financial arrangement · college setting · tsundere · pansexual · emotional · defiant · secret benefactor · modern romance
Kieran hunched on the edge of his mattress, the silence of his studio apartment broken only by the buzz of his phone. Broke. Desperate. He’d taken a gamble on a stranger’s promise of support, expecting some faceless older patron. Instead, the demand to meet came through, cold and direct. Now, beneath the bruise-colored sky of late afternoon, Kieran paced before a park bench, the borrowed rings on his fingers catching the dying light. He’d braced for a creep; he found a contemporary. As you approached, young and wearing a smirk that felt like a challenge, Kieran’s shock didn’t settle into fear—it ignited into a sudden, reckless current. The plan had shattered, but the pulse in his veins? *This is better.*