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"Morning." You grin at how quiet he's being, though the calm is a constant for Mydei anyway. A beat or two of silence pass, and you know he's merely trying to find the words. You'll wait as long as he needs you to.

Mydei doesn't have a birthday, not really. Any hopes he had of a normal life were cast out the second he was thrown into the sea. No, the second golden blood began coursing through his veins. To many, his birth was one of curses, not celebration.

But it never was to you.

You, you, you. Your gentle smile, your easy laughter, your tender love. Mydeimos is a name carved in old tomes of legend, yet you've always etched "Mydei" into your daily routines. Each day bleeds by easy, but somehow, you've also made every one of them feel memorable.

"I made you breakfast," he utters, a promise of its own. "Your favorite," he adds, a confession of its own. A content hum resonates in your throat, as you turn your head back to kiss his cheek.

A huff of amusement, a firm hand tugging you back inside without claws attached. When he pulls you down to the table, he hopes that you'll keep sitting across from him every single day after this one, even when the occasion isn't special.

Taking a bite, you compliment the flavor through mouthfuls, and although it makes you look a mess, Mydei thinks you've never looked more beautiful.

"Happy birthday," he smiles, and he doesn't miss the way your eyes light up at the words.

It is your birthday, and Phainon has never been more nervous.

You're a strange one, he's realized. You seem to ease his worries like no other, and yet Phainon can't help but feel anxiety consuming him when it comes to pleasing you. Not that you're difficult to, of course; he just feels that he must stop at nothing short of perfection for you.

Perhaps that's why he's been at this for hours. He's been to nearly every corner of every antique shop he could find, desperately searching for the perfect gift. Not that he hasn't showered you in plenty, but stopping at one or two or three isn't enough. You hold a fondness for the older treasures, even if it may not be as fervently as his own, and he wants this gift to mean something special.

He wants to mean something special to you.

It's practically an inside joke between shopowners at this point; they see a tall head of snowy hair, and they know they're in for a long ride. But Phainon is a wonderful customer, and so they allow him to take some of their time. Especially if it's for someone as wonderful as you.

It pains him, a little. Phainon wants everyone to know how wonderful you are, but deep down, some selfish part of him wishes only he knew of your splendor. When you grin, he wants it to be for his eyes only, and when you laugh, he wants his ears to be the only pair that gets the privilege of hearing the sound. Your heart is the treasure he seeks the most, and he doesn't want to risk anyone else trying to clutch at it. Who wouldn't? He thinks bitterly, for though he knows your loyalty is unwavering, your radiance shines for everyone that knows you.

Oh well. He'll just have to sleep you off your feet with a treasure of his own.

You unravel the packaging, tossing aside tissue paper. You gasp in surprise at the beauty before you— a beautiful ring, forget-me-nots engraved and formed by gemstones dancing around it.

"A jewelrysmith crafted it years ago, but the perfect owner never came along. Until now," he adds at the end, a sly grin on his face as he kisses your knuckle, shuddering when he feels the metal of the ring against his face, already beginning to be warmed by your hands. He starts lecturing on and on about the process, about the ring's journey, and you giggle, always pleased to hear about his interests.

Maybe he's more selfish than he thought. On your special day, Phainon has gifted you something that will carry reminders of him, right down to the hues of the sapphires.

You embrace him, and something tells him that you don't quite mind. He sure hopes you don't. After all, this ring was only practice for another, more special ring, to be gifted down the line. But until that one makes it out of the bottom of a drawer, this band will tie him over for now.

"When can I see it?"

"Just a few moments more. You can be patient, can't you?" Aglaea's fingers are cool as they press into your side, adjusting the fabric to fit you properly. You huff, though you stop putting on the pressure to hurry up.

"I spent quite a while on this set, after all. It would be quite a shame to let my efforts go to waste." Her voice leaves her in a tease, and although you can't see her face, she knows you can feel her smile.

"Okay, okay, I get it!" Your tone doesn't match the harshness of your words, and Aglaea lets out an exhale of amusement in response. Laughter from her is rare, genuine laughter even rarer. But you, full of surprises, always seem to pull the light thread of it from the spool with ease. It gives her all the more reason to pamper you on your special day.

A tug here, a hum there, a huff elsewhere. Her fingers brush over your pulse as she adjusts around the neck, and what a wonderful feeling it is, more soothing than any cotton or silks she's ever touched. You let out a content sigh, and Aglaea only hopes she can spend every other birthday after this one, just like this. If her clockwork heart is fine-tuned to any date, it must be this one.

"Alright," she soothes, and you start to bring your hands down from your eyes, although she reaches over to finish the job for you, arms coming down with yours to rest around your neck. She gives you a squeeze, then pulls away right as you gasp to give you an unobscured view of your outfit.

"Aglaea…" you whisper, voice split into awe and admiration. You run your hands down your garments with reverence, as she had done to you with her own mere moments ago, smiling. Suddenly, everything she's ever created or known about fashion seems to go out the window, for this is the most beautiful sight she's ever laid her eyes on.

"Is it to your liking?" The question is pointless, for she already knows your answer. You nod feverently until she starts to laugh again, head bobbing with the weight of your affection and enthusiasm. "It's perfect!"

Perfect. Surely that title only belongs to you. But she merely smiles. "Well, I hope you don't ruin the perfection when we celebrate later. Be careful around the frosting, hm?" She loves you so, but unfortunately for you, she loves to ruffle your feathers even more.

You narrow your eyes at the implication that you'd make a mess of yourself, but then you look in the mirror and are awestruck once more, amazed out of protesting. "Alright. I promise."

Aglaea leans in, and makes a promise herself.

It's easy to lose yourself in a melody.

Sunday knows this better than anyone else: the call of a charmony dove, the chords of Robin's songs, the cadence of your voice.

It's easy to lose yourself in a melody, and Sunday wonders if he'll get lost entirely in this performance. He'd been working on this piece relentlessly; everything had to be just right, perfect and in order for your birthday. And for all his work, all his skills as a musician, he fears his efforts may have been for naught.

You enter, although he does not see it— he knows you so intimately that he can correctly deduct that those footsteps are yours. You'd walked in with giggles on your lips, but they slumber into quiet awe as music fills the room.

It's here where he gets nervous.

And although he plays absolutely, positively, perfectly throughout most of the song, there's a brief moment at the end where he slips up. His timing on one note is ever so slightly off, and he would curse himself for it were you not here.

Silence falls over the room.

"Are you…serenading me?" You tilt your head, grinning, and the question is so blunt and so earnest that Sunday can't help but chuckle.

"That…was the goal," he breathes. You plop down next to him on the piano, and your grin shifts into something softer.

"Sorry, I was just shocked," you admit. "That was beautiful." There's a look in your eye he can't quite name, though it's one he sees often

Ah. That's right, it's love.

"I'm lucky you don't have a musician's ear, then." His smile is sheepish, though it briefly breaks into a since when you pinch his side.

"Stop being such a perfectionist. Are you kidding me? This is way better than any generic song you could've gone with."

He quirks a brow. "That one's not off the table, you know." He shifts, and you press into his side anyways. That's alright. Sunday isn't one to back down from a challenge.

A different song fills the air, less complex, but familiar all the same. It's easy to lose yourself in a melody, and Sunday's come to learn that your laughter is his favorite.

The kitchen is warm and full of life, the clanking of a stirring spoon against a pot its heartbeat. Exhalations of spice and steam feel the air, and the pot breathes, simmering.

You watch from the table, an unamused brow raised.

"Aventurine," you call. No response.

You try again. "Aventurine." He's humming a tune, one you enjoy, so you know he's trying to mess with you now.

With a roll of your eyes, you stand, making your way over to the stove. Aventurine frowns at you, and shushes you when you start to protest. "Come on now, you don't want the surprise to be ruined, hm?"

With the most unimpressed glare you can muster up, you narrow your eyes at him. "I already know what you're making, Aventurine. I saw the ingredients."

He laughs, as infuriating as it is beautiful. "You're no fun." He pouts. "Never thought you would be so impatient, but hey, you're lucky I'm so forgiving." You flick his forehead and giggle when his face scrunches up. He pouts at you, turning back to the stove and grabbing a nearby salt shaker.

"It sure would be a shame if the cap fell off and everything spilled into here…" he drawls, moving to do just that, although you know he's only playing. Still, you gasp and grab his wrist, stopping his salt crimes. A poor move. Aventurine's eyes flick to where you're grabbing his wrist, and he grins.

"Oh? Didn't know you were so forward. Now, I know today is important, but there's no need to rush."

You groan. "Just finish my food, dolt." He only laughs and stirs the pot some more.

You look down at the spoon. A utensil he had only purchased today, not yet broken in by love and spices, although today's meal is certainly starting that refinement process. The salt shaker, too; two cats, each one corresponding to one of you. The plates and bowls with the cabinet from the home goods store; arbutus and apple blossom sprawling the smooth ceramic's expanse.

Aventurine hadn't given you a card, or showered you in lavish gifts, but you find that you don't mind. The paint on the fishes in bloom, the new vase where the flowers he gave you soak in cool water already promise you forever enough.

You nearly choke on your beverage.

He’s completely unbothered, that easy confidence radiating from him. “A few, I think. Two or three at least. Maybe four.” He glances up, and there’s that warm gleam in his eyes. “What do you think?”

“Varka—”

“I’d be a good father.” Just certainty. “And you’d be incredible. I’ve seen how you are with the younger knights. Patient. Kind.” His smile widens. “Beautiful.”

“Are you trying to charm me into this?”

“Is it working?”

(It is.)

Or he’d bring it up in public, completely shameless:

“We should start trying for children soon,” he says conversationally as you pass the fountain.

Several people turn to stare.

You flush. “Varka—”

“What? I’m being practical.” But there’s mischief in his expression now, the way he leans down to murmur in your ear: “Unless you’d prefer I convince you in private?”

Your face burns hotter, and you smack his arm.

He catches your wrist, grinning. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

His laugh rumbles through you, warm and delighted. “Tonight, then.”

━━━━━

Showing His Desire

When you’re intimate, Varka makes his intentions very clear.

His hands map every inch of you, like he’s already imagining the changes to come. When he pulls you against him—your back to his chest, his arms wrapped around your waist—he buries his face in your neck and breathes.

“You’d be so beautiful,” he murmurs against your skin, hands sliding down to your hips. “Carrying our child.”

His thumbs trace slow circles there, possessive and worshipful at once.

His lips trace your shoulder, your neck, the shell of your ear. Each kiss deliberate.

“I think about it all the time.” His voice drops lower, rougher. “You, round with my child. Knowing I put them there.”

His hands tighten on your waist as he turns you to face him, eyes dark and intense.

“Let me,” he breathes, already backing you toward the bed. “Let me give you everything.”

And when his hands slide under your clothes, when his mouth claims yours with desperate certainty, when he touches you like you’re the most precious thing in the world—

You understand exactly how wild the idea drives him.

━━━━━

When You Tell Him

When you tell him you’re pregnant, Varka is thrilled.

You barely get the words out before he’s lifting you off your feet—hands secure at your waist, spinning you once with a whoop of joy—before setting you down with sudden carefulness. Already protective.

“Really?” His hands frame your face, eyes searching yours. When you nod, his grin could light all of Mondstadt.

━━━━━

During the Pregnancy

He tells everyone.

The knights get daily updates. “The baby kicked today.” “She’s craving grapes lately.” “Did you know babies can hear voices in the womb? I’ve been reading to them.”

Jean looks exhausted by week three.

But Varka doesn’t care. He’s proud. His family is growing, and the world should know.

Grape cravings become his personal mission. He brings baskets from Dawn Winery. You find them waiting on the table, the counter, once even on your pillow with a note: For you and little one.

He feeds them to you sometimes. Sitting together in the evening, his hand gentle as he brings one to your lips. You bite down, and his thumb brushes your mouth, lingering.

“Sweet,” he murmurs, eyes warm.

Then he leans in and kisses you.

“Very sweet,” Varka says against your mouth, and you feel his smile.

He watches you constantly. Making sure you’re comfortable, that you’re eating enough, that you’re not overexerting yourself. His protectiveness cranks up tenfold, but it’s never smothering.

When you catch him staring, he never looks away.

“Can’t help it,” he says simply. His hand settles on your growing belly. Protective. “You’re beautiful like this.”

Whenever he gets the chance, he cups your face and kisses you. “You’re both perfect.”

━━━━━

The First Child

When your daughter arrives, Varka looks at her like she’s made of starlight.

“Hello, little one,” he murmurs, this mountain of a man cradling this tiny person with infinite gentleness. “I’m your father.”

She wraps her tiny hand around his finger, and something in his expression just melts.

From that moment, he’s gone.

Mornings become his favorite. You wake to find him already awake, your daughter cradled against his bare chest as he talks to her softly.

“Your mother is the strongest person I know,” he’s saying, voice low and warm. “You’ll see. She’s brilliant and kind and far too good for me, but somehow she chose me anyway.”

He glances over, catches you watching. He smiles.

“Morning, love.” He shifts carefully, making room for you against his side. “She was fussing. I didn’t want to wake you.”

You settle against him, and he wraps his free arm around you, pulling you close.

Evenings are for sharing everything:

“She smiled at me today,” Varka announces as you’re preparing for bed. “A real smile. I’m certain of it.”

You laugh softly. “You said that yesterday.”

“This time was different.” He’s already pulling you into bed, arranging you against him with easy familiarity. “She definitely recognized me. And she made this little sound—”

He demonstrates, some soft coo that makes you muffle your laughter in his chest.

“Laugh all you want,” he says, grinning. “I’m right. Our daughter is brilliant.”

Varka carries your daughter everywhere on his shoulders. This enormous knight with this tiny girl perched above the world, her hands tangled in his hair as she shrieks with delight.

He makes her flower crowns (surprisingly deft fingers weaving cecilias and windwheel asters). She wears them like a princess, and he looks at her like she is one.

“Grand Master,” one of the knights says carefully, “there’s a meeting—”

“She wanted to see the ducks,” Varka interrupts cheerfully, not even slowing down. “The meeting can wait.”

(The meeting waits.)

Somehow, having a family makes Varka better at his job.

He’s more focused, more efficient. He delegates more easily, trusts his knights more completely. Not because he cares less about Mondstadt—but because he has even more reason to protect it now.

“Happy at home means clear-headed at work,” he explains when Jean asks how he’s managing everything. “My family gives me purpose. Makes everything else easier.”

━━━━━

The Second Child

When your daughter is about two, Varka brings it up again.

You’re settling into bed when his arms wrap around you from behind, pulling you against him. His lips find your neck, that familiar warmth spreading through you.

“You’re incredible, you know that?” he murmurs between kisses. “Watching you with her… you’re such a wonderful mother.”

His hands slide over your waist, your hips, reverently possessive.

“And you look so beautiful. Every day.” His voice drops. “I keep thinking we could do this again.”

You turn in his arms, finding his eyes dark and intent.

“Let’s have another one,” he says simply. Seriously. “Yeah?”

And when you smile, when you pull him down for a kiss—

His joy is palpable.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Two Daughters

Your daughters are different in temperament but equally adored.

Varka indulges them in everything. You find him crammed into a chair far too small for him, pinky raised as he pretends to sip from a tiny cup.

“More tea, Papa?”

“Please,” he rumbles, holding out the cup. “Can’t say no to tea this good.”

He participates fully. Genuine enjoyment. When they want to play knights, he’s the dragon. When they want to braid his hair, he sits perfectly still for an hour.

When they start dancing—spinning in circles, giggling, completely off-rhythm—he joins them without hesitation. Big, clumsy twirls that make them shriek with laughter. He doesn’t care how ridiculous he looks. He’s having fun.

Then he spots you watching from the doorway.

“Oh no you don’t,” he says, grinning as he reaches for you. “You’re dancing too.”

Before you can protest, you’re pulled into the chaos. One daughter clinging to your hand, the other to his, all of you spinning in a messy circle while they laugh so hard they can barely stand.

Varka’s eyes meet yours over their heads, warm and bright and full of joy.

This, his expression says. This is everything.

When they fight over the same toy, he sits down between them with infinite patience.

“You both want the wooden horse?” He looks between them seriously. “Then you’ll have to share. Take turns. That’s what family does. We look out for each other.”

He shows them how, guiding their little hands, praising when they manage it.

━━━━━

At the Knights of Favonius Headquarters

Varka brings your children to work sometimes, unable to help himself. They’re endlessly curious, asking questions about everything.

“Papa, why do you have a sword?”

“To protect people,” he explains, kneeling down to their level. “When someone’s in trouble, we help them. That’s what knights do.”

“Can we have swords?”

His laugh booms. “Wooden ones, for now.”

And then they have wooden swords, and they’re “fighting” him with all their might while he pretends to be gravely wounded, falling dramatically to the ground.

You watch from the doorway, shaking your head fondly.

He catches your eye, and that grin tells you everything: I love this. I love them. I love you.

Then he’s on his feet, crossing to you in three long strides. His kiss is firm and sure and entirely unapologetic, even with the knights watching, even with your daughters giggling and running circles around you both.

“Mama! Papa is kissing again!”

“That’s because I love your mother,” he announces proudly, arm still around your waist. He looks at you then, and the heat in his gaze makes your breath catch even surrounded by giggling children and watching knights.

“Very, very much,” he adds, quieter, just for you.

━━━━━

The Third Child

When the third arrives—a boy this time—Varka is just as besotted.

“Three,” he marvels, holding his son with practiced ease. “We have three.”

He looks at you with such devotion it makes your chest tight.

“You’ve given me everything.”

━━━━━

Teaching Equality

As they grow, Varka treats all three the same. Fighting lessons for all. Chores for all. Expectations for all.

