indie

“Her favorite color was blue,” Gojo blurted out, and Choso felt his eye twitch. Mouth barely able to hold onto thin neutrality as he resisted reacting. 

“When I was with her, it was purple,” he evenly replied, pushing off the ground to stand up straight. You wouldn’t even let him paint the kids bathroom blue. Skipped every shade of it to pluck out a soft lavender, smiling as you offered it to him. 

“Well, I guess you just know her so much better than I do,” Gojo scoffed, white brows pinching together tightly as he walked over to place his flowers by Choso’s.

It was hard not to cringe. 

Jealousy used to burn him up inside, gnaw at him endlessly at night no matter what you whispered or how tightly he held you in his arms. But now, seeing the man who was responsible for it teetering on a knife’s edge, miserably mourning your memory the same way he was, just sorta made all those harsh edges of his own hurt soften with unexpected sympathy. 

“She wouldn’t want you to waste the rest of your life waiting by-” 

“You don’t know that,” Gojo snapped at him, before immediately wincing, probably realizing how he sounded. “That was childish, I’m-” 

“Don’t worry about it,” Choso waved it off. 

Truthfully, he didn’t know what he’d do if he was in his shoes. 

Except for maybe not leaving to start with. 

“I used to be terrified I’d wake up one day and you’d be waiting at the front door,” he added, not sure if being candid would help him any, or if it just felt good to get it off his chest. 

“I wish I was,” Gojo openly admitted, defined jaw clenched tight. 

Up close, Choso could make out the curve of his cheekbones, a little too hollow to be healthy. A haunted quality etched into every line, every feature of his face. Not getting enough to eat. Probably not getting enough sleep either. 

Struggling to cope with his new circumstances.

Displaced in time and space.

And still there was one thing they both had in common. 

“I miss her,” Choso softly spoke, throat constricting as a lump started to take shape, blocking his breathing as he steeled himself. He wouldn’t cry. Not here. Not in front of him. 

“Yeah,” Gojo awkwardly agreed. “Me too.” 

“Do you want to go out for lunch later? Talk about her?” He offered, shoving down his own discomfort to extend an olive branch. 

Hope blooming when Gojo hesitantly accepted it, nodding with just a short bob of his head. 

“Can you bring some photos of her?” 

And a couple hours later, they were sitting across from each other in a corner booth of a restaurant he used to take the twins and Yuji to with you, plates pushed to the side as they poured over photo albums, fingers tracing over the glossy plastic protecting your pictures. 

Choso paused over an old one, back when the two of you first started dating, where you were sandwiched between Apollo and Artemis, smiling at him from behind a snowcone in a roller skating rink. It was supposed to be a playdate for the kids, but it kinda felt like one for him too. Holding your hand skating, making conversation over the loud bass of the obnoxious music blaring, and blushing when you nearly fell and sent him tumbling down on top of you. He could still remember that flutter in his chest when he helped you up, your fingers gripping onto his forearm and his own splayed across your side, lovestruck at the way you looked up at him with those pretty eyes, a temporary tattoo of a butterfly stuck to the bottom half of your cheek courtesy of Artemis and crinkled when you laughed. 

He didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone so gorgeous. 

Snapping photos of your side profile and the kids racing around the arcade section, glued to your side and feeling like a dumb dog lapping up every little sliver of affection you tossed down to him. 

Devouring every ounce of it, feeling like he’d been stuck in a drought, wandering in a desert without you as he watched you help Yuji calculate how many tickets he’d need to get a ridiculous stuffed animal from behind the prize counter, Apollo tugging at your pants and pleading for you to play air hockey with him after Artemis went back to skating. 

It had been a good day. 

A great one. 

The five of you together had felt like a family far before you actually became one. 

“They look like they’re having fun,” Gojo muttered, tapping the picture of the little boy who looked so much like him. 

It was strange, honestly, a little uncomfortable how much Apollo had grown up to resemble him.

And now Apollo was older than him, his dad damn near the spitting image as him at that age. 

Not that he’d admit it. 

No, his stepson had done everything he could to diminish the similarities, running as far from his dad’s shadow as he could while his sister found the light in it. 

“We had just started dating back then,” Choso wistfully exhaled, reminiscing about how naive he’d been back then. 

How easy things had been. 

Artemis had filled your former fiancé on the basics. A rough history lesson on the years he’d spent in space. A vague outline of your life since he left. 

But he didn’t know how much Gojo really knew.

“You seem pretty close,” Gojo commented, his mouth pressed in a thin line as he flipped the page to a photo Mrs. Geto had snapped of the five of you at a soccer game, Apollo still in his uniform and beaming at the camera while you leaned into his side for the shot. 

