author’s note. mitski was spitting bars in two slow dancers frrrr

it was late at night, the lights were down low. your only source being a warm lamp and the moon shining on the both of you like spotlight.

you were dancing together in the middle of your living room with two slow dancers playing in the background, soaking in each other’s presence in the most intimate way.

the world seemed to have fallen asleep, leaving you the only ones on the planet. like it rotated for you guys and you only.

kento held you tightly against him, wanting to merge his body with yours and in response, you held him just as tight. because maybe if you held him tight enough, you would merge.

he and everything about him engulf you whole. his presence, his warmth, the steady beat of his heart.

“mmm, this is nice,” you hum, breaking the comfortable silence that settled in the air between you both. “yes, it is.”

kento wonders how lucky he got with you, with someone so loving and understanding and has such a kind nature. he was glad to have chosen you to spend his lifetime with you.

“i love you, darling,” he continues, “i know i don’t say it much because i would rather show you that with my actions, but i love you. so much, i love you more than life.”

you feel your eyes getting damp. you sniffle quietly, “i love you too, ken. i love you so much.”

his hand moves from the middle of your back to the crown of your hair, caressing it softly. he kisses your hair tenderly it almost makes you cry even more.

he was yours and you were his. neither of you would have it any other way.

All of the anger around me lately has been fascinating to watch.

Watching people with the musical imagination of drywall explain performance to me, world building to me, tension to me, when every single thing I do is intentional. Every movement is intentional. Every uncomfortable moment is intentional. Some of you are confusing discomfort with bad art, and history has made a lot of people look unbelievably stupid for making that mistake too early.

But I forgive you.

I understand.

I know this is difficult for some of you because the performance was never designed to entertain people who think subtlety is a technical issue.

The level of confidence people have while misunderstanding something in real time is honestly incredible.

But I forgive you.

I understand.

What I’ve realised lately is that a lot of you do not actually hate young bulls, ambition, experimentation, genius or disruption.

You hate the emotional experience of encountering something before your brain has received social permission to understand it. If enough people clap first, suddenly you “always got it.” But being early requires a kind of mental independence most of the internet fundamentally does not possess.

Which is fine.

I forgive you.

I understand.

I’ve made peace with the fact that some minds are decorative.

I know you want reassurance. I know you want the feeling of immediately understanding something the first time you see it so you can feel intelligent without having to evolve at all. So when something genuinely foreign appears in front of you something too sharp, too alive, too unfamiliar to fit inside the little templates you use to process art you call it terrible because confusion is easier to admit than limitation.

And that’s okay.

I forgive you.

I understand.

I understand that some of your entire understanding of music begins and ends with whether you can nod to it immediately.

I genuinely underestimated how threatening it would feel for some of you to watch somebody become better than your favourite artist in real time. That is my fault.

There’s almost a grief process to it.

Denial first. Then anger. Jokes. Insults. Fake concern. Then eventually acceptance once enough time passes and your favourite artist starts borrowing from the same thing you swore you hated six months earlier. Then suddenly people begin describing the influence retroactively like they weren’t laughing two business quarters ago.

But I forgive you.

I understand.

I don’t take any of it personally because this exact thing happens every single time culture encounters somebody operating too far ahead.

And I’m not saying any of this from insecurity either, which I know makes people even more uncomfortable. I genuinely believe I am one of the most important artists alive right now. Not “will be.”

Am.

And I know the problem isn’t that I think that. The problem is that somewhere underneath all the outrage, a lot of you man can feel why I think it.

So I forgive you.

I understand.

I know some of you desperately want this to be a joke because it would make the whole thing easier to dismiss.

Unfortunately, I mean every word.

Being hated this loudly while refusing to become more normal is one of the strongest indicators I’ve ever seen that I’m doing something correct.

Mediocrity does not create this level of emotional instability in strangers. Nobody has ever lost sleep over somebody being decent.

So I’ll continue watching people with the attention span of fruit flies try to process something that was never made for instant approval in the first place.

I forgive you.

I understand.

take a look at Satoru's life after his wife passed.

꒰ angst, wife!f!reader, major character death, grief/mourning, loss, hurt no comfort i guess, satoru's in denial, wc 1.3k, art by 5booosa on twt! ꒱

MONDAY ⋆˚࿔ mess.

a day after your passing, the apartment is still exactly as you left it.

it happened too fast.

too fast that even Satoru still expected to hear your footsteps somewhere inside the apartment.

he'd pause in the middle of the living room because he heard you moving around. sometimes it was the faint creak of the floorboards that made his head turn instinctively.

the apartment still looked like you.

your cardigan remains draped over the couch, your mug still sits on the table, your book lies face-down on the bedside table, and your shoes are still waiting by the front door.

Satoru tried cleaning it yesterday.

tried.

he picked up your cardigan, his fingers tightening around the soft, warm fabric before stopping himself. for a long moment, he stood there staring at it, because the faint scent of your perfume still lingered.

and suddenly, it felt like he was erasing the evidence that you were ever here.

So he put it back exactly where he found it. and since then, the apartment remained untouched.

he stepped around your things carefully. the stuff you left had become something sacred for him. proof that you lived here, that your presence once filled the apartment.

maybe that's why Satoru couldn't bring himself to clean the mess you left behind.

TUESDAY ⋆˚࿔ dinner for two.

dinner used to be loud.

you used to fill the apartment with noise. complaints about his eating habits, stories at work, your laugh echoing from the kitchen while Satoru cooks for you.

now, it's silence that sat across him.

