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your parents kept insisting that the fighting meant you were "close."

you insisted that they were just imagining things.

ryul insisted that you were just dramatic.

then you insisted that he was the problem.

and ten years later, neither of you had changed your minds.

so when both families decided to go on another road trip together, they figured they might as well invite ohyul, woojin, and louis along too. since you and ryul were both only children, having a few more people your age seemed like a good idea. the more, the merrier, you guessed. besides, you weren't exactly surprised.

family trips always ended the same way.

somehow, in some way, you and ryul always got stuck together.

you just hadn't expected it to be quite this literal.

the rented van was packed from floor to ceiling. suitcases were stacked on top of one another. a cooler occupied half the aisle. travel pillows were stuffed wherever there was space.

and someone, probably your mom, had packed enough snacks to survive an apocalypse.

by the time you and ryul climbed into the van, everyone else had already claimed their seats.

you stopped in the doorway.

"...you've got to be kidding me."

there wasn't a single empty seat left.

well...not exactly.

way in the very back sat one lonely seat, squeezed between a wall of luggage.

your mom looked over her shoulder before smiling a little too innocently.

"oh!"

she clapped her hands together.

"i know."

tou immediately pointed at her.

"mom, no."

"...honey, i haven't even said anything yet."

"you don't have to."

your aunt peeked over the seat, trying—and failing to hide her grin.

"y/n can just sit on ryul's lap."

"auntieeeee, absolutely not."

you answered so quickly that louis snorted from the row ahead.

woojin actually twisted around in his seat just to watch what happened next.

ryul, meanwhile, looked up from his phone.

"...works for me."

you stared at him.

"excuse me?"

he slipped his phone into his pocket and shrugged like it wasn't a big deal.

"it's only a couple of hours."

"problem solved." your dad laughed.

you looked around the van, silently hoping someone would volunteer to switch.

but nobody did.

because ohyul had already put his headphones on. louis suddenly became very interested in the scenery outside. and woojin whistled to himself like he hadn't heard a thing.

freaking traitors.

with one long, defeated sigh, you climbed over the pile of suitcases toward the back.

"careful."

ryul reached out instinctively, one hand settling lightly against your waist as you climbed over the mountain of suitcases.

"...i'm aware." you muttered, trying to balance yourself without accidentally kneeing him in the face.

"you almost stepped on my foot."

"consider it payback."

"for what?"

"existing."

"harsh." he clicked his tongue, though the corner of his mouth twitched upward anyway.

once you finally managed to squeeze into the tiny space, you let out a long sigh before carefully lowering yourself onto his lap.

"happy?" you asked dryly.

"...not really."

he shifted slightly beneath you, trying to make room where there really wasn't any.

"comfortable?"

"absolutely not."

"same."

the van pulled away from the driveway a second later, earning a chorus of cheers from louis and woojin somewhere in the middle row.

within minutes, music filled the speakers.

your moms were already laughing over stories from university.

your dads had started discussing which rest stop supposedly had the best coffee.

everything was loud.

lively.

exactly how every family trip usually started.

except, you weren't arguing anymore.

ryul noticed after about fifteen minutes.

normally, you would've complained at least three times by now. that he was sitting weird. that his finger kept poking your arm. that his knees were bony. that somehow, this entire seating arrangement was his fault.

instead... you stayed unusually quiet.

he glanced down.

"did you lose your voice?"

"...hm?"

"you've been unexpectedly quiet."

you rolled your eyes weakly before turning your attention back toward the window.

the scenery blurred past. green trees. small shops. the occasional motorcycle weaving between lanes.

your eyelids felt heavier with every passing minute.

another bump in the road.

your body tipped sideways before you could catch yourself.

ryul's hand found your waist immediately.

steadying you.

firm enough to stop you from sliding into the luggage.

"...careful." he murmured.

"...thanks."

you didn't move away.

usually, you would've. usually, you'd complain about him touching you. instead, you simply stayed where you were. leaning just slightly against him.

that...

wasn't like you.

his eyes drifted toward your face again.

your cheeks looked pink.

at first, he blamed the weather.

then he noticed the way you kept rubbing your arms beneath your hoodie.

"...cold?"

you hesitated. "...little bit."

"it's thirty degrees outside."

you stayed quiet.

then ryul frowned.

without really thinking, he lifted the back of his hand toward your forehead.

you blinked. "...what are you—"

his hand brushed your skin. he froze.

warm. far warmer than it should've been.

his hand slid carefully to the side of your neck.

still warm. too warm.

"...baby."

the nickname slipped out before he could stop himself.

quiet and instinctive.

"...you're burning up."

you blinked at him slowly. "...am i?"

"don't play dumb."

his brows knitted together.

"since when?"

you looked down at your hands.

"...this morning."

"this morning?"

a tiny nod.

"why didn't you tell anybody?"

you shrugged weakly.

"everyone's been excited about this trip... didn't wanna ruin it."

ryul stared at you for a long moment. then quietly sighed through his nose.

"...you're impossible."

there wasn't an ounce of annoyance in his voice. only something softer. something that sounded suspiciously like concern.

he reached behind him, feeling around the pile of bags until his fingers found one of the travel blankets.

he shook it open with one hand before draping it carefully over your shoulders.

the blanket slipped almost immediately.

"hold still." he muttered.

you obediently stayed still while he tucked it around you properly.

one corner over your shoulder. another around your arms. making sure it wouldn't fall again.

"...there."

"...you're fussing." you mumbled.

"didn't know you knew how."

ryul huffed a quiet laugh. and you only hummed in response.

the blanket settled comfortably around your shoulders, trapping what little warmth it could.

still... it wasn't quite enough.

a shiver ran through you before you could stop it.

ryul felt it.

without saying anything, he shifted you a little closer, one hand resting against your side as he adjusted your position on his lap.

"...c'mere."

it was barely a whisper. more instinct than invitation. and you went without thinking. your body naturally leaned into his. your cheek found his shoulder first. then, after another quiet moment, you tucked your face into the crook of his neck.

his shirt smelled faintly of detergent and whatever cologne he'd sprayed on that morning.

warm and comfortable.

you let out the smallest sigh.

ryul glanced down.

"better?"

you gave a sleepy nod against him.

that was enough.

his arm slipped around your waist, drawing you impossibly closer until there wasn't any space left between the two of you.

his hand settled against your side, rubbing slow, absentminded circles through your hoodie.

every pass seemed to chase away a little more of the chill clinging to your body.

you didn't realize when your own arms moved.

one of them slowly wrapped around his middle beneath the blanket, fingers curling lightly into the fabric of his shirt.

ryul's eyes dropped to your hand. a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

he didn't tease you. didn't point it out.

he simply covered your hand with his for a second, giving it a gentle squeeze before letting it rest where it was.

another bump in the road made the van sway.

instinctively, you burrowed even closer, your nose brushing against his neck.

your grip tightened ever so slightly.

ryul's arm around your waist tightened with it.

"...easy." he murmured.

his chin came to rest lightly on top of your head.

one hand remained around your waist while the other drifted up to smooth your hair back from your face.

his fingers lingered for a moment against your temple before disappearing into your hair, gently combing through the strands.

he kept doing it absentmindedly.

slow strokes. over and over.

the kind that made it harder to stay awake.

your eyes fluttered shut.

you barely noticed yourself melting further into him until your entire weight was resting against his chest.

he adjusted without complaint.

one arm securely around you, the other pulling the blanket higher over both of you this time.

covering your shoulders, then his own, sharing the warmth.

the rest of the drive stretched on around you.

louis and woojin were still arguing somewhere near the front.

your parents laughed over stories from years ago.

every now and then, the van would hit another bump, but ryul's arm tightened around your waist before you could even be jostled awake.

at some point, you'd fallen asleep completely.

your face was tucked into the crook of his neck, one arm still wrapped loosely around his middle.

you looked impossibly comfortable.

ryul glanced down.

carefully, he brushed a loose strand of hair away from your face, tucking it behind your ear so it wouldn't keep tickling your cheek.

you barely stirred.

just another sleepy little sigh before unconsciously snuggling even closer.

"...clingy." he murmured, though the fond smile on his face gave him away.

not that he minded.

if anything...he only pulled you closer.

his chin rested lightly against the top of your head while one hand continued its slow, absentminded circles along your back beneath the blanket.

he stayed like that for a while.

just holding you. making sure you stayed warm.

the sky outside had begun to darken, painting the windows in shades of orange before slowly fading into blue.

ryul looked down at you one last time.

"...hey."

his voice was barely above a whisper.

you didn't wake.

only hummed softly against his neck.

he smiled. then, very gently, he leaned down.

his lips brushed against your forehead.

the kiss lingered for just a second.

warm and careful.

"...get well soon, baby."

his thumb swept once across your side before settling there again.

"i'll take care of you until then."

you never opened your eyes.

instead, your arms tightened around him just a little, almost as if your sleeping mind had heard him anyway.

ryul let out the quietest laugh. "...yeah"

he rested his cheek against the top of your head, keeping you tucked safely against his chest as the van carried everyone farther down the highway.

for once...

neither of you argued.

and neither of you let go.

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a/n : HIII EVERYONEE !! took me long enough to finally post another ryul fic for u guys! also... THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR 1K LIKES ON MY LAST RYUL FIC. i seriously wasn't expecting that at all 😭 i love ya'll so much 💞

"'Cause, I need your help." He whispers, voice dropping the smallest bit to something more deep.

Your cheeks flush the smallest bit before you push yourself off the rolling chair and step towards the booth. You open the door and walk to Martin. He immediately wraps an arm around your shoulders, pulling you into his chest.

See, the thing is, no one knew about Martin and you. Being the co-producer for CORTIS, you knew to keep a professional attitude. Though, Martin had found a way to slide through those barriers. With reluctance, you melted into his grasp and rested your head down on him.

Martin slides the headphones off his head and down onto his neck instead, this way he could hear you better.

"You look so pretty today," He whispers and you slap his arm, telling him to shut up.

"You're so annoying, the boys will be coming in here in literally ten minutes." You grumble.

Martin laughs at that and reaches to your chin, tilting your head up so his eyes can meet yours properly. His eyes drift down to your lips and his face sobers.

"No, Martin, not now." You scold him as his gaze comes back up to your eyes.

"Just one, c'mon, I couldn't earlier because we were too busy on the new song." His lips form a small pout, and you can't pretend you don't want this too anymore.

You huff, "Fine. But just one!"

Martin immediately shoots forward, connecting your lips with eager. The kiss is soft, one with an underlying emotion fizzing between both of your lips. His mouth quickens against yours and you start to pull back.

"Not yet," he whispers against your mouth as he pulls you back in.

You soften, letting the kiss take you in and bask in his presence. Your hand comes up and cups his cheek. His one hand that was on your shoulder drifts down to your waist while the other leaves your chin.

After a moment, you feel his hand leave your waist too. You then feel a tune playing and pressure on both sides of your head. The realization dawns when you recognize the beat to be the one that you had just finished working on.

He hums quietly into your mouth when he feels your kiss falter for a second as you lose focus from being distracted. After what feels like only a minute, he pulls back, chuckling after you chase his lips.

"Thought you didn't want to kiss?" He teases.

"Shut up.." You mumble back, hiding your face in his neck.

Martin lets out another laugh, but then quickly steps back when he sees the door handle of the studio room twisting.

"Shit, they're here" He mumbles.

Your eyes widen and hands lift up to yank the headphones off. You step back as well just as the other four boys enter the room. James brows furrow when he sees you and Martin in the booth by yourselves.

Martin steps out of the booth and you follow. Seonghyeon and Keonho crash down onto the couch and Juhoon stands with James, giving us weird looks.

"Just came in early to help create the beat." Martin explains as both boys suspicious nod.

You and Martin both make eye contact after the boys walk away, he leans down and whisper in your ear, "What they don't know won't hurt them."

You smirk and start explaining the parts to the boys. In the corner of your eye you see Martin standing with them, but he's wiping some light pink gloss from his lips as he stares right at you.

You blush, wondering how many times you'll see the action moving forward since secret studio kisses have now been added to your relationship.

if only you knew how much you were failing right now. but you didn’t due to the fact that your parents were caught up in a divorce and blamed more than half of it on you.

your whole life you thought you had been the worst daughter. not because they told you so, but because they always made it seem like you did everything wrong. little details your parents never realized. it'd always be like this ever since you can remember, "in reality you weren't even planned" they once told you. so all of it made sense.

they would bring it up in family gatherings how they had sex and never planned to have a child, they'd say you were a "blessing" yet brung up how much they wished they could've done things differently before you were born. almost as if they wished you hadn't been born.

they hated the idea of having another child.

it made it seem like you were in despair or miserable but you never felt that way. of course, yeah, you had your family problems and what not, but you always had the bright side on your mind. you had an amazing bestfriend, anabella lee. she had been your bestfriend since the second grade where you met each other after you caught her kissing a little boy under the park's slide.

you were never the type of girl to go out so having a boyfriend wasn't in your bucket list, yet bella made it fun since she was the heartthrob.

she gave something your parents never provided you, unconditional love. she gave you hope and she gave you a sister your parents couldn't ever give you.

most importantly, the relationship you had with your grandmother. the lady who took care of you more than your own mother. she was the place you always went to when it rained. the lady who taught you how to read, paint and write. you couldn't thank her more. all the love you carried was from her and no one else.

you learned everything one learns from two parents from one person.

she had passed away a few month before starting college. starting college wasn't easy at all, being alone, without support from your parents or anyone in your family other than anabella was just the beginning of it.

thats what brings you here, failing your second semester in college, horribly.

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

8:49am

text from annibelly

"helloooo, r you ready for the calculus test today ? i think i might fail ngl i went to sleep last night really late with jake."

"hello ?"

"oh my gosh y/n dont tell me your asleep.."

"HELLO???"

" WAKE UP Y/N WE HAVE A TEST TODAY YOU CANT MISS THIS ONE TOO"

"y/n youre going to fail calculus class"

and she was right. YOU were going to fail if you didn't go. she was more worried than you and you could always tell she cared deeply about these things although she'd be failing herself.

you have already missed a whole bunch of lectures and you were completely sure if you missed one more you probably wouldn't even remember what the process of differentiation and integration even meant.

you stretched in your white sheets, room quiet, sun spilling in between the curtain gaps. you check your clock, "oh shit" you say, eyes widened. your calculus class started at 9:00am. it was 11am already. quickly you washed up, changed and ran out hoping you could created a valid excuse for the professor.

you walked in through the main doors there stood anabella with the professor handing in the test as she had stayed a little longer waiting for you to arrive. she was the last person there, the upcoming class already coming in.

"miss yeun, what brings you here so late ? you missed the test." professor park remarks. your cheeks burned in embarrassment and before you can say anything, the most dreadful words came out of his mouth. "miss yeun, you have already failed this class if you haven't noticed" he says in his most serious, disappointed tone. you turn to anabella and she looks at you with a frown on her face. you can tell they were expecting more from you.

the worst part was how disappointed you were at yourself, you've always been the girl who studied, made sure you were the top student.

the moment your grandmother died, that all ended. you snooped around, you procrastinated, you hid from everything. you did everything she taught you to never do. you had also lost a lot of weight, which also worried anabella the most.

yet nothing ever worried your parents enough. you were always a letdown to them. something they never wanted. especially in the state you were in. it made you hate yourself more than anything.

then proffesor park made a face almost as if he had an idea. "i'll give you one more chance miss yeun, make up all your work and i'll let you take the test. If you fail to do so you will not pass." professor park blurred out. the heaviness on your chest released a bit after knowing you had a second chance. well maybe like the fifth chance but that was besides the point.

you exited the class with anabella, "see i knew he'd give you a chance, you weren't the only one failing anyways !" she tried to bring a smile to you face but all you could think of was how much pity that professor had for you. you hated it.

"its not that easy anabella, you have no idea how much work i have missed and have to turn in. plus how the hell will i take that test if i have no idea what he's been giving in the lectures. im fucked and i only have one month" you told her while she listened carefully knowing you needed some type of comfort.

"y/n, we'll find a way out of this, don't worry. i'll help you get over this" she told you while walking you to your car.

you couldn't ask for a better bestfriend.

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

going home was your least favorite part of the day, finding your parents either fighting or drunk. not it. especially after a day like this you wished you could disappear.

"look whose finally home" your mom blurt out in the most sarcastic tone ever.

"can't you just realize how much pain you've brought to this house, your father can stand either of us. yet you're just like him, you hide from your problems like a coward, maybe his mom couldn't even teach you to be less like him. maybe she didn't teach you everything after all like you make it seem." she was drunk, you can tell because all of it was random, you had no idea what she was talking about.

all you knew was how deep she had cut you with mentioning your grandmother.

"you never were my mother the way she was, and you have no place to talk for her. so i expect you to have some decency and learn to talk truthfully when you sober up rather than hold a bottle in your hand trying to mend the pain" you tell her not looking as you heat up some food you had from yesterday.

you tried to stay as calm as possible so you wouldn't stir anything up.

you can tell she was angry by the way she set down the bottle.

"how about being a little grateful you have a roof over your head. and food in your stomach." you can tell she was far gone because all these things you mentioned, you paid for them yourself.

"these things i have are mines, i pay the bills, i buy and cook my food, i'm the one who does everything in this house. don't try to scramble your way out." you completely regretted saying anything as you saw her look at you with the straightest face possible. you knew what she was going to say was not good.

"get out of my house."

You froze. you didn't know if she was being serious or if it was the alcohol talking.

