steady into your mouth now, using your lips, your throat. he tugged harshly at your hair, pulling you off him with a wet pop. strings of spit clung from your swollen lips to his tip, and he wiped at your chin with his thumb, only to push it past your lips and into your mouth. “that’s it, suck it,” he ordered, voice rough, thumb pressing down on your tongue while his cock throbbed inches from your face. “you’re so fucking messy for me. you like this, huh? like being my filthy girl?”

“yes, jake, god,” you admitted, your lips wrapped around his thumb, tongue swirling around it like you were starving for him.

“fuck, that’s it,” he groaned, fist tightening in your hair as his other hand guided his cock back to your mouth. “open up, baby. take it all.” he pushed deep, his length sliding against your throat until you gagged around him, his groan breaking out into something almost animalistic. “look at you choking on it… messy little slut. you were made for this cock, weren’t you? fuck—yeah, you were. my perfect fucktoy.”

your eyes watered, drool spilling down your chin, and he hissed, hips jerking forward. “god, i could cum just from this… but i need to ruin you first.” with a sharp tug, he pulled you off him again, breath ragged, his cock slick and twitching in his hand. he yanked you up like you weighed nothing. “turn around,” he ordered, voice low and wrecked.

you barely had time to obey before he hooked his fingers into your shorts, dragging them down along with your ruined underwear. the air hit your wetness and he groaned, a filthy, guttural sound. his hand spanked your ass, the sting making you gasp. he leaned in, pressing a teasing, sharp toothed kiss against your ass cheek, his nose brushing dangerously close between them, inhaling like he was drunk on your scent. “fuck, i need that ass,” he muttered against your skin, voice breaking with hunger. his tongue darted out, barely grazing you before he pulled back, spinning you to face him again, eyes black with lust.

“you have no idea what i’m about to do to you, baby.” he didn’t give you a second to settle while you sat on his lap again. he took your shirt off, and his mouth latched onto your nipple with a greedy, wet pressure, sucking and nibbling in a way that made your chest tighten and your hips press down harder against him. every movement, every grind you made sent a low groan vibrating from his chest, his hands holding your hips so firmly you felt every pulse of his desire. you moaned around his mouth, letting your body do the talking, grinding your core down even more deliberately, feeling him react against you. his free hand moved to spank your ass again, rough, making you jump against him. “behave,” he warned, voice low and jagged, “i’ll fuck you when i want to, got it?”

you nodded, breathless, and let your head fall back, exposing your neck and chest to him as he trailed messy kisses down from your collarbone to the swell of your breasts, alternating pressure, teasing, making you writhe in his lap. his hands kneaded, pinched, gripped, every touch driving you wilder, and with every slick, deliberate movement of your hips on his cock, he groaned, muttering your name over and over. “please, jake, i need you to fuck me,” you finally said, voice trembling with urgency. 

he chuckled, low and rough. “oh god, you have no idea how much i wanted to hear that,” he admitted, his hands gripping your hips, holding you in place as his cock pressed against you, teasing your clit, just enough to make your stomach twist and your thighs shake. “fuck, let me grab a condom,” he said, already starting to move, before you paused him.

“no,” you said quickly, pulling him back just a little. “i want it raw, i’m on birth control.”

he groaned, a deep, guttural sound that made you shiver. “fuck… that is so hot,” he muttered, pressing himself against you harder, teasing the entrance slowly, deliberately, as if testing how much more he could make you beg before actually moving. he didn’t waste a second. his hands gripped your hips tighter, tilting you just right, teasing the tip of himself against your slick, already aching center. “you’re so dirty, i had no idea,” he groaned, low and rough, his lips brushing the shell of your ear. “all that quiet, all that acting like you don’t care… was that all just a fucking act, huh?”

you gasped, tilting your head, feeling the hot pressure as he pressed in a little further, testing, stretching, making you shiver. “tell me,” he whispered, voice thick with need, “are you gonna be my fucking dirty slut now? gonna let me fuck you raw, make you mine?”

you nodded frantically, voice barely a whisper. “yes… please, jake, fuck me.”

“oh god, yes, fuck, i will” he groaned, slowly pushing inside, inch by inch, letting you adjust, letting you feel every stretch. the heat, the tightness, the slick press of him against you, it stole your breath. your forehead rested against his, breathing shaky, heart hammering, every nerve screaming with sensation.

“i… i can’t,” you whispered, voice shaky. “it’s too big jake,” and he groaned softly, holding you steady, letting you adjust to him.

“fuck, don’t say that,” he murmured, voice low and rough. “you can take it, baby. i know you can.” he shifted slightly, testing the space between you. you gasped, his cock pressed into you, hands gripping your hips, tilting you just right, rolling inside you with perfect precision. your breath hitched, heart racing, every nerve on edge as he stayed close, his cock inside you, his hands steadying your hips, his lips brushing the side of your neck. the tension was unbearable, every touch and shift making it impossible to think straight. “just… breathe,” he whispered, voice tight with need. “i’m right here, baby. i’ll go slow, okay?”

you nodded against him, trying to calm your racing thoughts while your body betrayed you, reacting to every little movement. he groaned low, hips shifting ever so slightly, testing, stretching, making your body writhe instinctively against him. “fuck—you feel so good,” he muttered, voice rough and urgent. “so tight, so wet… just for me.”

you let your hips move against him, grinding, matching his rhythm. “yes… jake… i’m yours,” you murmured, chest rising and falling, breath shaky, body pressed to his.

“yeah you are, aren’t you?” he groaned, a low, desperate sound, sliding his hands from your hips to grip your thighs, holding you steady as he began slow, deliberate thrusts. each one drove pleasure straight through you, a perfect, torturous rhythm. his lips brushed your jaw, neck, whispering filthy praise. “fuck… look at you… trembling all over for me… you’re mine, all mine, my perfect little slut.”

you moaned loudly, arching into him, hands tangling in his hair, body pressed flush against his chest. “jake— don’t stop… please…”

“fuck, don’t tell me to stop, baby,” he growled, shifting your hips with his hands, pressing harder, deeper. “you like this, huh?”

“yes… yes, please,” you gasped, voice breaking as each thrust had you teetering on the edge. your body shivered with anticipation, wet and slick, ready to snap, riding him more deliberate now.

he growled against your neck, teeth grazing your skin lightly, his thrusts relentless but perfectly measured, reading your reactions. “fuck, keep riding me, i’m gonna cum for you, keep going.” you arched back into him, breath coming in ragged gasps, hands clutching his shoulders as your thighs tightened around his waist. each roll of your hips sent his cock deeper, stretching you perfectly, and he groaned low in response, hands gripping your hips.

“you’re so fucking tight, baby…” he chuckled darkly, low and throaty, the sound vibrating straight through you. “i’m gonna fuckling blow a load inside you, keep fucking riding me, oh shit—” he bit lightly at your shoulder as he thrust faster, deeper, every motion precise, worshiping you with his touch. you lost it then, shuddering violently, voice breaking in a scream of his name, body convulsing around him, clutching him close as your release crashed over you in waves. he groaned, holding you, still thrusting, savoring every twitch, every cry, every gasp.

“oh shit, you came so good,” he murmured against your ear, hips still rolling, each movement carefully prolonging the exquisite overstimulation. “let me cum inside this fucking little pussy, please—”

you gasped, arching into him, voice trembling. “yes, god… please, jake… fill me…”

and then he did, groaning your name, every muscle taut as his release filled you, hot and overwhelming. he held you through it, rocking gently, letting you feel every drop, whispering filthy, desperate praise. “fuuuuck, what a good fucking pussy,” he muttered, still buried in you, forehead pressed to yours, breath mingling with yours. his hands never left your hips, keeping you flush against him as he slowly rode out the tremors of his own orgasm, groaning your name again and again. your vision blurred, your chest rising and falling, trembling against him, as he guided you through the aftermath. 

you clung to him, breathless and trembling, heart racing, he was still holding you close. “so fucking good…” he whispered one last time, lips brushing yours, still warm and soaked from the intensity of what just happened.

you’re still on him, chest pressed against his, both of you breathing like you ran a marathon. he’s sitting back a little now, hands lazily resting on your hips, still gripping just enough to remind you he’s there. you glance up at him, and he’s got that smirk, the one that’s supposed to be cocky but honestly, he looks wrecked too.

“so,” he says, voice low, teasing but tired, “that happened.”

“yeah,” you mutter, trying to catch your breath and failing spectacularly. “that happened.”

jake lets out a low chuckle and runs a hand through his hair. you bury your face in his chest, trying to hide, like somehow hiding there could make everything feel less intense. he tuts softly, holding you a little closer. “mhm, no. look at me,” he says, his tone firm but gentle. you lift your head reluctantly, cheeks still flushed. “no more hiding, okay?” he adds, and you nod, biting your lip, still feeling the heat and the leftover tension buzzing through your body. “you okay?” he asks, eyes scanning your face. 

you give a small, whiny “yeah,” nodding, and he chuckles lightly at the sound.

“did you… like it?” he asked next, and you notice the way he paused, the tiniest flicker of nervousness in his expression. he knew that was a cheesy, sure, post-sex ask, but he had to know. 

you smirk and giggle, letting yourself relax a little. “yeah, jake. i liked it.”

he exhales slowly, groaning as he slides back, freeing himself from your walls, and you can’t help but look at him, already missing how filled you were a minute ago. he’s wrecked, flushed, hair messy, and it makes you grin. “what you looking at?” he asks, smirk playing on his lips.

“nothing,” you reply, trying to play it cool, though your grin gives you away.

he leans in and presses a quick, small kiss to your lips, catching you off guard. you freeze for a second, then melt just a little into the moment. “so… wanna talk about it?” he asks, tilting his head, still holding you close. you blink at him, caught somewhere between embarrassed and amused, realizing that maybe the talking part is the part you’re not entirely ready for, but also, maybe, you don’t want to run from it this time. he squeezes your hip gently, as if prompting you to answer without forcing it. you take a deep breath, letting some of the tension slip away.

“do you wanna talk about it?” you asked, and he chuckled, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe you were actually asking him this. 

“you can’t answer a question with another question,” he said again voice low, amused but tired at the same time.

you laughed awkwardly, your nerves showing. “i just… i don’t know, jake,” you admitted, voice unsure, looking down for a second before meeting his eyes again.

“don’t know what?” he pressed, leaning in, making the space between you feel smaller.

“i don’t know how you feel about me,” you said, letting out a small breath, trying to calm your racing thoughts. “so… i just can’t figure out exactly what i’m supposed to do with all of this.”

he blinked once, then laughed low, and it wasn’t like a normal laugh, more like he was trying to process what you just said and couldn’t decide if it was ridiculous, frustrating, or the most fascinating thing he’d heard all week. you watched him run a hand over his face, shaking his head slowly, the kind of shake that made it clear he wasn’t sure if he should be impressed, scared, or both. “okay…,” he muttered finally, half to himself, half to you, voice calm. “but i get it. i think i do.” he paused, smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, like he was enjoying that he had your full attention. “so… you want me to spell it out for you? really tell you what i feel?”

you hesitated, just a little, because you weren’t sure if you were ready to hear it, or if you were ready to admit you’d been hoping for it. you nodded anyway, slowly, watching his face, waiting. he leaned back a bit in his seat, just enough to look at you properly, like he was gathering his thoughts in real time, and you could tell he was about to unload.

“i’ve been crazy about you since the very beginning,” he said, voice a little rough, but completely honest. “back when you didn’t give me a single thing to go on, and i had no idea what you were thinking, i couldn’t stop thinking about you. i was obsessed with figuring you out, learning what made you tick. and the more i got to know you, the more fascinated i became. you’re… you’re insane, in the best way. every little thing about you made me want to know more.”

he paused, swallowing, like he was trying to get the words out without tripping over them. “then, when you started teasing me… when you started pushing and pulling, letting me get close but not giving me everything, i lost it. i thought about you all the time. every day. you, your voice, your smile, the way you look at me… i probably shouldn’t be saying this, but fuck it. i can’t stop thinking about it, and about you. and now, after… that,” he gestured vaguely at the mess of the room and the two of you, “i have no regrets. that was the best sex of my life, no contest.”

you let out a breathless laugh, and he chuckled, shaking his head slightly, like he still couldn’t believe he was admitting all of this. “so yeah… i’m fucked up about you. completely. and i don’t even care.”

you blinked, caught somewhere between stunned, amused, and something else you didn’t have a name for yet. you didn’t know if you should laugh, tease him back, or just sit there and take it all in. but seeing him like this, messy, honest, a little wrecked from what just happened, made it impossible to be anything but completely present with him. jake leaned back a little, still holding you, letting the confession hang in the air. “so… what about you?” he asked, voice quieter now, curious but still casual, like he was afraid of scaring you off but couldn’t not ask. “how do you feel about all this?”

you hesitated again, trying to pull words together, but they kept slipping away. “i’m not good at this,” you admitted, your voice quieter than you expected. “i’m not good at saying things out loud. but you… you get under my skin the same way i get under yours. i don’t know how to say it prettier than that, but it’s real.” you paused, looking at him, almost daring him to make you keep going. he didn’t. instead, he smiled, small but satisfied.