“It, uh, was a little rocky,” he admitted. “Mostly because she was still in love with you.” 

And you had been terrified of falling out of it. 

“I think she was scared of falling for me too,” Choso added, leaning back against the leather seat, still able to shut his eyes and bring himself back to the first night he confronted you about it. 

Standing in your kitchen, putting plates in the dishwasher as you wiped the crumbs off the table, all three kids watching a movie in the living room, throwing popcorn at each other and giggling while you cleaned up after dinner. 

Another night where everything had revolved entirely around the kids, picking up after them and playing, breaking up their bickering or dragging them around from place to place. 

He had felt like a fucking asshole for having any kind of complaints, but when the most the two of you managed was a handful of makeout sessions you had to sneak in, a brief foray to second base that ended in less than a minute when Artemis burst into the bedroom crying about a skinned knee, frustration had begun to build. 

Choso didn’t mind waiting, if that was what you wanted. 

Taking however much time you needed if the idea of being intimate was still too much. 

But you weren’t saying anything. Avoiding the conversation every time he tried to bring it up, switching subjects or shifting back to the kids like you were searching for an excuse not to be close with him. 

To not move to the next step together. 

He wanted to take you on real dates. To spend time with you one-on-one. Be a couple instead of just coparents. 

“Can we talk?” Choso cleared his throat, shutting the dishwasher and fixing the settings without looking over at you. 

“Yeah?” He could tell you were nervous already, voice cracking on just a single word. 

“I, uh, just was thinking that we haven’t gone on a real date, y’know?” He started, peeking back at you just to see how stiff you were suddenly standing, shoulders squared as your mouth parted in surprise. 

“I mean, I guess,” you awkwardly replied, biting your bottom lip as you avoided his stare, turning your attention away, and he could already anticipate how many seconds he had left before you’d offer to check on the children or change the topic.

“Are you avoiding being alone with me?” He bluntly asked, a tiny bit stunned himself at the way the words just fell out of him. 

“No, no,” you stammered it out, repeating yourself as you shook your head. “It’s just, it’s hard to find time with the kids, it’s not you-”

It was the fact he wasn’t actually their father. 

But he didn’t say that. Didn’t bring him up. 

“I don’t want to rush you,” he tried to clarify, stepping closer and reaching out. Desperate to feel some kind of connection even when he suspected he might only end up freaking you out. “If you’re not-”

“What if I, um, ask Suguru’s mom to watch all of them next weekend?” You offered before he could explain his concerns, cutting him off with the words he wanted to hear.

“You’d do that?” Choso asked, heart thumping against his rib cage as he contained the hope he’d been clinging onto since the first day he met you.

“Yeah,” you nodded, smiling at him softly as he ran his hand over your arm, leaning in to press a kiss to your forehead.

He hadn’t looked then. 

But part of him wondered now, what he would’ve seen if he had. Would the smile reach your eyes? 

Still, you kept your word. 

Dropped all three of them off to be babysat for the night a week later, got all dressed up in a little purple dress that left him swallowing his drool throughout the entire dinner, clumsily opening doors for you and paying the check despite his dismal teaching salary. 

You laughed at his jokes, leaned across the table and let him trace circles over your knuckles with his thumb over white wine. 

Choso didn’t go on dates often. 

But he hadn’t met anyone who made him feel like you did. Warm and fuzzy and frustrated and so entirely wrapped up in every word that left your lips that it was driving him mad.

Practically vibrating just from your touch, the way your fingers delicately intertwined with his when you led him back up to your front door, electricity he might just be imagining buzzing between your body as his as you leaned back against the the frame, giggling when you accidentally bumped into the bell. 

He could see that nervous glimmer in your eyes. 

Shared his own sea of anxiety over how tonight would end when everything inside him was aching for it not to. 

“So,” you started, sucking in your bottom lip for a second as your unsure stare met his.“Are you gonna come in?” 

Choso felt like he was going to black out.

Sure that he was going to blink and wake back up in his bed. Alone. Exhausted. Craving you so goddamn much he could hardly contain it. 

And before he could hold himself back, he was cupping your pretty face and kissing those lips that constantly lingered in the back of his brain. 

The rest was a blur. You kissing him back and looping your wrists around his neck. Shutting the door behind both of you and stumbling back to your bedroom, clothes hitting the floor while his chest strained to catch his breath. 

And when your back hit the bed, he was sure this had to be heaven. 

“You’re so fucking gorgeous, god, I can’t fucking believe you’re mine-” He didn’t even realize he was rambling until your mouth collided with his again, your soft thighs wrapping around his waist as his cock pressed up against your entrance.