Satoru arrived home late, exhaustion heavy in his bones. The apartment greeted him with darkness, unchanged from the night before.

he lets out a sigh, he should eat.

he strides to the counter, setting down the takeout he picked up on the way home, barely paying attention to what he ordered.

he busies himself unpacking the food, ignoring the way his chest tightens whenever he sees your belongings still scatterred around the apartment.

containers placed on the table, drinks set down carefully.

drinks?

Satoru paused. his eyes lingered on the second drink, condensation slowly sliding down the plastic. it's your favorite, extra ice, extra creamy, sweet, exactly how you like it.

the realization came slowly. he bought your order.

a tired laugh escaped him, soft and humorless. somewhere between grief and routine, his body still moved like you existed beside him.

Satoru stared at the untouched drink and the container of your favorite food for a long moment before finally sitting down. the chair across him stayed empty while the food slowly turned cold.

despite knowing better, some part of him still fohnd itself listening to footsteps that never came.

WEDNESDAY ⋆˚࿔ laundry.

the washing machine runs long past midnight.

Satoru sits on the floor silently, leaning back on his arms while the quiet hum fills the laundry room.

he should've done this before.

instead, the laundry basket had sat abandoned in the corner until it's overflowing. his shirt tangled with yours, your socks caught between his uniform, an evidence of life that once fit together.

now that he thinks about it, Satoru reaches into the basket again, pulling your hoodie.

his favorite one, or it used to be.

it was his, but you stole it months ago and never gave it back. he remembers pretending to be annoyed while you laughed, god he misses your laughter.

the hoodie was too big you looked like a burrito, sleeves hanging past your hands as you wandered around the apartment wearing it.

the memory settles painfully in his chest.

Satoru just stares at the hoodie resting on his lap while the washing machine continues spinning in front of him.

he pulls the hoodie closer unconsciously, eyes shutting briefly as if he can still find your trace somewhere in the fabric.

but your scent is fading away, little by little.

THURSDAY ⋆˚࿔ voicemail.

Satoru finds the voicemail by accident, while he was scrolling through his call logs.

he's not even looking for it.

the voicemail was sent two weeks ago, twelve seconds long.

Satoru stares at the screen longer than he should, thumb hovering the play button.

he doesn't remember missing your call. but maybe he was on a mission, or asleep, or he saw your name but ignored it with the thought that he'll call you back later.

that makes something twist uncomfortably in his chest.

without any further thinking, he presses play.

"Satoruuu," you sigh dramatically, amusement in your tone. "Where are you? Pick up your phone for once!"

his breath catches, he doesn't even notice that he's crying until a tear slips past his jaw.

Satoru's grip tightens instantly.

your voice continues playing softly through the speaker as Satoru plays it over and over again. he sits there motionless, shoulders tense.

he presses the heel of his hand against his eyes, laughing under his breath despite the tears slipping past his lashes.

you sounded so alive. Satoru could almost picture you standing somewhere in the apartment, phone pressed to your ear while waiting for him to call back.

the apartment remain silent except for your voice looping endlessly through his speaker.

at some point, Satoru lowers his head into one head, letting out a quiet sob, his phone still clutched tightly in the other.

FRIDAY ⋆˚࿔ tell her.

Yuji said something ridiculous mid-conversation, like always, dramatic enough that Satoru laugh despite himself.

his hand hovers over his pocket instinctively, ready to text you about something ridiculous Yuji had said earlier.

but his motion stops halfway.

right, no one's waiting for my texts anymore. slowly, Satoru's expression falls.

the noise around him fades while the realization settles in his chest.

no unread messages from you. no more ridiculous emojis you loved spamming him with. no teasing replies. no nothing.

just an empty chat sitting pinned at top of his phone.

the students continue talking around him, unaware of the way grief is slowly eating Satoru alive. he stares ahead blankly, jaw tightening slightly as he forces himself back into the present.

it's strange how something so small still catches him off guard.

SATURDAY ⋆˚࿔ your name.

Satoru isn't paying attention at first, half-listening to Shoko ramble as he sips quietly at his morning tea.

then someone says your name.

not you. just another person with the same name somewhere across the hall.

but Satoru reacts anyway. his head lifts instantly, his attention snapping toward the voice.

wrong person, of course.

hope is cruel like that.

Shoko notices immediately, her eyes flicker toward him briefly, something knowing passing through her expression before she looks away again.

Satoru laughs softly under his breath, rubbing a hand along the back of his neck.

"Can't even hear your name normally anymore," he mutters quietly, hoping that Shoko doesn't hear it.

Satoru finds himself getting terrified of forgetting it someday, forgetting your name.

so later that night, standing alone in the living room beneath dim lights, Satoru says your name out loud just to hear it exist somewhere again.

SUNDAY ⋆˚࿔ grief is.. weird.

grief is.. weird. really.

that's the thought sitting in Satoru's head at three in the morning while he stands in the kitchen, staring at the refrigerator light spilling.

not devastating. just.. weird.

people talk about grief like it's something dramatic, like it should always look obvious.

but it's not, at least for Satoru.

sometimes he still talks out loud before remembering you aren't there to answer. sometimes he catches himself moving aside in crowded space for you. once, he almost called you at work because he wanted to hear your voice.

the strangest part is that the world keeps moving anyway.

sun still rises, students complain, people still laugh loudly on crowded streets like nothing important has been lost.

meanwhile, Satoru feels stuck between memory and reality.

your cardigan still hangs on the couch, your book still rests unfinished on the table.

Satoru exhales softly before leaning back against the counter, exhaustion flooding back.

even now, after everything, some stubborn part of him still hoped that you'll come back someday.