“good,” he said simply.

you blinked, then nodded. “good.”

nothing poetic, nothing rehearsed, just enough for both of you. he kissed you once, soft and short, then got up and tugged you along with him, muttering something about you needing a shower. you were too tired to argue, and honestly, he was right. the two of you had made a mess of the place, and of yourselves. he turned the water on and stepped in first, pulling you by the wrist like he was making sure you wouldn’t back out. it wasn’t some movie scene with steam and passion and soap slipping everywhere. it was domestic, borderline clumsy. he tried to hand you the shampoo bottle with too much force and almost dropped it, then squinted because he’d gotten water in his eyes. you laughed at him, and he pretended to be offended, but he didn’t actually care. he just liked that you were laughing.

you weren’t used to standing this close without tension thick in the air, without second-guessing what the other was thinking. now you were just there, getting clean together, and it felt strangely natural. it felt like the most normal thing in the world, like maybe this was how it was supposed to be all along. by the time you both stepped out and wrapped up in towels, the room smelled like cheap body wash, and the mirror was fogged over. jake glanced at you, hair dripping, and smirked like the whole situation was funny but also a little serious, like he couldn’t believe how quickly things had shifted between you. you didn’t say anything, and you didn’t need to. it was good, just good.

so the next couple of weeks were kind of ridiculous, mostly because you both pretended for about two days that things were the same, and then it became really obvious they weren’t. jake had this new way of looking at you that you kept catching in random moments, like when you were pouring cereal or folding laundry, and it wasn’t subtle at all. he was completely gone for you, and you could tell, but he didn’t even bother trying to hide it.

the first time after that night it happened again, it wasn’t planned. you’d just finished watching something dumb on tv, and he made some joke that had you shoving his shoulder, and the next thing you knew he had you pinned against the couch cushions, kissing you like he’d been holding back for hours. it was messy and fast and you didn’t even bother moving to the bedroom. later, when you were both out of breath and sprawled in opposite directions on the couch, he laughed and said he wasn’t sure he’d ever look at the living room the same way again. you rolled your eyes, but the truth was you couldn’t either. a couple nights after that, he came into your room under the excuse of “borrowing your charger.” he didn’t even bother plugging it in before he was pulling you onto his lap, muttering something about how you were all he thought about during the day. it was slower that time, more deliberate, and he kept touching your face, brushing your hair back, doing all these little things that made it feel different from before. it wasn’t just sex anymore, and you could both feel that shift, even if neither of you said it out loud.

the funniest part was how the domestic side of living together changed too. suddenly, showers weren’t just showers. one night he pulled you in with him, no warning, and spent more time kissing you against the wall than actually washing his hair. you had to kick him out halfway through because you were going to run out of hot water, and he left pouting, soap still in his hair. the next morning, he walked into the kitchen with wet curls and this smug look on his face like he’d invented showering together. he also started hovering more. if you were cooking, he was in the kitchen, stealing bites and pressing up behind you. if you were working on your laptop, he’d somehow find his way onto the couch next to you, stretching until his feet were basically in your lap. and the hot moments were woven into all of it, like they weren’t separate anymore. you’d be brushing your teeth and he’d come up behind you, wrap his arms around your waist, and before you knew it you were pressed against the sink, muffling laughs into his shoulder.

what really gave him away, though, was how restless he got when you weren’t around. he’d pretend to be casual, but you caught him more than once waiting up just to see when you’d get home. sometimes he’d act like it was nothing, asking about your night, but other times he’d just pull you into his room without a word, kissing you until neither of you remembered what the question was. and two weeks in, it was clear jake was completely losing it over you. he didn’t care that you weren’t good with words or that you never gave long speeches about how you felt. he got what he wanted anyway, your attention, your touch, the way you’d grab his shirt first when things escalated. and in return, he gave you everything without holding back. every day, in some new way, he made it obvious. and you didn’t fight it, not really. if anything, you were just as gone as he was, even if you weren’t ready to spell it out.

later that month, he wasn’t even thinking when it happened. you had just walked out of your lecture, holding your bag against your shoulder, half distracted scrolling through your phone, and he was leaning against the wall across the hall, waiting for his own class. he saw you before you saw him, and without even a second thought he was already walking over. you looked up, a little surprised, and he just smiled, leaned in, and pressed a quick kiss against your mouth. it was just a short kiss, the kind you’d gotten used to at home when he was passing by you in the kitchen or when you sat next to him on the couch. but this time, it wasn’t in your living room. it was in the middle of the hallway with people walking by.

the moment it happened, you froze, not because you didn’t want it but because your brain immediately registered where you were. his too. you could feel the second he realized what he’d just done, because he leaned back fast, eyes flicking around like maybe no one saw. except of course people saw. people always saw. his friends were standing just a few feet away, watching everything with that look that said they didn’t need to say a single word. they’d known for weeks anyway. he’d been obvious as hell about it, smiling at his phone all the time, making up the worst excuses just to go home early, and acting different in a way that was so clear he wasn’t fooling anyone. your friends weren’t idiots either. you’d told them enough details already, and they’d connected the dots themselves.

the thing was, none of you had ever brought whatever this was out into the open before. at home it was easy. you were roommates, no one else around, and it didn’t feel like you needed to define it. but here, in front of everyone, a kiss, even a tiny one, meant something else. it meant people would start asking questions. it meant you’d have to talk about it. you laughed under your breath, more out of nerves than anything, and gave him a look that said really? here? and he rubbed the back of his neck like he didn’t know how to explain himself. “sorry,” he muttered, but not in a way that sounded like he actually regretted it. more like he regretted the timing. you didn’t say anything, just shook your head, and the two of you walked out together, trying to act like nothing happened. but the hallway was still buzzing, and you could feel eyes on your back the whole time. his friends were definitely going to bring it up later, and your friends were already blowing up your phone. 

a few nights later, you were just sitting on the couch with him watching tv, when jake suddenly turned to you and said, “you know i never actually took you on a date.” it was random, no lead up, just dropped in the middle of whatever episode was playing. you looked at him and asked, “do you want to?” and he didn’t hesitate, just nodded immediately and said, “of course i do.” you laughed at how serious he looked, like he’d been planning that line in his head. then you told him how the two of you had skipped a few steps in this whole thing, and he laughed back, agreeing, saying it was the first time he’d ever lived with a girl before even kissing her. you reminded him he’d done a lot of things with you before kissing you, and that made him smirk. he leaned over, went right for you, and things got heated again in a way that left the rest of the night blurry. it wasn’t anything new for the two of you, but it made the next day stand out even more.

the next day, jake actually followed through. he kept it quiet until later, but you noticed how he was watching you get ready, leaning against the doorframe of your room with his arms crossed and that stupid grin he always got when he thought he was being subtle. you couldn’t put mascara on without him sneaking behind you and stealing a kiss on your cheek or the corner of your mouth. by the time you finally managed to get dressed and say you were ready, you already had to fix your lipstick because he wouldn’t keep his hands off you. he ended up taking you to this restaurant you didn’t even know he was aware of, the kind with dim lights and real cloth napkins, and it felt way more romantic than you were expecting. it was weird because until that moment, you had been convinced that whatever you had with jake was basically roommates who hooked up sometimes (all the times, to be exact). he’d never said anything that pointed in another direction. but sitting across from him, watching the way he leaned in when you talked, how he didn’t even look around the room once, just stayed focused on you the whole time, it hit you that maybe he was taking this seriously. maybe he’d been taking it seriously from the start and you were only just noticing.

that month just blurred into something you couldn’t really label, but anyone watching would’ve called it obvious. you woke up next to him more often than not, even though technically you had your own room. he made coffee for you when he was already in the kitchen, sometimes adding too much sugar on purpose just to watch you complain and drink it anyway. you sat on the couch with your legs across his lap while he absentmindedly rubbed your ankle during whatever show you two were pretending to pay attention to. he kissed you in the middle of conversations, in the middle of you yelling at him, in the middle of you doing literally nothing. the hot moments didn’t go away either. brushing teeth side by side sometimes ended with you pressed against the bathroom sink. “goodnight” kisses had a tendency to spiral until you were both late for whatever you had to wake up for the next day. there were lazy afternoons where he sat at the end of your bed, scrolling on his phone, and you tugged him back under the covers just to see how fast he’d cave. it all felt stupidly natural, like you’d been doing it forever, but also new enough that every time it happened you caught yourself smiling after.

so when sunghoon invited you both to a party, you didn’t really discuss it. you just went together like it was the default. you were getting ready in your room, digging through a pile of clothes while jake sat on your desk chair, spinning slowly and watching you with way too much interest. “i’m kind of excited for tonight,” he said out of nowhere.

you glanced at him in the mirror. “why?”

he leaned back casually, like it was nothing. “because i love showing people how pretty my girlfriend is.”

you froze mid-mascara stroke, nearly poking yourself in the eye, then turned around. “what did you just say?”

he blinked, all fake innocence. “what? i just said—”

“no, no, you said the g word,” you cut him off, pointing at him.

he tilted his head, playing dumb. “g word? what g word?”

“girlfriend,” you said, wide eyed.

he grinned. “oh, that. well, if you don’t like it, i can always call you my roommate instead. the r word.”

you burst out laughing. “roommate is not the same thing.”

“i don’t know, i think it’s got a nice ring to it.”

“shut up,” you said, still laughing. “i actually like the other one better, but if you’re gonna call me that, you should at least ask properly.”

his smirk got sharper. “a proper request, huh? i can do that. but if i do it now, we’re definitely gonna be late to sunghoon’s party.” and before you could respond, he was already standing, already crossing the room, already leaning down into you. whatever thought you had about finishing your eyeliner or getting out the door on time just dissolved, because apparently his version of a proper request involved making sure you completely forgot the party even existed for at least another half hour.

after that night, things just settled into something that felt permanent. he’d hold your bag while you tied your shoes, you’d grab his drink when you went to the kitchen, he’d keep his hand on your back when you walked through crowded places. you were in each other’s space constantly, but it never got heavy, it only got easier. jake realized it later, in this quiet way that hit him when he least expected it. like when he was brushing his teeth and you walked by in one of his shirts, humming some stupid song, and he caught himself smiling with toothpaste foam in his mouth. or when he stayed up too late on his laptop and you fell asleep against him on the couch, your head sliding down his shoulder, and he didn’t even move because he didn’t want to wake you. 

he had been stuck on you from the beginning, even when he didn’t want a roommate, even when he told himself it would just be temporary, even when he thought he’d keep a little distance. he couldn’t. every time he tried, you pulled him back without even noticing. it was just the truth: he couldn’t let go of you, even when he thought he wanted to.

one night, you were both stretched out on the couch, the tv running something neither of you were paying attention to, and you asked, almost offhand, if he ever ended up answering the housing office about switching apartments. he glanced over at you, chewing at the inside of his cheek like he always did when he was pretending to think about something serious, and then he smiled in that way that was a little smug but still soft.

“oh, baby, i’ll never leave you if you keep holding me this way.”

୭ ˚. ᵎᵎ ronnie's notes: idk i blacked out and wrote 30k of horny roommates fic for addie @jakesimfromstatefarm, don’t ask me how but here we are. she’s jake utted, she loves roommates to lovers, and i guess my brain went okay fine and gave in. this whole thing was actually inspired by stockholm syndrome by one direction (yes, i’m in my 1d phase again) and tbh i was lowkey scared it’d be too cliche at first but honestly i think it turned out to be one of the fics i’m proudest of, especially the smut lmao so yeah this fic is horny, has way too much pining, and accidentally got more feelings than i planned. but it’s also pure fun, and if addie doesn’t scream at me after reading this, i’m officially quitting. THANK UUUUUUU

heejama's masterlist // latest fic perma taglist: @rairaiblog @nqdirr @iyoonjh @saeris-world @jayparked @solonenova @izzyy-stuff @gh9sty @sonaki001

you frown. it’s been exactly thirteen minutes and forty-two seconds since satoru looked at you last. he’s been on this stupid spreadsheet since class started, and it’s really starting to piss you off.

so you block his view.

