ℳ⋆.˚

“okay, sweetheart, close your eyes.” euijoo murmured against your cheek before pulling back, a small giggle escaping from your lips as your eyelids fluttered shut. you could hear him move next to you, the blanket beneath you rustling with the motion.

the gentle breeze brushed itself through your hair, the cool evening air sending a shiver up your spine. as you sat there with your eyes shut tight, euijoo’s soft hand finding your face, your mind is sent back to the beginning. back to when everything began.

---

all those years ago, you had met euijoo in high school - painfully awkward interactions, terrible haircuts, even worse outfits. he had approached you during the school’s annual prom, both of you stood awkwardly to the side, no date to dance with.

“hey, uh, i’m euijoo. you probably already know that,” he said, his hands adjusting the blazer he wore. “you… you here alone too?”

you nodded, fixing your hair as you glanced at him.

“i know you. and yeah, i’m here alone too.”

your eyes didn’t miss the brief frown that flickered across his face. it was quickly replaced with a sheepish grin, his hand extended to you.

“well, um… wanna dance with me?” euijoo asked, sounding hopeful. you took his hand gratefully.

“of course i would.”

what blossomed from that fateful prom night was a beautiful relationship. both of you were unfamiliar with what love looked like, but it somehow felt natural when you were together, like finding a missing puzzle piece after searching for so long. you’d shared nervous touches, ‘accidental’ brushes of hands, pinkies linking as you walked to class together. sometimes, if euijoo felt brave, he’d cup your face in his hands, pressing a kiss to your forehead when he walked you home.

“see you tomorrow.” he’d whisper into your skin, cheeks flushed a deep shade of pink that you found utterly adorable.

you always loved how warm his hands felt on your cheeks.

---

“are you listening?” euijoo’s voice pulled you back into the present moment. you cleared your throat, nodding, your eyes still shut.

“yeah, i’m listening.”

“okay, good.”

a beat of silence passed, the sounds of the ocean calmly crashing against the shore being the only noise you could hear for a moment. then he continued.

“ever since the day i first spoke to you, at that stupid school dance… i’ve been sure of my feelings for you.” euijoo’s voice wavered ever so slightly. “and i’ve tried my best to show you every single day how undeniably in love i am.”

that familiar buzz of emotion hit you, tears already building up on your waterline.

“open your eyes, sweetheart.”

slowly, your eyes opened, adjusting to the light before focusing on what was in front of you - euijoo, on one knee, his big brown eyes full of love as he looked at you.

“oh, euijoo…” you whispered, the hot tears falling before you could say anything more.

“this has been on my mind for a while, i’m pretty nervous.” euijoo chuckled quietly, clearing his throat before fishing for something in his pocket. “my love for you can’t be expressed with the words of any language. you make me the happiest man on earth, and i’m so proud to be yours.”

pulling out a small box, he flips it open, revealing a beautiful ring, a diamond center stone, with encrusted gems along the band. you’d only ever dreamt of a ring as perfect as this.

“my love, will you marry me?”

time felt like it stopped when those words fell from his lips - the words you’d been waiting for since the day you met. 

“yes, baby. yes.”

sliding the ring over your finger, euijoo let out a heavy sigh of relief, his eyes watery as he admired you. he pulled you into his chest, his arms wrapping around you. quiet sobs escaped both of you and euijoo, your face buried in his shoulder. everything about the moment felt unreal.

“i love you so much, euijoo.”

“i love you so much more.”

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jo had long known what it meant to be afraid.

he'd spent centuries dodging physical connections and even longer dodging emotional ones, petrified by the possibility of his hard-earned immortality being ripped from him because of a pesky urge. jo had taken lovers, sure, but he let them get no closer than a doctor might have. he guessed, at least, having no need for mortal medicine on his undead body. he kept his kisses lip-only and eyes wide, his love-making removed and insincere. for hundreds of years, jo had satiated his urges- nothing more, nothing less.

until he met you.

you had been perusing the classics section in the library, well past the hour the building closed to the public. jo had known this because he, too, was there after hours; one perk of transforming into a small, winged mammal and being impossible to capture on camera was being free to do whatever the hell he wanted. you were leaned, timidly, against the worn, wooden shelf, thumbing through a loved copy of none other than bram stoker's dracula. jo had rolled his eyes, and he mirrored your position, smoothly, against the shelf across from you.