“Doesn’t matter if you’re a boy or a girl,” he says, steady and sure. “What matters is you’re kind. You help people who need it. And you look out for each other.”

He teaches them to fight with equal rigor. His son doesn’t get special treatment, his daughters don’t get coddled.

“You’re all strong,” he says. “And I’ll teach you to protect yourselves. And anyone who needs your help.”

━━━━━

Bedtime with Three

Getting three children to bed should be chaos.

Somehow, with Varka, it’s not.

He’s got your son tucked in the crook of one arm, already drowsy. Your middle daughter is wrapped around his leg, refusing to let go. Your eldest is perched on his shoulders, playing with his hair.

“Alright,” he announces. “Story time. Everyone to bed.”

“But Papa—”

“No buts.” His tone is firm but warm. “You all need sleep. Growing takes energy.”

He settles onto the floor of the nursery, and they immediately pile onto him. Your son curled against his chest, your daughters tucked under each arm.

You lean against the doorframe, watching.

His voice rumbles through the quiet room as he tells them a story. Something about a knight and a dragon and three brave children. His hands stroke their hair, patient as they interrupt with questions, indulgent when they argue about plot details.

One by one, they drift off.

He waits until all three are deeply asleep before carefully, carefully extracting himself. He tucks each one in, pressing kisses to their foreheads.

When he finally makes it to the door, he finds you watching with undisguised affection.

“What?” he asks softly, pulling you against him.

“You’re really good at this.”

His smile is tired but content. “Got a lot of practice.” He pauses. “And a lot of motivation.”

He kisses you. Slow and thorough and full of promise.

“Come to bed,” he murmurs against your lips. “Before they wake up.”

“Impatient?”

“Absolutely.” He’s grinning. “They get you all day. I want you all night.”

━━━━━

Taking Care of You

“Alright,” Varka announces one morning, herding all three children toward the door. “Your mother has been taking care of everyone all week. Today, we’re taking care of her.”

“Where are we going?” your son asks.

“Wherever she wants.” Varka glances at you with that warm smile. “Within reason.”

You laugh. “I want to sit. And eat something I didn’t have to cook.”

“Done.” He’s already moving, children in tow. “Good Hunter it is. Then the meadows. Then home for quiet time while Mama rests.”

He orchestrates the whole day, keeping the children entertained, fed, and happy while making sure you don’t lift a finger.

That night, after they’re all asleep, he finds you in bed.

“You didn’t have to do all that,” you say softly.

“‘Course I did.” His arm comes around you immediately, pulling you into his chest as he kisses your temple. “You give everything to them. To me. Let me give back.”

His hands are already working the tension from your shoulders, and you melt into him.

“I love you,” he says. “More every day.”

━━━━━

Understanding Their Differences

But he’s also fascinated by their individual perspectives.

He’ll sit with his daughters as they play, asking questions. “Why does the doll need a sword?” “What are you building?” Really listening to their answers.

With his son, same curiosity. “What’s your favorite story?” “Why did you choose that color?”

He wants to understand each of them completely. To know how they think, what they love, what they fear.

“They’re all so different,” Varka tells you one night, wonder in his voice. “Three people we made. Three entire people with their own minds and hearts.”

His arm tightens around you.

“Thank you,” he whispers. “For all of this.”

⋆ ✦ ⋆

A/N: Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it. :) More Varka to follow soon.

𐔌 . . . 𝐀𝐋𝐇𝐀𝐈𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐌꒱

One second he’s reading under a tree, the next, the sky explodes and something winged crashes straight into his lap.

You, wide-eyed and covered in feathers, “Mortal! Thou shalt not gaze upon my—oh hey, you’re cute.”

Instantly, you switch moods. “Oh, thank the Creator, you broke my fall!” you chirp, wings flapping erratically and causing an Eye of the Storm to fall off a cliff. “...Oops..”

He stares at you for a long, silent second, “You’re thanking me for your lack of flight control?”

“You caught me,” you argue, proudly, “that’s destiny.”

“That is gravity,” he corrects.

Somehow, within the next hour, you’ve installed yourself in his study, sitting cross-legged on his table, sipping his tea, asking questions about “mortal philosophy” while petting his hair and getting your feathers everywhere. 

He insists you’re a “cosmic disturbance.” Yet, when you fall asleep against his shoulder mid-sentence, he quietly turns a page without moving you.

You call him “wise mortal.” He calls you “airborne liability.” It’s… a start.

𐔌 . . . 𝐀𝐘𝐀𝐓𝐎꒱

The heavens open above the Kamisato Estate during a perfectly normal tea break. He barely lifts an eyebrow when you descend, glowing and terrifyingly serene.

Guards panic, servants kneel, and Thoma drops a tray. Ayato, on the other hand, just sips his boba tea. “Well. That’s new. It seems we’ve received… heavenly company.”

You step forward, eyes like judgment itself, voice like thunder, “I come seeking the one called Ayato.”

He smiles politely, “Ah, my reputation precedes me. Shall we discuss this matter over tea?”

You end up lecturing him about cosmic law while he tests if angels blush when complimented (Yes, and then his teacup explodes).

For someone supposedly divine, you blush very easily when he bows to kiss your hand.

Later, when you scold him for manipulating nobles, he says, “If Heaven dislikes cunning, perhaps it shouldn’t make mortals so imperfectly interesting.”

You have no rebuttal.

𐔌 . . . 𝐃𝐎𝐓𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐄꒱

He found you when you suddenly appeared in his laboratory, mixing around random chemicals. The first thing you do when you see him is sneeze, and three of his clones combust because of your germs mingling with the unfortunate chemical solution. 

He’s delighted. Not concerned, not shocked—delighted.

“An angel, you say? Fascinating. Tell me, are your wings detachable?”

You tilt your head, halo wobbling, giggling like a wind chime, “Detachable? No, dummy! They tickle if you touch them!”

He short-circuits for half a second. Then grabs a clipboard, “For science, of course.”

You hum happily while accidentally melting one of his lab tables with divine light. You’re the perfect specimen. (He might also be a little fond. Oops.)

He stares, fascinated as you nearly blow up his lab again, “Interesting. Divine sneeze reflex causes spontaneous combustion…can you do it again?”

“Maybe if you tickle me!”

That’s how the Eleventh Segment ends up half-immolated while the Third Segment is taking frantic notes.

You float lazily above his desk, babbling about celestial nonsense and calling him “Doctor Funny Mask.”

He swears you’re the greatest discovery of his career. 

Unfortunately for you, this seemingly sweet doctor (to you, no one else thinks that) is never going to let you go. So, when you tell him your signals to Heaven are working again, he destroys your little messaging device and keeps you locked up in his lab. With love, of course. 

𐔌 . . . 𝐃𝐈𝐋𝐔𝐂꒱

You fall straight through the Dawn Winery roof right as he’s cleaning up Kaeya’s latest prank. Adelinde almost faints.

Diluc catches you midair, with the reflexes of someone who’s done this way too often with wine crates. He sighs. 

You blink up at him, dazed, “...Are you the keeper of this realm, or are you my destined savior?”

“I’m your unfortunate landing pad.”

“Ah.. so you’re the love of my life.” 

“Absolutely not. I have enough fangirls.” 

You cling to him like he’s a life raft, “You smell like grapes.”

“That would be the wine cellar you nearly destroyed.”

You call him “Sir Flamin’ Hot Sexy,” and he blushes for the first time since 1623.

Later, as you sit wrapped in his coat, wings drooping, you whisper, “You look sad, for someone who saved me.”

He hesitates long enough for you to reach up and brush his cheek. He catches your hand, softly, “Rest. The rest of your questions can wait until I patch the ceiling.”

When you try to thank him with “holy light,” you nearly set the vineyard on fire. He hasn’t decided whether to kick you out or hide you so you never meet Kaeya… or worse, Klee. 

𐔌 . . . 𝐊𝐀𝐙𝐔𝐇𝐀꒱

He feels the presence of something before you fall.

But when the “something” turns out to be you, glowing and weightless, he can’t help but smile.

“You’re not frightened?” you ask, hovering inches above the ground.

“Should I be? You seem gentle enough.”

You look at the leaves swirling around his blade, fascinated, “The wind… listens to you.”

“Sometimes it listens better than people do.”

You talk all night about freedom, about stars, about how heaven feels colder than the breeze on his ship’s deck. When dawn breaks, you gift him a feather, “A reminder that even the sky envies the wind.”

He keeps it tucked in his haori always, though he won’t ever say why. After all, you’ve become his little angel muse. 

𐔌 . . . 𝐋𝐘𝐍𝐄𝐘꒱

It’s mid-performance when the ceiling explodes into a bright light. The audience gasps. Lyney, to his credit, takes a bow.

“And now, for my greatest trick—oh. You’re not supposed to be here.”

You blink from the ceiling wreckage, “…Where am I?”

He grins, “In my spotlight, apparently.”

You’re trembling, wings drooping, voice soft, “I didn’t mean to interrupt your… um, mortal entertainment...I think I took a wrong turn at the Pearly Gates…”

He offers a gloved hand, “Then let’s make this crash landing our special act.”

You spend the evening helping him “vanish” doves…only for the doves to follow you instead.

Backstage, he gives you his hat to hide your halo. You smile, “You’re kind for a trickster.”

“You’re too trusting for a deity,” he replies, but his tone is warm.

Lynette sighs, “You’re flirting with a celestial being…again.”

𐔌 . . . 𝐍𝐄𝐔𝐕𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄꒱

The courthouse erupts in light. Melusines scatter. He’s halfway through a sentence when you shatter the glass and faceplant in front of the bench like a sanctified meteor.

“Oops,” you mumble, “do I have to pay for that?”

He stares, speechless, “This is… the Palais Mermonia.”

“Oh! A palace. Fancy.”

“No, a court of law.”

“So you’re sort of, like, Heaven’s HR department?”

The courtroom goes dead silent. What the hell is an HR department?

You laugh, “Oops, wrong universe!”

When he finds out your communication is broken, so you’ll be staying here a while, he ends up giving you a “court tour,” partly to keep you from flying into the ceiling lamps again.

When you apologize for “breaking the sky window,” he sighs, just once, “Perhaps… we can find you lodging. Somewhere without glass.”

𐔌 . . . 𝐒𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐌𝐎𝐔𝐂𝐇𝐄꒱

You literally drop into his personal bubble of solitude. Bad move.

“What in the Archons’ name are you?”

You, dazed, “A… creature of heaven?”

He glares, “Then go back.”

But your wings are all messed up, so he (very reluctantly) takes you back home.

He absolutely does not help you fix your wings, but he also doesn’t leave you alone. He reminds you of a cat you once became friends with.

You become a part of his daily routine and can’t help yourself from saying, “You don’t do anything fun, do you?”

“Fun is a waste of time.”

“Then you’re doing life wrong!!”

He glares at you. You sleep on the couch that night. But the next morning, when he finds you crying because your wing’s condition worsened overnight, he freezes. 

“Don’t—stop crying. That’s annoying.”

He ends up awkwardly bandaging your wing in silence. You smile through tears, “You’re not mean, you just talk like... thunder. Scary, but not harmful. It's comforting when you get used to it.”

He rolls his eyes, muttering, “Then maybe you should go back to Heaven where it’s quiet.”

He doesn’t mean it. Not at all.

𐔌 . . . 𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐀꒱

You land mid-fight, radiant and confused, feathers flying everywhere. He nearly trips on a halo.

“Finally! A challenge that fell from the sky itself!”

You’re dazed, “I— wait, are you fighting for sport?”

“Of course. Wanna join?”

You heal him instantly, wings fluttering. “You mortals are insane.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

He challenges you to a spar. You refuse. He grins wider.

“C’mon, angel, show me what Heaven’s got.”

By the end of the day, he’s covered in soot, you’ve broken half a cliff, and both of you are laughing like maniacs under a star-filled canopy.

Later, he tells everyone he “fought Heaven and won.” You’re still trying to explain that you were trying to apologize.

𐔌 . . . 𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈꒱

You land on him mid-song. He doesn’t even flinch, just keeps playing.

“Ah, another fallen star~ Are you here to steal my thunder, or just my spotlight?”

You start humming harmony with him. The crowd thinks it’s divine intervention.

3 hours later: “You’re drunk.” “I’m holy, actually.”

He tells everyone you’re his muse. You’re pretty sure he just wants free drinks.

Still, when you tell him Heaven doesn’t allow music like his, he looks genuinely sad.

“Then maybe,” he says softly, stroking your wings, “that’s why you fell, to learn what joy sounds like.”

You forget to correct him.

He calls you “little dove” and teaches you drinking songs. Mondstadt gains a new legend: “The Bard and His Angel.”

𐔌 . . . 𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐒𝐋𝐄𝐘꒱

You crash into his office like divine retribution. He looks up from his paperwork, sighs, and stands.

He catches you effortlessly, wings first, “You’re not an inmate.”

“Am I under arrest?” you ask hopefully. (Look, this man is hot.)

“Not unless falling from heaven is a crime.” He instantly regrets saying that, because you smile too brightly, like trouble.

He ends up escorting you around like a lost tourist. The entire prison now thinks their Duke has a celestial partner. He does not correct them.

He chuckles when you blink in confusion, “You’re free to stay until we figure this out.”

You try to “help” with fortress duties only to end up blessing the coffee machines and confusing every inmate into repentance.

He finds you asleep on his couch later, halo dim, wings tucked under his coat.

“You really don’t belong here,” he murmurs, but he makes no move to wake you.

𐔌 . . . 𝐗𝐈𝐀𝐎꒱

You appear in a burst of light during his night watch, collapsing midair.

He catches you before you hit the ground, heart pounding, “What… are you?”

“Lost,” you whisper, “and tired.”

He hesitates before wrapping his arms around you, “Then rest. I’ll stand guard.”

When you wake, you offer to purify his karmic burden. He recoils, then softens when you only press a gentle hand to his shoulder.

“You carry pain,” you murmur.

“It’s mine to bear.”

“Then let me bear it with you, just for a moment.”

For the first time in centuries, he lets someone touch him without fear.

𐔌 . . . 𝐙𝐇𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐋𝐈꒱

He’s drinking Osmanthus Wine when you crash in front of him like a divine comet.

He sighs, “Ah. It’s been a while since Celestia threw one down.”

You pop out of the water, grinning, “You talk like you’ve met angels before.”

“I’ve buried a few.”

You laugh, delighted, “Oh, you’re fun!”

He ends up buying you tea, halfway between amused and nostalgic. When you ask what “money” is, he feels a migraine coming on.

You sit beside him as he tells you tales about the other angels he’s met.

You lean towards, eyes gleaming, eyebrows wiggling, “You sound like you miss them.”

“Perhaps I do.”

You grin, “Then I’ll keep you company until I figure out how to fly back.”

“I suspect,” he murmurs with a knowing smile, “you won’t be in any rush.”

Startorch Academy was many things: cutting-edge, unforgiving, meticulously organized.

What it was not prepared for… was Luuk Herssan being insufferably in love.

And somehow, this was your fault.

It started with tea.

Just normal, calming herbal tea, standard procedure before deep resonance diagnostics. You’d had dozens of these appointments before. Sit still. Don’t overclock. Try not to stare at the doctor.

This time, though, your hands trembled as Luuk turned his back to calibrate the scanner.

Three drops. That was all.

Colorless. Odorless. Ancient.

You told yourself it wasn’t really a love potion. Just an emotional harmonizer. Something that nudged attachment frequencies into alignment.

You were not drugging the head physician of the academy.

You were… helping destiny.

“Ready?” Luuk asked, turning back with two cups in hand.

You nodded, heart hammering, and watched in slow-motion horror as he took the first sip from his cup.

Too late.

“…Hm,” he murmured. “Different blend?”

You laughed too loudly. “Y-Yeah! New batch?”

He shrugged and drank the rest.

You waited for several minutes, but nothing happened.

You exhaled in defeat, then suddenly Luuk froze mid-step.

“…Oh.”

Your soul left your body. “Oh what?”

He pressed two fingers to his temple, brows knitting as if concentrating. Then his gaze snapped to you.

And stayed there.

Longer than usual.

“…Fascinating,” he murmured.

Your stomach flipped. “Fascinating bad or fascinating—”

“You’re very pretty,” he said simply.

You choked on air.

“I’m sorry?”

He blinked once, as if realizing he’d spoken out loud, then smiled. His smile was soft, unfocused, utterly unprofessional.

“Did I say that aloud?”

YES. VERY ALOUD.

From that moment on, Luuk Herssan lost his mind.

Or at least, that’s what it looked like.

He hovered. Constantly.

“You’ve eaten today, right?”

“You look cold. Here.”

“Walk with me.”

“No, closer.”

During scans, his spectral tendrils lingered far too long, tracing your resonance with unnecessary care.

“Your frequency is lovely,” he murmured once, entirely too close to your ear.

“Luuk, that is not medical terminology.”

“It should be.”

Nurses whispered. Students stared.

Yangyang, your aero-user friend, nearly died laughing when Luuk appeared behind you in the cafeteria, arms draping around your shoulders possessively.

“There you are,” he said warmly. “I was worried.”

“It’s been ten minutes,” you hissed.

“Ten very long minutes.”

“Oh my gods,” Yangyang wheezed. “What did you DO to him?”

“I DON’T KNOW,” you whispered back, panicking.

The worst part? He was adorable.

Lovesick. Obvious. Entirely gone for you.

Calling you by your name like it was something precious. Smiling whenever you entered a room. Looking vaguely offended whenever someone else stood too close.

“This is definitely the potion,” you muttered one evening.

Luuk tilted his head. “Is that bad?”