"i mean it, i want you out by midnight. you want responsibilities go have at it. you're out.

you couldn't believe it, you lost your appetite from the form of those words. and just like that you went to your room and picked all your things up, at least all the important things.

you ran out of the house with bags and suitcases you managed to pack in two hours all in your car.

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

12:23am

you had no idea where to go. you had been parked in a gas station for the past hour trying to think of anything possible. you didn't want to bother but you seriously had no other choice but to go to anabella's house since she was the only person you were truly close to.

a thirty minute drive felt like hours from all the thoughts formed in your head figuring out what you were going to say to her. you were drowned in tears endlessly crying realizing you could never go back.

scared to crash you wiped them away.

it was the end. you had nowhere to go home to anymore. all your childhood memories of your parents being somewhat affectionate when they remembered to or when your dad loved her little girl before she became a woman.

everything was just over. kicked out and driving in raging rain.

there you were parked in a house you came to regularly every other weekend to hang out while your parents forgot about you.

you noticed another car, in the garage parking, usually where you left your car.

maybe jake, anabella's recent friend with benefits buddy.

you got out of the car grabbing a backpack that was in the back seat with your essentials; a pair of pjs, soap, a toothbrush, some face wash and your glasses along with your computer and papers from that calculus class.

you walked to the front door, completely soaked. hesitating to knock on the door.

you knock finally, it being one in the morning, you doubted anyone was awake. you held your face in your hands thinking you were ridiculous for being there so late.

the door finally cracked open. there stood a tall, lean body with a grey hoodie and some black sweats. it wasn't anabella but someone familiar. anton, anabella's older brother.

"y/n ? its so late, are you okay ?" he said in a concerned tone. his eyes looked first at how soaked you were from standing in the rain and then to your bag slung over your shoulder. he quickly let you in.

"what happened ? your all soaked, you could get sick out there" he grabbed your bag from your shoulder after throwing a warm blanket around you. you tried to explain but your words caught in your throat and tears rolled down your cold cheeks.

"oh y/n" he caught you in his arms.

he was warm, smelled like freshly washed clothes with a hint of that sweet smell he carried around. his arms snaked around your back and kept you snug tight. you felt safe, something you hadn't felt in a while. it almost caught you off guard.

anton was the brother that you always wished for. anabella would tell you how much he protected her even after he found out she had lost her virginity to the jerk team captain of the football team.

he stood up for her when he could.

he was a quiet yet observant boy, he always knew how to make you laugh whenever anabella wasn't around. but you weren't as close with him as you were with anabella.

anabella and him had a two year age gap which made both of you two years younger than him. he was already on his junior year in college while both you and anabella had just started. he had helped both of you get in so it was easier for anabella since she'd always use him to cheat.

ever since high school started, you both grew distant with him since he was older and had his own things to deal with. he was the captain of the swimming team and the leader of the mathematic & statistics club.

you didn't know much about him, you just knew he'd poke around once in a while when anabella needed him.

he had set you down on the couch. "i'm going to grab bella for you, i'll be right back okay ?" you nodded and he left to find her.

anabella hurried down the stairs scared, in pjs with her short black hair all messy and in her glasses, almost as if she was ready to go to sleep.

"y/n ! oh my god are you okay ? what's going on.. " she cupped your face with her hands making you look at her as she kneeled in front of you.

"i just got kicked out" you said after explaining everything in the best way possible. she leaned her head on your knees and looked back up

"everything is going to be okay, there's an extra room here and you can stay for as long as you want. i promise" she pulled her pinky out like she did for everything, anton watched in silence.

you thanked her and she took care of you. you got to the room, washed up and went to sleep as fast as you could wanting to forget everything that just happened.

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

your eyes fluttered open.

you, in a new bed, room, house. well not everything was completely new, you had been here a hundred times ever since she bought the house , but still it felt new.

you brushed your teeth and headed to the kitchen. there anton was making breakfast while anabella sat on the couch.

"hey y/n, i'm making pancakes and bacon, there's fruits in the bowl on the counter if you want some too" he pointed at the fruit bowl anabella put on the kitchen counter.

"how'd you sleep ?" anabella asked stretching her arm out so you can sit besides her on the big couch she had. the tv on playing friends, her favorite show. " i slept well, probably the best i've slept in weeks." you told her with a half forced smile on your face although you told the truth.

"im glad" she gave you a pout.

"stay as long as you want you'll give us good company" she looked at anton as he brought a plate of pancakes with bacon accompanied by the bowl of fruits he had told you about earlier.

"eat" anton gave you the plate hoping you wouldn't lose your appetite.

you all ate on the couch watching the tv, laughing together at the stupid jokes chandler would make.

after an hour or so anton got up and went to what you thought was his room.

"did anton move in ?" you cut the silence asking anabella the question in curiosity since you never saw him around when you visited and found a car in the driveway.

"yeah, he moved in about 2 weeks ago because he hated the dorm rooms at the university. when i bought the house i had asked him to move in but he had said no, i guess he gave up." she laughed and managed to get a giggle from you.

"i can't believe you got a house before him" you mentioned remembering you always told anabella when you were little she would be homeless when she grew up.

the day carried on. making jokes, you talking to her, just like before, everything felt peaceful again.

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

it was late, you laid in anabella's bed, her next to you. anabella looked at you " hey y/n, you know who could help you with the calculus work.." you raised an eyebrow at her wondering who she was going to recommend

"anton" she smiled knowing how much she used him in high school for all her math tests.

"you think he'd help me with all of that ?" you knew it was a lot and if you were in anton's shoes you would not like to help someone with that much work.

anabella rolled her eyes "ugh you are so arrogant, just go ask him, i know he'll help you" you shrugged your shoulders and thought to yourself, maybe he would.

anabella had fallen asleep and you walked out of the room quietly to grab a few cookies from the pantry. you saw a light coming from another room, not yours or anabella's. anton's room. then you thought again about anabella's recommendation, maybe you should ask.

you slowly walked to the room and knocked gently as you extended your hand out towards the door

a low "come in" came from inside and you gently poked your head into the room. you saw his guitars on the wall, his books and papers laid out on the desk with his laptop. the light of the turned on tv filling the room.

he sat up in his old tee shirt and grey shorts. "hey y/n, everything alright ?" he could tell you were nervous to ask whatever you were going to ask him.

he was always sweet to you.

"hey anton, i was wondering since you were good at math, if you could help me with a difficult class i have." you covered up the fact that you were failing horribly to not face embarrassment.

his face lit up, you asked him for help and he felt contempt. " yeah of course, when would you want to start ?" he tilted his head happy to give you a hand.

"uh whenever you want.. how much do i have to pay you ?" he looked at you and rolled his eyes, looked just like anabella. " why would you pay me? don't, i'll do it without the money."

you kind of felt like you didn't deserve it. "are you sure?" you asked hoping he'd give you a price.

"yes, i'm sure" a nod followed his phrase.

"we can start now if you want, i'm not doing anything maybe a few math problems could tire me a bit" he said, it was late and he couldn't sleep.

you couldn't really sleep either and accepted grabbing your laptop and calculus papers from your room.

then you started.

"let's find the derivative of f(x)=3x2+5x−4f(x)=3x2+5x−4. what's the first step?" you looked and then stared at the numbers, god you hated math so much.

" i don't know" you said covering your face as your cheeks turned completely red.

he laughed "don't hide this is how you learn" something in that sentence drove you insane.

the way he reassured you. how he pulled your hands away from your face.

no you couldn't. thats anabella's brother.

you brushed it off and continued after he explained a bit.

"so the answer is f′(x)=6x+5f′(x)=6x+5?" you waited for his approval while he looked at all you work. "perfect. you got it." a soft smile appeared in his face while he looked at your work.

he continued explaining the details, things you had to remember. his pretty slim fingers pointed at things on the paper, you tried to focus on the numbers and letters rather than his veiny hands. how his breath hit your neck sometimes when he'd get a little closer to you.

but most of all his voice, how gentle and soft spoken he was. you can just catch yourself thinking about how he'd sound if he called you "baby" or how his name rolls off his tongue so perfectly it made you press your legs together involuntarily.

then the dirty thoughts you've never had about your bestfriends brother started.

how it would feel to be all his, the way he would teach you little things in his bed completely naked, just like he was teaching you about differentiation. his hands all over your body and his mouth on yours.

stop, you can't. you thought to yourself.

"y/n ?" his voice reached you. you snapped out of it quick.

"what is the answer to this ?" his eyes locked in with yours, you could feel yourself grow hot. almost immediately moving his gaze back to the paper knowing that it didn't feel normal.

you cleared your throat and finished the work on the paper. "times 6x" you said plainly. "yup, why do you even need help, you've gotten most of them right" he said almost proudly, trying to ignore the eye contact that just had happened.

"i didn't get all of them right though so" you added not being happy with only a few being correct.

he looked at you, you stared at the paper. the pen you had in your hand rolled off the table after you let go of it.

you both bend down to grab it, fingers brushing against one another. bringing yourselves back up; again making eye contact.

this time he didn't look away, he stared, and you froze. his gaze lowering a few times to your lips.

you heard a knock.

he washed out of the trance. "yes ?" he called out, anabella came in after you thought she was asleep she woke up to ask her brother something.

"anton i need to go out tomorrow, i forgot to ask if i could borrow your car since mines at the dealer?" she looked at the papers in between both of you with sleepy eyes.

"yeah you can, i just need it after six, sohee invited me to his house." he said in an awkward tone no one noticed but you.

he wasn't going to be home the next night and it kind of bummed you since you looked forward to another lesson.

"thank you !" she said happily, with a thumbs up towards you for asking him to help you before closing the door behind her.

you both ignored everything that just happened and cleaned everything up. you grabbed your things and before you left you turned around as he watched you

"thank you for agreeing to help me" you say to him with a faint smile. he nods without saying anything giving you that big smile he always gives you. still a bit awkward.

you walked to your room, freshened up and got in bed. and just before you thought you had completely brushed off the feeling:

oh gosh, i can't be falling for anton.

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

it's the next day and anabella had left to the mall to buy a few things as she said the night before. you were alone with anton but you had avoided each other all day.

you had no idea if it was because of the staring or maybe it was just him being his normal self.

you couldn't seem to stop thinking about him. the way he looked at you, his fingers still on yours while you both grabbed the pen. the way he was startled by anabella when she walked in, almost making it feel like he was doing something illegal.

it wasn't normal, you wanted it to not be normal. you wanted to study, you wanted to study with just him.

the day passed by and anabella had come back home, you laughed with her as the hours passed by. she had told you how happy she was you were there, how maybe it was better like this.

and honestly it was. it felt right, it felt correct.

anabella went to her room after she got a phone call. you watched her and she had her index finger up telling you to give her a second. after a few minutes she walked out of her room in her work clothes unexpectedly "y/n, i'm sorry to bother but can i borrow your car i just got called in randomly for an extra night shift, i'm so sorry"

she looked at you, feeling bad. you looked back at her rolling your eyes "grab the keys you idiot, grab them whenever you want" she laughed and sprinted grabbing them quick kissing your head, the way her mom used to when you were all younger.

"i don't know what'd i do without you. thank you so much" she dragged out her words and smiled at you as she shut the front door.

you were by yourself for the first time, the anxious feeling of it ran through your body since its been so long a house had been this quiet but you calmed yourself to a shower.

right after you pulled out the laptop and your papers from last night and finished some of the many works you had pending. you studied till late not realizing it was already 1:30am.

keys jangled at the door, and anton had arrived. he closed the umbrella as it had been raining again that night. he went to the kitchen, grabbing a water bottle from the fridge.

his eyes caught you looking at him as he took sipped from the bottle.

you look away quickly trying to focus back on your papers. "you're up late, you should probably go rest. those late night study habits suck, coming from someone who has study insomnia" he said all while walking towards you.

he sat down besides you on the floor where you were, back against the couch, papers on the coffee table in front of you. the light from the laptop lit up your face and his as he looked at all the work you've been doing.

"this is wrong." he said pointing at an equation full of messy numbers. you almost let out a groan hoping he wouldn't have noticed. he explained, in that soft voice you still couldn't get over.

"thank you" you appreciated him. he gave you a soft smile, but he could tell you were tired of all those equations.

"hey, you should probably go rest, seriously there's nothing worse than learning math all worn out." he raised his eyebrows knowing from experience.

you laid your head on the edge of the table, his hand crept up your back rubbing just the top, close to your nape. his slender cold fingers against your warm skin. you were wearing a black silk tank top with matching shorts, lace on the hems.

you brought your head up, his hand freezing when you look at him. there was tension, you both felt it and it was more than noticeable.

the house was quiet, too quiet. him letting go of the water bottle setting it down on the table sounded louder than ever.

he looked at you a little more like if he was making sure you were alright with everything. the hand he had flat on your back slowly went to cup your face. he got closer, gaze dropping to your lips coming back to your eyes.

you couldn't think straight, wanting to feel all of him but hoping deeply that anabella wouldn't walk through that door catching you kiss her own brother knowing that would make her go insane.

his lips brushed over yours still waiting for some type of green light worrying about crossing a line. you finally gave in kissing him, your lips bleeding into his perfectly. his mouth kept things steady while both of your hands were around his neck.

you can feel him start to get needy making the kiss sloppier, he pulled away making sure you were alright "i've been wanting to do that for so long" he confessed against you lips. you never expected him to say something like that. your face surprised.

he stood up as you looked up at him confused, he closed your laptop and stood you up. he organized the papers and picked everything up, one hand full of your things and the other holding yours leading you towards his room.

this is horribly wrong, you thought to yourself. the same way he told you your equations were incorrect.

he let go of your things on his desk and propped himself the edge of the bed still holding your hand. he spread his legs and pulled you between them.

"if you're not sure of this just tell me to stop, y/n" there it was that soft voice again. you looked down at him and his puppy eyes the way he looked staring up at you. you couldn't say no, you couldn't tell him to stop.

you gave him a nod, "say it aloud, i want to hear you say you'll tell me to stop if you're uncomfortable" he said making sure you were both on the same page.

"i'll tell you to stop if i feel a certain way, i promise" you whispered almost breathless looking at him. the warmth between your legs grew into heat the more he reassured you.

he grabbed the back of your thighs, one by one, pulling you onto his lap. your hands on his shoulders. he didn't spare any time and dove his lips into the crook of your jaw and neck. his hot mouth leaving butterfly marks, soft enough to leave by the morning.

"anton" his name slipped out of your mouth in a soft moan. his hands slipped up your shirt, warm, possessive yet gentle.

his hands brush up against the underside of your breasts. "can i ?" he asks mouth still kissing along your neck. you nod as he pulls of the thin material off your body.

"no bra ? you're lucky were alone here, you'd drive me insane if we weren't" he chuckled against your lips and you smiled before he pushed his tongue into your mouth. sloppy, wet and messy.

his hands finally on your breast squeezing and pinching your nipples between his index and middle fingers. the feeling made you whine in his mouth, your noises pleasuring him more than anything.

his mouth trails down leaving wet kisses along the sides of your neck and chest making it to your nipples. if there was one thing this man was good at it was using his tongue, the way he flicked it and circled all along your nipples made you grow wetter the more he did so.

"these are so pretty, baby" he said mouth full on you tits, you moaned and bucked your hips against his because of the nickname. you've been wanting to hear him call you that in that little voice of his and hearing him for the first time did something to you.

you grew needy, you wanted more.

you whined pulling on his shirt wanting it off. "starting to get impatient huh ? you want this off ?" him talking to you like that had you at your worse.

"please" you say eyebrows furrowed wanting him naked already. he smiled picking you up, laying you in the middle of his bed.

"slow baby, we have all night. no need to rush sweetheart" he knew you loved the nicknames from the way you squirmed, he also knew how much you needed him from the way you whined quietly waiting impatiently.

he loved to tease you, just like he always did.

he pulled his shirt off over his head, you stared at his perfectly toned body you hadn't seen since his last swimming competition in high school.

fuck you had been missing this for so long.

"anton please, touch me" you said in the shyest yet neediest way possible. it stunned him, the way you expressed yourself, he's never seen or thought of you in this way.

"tell me how much you want it baby" he whispered against you neck hands shimmying their way down your shorts.

"please, i need you so bad, do whatever you want i just need to feel you anton" you said quietly in his ear making sure he heard all of it. his fingers circling on your clothed pussy, panties still covering you.

he gave in after your words and took his hand out your shorts pulling them down along with your panties tossing them somewhere in his room. you felt the cold air hit between your legs making you close them instinctively.

"don't close you legs pretty girl, theres no need to be shy. i want to see what you've been hiding from me for so long" his hands traced slowly along your thighs before sliding back up to your waist, lingering against your smooth skin.

as if every touch mattered, as if holding you meant everything to him.

slowly his head lowered between your legs the more he spread them open, without ever losing eye contact. everything felt so agonizing at the pace he had placed. slow, attentive, and intimate.

his hands wrapped around both your thighs, grounding you, his tongue placed flat on your clit. he hadn't moved and you head was already tossed back from the mixed warmth between your legs.

your hands flying to his soft black hair pulling and pushing his head from the pleasure, you can feel him pressing his nose on your clit while his tongue pushed between your folds the more your hands played in his hair.