“look at my fingers, toru,” you breathe, lifting your hand in front of his face. “i was in such a rush i forgot my rings. my hand looks so ugly.”

he lifts his head—just slightly, just enough that he can focus on the screen & not your hand in front of him—& replies without a beat. “looks pretty, baby,” he murmurs, kissing the back of your hand. “so gorgeous.”

oh, that’s enough.

“toru.”

“hm, baby?”

“kiss me.”

gojo satoru chokes on his tongue. he freezes, blue eyes leaving the screen only to dart around the crowded lecture hall in alarm. he lets his eyes drop to you, and perhaps he shouldn’t have, because you’re looking up at him with glossy lips & too-big eyes & lashes that flutter in that way that means trouble. gojo gulps.

“we can’t do that right now, sweetheart,” his voice catches. you’re pouting up at him but satoru only cups your cheek and tries to reason with you. “we’re in public. can you wait for me, angel?”

your brows furrow, lips wobbling into that pout that only spells out gojo’s demise.

“are you ashamed to kiss me in public?” you croak, fake sniffling. “am i that ugly?”

you’re not ugly. you’re the most beautiful girl in the world, you know it, satoru knows it, & he also knows you’re doing this on purpose. but your eyes are so glossy. your breathing’s all hitched. your shoulders shake like you’re about to sob—

gojo satoru folds under zero pressure.

he cups your face, thumb brushing faux tears off your lashes as he presses his lips to yours. you taste like strawberry candy & something too sweet to have a name. gojo sighs into your mouth. cocks his head. pulls back just to lean in again when your lashes flutter up at him all pretty. he lets his thumb tug your lip and tongue lick your teeth and—

“ahem.”

you both freeze.

in the row in front of you the nanami kento is there, frown on his face & completely unamused. there are pens littered on his desk & his laptop is wide open—is he reading semantic error?

he eyes you both, lips curled in disgust.

“this is not a love nest.”

you & satoru are blinking in disbelief when nanami turns back to his laptop. he slams it shut in embarrassment when he’s met with an inappropriate panel onscreen.

II. DISTRACTION #2: NETWORKING ❌ NOT WORKING ✅

time: 7:14 pm. location: Bergeron Center for Engineering Excellence

⎚-⎚

gojo satoru has five minutes until the most important meeting of his life.

an opportunity to pitch one of his latest projects to some high-class engineering recruiters—lucky him! he’s in a private office with his speech in his hands, and his beautiful girlfriend kicking her feet on the office table.

you’re supposed to be his supportive plus-one. and gojo does feel supported—how could he not when the love of his life is here for him, dressed up like a midsummer dream? but gojo thinks he’d feel even more supported if you weren’t bracketing his thighs & tugging on his tie every time he tries to speak.

“thank you all for coming. i’m honored to have this opportunity—“

“satoruu,” you coo. “i miss you.”

gojo satoru knows better than to sigh. he does it anyway, collapsing into your neck in resignation as he squeezes your hips. you’re pressing a glossy kiss to his jaw. “i’m right here, sweetheart,” he mumbles, closing his eyes. “will you let me focus?”

you nod sweetly, patting his cheek dismissively when he presses a kiss to your neck in thanks.

“thank you all for coming. i’m honored to have this opportunity to present—“

“satoruu,”

thirteen words this time. fairs.

“yes, sweetheart.”

“my feet hurt,” you state, kicking your feet up to show him. for once, you’re not being totally dramatic. even with your heels on satoru can see the sides of your feet reddening, flushed & slightly swollen against the material. his brows furrow. “how’d this happen, angel…?”

he kneels down to slip your heels off. you pout: “i got new heels so i’d look pretty for your presentation. now my feet hurt and i’ve ruined everything.”

satoru frowns, but you’re still spiraling. dramatic as always, talking like it’s the end of the world with your eyes glossy & nose wrinkled in lament. but gojo’s heart only goes sticky in his chest. how could you possibly ruin everything when you are everything?

he reaches up to wipe a tear off your cheek. “look at me, baby,” he murmurs, other hand rubbing circles on your ankles. he looks devastating like this—hair messy, tie loose from all your tugging & knees on the floor for you even though he’s in his finest dress pants. “you didn’t ruin anything, okay baby? look.”

he slips off your heels, then his own leather shoes, & laces them onto your bare feet. “wear these.”

you blink as he lifts you off the table, kneeling back down to adjust the shoes better. you wiggle your toes. your feet don’t even reach the middle, and you almost fall trying to walk two steps, but the gesture alone has you beaming. you turn to him with your lips bent in a clumsy smile.

“they’re huge, toru,” you tease, twirling around for him to watch. satoru only smiles. his heart goes sticky in his throat. he pulls you into a soft kiss because trying to speak might make his chest hurt.

knock knock.

one of satoru’s classmates—nerd #1—peeks his head in, expression slightly terrified. “uh, gojo? they’re ready for you in the boardroom,” he gulps. “you’re up.”

satoru nods, gathers his speech papers. you’re practicing walking around in his shoes now, arms stretched out to help you balance as you strut around with a grin on your face. gojo satoru looks down at his feet. they’re in nothing but a pair of socks.

right.

he sucks in a breath, then turns to kiss your forehead. “stay here where it’s warm, okay?”

you’re still admiring yourself in his shoes, but you chirp out an okay! regardless. satoru bites his lip. it’s showtime.

——

the faculty is looking at satoru like he’s grown two heads.

have they never seen a shoeless man before? how rude. he’s standing on the boardroom’s stage now, clipboard in hand, projector lighting up the board behind him. some of the recruiters are nodding. the others are trying not to look at his feet so they can’t be accused of classism. gojo satoru is not even poor. a glance at his suit should tell you that.

but gojo doesn’t care. he presents without issue—even though the entire time, his mind is on you.

the boardroom door has a center made of glass. through the pane, satoru can see you back in the office—you’ve somehow found music controls for the office’s boombox, and you’re dancing—oh god, you’re dancing—twirling around with a clumsy smile & laughing when you stumble in his much larger shoes.

satoru’s heart swells. his lip twitches.

gojo turns his focus back to his presentation. he’ll work hard to keep you smiling for the rest of your life.

III. DISTRACTION #3 : WHY IS MY GIRLFRIEND IMMUNE TO TUTORING…

time: 6:14 PM location: The Quad, Satoru’s Apartment.

⎚-⎚

“who discovered the americas ?”

“Martin Luther King.”

You are going to fail this exam.

“that’s enough general history today,” gojo mutters, voice croaking in alarm when you give your answer. you’re tucked in his lap, fingers curled in his collar, nose in his neck & completely unbothered. your perfume is sticky in his lungs. “let’s try math. you like math, baby?”

“mhm,” you kiss his jaw. “love it.”

no you don’t. gojo flips open a book with one hand, the other rubbing circles on your thigh. “let’s practice some integration…” he scans the page for questions while you twirl the hairs on his nape. “okay, this one. can you try this for me, princess?”

your lips tug into a bored frown. “okay,” you lean up to glance at the page, “done.”

he blinks, “done?”

“yes,” you flop back against him, soft & pretty & tired & his. “i solved it in my head.”

satoru bites his lip, brows knit in concern. “baby, you can’t solve integrals in your head.”

“i have a very strong brain.”

satoru prays for some strength of his own. okay—okay. he purses his lip. “so strong, baby. do you want to walk me through your process?”

you frown in his neck.

“first of all,” you tug his collar, lashes fluttering, “i looked at the numbers.”

“good job.”

“then,” you tug his earlobe, “i got bored.”

“oh.”

satoru sighs—of course you did. he purses his lip, blue eyes flitting across the page as his spoiled pretty angel hugs his neck; dreary and tired and ‘bored’ in his lap. finals are coming up and things are not looking good for you. he prays for strength (again).

you seem to have found some strength of your own. gojo’s not sure when you pick up your phone (which he had confiscated from you earlier), but while he stares into the distance and laments your guaranteed failure, you scroll through your phone with a grin on your lips.

“toru, look at this bag,” you coo, pushing the bright screen to his face. “it’s so pink and pretty, just like me.”

“just like you,” he repeats, still staring into the distance.

“wow, nine-hundred-and-fifty dollars,” you kick your feet in his lap. “baby, can i buy it?” you coo, voice sweet.

satoru blinks out of his daze. he glances at the phone screen—then at you, suddenly sweet & bright & brimming with energy. his thumb brushes your inner thigh. “baby, you’re supposed to be studying.”

“i am studying,” you frown, and gojo wants to kiss it off again. “i’m studying consumer behavior. can i have your card?”

there are three reasons gojo satoru should not give you his card.

you are going to fail your exams.

you haven’t double-checked if the price is in CAD or USD.

you are going to fail your exams.

gojo lets you have his card.

you squeal, hopping off his lap to retrieve his wallet in the other room. satoru leans back against his desk chair. in front of him, his desk is a mess of opened books & littered pencils, a ‘get good grades!’ subliminal playing on your mini speaker because you insisted the whispered affirmations would guarantee your success. gojo sighs.

“thank you, toru!” you sing as you pad back into the room, a skip in your step. you lean down to kiss his cheek & flop onto his bed to open his laptop. you have his wallet in your hands, and gojo satoru already knows you will not double check the currency.

gojo closes your textbook with a sigh. better luck next time.

ac: (see alt text!) @ to00fu

DISTRACTIONS, end.

“What’s a pretty guy doing here, all alone?” You played coy, flagging the bartender for a drink while (not-so-subtly) looking at him to see if he'll take the bait.

“…” No response. It seemed as if he was stuck in his own lonely world.

“Goldilocks?” You tried again, deadset on getting his attention, even if he's straight up refusing to give you a crumble.

“…Me?” He gruffed. Oh? That got a reaction out of him.

The stranger took another shot, stubbornly refusing to glance at you—refusing to give the attention you craved.

“Of course, you.” You chuckled, refusing to give up.

“Sorry, didn’t know.” He grunts. What a broody man.

“Girlfriend dumped you?”

Hook, line, and sinker. That made him pause. Must've hit a nerve.

“That's your way of asking if I have one?” He replied with a scoff, a petty smirk making itself known.

“You’re cute. Got me already.” You hummed, aiming to catch him off guard.

That got him to finally look at you. His eyes widen a fraction—barely even noticeable—as a light flush dusts his cheeks.

“How would I get you if I don’t even know your name?” He countered, finally having the courage to respond.

“Damn, you’re smooth.” You whistled, giving your name with a grin. Fuck, he was finally interested.

“Hm? What a pretty name,” he mumbled your name, a slight quirk lifting his lips. “Sounds like your mother loves you.”

Now that… kinda made your heart speed up. As if you unknowingly signed a bound-for-life contract with a person whose name you don’t even know, no less. You talked for hours; the conversation fell into a mad, easy rhythm. He looked familiar—as if you’ve seen him somewhere before. You don’t know when or where, but gosh, something about him felt unbearably enchanting. Like he bewitched you—letting him carve a hole in your heart with a sign that says ‘I live here now lol’.

Well, that’s a one-way ticket to enter his home.

No, seriously, he did take you to his apartment—sorry, penthouse. It was nearby, and neither of you was hammered enough to drive—it was relatively safe.

What happened after wasn’t safe at all, though.

After his front door opened, lust resumed to cloud your minds. You felt his presence looming behind you, his hands steady on your waist. The moment the door closed? He’s pouncing on you like an animal starved for weeks. Lips on lips, tongue to tongue, rough hands exploring the canvases of your bodies. His hand snuck on the back of your head, pulling you impossibly closer and angling his wet appendage even deeper—sweet sounds involuntarily leaving your throat, and he swallows it down like a champ. He tastes like a hint of mint and strong whiskey. God, you hoped the walls were thick.

Your hands slide inside his shirt with feather-like precision, moving from his soft pectorals (now hardened as you felt him flex) to his defined abdominal muscles. Six packs, you counted. You felt him shiver as your hands moved dangerously lower to where he needed you most.

He slowly, begrudgingly pulled away, panting as a string of saliva connected you. The erotic display made your head fuzzy with need, forgetting the fact that you literally didn’t know his name. He could be a serial killer for all you care, but it doesn’t matter as long as he’s giving you a taste of ecstasy.