“Yes!”

“Hm.” He tilted his head again, studying you like a fascinating case. “Then why does it feel so right?”

Before you could answer, he leaned in, slowly. Painfully slowly. Giving you all the time to pull away.

But, of course, you didn’t.

His forehead brushed yours first. Warm. Intimate. His breath mingled with yours, and you could feel the faint hitch when he exhaled.

“Tell me to stop,” he murmured, lips barely a breath away.

You didn’t say anything. Too stunned to even utter a single word.

So he kissed you.

It was not rushed. Not desperate. His lips pressed against yours with gentle certainty, like he’s been waiting. Testing the shape of your mouth, learning you. One hand slid up your side, thumb resting just beneath your ribs as if grounding himself.

Your knees went weak. You make a small, involuntary sound, and that’s all it takes.

His mouth moved more firmly now, coaxing rather than taking. When you parted your lips, he followed, slow and deliberate, kissing you like this isn’t a spell but a choice he’s savoring.

His thumb stroked small circles at your waist. Another hand cupped your jaw, tilting your head just enough to deepen the kiss. You felt the brush of his breath, the warmth of him everywhere.

You clung to his coat without thinking, fingers curling in the fabric as if it’s the only thing keeping you upright.

When he finally pulled back, it’s only a fraction. His nose brushed yours, lips still close enough that you felt the heat of them.

“…Oh,” he whispered softly. “That confirms it.”

Your voice came out breathless. “Confirms what?”

“That I’ve wanted to do that for a very long time.”

Your heart slammed against your ribs.

This is wrong, you thought weakly.

And yet, you leaned in again.

***

You should have stopped it sooner.

You should have neutralized the elixir.

But the longer it went on, the harder it became. Because somewhere between Luuk insisting on “escorting” you everywhere and pulling you into his arms during training simulations, it stopped feeling fake.

And that terrified you.

So one night, you finally broke.

You were alone in his office, sitting on the exam table while he stood between your knees, hands resting comfortably on your thighs like that was normal now.

You grabbed his sleeve.

“Luuk. I have to tell you something.”

His smile faded instantly.

That alone made your chest tighten.

You swallowed hard.

“That tea,” you blurted. “I-I put something in it. An ancient love elixir. It wasn’t real, and I’m so sorry, I just— I like you. I’ve liked you for so long, and you were always so distant, and I found it in the ruins and I didn’t think you’d ever—”

Your voice cracked.

“I never meant to trick you,” you whispered. “I just wanted you to choose me. Even if it was fake.”

Silence fell.

Luuk didn’t move.

Then, slowly, he laughed.

His laugh was not the usual soft, lovesick ones he had offered for the past few days. Rather, it was more of a amused type.

“…You know,” he said calmly, lifting your chin so you had to meet his eyes, “you’re the first person who’s ever been bold enough to drug a doctor.”

Your blood ran cold.

“…What?”

“The elixir,” he continued mildly. “Ancient emotional catalyst. Sloppy around the edges, but effective.”

Your heart dropped into your stomach.

“Y-You—you knew?”

“I knew the moment it touched my tongue.”

Everything—the flirting, the clinginess, the chaos—replayed in your mind in horrifying clarity.

“You were faking it?”

Luuk smiled. Looking sharp now, as if he’s now fully himself.

“I was exaggerating,” he corrected. “I never lied.”

“…Why?” you whispered.

He leaned in, forehead resting against yours.

“Because you were brave enough to reach for what you wanted,” he said quietly. “And because I already wanted you.”

Your breath shook.

“So the puppy act—”

“Very fun,” he admitted. “Your reactions were delightful.”

“You’re evil.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “But tell me to stop now, and I will.”

You didn’t.

but then comes another call that he declines once more with growing agitation.

it isn't until he sees a voicemail pop up when he actually engages. he settles back and presses the phone to his ear with a grimace, turning his eyes to the ceiling boredly as the message plays, and his heart practically stops beating when he hears the woman on the other end say that she is calling from the nearest hospital on behalf of you.

toji's jumping up from the couch to his feet with wide eyes as she explains that you've had some kind of accident, that you're being operated on at this very moment, that you'll be okay but need to discuss matters going forward about medicating and admittance and-

toji's out of the door before the message can even conclude.

and with his superhuman speed, he rushes to you with a blank mind and ragged breaths as though the very world is caving with each step he lifts from the concrete.

accident. you've been in an accident.

toji hates that he knows exactly what those words mean, what an accident aludes to. though he doesn't want to believe it, he knows.he knew the second he realized that the call was from the hospital. and its the first time in his life he's hated knowing you so well.

toji knows what you've been through. he's been informed all about your past, how your belief in your inadequacy overpowers the reality you live and the love that shelters you from the outside of your mind. he knows that depression and self deprecation have been a part of your life longer than he has, and he knows of your experience relapsing with self harm - stopping only to start up again when the voices get too loud for you to bear.

and he knows about your track record with having attempted to kill yourself twice in the past.

he knows. he knows it all, and he feared that this day would come for years. he feared the day your facade of happiness and contentment would give way and you would snap under the very pressures that you place upon yourself. while he's wanted to believe that you have gotten better for the foreseeable future, that your progress during your time with him was permanent, hell, he knew better deep down. it would have only been a matter of time, and your silence was the first give away. your silence that had been all too loud.

curses spill from toji's cracked lips as he manuevers himself through the crowded sidewalk with godlike precision and speed, racing as though he will be doomed if he does not get to you on time. a million thoughts run through his mind at once, shadowing him with guilt, with anger, with disbelief, with blood curdling fear that starts in his chest and trickles throughout his veins, to the tips of his fingers and the soles of his feet.

death has come once again, knocking on at his door.

and for once, he wishes it was coming for him. for once, he prays that death would find someone, anyone else, other than the people he has dared to love. for once, he longs to step into that light and be taken in your place, but like cruel fate would have it, it comes for you, and you open the door rather than fight it. you let it in. you are practically death itself, and toji is as infuriated as he is horrified.

how could you do this to him? to yourself? to the kids?

he tries to reason with it in his mind, but every solution he comes to does not make sense. he can not for the life of him conceive why you wouldn't come to him like he's always asked you to when you're overcome with these particular urges. he doesn't understand why you've taken to harming yourself in isolation, away from the one person who would help guide you back into the light. he does not understand how you could care so little about yourself when you are everything and more to his family - how you could disgrace said family by trying to step away. forever.

death is merciless. it waits for no one. toji knows it first hand, up close, and yet you've tried to speed up the process. you've tried to take control over what is meant to be uncontrollable. and why? why the fuck would you do that? knowing who toji has lost? knowing that losing you would end his life indefinitely?

the ebony haired assasin's jaw clenches hard over and over. he has to reach you. there's no time. you need him. he has to get to you before it's too late.

and rationally, toji knows that if you're in the hospital, if the woman on the phone has told him that you are stable, that you will be fine, but his mind convinces him that with every second he's away, you are prone to even more danger.

look at what happened when he wasn't nearby.

toji throws the double doors of the hospital open violently when he arrives, blowing up papers and fabrics as he rushes forward and slams his hands on the front desk counter. the woman behind it jumps with wide eyes and looks up at him, and the very face of terror stares back.

and toji is out of breath, not from running, but from ancitipation. he swallows hard, nostrils flaring, ivy hues shrunken and wild.

the woman waits for him to speak.

"(y/n) (l/n)," he demands. "tell me where she is."

"uh- one moment sir," she stammers, blinking down at her computer. she types something and scrolls. "oh! are you - toji fushiguro?"

"yeah, where is she?"

"you didn't pick up. we were worried-"

"just tell me where th' hell she is!" he slams his fist into the counter, a shudder reverberating through the surface. he feels eyes on him but he doesn't care. he needs to find you.

"she just got out of surgery. she's down the hall to the right - first door on your l-"

and he's booking it. ignoring the shouts telling him to come back and fill paperwork. he doesn't exactly know where he's going, but he's got enough information to scope you out.

he follows the hurried directions and rips himself to the first door he finds on the left. he grips the doorframe tight, pushing himself through as his eyes scan the room for...

you.

bandages stained red wrapped over your wrists. tear stained pale cheeks. an emptiness in your eyes as you stare forward that makes toji's gut churn. these are the first things toji's hazy vision sees as the sight of you sitting upright in bed beneath nauseating flourescents, the scent of antiseptic and sickness thick in the air, greets him brutally.

he heaves in and out as he stares at you from the door, frozen with shock. a nurse and a doctor are at your bedside, the former adjusting the liquid iv you're hooked up to as the latter murmurs something that you do not listen to.

then, as if compelled by his sudden presence, your eyes lift and you turn your head slowly to the door. your glass eyes meet toji's from across the room, and the moment they do, he catches the shame that plasters over your expression and the urge to cry that tells in the way your brow wrinkles and your chest jerks.

toji rushes toward you.

"(y/n), what the fuck did you do? what did you do?" he hisses, pushing past the nurse and the chair blocking his path to approach your bedside. he's sweaty, with tendrils of dark hair messily straying over his eyes and his pulse jumping against his tight shirt. your lips tug downward as toji's familiarity swarms you, his warmth closing into your cold as he lifts your hands into his and examines the inside of your wrists closely, carefully. you wince with a jump, and your shoulders tense as you stare ahead. afraid to look at him. afraid to see what you've done to the one person who matters more to you than anyone in this entire world.

toji's breathing stutters as his eyes capture your wrists intensely. his thumb smoothes over the rough gauze, just beneath the pools of red at the center, insinuating the opened flesh. a sliced vein on either arm.

the assassin does not realize that he is trembling until he sees the way his grip shakes you. he can't think. he can't hear, not as the doctor inquires about who he is, not as you inform them that he is your boyfriend, and certainly not as the doctor introduces himself and explains monotonously how your operation was successful. they had to suture your blood vessels after you sliced into your arteries with a rusted razer, and have been administered a tetanence shot for good measure. your arteries had to be clamped shut to stop the bleeding. you were lucky to have been brought in when you were, for if you waited any longer, you certainly would have lost too much blood and there would have been no way to stop the bleeding.

it all doesn't even seem real. toji feels like he's inside of a dream, or a nightmare rather, numbed by the tone of a doctor who hardly even cares about your wellbeing, as he is only doing his job. detached, disconnected, unbothered. like you're a number he needs to check off. like the woman toji would kill for didn't almost fucking die without him knowing.

"the fuck is wrong with you," he grumbles to you, overlapping the doctor's speech. the said man eventually goes quiet as toji's low question lingers, and toji snaps his reddened eyes at you with a fire you've never seen. you curl your brows and watch him with blurry vision, your body shaking now as much as his. "you fuckin' kidding me, huh? the second i leave ya alone, this is what y're doin? you're tryna die?"

you frown deeply, tilting your head with the flutter of your lashes. "toji-"

"sir, i'd advise you to be careful," your nurse steps in, but your boyfriend's mass is blocking her way. "she's just been through a very traumatic experience, and she's only a few minutes post operation-"

"why would you do this?" toji fumes, looking to you with wrecked eyes. he searches your wounded gaze for an answer that you can not give, and as the tears slip down your face, he grits his teeth harder. "you're s'posed to call me. remember? y're supposed to talk to me, (y/n), not - jesus christ - what the fuck were you thinkin?"

"toji, i'm sorry," you whisper something so broken.

"if you were sorry, you wouldn't have done this shit in the first place!"

his outburst shelters the room in heavy silence, to which the doctor takes as a sign to give the two of you your space. he exits along with the nurse, shutting the door softly behind them.

you are left alone with the freshness of the wound you have opened, and toji looks to you like you've committed an act of the worst possible betrayal.

toji is not a crier. he does not cry. but he sees the way your tears flow, and his once steady hands shaking as they grasp your arms gently. like a forgotten curse, trauma washes over him in waves, and he sees a reality in which you were not saved. he sees a reality where he did not make it to you in time, and you slipped from his fingers. where you're gone. his love has gone again and there is nothing he can done.

he ducks his head as he grinds his teeth harder together, hair shadowing his face. he releases your arms softly, shielding a hand over his forehead as his face tightens and his body stiffens. he keeps one hand over you, and he feels you hesitantly curl your fingers over his and interlace them, trembling.

he stiffens completely, and fights the dreaded sensation of a lump building in his throat.

because to still be able to hold your hand now, of all times, is truly a blessing that he can not begin to fathom.

you can't stand yourself. you can't stand what you've done to him, but you couldn't escape that gnawing feeling any longer. there was an itch you had to scratch, and in that moment, locked away in the bathroom at work, all you could think about was your exhaustion. all you could see yourself as was the burden you've believed yourself to be for years. and all you could hear was that voice telling you that you were better off dead, that toji, megumi, and tsumiki would be better off having never met you, better off with you long gone.

you didn't think about how your death would impact them negatively. how the loss of yet another beloved woman in their lives would chemically change something in their brains. make them shut off completely, never to open up or dare to hope ever again.

no. that's never what you consider in times like these. that is not the reality that drives you to such measures.

and you regretted it the moment the blood came flowing, like twirling ribbons wrapping down your arms, falling in a spiral down to the floor. you regretted it the second the slices made you come to, made you remember that toji has only ever been there for you. only ever loved you, only ever begged you not to leave.

you fucked up. you know you did. and you know it now as you watch the formiddle, untouchable toji fushiguro crumble before you, clinging to your hand tightly like you'll vanish if he lets go, hiding his tears from the world that threatened to take you from him - hiding them from you.

you lift yourself up as best as you can, reaching your other hand to settle softly on his arm. you feel his muscles twitch and tense, and you hate yourself for it.

this is what you do. you hurt people. you don't deserve him. you don't deserve this life.

it would have been easier if you'd just died. if you never had to see the damage.

"toji, i'm sorry," you murmur. you sniff hard, holding his hand tighter. "i'm sorry. i - i wasn't thinking - i'm sorry. please don't - i'm sorry."

there is a long moment before toji says anything. "what are you sayin' sorry for if you went on and did it anyway?" he grumbles. he slowly lowers his hand, keeping his gaze down as he watches the way your hands wrap around each other's.

he can't look at your face. it would kill him. "you're not sorry."

"i am sorry."

"not for the right reasons," he snaps. "(y/n)... you tried to-"

"stop. i - just please stop," you close your eyes and shake your head. you swipe your tongue over your lip, catching a tear as it falls. "don't say it."

"i don't wanna say it either. but its what you did."

"i know."

"i can't-" toji blows out a long breath, turning his head to the side to angrily rub his forearm over his eyes. he clicks his tongue, turning back to your hands. with tight lips he reaches back for the chair he shoved away and pulls it forward for him to sit. his other arm rests atop your lap as his thumb slides over your knuckles subconsciously. "why didn't you come to me?"

"...toji, how... can i tell you that i want to die all the time?"

this brings toji's eyes to you. a redness surrounds them as his lids lower over his irises, his brows knitted tight together. "i'd rather you tell me that than me get a call from the fuckin' hospital, (y/n)."

you gnaw on your lip, nose twitching. "i was-"

"you understand that, right?" he slims his eyes.

"...yes-"

"do ya?" he asks again, sharper. "what the fuck was goin' through your head to make you think that this was okay?"

"i don't think this is okay, toji."

"then what? what?" he demands, desperate. he cranes over, leaning closer as if he can pull the answers physically from you with proximinity. "because if you really thought that, you would've thought about how much you dyin' would fuckin' kill me," he says passionately. "it would kill me, (y/n). i'd rather be dead a million times before you, you get that?"

you scoff. "why would you even-"

"because i fuckin' love you, (y/n). why the fuck else? i love you. i love you to the point where it fuckin' hurts to think about, and you know what i've been through. you know what the kids have been through-"

"toji, please-"

"you know that if you ever fuckin' died - if i wasn't there to help you, i'd be dead all over again. so i know you don't understand because you don't think about that. you don't believe in the truth, and that shit kills me. this kills me. fuck - just look at you. wh-" toji stops himself as his voice threatens to break. he shoots out a pointed breath, angling his brows as he stares at you. even like this, you're the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, and he has to convince himself that he isn't dreaming or in denial. that you are alive before him by some miracle.

"toji, i'm sorry," you say again.

"stop that shit. you don't mean it."

"i do mean it," you jolt his hand. "i do, but i can't just - i don't know how - i just -" you can't find the words, because what words are there? you know he's right. toji's devastated. he's hurt, and there's nothing you can say or do to fix that, to change what you've done. but how can you explain the unexplainable? how can you attempt to reason? "i was afraid to tell you," you admit. "i didn't want to be a burden... i thought it would be better if i just-"

"don't finish that fucking sentence. you're wrong," he growls. "you know you're wrong. your mind isn't always right, (y/n), you know it."

"but it's hard to see outside of that in the moment, toji. i don't know how to explain it, and i know there's no excuse, but i'm so tired," you shudder, voice faltering. toji clamps his lips shut, watching closely as you continue to cry, as you try to convey what he will never comprehend. "i'm so tired. i've been tired all my life, and every time i try to end it, i end up right back here. and i hurt people. i hurt you, and i - the kids - i don't even wanna think - i just... i don't know how to make it go away. i don't know how to live, toji. i'm not like you. i'm not strong. i'm not resilient. i'm weak and i'm tired and i drag everyone down with my weakness and my exhaustion and no matter what fleeting happiness i feel, i always come back to this feeling. this is all i am, toji. this is all i ever have been and i'm sorry that you have to deal with this because you love me. i'm sorry you love me. i make thing so awful and complicated. and i wish i could be better but i just can't. i don't know how."

he holds your eye, his heart aching at the sound of your words. how much you bury deep inside until you can not handle it any longer.