"fuck anton that feels so good, don't stop" you moaning made him look up at you turning him on even more seeing how you bit your lips trying to not be too loud.

he took two fingers, spitting between your folds, pushing them in. "this makes you feel good baby ?" he said between your heated thighs looking at you.

you moaned his name in slurs not knowing how to respond. his fingers pushed in and out, curling them deep inside your tight pussy. your own body responded for you.

his tongue gave in a last swirl around your clit, releasing you with a pop sound from his mouth. his tongue drove up from your lower stomach to you breast as he sucked on one nipple and kneaded the other one with his free hand while his other hand still pumped you pussy.

you moans became louder the more he pumped, you felt a knot form inside you, a knot you've never felt. "oh fuck i think i'm gonna come" you blurt out between breathy moans.

he pulled his fingers out before you came making you feel empty. you whined and he hushed you up quickly kissing you, salivas mixing, including the taste of your own. it was hot, dirty, something you've never done.

you almost understood anabella when she told you about every guy she had fucked and how amazing it was.

you unbuttoned his jeans and played with the waistband of his calvin klein boxers, there was faint smile you can feel forming on his lips between the kiss . he pulled down his pants with his boxers releasing himself.

he was the hardest he's ever been, he couldn't deny it, no one has ever had him like this. you can see his glistened tip from the moonlight peaking threw his curtains. "look at how you've got me princess" he looked at you as you looked down at him.

he smacked his tip on your clit gently and rubbed himself between his folds. he knew how to tease you enough for you to squirm under him "anton please, i need you" you pouted, he loved it.

he kissed your temple right before slowly inserting his tip in your tight little pussy. you can feel him stretching you going as slow as he could so he wouldn't hurt you. you really couldn't keep your composure anymore.

"hurry anton" you said desperate to feel him move inside you. he looked at you nodding making sure you were okay with it.

and so he did what you said.

his hands held the back of your thighs, he pushed himself as much as he could in you. "mm fuckk" he dragged out a moan under his breath. you let out a loud gasp when he pulled out and pushed back in farther.

his thrust became shorter a, little faster, still deep enough to hit that little spot you felt you high at. "yes yes, don't stop, please anton" your hands dug into his bed sheets.

he let go of your thighs and hovered over you a little closer, close enough to dig your nails into his arms. "you make me feel so good princess, you're so perfect, so good to me, taking me in so well"

his words didn't stop, almost praising you every time he slipped into your messy cunt filling you up.

his hand dipped between both of your bodies rubbing hard on your clit "fuck anton i'm so close, keep going" you moaned, he looked at your face, the way your mouth formed an "o" shape and how your hair was all messy on his pillow.

nothing of his has ever looked this precious, not even his grades, or his perfectly written math equations.

you were his, and no one had to say it nor deny it his body claimed you. and you let him.

you came all over him, legs shaking, arching your back off his bed. he pulled out and fisted himself right over your belly shooting warm white ropes "mmph baby" he moaned massaging your inner thigh looking at his mess.

you both laid next to each other breathless and tired. he stood up after a few minutes and grabbed a towel from his bathroom.

you were stuck staring at his room, staring at the moving fan. you had never felt this vulnerable next to someone, next to a guy. even less.

this wasn't your thing, and it certainly wasn't your place to come between your best friend and her brother.

in that moment, as he got up to grab the towel, every thought of being a failure drowned you.

why could you ever do something like this ? why would you ever let yourself go this far ? what could possibly make this feel worth it?

you never felt like enough, so why did having sex with the most forbidden person make you feel like you finally were enough?

rule#1: never let a boy separate us. rule#2: live together forever. rule#3: don't ever get with anton.

those were the rules, ever since you were 6 years old with anabella. they never changed and why should they now ?

you laid in this bed almost wondering how horrible you became, how you completely forgot about your parents, how you completely forgot about your grandmother, how you most importantly forgot about anabella.

"you okay y/n ?" he looked at you as your eyes watered looking up at the ceiling. you felt like you were about to get sucked into the mattress, like if you were going to disappear.

"baby what's wrong ?" he pulled you into your arms as you cried, losing notion of everything around you. your breath shortened and you felt suffocated.

the first panic attack you had since your grandmother died.

"hey i need you to breath, in and out, look at me" his hands brought you face up making you look at him. his voice calmed you and his eyes led you perfectly.

he was perfect.

no one ever brought you balance the way he did. you spent so long feeling like a problem without a solution, like a calculation that never added up.

he became the missing piece that made everything finally make sense.

your breath became slow as he held you against his chest, both of you sitting in his bed. you can hear his heartbeat, slow and calm helping you relax your own.

"do you regret it ?" he asked, worried he had done something that would scar you more than you've already been.

you looked up at him lost of words, him studying your face the same way he does with all his papers and yours.

"i don't know.." you say, almost as if you regretted saying that.

"its this feeling i can't shake, letting your sister down, letting my parents down, letting my grandmother down knowing, i was always taught to keep my word, to keep a promise. to never let myself go completely."

he looked at you taking in all the words you say, letting them comprehend a little better in his own mind.

"y/n, you need to recognize that you aren't a failure. no matter how much you fall, the amount of mistakes you make. your hardships. the things you do on a daily basis that you think are wrong don't make you less. they make you a human being."

he brought you up just enough for your eyes to find his, holding your gaze like he needed you to see him.

"they teach you, help you learn, help you grow. no matter how much people, family members, friends tell you that your less, you'll always be more. because having and being less always makes you grow more than people who already have enough."

"you're not a letdown and you have to stop believing you are. because you're human just like me, anabella, your parents, and your grandmother.you don't always have to be in control, you chose your peace over your control and if it feels correct then be it."

his words brought tears to your eyes, not the kind born from sadness, but the kind that came from realization.

you never realized how much you had been sabotaging yourself until that moment., how much you tried to become for others and not for you.

it was time you started to learn, to grow, but to plant your own flowers in your own garden, without your grandmother, your parents or anabella. not to let them go, but to finally create something out of it.

to build to finish to destroy and to build again.

because these things are given to you as a human.

the world may recognize your actions, but will it ever recognize your dreams?

he wiped your tears and gave you a smile, leaving small kisses on both sides of your face before laying you down beside him, your head resting against his chest. for once, you let yourself be still without control.

anton, threw the blanket over both of you, one hand over your waste pulling you closer to him and the other hand petting your head. as if he was never going to let go of you.

maybe, he never will. and if he never does, neither will you.

the crowd was relatively quiet, but the moment anton stepped out? it’s like he was offering everyone a million dollars. girls screamed his name, standing up and jumping around in the bleachers as he walked out, giving you a small wave. 

“they really love your boyfriend, huh?” shotaro chuckled, still astonished by the volume of the mob despite experiencing this multiple times before. 

eunseok clicked his tongue at the sight of so many losing it over anton. “don’t they know he’s taken?” his head cocked to the side, eyes squinting. “gosh, they’re insane. look at those posters.” he pointed at a select few, reading them out. “...’lee anton, you’re mine’ oh, yeah no.” 

“i can’t believe even the older students do it.” sohee furrowed his brows, as annoyed as you. “it’s so childish.” 

shotaro saw how your smile slowly turned the other way around, quickly deciding to say something. “it’s okay, y/n. anton only has eyes for you.” he pat your shoulder, nodding his head. 

the swimmers had hardly touched the water and the rally got louder, piercing through your eardrum. and that was just the start. as the tournament went on, the yells for anton just kept on increasing. girls’ squeaking voices rang in your ear, shrills loud enough to break the glass windows. 

once anton had ultimately won most of his events, bringing home three golds and two silver medals, his fangirls snapped pictures of him, some even took pictures with him, posing like he was a celebrity. 

you made your way down the stairs, ready to congratulate your boyfriend, when another student, one in his year, stopped you in your way, blocking you from anton. 

“excuse me, i was here first.” she said in a stern voice, keeping her arm out, defending you as if she was a security guard for anton. “get in line.” 

“i’m his girlfriend,” you said, keeping your voice calm, though on the inside you were burning with anger. you attempted to push through her shield of an arm, but she used all of her strength, shoving you back to where you were. 

she rolled her eyes at your perseverance. “i don’t care if you’re his girlfriend. you don’t deserve to be, anyway. he should be with someone more mature, someone in his year, like me.” 

unbeknownst to her, anton had been listening the whole time behind her. 

“could you not block my girlfriend’s way?” he said, clearly annoyed. “i’m dating her and not you for a reason. i don’t care if you’re the same age as me, y/n’s the one for me.” 

her face turned bright red, full of embarrassment. “s-sorry…” she managed to mutter before scurrying away. 

anton eyed her as she ran away, glaring at her through the corner of his eyes. “hey, baby.” his medals clanked against one another as he walked toward you. “thanks for coming,” this time, he kissed you on the lips, holding your waist with a strong grip. “my lucky charm.” you could feel him smile as he kissed you, smugly showing you off in front of everyone who wishes they were in your position. 

“ugh, tonie…” you whined as you pulled away from his face. “your hair’s literally dripping.” you exhaled, grossed out by how your hands were soaked in pool water now. 

he drew you back into his arms, giggling as he shook his hair, flinging drops of water on you. “whatever.” he laughed at the way you complained about him drenching your uniform yet still hugged him back. 

That includes knowing who to follow on Instagram, who not to approach in the hallway, who to invite in group projects, and who to sit with in lunch. He goes by what makes sense and knows who the hell doesn’t belong in his circle, who rightfully has his phone number, and who can comment on his Instagram posts. 

Except when it comes to substances. He’s not a drug addict but he does enjoy good weed. 

He did listen during chemistry lectures, which basically means he knows a thing or two about pharmaceutics — at least the important parts like which produce larger surges of dopamine and intense euphoria. So while they get drug orientations every start of the school year and the addition of the entrepreneurial mindset of a businessman his father has passed down to him; Riki’s a fucking a jackpot. He simply believed every structure had blind spots, and if someone was smart enough to notice them, then maybe they deserved to profit a little. 

Maybe that made him a hypocrite. He knew that. Sometimes, in the middle of his own judgment, the thought would occur to him that he was not exactly living inside the moral boundaries he pretended to respect.

So with all of these in mind — weed-seller and social scale follower — imagine his surprise seeing a text from you.

You, an A-tier cheer captain with perfect grades and perfect friends and a perfect boyfriend and someone he doubts even has ever touched weed within a 10 feet radius because of how goody-two-shoes and slightly more socially-conformed you are, texted him: 

you: hi you sell right

The kind of surprise a priest might feel if the Virgin Mary asked to borrow a dildo.

Riki stared at his phone for a full thirty seconds. Not because he was shocked by the question itself — he’d gotten worse, far more incriminating messages from people with nothing to lose – but because of who it was from. Your name sat there, attached to a profile picture he never thought would sit on his chat log. Someone who followed the rules so well she barely seemed to touch the ground and practically flew up the school field with the school banner.

This was not how the structure worked. Nope.

He knew you didn’t look at people like him unless it was to borrow a pen or unwillingly get assigned to a lab partner. You definitely weren’t supposed to be asking him this. 

Riki leaned back in his chair and rethought the logistics. He wasn’t paranoid – paranoia implied irrationality. This was risk assessment, you’re high visibility, you’re a liability, you’re a cop in disguise, you’re a prig who’ll ruin his cloak and dagger, you’re holier-than-thou. You’re interesting.

riki: ???? is this a test loll

you: ? its a question

riki: u fr????

you: js tell me if its a no i have money

riki: 3pm behind the science building

you: ok thanks

But more than whatever you are, he knows this was stupid. This was the kind of deviation that got people caught and into the most flouting position he’ll ever be, therefore ruining his very wish to stay within a lawful system. It was, unequivocally, a very bad idea.

And yet he finds himself at the back of the building while he reevaluates the measures of bad-ness in the idea. If math really has been on his side along with his really athletic stature, he can run when you pull out as witness to his little dissenter mood. It halts when he sees you rounding the corner in your cheer uniform — ponytail perfect, knee tape slightly crooked, eyes darting like you weren’t sure you belonged back here — he realizes something his knees will give out before he can even try to walk away.

You stop a few feet away from him, awkward, out of place, glowing like a wrong answer circled in red. You stare at him with your arms crossed, hyperaware when his eyes follow the silhouette of your frame like he’s finding a covert surveillance device underneath your pleated skirt.

Riki talks calmly, like this wasn’t insane at all, like he hasn’t been in his head for the past hours: “So,” he starts, hands slipping into the pockets of his hoodie. “What do you need?”

The question should’ve been easy. You’d rehearsed it in your head on the walk here, timed it with your steps, told yourself not to sound like an idiot. But standing this near — near enough to notice the faint, clean smell of cologne and something green and earthy — you blank.

You shift your weight, arms tightening across your chest. “Um. Weed.”

Riki blinks once, and immediately he knows what this is. He studies you the way he did with lab results that didn’t line up with the predictions — or maybe it did exactly, and he can’t believe it was that easy.

“…Okay,” he said. “What kind?”

Your mouth opens. Then closes.

“What kind.” he repeats.

You felt heat crawl up your neck. “Just… normal?” you say, immediately hating yourself. “Like. The kind people use?”

A corner of his mouth twitches before he can stop it. Then he licks the inside of his cheek, shaking his head when he realizes that yeah, his guess is right. “You don’t know what you’re doing.” he says. 

You bristle. “So?”

“You don’t even know dosage. Or strain. Or why you want it.” His eyes flick up to yours. “Do you?”

Your confidence wobbles, the polished composure you wore so easily in hallways cracking just a little now. He pulls out a small, neatly labeled bag and holds it between his fingers instead of handing it to you. “This is low THC,” he explains. “Won’t make you freak out. But I need to know what you specifically need so you don’t… panic.”

This was supposed to be transactional, quick, something you could tuck away and forget about. Yet every risky glance you take, he doesn’t look like someone who’d hold anything against you.

Riki sighs, about to put the bag away. “Look, let’s just forget —“

“I just,” you start, then sigh because there’s no cool way to say it. “I don’t know. I had a bad week. I wanted to try something.”

When you finally look up, he’s watching you differently. Not like you’re stupid or embarrassing, though you feel plenty of that on your own. His brows have lifted slightly, the faint amusement in his mouth fading into something quieter as he takes you in properly: your tight grip on your own arms, the way your eyes keep darting away.

And it makes it worse.

You meet his eyes for half a second before looking away with a small huff, embarrassed by the sudden attention. 

He puckers his lips slightly, staring at the thing in his hand like he’s thinking. At first, you think he might be deciding if you’re worth the trouble, but then he nods once. “Okay,” he says. “So you’re not becoming a stoner. You’re just trying a new cuisine.”

You blink at him, then laugh under your breath before you can stop yourself.

His mouth twitches, but hides it. He steps closer, just enough that you can see the smoothness of his skin, like he owns expensive skincare. He’s very tall, in a way that surprises you maybe because you’d just never stood this close before.

Really, you never spent time looking at Riki Nishimura. You’ve known the name, because who can ever look past the opulent sound of it, but to know the man behind it didn’t matter. After texting him, you don’t know what you expected either, maybe someone grubbier and smelled like smoke, someone with dry lips from all the ash. You thought he’d smell like one of those hippie guys who sold sketchy shit while wearing the same beanie for three years. 

But no, he smells like a familiar perfume your father owns in his fragrance wardrobe.

And his clothes are annoyingly nice, like the hoodie is probably more expensive than it looks and the loose pants are intentional, not lazy. 

Also, he’s 6’1.

“This,” he taps the bag lightly, “will help you relax. Body high, mostly. You’ll still be functional. But since it’s your first time, better not fuck around too much.” 

He’s still standing in front of you, close enough for you to notice the way his lashes lower when he looks at the bag in his hand, and you feel deeply, horribly stupid for only realizing now that he looks like that. 

Your gaze lingers, and he catches it. Riki clears his throat, spine straightening a little. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” you say too fast.

He only hums. You tighten your arms across your chest. “Just give me the thing.”

He finally hands you the bag, and you eye it once you feel its weight in your palm; leafy and green and brown and not you — but it doesn’t look so bad right now. It looks enticing, even, which you won’t try to admit out loud.

“Twenty,” he says, not planning to converse himself with the sudden discount. 

You dig into your bag, finding for the vintage pink wallet that screams the contrast of cannabis in your palm right now. “You know,” you say, hesitant but honest, “I don’t know. It’s weird how we’ve never talked before.”

That gets him. He chuckles even if there’s nothing funny about what you said, but there is something humorous about the fact he remembers shit you obviously forgot. He’s quick to question the lack of indifference, because he remembers it well that this is definitely not the first time you two talked.

“We were partners in freshman year,” Riki says.

He watches your face blank in real time, and something about it makes his mouth lift again, but not kindly enough to be mean. More like he expected it and still finds it a little funny that you are proving him right.

“English lit,” he adds. “The mythology presentation.”

For a second, he looks at you like someone who’s always known you, and you look at him like you’re seeing him for the first time. He sees it flash in your eyes, that maybe you remember him more than just some guy who sells weed to irresponsible decision-makers.

“Oh,” you say.

Riki nods once, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Oh.”

Until your phone buzzes to drag you back from this little bubble you’re in – your boyfriend’s name lights up the screen and Riki notices it too.

“Oh,” you say again, clearly out of your own head. “I — sorry.”

Something shifts, like the structure rebuilds and reasserts itself back into proper footing. You pull the bills from your wallet and press them into his hand. “Thanks,” you say. “For, um. The stuff.”

He closes his fist around the money, nods once. “Yeah.”

You hesitate like you might say something else, so you just tuck the bag away and step back. “I’ll go,” you say.

You turn the corner first. Riki exhales only when you’re out of sight, and chews on his bottom lip before hitting the side of his fist against the wall without real effort. He turns the other corner, parting from the rendezvous kept between eng lit and discounts.

The thing is, Riki knows you before whatever you are now. Miss Perfect who buys weed from Mister Lowkey Weed Seller — it’s a whole tangle in his brain in which he can’t exactly comprehend, but while he smokes a joint and music blasts through the speakers from the house party he’s dragged into, your picture’s pinned with red strings. 