"the count's warning came into my mind," jo had quoted, his deep voice carrying beyond the aisle, startling you with a jump, "but i took pleasure in disobeying it." he bit back a smirk at the way you clutched at your heart and nodded at the aged novel in your hands, "chapter three."

you took three deep breaths, assessing him like a threat with your body pressed as far from him as possible. your eyes scanned his tall, looming figure, unsure, and then your brows furrowed, sure, "...okay?"

"you're kind of like harker right now is all," jo proceeded, "you know, breaking the rules."

"i dont break rules," you had bit back, defensive, "i work here- you're breaking the rules."

and he had been breaking way more than you had known, letting his heart chip open the longer he stared into your eyes under the soft glow of the moonlight. it filtered through the library's tall, dirty cathedral windows and cast shadows seemingly everywhere but on you and entirely on him. he was breaking and entering, yes, but he was also ready to betray 200 years of discipline over a single coincidence. over the way the cogs in the universe's cruel machine had to move to keep you occupied after your shift with a copy of jo's least favorite book ever written. it had to have been a sign.

"chapter 2," jo had pushed his luck with you, "enter freely and of your own free will."

he had waited for you to grab him by his arm and escort him from the premises. he had waited for you to laugh in his face, tell him to fuck off.

you had merely chewed at the inside of your supple, flushed cheek, turning dracula in your hands, "is it any good?"

jo was quick to answer and even quicker to fall, shaking his head earnestly, even in the shadows, "its terrible."

the following months were eclipsed by you, you, you. jo had refused himself obsession for so long, he hadn't known how to pace himself. he had to know every inch of you, every facet of your personality and thread of your clothing. he counted the ridges in your teeth, counted your hair as you drifted off in his lap. and his obsession only grew when you'd approached him with a question- not the one he had known deep down was inevitable but something that made his shriveled, cold heart throb with a phantom pulse. you'd asked, "can you, like, go in the sunlight?"

"sorry?"

"well, i finished dracula," you swung your hand in his between you as you walked, pondside, through your local park, "and you don't eat when we go out, your hands are freezing, and we only ever go on dates after sunset."

jo's mind flipped through the ten lives' worth of memories, of fears. he saw pitchforks, doused in fuel and blazing in the streets. he saw crosses haphazardly built in front yards, painted on doorways. but then he saw you; jo looked into your eyes, innocent and young like the first dew before second winter, and knew.

you were his for as long as you'd let him have you.

but he had a test to run first, just to make sure. he asked, "what did you think?"

"of dracula?" you looked up at him with a knowing smile on your lips. casually, you turned your attention back to your walk, and then you squeezed his hand. "it was terrible."

and because jo had spent several lifetimes denying himself love, he had subsequently denied himself the damning vice of pleasure. pleasure made kings into fools, made even the devil weak to temptation. jo knew this to be true because of you. because every time you walked past him, his head tilted in your direction to hold your scent in his nose just a little longer. the undead experienced pleasure in slightly different ways than the living, in a heightened, primal ritual. as he began to allow you to pry into his life and dismantle the laws he had set for himself in his mind, jo grew more and more concerned about how you would react to his... needs. to how he would need to satiate them.

he was a bloodsucker above all; he knew you knew that. you would eat the first half of your shared meals alone while jo lurked in alleyways like a villain. jo had forbade you from his personal library, getting ahead of the papercut dilemma that all modern vampire romance media abused. plus, he had hated the idea of having to throw out a treasured novel because the smell of your blood on it would associate the title with his desire to feed. or fuck. at first, you were visibly uncomfortable with the knowledge of what he had to do, but jo would have been highly concerned if you had abandoned all of your morals at once the moment you learned what he was. it would take time.

at least, he thought it would.

he let himself kiss you one night. really kiss you, deeply and gently. it was experimental, and you were safe, your lips soft on his like a quiet flicker of a distant candle. the heat was different, though, rising in his chest after centuries of pinching the wick in his stomach with two cold fingers. your body was pliant under him in a way he refused to acknowledge for fear of losing himself. his hands were so big against your face, settling on your thighs. his broad shoulders caged you beneath him as you worked, slowly, at his mouth, coaxing him open despite his warnings. you suckled at his lips, pulling at his hair until he groaned into your mouth. his first mistake was letting you slip your tongue between his teeth. his second mistake was letting himself get so lost in the feeling of you slotting your knee between his thighs that his teeth unsheathed, as if they had minds of their own. and once he noticed what had happened, he made his third mistake: he didnt pull away.