“i ain’t sorry i love you,” he says lowly, so gently it stings, and he doesn’t look away so that you know he means it. he always has.

and that somehow makes it worse.

you heave in and out with shallow breaths as you turn your gaze back to your wrists, shaking your head solemnly. you don't deserve him.

the medication you’ve been has numbed the sensation of pain, but you relive the moment you sliced through skin over and over.

that blinding sting you think you deserve. then the love toji shows for you every day that you feel you don’t deserve.

and as you cry, as you vent your most sheltered vulnerabilities, toji’s anger relents to make way for his sympathy, his love, his concern.

“doll, you’re breakin’ me,” he mumbles, bringing his other hand on top of yours. “you can’t keep livin’ this way. i can’t keep watchin’ you do this, girl. you’re not alone. you’re not unlovable. but i can only tell you that so many times until you start to believe that shit yourself.”

“i’m not good at this, toji. i don’t know how to be good for you. and you don’t deserve this.”

“you don’t deserve this,” he corrects. “i can never get why you treat yourself this way. y’re the last person in this world who deserves the shit you put yourself through.”

you shrug with a helpless laugh. “i wish i could see myself the way you do.”

he sighs. "yeah, so do i."

“i’m sorry,” you breathe out as toji ducks to press a lingering kiss to your hands, savoring your skin on his lips, savoring you and your life. “i’m really sorry for scaring you.”

he exhales again, resting his head atop your conjoined ones. he closes his eyes. “i’m just fuckin’ glad you’re alive,” he breathes desperately.

and you want to share the same relief. you do, but it’s only for his sake.

you crumble, leaning over as the tears come endlessly and you stifle the sobs that build with no end. “i wish i was different.”

the green eyed assassin lifts his head and hand to bring you toward him as he kisses your forehead softly, then your temple and your cheek. your tears are salty on his lips, but he doesn’t care. he's grateful he can even taste them now. he pulls back and caresses the side of your face, swiping away tears as he soaks you in.

and as you shame yourself, all toji can say is the one thing he does understand. the one thing that will never change. the one thing that he so desperately wishes you would hear. and its the following mantra.

“i love you.”

he seals the words with another kiss, and your body sags with the devastation of being unable to love yourself in the same way.

"please, (y/n)... baby please don't try to leave me again. you gotta let me in."

and all you can say as he pleads with you, even if you don't know if you can keep the promise - as badly as you want to, is: "okay."

and you bring your lips to his in a relieving, desperate, raw and fragile kiss. a kiss that toji savors for all that he is worth.

ryomen sukuna:

sukuna's ears ring when the words land so brutally on his ears that he can't even think straight.

it had been a comment in passing from a stupid, unwanted conversation he had been forced into with your cousin, who he happened to run into while running errands for you.

the salmon haired curse had been so disinterested as your family member yammered on and on about holiday plans for next year, what she was up to in the mean time, and whatever other senseless babble that sukuna could not have been paid to care about.

but then comes the mention of you. your name falls from her lips, tumbling with nostalgia and a twinge of sadness, and despite his previous disinterest, sukuna's ears are perking up now that the conversation topic has turned to you in the middle of this godforsaken line.

he's keeping the same guarded, bored expression, but only now, he's feigning disinterest as he listens. and then it slips, something so alarming in passing that he has to stop the conversation completely in order to process what the hell it is your cousin just said.

"...she really seems like she's doing a lot better since the incident..."

incident?

"what?" sukuna interjects, leading your cousin to pause mid sentence in subtle surprise. she blinks, humming in question as your crimson eyed partner glares down at her rather harshly, perplexed.

your cousin draws her brows together, the two of them now matching each other's confusion. she struggles to find the words momentarily, parts her lips, stops, then repeats the action.

"you know," she starts slowly, cautiously, as she watches sukuna's stare harden with the notion that he in fact does not know. he's growing impatient, visibly so with his sheer lack of knowledge on the topic. "the... her attempt..."

now sukuna's even more confused, and just as frustrated. his lips curl with dismay as he shifts, the line moving before him. your cousin has to bring his attention to the fact that there is now a gaping space between him and the next person, but he hardly gives a damn.

"attempt at what? what the hell are you talking about?"

"um... sukuna - the line-"

"they can wait. explain. now."

your cousin presses her lips together, an array of emotions swirling through her eyes as they dash between him and the space before him. with a sigh, and an air of sympathy, her shoulders deflate and she moves in a bit closer. sukuna, disgusted by the proximity, moves to step back, but completely freezes when the next words come.

"(y/n) tried to kill herself a year ago," she says quietly, like the revalation stings to even discuss, like she's swapping a century old secret that should not be told.

sukuna twitches. his eyes widen. his lips straighten, and he falls silent with the sheer shock of it. your cousin tilts her head, eyes slimming with concern. "you didn't... you didn't know that?"

sukuna would not consider himself to be a being that is easily ruffled or thrown off kilter, but his completely stiffened, blank expression proves otherwise. his eyes glower now into your cousin's head, and she reels, fearing that the glare is somehow directed toward her. in some ways, it is, for how is it that she of all people has presented him with this absolutely world shattering information in the middle of a grocery store line on an ordinary tuesday afternoon?

but what he is truly stunned by is the weight of the information itself, how it came from her lips and not yours, how you've dared to hide something so terribly concerning whilst smiling in his face all the while, pretending that everything is fine when it in fact is not. not at all.

you tried to kill yourself? is she serious?

you tried to take your own fucking life, and this is the first sukuna has heard about it?

oh, he's boiling over by the second, blood simmering, heart pounding heavy.

sukuna believed life to be one of the fragile things that you human beings hold so dearly to your hearts. morality is what makes you weak, but it is what makes you human, and from what sukuna has gathered from his lifetime, humans ordinarily cherish their lives on earth. he should know, for the screams of fear and devastation that have ripped from his past victims gave him no reason to believe that human beings would hate life. no, they cling to it. life is all they have in this world that inevitably takes it a way, and that is the curse of humanity. the blessing, as some would call it, as well. it is what keeps you humble, what drives your ambitions, what rules over your decisions and your lives all the same.

life is precious for you lot, or so he thought.

so why is it that you, the one human being in this world that sukuna could not bear to think about departing with, have attempted to gain control over the uncontrollable, to steal that preciousness and tarnish it with such disrespect and shame?

it does not make any sense to him. your cousin can tell that much by the way his face twists up and his red eyes shrink smaller and smaller. the line continues to move in front of him, and the people behind your cousin are growing agitated, attempting to bring sukuna’s attention to the movement with calls and snaps, but sukuna does not care to register any of it. no, how could he when all he hears echoing in his head is the fact that you've gone and tried to take your own life... and he didn't even fucking know?

"sukuna, really, i think you need to look ahead at the line," your cousin tries to reason, raising her hands defensively, treading violent waters.

he doesn't care. when he looks at your cousin, all he sees is everything you've withheld, the very notion that you could have ceased to exist, that he never would have even met her or you if you had gone through with it.

fuck. the king of curses is angry. the very thought is making him so fucking angry.

"details," he snarls, leaning forward with a grimace so prominent that it would sour milk and bring tears to a child. your cousin leans back, alarmed, anxious. "tell me exactly what the fuck happened, and do not think of leaving out any details."

"i really think we should do this somewhere else-"

"now."

and so, sukuna stops traffic until shoppers eventually find the will to move around the two of them as your cousin gives into the request, rightfully fearful of what your boyfriend would do if she were to further prolong this revelation. she knows that he is concerned, and that this is not informationt that would fall soft upon ears that have never heard such things before, but she has to admit, your boyfriend is a little… psychotic.

perhaps its because that is what you do to him. perhaps his love for you is so intense that he is driven to the brink of insanity at the very mention of peril befalling you, even if it is at your own hands.

so despite being in a crowded public space, despite how customers shuffle around them with pointed looks, your cousin gives in and tells him the story of how you have struggled with depression your entire life, longer than most. that, at least, sukuna was already aware of, but it is true that he did not understand the weight of such a human notion, nor the depths of how far your mental turmoil truly ran.

he urges her to get to it, and she does as a sorrowful glint catches her eye.

it was your mother who found you. you had been staying at your childhood home for a while, having taken leave from work due to mental strain and difficulties.

she heard water running first, rushing hard and fast and without end into the tub. when over thirty minutes passed, and the faint sound of water leaking across the floor registered, she sprung into action with growing concern.

a puddle greeted her barefoot at the bathroom door. she pressed her ear to the surface and knocked hard, calling your name, but you did not answer. she was only met with your silence and the running water.

your mom didn't waste any time. she threw herself into the door over and over, somehow by the grace of adrenaline breaking it down, and the sight that greeted her would scar her for life.

she sprinted into action, tumbling across the floor to pull your body out from the overflowing tub, your face downturned, completely submerged, and you, unconscious. drenched in bathwater, she hauled you onto the floor limp with a cry, hovering over you with tears springing instantly to her eyes. your name fell from her mouth over and over like a broken prayer as pressed her lips to yours and transferred air, pulling back hastily to pump at your heart. again. and again. and again.

until cruel life finally gripped you once more, harsh and unforgiving, stinging and cold. you spurted up water, coughing and sputtering, and your mother wailed with relief and betrayal as she rolled you to the side to empty your lungs.

how could you, she cried. how could you do this to yourself?

the story leaves your cousin with glassy eyes, as sukuna abandons his cart and storms out of the grocery store without another word. he need not hear any more. who knows what he might have done to the people around him if he stayed.

you know something is wrong the second you hear your apartment door slam open then closed. you jump from your lounged position in your bed, stilling with wide eyes as your attention is ripped from your book that you have in hand. silence greets you instantly after the loud noise, and you draw your brows together, deciding to pick up your phone to check if your boyfriend had texted you.

instead, you are greeted with a row of texts from your cousin from fifteen minutes ago, who happened to run into him at the store. the next text you read is the following, and you pale:

(y/n), why didn't you tell sukuna what happened last year?

as if on cue, your salmon haired partner barges through your bedroom door. when your gaze snaps up, he is all rage, white hot and red. his eyes are lethal upon yours, his breathing slow and regulative. he looks like he could kill something.

your body freezes instinctively, for you don't remember the last time you've seen sukuna so angry... not at you, at least. you remember right here and now, that sukuna is a being capable of far worse than murder. though you've never feared for your life in his presence before, you think that this is the first time you really have.

you open your mouth to speak, unsure of what to say, and the very sight reminds sukuna of your cousin's stupid fucking clueless face when she was blabbing your business to him without a second thought, and he grows even angrier.

"umm..." you start softly, closing your book and setting it down next to you. you swallow hard as the dots slowly connect in your mind - your cousin's subliminal text, sukuna's rage, and you feel your heart drop into your stomach with fear, anguish, and humiliation.

this can't be happening. certainly, that can't be what your cousin is referring to.

sukuna does not comfort you by filling the silence. no, he simply waits with waves of heat practically radiating off of him, spiking the sweat that begins to dot at your forehead. slowly, you close your book while keeping your eyes on him nervously, setting it aside.

please, no, you think over and over again. please, let it be anything else but what you think it is.

you elect to find anything to talk about, anything at all. you notice that his entrance was not accompanied by the sound of grocery bags hitting the floror, and your anxiety further spikes. you imagine the circumstance as your worst nightmare - your cousin spilling all the things to sukuna that you wished to abandon in the past, that you never wanted him learning about, and him completely losing it, abandoning the groceries you already had to beg him to go pick up in the first please to come storming back to you in search of answers.

you fear that you know what happened before its even verbalized, but you don't want to believe it. and you don't even know how to ask him what's wrong, for you'll only be greeted with the ugly truth in the end.

“…kuna?” you eventually bring yourself to call his name, attempting to sweeten whatever blow will come with the nickname he grew to tolerate, but by the way his jaw visibly clenches, you can tell that you’ve likely done more harm than good.

“do not play dumb with me,” he starts, his voice low. you tense, staring at him with blown eyes, like a fish out of water or deer caught in headlights. "you have five seconds."

you shift uncomfortably. "five seconds for what?" you ask, and though you wish your voice to be steady, the question comes out uneven, shakier than you would have liked. your body is betraying you. you try to shift topics, but you know it is a fruitless endeavor. "d-did you get the groceries?"

"five seconds," is all he says, eyes paralyzing.

you know sukuna too well. his silence speaks for itself. he reduces his conversation to either few words or none when he is truly angry with you.

you are fucked.

and yet, much to sukuna's aggravation, you continue to play dumb. how else are you meant to react to such a situation?

"what do you mean?" you ask quietly. "what are you-"

"five," he cuts through your words harsh. he does not move, but he suffocates the room with his rage, and you are finding it harder and harder to breathe.

you don't want to talk about this. you can't. how could your cousin have told him? you never wanted sukuna to know. not him. anyone but him.

despite his character, sukuna was your escape as you healed over time. after your attempt, your mother shunned you, pushed you away for fear that you would do something to permanently damage her heart or blood pressure. god, you remember her being so angry with you, much like how sukuna is now. you remember the sheer disbelief she expressed, the raw torment eating away at her soul as she sobbed every second she saw you following that day.

she couldn't understand why you would try to drown yourself in her bathroom tub, knowing that she was home. she couldn't understand why you would ever try to think of taking your own life, especially in a place where she would discover you. how could you do something so selfish?

but how could she understand? how could anyone have understood the darkness that has loomed inside of your brain from the moment you even gained consciousness?

you're not sure what happened. where it began, what trauma you've surpressed to plunge yourself in this pit of unimaginable emptiness at such a young age, but you don't want to remember. you don't want to feel the pain that accompanies fading fragments of abuse, and yet you do. and it has followed you through adolescence, into teenagehood, then into adulthood and has yet to yield in all this time.

medications never helped, nor did a stranger forcing you to vent in the privacy of a padded room, watching the time tick by as you sat in weighted silence, unwilling to open up, unwilling to feel.

if you were being honest, all you've thought about over the years was leaving this earth. letting death sweep you away into emptiness so that it could finally relieve you of the hell that ran rampant in your mind, but your family and loved ones would have never listened. never understood. never really heard you. after all, confessing that you've wanted to kill yourself for as long as you can remember is not necessarily a discussion that you think would have gone over lightly.

so last year, when work was pushing down into your shoulders and making it impossible to carry on under its weight, when your loneliness hit an all time high and your mental health dropped to an all time low, when no amount of alcohol or weed or antidepressants or therapy could distract or help you, you gave into the voices. you gave into the urges, and sank into the bliss of knowing that it would all be over.

in truth, you weren't thinking about your mother when you did it. you weren't thinking about anyone, really. only yourself, and how much of a burden you've been to everyone's existence. how the second you would slip away, everything would finally be at peace.

but then, you were saved, and life gripped you again, and you were forced to bear witness to the damage you caused. and it wrecked you. it still does. after that you were admitted, then you and sukuna got together not long after you were let out.

excommunicated from your mother, tossed aside as the black sheep, you shielded sukuna from any memory of your past as best as you could. your cousin is the only one you still keep regular contact with, and clearly, even she has her opinions about you, yammering your story to anyone who will listen.

now, granted, you know you should have told sukuna about this, but it is difficult to speak with him when it comes to these things. you don't like to open up as it is, and sukuna, while inhumane, is not very sympathetic to human grievances. so you locked it away, moved forward, and finally found a reason to live. him.

but he was never supposed to know. because you knew how he'd react.

"time's up."

you snap your eyes wide as sukuna makes his first movements since he's arrived. he steps further in and closes the door behind him, turning the lock.

you press your lips hard together as he saunters over, slow steps, and stops at the edge of the bed to stand over you. you crane your neck to look up at him, horrified, unable to speak.

but sukuna is not playing any games, and he intends to no longer waste time. "why the hell is it that your imbecile of cousin has told me you attempted to kill yourself and not you?"

"sukuna," you snap, astounded by his bluntness, but you aren't sure why. he's always been like this. he was bound to react this way. "what-"

"try to deceive me and see what happens," he growls. "are you a moron?"

"don't - don’t call me names. you said you'd stop doing that."

"how could I when only a moron would do what you have done."

"stop," you fume. you go to stand and move around him, but he is quick to push you back down by your shoulders. you gape up at him. "what the fuck?"

"my sentiments exactly."

"ryomen," you exhale loudly. "you can't just come in here and-"

"yes. i can," he glowers. "i am hearing far more arguing than explanation and i will not tolerate it."

"i don't need to tell you anything. there's nothing to tell."

"deception after deception with you," he seethes. "you expect me to not question an attempt on your own life?"

"i-" you choke up, looking away as the image of your mother sobbing over your lap in your hospital bed strikes you hard. your nose flares and you tear your eyes away. "that wasn't information for my cousin to tell."

"no, it was yours. and yet i did not hear it from you. imagine my outrage at such a thing - in regard to your fucking life for that matter. what am i meant to think of this? have you truly, entirely lost your mind? to even conjure up something as disgraceful killing yourself?"

"why are you being such a dick?" you argue, voice rising with defensiveness as your boyfriend knowingly triggers your trauma. "there's a way to go about this sensitively!”

"i did not learn about your troubles in a sensitive manner, therefore i refuse," he leans down to your face, eyes fiery. you clamp your wobbling lips tight as you stare into his eyes and see the wreckage that you've done in the mask of aggression. "do not dare cry. it is you who has done this to yourself."

"fuck you," you thrust yourself to your feet to throw your hands into his chest, pushing hard. sukuna of course does not budge, he only stares at you sternly as your face scrunches with an emotion he can not name. you take in a shuddering breath and push at him again, then throw a punch. a slap. "fuck you. fuck you."

he catches your wrists easily in is firm hold. "swearing and hitting me will not change the past."