“Leon.” He groaned, and your brain lagged, leaving you momentarily frozen. A small ‘huh?’ was all you could conjure.

“Leon Kennedy, the name you’ll be screaming later, gorgeous.” He grunts, and a wide predatory grin settles on his face as he kisses you with the same—if not more—vigour as before.

His arm wandered behind your legs, effortlessly lifting you. You yelped, scrambling to hold him tighter. All that bastard did was laugh, nosing and playfully biting your stomach. Hard to be annoyed when he quite literally rocked your world moments after. You couldn’t leave immediately after, even if you tried—you felt like a fish walking in the sand for the first time with the way that your legs. just. won’t. work.

So you let him romance you with aftercare. Soft, fleeting kisses and gentle hands tidying you up.

The next day was far from different. Now, the reason why you couldn’t walk away wasn't just because of your out-of-commission legs. You couldn’t walk away simply because a man—Leon, as you've learnt—has you locked in his strong arms and hulking muscles. Every time you shift, his hold would get even tighter. And you couldn’t even pry his hands off your waist; you tried it, and it was useless.

So, what did you do?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nothing but placing your hand on his cheek while admiring him close up. His soft jawline, his disheveled hair perfectly framing his face, his soft, inviting lips—anything, really. It was as if he was sculpted by the Goddess of beauty herself.

But then, you felt him shift. You were startled, quickly trying to pull your hand away. Keyword: trying. Because just as quickly, his large hand shot up to hold your smaller one—interwining—keeping it from trying to move. You squirmed; his other arm (from below your waist) trapped you in place. It was all too sudden—your eyes widen a fraction as you feel him nuzzle into your warm palm, a soft sigh escaping him.

“Hi,” Leon mumbled, locking eyes with you. His voice was rough, given that he had just woken up, but his eyes. His eyes held affection. Utterly devastating affection, just for you.

Now that made your insufferable heart ache.

And that, was the start of your situationship with a broody, corny, infuriatingly handsome man named Leon (Ass) Kennedy.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

“Hey, Lee?”

“Yeah? What’s up?”

“Let’s end this—whatever this is.”

“Huh, wha—”

You ended the call, not even bothering to let him finish.

It’s been months of this fuckass cat-and-fish game you didn’t even know you were playing. Months of this on-and-off, months of this disappearing game, and gosh, you’re tired. Tired of him treating whatever you two have as nothing but a mere plaything; tired of your stupid, traitorous heart for always beating faster because of him; tired of yourself for letting him use you just as he pleases.

So yeah, you’re done. You’ve exhausted yourself, and it’s time to get your life back together.

That’s what you would say if you didn’t hear a car pull out in your driveway and the bell ringing incessantly immediately right after.

When you opened the door (because admit it, you were kinda curious—and maybe wanna play round two), all you saw were flowers—a bunch of them. A gorgeous floral arrangement, boxes of chocolates, and a puppy-eyed Leon Kennedy begging you to reconsider.

Safe to say, you were one big dumb down-bad idiot and did something more than just get back together (unofficially).

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

The third time was… admittedly kinda different.

He’s in one of his disappearing games again, dodging the topic of whatever it is that he’s doing for a living. You were honestly convinced that he was part of the mafia or something at some point, given the way he acted.

He said no, and you digress. The look of his offended face was something to coo over, blue-boba eyes staring at you like you have five foreheads and an antenna. You would’ve smacked him if he weren’t handsome.

But that’s not the point, no.

The point is that when you inevitably call him (because you missed his clingy ass), a lady with a very pretty voice answers.

“Lee, oh my god, where the fuck have you been?! It’s been what, like five weeks with no—”

“Hi! Sorry, not Leon. He’s kinda busy at the moment, call back later. Bye!”

“…”

“That fucking bastard hung up!” You screamed in frustration, throwing your phone to god-knows-where.

You were livid.

Because of course, a pretty girl (you assume) will come running into his arms the moment you're out of the picture (and babe, girls still swarm him even if you’re in the picture—who are we kidding).

And because you’re kinda fucking crazy and maaaybe a stalker at birth, you checked the location of where the call was connected. Turns out it came from freaking Spain. That fucker was on vacation, in Spain, with a pretty girl (again, you assumed). Forgetting the fact that there was background noise—which seemed eerily familiar with multiple gunshots and a crash, you really contemplated blocking him.

Like, okay, your thingy wasn’t official-official, but c’mon! You fucked, eat together, cuddle while watching sad-sappy dramas you know he hates, but sucks it up because you like it! Hell, he wipes your tears off, is your unpaid therapist, and ties your shoes for you! Both of you had a written agreement that signifies you, and he won’t be hooking up with anyone other than yourselves.

Have you, perhaps, misjudged the situation again?!

You spent five hours retrieving your phone from underneath the cabinet just to send a ‘we’re done, enjoy your next pretty lady’ text. You don’t even know how it got there, and you refuse to talk about how you got it out.

Leon responded with: ‘Hey, pretty lady. I miss your pretty smile. Quit being pissy, yeah? Dinner on me?’ after a week of deadbeat silence.

You’d rather be caught dead wearing a potato sack than admit you sent a ‘when’ text back.

Waiting for a month to pass before you hit send, of course. You weren’t that desperate.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

This time was on Valentine's Day.

Yeah, real sappy.

In each corner you take, it looked like red and pink hearts were thrown up on the streets. And everywhere you looked, all you saw were couples eating each other’s faces off. It’s disgusting, really. Hated it, actually. Totally not thinking of Leon bringing you flowers and letting you decorate him with lipstick and bite marks. Totally.

So you clocked in at work.

As a barista who’s in love with her job, one of your favorite things to do is those rare specials. As a person who’s emotionally constipated and bitter, you hated doing hearts this very specific day.

It wasn’t until you saw a very familiar blond from across the street that you stopped and stared for a few moments. Now, it wasn’t unusual for him to wander around where you worked, but what’s unusual is the fact that he’s talking to a lady with a small, infuriating smile on his face. You saw him—very carefully—receiving a bouquet from her, treating it just as delicately. You saw the lady nudge him, and he chuckled in response before walking away.

Your eye twitched as your smile turned into a grimace, almost scaring the customer who had been trying to get your attention to order.

Your shift ended with you making wonky hearts and fake smiles throughout.

While you were exiting, you saw a familiar car parked along the pavement, and a familiar face half-asleep in the driver's seat. He was cute. That, you’ll admit. You sneakily snapped a photo, forgetting the very cute fact that your flash was on. That woke Leon up, clumsily unlocking the door and stumbling out.

“Nice nap?” you teased, a smile easily making its way to your face.

“Yeah, waiting for you, actually.” He tried to be smooth. He really did. But the slight tremor in his voice revealed that he was nervous. He faked a cough, choosing instead to open his backseat—beckoning you to come closer.

And when you did, the scene almost made your eyes tear up.

Because in his backseat was a huge fox stuffed toy holding a ‘will you let me be your valentine?’ sign propped with a very familiar arrangement of your favorite flowers, snacks, chocolates, and the like.

“So… will you?” whispered Leon from behind you. You turned around and, god, he was so close you practically felt his breath fan your flushed face. You snaked your arms around his neck, pulling him to your height, and stared at his twinkling baby blues with nothing but adoration.

Then, you leaned to close the distance.

Your lips moved in sync, falling into a dance both of you unknowingly memorized as your glassy eyes fluttered shut. You felt him nip your bottom lip, making it part. His warm tongue explored your mouth, as if it were the first time he had the honor of doing so. Your tongues locked, meeting halfway. You felt him suck, swallowing your noises as he backed you to his car.

His hands wander to your waist, pulling you even closer. And the worst part? He was gentle. He was gentle all throughout. As if what you had were real—labels be damned. You didn’t even remember when you parted, just the warmth of his calloused hand that caressed your cheek with hearts in his eyes and a soft smile on his lips. He looked ethereal, with his blown-out pupils and golden hair that swayed with the wind.

“Does that answer your question, Kennedy?” You asked, just as softly, afraid of dampening the surreal mood.

He laughed softly, and god, it was beautiful. You don’t even think there was an ounce of ugliness in that man. Sure, he has his broody act, but god, it just makes him all the more endearing.

“I got you flowers.” Leon started, brushing your hair behind your ear, which felt out of place. “From across the café. You’ve mentioned how much you loved how they arranged their bouquets. Jesus, the lady recognized me from buying there all the time.” He finished with a breathless—shy—laugh, a hint of red slowly blooming through his face.

“Lee, you didn’t have to.” You drawled, your voice fading into a whisper. “Just your presence is enough.”

“I want to. Your smile makes it worth it,” he stated with enough conviction that made your heart bubble with love. Utterly devastating love. All for him. All for the mysterious man you walked up to in the bar that had too much love to give with no one to give it to.

“God, you're sappy.” You shook your head, turning away from him to hide your rapidly blooming cheeks.

“You love it.” Leon chuckled, turning your head back.

“Debatable.”

“What a pretty, pissy girlfriend you are.” He grinned, purposely letting the word linger.

Now that made you freeze, the gears of your head refusing to turn. “Girlfriend..?”

And that made Leon confused, slightly stepping back to give you space, but his hands were still firmly planted around you. “Of course, girlfriend. You don’t think I’ll do this to someone I’m not exclusive to, right?”

“Huh? Since when?!” You exclaimed, gripping the two openings of his jacket.

“Baby, I literally take you out on dates—we’re dating. The fuck you mean ‘when’??” He looked at you, incredulously—as if you were the one making zero sense.

“I—wha—you never asked?!” You tugged, shaking him back and forth.

“We talked about being exclusive!”

“Yeah—exclusively fucking!”

“We literally had thee talk.” He deadpanned, amusement lingering in his eyes.

“That’s not how it works??!”

“Wait, so—the whole time—you don’t think I’m fucking yours?” The bastard had the audacity to laugh at you, making your blood flare up.

“Fuck—yes??”

“Baby, that’s insane. Are you okay?”

“I—you’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“So much.” That earned him multiple smacks on the head and a shit ton of kisses that peppered all over his face right after.

Yeah, turns out, in the very deep and concerning mind of Leon S. Kennedy, the two of you were in a very much real, loving, and committed relationship. You just didn’t know it yet.

He thinks it started the very first time you slept together.

He knew you as the pretty lady who works in a cozy café downtown. The cute barista who serves sweet drinks with a matching sweet smile. He was with Claire that time, grabbing a long-overdue lunch. It was the closest café in the vicinity, and like the gentleman that he is, he offered to order and pay for her as well.

He caught a glimpse of you while he was ordering.

And damn, it felt like Cupid’s arrow went straight to his heart and hit the bullseye.

Because from then on, he vowed to visit—at least maybe once a month. Y’know, just to… observe—order, drinks and pastries are good. Totally. Totally not because he was too much of a pussy to talk to you. For sure.

That’s also the reason why he felt as if Cupid came for round 2 when he saw you at the bar.

You were literally talking to him—giving him attention—and he didn’t even notice that it was you, of all people. It’s the whiskey, he swears, that made him undeniably bold. On any normal day, he wouldn’t have the courage to talk to you—more or less, flirt with you! He’s a dangerous man living a dangerous life and working a dangerous job, for godssake! You could be in danger, and fuck, he doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want anything bad to happen to you.

But as hours passed by, he just couldn’t help but indulge in a dangerous drug named you. The way your voice lifts when you talk about something that interests you, the way you unconsciously scrunch your nose when you catch a whiff of something strong, and Christ, the way you sweep your hair back so you can see clearly. It irks him. The way you do shit to him, and you. don’t. even. notice.

He didn’t even know what happened. One second, he’s learning about you in the bar, and the next, you’re in his sheets—reeling from satisfaction: bathing in the afterglow. Leon couldn’t let you go, even if he tried. You got him madly hooked. And he’s right where he wants to be. With you wrapped in his arms. With you tracing his scars, kissing him lovingly as if he deserved only the best in this godforsaken world.

“Hi.” He nuzzled into your soft, inviting palm.

“You’re awake? Sorry, I woke you up.” You were so damn warm. Your voice, a little gruff from sleep, makes his blood run in a different direction.

“It’s fine, knew you couldn’t resist me. Not a bad way to wake up.” He teased, disguising his real, incoherent thoughts.

“Hush, you look like a bad decision.”

“One you’re willing to indulge in, yeah?”

“Debatable.”