instead, jo let you skirt your tongue under the sharp edge of his fang. and when you gasped under him, he still didnt pull away. he rolled his hips harder over your knee, eyes fluttering blissfully as he sucked your tongue deeper into his mouth and drank every gorgeous drop of blood beading on the tip of it. he sucked the muscle, even as you squirmed beneath him, pushing his heavy shoulders to no avail.

he had drank from you like he was a fledgling, like he knew no restraint. like he hadnt rehearsed control every single day for this exact reason. jo released your mouth as soon as he knew what was happening, but it was too late. you scrambled out from under him as he buried his face in his hands, apologizing as sincerely as he could while drunk on the taste of you. but it was no use; you had already left.

you'd left him to stir, to reflect on his actions. jo did a lot of reflecting over the three days you ignored him, mainly about how insanely he craved you. strangers on the street were stale bread and starch. it really was quality over quantity with him, as the blood of fifteen nobodies failed to quench the onslaught of thirst a few droplets of yours induced. he reflected on the heat of your body against his cold skin. he reflected on how he might convince you to let him do it again, one final time. how long could you refuse him?

when he saw you again, you were sitting stoic beside him on the couch where it all happened. jo could smell the wound on your tongue as you spoke, and he felt that part of him that didnt want to stop tingle like a numb limb.

"you scared me, jo," you muttered, anxiously fidgeting with your fingers, "i told you i didnt want to do any of that. the... blood stuff."

jo knew then that there was a definite line down the center of his relationship with you: before and after. there had been before, when he was perfectly content stroking your hair and cooking you human food and listening through the walls as you pleasured yourself because he couldnt trust that he wouldnt sink his teeth into you. and, now, there was after. after tasting you, after knowing how your arousal made your blood thicken, how the few drops from your tongue had made him harder than he'd been even as a mortal, dazed by the passing touch of a lady, seduced by women on street corners.

jo had his taste of you, and he wanted more.

"it didnt feel good?" he asked. if only you could have felt it from his end, how his whole body came alive at the first taste.

"no," you deadpanned, quickly, and shook your head once, a definitive swivel on your neck, "it hurt. it stung."

jo had two options: he could apologize and live the rest of his life insatiable, or he could let the part of his conscience that, after all this time, still clung to humanity take a backseat. way, way in the back. jo shifted in his place, turning his body to face you, to overshadow you. he let his fingers trace your cheek, your jaw, and fall to the ends of your hair. he twisted the strand until the wispy tips were tickling your ear and side of your throat. you shuddered, and jo knew he needed the next thing to touch your throat to be his teeth.

"it can feel good, though," he whispered, hearing your heart beat a little faster in your chest, "there are ways to make it feel really good."

jo leaned forward, his breath ghosting your ear as his fingers trailed down the length of your neck, hovering over your pulse point. he continued, "right here."

"you're lying," you shifted, barely an inch away from him, and gulped, shaking your head again, shaking away the bad ideas, "a cut on my tongue hurt like hell. i cant imagine one on my neck."

"pleasure, darling," jo tipped your chin toward him, forcing your eyes on his, forcing the ideas to stay in your head. he wanted them to steep like potent tea. "pleasure is just pain in the right places. combinations of sensations, balanced rough and gentle touches. they are one oscillating, tantalizing concept."

your eyelids fell, lashes sweeping over the tops of your cheeks. the weight of your head in his hand was nothing compared to how heavy his cock felt in his pants, straining at the sheer mention of your neck. and his descriptions of pleasure did nothing to dull his heightened senses; it was as though he could feel everything he described to you all over again, remembering the swinging pendulum of mortal pleasure. he wasn't lying to you about it feeling good. jo remembered how it felt for him, veins throbbing as his whole body seemed to ache for the same invasion. he remembered the euphoric trembling under the weight of his own fanged lover. even as a distant memory, his body buzzed.

"kind of like choking?" you asked. jo knew you weren't naive, but the innocence you were wearing made his mouth water. "hurts on its own, but..."

"yeah," jo's hand slipped around the back of your neck, his thumb sliding softly over the prominent vein. his breath trembled, "yeah, exactly like choking."