He’s known you since third grade. You’ve been part of the cheer team before puberty, and since then you’ve accumulated likable girls your age into your circle, then the guys from the football team after. It becomes a whole coupling session when the age came right, which Riki is convinced is just some orgy labeled friendship goals in curated Instagram. He thought you were mean mostly because that’s what someone like you would be — but he does know a thing or two about you, other than the assumption of character. You’ve been in the same group projects against your will, sometimes you’d stand next to each other by the queue lines in the cafeteria, sometimes you’d bump against him in the hallway when you’re chasing time.

Is it weird he kept tabs? Maybe.

He always noticed, obviously, why wouldn’t he? You are not exactly unnoticeable. You’re nicer than your friends, you say sorry when you accidentally bump into someone, you say thanks to the staff, you say good morning to strangers, you’re pretty, you’re talented, you’re smart, you laugh at his jokes, you bought weed from him, you’re pretty, you’re perfect, you’re funny, you’re ridiculously pretty —

Riki takes another puff, too fast and too harsh, earning a rough cough from his throat. Heeseung chuckles, giving him an aggressive pat on the back when he leans his elbows against his knees. “Geez, first time?”

Riki shoves his arm away with a laugh, unsure where this is coming from. Because on top of every other noticeable trait you have, you have a boyfriend. So. Yeah. He knows better than to think about you.

He sinks deeper into someone else’s couch — leather, cracked at the seams — while the bass rattles the walls and bodies blur together in the dim lights. Smoke hangs thick in the air, clinging to his clothes, his hair, his thoughts. He takes another drag, slower this time, lets it sit in his lungs until the noise dulls around the edges.

Across from him, someone’s laughing too loud, then a couple is making out like it’s an Olympic sport. Heeseung steals the joint from his fingers and flicks the ash into an empty cup.

“You look fucked,” Heeseung says.

“I’m not,” Riki replies automatically.

“Mhm.”

Riki pushes himself up from the couch, suddenly restless. He just wants a drink — something cold, something that doesn’t make his head spiral because even the thought of weed pulls him back to this cheerleader. So he goes to the kitchen, instinctively saying half-assed sorry’s to strangers without meaning them. 

Until he bumps into someone.

For half a second, he genuinely wonders if the side effects are finally catching up to him, because his head feels several feet away from his eyes and the kitchen lights look more hazy than they should.

But it’s you, he knows that because your kind voice apologizes; the way you always do, the way your friends don’t. Your shoulder knocks into his chest and you’re already stepping back, eyes wide a fraction of a second when you look up. Riki freezes too, unsure what to do with his hands or his feet or where to look without threading too close to the sternum your lowcut top exposes. Up close, under dim kitchen lights instead of school hallways, you look unreal — hair loose, lips parted like you’ve been laughing. 

“Riki,” you say, breathless, like his name slipped out before your brain could catch it.

His name on your mouth does something stupid to him. 

“Hey,” he says, too softly. He’s just thankful you don’t notice the slight roughness of it.

You smile, small and polite — but there’s something else underneath it now. Recognition that shouldn’t exist, not in the structure where you’re meant to forget that you know; one where he looks up at you from beneath your echelon, now he’s standing close enough that you have to tilt your chin to look up at him.

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” you say.

He huffs a quiet laugh. “I didn’t either.”

You glance past him, toward the other room, toward where your friends probably are — or your boyfriend. Then back at him, polite in a way he’s sure is because you’re you and not because he’s him.

“I don’t usually see you in… parties,” you say. 

He puts both hands in his pant pockets, shoulders loose, eyes on yours like the noise around you doesn’t have enough authority to interrupt.

“You don’t usually look,” he says.

It’s not said rudely, just calm, like he’s stating something obvious enough that both of you should stop pretending around it.

Your fingers tighten around your cup. “That’s not true.”

Riki tilts his head, eyes moving over your face. “Yeah?”

You hate how it sounds coming from him, low and slow and almost amused, like he knows you’re lying before you do. You scoff a quiet laugh, eyes looking away because you can’t keep looking at him. 

“I mean, I know you exist.” You look back up at him when you say it, bottom lip catching between your teeth before you can stop yourself.

His eyes drop for half a second, then he smirks and looks away, tongue pressing against the inside of his cheek like he’s trying not to say something.

When he looks back, his face is calmer. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

The question is casual enough that it almost sounds harmless. You glance elsewhere instinctively, like you’re going to find him close. “Somewhere.”

“Specific.”

“He’s with his friends.”

Riki just nods, doesn’t wanna push, even though he’s pretty sure you don’t actually know where he is. Leaving is the smarter and normal thing to do. The thing a girl with a boyfriend and a reputation and a phone full of unread messages from her friends would do.

Instead, you stay there. And Riki’s got that tabbed already.

You hesitate, fingers worrying at the rim of your cup. “I, um. I haven’t — used it yet.”

Riki blinks. “The stuff?”

You nod, cheeks warming. “I just… don’t really know how.” It’s weird being this honest with someone you barely know, yet your bones don’t buzz with the prompt demand to pause. It must be the slight slosh, it’s the only real thing to excuse why you’re not pulling away.

For a second, he just looks at you. Then his mouth curves, slow and amused. “You bought weed without knowing how to use it?”

Your face warms, but you try not to look embarrassed. “Okay, well.” You lift your cup a little, like that somehow helps your argument. “You can teach me.”

Riki grimaces immediately, playful but clear. “Sounds like a bad idea.”

You blink. “Wow. Rude." You huff, looking away, but you’re smiling a little because he doesn’t sound scared of you. Or impressed by you. Or desperate to keep you there. He just sounds like he already knows better and hates that he has to be the one saying it.

He sighs, looking away for a second. “Fuck, fine.” his jaw clenches. “But not here.”

You try not to smile and fail almost immediately. You take one step back, still looking at him. “I’ll text you. Maybe later?”

Someone calls your name from the other room and you exhale, dragging back through the fracture. The music spikes and someone bumps into you again, closer this time, and Riki’s hand lifts instinctively, hovering over your waist without touching. 

Your eyes flick down, then back up to his. “Nice seeing you,” you say finally, voice softer now. 

“Yeah,” he says. “You too.”

You step around him, brushing past just close enough that he catches your scent — which is bad, because now he’ll have to remember that too. When you disappear back into the crowd, Riki stays rooted in place for a beat too long.

He exhales, rubs a hand over his face, and laughs quietly to himself.

He really, really knows better.

Which somehow makes it worse.

Riki glances back to see you’re sitting on the couch now, legs tucked in, your boyfriend’s arm slung easily around your shoulders. He leans in and presses a quick kiss to your cheek, which makes you smile and ease back into him. Riki turns away to open the fridge and grabs the coldest beer he can find. He lifts it and downs it in one go, throat burning at the coldness and bitter taste.

He shouldn’t do this. He really shouldn’t.

Later, in that strange lull when the party has gotten worse and louder — you text him.

You: bathroom upstairs

The bathroom is cramped and clean but gross in concept: flickering light, foggy mirror, the smell of cheap air freshener. You’re perched on the edge of the sink when he slips inside and locks the door behind him, eyes bright, a little nervous, because being in a bathroom with you feels worse than any sketchy deal he’s made.

“Okay,” you whisper, like you’re conspiring. “So. Teach me.”

He winces, glancing around. “This is… not ideal.”

You just grin. He laughs despite himself and sets the weed down on the closed toilet lid, grimacing when he starts rolling paper against it. Once he’s done, he holds the roll up to your mouth and he tells you to lick it. You follow through, leaning down and sticking your tongue out to lick the side. He clears his throat, trying not to think about the way you looked doing that, trying not to imagine anything else.

He’s careful, not clinical or a lecture when he instructs, just calm and reassuring like he’s trying to keep you comfortable more than correct. When he hands the final roll to you, your fingers shake a little as you take it.

“Like this?” you ask.

“Yeah,” he says softly. “Slow.”

You cough immediately after trying, sharp and sudden, bending forward with a surprised laugh. “Oh my god — why does it — ”

“Hey,” he says, too fast, stepping closer, hand hovering at your back. “You okay?”

You wave him off, still laughing, eyes watering. “I’m fine, I’m fine.”

He watches you like you might disappear if he looks away. You’re laughing, which isn’t comforting Riki even in the slightest because the last thing he needs is to not be a conformist and end up in jail for accidentally supporting your homicide.

You try again, better this time. You still cough, laugh, cough again, but way more manageable as time goes by.

“Sorry,” you say, breathless.

“Don’t apologize,” he says. “You’re doing fine.”

You keep at it, stubborn in that way of yours, until the coughing eases and something in your shoulders loosens. You lean back against the wall, head tipping gently, eyes half-lidded.

“Oh,” you murmur. “That’s… actually really nice.”

Riki lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, a nervous laugh slipping out. He leans back against the wall, hand through his bangs, exposing the skin of his forehead. “Jesus fucking Christ,”

You nod slowly, smiling to yourself. “My brain’s quiet.”

He watches you for a moment: relaxed, unguarded, glowing in this tiny bathroom because you don’t belong here at all, holding a joint Riki himself rolled for you. Really, you never belonged anywhere that tried to put you in a box, and he wasn’t going to make himself an exception to that opening.

He tries thinking about who you really are, beyond what most people would take you as. Though he knows not to fantasize a tale where he saves the damsel from her golden label. He takes you with memory and not assumption: cheer girl, disciplined afternoon drills, academically smart, socially competent, good. But tonight, while you lean against the cracked sink and stand diagonally across him, he sees a side he never thought he’d secretly behold.

Your eyes flick to him. “You’re a good teacher.”

He swallows. “You’re an easy student.”

Riki rolls another one for himself, hands steadier now that you’re settled, and lights it with a quiet flick. The bathroom fills with a softer haze this time, the kind that wraps instead of hits like a downer high school series. He takes a drag, exhales toward the ceiling, letting the room reek with shouldn’ts and endorphine boosters.

You smoke more confidently now, less harsh and rough when you let the smoke run down your throat. Your eyes are a little red, lashes heavier, the sharp edges of you blurred into something warmer and looser, less polished and picture perfect the way your boyfriend would like. Riki thinks — stupidly — that he’s never seen you look better.

You lean your head back against the wall again, staring at the ceiling like it’s just told you a secret. He doesn’t stare, actually. He keeps his eyes narrowed to the broken tile in front of him like he’ll discern the reason it’s cracked (maybe someone opened the door too hard, maybe someone once stood there trying to look normal while his heart acted stupid over a girl, which was especially humiliating when the whole point of being high was to feel less insane). Sometimes he’ll permit himself to glance, but even the very glimpse of your smudged lipstick makes him look away and inhale the fuck outta that weed.

Then, suddenly, with eyes still trained to the dim bathroom light — “I thought you were,” you start, then laugh, a little too loud before clapping a hand over your mouth. “Sorry. I thought you were, like… this weirdo.”

He snorts, shaking his head. “Wow. Honesty hour already?”

“No — ” you groan, waving the joint like you’re conducting an orchestra. “I mean it nicely. You always stayed away from everyone. I figured you were judging us.”

“Us?” he repeats, amused, cocking a brow when he glances at you.

“You know. People like me.” You squint at him, trying to focus. You gesture at yourself ineptly, clearly out of the ordinary intellectual capacity you clench tight, not when rickety makes up for your feet.

He quickly looks away, trying not to smile. 

“Loud. Annoying.” you clarify, hand gesturing around.

He tilts his head, considering. “Was I supposed to be friends with people like you?”

You blink, like you’re thinking about what he said and calculating the rationale behind his causes. It was a hit, one that steadies a thought in your brain.

“Is that so bad?”

The question knocks the breath out of him, especially when you look up at him like that, eyes bright and wide. He blinks, and then he laughs, coming out quieter this time, looking away because he can’t keep eye contact with you. “I didn’t think you’d want that.”

“Why not?”

Because there’s a system. Because there’s levels to this shit. Because you have a boyfriend. Because you’re untouchable. Because you’re perfect and he’s whatever this was. Because people like him didn’t get pulled into your orbit unless it was transactional. Like weed exchanges and favors on the toilet. 

For now, he shrugs. “Seemed like you already had your people.” 

You hum, nodding slowly, then smile. You tap the joint, watching some ash fall to the tiles. “They’re loud.”

He smiles back despite himself. “Yeah. They are.”

The bathroom feels like it’s floating away from the music that pumps loud through the pipes, a constant reminder that there’s more than the stinky bathroom you two share as a secret. It’s risky because it’s merely wood that separates the crypticity of Mary Jane from the Average Joe you two function in individually.

You glance at the joint, then at him. “You’re not weird, by the way.”

“Oh?” he says, eyebrow lifting. He even scoffs, because he (un-admittedly) finds you adorable. 

“You’re just… quiet. You keep to yourself, but that doesn’t make you… eccentric.” You grin lopsided, cheeks warm but you ignore that. “You’re nice.”

That one gets him, more than he’d ever admit to anyone. Riki looks over, and for half a second, his gaze slips lower before he forces it back to your face. You’re already looking at him, all soft eyes and honest mouth, like you have no idea what you’re doing to him.

He looks away first, rubbing the side of his jaw like that might help. “You’re high,” he says.

“Maybe,” you confess. “But I mean it.”

He’s been called quiet and nice all his life, but that was never the full truth. He just knew who deserved access to the rest of him, and most people didn’t. It wasn’t personal. He could talk when he wanted to, laugh when something was actually funny, keep a conversation going if he cared enough. He just didn’t feel the need to prove he had thoughts by saying all of them out loud.

Riki takes a drag, exhales slowly, looking over the tiles of the bathroom while he rethinks the decision he’s about to drop. He clears his throat before speaking, “You’re not mean either.”

Your eyes widen a little, gaze recklessly steady at his side profile. “You thought I was?”

“Everyone did,” he says honestly, smiling a little.

You make a face, frowning at him even though he refuses to look at you. “That’s rude.”

He laughs, really laughs this time, head tipping back. When he looks at you again, you’re smiling up at him like you’ve discovered something new and decided to keep it. For a moment, it feels like maybe there was always a version of this where you talked in bathrooms and shared smoke and didn’t belong where people expected you to.

You take another small drag, then suddenly straighten when you decide to take him in. He’s wearing a jacket over his hoodie, simple sweats loose around his hips. Only a few strands of his dark blonde hair graze over his forehead, leading down to the sharp features you only really notice now.

You never thought Riki Nishimura was ugly. Now, you can’t help but think that he’s… kinda hot.

You’re high, you’re just gone. That’s why. It also explains why you nudge closer than you have been before, letting your skirt brush slightly against his pants, thighs grazing slightly against his.

You’re both still smoking — slow now, like the room itself has decided to breathe with you. The bathroom feels even smaller than before, shrinking with every second the music downstairs gets louder but muffled through the wooden door keeping you a secret. Your head feels light, buoyant, like you’re floating a few inches above your body. Maybe it’s the weed. Maybe it’s the half-drinks you’d taken before this. Maybe it’s neither.

He stares at the tile beneath his boot like it holds the secrets of the universe, or like it had the equations for him to understand gravity’s intentions and how it led to him feeling your softness against him.

“Is there something on the floor?” you laugh.

He just huffs, shaking his head because that’s all he can do right now. You’re still leaning back and he’s still standing just a little too close. Your knee brushes his again, accidental but not corrected.

He looks down at you then. The red in your eyes, the crooked smile, the way you’re leaning just a little toward him like gravity’s doing something new. You lean closer because you’re completely zooted and smart-Riki who knows better, leans away and only lets his chest tighten. His eyes drop traitorously down to your lips, and he’s not fast enough to look back up. You notice, of course, which makes you both look away and straighten back on your feet instead of the wall. 

Riki clears his throat, smoking the last of his before he rids of it against the sink. “You gotta go?” he asks out of the blue, which makes you frown a little. It wasn’t exactly a statement, but you know when things are implied and telling, so you shove back the nerves and remember that he’s different from you.

You’re not his type of person. He probably likes more chill people who actually know how to roll this shit — not the sheltered ones who’s clueless with THC or terms alike it.

“Yeah. I guess.” you smooth out your clothes even though nothing’s wrong with them.

He realizes what he just did, especially now that you’re not even looking back at him. He tries correcting himself, to backtrack, but the moment you glance back up, he’s silenced. You put your unfinished joint in his hand. “See you.” You say just before unlocking the door, slipping through it, and accidentally slamming it too hard.

Riki reels in from the solitude of the silence, like he’s now just realizing the ruins he broke himself. He sighs in resignation, head falling forward in defeat. “Shit.”

He stares at the thing in his hand, unfinished and yours, half-burnt and still warm.

“Idiot,” he mutters to himself, dragging a hand down his face. He can still feel the ghost of your skirt brushing his leg, the way you didn’t look back because he gave you a reason not to.

But the bathroom still smells like you — sweet perfume tangled with smoke — and the joint is there, remaining as an accusation wrapped in paper. He turns it between his fingers, thumb brushing the spot where your lipstick smudged faintly against the edge.

Riki exhales, then lifts it.

He wraps his lips around it carefully, stupidly aware of the fact that yours were there first. The thought alone makes his chest tighten, heat creeping up his neck and pelvis as he takes a slow drag.

He closes his eyes as he exhales, leaning his head back against the wall, heart thudding too loud for a room this small. For a split second, he imagines you still there — tilted smile, red-rimmed eyes, saying his name like it belongs to you, all while your boyfriend waits in the living room.

He laughs shakily under his breath. It’s so wrong.

After that, you two haven’t really talked for weeks. 