He laughed, pecking the tip of your nose and pulling you even closer—his head now resting on the top of yours, wishing for the moment to last forever.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

Leon was with Sherry this time, on one of his off days. He wanted to visit his kid— checked to see if everything was alright.

“Leon? Who was that?” Sherry asked, a bit curious. For her, it was weird seeing Leon look lovingly at his phone. It was weird seeing him on his phone in general, more so that he’s smiling as if someone hung the moon for him. As strange as it is, she’s just glad that someone is making Leon act like an otter seeing the water for the very first time.

“My girlfriend. She’s probably bored.” He replied, a small smile involuntarily appearing on his face. He can’t help it; that’s just your effect on him.

“You have a girlfriend? Who? Since when??” She almost squealed, excitement flickering in her bright eyes.

“I know. Shocker, right?”

He picked up the call, expecting a barrage of ‘I miss you, come over?’ or some rant about your ass netflix shows you couldn’t help but watch, or maybe even that annoying regular that picks up fights with literally anyone.

What he didn’t expect was an abrupt breakup call.

“… that was awkward,” Sherry faked a cough. “Are you… okay, though?” She winced, voice gradually becoming more of a whisper.

After a few beats of silence.

“…Yeah, she just—does that—I’m okay. Yup… I’ll just—… I’ll see you later, kid?”

He doesn’t know why or what compelled you to break up with him over a damn twenty-three-second phone call, but he sure as hell won’t be losing the absolute love of his life over some fucking boredom.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆

Spain was crazy. Insane—criminal, actually.

His mission was to save the President’s daughter, Ashley Graham. Jesus, he’s glad she’s already by his side—he can’t fucking wait for the mission to be over.

The absurd call happened when he was literally fighting for his life. His phone might’ve fallen during whatever the fuck he was doing to survive (he’s kinda reckless, okay—but valid), because all he saw was Ashley picking it up and talking to someone before quickly handing it back to him.

“Someone called you. I guess they were worried.”

“…There’s a reception here..?” He was more confused because how the fuck did a normal call connect easily when the comms with Hunnigan were choppy?

It wasn’t until he felt a chill run down his back that he asked the dreaded, “Who was it?”

“Ah, I didn’t check. But it sounds like a girl—wait, do you have a girlfriend?” Ashley asked, a bit incredulously—and he couldn’t stop the involuntary ‘shit’ that fell out of his mouth.

Oh. Oh fuck. He’s fucked.

Because of course, your call would connect; that’s just your effect.

If you knew he was basically kidnapped, would he be forgiven? Who was he kidding, he knew he wouldn’t be telling you any of this when he got home. Not because it’s confidential as fuck, but because he can’t bring himself to tell you all the ugly parts of his job. He can’t bring you down with him—and if that meant forever keeping you in the dark with the horror he regularly goes through? Then so be it.

He’d rather wait for a month than explain—recall—he almost got killed for the umpteenth amount of time in Spain, and not experience the getaway you thought he had. He’d rather whisper sweet nothings in your ear and have you in his arms than tell the tale that he got infected by a freaking parasite that ought to make him a mindless subordinate.

He’d rather take you to a fancy dinner and be enamored by you once again, grovel at your feet, and give you a good time than to admit that he was forcefully employed by the government to keep his mouth shut about the horrors of bioweapons.

Yeah, he’d rather take the burn of your anger than have you worry if he’ll live the next time he disappears again.

He might be selfish, but Jesus, what can he do if you unknowingly became his only salvation?

If becoming official meant going to court to pledge your undying devotion? Then so be it. Leon’s already got a beautiful ring in mind.

˚　　　　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.　　　　　 . ✦　　　 　˚　　　　 . ★⋆. 　　　.   　　˚　✭　 　　*　　 　　✦　　　.　　.　　　✦　˚ 　　　　 ˚　.˚　　　　　✭　.　　. 　 ˚　.　　　　 　　 　　　　 ✦

hey hey hey!! it's been a while, hasn't it? i'm afraid leon ass kennedy got me in a cage rn fighting for my life, apparently getting tagged-team w chris bulkfield as we speak. this was my third wip for this man n it's the first one to be published. i'm actually shocked bcuz this is like the longest anything i've ever fucking written, and it's also, BY FAR, the most suggestive one i've ever published. my mans been rotting my mind for a month now and gosh, i literally can't get out. hope you enjoyed reading this one as much as i've enjoyed writing it! also btw, no ai was used in this self-indulgent fic, i'm just an em dash warrior. as always, rbs are appreciated lmao ily

His vision was horrifically blurry, the walls and furniture bled into each other like wet paint. Even the figure seated beside his bed was nothing more than a vague silhouette.

His face scrunched when a persistent, rhythmic beeping cut through the haze, sharp and annoyingly consistent somewhere to his right.

At least that meant his hearing wasn’t gone.

The blur slowly began to settle. The shapes in the room sharpened, the colors separated into their proper objects. The room comes into focus piece by piece.

Leon is in a hospital room.

That explained the beeping. It was a heart monitor.

And then…there was You.

Each blink brought you into clearer view, until Leon could finally make out your face.

And yep…he didn’t need perfect vision to know one thing.

You were ridiculously good-looking.

You were holding his hand, your expression laced with worry.

Leon furrowed his brows. Who were you?

Why are you holding his hand?

Matter of fact, why is he here?

He tried to push himself up—a mistake.

A sharp, searing pain shot through his side, forcing a strained groan out of him as he dropped back against the bed.

“Don’t move, idiot.”

Leon turned his head toward you, blinking slowly, choosing to ignore the little jab.

“Who…are you?” His voice came out rough, dry, and groggy—like he hadn’t used it in a while.

Your eyebrow arched.

“Oh…right.”You muttered, more to yourself than to him. “They said you might wake up disoriented.”

Leon swallowed, wincing faintly when he felt how rough his throat was. “What happened to me?”

You hesitated for a second before answering, shifting slightly in your seat, your hand still holding his.

“You got shot,” You said, matter-of-factly. “They said your mission went awry. Bullet lodged near your ribs—too close to anything important to leave in, so they had to operate.”

“They put you under.” You gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. “You’ve been out for a bit and a half.”

Leon processed that slowly…Shot. Surgery. Anesthesia.

Great.

“First of all,” you continued, lifting your left hand into his line of sight, “I’m your spouse. Congratulations, by the way. Best decision you’ve ever made.”

Leon just…stared at you.

“I…” His mouth fell open slightly, his eyes widened a fraction. “Married you?”

The heart monitor to his right immediately picked up pace, beeping faster for a few moments.

You snorted softly, clearly amused by the situation at hand.

“Yep,”You said, popping the p. “You managed to bag a ten.”

Leon looked at you—really looked this time—and a slow, crooked smile spread across his face.

“Damn, “ he murmured. “I did.”

Your thumb brushed over his knuckles, and the monitor sped up again in response. You glanced at it, then back at him, a teasing grin smeared on your face.

“Well, that’s one way to measure my effect on you.”

Leon grimaced, eyes flicking toward the machine. “Can that thing shut up?”

You let out a quiet laugh, shaking your head.

“Afraid not. You’re being monitored for a reason, pretty boy.”

“Shit.”

You tried, really—really—tried, to hold it in, but a small snicker slipped out anyway. Leon narrowed his eyes at you, still half-lidded and unfocused.

“Glad my near-death experience is entertaining.” He rasped out.

That did it—the dam broke. You broke into laughter, spilling out before you quickly scrambled to rein it back in.

“Sorry, sorry,” You said, exhaling. “I’ve just been worried sick. That—” you gestured vaguely at him, “—that helped. A little.”

You took a moment, shaking off the lingering want to laugh, before your expression softened again, concern settling right back in.

“How are you feeling?” You asked gently. “What do you remember?”

Leon went quiet. Searching through his man for anything, but everything felt…foggy…slippery even. Like everything was just out of his reach.

He shook his head—another mistake.

The room tilted violently, he hissed under his breath.

“Hey, hey—easy.”You tightened your hold on his hand. “Doc said recovery might be a little rough. Memory gaps…dizziness, all that fun stuff.”

He exhaled slowly, forcing himself to stay still in hopes that everything stopped moving for once.

“Relax, we'll be right here.”

“Thanks.”

There was a pregnant pause.

What do you mean, we?

“We?”

Your eyebrows shot up for half a second before realization dawned on your face.

Ah…right, he really didn’t remember a lot.

“Oh, Leon…” You murmured. “I don’t know how to say this, but.”

You shifted to the side to reveal the couch behind you.

What’s more important than the couch was the little girl currently occupying it. The little bundle was snoozing away, all wrapped in her fluffy blanket.

“I’m pretty sure she’s not actually allowed in here,” You admitted quietly, “but she refused to leave. Said she wanted to be here when her daddy woke up, so…I snuck her in.”

Leon stared, completely, utterly stunned by what was in front of him.

First, a drop-dead gorgeous spouse.

Second, a cute daughter?

What had he done in his past and present life to merit such a combo?

“I…have a daughter?” He asked, voice barely above a whisper, like speaking too loudly might make her disappear.

You smiled, warmth bleeding into every inch of your expression as you watched your husband process the information.

“Our daughter, “You corrected softly.

His eyes widened, flicking between you and the sleeping little princess.

“We have a daughter, “ He repeated, as if testing the words.

The monitor sped up again, betraying the surge of emotion hitting him all at once.

“We do.” You smiled, amused by what was unfolding in front of you.

A slow, almost disbelieving grin tugged at his lips.

“That means I’m a father.”

“I mean…yeah,” You shrugged. “That’s usually how that works.”

He tried to roll his eyes, but his body was still confused; it didn’t pan out the way he had intended.

“That was… unbelievably sad.”

“Go away,” he grumbled.

“I would,” You said sweetly, raising your free hand and wiggling your fingers so the ring caught the hospital light, “but…no. Married, remember?”

Leon huffed, squinting at you.

“I’m starting to regret it.”

You gasped in mock offense, placing your hand over your chest for added flair.

“Wow. I leave you alone for one near-death experience, and this is the thanks I get?”

He lightly shook his head at the display.

You leaned closer, voice dropping into a playful sing-song.

“Too late, darling~. Papers signed, sealed, and filed years ago~."

You could clearly hear your kids fighting now, but you still haven't made any effort to move. They were grown-ass teens after all, you told yourself.

You slowly closed your eyes and gave your back to your husband once more. Leon opened his eyes and looked at your back. It was clear that neither of you wanted to get up and stop them.

But you lived with your husband long enough to know he's awake and he doesn't want to drag his ass out of bed just yet.

When he felt that you were about to turn your face towards his, he quickly gave you his back and faked his snoring sounds to fool you. His little trick obviously didn't work on you.

As the noise continued downstairs, you sighed and poked him in the ribs with your elbow.

“Ouch!” Leon said lazily as he rubbed the spot.

“BRING THE FIRE EXTINGUISHER!”

Leon groaned and pushed the covers aside with a scowling face. He pulled his underwear off the ground and put them back on.

“You better be naked when I get back,” he grumbled, pointing his finger at you.

“Got it.” You murmured into your pillow and watched him leave the room. Practically, you were wearing nothing but a bra. You lazily removed it and threw it aside.

You tossed and turned in bed waiting for your husband to return. About twenty minutes passed. It was around 7:19 by now—why was he taking so long?

You were about to put your feet on the floor when you saw your husband enter the bedroom. His gaze fell on you, covered only with the bed sheets. Leon closed the door and walked towards you, removing his underwear once more.

You wanted to say something, but he hopped onto the bed on you. You protested slightly and wrapped your hands around his neck. Leon kissed your lips desperately.

You muttered against his lips and broke it, looking into his eyes.

“Kitchen situation?”

He sighed and buried his face in your breasts. His trimmed beard scratched your skin a little, not that you complained, right?

“They didn't burn anything, right?” you asked him again, demanding an answer. Leon hummed on your skin on purpose.

“LEON!” You slowly sat, crossing your arms on your bare chest, which brought him out of his bubble.

“Fine, fine! Maybe just the microwave.” Confused, Leon was still eyeing your body. You raised your eyebrows.

“Seriously?”

You got up to grab your robe, but he grabbed your wrist and pulled you back to bed.

He put you on top of him as he lay down with a little smug smirk. His hands started wandering on your thighs to your ass to squeeze it.

“Damn, honey, you became so squeezable,” he teased.

You rolled your eyes. He was teasing you and you knew it. Also, you could feel his dick against your butt. You swatted his hands and pointed a finger towards his smug expression.

“Don't change the topic, Kennedy—my microwave—”

He hushed you with his thumb on your lips.