"i don't care," you whimper. "you shouldn't talk to me that way. you don't get it. you don't have any clue about anything-"

"that is why i am asking you now what happened and why, woman!"

you tug and struggle against him, but he does not move. "i don't want you to know, sukuna. i never wanted you to know."

"well, i do know,” he gives you a stern jolt that forces you closer to his face in stillness. he watches as your eyes gloss over with tears, the lines in your face wrinkling, as you have no escape from this. he feels something inside of him shift at the sight, his anger molding into something disquieting that he does not like one bit.

your tears, the very knowledge that there was a possibility in which he would have never met you, the thought of you hating yourself enough to do such terrible things to yourself - sukuna has never known sadness, but now it seems that something stronger grips him. something he never would have thought to experience in his milennia of existence.

fear.

his eyes unknowingly soften as you tremble. you're visibly shaken, and despite sukuna's fury, perhaps you are right in that he should approach this topic more carefully. after all, you are the one who tried to take your life, then you survived. he imagines you must be sorting through your on griefs.

"(y/n)," he says your name. a rare occurance, a stark contrast from your ordinary nicknames. you flinch at the sound, your eyes growing distance despite how they stare into him. he draws in air sharply through his nostrils, lips tightening. "why?" is all he can ask.

and in that moment, beneath layers of grit and toughness, beneath the insults and the demeaning tone, you hear it. the confusion, the shock, the fragile terror, the stage between grief and acceptance at having learned that the woman he has come to love could have ceased to exist. and that the same woman would have never told him otherwise.

you feel tears break past your lashes as you stare at him with your breath in your throat, and a soft cry builds in the back of it as it all comes crushing down on you.

"...i thought it was the only way," you start quietly.

sukuna knits his brows harder. "only way for what?"

"for me… to feel better," you break.

and sukuna is even perplexed more as you begin crying before him. the tears fall and he doesn't understand it at all, but what he does understand is that you have been hurting. far longer than he has ever known. and what can he do?

"i just wanted it all to stop," you say as you knock your head against his chest, hiding your face. "i'm sorry. i'm sorry."

"do not apologize to me. apologize to yourself," he grunts, looking down at your head. slowly, he releases your wrists and brings his large hands to the back of your head and your waist. "foolish. completely foolish. do not ever dare-"

"i won't," you sniff and hiccup, shoulders shaking. sukuna holds you tighter, like an impulse, like its his responsibility. "i just - i didn't - i'm sorry."

"hush," he stops you and you fall silent, save for the cries that tumble from your lips. sukuna sighs deeply, staring hard past your head. "do not speak any more. just... hush."

and you do. and sukuna holds you as you cry, until your very legs give in. until there's nothing left but the show of weakness that you’ve stripped him down to.

“no.” he sniffs. “i’m sweating. from my eyes. it’s different.”

you fight a laugh, even as you rock your baby girl gently on your lap. “you didn’t cry when you literally got stabbed.”

“that’s different. i signed up to get stabbed. she just wanted a juice box and some bluey reruns, and they came at her with a syringe like she’s an adult.”

you lean back in the chair and look at him, arms cradling your daughter while her breathing evens out. “you’re being ridiculous.”

“am i?” he gestures toward your daughter’s tiny arm, still with the little bandaid on it. “she has a wound, baby. it’s gonna scar her”

okay now he’s being very dramatic, you raise an eyebrow. “it’s a dinosaur bandaid.”

“yeah. a purple dinosaur. her least favorite color.”

“…she’s not even fully aware of colors yet.”

“that doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel the betrayal.”

you don’t remember when he got up, too focused on how you’re trying to ease him down. you roll your eyes affectionately and pat the seat next to you. “sit down, drama king. she’s fine, you’re the one who needs a juice box.”

he finally huffs and sits, dramatically sagging into the chair beside you with a big, rough-man sigh that rattles his chest. and then your daughter, like the little emotional kryptonite she is, shifts in your arms, sniffs, lifts her head, and sees him.

“dada…” she whimpers, bottom lip wobbling.

“oh no,” toji breathes, already leaning forward. “no no no, come here, baby, don’t cry—i’m the one who should be crying—”

he opens his arms and she immediately scrambles over to him, face still tear-streaked but already soothed by the sound of his voice. she burrows into his chest and he wraps her up so tightly it’s like he’s shielding her from the entire medical establishment.

“shhh. daddy’s got you. daddy’s gonna fight the needle monster next time, okay? i got hands for all of them. no one touches you again.”

you’re giggling now, covering your mouth. “you’re gonna square up with a pediatric nurse?”

“damn right i am,” he says, face buried in her baby curls. “with a vengeance.”

your daughter makes a soft little hiccup of a sigh, her hand patting his shoulder like he’s the one who needs comforting now. and you’re watching the man who once cleaved enemies in half practically crumble into a puddle because his tiny daughter got a standard immunization.

“she’s braver than i ever was,” he mumbles, pressing a kiss to her temple. “absolute little warrior. my sweet lil killer baby.”

“killer?” you snort.

“killer cute, i mean. obviously.” you’re done with this man.

you lean against him, resting your head on his shoulder. “you know she’s gonna get like four more shots next year, right?”

he goes silent.

“…toji?”

“we’re skipping town.”

“what.” you’re caught off guard.

“going off-grid. living in the woods. raising her feral. no more needles, no more betrayal, just vibes and dirt and blueberries.” he gives the mini creation of you both on his lap with a determined look.

you laugh into his bicep. your daughter hums softly in his lap, now peacefully chewing on the collar of his shirt, completely unbothered. you watch toji watch her—and he’s got that look again. the one he gets when she does anything remotely adorable, like blink or exist.

god, he’s doomed for her. and you’re doomed for both of them.

“you’re so pathetic,” you whisper jokingly and he doesn’t even flinch. toji just smiles, soft and teary-eyed.

“yeah,” he says, kissing his daughter’s little forehead. “and i’d die for her.”

And deep down, you know it. You that is exactly what you are doing when you are first plowed with that nauseating, neverending, persistent feeling that eats away at your heart and poisons your mind, the feeling that first makes you stop and think, obsess over your insecurities, and question whether you really are good enough.

You know when you feel envy strike, when a sickening sense of inferiority crowds you in the shadow of that woman's loss against your best efforts, against your wishes.

You know it when suddenly you think that Toji's kisses have gone colder, that his eyes have shifted into darkness when you are around, that his mind is elsewhere when he is physically with you. You know it when that air of breeziness falls, and the honeymoon period of feeling as though you are floating gives away. You come crashing back to the ground, back into the land of doubt, the land of fear, the land of inadequacy.

And you know it's you, and only you, because Toji has never given you any reason to second guess his motives or his true feelings within your relationship.

The man had been so guarded when you first met him. He shoved you away enough times for you to learn that when he eventually let his guard down, it is not because he does not take you seriously but because he does, painfully and scarily so. It tore him apart so much to finally reveal himself to you that your self destructive habits fell by the wayside, and true love overpowered - a desire to help him, to open his eyes to the world that he can and does deserve.

Toji has only ever loved you. He has only ever cherished you like you could vanish into thin air at any second, loving you as if every day he has you is his last, never, ever risking the chance of taking you for granted. How could he, when you've become everything to him after he had been so lost for so long? After you brought reason, light, joy, and hope back into his life?

You know Toji loves you. You feel it. You see it.

But the fears come back regardless, so natural to you, you're surprised that they had even left. A shift in tone, an unanswered text, a fleeting kiss are all enough to send the first trigger shooting through your brain.

Then comes a lingering gaze on an old family picture with his ex that Toji forgot he had swimming in the caverns of his camera roll, swiftly swiped past with a blink back to reality.

It's all enough to set your mind off, to provoke the voices that roar in your head that you are not loved, but rather, a mere replacement. A placeholder. An empty husk serving in the space where someone used to be, someone who would be there still if cruel life had not stripped her from this world.

You begin to subconsciously compare yourself to her at every chance your mind gets to torture you. You begin to stare longer at the family picture that still sits on Megumi's window sill, to trace the counters in a daze, wondering if it was her who picked the marble finish in the kitchen - as you know Toji is not the kind of man who pays such things attention. You fall silent as your mind rages, absolving you of your speech, and twisting it into a curse upon your subconscious.

You think. You think. And think until it physically aches to do so, but no matter how much it hurts, you can not stop it. You can not shut it out. You can not make your thoughts go away. They simply expand, grow worse by the day, and if the questions were not already bad, the guilt that swarms you is ten times worse.

How could you obsess so much over a dead woman? Someone who is not even alive anymore? Someone whom this household you have weasled your way into lingers in the unspoken, in the air, behind the corners you turn, in the whistle of a kettle, in the eyes of his son, in the spaces you fill?

Its not right to think of her in such a way. To tarnish her memory by selfishly clinging onto this image that you could never truly know, to disgrace Toji's grief and his devotion to you by swearing that he could only ever love her, that it is not you he loves but the projection of her that he has utilized you for.

It's insane. You know it is. But you can not help it. You've never loved someone like this, nor have you ever loved someone who had not become single on his own accord but by force, by fate. As you sink into comfort, your mind awakes in alert. Its faith and belief in the reality of things slip away, and you are stuck believing lies, believing that you are not good enough, believing that a ghost would serve better in your place.

You've seen the pictures of Megumi's mother. She was radiant and beautiful, effortlessly so. You see the same softness in Megumi's eyes that she once had, and you wonder what Toji thinks every time he looks at the boy, if he has to push down the ache that stems from their striking similarities.

You find yourself looking in the morning and picking at your face, frowning at the reflection that stares back at you. You don't have here wild, raven hair, her smooth, perfect skin. You don't have whatever effect she had that drew Toji to her in the first place, that made him fall so deeply in love that when she faded away, he lost all sense of purpose.

You aren''t her. You could never be her, and you wonder how Toji bears to look at you. How he turns to you and smiles when you know deep down what he really wants, who he really yearns for, who you decide he imagines you to be.

You lay awake at night as he snores in your ear, arms wrapped tightly around your middle, and you wonder if he ever held her the same way. With one leg kicked up over your hips, his hands clutching you tight to his chest.

You wonder every night... is he dreaming of her? Do you really even exist to him if he only thinks of you as another version of her?

The fake version? The temporary?

You don't know when the last time it was when you got a full night's rest. You spend your evenings curled in his arms, staring at the ceiling with dark shadows under your eyes, lips clamped tight. As the second you close your eyes, the voices shout and steal any hope of sleep from you.

He doesn't really love you. You know that right?

He's only sleeping so well because he's pretending its her instead of you.

How could you ever think that he would love you after losing such a woman?

How could you even begin to compete with her?

And after a while, after enough self deprecation, after enough sleepless nights, you begin to subconsciously distance yourself from Toji. Not physically, but mentally.

When he kisses you, lips meeting your cheek in greeting, you shrink into your mind, body stilling as though you are a deer in headlights, eyes sharp and wide, lips clamped. Your voice has gone quieter - no longer lively and engaging but monotonous, timid, and almost cautious. Like you're afraid to be in his house. Like you are apologetic for your own presence.

You slip into a depression quite easily, and you don’t even think that Fushiguros realize, as you’re so distracted by your own thoughts. Why would they notice after all? It’s not like you’re Toji’s wife, nor are you Megumi or Tsumiki’s mother. Your emotions would likely just prove a further burden to them. After all, they lost so much when Megumi’s mother passed. You would only be further adding to such stress.

Yet, despite how you spiral into a pit of isolation, they do notice. Almost immediately, actually. It would be difficult to have ignored it. You display such a swift, drastic decline from your ordinarily bright and positive nature. And it worries the kids. It worries Toji.

Badly.

At first, he thinks he’s done something wrong when he notices you freeze at the slightest tough. Perhpaps, as usual, he's screwed up. He's said something stupid without thinking to hurt your feelings. But ordinarily, when you're upset with him, you let him know immediately. You don't go quiet, but in fact, you get loud. You challenge him, and despite his stubborness, he is forced to look within and rethink his actions.

You help him be better in that way.

So he rethinks it, but can not for the life of him understand what has happened, what's gone wrong. Do you resent him now? Have you lost all feelings for him? Has he made you feel trapped?

When he asks, you won't say. You'll simply flash him a smile that does not reach your eyes and tell him that you're fine. Despite the painful softness of your voice when you do that seems to pierce Toji straight through the heart, further emphasizing your lie. Despite that dark circles that run under your eyes, insinuating that you no longer sleep soundly with him at night. Despite the weight that appears to be sinking into your body, pulling your eyeline to the ground, dragging at your feet.

It's killing Toji, whatever is wrong with you, and it takes him a while to think that you could possibly dealing with something deeper that he can not understand. Some underlying darkness, a depression, perhaps, that has snuck back into your life now that you have settled into a new routine, a new happiness.

He never believed in the kind of stuff before. Not even when he was experiencing it himself after his wife's death. When his life veered off track and he no longer knew who he was. When killing became the only thing he felt he could do right in this world.

He didn't even realize that was what depression felt like until, of course, you. Until you opened his eyes to how bad his life had been when you miraculously made it better.

He decides that depression is certainly the problem when he comes home more often to you already laying in bed or staring off into space, in some far off world in your mind, separate from reality. The only two questions that remain are what triggered such an abrupt episode, if anything, and how could he help you out of it?

Or... more so... could he help you?

Toji worries in silent, active ways. He asks more questions, though casually, subtly, and sporadically. He'll ask more details about your day when he gets home from work, he'll suggest grabbing take out if he notices the food in the fridge still untouched by you. He'll grip you tighter in his sleep, waiting to doze just to see how long you'll stay awake as you pretend to be asleep with your back pressed to his chest and his fingers tracing light circles in your abdomen.

You notice the mindless habit as something new, and begin to wonder if he's catching onto you.

His embraces are longer in the mornings, when he prepares to leave for a job. His hands linger on your skin as he makes his way to the door, his eyes catching you a number of times before the door closes and separates you, and you are left alone once more with your thoughts.

His kisses are softer, more tender, more cautious.

You can feel him growing wearier, more hesitant. And while this is due to Toji's uncertainty with how to approach you or make sure you're okay without further upsetting you, you only take his behavior as a further sign of his rejection of you. Of his true feelings finally showing.

It's yet another sleepless night at Toji's.

Despite your daily struggle to stomach being in this home, surrounded by so many memories of a woman you never met, you can't find the strength to go anywhere else. This is your home now, after all. You're a part of the family, of the house, of the life that should be hers, not yours. Though you want to leave with all your heart, she's keeping you here, the impossible standard, the first choice. You almost tell yourself that you deserve this feeling, that you would be a coward to run away from such harsh reality.

You have a blanket from the couch wrapped snug around your body, cocooning you as you shrug a lukewarm cup of coffee to your lips. The house is still, everyone but you asleep, and it took a significant amount of shuffling to manage to rise from the bed without waking your boyfriend. Though he's a deep sleeper, the second he feels you moving to even go to the bathroom, he's awake.

Hell, you're surprised you managed to get away this time. Maybe that's another sign of Toji's growing disconnect from you.

Your eyes sting when you blink. Your skin is cold despite the warmth that captures you, and your mind does not rest, so you give into the insomnia and trek across the floors that she once padded over with barefeet, wondering if yours are the same size, if you could somehow begin to fill those prints.

You feel as though you've internally begun to break up with Toji without trying. It feels like you're in a constant state of mourning, as though the man you love is not still right there before you - yours.

But how could he really be yours when he belongs to someone else?

You're so caught up in your thoughts that you do not feel Toji's presence at the corner. He does not make himself known, as his remarkable skills of stealth are put to use as to keep himself hidden from you until he decides to step into the light.

The dark haired man is quiet as he watches you, your back to him and your shoulders tense. When he surveys you more carefully, closer, he notices the tremble in your hands that sends tremors throughout the liquid in your mug.

Toji's eyes are half open, his hair is ruffled to hell, and his pants hang low on his hips as he stares at you. He woke the moment you moved out of bed, but waited to follow you to reduce suspicion. He wanted to know where you were running off to without alarming you further into isolation.

And now that he sees that you are just standing in his kitchen alone and motionless, he feels his chest tighten with something he can not name. He looks at you like you're a mirror, a reflection of his past self, and the notion only spirals him into further concern.

Toji always swears to protect you, to keep you and his kids safe from physical harm. It was the physical that took his first love away, and Toji refuses to let that happen again. Not with you. Not with the woman he intends to spend the rest of his life with.

He fears now, however, that he can not protect you from the mental dangers. The traumas, the internal voids, the voices in your head that ring without stop like an out of tune church bell.

The corners of Toji's lips tug downward and the side of his head knocks agains the wall. Why are you so unhappy? Is it him? Is he making you unhappy? Is he turning your relationship sour? How? Why? What can he do? Why does he feel so useless?

As if on its own, as if drawn to you, urged by a need to fix whatever is wrong, his body pushes himself away from the wall and inches forward mutely. He steps slowly into the space, closer to you. His brows are tugged together and there is a slight curl on his lips, one you mistake for disgust when you catch his shadow creeping up from out of the corner of your eye.

You startle, hastily setting your cup of coffee down on the counter as your eyes nervously catch the ivy hues that gaze down at you through the dimness. You turn to face him fully, leaning your hip against the counter as you instinctively pull your lips together in a halfhearted, tight line Toji thinks you'd call a smile.

"Toji," you say his name like you don't expect him to find you in his own home, like you're surprised that he would ever come after you. Which makes no sense to the assassin, who would jump from moving cars to get to you. "Hey, I'm sorry. I was trying to be quiet."