That part isn’t weird. You both have lived the majority of your lives settling with the insouciance despite recognition, and one night in a bathroom, smoke and secrets and red eyes, isn’t enough to reroute that kind of muscle memory. Riki tells himself that over and over, like it’s a theorem he’s already proven.

He hasn’t been worried. He still goes to class, still shows up on time, still hands in assignments with some effort. The only difference — although barely worth mentioning — is that he’s been dipping into his stash more often than usual. A little before bed. A little after. 

Riki exhales slowly, staring at the ceiling, telling himself — again — that this doesn’t mean anything and it doesn’t have anything to do with the cheer girl he kinda had a moment with in the bathroom.

It’s so fucked, even if you don’t think being his friend is bad, because you’re not meant to be a part of this. He was simply curious that Miss Cheerleader bought weed from him and kinda trusted him way too fast and that wasn’t just some everyday occurrence — that’s the only best psychological explanation why you’re here even when you’re not.

You have a boyfriend. He’s not about to be a homewrecker. Yet it’s not helping.

No talking for weeks, reaching a month even. That says enough. He has to stop.

“Probably about Little Miss Perfect.”

Riki flinches like someone just snapped a rubber band against the back of his neck. He sits up, glaring at Heeseung. “What the fuck,” he blurts. “How do you know that?”

Jake slowly looks up from his laptop, eyes lighting up like he just unlocked a bonus level.

“Oh my god.” Sunghoon’s grin spreads and Heeseung laughs, clapping like he’s won because technically he did, at the mental betting at what keeps Riki Nishimura downing his marijuana greenhouse.

“Ohhh,” Heeseung says, taunting and annoying. “So it is about her.”

Riki blinks. “No.”

“That was the weakest no I’ve ever heard,” Jake says immediately, pointing a finger at Riki. “You’re a guilty man, aren’t you?”

Riki scoffs, scrambling, fingers rubbing against his temple in attempts to cool. “You’re literally insane. Why would it be about her?”

Heeseung shrugs, casual. “I saw you two talking at that party.”

Riki’s stomach drops. “You — what?”

“Relax,” Heeseung says, laughing. “I wasn’t spying. You two just kinda had a freeze frame by the kitchen. Wasn’t so hard to notice.”

Riki opens his mouth, just to close it. Then he runs a hand through his hair with the irritated slant of said illegality stamped in your name. “We were just talking. Nothing happened.” Riki snaps, defensive again, hands up like he’s caught. 

Jake squints at him. “Then why are you acting like that?”

Riki looks away. Usually, it’s enough answer to more teasing and mocking, but maybe not this time. Because now, it raises actual questions that regard his very bearing at this monumental association with you — a damn unicorn of a scene snatched out a comedy fantasy movie.

Heeseung asks carefully, “Are you, like, her boy toy or something?”

Riki whips around with the flush of unpredictability and utter shock. “What? No!”

Heeseung grins again, gentler this time. “Okay, not her boy toy. What now?”

Riki exhales, long and slow, falling back supine against the floor with the decency of a man with boundaries and the understanding of someone brilliant to keep himself away. “Nothing. She has a boyfriend. She lives in a different world.”

It’s realistic. He thinks he’ll drag the shit out of his stash to get his mind off this, because Riki Nishimura was a conformist by all means.

You’re where you’re supposed to be.

You laugh at the jokes while dawdling down the hallway with girls you actually consider your friends, your boyfriend’s arm heavy around your shoulders like it belongs there. You learned how to roll your own joints now, practiced with irritated little shrieks until it stopped being embarrassing, until they came out neat and perfect between your fingers. You don’t need him. You don’t need anyone, actually. Independence always looked good and natural on you.

Then Riki walks past with Heeseung and Jay.

Backpacks slung low, shoes dragging lazily against the floor, laughing about something stupid like someone’s terrible quiz score. Riki’s eyes stay forward like always, keeping his business private from everyone. Especially from you.

You don’t acknowledge each other beyond the bare minimum of peripheral awareness of two classmates that happen to be in the same class and two planets in the same orbit. Your boyfriend tightens his arm around you, leaning down to murmur something about lunch plans. You nod, glossed lips wrapped around a lollipop, sugar sweet and cherry-flavored on your tongue. You should be listening, you’re sure you are, until he passes.

Your eyes follow Riki — not openly, just enough to catch the back of his neck, the familiar slope of his shoulders, the same boy who leaned against a bathroom wall while you were high and laughing too much, knees brushing his because the room was small and neither of you moved away.

The lollipop slides down your tongue: all artificial sugar because the substance stays at home in the back of your secret drawer, while some of it just passed you down the hallway.

“I’ll catch up,” you say lightly, lifting your boyfriend’s arm off your shoulders. “I forgot something.”

You slip away before anyone can think too hard about it, weaving through the hallway with your lollipop still between your lips. You keep enough distance to make it look accidental, watching as Heeseung and Jay split off with quick fist bumps and loud voices. Riki keeps walking and pushes open the door to an empty lecture hall before disappearing inside.

You stop outside, remembering that this is probably the part where you’re supposed to turn around. Where the perfect, reasonable version of you remembers her boyfriend, her friends, her place in the hallway. Where the status quo reaches for your wrist and pulls you back into line.

Well, you push the door open.

Riki is near the front row, one hand still on the strap of his bag when he looks up from his seat, legs spread wide, thumbs midway to scroll through his phone. His eyes widen slightly, posture going still like he did not think you’d actually follow him.

For some reason, it thrills you. Because now he’s looking at you.

You pull the lollipop from your mouth, twirling the stick between your fingers as the door clicks shut behind you. “Hey.”

His eyes flick briefly to the door behind you. “You lost?”

This isn’t a bathroom of some random houseparty. There’s no smoke, no music, no excuse, just you, Riki, and an empty lecture hall in the middle of the school day — which means you came here on purpose.

“You should roll a joint for me again,” you say, like it’s so simple. “One of these nights.”

Riki blinks once. Then he huffs out a soft laugh, shaking his head. “What, you haven’t learned since last time?”

You step closer anyway, slow and unhurried, allowed to exist wherever you want. He leans back against his seat, still careful and invisibly (but truly) restless. “I did.” you answer, then you smile small and lazy. “You’re just better at it.”

That gets him (because you’ve been knowing what to say to get him). His eyes lift to you, amused now, something low and unreadable settling there which sets you on fire because you have no idea what he’s thinking, not even a little hint. 

“Flattery,” he says, then scoffs.

You hum and step closer, close enough that his knee is almost in front of your thigh. Riki leans back in his seat, one arm loose over the desk beside him, phone forgotten in his lap. 

“There’s another party this weekend,” you say. “At McKay’s. You and your friends should go.”

He tilts his head. “Should we?”

“I think so.” You shrug. “Good music, large pad, beer games.” 

He chuckles, eyes dropping briefly to the floor before meeting yours again. “And you’ll be there.”

“Probably.”

“And you’ll want me to roll one for you.”

You pull the lollipop from your mouth, tapping it lightly against your lower lip as you think. “If you’re offering.”

“I’m not,” he says, but his mouth twitches.

You lean back against the edge of the desk beside him, copying his ease like you have any right to be comfortable around him. From far away, it would look casual, just two classmates talking before class. Except there’s only you standing between him and the empty rows, him sitting back in his seat, looking up at you with that unreadable expression while you try not to smile too much.

He should probably feel insulted that you only do this when nobody can see — maybe he does, if he still believes in self-respect. It’s just hard to stay offended when you’re looking at him like that.

Riki nods once. “I’ll think about it.”

Satisfied, you push off the table and head for the door. “Cool.”

When the door shuts behind you, he thinks about red eyes and smoke, about how your usual crowd will be there, your boyfriend’s arm around you just before you sneak away to Riki’s. 

You’re trouble, which makes Riki smile. ‘Cause he knows damn well he’s going to that party.

-

McKay’s house is already vibrating when Riki gets there with Heeseung, Jake, and Sunghoon — bass rattling the windows, someone yelling about cups, someone else yelling back about something incomprehensible. Riki isn’t a frat boy at all, and he doesn’t really go to parties, but the perfume layered on top of alcohol is basically familiar territory.

“This place is a fire hazard,” Jake mutters, stepping over a discarded heel.

Riki scans the room pretending he doesn’t mean to, observing layouts and people, when really he’s actually looking for one specific designer wardrobe of a person.

He doesn’t see you, but he sees your usual crowd scattered around the room, posing with red cups they barely drink from and laughing a little too loud whenever someone points a camera at them. You’re not there, nor is your boyfriend, and that usually speaks for itself already.

Heeseung nudges him, already mischievous with the smile Riki can’t see. “Little Miss Perfect?”

“Fuck off,” Riki replies, flat.

Jake’s halfway to disbelief when he narrows his eyes at Riki. “You’re already staring.”

“She’s not even here,” the former hisses.

“Looking for her, though.” Sunghoon teases, practically grinning widely.

Riki pushes past them. “I’m getting a drink.”

He doesn’t get a drink. He goes through hallways and in between bodies that nudge abruptly into him, half-assed apologies going through one ear and out the other while he properly finds footing again and again. When he gets to the bathroom and finds it locked, he groans and leans back against the wall. For now, he flicks the light on his own joint and smokes away while he waits — for you, for the bathroom, for anything to make him think going here was worth it at all. 

Too many girls brush against him, too many of them apologizing with tilted heads and lashes batting. He has no interest in rewarding the performance, not tonight, not when the party is already crawling under his skin, all bass-heavy music, sticky floors, smoke in the air, perfume clinging to his throat, and people packed so tightly he can’t move without touching someone. It’s too much at once; too loud, too hot, too bright, too dark. Then he sees it, and everything in him goes still.

Your boyfriend has another girl pushed against the bedroom wall. 

Riki sees this through the crack of the door, just slightly opened enough for him to see how he moves his hand underneath her skirt really fucking aggressively. They’re kissing too, and it’s not at all sweet or even arousing; it’s just straight out gross. He chokes, coughing so rough and loud and forward he has to lunge himself off the wall and straight through the crowd because his first instinct is you.

Your boyfriend is cheating on you.

What the fuck is happening? Why’s your boyfriend fucking a girl like someone who knows nothing about clits? Now, Riki isn’t an expert about pleasing women but he’s watched porn enough to know that Exhibit A over there was straight-up persecution. 

He finally spots you near the kitchen, talking to one of your friends with a cup in your hand. He starts toward you, but someone shoves past from behind, and he bumps lightly into your shoulder. You turn, already halfway to apologizing until you see him, your face already changing before you can stop it.

“You came,” you say, eyes flicking around before coming back to him.

He’s kinda out of breath, from the smoke and from hurrying, but he smiles too. “Yeah.”

While you’re still smiling, Riki clears his throat. It’s casual like he’s asking for a lighter, not like he’s abput to derail your night, ‘cause truth be told, he’s not sure he knows how you’ll react to the information. To be honest, he thinks about how it’s only fair — maybe — because he doubts your boyfriend knows you sneak into bathrooms with another guy. And sure, his hand isn’t performing DJ on your pussy, but the shared secrecy of eye contact with loaded tension is much more intimate than whatever the hell that was.

“Uh,” he says, hand rubbing on his jeans. “Can we talk? Like. Somewhere quieter.”

You blink. Then you nod, already stepping closer so he has to lean down to hear you.

“Bathroom or outside?” you ask, half-teasing.

“Outside,” he says easily.

The night is cold enough to make everything feel quieter, like it’s only the two of you standing under someone’s porch light while music leaks through the walls behind you. It’s strange, because you’re not even friends, not really, but the little space between you feels private in a way Riki doesn’t know what to do with. He exhales slowly, like he’s been holding his breath since the second he walked into the house, then leans back against the railing and looks at you standing across from him.

He tries finding the words first, but the way you’re looking at him tightens his chest faster than his brain can work out. Is this karma for your cheating boyfriend? Is he the instrument God has given you to slam notes back to the guy you’re practically cheating on too? 

Then Riki clears his throat, casual as hell. “I saw something inside,” he continues, tone still chill but eyes a little sharper now. “Your boyfriend.”

Your smile falters. “What about him?”

“He’s, uh.” Riki taps ash off the joint. “He was fucking a girl. On a wall.”

You stare at him for a while, and he’s half-expecting you to lash out, on him, on the crowd, on your boyfriend, on something. 

Instead, you laugh this small, amused breath that slips out of you before you shrug, like he told you your boyfriend spilled punch on his shirt and not that he had just seen him with another girl.

What the fuck is happening?

It feels a lot like you don’t care and that surprises Riki leading him down a rabbit hole of introspection. He was already expecting you to cry and sob or scream in the party about how much of a dick he is, how you trusted him and gave him everything — all things they do when they find out their boyfriends are cheaters.

No, you just, “Wow.” then huff a laugh. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

He blinks once, watching you carefully while you regather your thoughts as a woman who’s been said something paltry rather than an admission of an affair. To be honest, Riki doesn’t understand, so now he just stands there and looks stunned. And confused. Very confused, actually.

Riki squints at you like he’s trying to solve a trick question. “That’s it?” he asks. “That’s your reaction?”

You shrug, lifting your cup to your lips for a sip. “I mean. It’s been happening. “We’re just sorta together for our parents. They’re friends so… but that’s a story for another night.”

Oh. He never thought fake relationships were a thing.

That makes sense. How come Riki didn’t know? Was he so out of touch from school gossips hat he genuinely didn’t know that you’re actually not the perfect couple he thought you two were? Is that why Heeseung and Jake and Sunghoon didn’t react so badly? Has this been a thing? Oh my God, Riki’s ecstatic and he hasn’t even finished a joint yet.

He lets out a quick, unguarded sound. “Jesus.”

You lean back against the railing across from him, far too relaxed for a revelation that should have ruined someone’s eyeliner. Riki watches you for a second, waiting for the anger, the hurt, the sharp inhale before you turn and storm back inside. But you just stand there, cup in hand, looking more inconvenienced than heartbroken.

That’s when it hits him, slow and weirdly humiliating, that you might not care about the relationship at all.

“But,” you say lightly, “thanks for telling me.”

He blinks, then shakes his head a little. “Yeah.” His voice comes out slower than usual. “No worries.”

You glance at the joint between his fingers, your eyes lingering a second too long on the veins along his hand. “You always this heroic when you’re high?”

“No,” he says, deadpan. “It’s just who I am.”

You laugh, and despite everything, his mouth twitches. He looks back toward the door, half-expecting your boyfriend to come out and make the night complicated. When no one does, he relaxes, shoulders easing, but not completely.

Because this is new information.

Someone inside screams the chorus to a song, and the night’s way too cold for the silence that buzzes. Riki offers the joint without looking at you, just holds it out between two fingers like it’s nothing.

You hesitate for half a second. But you take it.

“You have a car?” you suddenly ask while you take a puff.

Riki blinks once, then lets out a quiet laugh, dragging his thumb along the bridge of his nose. Right, so this is his life now. He sells you weed one time, and somehow he’s standing outside a party while your boyfriend (?)  cheats inside and you look mildly bored about it.

It’s stupid. It’s also the most interesting thing that’s happened to him in months.

So he just sighs and slumps back a little. “Yeah. I do.”

“Let’s go,” you say, completely not a question, flicking the finished joint on the pavement and trampling it beneath your heel. “I wanna smoke.”

He lets you trail after him through the side yard like this is already something you do, like he isn’t silently praying no one sees you following him away from the party. Gravel crunches under your shoes, the bass growing duller behind you as you cross the street toward his Supra, parked sleek and dark under the streetlamp. Riki unlocks it without looking back, rounds the hood, and opens the passenger door for you like it’s nothing.

You notice. You just don’t say anything.

Inside, the car actually smells clean and like coffee, for someone you’ve assumed is mad about marijuana and sorts alike (well, again, he’s proven how neat he is just for smelling so fucking good). He slides into the driver’s seat and just sits there for a second before turning the engine on, heater clicking low. 

The silence settles, but it doesn’t feel awkward, which Riki finds suspicious. Maybe it’s because you’re not acting like the version of you he’s used to, all neat edges and perfect timing. Now your heels are on the floor of his car, your hair is loose around your face, and you’re curled into the passenger seat of a Supra you’ve never sat in before like your body decided to trust him before your brain could argue. He clears his throat, trying to get rid of the warmth at the back of his neck, but you only glance at him like you don’t notice. The hem of your skirt rides up consequently, and he tries his hardest not to look.

“Thanks. For caring.”

He shrugs, one hand resting loose on the steering wheel. “Didn’t feel right not to tell you.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I know.”

The radio flicks on — some pop song bleeding through the speakers. He then pulls out pre-rolled joints from his pockets, which he sheepishly apologizes for hygiene and, well, it’s a bit delated, although you just smile and take one. He lights yours up and you two stay there, settled in his warm seats, dissolving the chill with cannabis down your system like two people who doesn’t give a shit about the system and fucking power dynamics and popularity status.

Again, weird. Hanging out in his car like you’re old buddies who smoke in free time on the usual. 

If he told himself a month ago that he would be smoking weed with the team cheer captain, he would have laughed his ass off about inhaling too much narcotics that totally screwed mental frameworks. Yet now, he’s stealing a few glances at you beside him, getting high off his greens, and he doesn’t feel completely off-center about it. It’s the weed obviously, but he feels steady. It’s charged because you’re not talking but your thoughts are everywhere, and even if you protrude the profile of indifference — he knows you care. Then again, what does he know about you, right? You are the odd in the equation, the alternative hypothesis that proves the difference in variables, and talks about the impact on the situation.

Now, conformist Riki Nishimura, who has spent his whole life respecting the ladder, is starting to wonder what happens if he climbs high enough to stand beside someone like you.

He stares through the windshield the second before he speaks. “You’re not what people think you are.”