“I'll buy you a new one,” he said as he placed his other hand on your butt again.

You blinked for a few seconds, then removed his thumb.

“And your kids—”

He interrupted you again and rolled his eyes.

“I punished them.”

You shut your mouth and looked at him—really looked. Despite how handsome he was beneath you, you restrained yourself a little.

“Happy now, Mrs. Kennedy?”

“Think so. Don't get smug about it,” you scolded.

Leon let out a little laugh and flipped you under him instead to catch your lips. You groaned and returned the kiss. You can't stay mad at him forever, not when he promised to buy you a new microwave.

You wrapped your legs around his waist and let him rub his tip against your entrance to drive you wild. You let out a series of miserable moans as he rubbed against you.

You caught his mouth again, desperate to distract yourself.

“Mom, I want to borrow your haird—”

Your daughter just had to storm into your room without warning. She immediately covered her eyes and turned her face towards the door. The last thing she expected was to see her parents having sex.

“Ew, aren't you guys too old for THIS?” she said in an embarrassed tone, her head still facing the door.

Leon rolled his eyes and got off you, lifting the sheets to cover you and him. You raised your eyebrows.

“Didn't we teach you how to knock on the door first?”

“Jesus Christ, MOM!”

She hadn’t even heard him enter.

Slowly, she turned to face her husband, a faint crease forming between her brows. “My love, you spend all day in council, and the first thing you do after not seeing me for hours is talk more about the council?” she teased lightly, though there was a hint of tiredness beneath it. She turned back to the mirror, picking up her hairbrush and dragging it gently through her hair.

“Well, love, this isn’t about the council. Technically,” he replied, stepping further into the room. “It’s about Aang. He needs our help.”

“Our help?” She turned again, confusion softening her features as she rose from the vanity. Her green satin nightgown draped elegantly over her figure, the gold stitching catching the candlelight with every movement. The most prominent change, however, was the gentle, undeniable curve of her stomach.

“You knocked me up, dummy,” she teased, a small smile tugging at her lips as she approached him. Her hands slid to his shoulders, then to the ties of his robes, beginning to loosen them with practiced ease. “Or did you forget already?”

He laughed softly, the sound low and fond, allowing her to help him out of his robes as the fabric slipped from his shoulders.

“How could I forget?” he murmured, turning toward her.

His gaze drifted over her slowly, appreciatively, before settling on the curve of her stomach. His hands followed, almost instinctively, coming to rest there, warm, steady, protective. His thumbs brushed gentle circles over the satin, as if he could feel something deeper beneath it.

“When you carry the future of the Fire Nation inside you?” he said quietly, his voice softening. “A little piece of me…”

His eyes lifted to meet hers, something tender and unguarded flickering there.

“And all of you.”

She hummed softly, rising onto her tiptoes as her arms slipped around his neck, drawing him down to her. Her lips met his in a gentle, fleeting kiss, soft, familiar, almost teasing.

But when she tried to pull away, he didn’t let her.

His hand tightened at her waist, the other still resting protectively against her stomach as he followed her retreat, capturing her lips again before the distance could grow. Even as her heels lowered back to the floor, he bent with her, closing the space she had tried to create.

This time the kiss deepened, slower, warmer, lingering in a way that stole the breath from her lungs. It wasn’t hurried, but it wasn’t soft either; it carried weight, intention, something unspoken between them.

His thumb brushed lightly against her side as he tilted his head, pressing closer, as if memorizing her. The world beyond them seemed to fade, the council, the letter, everything, leaving only the quiet crackle of candlelight and the steady rhythm of shared breath.

When he finally pulled back, it wasn’t far, just enough for their foreheads to rest together, his lips still ghosting over hers, reluctant to let her go.

“I can’t get you pregnant again, can I? Double pregnant,” he teased, a grin tugging at his lips.

She let out a soft laugh, shaking her head at him. “Oh, you’ve certainly tried,” she replied, her voice laced with amusement. Her hand lingered briefly against his chest before she stepped back, just enough to create space between them. “But don’t try again, I need this thing out of me first.” "I don't know if I love you referring to our child as a thing."

She separated from him fully then, turning slightly as if to busy herself, though she didn’t miss the way his shoulders subtly slumped at the loss of contact. The warmth between them lingered in the space she left behind, unspoken but felt.

Her fingers adjusted the sleeve of her gown absentmindedly, her expression softening for just a moment before she glanced back at him over her shoulder. There was still a hint of her earlier smile there, though now tempered with curiosity.

“Now,” she said, more gently this time, “tell me what Aang wants.”

"That can wait for the morning." He mumbled, his eyes never leaving her lips as he pulled her back into another kiss.

“A village?”

Zuko sighed, steadying Appa’s harness as he helped his wife climb aboard. “Why would he possibly want us to go to a random village?” And why would he say pack a coat? We're going to a mountain aren't we?" she huffed, gripping the edge before finally pulling herself over with a bit more effort than she liked. "I hate mountains."

He lingered below for a moment, looking up at her, concern etched into his features. “Are you sure it’s a good idea for you to go? You can stay—I’ll be back in a couple days.”

She leaned over the edge slightly, brows knitting. “Aang needs the second-best earthbender with him, Zuko. I’m not disabled—”

She winced mid-sentence, her hand instinctively going to her stomach before she turned toward Toph. “Sorry.”

Toph shrugged easily. “Hey, I’m just glad you finally admitted I’m the better earthbender.”

“I give you your flowers when they’re due,” she shot back with a small smile.

Toph grinned, but it slowly faltered, her head tilting slightly as if listening to something no one else could hear. "Your heart must be beating really fast." "Is it?" The princess quirked her head confused. "Why else am I hearing two heartbeats coming from you?”

Katara gasped, her hands flying together in delight. “Oh my gosh, you’re pregnant! I thought your coat was just oddly bulky but you're pregnant! Oh my Gosh!" she exclaimed, immediately rushing forward to wrap the Fire Princess in a tight hug. “I thought they were just rumors, because surely you and Zuko would’ve told us!”

The princess blinked, caught off guard, before her gaze slid over to her husband, who was just now hauling himself rather ungracefully into Appa’s saddle.

“Zuko,” she said slowly, one brow arching, “I thought you told them.”

Zuko froze mid-step, staring back at her blankly. “I thought you did.”

There was a beat.

“Oh my gosh.”

“I mean, it was only a matter of time,” Katara chimed in, smiling knowingly. “You two have never exactly been subtle. And Zuko practically insisted on marrying you the moment he could.”

Toph snorted, crossing her arms. “Yeah, honestly? I’m surprised it took this long. Thought for sure you’d have a whole lineup of heirs by now if Zuko could keep his hands to himself for more than, what? two minutes?”

Zuko nearly choked, his face flushing a deep, unmistakable red. “That’s— I—” He cleared his throat, straightening awkwardly as he avoided everyone’s eyes. “That’s not— we’re not—”

The princess, however, looked entirely unbothered.

In fact, she looked amused.

“Well,” she said lightly, smoothing a hand over her stomach as she glanced at him, “he does have a bit of a… lack of restraint.”

Zuko snapped his head toward her. “You’re not helping.”

Katara laughed, covering her mouth. “I mean, you can’t blame them. You’ve both been—” she hesitated, searching for a polite word before giving up, “—like that since the beginning.”

Toph grinned wider. “Please. ‘Like that’ is putting it nicely.”

“Toph,” Katara warned, though she was still smiling.

“What?” Toph shrugged. “I’m just saying—half the time, I didn’t even need my feet to know when they were in the same room. The tension alone was loud enough.”

The princess let out a quiet laugh, shaking her head. “You’re all incredibly annoying.”

Zuko groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “Can we please focus on the actual reason we’re here?”

“Oh, no, no,” Toph continued, clearly enjoying herself. “You deserve this. All those nights you two kept everyone awake—”

“Okay, that’s enough,” the princess cut in quickly, though a smile tugged at her lips. She glanced at Zuko, amused. “He can’t get any redder. He’s about to turn into a tomato.”

Zuko let out a quiet, embarrassed huff, but didn’t argue, instead shifting closer and settling against her side, seeking some sense of refuge.

She softened slightly at that, her expression gentler as she let him.

“Let’s just go get Sokka,” he muttered, still avoiding everyone’s gaze.

The princess had shrugged off her coat minutes into the trip. They weren’t even close to Aang yet, and the extra weight had her uncomfortably warm, a light sheen of sweat clinging to her skin. The shifting air currents around Appa did little to help.

Katara, however, had not left her alone once.

The questions came one after another, gentle but relentless, curiosity shining in her eyes.

“How far along are you?”

“Five months,” she answered, offering a tired but polite smile.

“What’s the gender?”

“No clue.”

“Any baby names lined up?”

“We’re trying for something that blends earth and fire,” she said, glancing briefly at Zuko, “but nothing’s stuck yet.”

Katara brightened. “That’s so sweet—”

“Are you going to have more?”

The princess didn’t even hesitate. “Have you met my husband?”

Katara blinked, then laughed, covering her mouth.

Zuko, meanwhile, coughed into his fist, his ears burning all over again.

Through it all, his hand never left her, resting protectively over her stomach, thumb brushing slow, absent circles as if grounding himself in her presence. Every so often, his grip would tighten slightly whenever Appa shifted, like he could somehow steady both her and the child at once.

“Careful,” he murmured under his breath at one point, guiding her subtly as the saddle dipped.

“I’m fine,” she replied, though she didn’t pull away from him.

By the time the icy waters and familiar structures of the Southern Water Tribe came into view, the air had grown colder, sharper against their skin. Snow dusted the ground below, and the distant figures of Water Tribe members began to gather, pointing up at Appa’s descending form.

They didn’t have to search long.

Sokka was already striding across the snow toward them, boots crunching loudly with each step, his grin widening the second he took them in.

“Well, well,” he called, arms spreading like he was welcoming honored guests. “Look who finally decided to show up. Took you two long enough.”

His gaze flicked between them, lingering, calculating, before it dropped.

Then paused.

“…Whoa.”

Zuko stiffened immediately. “Don’t.”

But Sokka was already circling them, slow and deliberate, like he was inspecting something fascinating. “No way. No way. You’re serious?”

The princess raised a brow, unimpressed. “Very.”

Sokka let out a low whistle, dragging a hand down his face before pointing straight at Zuko. “I mean, I knew you two had issues with personal space, but I didn’t think you’d go and make it this… I don't even know the word for it. You two are freaks."

Zuko groaned, already regretting coming. “Sokka.”

“What?” Sokka shrugged, smirk growing. “You expect me to ignore this? This isn't even groundbreaking it's just expected from you both knowing you. This is, this is what happens when you two get even five minutes alone, isn’t it?”

Toph let out a quiet snort.

Sokka leaned in slightly, lowering his voice just enough to make it worse. “Actually, scratch that. Five minutes is probably generous.”

Zuko made a strangled noise. “Okay.”

Katara slapped a hand over her face. “Sokka—”

“No, no, I’m just connecting the dots,” he continued, clearly enjoying himself. “All those times you disappeared during meetings, all those ‘private discussions’ yeah, makes a lot more sense now.”

The princess tilted her head, completely unbothered. “You’re being very bold for someone standing this close to me.”

Sokka grinned. “I’m just impressed, honestly. You two had so much tension it was practically a natural disaster, and now—” he gestured vaguely toward her stomach, “—this is the aftermath. Surprised it took you this long."

Toph laughed outright at that.

Zuko looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him whole.

Sokka wasn’t done.

“I mean seriously,” he added, folding his arms, “if this is what happens when the Fire Lord gets a little too… distracted, I’m shocked there’s not a second one already on the way.”

Zuko choked. “That’s enough.”

“Hey, I’m congratulating you!” Sokka shot back. “Just saying, next time, maybe let people know before you two go off and—”

“Sokka.”

“—expand the royal family.”

Katara shoved him lightly. “You’re unbelievable.”

“But not wrong,” he corrected smoothly.

The princess let out a quiet laugh, shaking her head. “Unfortunately, he’s not entirely wrong.”

Zuko turned to her, betrayed. “You’re encouraging him.”

“We've been married for eleven months and I've been pregnant for five of them, you lack restraint Zuko” she stated bluntly, though her smile gave her away. He shook his head leaning close so only he could hear her. "Who suggested riding me in the throne ro-" "Okay hush now."

Sokka clapped his hands together once, satisfied. “Great. Now that we’ve established the Fire Lord has absolutely no self-control—”

“Sokka.”