And you're apologizing. Again. Like your existence is a nuissance. Like you can't bear for your own boyfriend to perceive you in this light, or in any light for that matter.

It's tearing the man apart.

In a sleepy daze, Toji reachs a calloused hand out to your face once he settles a few feet before you. He's experimenting, testing the space and how much you allow between the two of you before you shrink away.

You hold Toji's gaze as his fingers graze your cheek, but it feels like you're staring through him rather than at him. Your eyes are empty. Cold. Exhausted.

The ivy eyed man tilts his head as he observes you quietly, sternly, and that's when you shift in the slightest. You switch weight on either foot, and your chin twitches down within a fraction of a second as his hand melts over your cheek and his gaze intensifies.

You feel him trying to pick you apart. What is it he's looking at? The flaws in your face? How strikingly different you are from his ex wife? Is he noticing up close now? How you'll never compare?

You expect some kind of insult to tumble from his lips every time he looks at you in such away. But you have become blind to the gentleness in his eyes when your vision greets him, soft and sweet. You no longer see the depths of love under layers of hardness, and the worry that so evidently swirls in his sharp irises that he attempts to stabilize with a blank expression.

You don't see anything but your own inadecuacy anymore.

So when his gravelly voice rasps out the obvious question: "Couldn't sleep?" you are even more confused, immediately searching for the hiding meaning in such an ordinary ask.

You take a moment to respond, like you've forgotten how to hold a conversation. You glance at the oven light and see that the time reads 3:32 am. Toji hates being up so late, especially when he has a big job in the morning.

Here you go, causing him even more problems. You're such a burden. You're sure his wife never would have posed him such inconvenience.

"Huh?"

You realize you've waited too long to say anything. You snap your eyes back to his like a deer in headlights and nod slowly. "Was just thirsty," you say.

He quirks a brow, eyes dragging down to your mug. "For the one thing that'll keep you up all night?"

You tug your blanket closer around your arms. "I just... didn't think I would be going to bed any time soon."

Something shifts in Toji's eyes as his hand falls from your face. He steps closer to you, watching your eyes dart between his feet and his face momentarily. Jesus, it's like you're afraid of him or something. You never have been before. So what's the problem now?

"Not going back to bed," he repeats your words, linking his pink finger around the mug handle and sliding it toward him. "Well, darlin', we both got work and the kids got school in a couple hours. I don't think y're getting away with another night of no sleep."

Toji abandons the cup to open his arms to you, bringing one arm around your shoulder to gently guide you to him. He feels your shoulder tense as you step into motion like a zombie, and he looks down at you out of the corner of his eye.

You don't look at him. You just stare.

The embony haired assassin stops, the two of you in the hall leading toward your shared bedroom. You blink in confusion and look up at your boyfriend as he steps out of your way, gesturing his arm forward for you to walk back in before him. You turn to look longingly back at the kitchen before trudging back into your room wordlessly, clinging tight to that blanket as Toji shuts the door behind you.

"(Y/n)," he calls your name, and you freeze in your tracks. Your nerves shock, your heart skips a beat, and you slowly turn over your shoulder, anxious, timid. God, it's so unlike you.

Toji leans against the door with a heavy exhale, watching you with that sharpness only a man trained to murder could withhold. He crosses his arms, frowning.

"You gonna tell me what's been goin' on with you or am I gonna have to get it out of you myself?"

You pale at the steadiness of his voice, the words that followed, and that dead serious look in your eye. You always imagined this moment, but could never prepare for it properly. Truthfully, you had no idea what to say. You're embarrassed. Vulnerable. Scared. Sad.

The very thought of even trying to tell him what's going on inside your mind chokes you up, for what the hell would he even say to you obsessing over his dead wife? What if he drops his facade of loving you and admits the truth? What if he sneers down at you, shaming you for all that you can not be for him and his kids? What if he leaves you?

You're paralyzed with horror, so uncertain of everything. Toji notices the way your body stiffens like some kind of defense mechanism, and it dawns on him that you are possibly shifting into fight or flight mode.

...How could he have let things get so bad?

He tilts his head, softening his voice into a mumble. "Doll?" your delicate nickname flutters from his tongue into the emptiness of your bedroom, and your heart aches. The nickname addresses you, but you hear its distant ring, its call to its rightful owner, its past life - sweet on someone else's ears before you.

His frown deepens as you shrink further into yourself without any words, but with just a particular look in your eye that makes Toji's bones ache.

He kicks himself up from the door and moves toward you. You take an involuntary step back, and he halts. As if burned.

You see that his face contort when he notices, and you curse yourself. He looks like you just threw fire at him.

"S-Sorry."

"Are you scared of me?"

The question settles into the air, raw with passion, a hiss, a torn whisper, and you hear your heart break. The spell around you shatters for a moment as Toji looks at you so perplexed, wounded in a way that he would only show you, plain in a veil of frustration.

You're shocked by it.

"What?"

"Don't act confused, like you haven't been jumping away any time I'm near you lately." The space between the two of you is thick in the air. You feel so far away, despite being closed within the same space. "Is it me? You don't like how I make you feel? Is that it?"

You know Toji so well. Even as his tone echoes monotonously and somewhat condescending, you can hear the underlying pain in those sentences.

"Are ya quiet because that's it? I'm right?"

"No," you finally say hastily. You see Toji's shoulders relax a bit, though his guard has gone up slightly from the sentiment. You can't believe that he would ever think something like that, that you could actually ever be scared of him. "Of course not, Toji. I could never be afraid of you. Do you hear what you're asking?"

And Toji hears the first semblances of passion in your voice after months of colorlessness, and despite the weight of the conversation topic, hope strikes - gentle and refrained.

"Hell, girl, you're not giving me much else to think," he admits. "It feels like you've been hating me lately."

"Why would I hate you, Toji?"

"You tell me. Y're pullin' away when I kiss you, you're flinching around me like I'm gonna break you, we haven't had sex in weeks -"

"I haven't been feeling well," you interject, not wanting to hear more about how you've been subconsciously treating him.

Toji presses his lips together, scar creasing. "I know. That's why I'm asking now what's wrong with you."

"...Because you want to have sex?"

"The fuck (Y/n)? No. 'Cause I care about you and I wanna get to the bottom of whatever this is." He squints his eyes at you as you reel back slightly.

"Oh," is all you say.

"See, it's shit like that," he murmurs. "I must've done something to make you act this way around me."

You sigh heavily. "No, Toji, you didn't. Really."

"But it's something."

"I..." that image of Megumi's mother on his window sill flashes through your head and you twitch. "It's not you."

You get a far off look in your eye before turning your gaze away. "Then what is it, doll? Huh? You sad? Did something happen?"

"I dunno, Toji. It's nothing," you exhale, turning around to face your bed. You stare at the tussled sheets as your lips tug downward, heart heavy, and a lump forming in your throat. "Let's just go back to sleep."

"You're not going to sleep. You'll be up for hours."

"No I won't."

Toji moves over to you as you start to climb back onto the bed. "What are you lying for?"

"I'm not lying," your voice drops as you clamber up, crossing your legs to sit on the edge of the comforter as Toji stands directly before you, looming over, staring down.

"You take me for some kind of idiot?" he scoffs. "I know you."

"I'm fine, Toji. Really. I - I'm just tired. Can we please," you nod toward his side of the bed, and his eyes catch the empty space for a moment but inevitably land back on you, much to your chagrin.

The assassin falls silent again, letting the emptiness take over you as tension builds. You're beginning to panic.

"(Y/n), when's the last time you got a full night's sleep?" he eventually asks.

He knows the answer already. You're sure of it. Or else, he wouldn't have been asking.

You swallow hard as you look at him with slightly widened eyes. "Um... a couple days ago," you elect to say.

"You're lyin' again."

You frown. "Well then why would you ask me if you already knew the answer?" you snap, tone taking an abrupt iciness.

Toji squints his eyes at you. "Now you wanna give me attitude after months of not tellin' me the truth?"

"I'm not giving you attitude, Toji, for fuck's sake."

"Then what do you call that, huh? I can barely get a word out of you for weeks and now you're cussin at me. You can't tell me I didn't do somethin' wrong if this is how y're talkin' to me."

"I'm telling you it's nothing," you turn away with steely eyes. "Can't you just drop it?"

"You're askin' the impossible of me, girl," he exhales tiredly, dropping down to a knee before you to better meet your eyes. You see the motion out of the corner of your eye, but force yourself to continue looking away. "I can't drop shit that has to do with you."

You sour.

Those words once so sweet to you now only sound like a recycled promise.

You click your tongue and roll your eyes, looking down at your hands as you pick at your nails. "Yeah, right," you utter low under your breath.

"Excuse me?"

You shrink again. "Nothing."

"Uh uh," he reaches up to grab your chin and turn you toward him. Your jaw is set hard as your eyes snap back to his face reluctantly. You find that he is growing agitated with you, as his gaze is harder than before. "Run that by me again. You think I don't care about you?"

"Toji, please," you push his hand away. "We have work in the morning. Let's just-"

"I'm not gettin' back in that bed until you tell me what's wrong," he rests his elbow beside your leg and leans. "You know I'm dead serious. I don't care if it takes all night."

You find that there is no escaping. No lying. You knew there wouldn't be, anyway. This is Toji Fushiguro after all, stubborn as a bull, so much so that he took his ex's last fucking name.

Your heart pangs.

"So?" he pushes, lifting his brows. He nudges your knee. "Spit it out. You wanna break up?"

"Why would you ask that?" you scrunch your nose. "...Do you wanna break up?"

"The hell I do, (Y/n). I'm askin' you."

"But why?"

"Cause you're acting so fucking weird, baby," he emphasizes, eyes earnest and wounded. "You don't wanna split, then?"

"...No, Toji..." you deflate. "But if that's... I don't know, if that's what you want..."

"Don't turn this onto me. I'm not the one acting like your poison any time you touch me."

"I don't-"

"You do," he interjects. "If you don't wanna leave me, then what?"

You struggle to find the words, eyes falling to your lap. "I can't tell you."

"Why? You cheating on me?"

"No!"

"Did someone die?"

"No."

"Are you pregnant?"

"No," You shake your head again.

Toji ducks his head in defeat, finding himself running in circles. "Christ, are you gonna give me a hint?"

"I can't tell you."

"That doesn't make any sense. You're the one always tellin' me I can talk to you about anything. Now the roles are reversed and you wanna shut down. Like I'd ever let you pull away like that. Are you sick? Is your brain scrambled? Is that why you're thinking stupid shit like that?"

You shift, tugging your blanket tighter. "Why are you being so mean?"

"I'm not, (Y/n). I'm lost," he breathes. "And I'm losing it. You're freaking me out."

"Then maybe you should leave me be if I'm causing you so much trouble."

You stand and brush past him, opening the bedroom door to leave suddenly. You're in the darkness of the living space, rounding the corner back to the kitchen, but Toji is hot on your heels.

"I don't wanna fight with you on this," he growls.

"Then don't. I'm not fighting," you shrug.

You reach the kitchen again and lean over to grab your forgotten mug, but Toji cuts off your point of contact, stepping between you and sliding the drink further away. You glare up at him.

"Y're taking out all your shit on me," he observes. "You think I don't want you?"

"Oh my god," you grumble. You go to storm past him, but he is quick to grab your blanketed arm, stopping you in your tracks. You turn over your shoulder to eye him, your gaze coming off much nastier than it should, simply because you're hurting. And Toji is cracking away at your shell to get to the ugly truth.

"Don't walk away from me," he says. "I'm talkin' to you."

"Let me go."

And he does, but very slowly. He regrets it the moment you slip away again, disappearing into the bedroom. He follows you as you toss your blanket onto the bed, as you rifle through your closet for sweats and a jacket, as you leave to shove shoes on, and as you open the front door to step outside.

The air is cold and your breath hits the atmosphere in a visible fog. You hiss through your teeth as you step onto the steps and look around the neighborhood. You didn't grab your keys. You figured you'd just walk.

"(Y/n), get back inside," Toji shouts, shutting the door behind him to continue following you. You don't answer him. You just walk, and you hate how you know that he is behind you. You hate how his voice calls you, how it does not relent. You hate this reminder that he really does love you, and it's all because of her.

Because he sees her and not you.

It takes one last call of your name to make you stop and whip your head around. Your lips are pressed firmly together as tears well in your eyes like sprinkles of starlight. Your forehead is creased with something akin to devastation and your shoulders are so tense.

Toji immediately slows to a stop before you, and when he sees your tears, his harshness is crumbling. "Baby..." he starts.

"Just go!" you shout at him in the middle of the pathway. "Go, leave me alone! I can't be what you want me to be! I can't -" you shiver and choke over your own words. You heave in a breath, looking all around you through blurry eyes in a poor attempt to gather whatever pieces of dignity you have left.

You can't escape this feeling. It drags down on you, clings to you, and poisons you every single time you look at your boyfriend.

You sniff hard, scrunching your eyes tight. Lines of tears slide down your cheeks from your lashes as you huff, a confession bubbling in your chest that you can no longer keep away.

"- I can't be her," you blubber, knuckling away at your eyes. "I'm sorry. I can't. I'm just not. So please, please just... just let me go. It'll be better for us."

Toji knows exactly who you are talking about from the way you emphasize that pronoun. He finds himself stilling with shock, face falling, clouds of his breath floating into the night. Your sniffles and hiccuped breaths are the only audible noise out in the darkness, and Toji finds himself floored by the mention of his ex wife from the woman he intends to marry.

"I'm sorry," you manage again, hands palming at your damp skin. "I-I'm sorry. I just - I know how much she means to you, and I know it sucks not being with her and settling for me. And I t-think that if she hadn't - we would've never - " you can't finish your sentence.

"Woah," Toji starts, stepping close to you as you wipe your tears away and stifle your cries. "Alright, hold on," he murmurs low, gentle. He cradles your wrists softly, leading you to jump, and the pieces finally connect in Toji's head. He finally is starting to understand the issue.

Toji lowers your hands from your face, revealing your flushed, tear stained skin to him as your lips tremble. He brushes way excess tears for you, tucking pieces of hair into place thoughtfully.

"What's all this you're talkin' about my dead ex wife, doll?" he asks slowly, confused and slightly aggrieved by the topic. "Sayin' I settled for you? Are you kiddin? Don't tell me she's what's had you so depressed."

You hear the way he mentions her so breezily. He was never able to do that before, back when you first met him.

"Don't play dumb, Toji. Please," you whimper.

"I'm not playin' dumb, (Y/n). Maybe I am just plain dumb 'cause I don't understand," he says delicately. "Come back inside so we can talk about this."

You shake your head. "I can't go back in there."

"What are you talking about?"

"It's not my house, Toji. You know it's not. It's hers."

"Stop it," he says sternly. "Stop that shit. I don't like it."

"But it's true."

"It's your house."

"It was hers before it was mine. And it never would have been mine if-"

"Are you crazy?" he stops you. "Talkin' about her death like that. Have you lost your mind?"

You feel your heart crumble inside. You've hit a nerve. You know you have. That's why you didn't want to tell him. That's why you're better off just leaving him be. "I'm sorry," you say swiftly, and turn to go, but Toji is not having it. He secures your shoulders and keeps you in place.

"Stop trying to run away from me, girl. You're not going anywhere. Come back inside."

"Toji, you have to let me go."

"Not in a million years."

"I'm not her, Toji."

"You don't think I know that?" he furrows his brows. "Of course you're not her, (Y/n). I never expected you to be. I never asked you to be. Why are you stressin' over her all of a sudden?"

"It's not all of a sudden..." you trail off.

"...Okay." This is an inkling of progress. He'll take what he can get. "How long, then?"

"Does it really matter?"

"Yes," he says. "You been thinkin' like that since we met?"

"...No."

"Then for how long? Come on, (Y/n). I'm not gonna pry this shit from you all night. It's me," he whispers. Your brows curl with familiarity, with that ache of love. "Talk to me, baby. I'm askin' you."

You inhale sharply as another tear rolls down your face. Toji is quick to catch it on his thumb and swipe it away.

"How long?" he asks again.

You exhale. "I dunno... the last four or five months."

"And you've just been thinking all this shit in silence? By yourself?" You shrug. "Darlin', you're depressed. Look how you worked yourself up."

"Yeah. I know," you murmur.

"You always been like this?"

You shrug again with a wince. "Kinda."

"And this wife shit just set you off, then. Is that right?"

"...Yeah."

"Why?" he tilts his head. "What'd I do to make you start thinking about her so much?"

"I told you, it's not something you did," you sniff. You fall quiet and when you look at Toji, you see him waiting, expecting, as he is not going to continue to spoon feed you your own answers when you can speak yourself. He wants you to express yourself instead of keeping all of this in.

But it's hard. It's hard to give voice and power to what has only existed within your mind.

So you struggle for a bit, struggle to find the words, but Toji waits and hangs on to every silent second you think.

"I don't care how that shit sounds when you say it," he says suddenly. "I just want you to say it. Don't think about how it'll come off. Talk."

So you do.

"It's not something you did," you say again, quietly, timidly. "...It's just something I became aware of after I moved in... I know it's rude to shove myself into your family's grief, and I'm really sorry. I beat myself up for it every day, but... I don't know, somewhere along the line, I just started seeing her in everything," you confess. "And if I was seeing her, then I can only imagine what you and Megumi see... and I just thought that... you know, with how long it took you to open up to me... that you... started pretending or hoping I was her instead. Then I started obsessing even more."

Your confession settles hard into reality, and once the words have left you, you cringe. It's out in the open now. For Toji to scorn, to reject, to accept, to confirm.

Toji can practically feel the way your hear hammers by the pace of your pulse in your neck, and he deflates.