"okay," you whispered. and then you looked at him, the expression on your face unreadable. jo had seen millions of faces, hundreds of thousands of emotions, but he had never seen someone portray one like yours. it wasn't depleted or disappointed; it was more expectant, patient. you looked as though you were waiting for him to do something.

"...okay?"

"i want to try it," you admitted, leaning closer to him, closing the gap you'd created moments before. you slid your palm up his thigh, holding his hungry gaze as you inched closer to where you thought he would want you most. "i was scared, yes, but i also couldnt stop thinking about it."

but where he really wanted you, and now fought back a groan at the prospect of finally having you, was his on his tongue. he wanted the salt of your sex soaked skin to burn his lips. jo wanted to stain his teeth with the fibers of your being, drink your sacred wine. but for the time being, he settled for crawling over you, resting your head on the plush cushion of the couch. the last time you'd been this way, he'd went too fast too quickly. accidents happen, but he was going to make sure everything was intentional this time. he would drink as much as you'd let him and no more, and he'd give you everything you could ask for. an even trade.

"being scared means you're human," jo reassured you, sensing your emotions despite your efforts to conceal them. he kissed your jaw, right below your ear where your blood rushed when you were nervous, and he let his breath fan over the shell of it as he continued, "and being human is what makes you taste so good."

he felt the chill run up your spine from the way your body twitched under him, your hands finding their way to his hair as he trailed his kisses from your jaw, up your cheek, and finally to your lips. he hovered there, seemingly to bridge your trust but truthfully because he could still smell the tang of blood on your tongue, the way clementines lingered on your fingers after peeling the rind away. you were sweeter and much less tedious to break open, your mouth already finding his in a reckless kiss.

there it was- the vague remnants of your sweet, piquant essence. it was barely noticeable, so much that you probably thought the wound had closed. it was enough to pull a deep, starved groan from jo's chest, his own tongue sliding over yours in a feverish haze, searching for the source.

"been dreaming about this perfect neck, baby," jo mumbled against your lips, letting his hand encase the front of your throat with the slightest pressure. you swallowed under his palm, and he groaned against you, "finally gonna let me taste you. its always better like this, i swear, closer to the heart."

you whimpered, a bright, sharp sound under the weight of him, of his hand on your throat, of his hips pressing yours into the cushions below you, of his mouth capturing yours between mumbled thoughts. "please, jo. i want it."

"shh, i know you do," jo kissed you once, a chaste brush, and sat up, positioning himself between your legs, "but first, i gotta make you feel good. fear is so, very bitter, and you're quivering, sweetheart. is it okay if i touch you, first?"

you nodded, a welcome change, maybe even a sign that jo's bad ideas had stuck. you nodded, frantically, lifting your hips to help him strip you from the waist down. the scent of your arousal was almost as intoxicating as your blood-tinged kiss, the slick coating your folds glistening in the dim light of the room.

"all this from the thought of my teeth in your neck, doll?" jo teased, sliding a long, lithe finger up the length of your pussy, starting at your dripping entrance and ending with a sharp flick at your clit, obviously sensitive from the way you writhed beneath him. he sucked his teeth, "i've never seen a cunt this needy, dripping all over my furniture from a few kisses. ive barely touched her, clenching around nothing."

your hips chased his finger, desperate for the friction jo had denied you thus far. you were pathetic beneath him, eyes screwed shut as he plunged one cold finger into your heat. you sucked him in, lewd squelches punctuating every thrust of his digit. jo felt his teeth begin to emerge, anticipating the way your eagerness was spinning your flavor. if fear was bitter, the flavor of excitement was sharp, like fresh petals of mint. he added another finger and leaned into the arch of your body as he curled them, long and sleek, against the plush walls of your pussy.

jo warily pressed his lips to the side of your neck, careful not to make any sudden movements that might sour the essence he had coaxed you toward. jo was overwhelmed by the warmth of your skin against his, both from your neck and the fire blazing deep in your core. and the shock of his cold, wet lips on your throat made you shiver, your fingers threading tightly into his hair. he smoothed his tongue over the base of your throat, a languid pass of the muscle. and, then, jo began to suck. no teeth- just his lips suctioning a bloom of color against the pure, delicate flesh of your neckline. your moans were music to him, a lurid aria performed for him alone, and the tang of sweat contrasted like a shrill note in a symphony with the bright essence that permeated your skin. as he sucked and sucked, he knew he had gone too far, that the bruise would last for weeks, from the sheer amount of blood that coated his tongue. his fingers faltered inside of you, his senses overwhelmed.