You were already wet, which felt like far more of an accomplishment than it should. 

Pride sparking in his chest as his pre-cum unhelpfully leaked out onto your skin. 

“Condoms are, um, in my drawer,” you blinked when you broke the kiss, swallowing hard as you tilted your head towards your nightstand. 

“Okay,” he nodded, a little too eagerly as he climbed off to grab it, yanking open the drawer to find a sealed box. 

Brand new. 

Did you actually buy it for him? 

Or was he being delusional? 

He ripped open the top flap, but before he put one on, he looked back at you, feeling a little bit like an idiot for thinking with his dick instead of his brain. 

How could he forget about foreplay? 

Choso tossed a condom on the bed, walking back around to the edge of it before getting on his knees and yanking you down by your thighs until that pretty pussy of yours was right there in front of him. 

Ready to be prepared. 

“Can I taste you first?” He asked, not entirely selfless in his request. 

He wanted to bury his tongue inside you. Get the whole experience rather than rush into it and risk cumming in just a couple clumsy minutes. 

You nodded, maybe a little unsure yourself. 

As rusty at this as he was. 

You had confided in him before you hadn’t dated anyone since him. But Choso had no clue whether or not you’d actually been with someone else – even if it was just a hookup. 

His fingers trembled as they slid over your pliable thighs, pulling them closer as he shyly leaned in to tentatively take his first lick. 

But all it took was a taste. 

And a handful of minutes later, he was nuzzling his nose as he sucked and lapped like a man starved, cock throbbing and twitching as he resisted the urge to cum every time you moaned and whined for him. 

Pausing to ask if you were okay a couple times before he got too tangled up in balancing your pleasure and his. 

Your fingers laced through his hair, tugging at his roots to keep him going, thighs clamping down on his head as he swirled his tongue around hungrily. 

It honestly felt like a crime you’d kept it from him for so long. 

He could spend the entire night like this. 

Solely devoted to you. 

Trying out every little thing, pushing and pressing and prodding at every spot inside you until he made a map of your likes and dislikes. 

But you were prying him off, ignoring his deep whine as his glossy lips froze in a panicked pant, ready to plead his case to convince you to let him have a teesny more time. 

“Are you alright?” He asked, swallowing hard as his own saliva and your slick dripping down his throat. Pretending he didn’t notice the rings gleaming around your neck, the diamond one you’d switched from your fourth finger to a dainty chain. Daring him to remember that you weren’t supposed to be his. 

“I-I’m fine,” you murmured, chest heaving with every breath, making the necklace bounce with it. “Good.” 

“Please,” he began to beg, brows knitted together tight. Desperate to make you his. For tonight, at least. “I just want-” 

“I want all of you,” you half-whispered, like you could hardly believe it. 

He couldn’t either. 

Brain still lagging by the time he was sheathing his cock inside the condom, squirting lube on his hand and stroking his shaft before slowly starting to slip his way in you. 

No resistance. No more holding back. No more hoping for something he didn’t know would ever happen. 

Just you and him here together. 

It was perfect. 

You were perfect. 

Your warmth, your touch, your scent, god, every last detail was far better than he ever dreamed it.

His thrusts were precise, dragging in and out all slow and deliberate so he could study the way your face scrunched up in pleasure, watch your lips part and purr his name like a prayer. 

“C-Cho,” you groaned, raking your nails down his shoulder blades, not enough to sink into his skin, but more like a soft graze. 

“Y-you like that?” He stuttered over his own words, not coming off nearly as confident as he liked. 

You were nodding, your head on a bobble as your mascara-laden lashes fluttered. 

He was shuddering, whimpering right as his cock pressed all the way in, bumping into the back as your walls squeezed down on him. 

Nothing had ever felt so good. 

He wasn’t sure anything ever would again. 

Fucking you all soft, hips sliding smoothly against you, grabbing your hands and pinning them over your head so he could kiss you as much as he liked. Tongue slipping into your mouth, tracing your teeth, exchanging whines just for the other to swallow. 

Pressure building and twisting in his core, terrible tension he couldn’t resist, trying to break him before he could make you finish. 

Rushing to rub your clit, murmuring into your mouth and practically begging you to cum for him. 

You were hurting. 

He still thought he could heal you. 

Intoxicated by your face when you unravelled for him, cumming into the condom twice as hard as usual hearing your breathy moan, half-collapsing on you as his knees went weak. 

Choso might’ve been more embarrassed if he wasn’t so enticed by every little shiver and shake of your body, absolutely enveloped while he left kiss after kiss across your soft skin.