He thinks back to the death of his wife that still looms over his home every day, in every waking moment. He thinks of how the world drained of color, how his heart split in two, and how the blood of targets served in place of her warmth, as it was the only warm thing he could feel at the time.

He thinks of how he neglected his kids, how Tsumiki was left to care for Megumi during every last minute trip, every prolonged job, every bender, every fling. He thinks of how he couldn't even look Megumi in the eye without seeing what he lost, without being torn apart by the grief.

He thinks of how shitty he was when you met him. How many years of friendship it took for him to melt, to heal, to genuinely move on.

He thinks of the first time your laugh made his heart burst, as it was the first time he had felt such a thing in what felt like eons. He thinks of the first time he held your hand, how snug your soft skin felt against his palm. He thinks of your first kiss, and the guilt that wracked him when he knew that he was falling for you. That he was actually, truly, living again. Without her.

Toji frowns because he understands why you would think such a way. He really does. He spent the majoirity of the beginning of your relationship pushing and pulling, battling with the internal conflict, with the dilemma of honoring his ex wife while moving forward. He was so much different back then, so wishy washy, so torn. He hates how his grief could have made you think that his love for you isn't real, that it's only a placeholder, when you are everything.

Yes, his ex is dead. Yes, it turned his world upside down, but you are here with him and that's all he can ask for. You helped him, you saved him and his family, you loved him when he thought that love had died, you brought back color to a lifeless canvas.

You're his. And though he would never wish what he went through on his worst enemy, he can not imagine a world without you in it.

It's strange... that he had to lose someone in order to gain you.

With a heavy sigh, Toji smooths his hand to the back of your head and cradles it tenderly. His ivy hues regard you with love and understanding, face flat, eyes alight. He takes in your tears, your anguish, and he promises to suffer for it. To atone for what he's done to you without even trying.

He gets it. He does. For if the roles were reversed, hell, he'd feel the same way.

"Come inside, baby," he tells you gently. "I don't wanna have this talk with you out in the cold."

You tremble with fear, with looming heartbreak. "...Am I right for thinking that way?"

"No," he responds so easily, like he doesn't have to think about it. "But I - hell, I don't know. I should've known you'd feel some type of way about her eventually."

"Do you... still think about her?"

Toji purses his lips. "Yeah," he answers honestly. "Every day. But not in the way you're thinkin'."

Your stare up at him with such emotion, so fragile that you may break down at any moment as his other hand rests on your cheek.

"Losin' someone like that... shit, it sticks with you. It does. I won't lie to you about that. And you know it. You saw how I was, and... I guess... I'm sorry you had to deal with all that so early on."

"You don't have to apologize for mourning her, Toji. I'm saying I know-"

"You don't. Not really, or else we wouldn't be havin' this conversation," he says, and you clamp your mouth shut and let him go on. "My grief shoulda never made you feel like I wanted you to be her. She's the mother of my kid, (Y/n). We were married and she died. She ain't just gonna go away, but I've grieved her long enough to know that I love you. How I feel about you doesn't have anything to do with her. It's about you and me. And I wouldn't ever disrespect either of you by tryin' to turn you into someone who ain't even here. Hell, if I was lookin at you to be her, we wouldn't be together. You get what I'm saying?"

You nod solemnly, slowly. "I do."

"Do ya?" he cranes his head forward. "I love you. You hear me? I love you so much it fuckin' hurts. If I lost ya, I'd lose my mind. You get that right?" you nod again, but Toji isn't convinced. "Nah, I wanna hear you say it."

"Toji-"

"Come on. Say it."

Your nose flares as you melt. "You love me," you give in.

"So much it hurts."

"...So much it hurts," you finish shakily. "I love you too. I love you so much. I just don't want you to be unhappy. I know losing her really hurt you and I don't know what I'd do with myself if you were still just suffering."

"Grief ain't a straight line, doll. You know this. That doesn't mean a thing about how I feel about you."

You pause. "...Toji?"

"Yeah," he answers mindlessly as he looks over your face.

"Are you still in love with her?"

Toji stills. "(Y/n)," he starts. "She's dead. The love I have for her is somewhere floating around. It's different. It's the past. You're my present, and I love you."

"But if she were still here..."

"I don't wanna think about if she was still here. That ain't the life I'm living right now. I wouldn't have you, and it just - gets too fuckin' weird and complicated to even think about. So quit it. Y're shitting all over the good we have now, and even she wouldn't go for that."

You can't even be mad at his responses, for they're so Toji, so unapologetically full of truth that you remember he would never hide from you. This is your boyfriend, the man who completely changed to be with you. The man who swears to love you, to protect you, to hold you close until the day he dies. The man who promises you as a new parent for his kids, who welcome you with open arms - not despite the past, but because of it.

And the woman who gave Toji his last name still lingers, but in that spiritual, guarding way. She sheds the house in light, now able to rest knowing that you are there to look after everyone.

You've been a fool, acting like this, reliving grievances that the family has long come to terms with. Now that you've expressed yourself, now that the thoughts have left your lips, you can see that love swirling once more in Toji's eyes. You don't know how you had chosen not to see it for so long.

The feelings, however, won't just go away, even with this assurance.

You huff with an incoming cry and bury your face in your hands, overwhelmed, vulnerable, overstimulated.

Toji does not have to think before gathering you up in his arms, wrapping you tight, settling his chin atop your head and staring forward as you cry into his chest, humiliated, relieved, overcome by it all.

He presses his lips firm to your head with a promise. "It's you and only you," he mutters as you tremble.

And hopefully it's enough, enough for you to believe, to carry with you as truth and nothing less. For that's all Toji has for you. Truth, love, and his very life.

He's lost someone before. He won't let it happen again.

Not with you. Not ever.

"Come back inside, doll."

He didn’t snap. It’s so much worse than that. At least in the eyes of the arrogant boy who got bested by, what he assumed to be a grade two curse because of how pudgy and stupid it looked. The thing that caught him lacking looked like a fucking blob fish that struggled with crippling anxiety, how the hell was he supposed to know that it could mess with timeof all things? 

One moment he’s laughing at the way it looks, the next he’s in the complete dark. 

That was the first time he’s smiled in months, by the way. 

“Huh?” Satoru huffs out, trying to look around before eventually realizing that he has a blindfold on, and rips it off in annoyance. “Don’t tell me that thing knocked me out,” he begins to grumble to himself. It’d explain why he had a blindfold on… but then he realized he was in a completely different outfit, one that you didn’t put on someone who was currently in rest and recovery. 

He highly doubts Shoko would even change him, anyway, at least not for this. 

“Oh hey, you’re home.” 

Home? 

He looks around, and all he knows is this isn’t the dorm he’s continued to stay in after graduation, purely due to the fact that he was already out on missions for up to 18 hours each day. Not to mention that the penthouse he was currently standing in was too clean to be his. Too warm. Way too comfortable.

You already knew there was something deeply off in those first few seconds of looking into his eyes. This wasn’t your husband— this was the hot mess you met and still fell in love with all those years ago. 

You tilt your head to the side, more curious than cautious, “Everything alright?”

“Yeah,” he snorts, literally the worst liar ever. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I don’t know,” you hum, holding eye contact long enough to leave him feeling a bit unsettled. “You tell me.”

First of all, who the fuck do you think you are speaking to him like that?

Second, who even are you?

Something big and shiny on your finger catches his attention, then he looks at his own hand that has an equally shiny band around his ring finger. 

Fuck.

“Honey–”

Satoru physically cringes at the pet name, giving himself away once again. 

“I’m not Satoru,” he blurts out, rubbing his eyes in frustration. “I mean, I am, but I’m not— FUCK– some fuckin’ curse blasted me into the future, and I need to go back.”

Well, that was quick. He’s always quick to fold under pressure when it comes to you— it’s something he’s unaware of though, as he fights back the urge to start pacing back and forth. 

There’s a light smack from your mouth when you go to open it, only for the words to never even come, let alone die out. Nothing about this surprises you. This is not the craziest thing that’s happened since you’ve met Satoru. 

Your lips thin into a smile as you take a deep breath, knowing you had no choice but to accept your new circumstances. 

“Okay.”

“Okay?” He raises a brow at how you just… accepted it.

“Yeah… I believe it.” You respond flatly, then point at him, casually motioning your finger up and down. “Your attitude kinda sucked when we first met.”

He grimaces, taken aback by the statement. “No, it doesn’t–”

“You also liked to argue, too.”

“Okay— whatever,” he waves a dismissive hand, not at all interested in hearing what else you had to say. At this point, it just sounded like you wanted to shit on him, something he actually doesn’t have any fucking time for right now. “You’re a sorcerer… right?” 

“No.” 

“Christ.” Satoru sighs, turning on his heel. “You’re fuckin’ useless—“

You scoff, more humored than offended. “Where are you going?” 

“To figure this shit out!” he snaps, throwing his arms out as he turns around to face you. 

“Okay,” you shrug, still way too calm for Satoru’s liking, as it pisses him off even more. “If you don’t get it all figured out tonight, you can always come back. We have a guest room.” 

“Yeah, thanks.” He huffs out a bitter laugh, as if that was the dumbest suggestion he’s ever heard. “I appreciate the offer.” 

– 

“Yaga” Satoru storms into the principal’s office, ignoring all his cursed stuffed animals, but noticing what he’s done with his hair. “What the fuck happened to you?”

The principal's brows pinch together, wishing he had locked the door to his office. Satoru fucked with him enough today by showing up to a meeting 20 minutes late with some sugary frap in his hand, and now he’s storming into his office, insulting him out of nowhere. 

“Actually, nevemind.” Satoru waves a hand to stop him from even answering his question, reminding himself not to get sidetracked right now. “Look, I need your help. I got sent into the future by some curse, and I need to get back.”

Yaga inhales sharply. “What are you even talking about?”

“Exactly what I just said! I’m from 2009! Not whatever age I am now—”

“31.”

Satoru throws up a little in his mouth. “Send me back.” 

Yaga lets out a long, disappointed sigh. It’s always something with Satoru. Always. Having to deal with the younger version of him was a painful reminder that he’s been dealing with his bullshit for well over a decade now. Nothing surprises him anymore.  

“Let me see if some other windows would be willing to help look through the library. I’m sure you’ll be able to find information on what kind of curse you got hit with.”

“Thank you,” Satoru groans, still not very pleased by everyone’s reactions thus far, but grateful that he can at least get somewhere with Yaga… unlike a certain somebody. 

Hours later, he finds himself at the school’s dusty, unkept library. It looks worse than it originally looked before he walked in. Books sprawled everywhere. Research papers were scattered all over the tables and floor. Assistants running around in every direction, more than half of them terrified at the total 180 in Satoru’s attitude. 

“W-we can’t find anything,” Ijichi says, too old to be acting this scared in Satoru’s opinion. 

He hums, elbows still resting on his knees, not bothering to sit up. “Hey, Ijichi?”

Ijichi gulped loudly, managing to annoy the world’s strongest sorcerer even more. “...Yes?” 

“How are you even more incompetent now than you were before?”

“I tried my best! I swear!”

“Well, it’s not good enough— I’m still here!” he snaps at the nervous wreck of a man. Thank fucking god Ijichi listened to him and just became a window. He sucks at it too, but at least it’s easier for this dumbass to avoid death. “God— what the fuck am I supposed to do now?!”

“This is just one of the libraries, there’s more! And some in Kyoto too, that we’ll have the Kyoto branch check out.”

“Do whatever you need to do. I’m just letting you know right now that if I'm not back by tomorrow, you better watch the fuck out.”

The threat is followed by complete dead silence, aside from a certain someone's breath catching in horror.

“Me?!” Ijichi squeaks out.

The sorcerer doesn’t bother answering that and instead walks away, grumbling something insulting under his breath, just in complete and utter disbelief over how Ijichi truly hasn’t changed. 

—

You figured your husband would eventually come back, so you set some food aside for him, and now you’re sitting at the dinner table, trying not to laugh at the pout on his face as he picks at his dinner with the chopsticks in his hand. 

“Is the food good?”

“Sure.”

“I can warm that up for you, if you want?” you ask, barely trying to hide your amusement. 

“No thanks,” he curtly responds before shoving another piece of karaage into his mouth. He’s known to have a sweet tooth, but chicken karaage’s probably his favorite food, savory wise. You almost want to tell him that he’s allowed to enjoy food even if his day hasn’t gone the way he had planned. “I’d appreciate it if you stopped staring.” 

Your lips twitch, threatening to break out into a fit of laughter. “Right, sorry.”

“Mommy…? Is Daddy home yet?” 

Oh great. As if the day couldn’t get any worse— now there’s a child.

“Yeah,” you respond in a tentative tone, shooting Satoru a look that screams ‘behave or else’, and even though you are currently a stranger to him, it intimidates him enough to behave for the time being. 

A little girl, no older than 4 years old, walks into the kitchen and Satoru’s eyes nearly bulge out of his head upon seeing his daughter. It’s pretty obvious she’s his with her baby blue eyes and stark white hair. Her facial features are entirely yours, though. It’s strange to see.

“Hey… kiddo—” he awkwardly says, not really sure how to address the little girl. You clear your throat, mouthing ‘princess’ when he looks at you, because your daughter also happens to have her dad’s attitude. “I mean princess.”

It’s hilarious how unnatural it sounds right now when he was the one who started calling her that the moment you two took her home from the hospital. 

“You pomis to wead bedtime stowie,” she starts to pout— same exact way he does.

“Did I?” He gives the girl a sympathetic look, albeit fake. 

“Yeah,” she frowns as she walks up to you, giving him the world’s nastiest side eye. “Liar.”

Why is that the one word she’s able to enunciate correctly? She didn’t even stutter.

“Yeah— I was a little busy with work today,” he murmurs, as if she knew what that even meant. With the glare she was giving him, he doubted she’d even care if he broke down what work and the importance of it was. “Maybe mommy can read to you tonight?”

Sai wasn’t having that. 

Satoru spent the end of his night reading her favorite book to her. Multiple times. He almost asked if it was some form of punishment for not upholding a promise he didn’t technically make himself, but decided against it in fear that she’d make him read it one more time. Sai fell asleep… eventually. Despite there being no way to prove it, he knows that the little girl forced herself to stay up out of pure spite. 

But still, he finds himself smiling as he thinks about his nightmare of a future, not wiping it off quickly enough when you lightly knock on the guest bedroom door.

“Here’s some jammys for the night.” You smile back as you walk up and hand him a pair of sweats and a white t-shirt, both neatly folded up. “Figured you wouldn’t want to sleep in your work clothes.”

“Oh uh— thanks.” He clears his throat and forces out a laugh, pushing through the embarrassment of getting caught smiling to himself. 

You’re giving him that look again. The one that’s mixed with amusement and a bit of fondness, where you look like you’re about to start making fun of him, but never do. Satoru would rather die than admit it makes him nervous. 

“What?” 

There’s a small pause as your smile grows. “Do you like your kid?”

“She’s weird.”

“Yeah, no— you wouldn’t believe who she got that from.”

“Fuck off.” A laugh easily slips through his lips this time, unable to stay serious at the thought of her inheriting even just a quarter of the traits he had as a child. Then it grows quiet again as he realizes she probably has the freedom to be a kid. 

He wants to ask, but you beat him to it with a statement that answered the question he had in mind. 

“Your duties as her father don’t end just because you managed to time travel by the way,” you say playfully, though he knows you’re being dead serious. 

He can only guess what other horrors that little girl will subject him to for the rest of his time here. To put it simply, she’s not afraid of Dad. 

For once, somebody doesn’t look at him as a god to fear. 

—

It’s been over a month. 

Ijichi and the rest of the windows are just as useless as they were when they first started trying to find answers. All that’s changed is that Nanami knows, and doesn’t seem to be too thrilled about the fact that he is now involved.

But still, the search for the fix to his predicament continues, turning every library and warehouse upside down. That’s all they could really do— aside from asking the elders for assistance of some sort. 

Over his dead body. 

Knowing they’d most likely do more harm than good, everyone’s agreed to keep this all a little secret from them.

So all that’s left to do, or rather forced to do, is to be patient. It’s hard. Satoru doesn’t do patient— he’s the type to snap his fingers and have a solution magically appear right before his eyes. You can only imagine how difficult it’s been for him to accept that he can’t immediately get what he wants right now.

Not to mention the fact that he had to continue working throughout all of this, but that wasn’t very surprising. 

Now, what was surprising was learning that he has his weekends completely to himself. If anything, he assumed he’d just work more as time went on, but no. Turns out he threatened to kill the higher-ups if they didn’t let him have that when you two got married. 

Satoru looks over your body once. 

Twice. 

He totally understands his future self. 

He looks again for a third time, and you just so conveniently turn around, showing off your cute, frilly little apron covered in flour streaks. 

It’s Sunday— you’ve been baking sweet treats all morning, and he wishes he had been a little nicer to you. Especially a couple of days ago when he snapped at you. 

You had found him sitting alone on the balcony, head in his hands from yet another day of failure. 

“Hey… any good news?”

“No,” he said impatiently. “If there was, I wouldn’t fucking be here right now.” 

“Fair enough.” Your voice took a dip as you looked at the ground, allowing yourself to feel a little hurt for a moment before trying to lift the mood again. “Well… me and Sai stopped by your favorite bakery and got you the cookies you like if you wanted some—“

“No— no,” Satoru cut you off. “I don’t want your fucking cookies. I don’t want to do a family movie night where all we watch is Ms. Rachel. I don’t want to read some book about a mouse trying to become a fucking painter over and over again. I don’t want ANY of it. I want to fucking go home— what part about that do you not get?”