“—can someone please tell me why Aang is dragging us to some random village?"

The teasing was warranted, deserved, even.

The Fire Nation had taken your father, your brother. Zuko’s redemption didn’t erase that. Not to you. He had hunted you, cornered you, forced you into survival more times than you could count. While the others learned to trust him, to laugh with him, to move on… you hadn’t. Not so easily.

So yeah, there had been tension.

A lot of it.

It just… hadn’t been resolved in a way anyone else approved of.

His lips brushed slowly along the inside of her thigh, unhurried, deliberate, testing, teasing. The touch alone was enough to pull a quiet, unwilling sound from her, her breath catching despite herself.

“Just do it already,” she muttered, more breath than voice, her fingers tightening against the sheets.

Zuko clicked his tongue softly, unfazed. Another kiss followed, closer this time, but still not quite where she wanted, where she needed.

“Not until you say please.”

Her head tipped back in frustration. “Why would I have to say please?” she shot back weakly. “You said you were atoning for everything your nation did. Consider this part of your apology.”

A quiet huff of amusement left him, warm against her skin. “I’ve been atoning for two months now,” he murmured, his voice low, almost thoughtful.

Another slow press of his lips, lingering.

“And yet,” he added, “every morning I wake up and you’ve already taken my portion of breakfast because, apparently, ‘murderers don’t deserve to eat.’”

She exhaled sharply, somewhere between a scoff and something softer. “Well, when the Fire Nation killed my family, I couldn’t afford breakfast—”

“I know.” His tone shifted immediately, the teasing giving way to something heavier, sincere. His hand stilled, grounding. “I know. And I’m sorry.”

There was a pause, the air between them tightening, thick with everything unsaid.

“I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make up for it,” he continued quietly. “For what I did… for what I stood for.”

His placed a long kiss to her core, a soft moan (against her will) escaped her lips.

“Let me try,” he said, voice gentler now. “Even if it’s not enough.”

“I’m glad you all could make it, this village needs our help with—” Aang began, pulling back from Katara mid-sentence.

His eyes flicked across the group.

Paused.

Then widened.

“…Are—did—?”

He leaned toward Katara, lowering his voice into what he clearly thought was a whisper. “Am I allowed to ask people if they’ve gained weight?”

Katara’s eyes widened. “No, Aang. We’ve been over this.”

Aang nodded quickly. “Right, right. No asking.”

“…They’re pregnant,” she added quietly.

Aang blinked.

Then looked back at them.

Then back at Katara.

“…Zuko’s pregnant too?”

Toph snorted.

Sokka immediately burst out laughing. “Yeah, yeah, Fire Lord had a lot to do with it actually.”

Zuko’s face flushed instantly. “That’s not—”

“I’m pregnant, Aang,” the princess cut in, voice flat.

“Oh!” Aang straightened immediately, relief flooding his face. “Oh, that makes way more sense.”

There was a beat.

“…Congratulations!” he added, a little too late but entirely sincere.

Then his expression shifted, concern creeping in.

“Wait, are you sure you should be here?” he asked, glancing between her and Zuko. “I mean, with everything going on… I don’t want you getting hurt.”

Zuko immediately nodded. “Exactly.”

She sighed.

“I’m pregnant, not made of glass,” she said, crossing her arms lightly. “I can still help.”

Toph smirked. “Told you.”

Katara smiled gently. “We’ll keep an eye on you. Just in case.”

Sokka grinned. “Yeah, someone has to make sure Zuko doesn’t give himself an aneurysm trying to watch after the princess.”

Zuko shot him a glare.

Aang hesitated, then nodded. “Okay. I trust you. Just… be careful, alright?”

She gave a small, confident nod.

“Always.”

Aang clapped his hands together once, refocusing. “Right, so. The village has been dealing with a spirit. It’s been acting aggressively, and I think it’s tied to something in the mountain.”

The princess exhaled slowly. “…So you did drag us out here for a mountain.”

Aang winced. “Technically… yes.”

Zuko sighed. “Of course.”

Toph cracked her knuckles. “Good. I was getting bored.”

Sokka looked between them, grin already returning. “Alright, angry spirit, pregnant Fire-Earth Princess, and Zuko on edge. This should go great.”

She leaned slightly into Zuko’s side, her hand brushing his.

“Next time,” she murmured, “we ignore the letter and go to Ember Island."

He huffed softly. “…Agreed.”

You really should be listening because, for one, he was right, and two, it concerned a whole lot about the world’s state right now. But how could you, if Jason Peter Todd sat on the velvety couch, knees spread, jaw clenched tight, and those beautiful emerald eyes narrowed into tiny slits. His black jeans strained against his sturdy thighs and white t-shirt stuck to his torso like a second skin – you could even see his abs pulsing with every word, and boy, was it hypnotising.

Both of you had just returned home after watching the recent adaptation (if you could even call it that), and to say the least, Jason was pissed. He had gone straight to the bookshelf at the corner of the living room, grabbed his paperback copy and started ranting about all the discrepancies between the movie and the book, which were pretty much everything.

It’s not like you didn't try; you really did. But your boyfriend was hot, especially when he was angry. You lick your lips, trying to cool the sudden warmth surging through your body. The deep blue lighting from the paused TV screen highlighted Jason, as if he were the beautiful, deep ocean, and you were the reckless sailor drowning in it. Jason leaned, his head falling back on the couch, palm resting against his forehead in exasperation, but instead, all you saw was his biceps flexing.

Yeah, you couldn’t take it anymore.

“What was that for?” he mumbles when you pluck the book out of his hands and straddle his lap. His face is warm under your hands, eyes a little widened at the sudden movement. You brush against his scars before placing feather-light kisses from the tilt of his jaw, the expanse of his cheeks, and his scars to the column of his throat. His hands are at your waist, firm but gentle, as his eyes flutter, breathy gasps leaving his lips at the sudden rampage.

“Baby, please, " he sighed at the lack of your mouth on the only place he wanted.

Finally, your lips seal his, tasting the cherry ice cream he had earlier. Jason squeezes your hips, finding the silver of skin underneath your shirt, tracing circles on to them – either to calm you or himself. Before long, one of his hands cups your neck, slithering his tongue between your glossy lips, swirling with yours like a melody you both are fluent in. Your hips unconsciously grind onto his, as he gasps.

“You just looked so hot, Jay.” You whisper letting out a breath as you nuzzled into the crook of his neck, placing a small kiss while your fingers threaded through his hair, “I couldn’t help it”. He hums, hands trailing to your butt before squeezing the flesh as he stands – your legs still looped at his waist—causing you to let out a yelp.

“ Well, we can’t just leave this halfway now, can we?” Emerald eyes hold yours, now brimming with desire, flooding all your senses. You whisper back, a sly smile on your face “of course, we can’t”

You giggle, as he leaps (literally) with you to the bedroom.

Bonus Scene:

“It still doesn’t make sense how she could cast a POC actor for Edgar but not for Heathcliff,” you hum, drifting in between sleep as you nuzzle into his naked chest, his fingers twirling your hair. It was early morning now, after hours of being in each other’s arms, and Jason was still stuck on last night’s movie.

“Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush is really the best adaptation to date”

The afternoon sun sneaks through the wooden cracks of the ship before its light washes over the sheaths of the swords. They shimmer in a way you can’t tear your attention away — a call demanding an answer.  

You’ve watched him wield all three many times, awestruck over the rare ability that most could never replicate. It makes you want to try it for yourself; to see if you have what it takes and get a little glimpse inside his world. 

Waves lap against the sides of the ship with a steady sway, ensuring the swordsman gets his rest before another night of shenanigans with the Straw Hat crew. The light catches the blades again and your curiosity grows deeper. You decide it’s time to take action.

Carefully moving from your spot next to him, you reach out to grab one of the swords, steering away from the white one — the Wado Ichimonji. One of the sheaths clink together and your heart pauses at the sound, eyes flitting up to the sleeping swordsman. He doesn’t stir and you rise like the sun with the blade in hand. A piece of him now in your hold. 

You tentatively grip around its middle, letting the weight teeter side to side. It’s foreign, yet familiar. Your fingers enclose around the corded hilt, letting the balanced weapon ground you. 

The elusive shine of steel catches your eye in the slightly foggy mirror as you begin to pull it from its sheath. Once freed, you move towards the reflection with wobbly steps. The tip of the blade is surprisingly light, but it’s clear it takes a lot of discipline to be able to control the weapon, let alone three. 

Face to face with your reflection, you suddenly feel out of your depths as you step into his world. Visions of Zoro fighting float in your mind and you try your best to replicate it by holding the blade up high, victoriously — just like he did at Little Garden.

The reminder almost takes your breath away, swept up with the image of him covered in a lifeless wax that’s forever seared into your memory. Your chest lurches forward but the ship remains steady. 

“If you wanted to learn how to use them then you could’ve just asked.” Zoro's low voice rumbles from his throat, thick with sleep. 

“Oh-!” You try to catch his eye in the mirror but they’re still shut, his face expressionless apart from the faintest smirk that slowly spreads across his lips. 

As soon as he has your attention, he cracks an eye open — playful intentions swirling in the depths of disciplined steel.

Zoro gets up, kicking off his feet and prowling over to you with the gracefulness of a tiger. The lingering scent of sweat dizzies your senses as he stands beside you.

“First, form. It needs some work.” His fingers gently press against your elbow as he moves behind you, adding just enough pressure so you raise the sword a little higher. “Better.”

Your breath hitches at the unexpected lesson. It's amazing how quickly he can jump from teasing to being entirely serious. He assesses you for a moment and suddenly you feel too seen, exposed.

Before you can say anything, he grabs another sword and places it in your other hand. It settles the same way as the first, grounding you further into place until you feel like you can't move — frozen with fascination.

This time it doesn’t feel as foreign, not when the owner of the blades is the one guiding you. Zoro makes sure to raise your arm up, nudging your elbow into place and setting your shoulders so they’re square with the other side.

“Feet shoulder width apart, knees slightly bent.” Zoro's boot nudges the back of your shoe. He circles around to your other side, his palm pressing against your back. “Straighten your spine, stand tall with your shoulders back.”

The ghost of his fingers dance along your upper back, ensuring your posture is in place. It takes everything in you to control your breathing, trying not to focus on how his breath brushes against your skin while he moves you into position.

Zoro grabs the Wado, hesitating for a moment before turning to you. The look in his eyes is one you’ve never seen. It’s vulnerable, yet still guarded around the edges. An oxymoron only Roronoa Zoro could produce.

“This is a special one.” Zoro whispers softly, low enough that it sinks into your bones to a depth you’ve never gone with him. “It represents a promise I made to a friend.”

“We don’t have to-“

You don’t get to finish your sentence, the fabric of the sword's hilt kisses your lips before any more words have a chance to come out. It sits there like a secret he lets you in on, slowly unraveling the layers of the man before you.

Your eyes don’t leave his but his dart away, ignoring the questions that swim in your irises. A blush coats his cheeks and he all but stumbles back, looking at you in the mirror.

“There.” He nods curtly, “that’s not a bad pose.”

You try to speak but your voice is trapped by the blade. Your teeth clench around the hilt as your tongue begs to move — how the hell does he do it?

“Didn’t catch that.” Zoro lets out a cool chuckle. 

“It's harder than it looks.” You try to express once again, using more force to spit your sentence out. There’s a pressure in your jaw you didn’t notice before, an ache that continues to grow.

“You get used to it.” Zoro smirks in a way that tells you he heard it the first time because of course he did. “Let me show you something.”

He guides you through a few motions, watching as you try your best to replicate the basic movements. It's hard to maintain balance while the weight of the weapons threaten to tip the scales. 

You push forward, clumsily, but determined. His rough murmur of guidance invigorates you, wanting to show him that you’re capable, strong.

Maybe he’s rubbing off on you more than you thought.

The ship jostles and you stumble but he’s there to catch you. Quickly, his arm loops around your waist until you’re flush against his heaving chest.

The world stops for a beat and it takes another one to process the position you’re in. All you can hear is your joint heavy breathing, one that has nothing to do with your exercise.

You tilt your head back, surprised when it rests against the slope of his shoulder. You’re far closer than you’ve ever been before. Under the safety of your lashes, your eyes catch his gaze — a simple act that carries the promise of something more, remaining entirely unspoken.

Your lips part to say something but the Wado slips from its spot. Zoro's reflexes strike faster than the wind, his other hand wraps around the hilt to secure it but he still doesn’t let go of you. 