Talking to you in a soft voice, pulling your body back up the bed and flipping over so you could be on his chest. 

It didn’t take long for you to drift off like that. 

He didn’t blame you. 

Between work and the twins, you barely had time to take care of yourself. You rarely got restful sleep. 

He was feeling it call to him too. 

Peace. Contentment. 

Heat lingering underneath his cheek as he held you close, brushing your hair back from your face as you dreamed. Your mouth curled up, a pretty smile reflexively forming as your fingers tightened around his side. 

Some sliver of him sort of wanted to wake you, to ask what occupied your mind when you slept so soundly. But he just craned his neck down to nuzzle his nose in your hair, pulling you up another inch or two closer to cradle your body against his. 

And then you said it and shattered the illusion completely. 

“Satoru.” 

One sleepy word. Three soft syllables. 

And you broke him in a way he wasn’t sure he could repair. 

He stilled beneath you, heart lodged in his throat as he resisted the urge to throw it up. Flush it down the fucking toilet as he tried to lie to himself. 

Swear that you didn’t mean it – even if your subconscious did. 

That he wasn’t even here. 

But fuck, that look on your face, so relaxed, so raw, it made something inside him snap. 

What the hell was he thinking? 

He couldn’t do this. 

Slowly, he slipped out from underneath you, making sure to tuck the pillow under your head and cover your bare body back up with the blanket before he padded silently over to his discarded clothes. 

Choso couldn’t take just being your consolation prize. 

But the idea of going home and never coming back to you felt pretty fucking unbearable too. 

He didn’t want you to know he felt like this either.  

Hated the idea of you seeing him spiral into doubt. 

His feelings were his responsibility. He couldn’t put anything else on you – be another burden on your shoulders. He just needed time. 

Yeah, that was it. To think this through. 

Figure out if you were really ready for this. If he was ready to be what you needed while knowing he wasn’t who you needed. 

Choso had only managed to get his socks and boxers back on when he heard rustling behind him. 

You were sitting up and staring, eyes wide and worried as you watched him wordlessly. 

“I need to get Yuji,” he lied, sweat sticking to his forehead and plastering his bangs down as you blinked at him. 

“Why?” 

One word, and he nearly cracked. Changed his mind and caved in. “I forgot that we’re supposed to go see Sukuna in the morning,” he excused, shrugging his shoulders. “I should probably pick him up and head home.” 

“You’re going home?” Your voice was wound tight, but you didn’t call his bluff. 

“I should, yeah,” he muttered. 

You didn’t fight him on it. 

Just covered yourself with the blanket as you got up to grab some clean clothes from the closet. Not looking directly at him when you got dressed, mumbling under your breath that you’d let Suguru’s mother know you were picking the kids up as you sent her a text message. 

She answered the door with a soft smile for both of you, murmuring that the kids were still asleep as she let both of you in. 

“I’ll go get them,” you yawned, walking past her – and all the framed photos of men who weren’t around anymore. 

“Would you like some tea while she wakes them up?” 

Choso always had trouble saying no. 

Ending up in the kitchen, a deep line imprinting on his palms from the bite of the sharp counter’s edge as she poured him some fresh tea. 

She glanced up at him with tired eyes, holding out a steaming cup he timidly took. She wasn’t a fool. Probably figured it out from your text alone that something was up. 

“Can I ask you something?” He started, readjusting to lean against the kitchen cabinets as he looked at the ticking clock on the wall. 

“Of course,” she nodded, a fondness in her gaze that he knew wasn’t reserved for him either. 

You had told him about her son. Your fiancé’s friend. 

Commenting quietly a month after he had met her that you thought he reminded her of him.

“Do you think I’m wasting my time?” He asked, keeping his voice down as he felt all the muscles in his face involuntarily clench. Mouth twitching in a tight line as he voiced the thought haunting his mind. 

Was he just a moron for standing here wishing for someone who didn’t want him back? 

He didn’t want to be a placeholder. 

“Wasting your time doing what? Waiting for her to stop loving Satoru? Or for her to start loving you?” She asked, tilting her head to the side knowingly. 

His mouth opened, but no sounds came out. 

Unsure what question he really was trying to ask once she said the silent parts out loud. 

“She’s never going to stop loving Satoru,” Mrs. Geto calmly said, no malice or condescension, just stating a fact Choso already knew. “But you’d have to be blind to not see how far she’s fallen for you.” 

He hoped she was right. 

Would rip his heart out of his chest and hand it to you if it made it true. 

Artemis stumbled in first, sleepily rubbing her eyes and clutching a stuffed animal to her chest as the boys trailed in after her. You were behind them, but you weren’t looking at him. 