You blink, caught off guard as you turn to him. “Is that good or bad?”

He huffs. “Depends who’s thinking it.”

You smile a little, your eyes moving over him before you can pretend they didn’t. Riki isn’t brawny in that loud, gym-mirror way, but he’s taller than he should be, broader than he looks from a distance, and unfairly very put together. His throat moves when he breathes in, and you catch yourself watching it for one embarrassing second too long.

You chew on your bottom lip. “And what do you think?”

Riki shifts in his seat, hand fidgeting against the wheel like he’s weighing how honest he’s allowed to be. “I think you’re quieter than your reputation.” 

You study him now — the calm posture, the way he never overdoes anything, the way his voice stays even like he’s learned not to tip his hand. 

He glances at you, then back ahead. “Makes it easier.”

You look at him for a second too long. “Easier for who?”

“You tell me.”

The car feels smaller and the windows are fogged enough that the streetlamp outside is just a blur of light now, like you’ve been sealed off from everything else. Away from the reality that boxes you two into something that makes sense rather than accepts. 

You laugh once, but it comes out softer than planned. “You always psychoanalyze girls in your car?”

“No.”

“Just me?”

His mouth twitches. “You asked.”

You turn your head toward the window, trying to keep your face normal. “You don’t know me that well.”

“I know.”

Riki finally turns to you, one hand still resting loose on the steering wheel. His eyes are a little low, a little unreadable, but not careless — that might be the problem.

“I’m not saying I do,” he says. “I’m saying people don’t either.”

Your fingers fidget with the joint, rolling it carefully between them even though you’re barely paying attention to it anymore. The tip glows faintly, forgotten for a second, and Riki reaches over without thinking to tap the ash into the tray before it can fall on your skirt.

You look down at his hand, then back at him when he hands it to you.

“Don’t you think that’s weird?” you ask. “Like, what kind of girl is cheer captain and smokes weed? Who gets into a fake relationship because of her parents? Doesn’t that sound kind of fucked?”

He looks at you for a moment.

Then he leans back, eyes returning to the windshield. “I sell weed.”

He says it from the driver’s seat of a spotless car that smells like coffee and cologne. It’s stupidly funny, actually, the whole contrast of him that kinda looks like you.

You laugh before you can stop yourself. “That’s different.”

“How?” he snickers.

You open your mouth, then close it again because you don’t actually have a good answer. “I don’t know,” you admit, laughing a little. “It just is.”

He hums like he expected that. Then he glances at you before back through the windshield. “I don’t think you’re weird,” His eyes flick over your face. “I think you’re bored.”

Obviously, that makes you furrow your brows. Obviously, you let him continue speaking.

“Of your boyfriend. Your friends. Your parents already knowing what you’re going to do.” His mouth twitches faintly. “Probably bored at being good at the same shit every day.”

You should probably deny it. It surprises you that you don’t, even though you’ve sworn hatred towards men that think they can assume your personality because of one little circumstance.

“That’s why you’re here, right?” Riki’s eyes drop to your hand, then back to your face. 

Your throat tightens.

“With me,” he adds.

He doesn’t smile like he won, he just sits there with one hand loose on the wheel, like he already knows the answer and is kind enough not to make you say it.

The air between you feels worse, like the moment before a storm cracks open into his car, and electrocutes you with a spark you’ve never experienced in your life. Which is eccentric considering you’re not the type of girl who’d be in Riki’s car instead of a party dominated by your friends, getting high off shit that would make your parents pass out. 

You scoff and look away, shaking your head like the whole thing is ridiculous. “You talk like you know everything.”

“I just guessed one fucking thing.”

You roll the joint between your fingers again, slower now. “Maybe I just wanted to try something.”

“With me?”

Your eyes cut to him, and you see there’s a slight curve to his mouth, like he heard the shape of your answer before you even made it. 

You huff. “You’re so annoying.”

Neither of you moves. Just suspended there, breathing the same warm air, the song on the radio dissolving into background noise, the world narrowed down to inches and intent and maybe weak will and strong urges. The tension’s palpable, solid enough that you could feel it grow between your thighs.

You’re probably one more joint away from being zooted, and Riki knows this of course, which is why he keeps his eyes narrowed across him and not the woman who’s audibly shifting in her seat. 

He’s high too — faster than usual — and it makes the moment stretch in this you know kind because he’s thinking bad. He keeps his gaze trained somewhere between the fogged windshield and the blur of your reflection in it, like it’s the only thing keeping him at bay.

For the record — you’re both twenty, obviously adults, even if the world still insists on calling you kids. Which is also the very age people let you experience the paradox of being too grown and too immature for anything consistent, so the underestimation you endure as an adult, smart woman, cheerleader, and a kinda-child — wow you’re in deep detestation for that system.

So you take control of things you can handle.

You’re a conformist, no doubt. Except in areas you loathe men’s freedom in yet expect restraint for women. So… in diminutive ways, you indulge. Like weed. Like running council. Like wearing short skirts. Like Riki Nishimura.

You glance at him sideways, voice light, almost bored. Almost. “So,” you say, like you’re asking about his major or what song’s playing on the radio. “I will ask you something kind of personal.”

Riki exhales a quiet laugh. “You’re already in my car smoking my weed. I think the line’s gone.”

You smile, satisfied, then tilt your head back against the seat. 

“Are you a virgin?”

The question hangs there. Unembellished and very dangerous in its simplicity. Also, of course, bold, which makes Riki actually freeze — a half-second pause where even his breathing stutters. Then he scoffs, shaking his head like he can’t believe you just dropped that between the heater hum and the low bass leaking from the house.

He blames the weed, though part of him wishes it isn’t from that.

“You always ask things like that?”

“I’m curious,” you say easily. “And a little high.” you gesture with your thumb and forefinger.

He rubs the back of his neck, eyes flicking to you now despite himself. “Why?” he asks. “Does it change your opinion of me?”

You meet his gaze, unblinking. “I don’t know yet. That’s why I asked.”

He huffs a soft laugh. He admits to embarrassment, even if it doesn’t cover his entire skin with flush and heat, he’s never found himself in this position. But honestly, nothing from the past few weeks has ever been something he prepared for — which he has you to blame, of course.

“Yeah.” he licks the corner of his lips, refusing to meet your eyes while he taps the steering wheel. “I am.”

Your eyebrows lift, impressed but not shocked. “Huh.”

Riki looks over. “Huh?” he mocks.

You bite back a smile and turn toward the window, but the reflection gives you away. “I just didn’t expect that.”

He scoffs, looking back at the windshield. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” You shrug, still smiling a little. “You sell weed. And you drive this car.”

“And?”

“And you look like that.”

For one second, Riki’s fingers still on the steering wheel, and he learns to shut up. He lets out a quiet laugh after, but it sounds different this time, lower and almost embarrassed. “You’re so fucking high,”

That makes him quiet, makes him adjust on his seat. He’s touched a woman before, but no one’s ever sat on his dick, nor has he ever been in anyone. So maybe he’s half a virgin, maybe he’s just a sore loser. He watches you as you move, as you turn in the seat, knees pressing into the leather, facing him fully now. The space changes instantly, the air recalibrating around your movement and maybe even pushing you further toward him.

Riki stiffens — just suddenly very aware, and perhaps a little scared. “Uh,” he says, brows knitting. “What are you doing?”

You tilt your head, resting your hands casually on the seat, perfectly balanced. “Bored, like you said,” you say. “And my boyfriend’s cheating on me. Again.”

He swallows. His gaze drops, then snaps back up to your face, like he’s trying very hard to stay respectful and failing in slow motion because you’re especially gorgeous tonight. “That’s… not a great combo,” he says.

“Not really,” you agree.

You lean in just enough for him to feel it — not touch, not yet. Just close enough that he can smell your gloss, the faint sweetness still clinging to you, and the cannabis that if he warrants himself the scary concept, is his mark on you.

“At least you don’t think I’m boring.”

Riki exhales, a real one this time, like he’s surrendering to the moment instead of fighting it because what can a simple guy like him do, right? His eyes flick to your mouth again — longer now — and when he looks back up, there’s a decision there, from someone who’s tired of conforming.

You close the distance then, slow enough that he could pull away if he wanted to. When he doesn’t, your lips meet in a kiss that’s brief and soft at first. Riki’s hand lifts instinctively, stopping just short of your waist, hovering there like he’s giving you the choice.

When you kiss again, you’re pressing harder, with the very intent to steal the air from his lungs. So that is what happens, you inhale and climb over the console and close your knees around his waist and he’s breathing shakily against your mouth, fighting for the oxygen he’s willingly giving away. 

Your cunt presses against the zipper of his jeans, and when you roll, he pulls away like he’s burnt. 

“W-wait — this isn’t — we can’t do this.” He shakes his head insistently, looking down your joined thighs while he regains composure.

You frown. “Why not?”

He looks back up at you, eyes wide and glossy from the taste of your cherry gloss and his greens in your mouth. He looks like he can’t handle this. You’re high, he’s high, this isn’t a good idea. You’re perfect, he’s not, this isn’t a good idea. You’re pretty and he sells weed, this isn’t a good idea.

“Because you have a boyfriend.” he says weakly.

You smile, fingers brushing into the hair at his nape. “Not really.”

He stares at you before he laughs, quiet and disbelieving, like the whole situation is so stupid he has no choice but to let it be funny for half a second. You’re in his lap, his car is fogged, your party is across the street, and apparently your boyfriend is more of a family arrangement than an actual person you care about. 

“This is so fucked,” he mutters.

Still, he kisses you anyway. His hand finally settles at your waist, firm enough to make your breath catch. His fingers press into your flesh just before he pulls you closer and his hips thrusts up underneath you.

His bulge presses hard against your clothed cunt, and a small whimper slips out his mouth. Your thighs practically clench around him, your core tightening as you rub yourself on him. Beneath the jeans secured around his hips, the start of his v-line peeks, in which you softly graze with your thumb.

“F-fuck,” he whispers, resigned while he lets his head fall back against the headrest.

When you kiss him again this time, it’s slow and languid and licking into his mouth, and your hips start rolling against his while he unconsciously bucks into you. You gasp at the feeling of his growing erection despite the jeans, and you can’t help but feel rushed because it’s been way too long. 

His body’s hot and he doesn’t understand why he can’t even talk properly. “Are you okay?” you ask, kissing his cheek. He just nods.

“This is so wrong,” Riki says softly and raspy.

You just smile and kiss him again, feeling how sloppy he’s starting to become when your tongues meet. You set the pace, careful with how you bite and suck, more of a learning curve with what you like best rather than devouring. Riki realizes this and slows down too, relaxing underneath your thighs while his cock remains bulging against you. Your soft fingers slither at the back of his hair, tugging and caressing, while he finds the courage to sneak his tongue into your mouth.

When you pull to breathe, he’s practically panting. “You can touch me.” you whisper.

His gaze practically flicks up to look up at you, silently asking for clarification. You don’t use words, you instead take his wrists and start dragging his hands from your waist to underneath your shirt. His breath hitches at the feeling of your soft skin against his, watching intently as you guide his hands further beneath your cotton top, until his fingers slightly grazes the soft swell of the underside of your breasts.

“Shit.” Riki mutters, his breath unstable when you let go. He looks for your eyes, asking for instructions, except you just smile and lean in to kiss him again with your hands on his jaw. 

So he takes it upon himself to move by his own. His fingers grazes the soft skin, careful and learning, testing the underside swell by gently squeezing. After that, he gains confidence, hands going further up until they touch your nipples. 

You gasp, pulling away to breathe when he starts gently pinching them, rolling them against the pads of his fingertips. He plays with them for a little while, watching your reactions when you sigh heavy, when your eyes close, when you lean further against his touch. It’s so good, he doesn’t even notice how painfully hard he is when he can feel just how sensitive your nipples are, when he can feel the weight of your breast as he cups them.

After a while, he finally stops, hands gliding down your ribs instead, thumbs still grazing slightly at the curve. Your kissing eases, reduced to pecks and softness. At rest and caress, you giggle and he chuckles, finally reeling in from the moment at how high he feels.

From your taste, your softness, your clothed pussy still pressing against his hard-on.

“You’re good for a virgin.” you say.

At that, Riki huffs and leans his head back against the rest, caressing your waist while he watches your face. You’re very pretty, even when your lipsticks smudged and you’re clearly teasing him, not touching him at all. 

He doesn’t mind. He doesn’t think he’ll mind for a long time. “I’m trying to make decent decisions.”

You tilt your head. “And kissing me is one?”

His jaw tightens a little, but he smiles. “It’s a very bad decision.”

“Mm.” You lean closer, but you don’t kiss him this time. “You stopped.”

“Because I don’t want to be your rebound,” 

The teasing fades just a little. Your fingers, which had been lazily tracing the back of his neck, slow, and now you look at him too, at the way he’s looking at you like something cliche is about to happen now that he’s tasted something better than marijuana.

“You think I’d use you?” you ask.

He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

You study him for a moment. His nose and ears are still pink, which admittedly does something to you. It makes him look shyer somehow, less untouchable, like all that quiet control has slipped just enough for you to see he’s not as unaffected as he wants to seem.

He looks back at you, thumb moving once at your waist. “Let me take you out.”

You stare at him. “You’re asking me on a date right now? While I’m sitting on you?”

His mouth twitches despite himself. “Not my best timing.”

You laugh, soft and surprised, but he doesn’t laugh with you right away. You lean in again, slower and softer, just lips meeting and staying there, but his breath still hitches. You lets it last for a few seconds before you pull back, still close enough that your noses nearly brush.

“Ask me when we’re not high.”

Then he laughs once, quiet and disbelieving, his hand flexing at your waist. “Fine.”

Riki drives you home that night and you arrive at around 3 am, friends completely unaware of where you are or who you’re with — but you don’t care, even when your phone’s blown out of weird proportion. You laugh when he insists on walking you to your front porch, just to make sure you don’t slip and fall and he wouldn’t lose his favorite weed customer. 

“You’re ridiculous, Riki Nishimura.” you shove at his arm weakly.

“And you,” he leans down enough that his nose nudges yours. “are so pretty.”

You laugh harder, admittedly a little flustered the way you never have been before. He tells you to eat something real when you head in, and you mock him for it but he just smiles and nods,  agrees with the idea he is so, very stupid and funny for you.

Riki thinks the universe is testing him. Because ever since last night, every single thing reminds him of you. 

The cherry gloss taste still ghosting his mouth when he wakes up, the faint perfume lingering on his hoodie, even the stupid heater smell in the car feels different now, like the seats remember the way you climbed over the console and kissed him until his dick ached for you.

“Dude,” Jake says, throwing his duffel bag. “You look like shit.”

Riki drags a hand through his hair. “Thanks.”

Jake doesn’t push it, which Riki appreciates for about three seconds before he sees where the cheer team is practicing. On the other side of the gym court, you’re standing with your friends, ponytail tied high, hands on your hips while you go over counts as the captain. You’re not doing anything special, occasionally laughing at something one of the girls beside you says, but Riki still feels his attention pull toward you like it has no discipline left.

He looks away first.

PE is already starting by the time he reaches their side of the court. He pulls his sleeveless shirt down properly and rolls his shoulders once, mostly because he needs something to do with his body. His hair keeps falling near his eyes, and he can feel sweat gathering at the back of his neck before class has even properly started.

He tells himself not to look. But then he looks.

You’re already looking too.

It only lasts a second. Your eyes meet his, then drop briefly to his arms before you turn back to your friends like nothing happened. Riki presses his tongue against the inside of his cheek and looks at the ball in his hands, suddenly way too aware of himself.

Jake notices, but all he does is glance between the two of you. “Since when do you know her like that?”

Riki bounces the ball once. “I don’t.”

Jake gives him a look. Riki doesn’t look back. “Not like that.”

“Okay.”

The drill starts, and for a while, it’s just run, catch, dribble, pass, move. Riki focuses on the court, on the PE teacher’s whistle, on the ball against his palms. It works for half the time, until your voice cuts across the space, counting with the rest of the cheer team, and he misses a pass by half a second.

“Pay attention,” Jake says, not even laughing.

“I am.”

“You’re really not.”

Later, when the class breaks for water, Riki walks toward the drinking fountain and finds you there already, refilling your bottle. Your friends are a few steps away, talking among themselves, close enough to notice if either of you makes it obvious, far enough that neither of you has to pretend not to see each other.

He stands behind you to wait for his turn, and from afar, it doesn't look scandalous. You take your time refilling your bottle, eyes forward, one hand steadying the plastic under the stream. He keeps his gaze on the wall in front of you, jaw working once, because he knows exactly what you're doing when you lean a little farther than necessary and let the silence stretch.

Your skirt shifts when you bend, showing the backside of your thighs and the slight swell of your ass, and he sighs through his nose like he's deeply disappointed in both of you. Then he looks away completely.

You bite back a smile.

When the bottle finally fills, you straighten and cap it slowly, still not moving right away. He doesn't meet your eyes when you step aside, he just moves in, bends toward the fountain, and presses one hand against the edge for balance.

Then it's your turn to look away. But you don't, not even shamelessly. Because you’re the girl who got things her way and never got scared of the repercussions.

His sleeveless shirt pulls against his shoulders when he leans down, arm tense from holding himself there, the veins along his bicep showing under the gym lights. Water hits his mouth, and you watch the way his hair falls near his eyes, the way his throat moves when he swallows. It's stupid, actually, how normal he's being and how much worse that makes it.

Riki finishes drinking, straightens, and wipes the water from his chin with the back of his hand. Only then does he look at you.

You're still staring. And for a second, neither of you says anything.