"jo..." you whined, desperately rocking your hips to make up for his sudden distraction, "feels so good. i-i want more."

"greedy, greedy slut," jo growled, soothing his tongue over the angry splotch on your throat, licking away any beads of blood left on the surface. he curled his fingers inside of you, the heel of his palm grinding deliciously over your clit, "my fingers not enough? need my cock, too?"

"n-no," you mewled, and then you tugged at his hair, pulling his lips up to meet yours. you slid your tongue into his mouth, dancing dangerously around the sharp points that kept you awake for days. jo tried to keep them short, keep them contained, but he craved the release of letting his fangs slither out at length to catch the tip of your tongue on the edge. and he almost did when he heard you say, "your teeth, jo. i need your teeth."

no one had ever needed jo's teeth, not even himself. for the first 70 years following his transformation, he had prayed to wake up. he had sought out devils and made deals with them, not realizing that he was the the embodiment of the evil they siphoned. he had starved himself weak and found that there was no return. he would never bandage a scrape on his knee, never feel an infection course through his body. and though he would never feel things in the way mortals did, cry from sadness or jump for joy, jo remembered the raw, burning spark of emotion. for a long time, it seemed like the only emotion he could still feel, authentically, was fear, like the floor would open up and swallow him like an expired pill. he remembered despair, and sometimes he imitated it, cried for hours just to feel like he used to as a boy, when the world was too big for him, when he'd read dracula for the first time. when he'd first learned of monsters in a world of good men, when he'd read of the children of the night. jo had read in chapter 2 that there is a reason that all things are as they are.

he might have been imagining it; his immortality did not flatten his brain. jo thought that he felt a flicker in his chest, something blurry between desire and... delight. something twisting around the brittle cage of his heart, vaguely shaped like you and vaguely shaped like him. the very struggle to discern the two shook something deep within him, something untouched for many, many years. he had felt it before, too, in the library. when you'd first told him he was breaking the rules. when you'd had no idea how many rules he was breaking, how many more he had been willing to break to get you right here, begging him to drink from the supple flesh of your neck.

jo slipped a third finger into your drenched cunt, and, despite the fluttering squeeze of resistance around his digits, you accepted him, sucked his fingers in. jo was all but reaching into you, sweeping his fingertips along the ridges of your walls, hitting that spot that made you cry out and clutch his shoulders.

whatever pleasure the stretch was giving you was going to feel dull compared to what jo was about to give you. he kissed lightly down your cheek, like he had done many times before, but the craving overtook him the closer he came to that throbbing seam, bulging out toward him. it was as if your body knew what was bound to happen, as if fate had designed you for him. your bodies were perfectly entwined, connected, soon to be melded into one.

jo's head buzzed, like all of his thoughts melted into magnets that were sticking to and repelling eachother in every corner of his skull. a steady simmer of pleasure wafted over every sense like a fogged lens. it was you and jo, alone, until he opened his mouth over the pulsing, hot vein in the side of your neck. ans then it was just him. his teeth were sleek and sharp, like every part of him. your skin broke so easily, the snap of your taut flesh vibrating against his bones, once, with one fang, and twice, with the second. just like your pussy, so eager to be filled, so eager to leak around him, your throat captured him, blood brimming over the white seal of his teeth.

a human's typical reaction to being fed on, perhaps as an evolutionary tactic, was to lay still. in the same way many helpless creatures played dead to bore the approaching threat, humans took to pretending they weren't aware, or weren't willing to entertain the vampire's urges. only you, of course, hand-placed in jo's life by some remorseful deity, arched up into him, spearing his teeth ever deeper into you. the sounds you were making drove jo toward madness, gutteral groans that he could feel through his lips, ripping through your throat.

"all that talk about pain," jo snarled, his voice rough with lust, "you fucking love it. you love when i hurt you, baby? my teeth ripping you open," he licked over the holes in your skin, groaning as the blood trickled out in two elegant streams, "answer me."

his hand still plowed into your aching core, flexing his fingers inside of you as you ground your hips in a harmonious rhythm, chasing your orgasm as jo drank the sweet, thick syrup from your throat that told him just how close you were. you panted, your moans teetering on yelps, "i fucking love it, jo. hurts so good."