“What’s happening?” Apollo grumbled, leaning all his weight against your leg as Yuji scampered over to his big brother. 

“We’re going home,” you answered, your voice coming out all breathy, familiar heat still curling hot in his stomach just at your pitch . “And Yuji’s going home with Choso.” 

“But I thought we were-” 

“No buts,” you huffed, wrangling your kids towards the door without looking at him once. 

He knew that he might’ve screwed things up. 

Still, he didn’t think it would still be so tense a full week later. 

That when he didn’t text you good morning, you wouldn’t either. No more dinners for five. Or carpooling to school. No more cozying up on your couch while the kids fell asleep halfway through a bad movie. 

The distance didn’t make him feel any better. 

It only made him miss you more. 

Staring at the stars outside his window and wishing that he was home with you. Even if there would always be a ghost haunting its halls. Looming over the two of you no matter how much love he had to offer you. 

Was the man you loved before him still out there somewhere? 

Craving you the way he was now? 

Sympathy he hadn’t anticipated surged inside him, daring him to fully empathize with someone he wanted to hate. 

But he couldn’t hate him. 

And he couldn’t stop himself from loving you. 

So he sent you a text Saturday morning, typing and deleting a variation of the same ten words before finally hitting send.

He wasn’t lying when he said that Yuji missed the twins. Choso just didn’t know how to tell you how much he missed you too. 

But you replied back that he could bring him over if he wanted, and he refused to miss the chance to reconcile. To fix things before they ended up broken. 

Choso thought you might be a little upset. Confused by the sudden space between you. 

But you barely even glance at him when you opened the door, speaking only to Yuji as you directed him to the backyard, nodding along to his endless chirping about what he learned in school yesterday before he ran out to join the twins. 

The morning sun wasn’t too harsh yet, your side profile illuminated in the soft rays as you stepped out with them, wearing one of your favorite faded shirts he suspected belonged to him, the chain of your necklace peeking out underneath the color. 

“Are you going to say it?” You broke the silence, your stare focused solely on Yuji and Apollo chasing each other and laughing. 

“Say what?” He repeated, running his fingers through his hair, attempting to not sound as nervous as he felt. 

You scoffed, low and soft, your mouth curling down as you looked down at the grass around your bare feet. 

“I guess this is it then?” You asked, refusing to so much as glance his way. Leaning against the wall with your arms tightly folded across your chest like you were trying to protect your heart. “We’re over?”

His own practically fell through the fucking floor as he processed what you just said. 

“What?” The question came out wounded. His throat drying out as he forced himself to exhale, “Why-”

“I don’t want to waste your time,” you coldly replied, but he could hear how much you were struggling too. 

Oh god. 

You must have overheard the first part of his conversation with Mrs. Geto. 

“That’s not what I meant,” he defensively started, panic pulsing through him as he reached out to touch your arm. But you recoiled, flinching fast like his fingers would burn you. 

“I thought things were okay,” you murmured, shaking your head like the very notion was stupid now. “Was it the sex? Was I not good enough for you?”

“No, no, I swear-”

“Then what?” You snapped, finally looking back at him, your beautiful face scrunched together in pain. Big tears welling up in your pretty eyes that you were trying to blink away. 

For a second, Choso froze, stunned that he could be the reason for that. That you cared enough about this, about him to cry. 

His mouth stuck open in a moronic ‘o’ as he stumbled for the right thing to say to stop your relationship from unraveling. 

“You had your fun and fucked me. I’m just not what you wanted, right?” You were half-whispering, keeping your voice down to not alert the kids. Bottom lip quivering as you continued, “I don’t know why I thought you’d stay.” 

Fuck. 

This was not how this was supposed to go. 

He was supposed to be smoothing things over, not losing you over nothing. 

“No, baby, no,” he insisted, grabbing your hand before you could retreat even further away. “You are everything I’ve ever wanted.”

You tried to pull your hand out of his, but he wasn’t the kind of fool who would let you walk away. 

“The sex was amazing, god, you’re amazing,” Choso rambled, rushing through his words as he felt a frightening surge of anxiety at the idea of you thinking he was just using you like some scumbag. “I just, I thought everything was perfect, and after you dozed off, you said his name and I-” 

“What?” You faltered. 

“You were in my arms, and you called out for him,” he murmured, attempting to suck air in his lungs as he inhaled sharply. 

A tear slipped down your cheek, and before you could burst into sobs, he was pulling you back against his chest. Enveloping you in his embrace, arms wrapped around you as your body wracked with the weight of your sorrow. 