His expression barely changes, but something in his eyes does, like he caught you and decided not to make it easy. "What?"

You blink, then lift your bottle a little. "You took forever."

He looks at you, calm, unreadable, except for the faint color rising at the tips of his ears and the slight lift on the corner of his mouth. "You're one to talk."

Your friends laugh at something behind you, and the sound snaps the moment thinner, not enough to break it, but enough to remind you both where you are. You glance over your shoulder, then back at him, only to find he's still watching you. Not obviously, just enough to show that he knows exactly what that night did to you, and worse, exactly what this day is doing too.

And that he’s enjoying the view.

You tuck your bottle against your chest and step back. "Try not to miss another pass."

His mouth curves. "Then don't distract me."

The second he says it, your smile gets bigger, like a shared inside joke between you two now. Then you turn back to your team, and he stays by the fountain for one extra second, pretending the afternoon heat is the reason he can't stop feeling warm. In the locker room, he pretends it’s celibacy that’s making his cock hard again, and not the picture of you bending in front of him, the fat of your ass presenting itself to him so adorably.

In the cafeteria, while pages turn and keyboards clack for an upcoming test for biology, you try your best to stay focused the way you can on the usual. Riki was right about you — you were smarter than what people thought, and the merit beside your name is shocking to a whole lot when it’s pasted on the board. 

You think you’re no longer smart. Not when you’re staring at the open reviewer in front of you, color coded with little sticky tabs but you’re still distracted.

You grab your coffee and drink, just to try if that could help with your lost concentration. Something about protein synthesis and cell division. Something about how Riki’s hands looked wrapped around the steering wheel that one night while he called you weird and interesting in the same breath.

This is so inconvenient.

“Babe.”

Your boyfriend slides into the empty chair beside you like he owns the furniture, sunglasses pushed up on his head even though the cafeteria lighting could barely offend a bitch. His hand settles automatically on your thigh beneath the table, casual and familiar, and you almost flinch.

“You disappeared last night,” he says casually.

You lean back in your chair. “I told you I left.”

“Yeah, but where?”

You think briefly about Riki’s car parked under the streetlamp — fogged windows, heated air, cherry gloss smeared on his mouth, plump lips smirking in restraint, hands squeezing you in the right place, keeping you in place.

“I just went home,” you reply smoothly.

Your boyfriend hums, clearly unconvinced, but also has about three seconds of emotional stamina left for the topic, so he lets it go and steals one of your fries instead. “My parents want dinner with you this weekend.” he says instead.

He continues talking about it but you’re staring at the flashcards and reviewers in front of you, imagining what your parents would say if Riki would’ve showed up to a family dinner instead. Maybe he’d appear in different clothes, a white button-up just to sit there and attempt to look polite in ways he isn’t with you — which makes your heart jump a little. 

Dinner drags on for three excruciating hours.

Three whole hours of crystal glasses and polished silverware and your boyfriend’s parents discussing investment portfolios. The restaurant is one of those stupidly expensive places where portions are microscopic and every waiter looks vaguely judgmental — you don’t complain, you’re rather very grateful for his parents (sometimes).

You sat there in a pretty dress your mother picked out. Your boyfriend talks over you twice when you try contributing to the conversation, his mother asks about your grades before asking how cheerleading is going, like academics and aesthetics are the only two things remotely interesting about you. At some point, your boyfriend likes another girl’s Instagram story right beside you at the table and everything about the night is just bad.

You just feel tired, especially on the way home. 

Tired in the way performances always leave you feeling like you’ve spent hours acting inside a role you got stuck with years ago — because it mostly worked in your favor, until that one time you decided to jump out of your comfort zone and try weed. It’s the worst thing you have done, but it’s the only thing that made you feel good.

Your heels click quietly against the marble floors when you enter your house and you make it halfway upstairs before the pressure behind your eyes finally cracks. Obviously, you don’t sob out of sadness, just frustrated tears slipping down your cheeks while you struggle with the zipper of your dress. “Fuck,” you mutter.

Your makeup’s ruined now; mascara faintly smudged beneath your eyes, lipstick mostly gone except for traces still staining your mouth. 

Before you can think too hard about it — which is kind of bad — you open Riki’s contact, and your fingers move faster than your dignity can intervene.

you: he actually sucks so bad like genuinely i think talking to drywall has more nuance

You exhale through your nose and laugh weakly at yourself because obviously Riki probably has better things to do than babysit you after 9PM, not when you’re just another weed customer and smoking buddy he had. You toss your phone onto the bed and sit in silence for a second, still in your dress, earrings discarded somewhere.

You try not to think about anything for the minutes you’ve spent staring at the ceiling: not about Riki, or your dumb boyfriend, or your (im)perfect life, or the way Riki kissed you, or the way he looked at you, or the way he thought about you. 

Because that's the part that bothers you most. Not the kiss itself, not even the fact that you wanted it, but the way he seemed to actually think about you before touching you. Like you weren't just pretty or convenient or someone people liked because you made sense beside them. Riki looked at you like he was trying to understand you, and somehow that felt more intimate than anything you've ever had.

And maybe that makes you painfully average.

Maybe you’re not special at all, maybe you’re just another girl in the long, embarrassing history of girls who developed feelings for the first boy who looked at them like they were a person. Congratulations, really. Very original and groundbreaking, for being part of the emotionally confused teenage girls.

You turn onto your side and press your face into your pillow, immediately hating yourself for how dramatic that feels.

Until something taps three times against your window.

Your brows furrow immediately because your bedroom is on the second floor and nobody normally knocks on windows like some suburban horror movie, you don’t even try to look because of what could be there. For a second, you genuinely think you’re hallucinating from emotional exhaustion and expensive restaurant food and maybe (you did not do prior research) the possibility of the long term hallucinations of marijuana.

Then it happens again. Three deliberate taps.

You sit up slowly from the edge of your bed, the strap of your dress slipping off one shoulder while your heels remain abandoned somewhere near the door. When you turn to the window, your heart practically falls from your chest when you see Riki standing outside like a fucking delinquent moron. He’s standing on the roof of the first floor near your window, hoodie sleeves pushed to his elbows, while one hand steadies himself against the frame. 

You burst out laughing while fumbling with the lock of your window. Riki’s entire expression softens the second he hears you laugh and that does something unhealthy to him.

Because he drove for twenty minutes thinking about you crying over some guy who doesn’t even look at you properly, wondering if climbing a house at this hour officially qualifies as insanity (he’s never done that before, and it doesn’t sound so conformist right now either). Riki’s usually good at self-restraint, at risk assessment, at understanding what makes sense and what doesn’t.

For the record, this doesn’t make sense. Yet here he is anyway.

 “Hi.”

You stare at him in disbelief once you finally open your window. “What the fuck are you doing?” you whisper-yell.

“You sounded sad.”

“Is that supposed to be an answer?”

“What?” he says defensively while climbing inside carefully. “You said your boyfriend sucks. That sounded shitty.”

The second he lands properly inside your room, he looks at you before anything else. He’s used to seeing you fixed with perfect hair, perfect smile, perfect posture, like you just stepped out of a university brochure about good conduct and that the school cheer spirit is something one definitely needs for personal development.

This version of you feels familiar, and traitorously and selfishly, he thinks it’s for him.

Your dress is wrinkled now, your jewelry sits slightly crooked against your skin, your makeup’s smudged enough to expose the eyebags underneath, and your hair’s started falling from whatever expensive style you wore to dinner.

Riki swallows once before he can stop himself. “You were crying?”

Immediately, you look away, a bit embarrassed when you realize what you look like. “Don’t make it weird.”

“I’m not making it weird,” he says quickly, hands lifting instinctively. “I just.”

He cuts himself off because he suddenly realizes he has no idea how to navigate this. Girls usually don’t text him while being miserable and summon him to their bedroom windows like some modern romance movie directed by a bad romcom enthusiast. Nothing is romcom-y about this.

So instead, awkwardly, he holds the backyard vegetation toward you.

“I got you these.”

Flowers. They aren’t roses and lilies, especially not the peonies your boyfriend orders because it looks better in pictures. They’re not anything arranged like the bouquets your boyfriend’s family sends during competitions and birthdays and events where impression matters. They usually screamed ‘I have money’ so I had my manager fix these for you.

Riki brought you wildflowers, which are tiny white, yellow, and purple ones bundled unevenly together like he picked them himself on the side of the road and decided, yeah, these ones are perfect. They’re crooked and asymmetrical and a little pathetic, and it weirdly looks a lot like you.

You take them carefully, looking down at the tiny flowers bundled together with what suspiciously resembles a broccoli rubber band.

“Oh my God,” you laugh quietly. “These are so ugly.”

He looks offended immediately. “Okay, first of all, fuck you.”

You laugh, open and loud. “They’re literally weeds.”

“I mean. Matches us, no?” he argues.

You’re still smiling when you bring them closer to inspect, and he notices your eyes when you admire them because he notices everything when it comes to you now, apparently.

“He made you cry?” he asks quieter this time.

You look up at him, flowers resting against your chest while you slump a little. “Not exactly.”

He raises his brows. “That means yes.”

You sigh, gaze dropping to the petals between your fingers. “He’s just…” You shake your head slowly. “I don’t know. I guess I’m really sick of it.”

Riki stays quiet — not because he doesn’t have thoughts, but because he has too many.

The thing is, he understands that social hierarchy is basically one giant theater production and he’s spent his entire life studying how to survive inside it correctly — he’s admitted to live in it quite comfortably. Which people to talk to, which ones to avoid, what behavior keeps life stable and uncomplicated, who not to sell weed to.

You were supposed to be part of that stable world, the part that he shouldn’t have had any associations with. Instead, you’re now standing barefoot in front of him holding ugly flowers with watery eyes while confiding in him like he’s become something safe. Now he’s giving a girl weeds for flowers, while his own cannabis has become untouched for quite a while now.

You narrow your eyes up at him suddenly, a teasing smile on your lips. “You could’ve used the front door.”

“And say what?” he snorts. “‘Good evening, your daughter texted me so I’m here to comfort her?”

You laugh again and Jesus Christ, he thinks he’d probably climb ten more roofs if it meant hearing that sound a second time.

Which is not good at all.

He looks around your room now, and he finds that is not in the dramatic movie sense where he’s overwhelmed by femininity and candles or whatever bullshit directors think teenage girls do in bedrooms. It’s just your space and that feels undeniably you in a way he’s never gotten access to before — never thought he would, actually. There’s a stack of annotated reviewers on your desk beside skincare products, then a half-folded cheer uniform hangs over your chair. Your bookshelf is organized by color at first glance, but he notices that some books are stuffed sideways and doubled-up like gave up halfway through organizing.

You’re contradiction after contradiction. Which feels fitting considering Riki’s currently inside the bedroom of a girl he once categorized under absolutely not my problem.

This is exactly why social structures exist. To prevent situations like this where a guy who sells weed ends up standing in the bedroom of a girl who looks expensive enough to kill him.

You set the flowers carefully on your vanity like they’re not random plants held together by produce rubber. Riki watches how gentle your hands are, watches the way your dress slips slightly higher on your thigh when you move.

You step closer to him after, eyes peeking through your lashes, and he starts to feel drunk from your perfume.  “You really came all the way here because I was sad?” you ask softly.

Riki opens his mouth automatically with something sarcastic prepared because that’s safer, because joking is easier than admitting the truth. But then he looks at you looking at him like he’s become something important frighteningly fast.

Honesty slips out before he can stop it. “Yeah.”

Your eyes soften in a way that completely wrecks him, because nobody’s ever looked at him like this before — like he did something meaningful instead of useful.

You step even closer now until there’s barely space between you. “You’re really bad at being casual,” you murmur.

He huffs a laugh. “You climbed into my lap the first time we kissed.”

“That was different.”

“How?”

“I was high.”

“And what’s your excuse now?”

Your lips twitch and his gaze drops there instinctively.

Big mistake, because now he’s thinking about kissing you again and suddenly being in your bedroom at midnight feels significantly more dangerous than it did when he drove here. Riki clears his throat and looks away first. Usually he’s good at eye contact, good at keeping composure, good at staying levelheaded even when situations become complicated, because he knows emotional regulation keeps things orderly, predictable, and safe.

You are none of those things anymore.

Standing this close to you feels like someone slowly dismantling every sensible thought process he’s ever had and replacing it with bad decisions and pretty girls in wrinkled dresses. 

Riki swallows, eyes still not fully on yours. “Do you know what you’re gonna do?”

You sigh, shoulders dropping a little as you look away. “I don’t know.”

Riki nods, though he doesn’t look surprised. “Well,” he says quietly, “you aren’t happy.”

The honesty in his voice catches you off guard, because it isn’t dramatic or possessive or demanding — it’s actually the complete opposite. He says things carefully. Your boyfriend never talks to you carefully. 

You study Riki for a second — the slight flush across his cheeks, the hoodie sleeves pushed to his elbows, the fact he literally climbed your house because you sounded sad over text. 

Clearly, he’s lost the plot somewhere. He might find it in your room, but why would it be there?

You look at the boy who notices everything about you, who reads you better than anyone ever did. And maybe that’s pathetic, but after a long time of performance and image, you can’t quite find irrationality when something finally sees you so clearly. 

You don’t even realize you’re crying again until his expression changes. The tears just spill over quietly, slipping down your cheeks before you can catch them, and for a second, you don’t understand why his eyes drop there with so much concern because you aren’t sad, nor overwhelmingly happy.

His hand lifts and his fingers touch your cheek lightly and carefully. His thumb brushes beneath your eye, catching the tear before it reaches your jaw. Then the other hand comes up too, steadying your face with a gentleness that makes your throat tighten worse than the crying did. You stare up at him while he wipes your face like it’s something important, his hands warm, his touch steady even though his breathing isn’t. He just keeps his palms against your cheeks, thumbs soft under your eyes, focused on you.

Riki’s thumb slows beneath your eye, his gaze moving over your face with something almost pained. “You’re too pretty to cry over him,” he says quietly.

Your hand lifts before you can think better of it, fingers wrapping gently around his wrist to keep him there. His skin is warm beneath your palm, and for a second, his whole body seems to still when you touch him. You look up at him because he’s so tall this close, broad enough to block out half your room, and he’s holding your face like you might bruise if he moves wrong.

“I’m not crying over him,” you say, and your voice comes out quieter, “I think I’m crying because I want someone else.”

His hand stays against your cheek, but his thumb stops moving entirely. He has no immediate answer right now, no dry comment waiting in the back of his throat, no clever way to make the moment smaller than it feels. He just looks at you, like he heard you perfectly and still needs another second for it to reach the rest of him.

He shifts closer, but only slightly, careful enough that you notice the restraint. “Are you sure?”

You let out a tiny, breathless laugh. “Yes.” 

Then your gaze drops from his eyes, not because you’re embarrassed exactly, but because looking at him straight on feels like standing too close to something bright. Your eyes settle on his chest instead, on the front of his hoodie rising and falling with a breath he’s clearly trying to control. His hands move from your cheeks, careful and slow, until his palms settle just beneath your jaw while his fingers slip behind your ears, curling gently at the back of your neck. 

For a second, you think he’s going to kiss you.

Actually, you know he is. You can feel it in the way his breathing changes, in the way his eyes drop to your mouth and stay there this time, no pretending it was an accident. He’s close enough that you can smell his cologne and whatever terrible decision-making brought him to your window.

Then something in you panics — not because you don’t want him to.

That’s the problem. You want him so much it feels insulting to every sensible part of your life (even though you’ve made many irrational choices that have shamed them anyway). You want him in your room, in your space, in the middle of all the pretty, curated pieces of yourself nobody else gets to see messy. You want him, and it would be so easy to lean up and let that be the answer. But there is still one stupid, technical, irritating thing standing between you and that, so you pull back a little.

He freezes immediately, hands dropping like he thinks he did something wrong. “What?”

“I need to do something.”

His brows pull together. “Right now?”

You turn away before you can lose your nerve, moving toward your bed where your phone is half-buried in the sheets. Your hands are unsteady when you pick it up, which is annoying because you are not the kind of girl who fumbles — you are the kind of girl who answers essay questions with proper structure, corrects formations instinctively, and pretends she’s fine so convincingly that people believe it until it becomes inconvenient not to.

Calling your boyfriend while Riki Nishimura stands in your bedroom after midnight is, admittedly, not your most elegant moment, but there’s a kind of clarity to it too.

He stays behind you, quiet, watching as you scroll to the contact you have ignored for most of the night. His name on your screen looks strange now.

The call rings twice.

Riki moves closer, though not touching you yet, just behind your shoulder, close enough that you can feel the heat of him. It makes focusing much harder, which is extremely inconsiderate for someone who climbed into your room to be supportive.

Your boyfriend answers with your name, voice already irritated. “It’s late. I’m busy.”

You close your eyes for half a second. “I’m just letting you know. We’re done.”

There is a pause. “What?”

You swallow, your grip tightening around the phone. “I’m breaking up with you.”

Behind you, Riki goes very still. Your boyfriend lets out a humorless laugh. “Are you serious right now?”

“Yes.”

“After everything? After tonight, you’re just gonna call me and say that?”

You stare at the wall in front of you. It’s absurd, actually, how little the anger reaches you. Maybe you should be shaking or crying harder or preparing a speech that starts with all the ways he hurt you — instead, you feel strangely calm.

He starts talking again, louder this time, something about your parents, his parents, how you’re overreacting, how you both agreed, how you don’t get to act innocent either. Until Riki’s hand appears beside you, and he takes the phone from your hand.

Your eyes widen. “Riki.”