"you have no idea how sweet you taste," jo mumbled, drinking mouthfuls of your flowing honey, like he'd tapped straight into the hive, into the comb. he could feel your heartbeat under his tongue, and he could feel your core spasming around his fingers. jo slurped greedily; everything was so wet, so obscene. he mumbled against your neck, "open your mouth, baby," before gathering a puddle of your blood on his tongue.

he hovered his stained, plush lips over yours, jaw slack, just like he asked. jo let his tongue slide out, the blood running over the glistening tip like a spigot and into the dark, wet shadows of your mouth. he groaned as the dark, pleasure-tinted liquid spread over your teeth, so dull and human. he wanted you to know how crazy you made him, how he would never be able to drink from another for as long as you lived. your ecstasy tasted like ripe plums, like muddled berries, like a hot, forbidden dream. jo said, "swallow it."

he watched you slide your tongue around in your mouth, collecting traces of yourself as it dripped over your teeth, settled on your gums. and he watched the column of your throat flex as you gulped it down, the motion sending a fresh gush of blood out of the holes in your neck. jo moaned, watching your eyes squeeze closed at the bitter, metallic flavor. he knew it would never taste good to you, but he felt his heart, and his cock, jump watching you taste it anyway. "very good," he kissed the side of your mouth, working his way back to your ear. he slithered his tongue over the shell of it, "now come for me, angel. i wanna see if you can get any sweeter."

jo kept his lips latched to your neck, suckling at a dizzying pace as your blood pooled, warm, in his stomach. he angled his hand slightly, hitting a new spot inside of you that made you grip at the cushion below you, a choked sound erupting from your mouth. his other hand drew drunken circles around your clit, thumb circling and circling until your entire body was pulsing, barreling toward the edge. your chest heaved under him, your heartbeat thrumming under his tongue, and your pussy squeezed his fingers in intensifying waves. and then it hit you, taking over your weak body with a shudder. your orgasm pressed you flat, opening your neck for one final swallow as your cunt gushed all over jo's fingers, coating him in you.

jo groaned, too, his own orgasm sneaking up on him. he felt his cock twitch in his pants from the way your orgasm glazed his tongue, his throat. his hips stuttered under him, his mouth soothing the sensitive, raw patch of skin below your jaw. he licked one concluding swipe over the holes, his cum leaking through the front of his clothing.

beneath him, you were sighing softly, your eyes barely open but your mouth spread wide in a blissed-out smile. you dragged two tired hands haphazardly down either side of his face, settling your palms on his jaw. jo tilted his head, pressing a soft kiss to the inside of your wrist. "did it feel good?" he whispered, biting back his own smile, fangs still lingering.

"everything's spinning," you breathed, swiping your thumb over his cheek. your palms were damp against him, and they were trembling. "that was nothing like choking."

he laughed, dropping his head to your chest. your heart throbbed slowly under his ear; you were everything jo wasn't- alive, warm, perfect. you were soft, yellowed pages; jo was preserved, pressed leather, but without you, he was empty. he realized that the two of you, like pleasure and pain, were one oscillating, tantalizing concept, too. night and day; life and death.

𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

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throughout your teenage years all the way to young adult life, you’d struggled with your body image, your self esteem. negative thoughts constantly swirled around in your mind, lingering, dragging along behind you wherever you went, like a dark cloud you couldn’t get rid of.

years of makeup practice, haircuts that covered your face, clothes that hid the insecurities that filled you with daunting shame. nothing ever seemed good enough, though. nothing quite fixed you. the bad parts of you may have been hidden, but the coverage was only temporary, flaws waiting for you to remove the baggy clothes to allow them to feast on your self-consciousness once again.

your mind was plagued with these thoughts, and nothing could help get rid of them.

---

when maki came along, you struggled to believe his feelings for you were genuine. despite his insistence, you’d always worried it was some joke, a stupid prank he let go too far. you still felt like this now, 2 years into your relationship.

maki was the complete opposite in comparison to you - handsome face, perfect body, confident and outgoing - all the things you weren’t, the things you lacked yet yearned so desperately for.

you weren’t blind to the way people stared when they saw you two together, judgemental glances thrown when they saw maki’s hand in yours. you knew he was out of your league by a long shot, and you constantly worried that people would judge maki for dating you of all people. the guilt of containing maki, greedily keeping him for yourself when he could do so much better, it ate at you every time you kissed, every time he touched you, every time he called your name.

it didn’t help when maki would get hit on, beautiful women approaching him, flirting as if you didn’t exist. every time it happened you’d be pushed off to the side, ignored, disregarded. they wouldn’t believe someone like you were dating maki. as if he was with you out of pity, or it was a fluke on your behalf.

and unfortunately, you believed them.