“M’sorry,” you cried, your voice muffled as your tears left damp spots in his shirt. “I-I-” 

He was stroking your hair, swallowing the lump in his throat at the sound of your broken voice. 

“It’s okay,” he soothed, pressing your head against him to make sure the kids wouldn’t have to see you crying. 

Not when you tried so hard to be strong for them. Built a life around being there when their father hadn’t been. 

“I didn’t mean-” You started again, and he only pulled back to wipe the tears away beneath your eyes, thumb slowly dragging over your cheekbones. “I just haven’t had sex with anyone since-”

“You don’t have to apologize when you didn’t do it on purpose,” he reassured you, feeling that hole in his own heart chisel just a tad wider at your acknowledgement he’d been the first man to fuck you since him. “I just needed some time to sort out my own feelings.” 

“You’re still going to leave,” you mumbled, wiping your nose on your forearm as you tried to step back and recoil back. 

“I’m not,” he promised, cupping your cheek. “I’m just scared of being his stand-in. A shitty replacement for the real thing.” 

You stared back at him, taken a little aback before you shook your head, leaning into his palm. “You know you’re not.” 

He didn’t though. 

How was he supposed to believe he wasn’t second place when you wore the proof of who was first around your neck every day? 

But he couldn’t point that out. 

Not when he knew that he wasn’t being fair. 

Your former fiancé had been gone for years. It wasn’t a bad breakup, or like you lost him in some tangible way. 

You had no closure. No answers. 

Just an empty hole in your heart that Choso was doing his damndest to fill. 

He glanced back at the children, clueless as they played in the sandbox, Artemis threatening to dump a bucket on her brother while Yuji dared her to do it. 

And his chest fucking spasmed at the idea that there might be another life where they weren’t his family. 

Where you weren’t his. 

“I’ll always love Satoru. I wouldn’t have the twins without him,” you admitted, sniffling a little as you pulled yourself back together. “I wouldn’t have you either.”

He didn’t know what to say to that.

Aware that you were right, but having a hard time finding it in himself to be grateful. 

You were a gift.

Choso just couldn’t decide how to feel about the sender. 

“I love you,” you spoke so softly to him though, so tenderly despite how scared he could sense you were just saying the words out loud. “I’m sorry it took me so long to say it.”

“I love you too,” he promised, leaning down to press a soft kiss against your lips. 

To seal it. 

“I think we just have to work on talking to each other,” Choso added after you started to pull away, slipping a hand around your back to keep you close. “Communicate better before it turns into this.” 

He didn’t want to be the reason you cried. Be the one who broke you. 

“Yeah,” you mumbled an agreement, relaxing into him before looking back over to the twins and Yuji. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“And then what?” Gojo interrupted his story, shoving a fry in his mouth with an annoyed frown. “You guys lived happily ever after?” 

Wouldn’t that be sweet? If it had been so simple? If you’d both stuck to what you swore? 

“Uh, not exactly,” he muttered. “I mean, most of it was great. But we did have a pretty bad patch.” 

Gojo freely glared at him, like he was offended at the concept of him having anything to complain about. 

“Why are you looking at me like it’s my fault?” Gojo huffed. 

Some childish part of him wanted to retort that it was. 

That he spent his life fixing the damage he’d done to you by getting on the damn spaceship. 

But Choso had made his peace with that long before you were his wife. 

“You’re the one she married,” he bitterly added, jaw locked with barely concealed contempt he wasn’t bothering to hide without Artemis around. 

Apollo didn’t even want to entertain him at all, only tolerated seeing him when his sister dragged him around to family gatherings and brunches, excited to have someone to chatter about science stuff the rest of them couldn’t comprehend.  

Choso didn’t blame either of them. 

“You know, she didn’t say yes the first time I asked her to marry me,” Choso confessed, twisting his own wedding band around a wrinkled finger. 

You broke up with him, actually. 

He had tried to dull the memory over the years. Make the edges of it less sharp, enough that it didn’t taint you in his mind. 

But it still stung. 

No matter how much time had passed. No matter what he knew now that he hadn’t then. 

Choso had spent weeks planning it. 

Debating on all the different ways to do it before finally deciding that he should do something as a family. Show you how much he loved you and the twins. 

He didn’t want to just be your live-in boyfriend. 

He wanted to be the step-dad to your kids. Your husband. To slip a ring on your finger and swear to love you for the rest of his life. 

To never leave. 

He settled on making the kind of meals usually reserved for holidays, buying candles and balloons, buying a pack of rose petals to scatter on the bed. Picking out a ring he hoped you’d like and saving enough money to afford a second if you didn’t. 