“Sorry.” You whisper sheepishly.

“Don't apologize.” His grip loosens, slowly sliding from where it’s been protectively locked around you. “You did good.”

“You think so?” Your heart stutters as he pulls away, leaving the ghost of his touch that you’re sure will haunt you for days to come. He quietly retrieves his swords, every brush against your skin a reminder of the warmth of his embrace.

“Yeah.” He sheathes them all, securing them back on his hip in a practiced motion. Only one thing was different now, the swords now stained with the sweetness of your touch. Your shared little secret. “You’ll be an expert in no time.”

“I don't know about all that.” You laugh softly, waving your hand playfully. It falls by your side, surrendering to this moment. “But thank you for letting me into your world. It's clear how much work you put into your training to become the best.”

“Yeah well, I still have a way to go.” Zoro swallows, absentmindedly rubbing the scarred tissue of his torso, averting his gaze as the apples of his cheeks tinge pink.

“You have the dedication to see it through.” 

His attention snaps back to you, surprise flickering in his steely irises. For a moment, nothing changes as he assesses you carefully. But then something relents beneath the mask he always wears, the one that keeps his emotions in check.

It’s subtle, a flash of understanding that seeps through the cracks. A faint glimmer of the man underneath, the one who carries the weight of a promise he once made, entrusting it to you.

“I won't stop until I'm the world's strongest swordsman.” Zoro's chest puffs out with pride, jaw clenching into place with a determination many of the crew members hold.

“And I look forward to that day.” It’s hard to hide your smile so you let it shine. The corner of his lip twitches upward, a little softer than before. “Well, I’ll let you get back to it.”

“You gonna stick around?” His shoulders relax, silently seeking the comfort of your company.

“Yeah.” You sit back down in your spot. Here, on this ship with the swordsman of the Straw Hats pirates, you begin to belong. “I think I will.”

The corner of his mouth curls. “A little.” 

A little probably translates to it hurts like hell. 

You rub your hand over the black spiderwebbing over the side of his throat, then the patch of it on the palm of his hand. He doesn’t wince, doesn’t even twitch, but you know he’s in pain. You know him too well, have known him for too long, to think otherwise. It’s evident in the persistent slope of his shoulders, the barely perceptible twitch of his fingers when you prod the pseudo bruising, the spaces around his joints. How ashen his skin looks, gray rather than merely pale. 

“A little,” you echo and absentmindedly push a lock of gray streaked tarnished gold hair back from his eyes, then smooth your thumb down the crease around his still smirking mouth. “You’ve never been a good liar, don’t start now.”

You trace the dark webbing, like spun silk lines, ink dyed veins. There’s a pit in your stomach as you scratch a nail against one raised line, squeezing his wrist. It’ll be fine, you think, it’s always been fine. There, by some miracle, or maybe just sheer luck and effort, has always been a way things turn out fine. 

“Hey.”

You hate when he does that, when he doesn’t say something snappy, and instead his voice is soft and commanding, gentle almost. 

Leon cups your cheek with his other hand, but you refuse to let him tilt your gaze up.

You flip his hand over and trace the discoloration across the back of his hand, the tendrils that wrap up his pinky and ring finger. 

You twist the silver metal band on his ring finger, push your hand flat against his, measuring your hand against his, and finally glance up.

“I guess I don’t have a choice, huh?” You smile. “I can’t keep you here safe.” You would never really try. You knew that when you met him, when you married him, but the sentiment stands. You tug at his collar, look at the veiny, stringy black climbing up the column of his throat. Soon it will snake behind his ear, crosshatch his jaw. 

You’d been the one to notice it, spindly beneath your mouth when you kissed him there. A bruise, you’d thought, applied ointment to. You’d caught it on him after the third survivor of the Raccoon City incident was found dead. Then, a bruise that wouldn’t fade on the side of his ring finger that looked eerily similar to crime scene photos you’d snooped on over his shoulder one evening. 

A bruise that grew, refused to fade. You started to suspect what it might be when it appeared on Sherry, too. And this is different, if it’s what you think it is. 

Maybe that is why this time feels so different. There is always danger in his field of work, that you have accepted and made peace with, but this might be something he couldn’t fight. 

He gathers your wrists in his hands, stops the anxious sweep of them. He pushes you back, pins you against the bed with his hips, body looming over and around yours. 

“What? Worried about me?” 

The intervening years have only made him bigger. Wide shoulders, huge biceps, thick thighs. The weight of him is nice, and you know that’s the point. He’s unnaturally warm, a living furnace, the fire of him seeps beneath your clothes. You can’t help thinking the heat of him is a little less potent lately. 

Either you’re overthinking or you’re right, and both possibilities are equally awful. You don’t panic, but this has you on edge because if you’re right—

There’s a looming sense that he’s running out of time, an invisible clock ticking down minutes.

“Look,” you wriggle one hand out of his grip and push a finger into his chest, “I just don’t want to have to start over with someone else, okay? It would be really annoying if you died. Or whatever—” You stroke your thumb under his ear, “—the hell is happening here.”  

He laughs and you hook your arms around him, pull him fully down against his like you could be absorbed beneath his skin. 

Leon’s arms push beneath your back, crush a tight circle around your body. The pressure eases some of the tension threaded between your ribs. His hair brushes your forehead, a light tickle that touches a nerve in your temple that arcs down your spine. 

“Just—come back.” It’s unlike you to ask, not like you to mention it at all. You got used to this a long time ago. You are unflappable, even before Leon and his career, nothing could ruffle you. It’s what makes you good at your job. “I’ll be waiting.”

He rests his head in the space between your neck and shoulder. He nods, kisses you there, against your pulse. “I promise to try,” he says against your skin. 

“All I ask.” 

“Yeah, I’m sure it’ll be a walk in the park.”

You roll your eyes, duck your head to kiss the corner of his mouth. “Love you.” 

“Love you,” he answers, and then he’s pulling away, taking his warmth and presence with him. You watch him walk to the door and disappear through it, feeling very small and alone. It’s a big, old, elegant house, with sconces and creaky floors and a chandelier and a brick driveway.

The house seems to sigh in despair as the front door opens and closes.

.

.

.

The next night finds you in the staff breakroom, fiddling with the coffee pot with tired, twitchy fingers, trying not to let your thoughts wander or coalesce on one thing. 

Leon always comes home, but something feels different this time. Your worry is a physical thing, perched on your shoulder, lounging in the periphery of your vision. 

You weren’t supposed to be at work, but being in motion and occupied makes you feel better, useful, and distracts you at once. Sitting alone in your home, listening to the floorboards creak in time with your overwrought thoughts, would only make your unusual anxiety worsen, a spike and spiral that is impossible to come down from. It’s ridiculous. Only a little over 24 hours have passed. 

The fluorescent lights flicker, and your overworked eyes ache in the glare, like they’re puffy and too large in your head. You hadn’t been sleeping before he left, and you certainly hadn’t last night. The bed far too empty and big. 

You have a standing policy not to call each other when Leon is out in the field. You don’t call him; he has strict orders from you not to call even if it was safe to. You know what you would think each time, this is it, he's calling to say goodbye. 

Imagining the worst is one thing, knowing is something else altogether. 

This time is different. The worry runnels beneath your skin, like an itch you can’t quite scratch. You had thumbed at the screen of your phone restlessly all evening and the next morning, on and off, light, dark. No messages, not that there would be. No calls. 

You didn’t sleep, hand over his side of the bed, wide awake in the dark. Remembering the kiss to your forehead, that awful black spiderwebbing on the side of his throat threading beneath the cup of your palm. 

Your phone is heavy in the front apron pocket of your scrubs, the urge to reach for it and check it again is overwhelming. The ringer is off, you think, he could have called. As irrational as it is, you feel like he's trying to call, and you're missing it. You pull your phone out and lie it on the counter as the coffee percolates, popping and hissing, and look long at the blank, black screen, twisting your wedding ring around your finger, imagining the same black crawling up your own hand. 

More violently than necessary, you fling out one hand and tap the glass. It flickers to life. 

Nothing. 

A sigh that sounds more like a growl crawls from your throat. You shove your phone back into your pocket, listen to the soft, custodial hum of the building around you. It’s late, the clinic is mostly empty, and peaceful in its silence. 

It’s lonely. 

When you get home, the driveway is empty and the house is dark, the front paving stones rain wet and slick beneath your sneakers. 

The front entryway is dark, the floorboards creak beneath your shoes as you kick them off, the clatter echoing in the foyer and up the stairs, curving like a knife into the dark landing of the second floor. 

When you flip on the living room lights, you half expect to find Leon there, sprawled in a bloody, dirty heap on the couch in the pooling yellow light. 

It wouldn’t be the first time, though it would be the first time you found him there without a phone call telling you all was well, that he would be home soon.

But the couch is as you left it, a wool blanket draped across the back, plush velvet pillows askew, one sagging off the armrest and onto the dark wood parapet floor below. 

You imagine him coming home, still crawling with bruises, death like a phantom over his shoulder. You think of holding his hand, letting him die easily. He deserved that, but you know it’s a pipe dream, a fantasy. If he was going to die, if it had anything to do with Raccoon City, he’d die out there. 

Leon can only promise you so much. 

You drop your bag and flit through the room to the kitchen, hungry but also itching to change out of your scrubs and not knowing what to do first in your anxious haze. 

You feel as though you have been perpetually stuck in fight or flight mode, oozing stress and tension like a shelter dog. 

You won’t settle until he’s back, until you can see for yourself that terrible rot beneath his skin is gone. Rainwater washes down the window panes in the kitchen as you make tea and toast, hands like a pair of nervous sparrows, hopping from one thing to the next, despite the ache in your wrists and fingers. 

The rain is a constant tattoo, a persistent patter that you wish you could think is soothing. But it grates on you like an old wound, reminds you of time passing like the ticking of a clock. While the water boils, you go upstairs to change and wash your face, wrapping yourself in an old jacket of Leon’s over sleep shorts and a t-shirt.

The house always feels too big and empty without him. It seems to sigh and shift under the weight of the rain and your body moving through its guts. 

You choke down the toast and park yourself on the couch with your tea. It’s already cooling between your hands, but the warmth of it is comforting in the blue light on the tv when you flip it on and sink into the cushions. 

You don’t feel tired, but from one slow blink to the next, the cup is being pulled from between your hands and set aside. The TV is flicked off and then the brass lamp on the side table. Fingers brush over your forehead and down the curve of your cheek before disappearing in favor of lifting you. One thick arm slides beneath your knees, the other behind your shoulders. For a moment, you’re lost in the bliss of a normal Friday night. You fell asleep on the couch watching a cheesy action flick, and Leon is carrying you to bed.

The wool blanket slides off of you and back onto the couch, a soft puddle of gray and green. 

For a moment, you think it’s a dream. You close your eyes again, listen to the beat of his heart beneath your ear, happy to pretend it’s a normal night, that you fell asleep on the couch watching movies. 

And then he grunts. 

The sound is so unusual, unlike him, it rouses you from the drowsy way you're sinking into his arms, reminds you of the last few days. You must have slept through the night because a haze of soft pink morning light undulates across the floor through a gap in the curtains. 

“Leon,” you mumble sleepily, struggling awake in his arms as he starts up the stairs. “Hey, Leon, put me down.” You wriggle to no avail. “Let me look at you.” 

He doesn’t and you fumble blindly at his collar instead, searching for the raised skin. Instead you’re met with smooth if grimy skin, littered with the usual scars you could recount in your sleep. “Leon—” 

He shoulders open the bedroom door with another grunt, cream carpet and dark green walls. The room is dim, morning light peeking through the slats of the blinds, highlighting your gold jewelry spilled across the top of the dresser, the stack of books by a bedside table, never re-shelved in the living room, tangled bed sheets. 

He deposits you lightly on the bed. You don’t have a chance to curl your arms around his shoulders and drag him down onto the sheets with you. Leon is already falling against you, lands heavily on top of you with no resistance, arm curling around your body. 

“Hold on,” he says. 

Your legs are scrunched awkwardly beneath him, the bulk of his body heavy and immovable as a fallen tree. “Just give me a minute.” 

His arms are tight around you, tighter than he usually would hold you. “Okay,” you murmur. “Okay.” You slide one hand into his hair, filthy with what you can only guess. He seems very young at that moment, like something has been shaken loose inside him. 

You count the seconds to a minute, and then a minute and a half. 

“Leon?” You ask after you’ve counted your way to three minutes. “Are you okay?”