---

on one occasion, whilst the two of you were walking down town, you’d overheard a passing conversation between two girls.

“do you think they’re dating?” one had asked, an amused tone in her voice. “look, he’s holding her hand.”

“i guess so. poor guy.” they giggled together. “he deserves better than that.”

your stomach swirled with guilt and shame yet again. the comments never seemed to stop. the embarrassment would find you anywhere, like a predator hunting it’s prey. you were a weak bunny, your insecurities the sly wolf, never letting up the chase. you couldn’t escape.

you cried to maki that day, unable to keep it in this time, unable to suppress your feelings.

“they’re right, y’know?” you sobbed, eyes shut tight, tears falling. “you do deserve better.”

maki’s grip tightened around you as you spoke, his expression soft. he shook his head.

“it’s not true, baby. not at all.” maki whispered, pressing his lips to your forehead. “i’m happy with you. i don’t want anything else. just you. don’t listen to those liars.”

he didn’t let you go that night.

---

over time, all the negative thoughts became too loud, too much. it started eating at you, consuming you. it led to you beginning to distance yourself from maki, wanting to make it easier for him to leave you. 

it felt like the end of your whole existence was nearing, terrifying yet inevitable. what else could you do? there was no other option. no one would miss you. 

each day dragged achingly slow, the light draining from everything that you once loved. your adoration for maki stayed strong, but the painful diffidence you carried with you only fed off of it all. 

the contemplation teetered in the back of your mind daily. the craving to escape from your pain, to feel peace - more desirable than before.

your removal from maki was quiet; short conversations with no depth, no honesty; hiding yourself away from his sight, body covered; touches that lacked comfortability.

if you slowly eased away from his grip, it wouldn’t hurt for him to completely let go, right?

---

maki noticed after a few weeks. 

at first it was the lack of conversation, then it was how you pulled away from his kisses before he could let them go anywhere. it became obvious to him when you started to stare out of the bedroom window, your eyes fixed on the ground far below. the sight tugged at his heart, made him worried.

“hey, baby.” maki approached you one late evening, finding you sat on the couch, staring at nothing. he sat next to you. “how are you?”

the conversation felt casual, but the underlying distance was tense.

“i’m good.” you answered. nothing more, nothing less.

“how are you really?” you flinched when his hand took yours. “please talk to me, baby. i’m not blind. i’ve noticed what’s going on… why are you drifting away from me?”

his question made your heart drop, a hot wave of emotion washing over you. he wasn’t meant to notice.

“please don’t let me lose you.”

maki’s whispered beg broke you, your face burying into his shoulder, hands gripping his shirt.

“i’m so tired, maki…” you sobbed, his large arms wrapping around you. “i’m not… i’m not good enough. i never will be. everyone can see it.”

your tears fell onto his shoulder, warm and fragile, spilling without your control.

“i hear what they all say… about h-how i look. it hurts, but it’s all true.” you stuttered, vision blurry.

“stop, baby, please.” maki whispered, his cheek pressed against the top of your head. “nothing from their mouths is true. i hate that you believe them.”

“you’re so beautiful, y/n. i’d do anything if it meant you could see yourself how i see you.”

you shook your head, eyes squeezed shut tight, your face in the crook of his neck. 

“you’re perfect to me. i don’t want you to change at all.”

“maki-”

“-let me finish.” he cut you off, his hands laying flat on your back, your body shivering under his touch. “you know how beautiful you are to me?”

you slowly tilted your head up at him, tears still spilling down your face. maki was looking back at you, and it was as if you could see hearts in his eyes, his gaze set on you and nothing else.

“...really?” you asked, voice raspy from crying. you wanted to believe him so badly. so badly.

“really. and don’t ever doubt that.” maki said, his lips ghosting over yours. “you’re perfect, baby.”

⊹ ࣪ ˖ taglist: @tobiobread @nichozzystuffs @kwnnies @seanidas @preachersdaughterx @stxrrymarsz @ssosstrange @7yataki @makizdoll @minhosimthings @starshuas @leewayout @xionvlog @deerhuntings @smidare @fumaid

⊹ ࣪ ˖ requested by: anon