Waiting for the perfect opportunity to get you out of the house long enough to set everything up only for you to hand it to him on a silver platter. 

You were distracted when he got home from work, chewing on your lip as you dropped your phone in your purse and murmured that you needed to go run a couple errands while he tried to hide his excitement. 

Maybe, if the kids hadn’t rushed over and started tugging on his jeans, distracting him with what they’d done at school, he might’ve seen your face before you walked out the door. 

Maybe it would have all played out differently. 

But he didn’t, and he’d never get to know what could’ve happened instead. 

Roping the kids into the plan was perhaps a mistake. 

But he wanted the twins' permission before he proposed. 

“I need to ask you two something,” he hummed, ruffling Apollo’s hair as Artemis squinted suspiciously at him. 

“What?” She murmured, glancing between him and Yuji, who was practically bouncing up-and-down with excitement he couldn’t contain. 

“I would like to ask your mom to marry me,” he admitted, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he measured their reactions. 

Apollo threw his arms around his leg, looking up at him with those bright blue eyes, absolutely elated. “So you’re gonna be our dad?” 

“It would make me your step-dad,” he replied as calmly as he could, still trying to respect the man who made them – even if he’d never gotten to watch them grow. “And that’s up to your mom.” 

You lived together. You told him you loved him. 

He never thought no was really an option. 

“If it makes mom happy,” Artemis murmured, a little more reluctant as she nodded. 

“That’s all I want,” Choso softly replied, smiling at her. 

She looked like a little version of you. Acted like one too sometimes. Slower to trust. Sweet underneath it all. She wanted to seem strong, but she was still soft underneath it all.

Choso had overheard her on the playground telling her one of the other kids swinging that her daddy was up in space, swearing that he’d come back after the child called her a liar. 

He felt pretty fucking shitty for his silent hopes that her father would stay up there. 

Did it make him an awful person? To want a place in your life that badly? Unsure if you would really pick him if your first choice became an option once more? 

He did what he did best though. 

Push down his anxieties and pray he never had to find out. 

“Who wants to help set everything up for her?” He asked, forcing his brightest smile as his ring sat impossibly heavy in his pocket. Weighing his heart down like a lead balloon, threatening to bury it as he tried to swallow the fear that he might fuck this up. 

But the chorus of ‘me’s and the bright faces of the kids that had all started to feel like his own was enough for him to forget about it and focus on you instead. 

Getting all the details right as he devoted himself to the dinner, letting the kids lay out the tablecloth and set the plates up – although he had to stop Yuji from accidentally setting his hair on fire when he snuck the lighter out of the drawer to light the candles Choso had set out. 

But eventually, everything was in its place, the lights adjusted and the food set out, the children all changed into nicer clothes as the twins talked about how they’d all be siblings soon. 

“What do you guys think?” Choso grinned, wiping his palms off on the apron before taking it off. 

“She’ll love it,” Apollo optimistically smiled, one of his front teeth missing from where it’d fallen out the week before and traded in for five dollars from the tooth fairy. 

Choso really hoped you would. 

It was too late to change anything, because they all heard the familiar sound of your key turning in the lock, the creak of it swinging open. The front door thudded shut, and he was pretty sure his heart was going to explode if it started pounding any harder. 

“Are you guys hungry?” You called out, your voice wavering, bordering on exhausted, pride flaring in Choso’s chest at how happy you’d be to see the spread on the table, to see the way the kids were all eagerly holding their breath, glancing between each other and nearly bouncing out of their seats. “We could order pizza or-” 

You stopped speaking the second you saw it. 

Froze in the open doorframe, your eyes going wide as you scanned over the scene. All the food and the fancy tablespread and the flickering candles, the way the kids were holding in giggles as he stepped forward to bridge the distance between you. 

“What is-” 

Choso got down on his knees mid-question slipping a hand in his jeans to clumsily grab the crushed velvet box, blinking a little too fast, mouth opening too soon as he struggled to remember the speech he rehearsed a thousand times in the mirror over the last month. 

“Um, I, uh,” he paused, spit thick in his throat that he had to swallow before continuing, “I love you, and I love our family, and I can’t imagine living the rest of my life without you or the twins in it. Will you make me the happiest-” 

“I cannot believe you,” you interrupted him, shaking your head as you stepped back, your face blank, mouth hanging open as you sucked in a shallow breath. 

“What?” He blanched, barely even processing the words that had just left your lips as your expression shifted to anger, of all things.  

Brows scrunching together as you scoffed, fingers trembling as you pointed down the hall. “My room. Now.” 