He looks at the screen, hears your boyfriend still talking, then tosses the phone onto the bed, where it lands face-up against the sheets, the call still running, your boyfriend’s voice now small and furious through the speaker.

“What are you doing?” you whisper.

His eyes stay on yours. “You already broke up with him.”

On the bed, your ex says your name again, sharp and confused, but neither of you are looking at the phone. 

Riki lifts one hand, not touching your face yet, just brushing his knuckles lightly near your jaw like he’s giving you one last chance to move away.

That is all he needs before he kisses you. It is not rushed, not messy from panic, just a little harsh from jealousy. But it’s slow enough to make your knees feel unreliable, steady enough that your whole body seems to understand before your brain does. You grab the front of his hoodie and he exhales against your mouth, the sound going straight through you. His hand settles at the side of your neck, thumb brushing under your jaw while his other hand finds your waist, careful but sure. 

The phone is still there, your boyfriend is still talking. It should ruin the moment, but it doesn’t. If anything, it makes the whole thing feel worse in the way your heart is pounding too hard, in the way Riki keeps kissing you like he’s trying not to prove a point and failing anyway, in the way you know this is a terrible way to end a relationship and still cannot bring yourself to care.

Riki pulls back just enough to breathe, forehead almost touching yours. “He talks a lot,” he says quietly.

You laugh before you can stop yourself, and he kisses you before you can even finish a thought he physically cannot hear another word about your boyfriend tonight, earning a gasp from your mouth. It’s soft at first, his mouth catching yours that makes you go still for half a second, surprised, and then your hand tightens around his wrist as you kiss him back. He exhales through his nose, quiet and shaky, and his fingers press a little more firmly into your nape, not pulling you in too hard, just holding you.

You make this soft startled sound against his lips and he swears it nearly kills him on impact. When he pulls back just enough to breathe, his forehead bumps lightly against yours. 

“I don’t wanna talk about him anymore,” he says quietly.

His voice comes out rougher than before. You stare at him for a second, and your lips twitch.

“Okay,” you whisper.

He kisses you again almost immediately, and this time you kiss him back just as fast, your chests pressing against one another until you can feel the rapid beat of his heart through his hoodie. His hands find your waist, the weight of them warm and steady through the thin fabric of your dress, like he’s grounding you and keeping himself grounded too.

You tilt your head up to meet him properly, rising slightly onto your toes without meaning to, and he bends down into you like the movement pulls something out of him. His fingers press carefully at your sides, thumbs shifting once against your waist. The kiss deepens then, your hand sliding up the front of his hoodie until you’re holding onto him too.

Riki exhales against your mouth, almost shaky, and his grip tightens for one second before he loosens it again, like he’s reminding himself to be careful.

Without so much as a few words, your gaze meets his. But that’s not enough for him, not when he needs to hear that you want this too. The zipper you struggled with earlier starts undoing when his hand finds the back, before he leans in just enough for his voice to drop between you. 

"Words, baby," he whispers.

He isn't teasing now. His voice is low, but careful, like he needs to hear you say it before he lets himself want anything more.

You swallow, fingers tightening lightly in his hoodie. "I want you."

Riki watches your face for a second, and when he sees the true genuineness and want in your eyes, he lets himself have it. He dips down to your height, capturing your lips in a kiss again, before fully pulling the zipper down to the small of your back. With barely any effort, the dress slides off your body and pools around your feet on the floor. 

Too busy getting drunk on his plump lips, you don’t even notice his hands roaming over your skin, his fingertips memorizing the arch of your spine, before gliding up to the curve of your ribcage. You don’t notice how close he really is until his fingers find the underside part of your breasts. You pull away with a gasp, seeing him smile coyly when you finally realize you’re naked in front of him, and how he’s massaging your mounds in his hands.

He lets his thumbs brush your hardened nipples, watching your face scrunch and melt with fluster. He holds you so well, heat rushing all over your skin with the way he studies your body, eyes carefully taking in every detail about you. He continues stroking your nipples and massaging your breasts when he bends down again, kissing the corner of your lips before trailing over to your jaw. He presses open mouthed kisses on your pulse next, sucking and biting to leave love bites there.

You moan, all breathy and heavy, and his cock twitches in his sweats. For a man that’s been so cautious with you, he can’t help but fight the urge to pound into you recklessly right now.

“On the bed,” he prompts softly, taking a step forward. 

You obey with no fight, pathetically stepping backward until you sit back on the soft mattress. You adjust a little to get on your knees, eyes finding his through your lashes again. He’s looking at you with half-open lids, hand already reaching up to the back of your head, fingers tangling with your hair. He likes you like this, on your knees and your face so fucking close to his bulge, he can practically see it.

And because he has been so kind to you, you want to recompense for all of it. Your fingers hook at the hem of his sweatpants, keeping your gaze steady on his face to watch the way he reacts when he realizes what you’re about to do. You drag his pants down, enough for it to slip down his legs. 

His cock bulges in his briefs, begging to be set free. You cup it gently and he lets out a low moan, deeper than his usual, and when you look up, he’s just watching you. You lean in, only to lick a stripe from the bottom to top — his grip on your hair tightens, and you feel him pull you closer. Since you both don’t hold any godly kind of willpower, you waste no time lowering the fabric.

Riki’s stupidly long cock springs forward once you remove his briefs, and everything about it just makes sense. It isn’t excessively thick in girth, but it’s length makes you wonder if it can even fit at all. It’s pale at the base and turns pink towards the tip, the slit lathered with pre all over the head, all for you.

You bite your lip, not being able to help the thrilled grin on your face, eyes bright at the sight of it. He clears his throat, caressing the back of your head gently. “You good?”

You snicker, reaching up to wrap your hand around the base. He chokes out a gasp, stilling completely yet his hips buck forward. He watches you handle him so delicately, even the way you start pumping his dick, watching the way pre-cum leaks out the tip. You lean forward, tongue flat against the head, tasting him. 

“O-oh, s-shit —” his breathing becomes heavy, arm flexing involuntarily as he keeps rubbing the back of your head.

You giggle, tilting your head a little to press soft pecks all over his length. “Watch me, sweet boy. Okay?” 

You’re a fucking tease. That’s all he manages to come up with before his brain completely blanks out when you tilt forward and let your mouth close around the head of his dick. You start to suckle on it, tongue playing with the slit a little. Then you push forward, enough the tip touches the back of your throat and your cheeks hollow around his length.

And he’s still too fucking long. 

You start choking a little, tears touching your waterline. You stroke the part you can’t reach, and he can’t help but smirk arrogantly.

Heavy breaths turns into deep groans, trying to keep his sounds to himself but the way you look as your head bobs on his dick, practically choking as you suck on it, and his hand flexing a tight grip on your hair — this has got to be better than any fucking narcotic ever. He bets morphine won’t ever feel this good. “Y-you’re fucking sublime, baby,”

You retract your mouth, going back to suckle on the tip, before taking him all back down your throat. His hips jerk forward, you can tell just how gentle he’s trying to be even when he’s losing all control. 

And it’s too good, because twenty years of chastity has started to reach him faster than the way you rub him. He feels his abdomen tighten, and fuck does his balls feel tense. So as any illogical, preposterous, unsound idiot ever, he pulls you away from his cock. He holds you by your hair, slowing you down as you stare up at him, eyes wide and confused, lips wet from your saliva and his fluids.

“What the fuck?” you mutter, catching your breaths. 

Riki licks his bottom lip, and you can see every restraint holding him back from breaking you. The tips of his ears are red, and his eyes, once so tender and meticulous, looks down at you like he just can’t wait to fuck you senseless. They’re sharper than they ever have been, and once since this night began, you’re scared.

“Easy,” he drawls, hand withdrawing from you completely. He takes a step back, just enough to admire the way you look, panting and on your knees, breasts exposed and perky. Then with a small smirk, he pinches the edge of his hoodie. “You always this impatient?”

He slides the hoodie over his arms, the cloth revealing flesh that practically glow from your vanity lights. His chest and shoulder width is broad and wide, flat in that boyish way you love, expanding to the chiseled arms. You can feel yourself salivating at the muscles, at his taut abs, delicate grooves that trace down to a sharp v-line. Even his obliques and traps are so defined.

“Get on your back.” he rasps, and you don’t let yourself react before lying down, head against your soft pillows. He kneels in between your legs, eyes trailing over your body. He hooks his fingers over the elastic of your panties, just before he slowly pulls them off you, slow enough to make you embarrassed.

“Riki,” you murmur sheepishly, but he ignores you, keeping his eyes narrowed to the way your cunt glistens, your own fluids leaking out of you. She’s perfect, and his already frustrated cock twitches. 

Blonde hair sticks to his forehead, and his eyes are dark when your gaze meets again. He hovers over you, caging you against the bed before he leans in, kissing you again. Your lips part for him, breaths mingling, getting hot and heavy as his hand finds your ass. He squeezes the fat there, fingers digging into your skin. “You’re making it hard to think, pretty girl.”

You manage a giggle, though it quickly turns to soft moans when he kisses your jaw and presses his cock against your cunt. 

“Riki, please,” you can see how swollen his cock has gotten.

“I don’t know if I can be gentle,” he breathes, his arms tensing as he keeps himself up. He strokes himself a bit, just before he aligns the tip with your aching hole.

Your brain has gone hazy, not being able to process anything other than the way he kisses your neck when the head of his cock pushes through your folds, and immediately your arms come to his back, nails digging into his muscles. He tenses too, giving a sharp exhale when his length slides past the tight muscle and rubs against your gummy walls.

“Fuck,” he groans, burying his face against your neck while your teeth bite down your bottom lip. “G-god, that’s so good,” 

His hips closes against your pelvis, while his tip brushes against your cervix so good he’s pretty sure you’re sucking him in. And you feel stuffed, more than you ever have been, by Riki’s long cock. “Good fucking pussy, shit —”

Your legs are open wide for him, pressing flat against the mattress. And that’s enough for him, just to see you so spread beneath him, cunt squeezing him so tight; enough for him to pull back and watch the way your fluids wrap slick around his cock. Your hips wiggle for him, and that’s all he takes before slamming his hips back into you.

Riki’s jaw hangs open, a low moan gushing out him, strained and heavy into your ears. 

“R-Riki — f-f-fuck —”

The sounds of squelching pussy and skin slapping echoes throughout your entire room, walls so tight around his cock as you gasp. The pace is set already, quick and fucking drilling into you even though you’ve known him for his care and caution — yet he pounds into you like he doesn’t give a fuck about anything but his pleasure.

“S-s-so good — ugh, Riki — fuck,” you scratch his back muscles, tensing underneath your nails. His pelvis and abs are tight, slamming himself so hard against your cunt like he can’t keep himself apart from you.

He continues groaning, his eyebrows furrowed, eyes half-lidded watching you, completely fucked out while he admires the way your tits bounce every time he rocks his dick deep into your cunt. His lips part to moan your name, and you love how he almost whimpers when you squeeze around him. 

Then he stills, though only fast enough before he slides an arm beneath your waist and gathers you closer, like he’s scooping you into him without fully lifting you. 

“W-what are you —” 

“On your stomach.” 

You can only blink and nod, before turning around, suddenly feeling empty when his dick slips from inside you. You settle on your hands and knees, then lie on your chest, face pressed to the soft pillow. “Fuck, my good girl.”

You can’t see him anymore, and you’re not sure with how you feel about it — not until you feel his warm body press against your back, his chest hovering slightly over you. He presses a hand on the back of your thigh, gently adjusting your knee higher, the position immediately spreading your folds more than you would have thought. 

“Lift your hips for me, baby,” he breathes, voice low and strained.

You obey, pussy clenching around nothing when he whispers quiet praises as your ass perks up and your folds glisten for him again, slick oozing out from you. You get on your hands a little, just enough to lift yourself and look over your shoulder. Without much of a warning, he pushes his cock back deep inside you again, walls welcoming him with a dirty squelch, your breath catches, then escapes in a quiet gasp.

“There, just like that —” Riki moans, his v-line pressed tight against your ass.

Then he continues, retracting his hips only to slap back inside you. The new positions doing fucking wonders to you, stretching you a whole lot more, his dick fucking you so raw that you can’t help the screams you let out. He presses his hands against your waist, fingers ingrained to lift your ass up and pound into you right after, grip so tight it’s already bruising.

You fuck yourself against him too, slapping back against his hips, cock choking in your tight walls. His eyes are almost rolling back, if not for how obsessed he is watching your ass shake and tits bounce every sloppy stroke, his hand sliding under you to grope your mound. He fondles with it, pinching your nipple and loving the weight of it against his palm. 

Sweat’s getting hot and the air’s smells too much of sex, he can feel it when his balls clench and how desperate he’s starting to get.

You look over your shoulder and he meets you halfway, leaning over to capture your lips in a passionate kiss. It’s full of saliva and it’s warm, messy in a way that tells how close you both are.

Then with so little strength (can’t compare to Riki Nishimura, really), your weight falls back to the pillow, face and chest pressed against the softness while your ass stays up. If not for his large hands keeping you up and still, you would’ve fallen over completely. 

Your abdomen clenches and pressure builds in there, and he continues rutting into you while you become a puddle of sweat and moans. “R-right there — fuck, Riki — !”

“I-I’m gonna fucking cum, s-shit – I’ll blow a fucking load in you —” his hips drive into your pussy with a new kind of intensity, faster and deeper somehow, his tip hitting your cervix that has you throbbing around him.

“Cum all over me, baby, please —” he whines, face pressed against your shoulder. 

You feel hot spurts of him fill you the same time your cunt clenches around him one final time, legs twitching while his hips come to a stutter. Cum settles in your hole, warm and full and sticky and practically seeping out of you. He collapses on top of you, unconsciously maybe, his heavier weight pressing over your body.

Your vision goes white for a bit, then it comes back, only for you to see hair all over your face, stuck with sweat and saliva. He’s still on top of you, but you can feel him carry himself a little, making sure not to crush you right after cumming in you.

Quiet beats stretch out the moment, and you don’t even notice his arm tucking underneath you to massage your tit, a tired laugh leaving your mouth when you do. When you both muster enough strength, he straightens just enough to lift himself off of you, while you manage to get on your hands. By the time you look over your shoulder, he’s already leaning in, his mouth finding yours again, a hand still fondling with your breast.

“Riki,” a small sheepish smile curves on your lips, all while he presses soft pecks against your mouth and jaw. 

“Hm?” he hums, tired and spent, clearly having nothing else to do but to kiss you. His breaths are still shallow, eyelids heavy before shutting completely.

You giggle, putting your hand over his on your breast. “Get off me,” you say with a playful grin. “You’re so heavy!”

WIth a quiet groan, he listens. He slides out of you, unplugging you to let your fluids out. Then he lies down, and he hasn’t realized how strained his muscles are until he sinks into the softness of your bed. He relaxes inevitably, while you stay up just to admire him for a bit.

Riki Nishimura is never going to be insecure about his looks, but the way you stare at him with dilated pupils that match his, especially post-sex, he can’t help but grow a bit bashful. 

He huffs out a laugh, one hand reaching out to squeeze your waist because you feel so far. "So do you have a no-cuddle policy, or," he murmurs.

You laugh before you can stop yourself because he's so stupidly funny for someone trying to sound serious. Instead of answering, you shake your head and lean more of your weight against one hand, the other resting against his chest as your fingers trace lazy, thoughtless shapes.

He watches you do it for a second, his expression going quiet in that way that makes your stomach turn. Then you glance up at him. "Can you roll one for me?"

He sighs so heavily it almost sounds personal. Before you can even react, his arm hooks around your waist and pulls you down against his chest, firm and immediate, like the idea alone offended him. Your hand lands against his abs to catch yourself, your cheek nearly brushing his shoulder as he keeps you there.

“Throw that shit away,” he says, voice low near your ear. “I swear to God.”

You blink, caught against him. “What?” His arm stays around you, warm and unmoving. “Why?”

Riki looks at you with half-lidded eyes, sleepy and a little strained, like even answering takes effort. “Because,” he murmurs, his grip softening at your waist, “after tonight, I think I found something better.”

Your jaw actually falls open. For one second, all you can do is stare at him, because there’s no way Riki Nishimura just said that to you while looking half-asleep and impossibly calm, like he didn’t just say something that made your entire stomach turn over and tighten all over again.

Then you smack his chest lightly. “Riki.”

He chuckles, low and tired, the sound vibrating against your palm. His arm stays around your waist, keeping you close even when you try to lean back enough to glare at him properly.

“What?” he murmurs, eyes barely opening more. “Use my dick instead, I won’t get mad.”

You smack his chest harder, earning a yelp from him. “Riki!”

He laughs under his breath, but before you can pull your hand back, his fingers wrap around your wrist. His eyes open a little more as he looks at you, still tired, still amused, and then he tugs you. 

You land over him, knees sinking into the mattress on either side of his hips as his arm settles around your waist to steady you. For a second, neither of you moves. Your hand stays pressed to his chest, his heartbeat is faster than he's pretending. "Careful," he murmurs, like he wasn't the one who pulled you.

"You're so annoying," you whisper again, but it comes out softer this time, a quiet breath as you lean down to him. You're close enough now that your noses brush, close enough to feel his smile fade against your mouth.

Riki's gaze drops to your lips, then back to your eyes. Your fingers stay flat against the broad hardness of his chest while his hand stays warm at your waist, slowly smoothing over the curve of your ass.

“Ride me?” he whispers against your lips.

You sigh, rolling your eyes while your mouth curves to a grin, back straightening. You act like you think about it, only for your exposed cunt to start grinding against his cock — which, obviously, because he is a very simple man, erects again.

A simple man such as he, all he knows is that he is yours.