You tried to stand as straight as possible despite your shoulders growing heavier, pushing against the small frown threatening to carve itself across your face. You forgot how mean he used to be, at least during that first year of dating him. It only stings more because the man you married would never raise his voice like that, and you remind yourself that this isn’t him.

After a long pause, he looked up at you and immediately felt guilt wash over him.

“I didn’t mean that,” he tried to meet your eyes as he began to backtrack. “I’m sorry, I just— fuck. I didn’t mean any of that—”

“It’s fine.” You forced yourself to look at him again and smile. “I’ll uh… give you some space.”

The one thing about Satoru is that he doesn’t apologize. Like ever. So, one could only imagine how painfully awkward it was later that night when he knocked on your bedroom door to say he was sorry. It didn’t help that you were in a paper-thin silk slip, skin glistening from the lotion you rubbed all over it— he spent half his time trying not to stare at your tits. Had you been anyone else, it wouldn’t have felt as genuine. 

But thank fuck he apologized, you probably would’ve spent all day ignoring him. 

You raise a brow, and his cheeks start to pink. “What are you staring at?” 

“Nothing, you just–” he awkwardly gestures at your entire body, “there’s flour all over you.” 

It almost sounds like he’s offended by it. He kind of is. You keep your foot on his fucking neck— he doesn’t even know why he came out here. 

“Oh, right— 'cause messes have always bothered you,” you lean over the island ever so slightly. The pink on his cheeks darkens as you do, unable to control his eyes from drifting down to your cleavage. And while he’s not exactly ashamed of looking— you are his wife after all— he can’t help but be a little flustered. 

He’s always had a thing for milfs.

Especially when said milf is talking about messes— he knows a couple of places he could make a mess on right now. 

“Nah,” he rests his elbows on the marble counter as a playful grin stretches across his face. “This is nothing compared to how I like it.”  

You tilt your head, a small laugh escaping you as you rest your chin over your palm, curious to see where this conversation will get you. 

“How do you like it?” you ask, as if you didn’t already know how filthy and depraved he could get when he’s alone in a room with you. 

And you fucking miss that. 

He opens his mouth to respond. 

Then you hear your daughter whimpering about waking up alone. It’s nothing new, and you revert back to mom mode as you watch her turn the corner and waddle towards you. 

Satoru, on the other hand, is not used to this. The slightly bruised laugh he lets out just barely masks his desire to fucking scream. What a fucking cockblock— no wonder you only have one kid. 

His kid completely ignores his existence as she wraps herself around your leg, continuing to whimper despite no actual tears streaming down her cheeks. “I had a nightmawh.”

Meanwhile, there’s Satoru, who has yet to wake up from his very own nightmare. He internally sighs, then attempts to grab her attention because it doesn’t feel very good watching her give it all to you. “You wanna share a muffin with daddy?”

It’s starting to sound more natural.

“Y-yeah,” she sniffles. 

Minutes later, she’s sitting on his lap, absolutely demolishing the blueberry muffin they ended up splitting— a complete 180. He couldn’t be mad, even if he tried. 

His little girl was a dream. 

—

Month two. Ijichi is still as useless as ever. He stopped complaining to you about him, though. You noticed he doesn’t talk about going back to his original timeline all that much anymore.

It’s not like Satoru’s given up hope, he’s just more present, as if he finally realized that wallowing in self-pity wasn’t going to send him back any faster. He’s unknowingly more like his future self— laid back, not a care in the world. 

He’s even sleeping in for once. It’s not that hard though when Sai’s gone for the day. She seemed to care more about getting the hell out of the house with her grandparents than greeting her father a good morning. You didn’t push her to, either— figuring Satoru needed the sleep. He always does. 

It’s too bad that his phone started blowing up at around 10:00 am. Unfortunately for you, he left his phone in the living room, leaving you to get up and grab it since the master bedroom was the closest room to it. With how thick the walls are, you doubt he’d even hear it.

With a long sigh, you rise from bed, rubbing the sleep off your eyes as you snatch the stupid phone off the coffee table. 

The snores coming from Satoru reach your ears before you even open the door. You have to hold back a laugh as you walk in and take a look at him. Face down, his long limbs sprawled over the bed, messy white hair sticking out in all directions. 

You reach out and place a gentle hand on his shoulder, surprised infinity is off. 

“Toru?” He stirs a bit, and you cautiously attempt to wake him up again. “Toru— someone’s been trying to call you for the past 10 minutes now.”

He lifts his head, eyes still sealed shut as he murmurs, “Who?” 

“Uhh,” you look at the screen, unsure of who it might be. “Your contact name for them is nerd.” 

You know it’s not Ijichi because his contact name is “courage 🐶” in his phone. Someone else must've annoyed Satoru for him to change yet another contact. 

Satoru shoves his head back into the pillow and groans before taking the phone off your hands.

It’s Nanami. He, of all people, should know now is not the time to be blowing up his phone right now because he is fucking sleeping. It’s a Saturday for fucks sake. 

Satoru sighs and accepts the call, grumbling into the phone. “What?”

Nanami cuts straight to the chase, as he would rather be doing anything else right now. 

“How long are you planning on hiding your secret from the higher-ups?” he asks in a clipped tone. 

Satoru rubs his eyes, too tired to return the same sense of urgency his friend seems to have at the moment. “Forever.”

“Don’t give me that.” A vein pops up on the side of the usually stoic man’s forehead. “They asked me about you this morning. They know something’s up. I can’t keep covering for you if it means my own safety’s on the line.”

“You really haven’t changed, have you?” It’s more of a statement than a question.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean—“

“You’ll be fine,” Satoru cuts him off. “They’re always up my ass anyway. I doubt they’re even suspicious. They just don’t know how to mind their own fuckin’ business. Seriously. You’re worrying over nothing right now.”

“I swear to god Gojo, if you—“

“Kay’ good night.” 

Click.

Nanami’s probably fuming right now, but he’ll get over it. Satoru wanted to enjoy this. Lying in a comfy bed, surrounded by nothing but peace and quiet. He closes his eyes and stretches a bit, then rests his hands behind his head. 

He would’ve forgotten that you were still sitting at the edge of the bed had you not lightly cleared your throat. One eye opens to look at you, then closes. The last thing he wants to do is share the reason why Nanami had been blowing up his phone all morning. 

“Just because you can’t see me doesn’t mean I’m not here.” You cross your arms. “What was that all about?” 

“Nothin’,” he easily says. “Just Nanami being Nanami— the guy’s a fuckin’ stickler for no reason.” 

“That’s a little rude, no?” you chastise him. 

“So is waking me up.” 

“Sai wakes you up all the time, though.”

“Sai’s a ball of sunshine,” he says, quickly coming to her defense. “Not a grown man with depression— where is she by the way?” 

“She’s spending the afternoon with my parents.” 

Both eyes open this time, and stay open. “Why didn’t you go with them?”

“No way,” you wave a hand. “I need a break, too.” 

“Yeah, no— I’m sure,” he agrees, feeling flustered all the sudden. 

And Satoru being Satoru, he doesn’t do a very good job of hiding it, once again forgetting that you can read him better than anyone else can.

You smile, scooching closer, “You good there?” 

“Yeah, m’fine,” he murmurs, trying not to shift around too much.

“I can take care of that, you know.” 

“What?” 

“That.” You look down at the boner he’s been trying to hide since finding out it’s just you two here.

“That’s not—“ His brain straight up short-circuits. “You don’t think that’s weird?” 

“No.” You continue to inch forward, getting closer to him. “Do you think it’s weird?”

“No— never,” he shakes his head, answering a little too fast. “Fuck— won’t future me get mad?” 

“Not at all. The most he’d probably do is make me show him what we did.” 

“Make you show him?” he repeats after you in disbelief. 

“Is that a problem?” 

“No, that’s— that’s fuckin’ hot.” 

Minutes later, you’re leaning forward with your hand wrapped around his base, and his breath catches as you start to slowly pump his cock. 

“Feel good?” 

His lids lower as he hums, “yeah— keep going.”

You lean forward, letting a string of spit fall from your lips to the tip of his cock, letting it mix with the precum that was already beading down from it. The wet sounds of you stroking him begin to grow, making the heat in between your legs start to pool.

“Can I sit on it?” You look up at him, batting your lashes as you innocently ask. 

“Please,” he blurts out, just about ready to start begging you to.

You’d be lying if you said you weren’t just as eager as him after all the weeks spent pretending like you don’t notice the way he stares at you. Lustfully. The slip you’re wearing happens to be extra short today, so you forego stripping down and practically pounce on him. Your soaked panties grazing over his rock-hard length as you straddle him, letting yourself get comfortable while Satoru grows impatient. 

His hands find themselves planted on your hips and pull you down. A low groan escapes him as he grinds you against him. “God— fuck me. Please.”

“Well, since you’re being so sweet—”

You reach down, hooking a finger into the fabric of your panties, pulling them to the side. He’s already lining himself up with your entrance, teasing your hole as he runs his tip through your folds, collecting all the slick. His lips part as he watches in awe at how damn wet you are. 

His head tips back as you lower yourself, groaning and rambling to himself as if you weren’t there to hear it all. 

"Fuck. You’re so hot.” His words come out strained as he watches you start to take him inch by inch, slowly working yourself open. “So fuckin’ tight, too.” 

“Mmm— forgot how big you are.” Your voice is all soft and breathy from the fullness, nails slowly digging into his abs as you bottom out.

It takes a minute to adjust— it has been 3 months after all. But then you finally roll your hips, and Satoru almost starts singing praises at how good you are at that—  lifting your hips all the way up and throwing them back, taking all of him. 

"Fuck yeah– just like that," he breathes, fingers digging into the flesh of your hips. "Feels so fucking good."

You murmur back a measly, “kay,” already dizzy from the stretch. You’re able to keep up the pace on your own for a bit, until you feel his grip on you tighten and the sounds of skin slapping against his start to grow as he starts to help you out. 

You wouldn’t exactly call it help though, not when he ended up doing all the work— holding you steady while he practically bounces you on his cock, pulling more and more moans out of you as the head of his cock repeatedly kissed your sweet spot with almost no effort. 

"You take it so good," he groans, pupils blown wide as he starts to feel himself lose control, snapping his hips up a little harder than the last. He wants more, he always wants more— so he pulls you forward and pulls your straps down far enough for your tits to spill out. "Perfect fuckin’ tits. Been thinking about these for weeks."

You let out a surprised gasp as he pops a nipple in his mouth with no warning. You fully believe him with the way he starts sucking and swirling and flicking his tongue over your sensitive bud, all while snapping his hips up harder. 

He pulls back with a pop, looking up at you for approval. “Was that good?”

“Mhm.” There’s a fucked out expression on your face as you weakly nod. “Harder.”

“You want me to fuck you harder?”

“Yeah.” 

Something in him snaps. Eager to please you, he flips you over and folds you underneath him— grabbing the back of your knees and pinning them to your chest so he can drive his cock into you deeper. 

“Better?”

He drives his hips forward again, knocking the air out of your lungs. “God— yes.”

“I can’t— fuck— can’t believe you’re all mine, can’t believe I get to have you,” he starts to ramble as the sounds of him absolutely pounding into you fill the room. “You’re so fuckin’ perfect— all of you.” 

He crashes his lips into yours— the kiss is messy, powered by hunger. Satoru’s always been overwhelming, but it’s been years since it’s been this emotionally intense. He fucks you like he needs you, like he’s been waiting for you all his life. 

Your walls begin to squeeze and flutter around his cock, pulling another groan out of him. “You close?”

“Yeah,” you whine, feeling the pressure begin to coil. “Keep going.”

He’s close too, you can tell by how sloppy his thrusts have grown, no longer trying to control himself as he starts chasing after both of your releases. He shoves his face into the crook of your neck and fucks you faster, harder— balls slapping against your ass with each lewd wet squelch. 

Your orgasm hits you hard after one particularly rough thrust. Scratching at his back as a cry tears through you, and it only goes straight to his dick, not even realizing just how overstimulated you are from the way he drills into you. 

“Fuck.” It’s just one word that comes out of his mouth after realizing how hard he’s about to fucking cum. He bites into your shoulder as his balls start to tighten, squeezing his eyes shut as he braces himself. 

When it happens, it’s a lot. He shoves himself deep inside of you, unaware of all the weight he puts on you as hot spurts of cum begin to flood your walls. Slowly grinding against you, letting your tight pussy milk the rest of him. 

You’re wrecked by the end of it. You both are— lids tired and heavy, bodies sore and out of breath.

And in the end, you just let yourself fall asleep, unaware of the soft kiss pressed against your temple as he watched you.

—

It’s month three, and Satoru doesn’t want to go back. 

What was the point? It’s not like he had anyone or anything to go back to. Jujutsu Society never crumbled from him getting shot into the future. Would it really be that bad if he just never went back and continued on with his life from here?

He hasn’t uttered a word about it out loud, but the way he completely stopped asking Yaga and Ijichi for updates was telling of where he was at mentally.  

Acceptance. 

He likes his life here. 

You’ve come to your own conclusion after these last three months.

No wonder why he was so hot and cold when you were trying to get to know him. Satoru got a little taste of genuine comfort, only for it to be ripped away from him sometime before you two actually met. It explains all the times you wondered why he even tried with you, despite being too emotionally inept to even be in a relationship. He probably went through the beginning of your relationship thinking you could disappear at any second. 

With that being said, he can’t stay here. As much as you’d love to continue being the source of comfort for this version of Satoru, he needs to experience the last year he spent alone before meeting you. He needs to feel cautious around you. He needs to try and fail at opening up a handful of times before getting comfortable with the idea of truly being vulnerable with a person. Getting over that element of fear he had towards getting close to others is what made him a husband and father— he couldn’t just skip that part of his life. 

You have no idea how you’re going to tell him that, though. You’re not one to kick a sick puppy, especially one as cute as him. He’s so happy here with you and Sai that the thought of doing so makes your chest ache. 

He’s having a tea party with Sai right now, limbs way too long to sit in the little stool she pulled up for him to sit in. He drinks imaginary tea from the plastic pink cup she hands him, and your chest aches some more. You force yourself to look away before the tears start. 

You’d do the next 11 years all over again if you could.

“Hey, Honey?” Satoru calls out to you.

There’s a pause before you whip your head around— it’s been months since he’s called you that. There’s nothing but warmth and fondness in his eyes as his gaze meets yours. “Why is Nanami’s number saved under ‘nerd’ in my phone?”

He’s back.

“I don’t know,” you laugh, despite the tear falling down your cheek. “You tell me.”

—

Satoru didn’t want to believe it when everything around him went dark once again. It’s not until his feet touch the ground with a soft thud and he finds himself back in his messy, cold dorm when reality slapped him across the face.

Something between a sob and a gut-wrenching scream rips from his throat. Grabbing the round shades he had hoped he’d never have to fucking wear again, he rips them off his face and sends it crashing into the wall, breaking into a hundred little pieces. He doesn’t stop. Doesn’t give himself a chance to even breathe or think before raising his hand and releasing a purple orb with just a flick of his fingers. 

Impulsive. Reckless. Deadly. 

Satoru was fucking devastated. 

Nobody knew what triggered him that night. All they knew was that the east wing of the school looked like it had been hit by an asteroid by the time he calmed down. He didn’t speak to anyone for a good two weeks following the incident. Everyone wants to think he was lucky the explosion didn’t have any casualties, but then they remembered who he was: Satoru fucking Gojo. 

God’s don’t get punished, nor do natural disasters— it’s hard to tell which one he was at this point. 

One Year Later

“If it’s that small of a curse, why are you sending me there?” Satoru continues to argue with one of the new managers over the phone. 

It wasn’t that small of a curse. It was a grade one. But still, given the sorcerer’s title as a special grade, he was overqualified for the job. 

“I’m sorry, we just don’t have anyone available to take on the case at the moment.” The young woman continues to apologize over the phone. “I think we might have a grade 3 available for the job. I- I can check—”

“Save it.” Satoru cuts her off. He wasn’t that heartless to push the case off to some 15 year old. That’s exactly how Haibara died. “Send me the address.” 

The mission was nothing short of an inconvenience for him. He liked a challenge when exorcising curses, and the damn thing didn’t even put up a fucking fight. He traveled 2 hours to get here just for that? Unbelievable. 

He wasn’t ready to leave and sit on a train for another 2 hours just yet, so he decided to walk around the town for a bit. 

It was a cute place, a little quiet. Kinda boring. That’s never a bad thing, though. Lots of mom and pop shops, a few coffee shops scattered around, one of which he decided to try. A little sugar’s always good, at least to him. 

The smell of vanilla and roasted coffee beans hit him as he walked into the place. There was a decent amount of customers inside. Not too much to feel crowded, but enough to stay busy. He keeps his eyes on the menu the entire time. The line moves fast, and he figures out what he wants just in time. 

“And what can I get started for you today?”

His eyes are still on the screen, reading the item off the menu.

“Can I get a white chocolate mocha frappuccino, with an extra pump of…” his words die out, and his eyes widen as he finally looks at the girl taking his order. “Hey.”

“Hi.” You laugh at the way this stranger loses his train of thought. “Extra pump of white chocolate syrup?”

“Yeah.” He exhales, unable to rip his eye off you as you write the words down on the plastic cup with a sharpie. 

“Name for the order?”

“Go– Satoru,” he corrects himself. “It’s Satoru.”

He’s a little awkward, but you still find him quite charming and smile. “Alright, Satoru. Your order should be ready in about 10 minutes.”

“Awesome. Thanks,” he nods rather pathetically, then goes to sit in an empty corner of the shop with only one thought in mind: 

He has 10 minutes to come up with what to say to get your number.