The kids looked at each other, awkwardly slipping into dining chairs as if they were the ones in trouble, but Choso didn’t know what to say to soothe them when it felt like his heart was shattering too. 

Humiliation burning his cheeks as he put the ring box back, getting up off the ground and following you like some dejected puppy, hoping for his owner’s love. But the moment you were alone, the second you shut the door behind him, the way you were staring at him was closer to a stranger. 

“What the hell did you think doing that in front of my kids?” You asked, and he couldn’t comprehend what the fuck he’d done that was so bad in your book. 

“We’ve been talking about marriage for like, a year,” he argued, indignation he didn’t know how to handle boiling up inside his chest at your attitude. Glaring like he had done something so absurd to deserve it, your rejection leaving a sour taste in his mouth he didn’t think would be going away any time soon. 

“We?” You hissed, hurt written all over your face before you wiped it and replaced it with thinly-veiled resentment. “You were the one who kept bringing it up.”

His jaw dropped. 

“Are you kidding me?” Choso deadpanned, disbelief wracking through his body as he felt a shot of adrenaline begin to course through his veins, fingers flexing into a fist before he forced them to relax. 

“I was just trying to keep you happy, I didn’t think that you were serious about it,” you said, turning away from him as you buried your face in your hands for a second, breathing hard like you might be on the verge of a panic attack. 

Instinctively, he wanted to reach out. Hold you close and let you crumble while he whispered soft words to coax you through it. But he stayed still, nails digging into his palm as he found himself fuming at you for the first time ever. 

“What the fuck?” He spat, his voice starting to raise as you recoiled back even further. “Why wouldn’t you say something? Why the hell would you just let me think you wanted it too?” 

That you wanted him? 

“Don’t shout at me,” you huffed, mouth still quivering as you folded your arms tight across your chest. 

“What happened to communication?” He demanded, thinking about the fight the two of you had. How you’d sworn that you loved him and didn’t want to lose him. 

And now here you were, refusing to meet his eyes, mouth pressed in a thin line as you held your tongue. 

Something he didn’t know he’d been holding back snapped when he realized you weren’t going to reply. 

“Oh, I get it,” he grimaced, brows knitting together in frustration as his disappointment bubbled into disgust with himself for not seeing it sooner. “You don’t want to marry me because I’m not him.”

He knew the second he said it that he couldn’t take it back. 

“That’s not fucking fair and you know it,” you snapped at him, and a bitter voice in the back of his head pointed out that you were only speaking up now that he brought up your real fiancé.

“You’ll wear his ring every day and not mine,” he retorted, doubling down rather than backing out of his accusation. 

He thought you’d yell back.

That you would fight him on it. He wanted you to fight him on it. To finally let every thought you kept from out so the two of you could get out of this frustrating limbo. He didn’t care if it dropped him in hell. 

He just wanted to get somewhere with you. 

But you shut down. 

Silently staring at the floor, chest heaving as you dug your own fingers into your side.

“I really am just a fill in for you,” Choso continued, trying to get any kind of reply out of you. 

And still, you somehow found the only one he didn’t want. 

“Get out,” you whispered. 

“What?” 

“Get out.”

Everything that had been boiling seconds before abruptly stopped, the pot ripped off the burner and left him stranded in hot water as his senses finally snapped back into place. 

You had never kicked him out before. 

What the hell had he done? 

“I’m not trying to hurt you, I just, I want to understand,” he tried to backpedal, holding his hands out and stepping forward just for you to not even glance up at him. 

“I need a break,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper, sounding like you were a world away.

“From this conversation? Or us?” He blanched. You were supposed to be throwing your arms around him right now. Telling him you loved him and discussing what season your wedding should be in. Not fucking dumping him. 

“This is just too much,” you muttered. 

What the fuck was that meant to mean? 

He felt helpless as he stared at you, the way your head was hanging down, shoulders slumped as you shut him out. 

“I’ll take the twins somewhere and you can get your stuff,” you added, getting up and walking around him, making up your mind without even giving him a chance to talk this out.

Watching you walk away, dumbfounded as you slipped out the door, the conversation over before it had even properly begun. 

“Are we going to be a family now?” Apollo’s hopeful voice carried through the door down the hall, and Choso rested his head against the door, wishing the conversation had gone another way and still too upset to think of a reasonable way to reach you. 

To break through the barriers you were haphazardly throwing back up. 

“Yuji and Choso aren’t going to live with us anymore, baby,” you softly said back. 

Fuck. 

You were supposed to be his wife. 

Not his ex-girlfriend. 

“You’re a fucking moron.” 

Said the jerk that left a pregnant you to go to fucking space. 

“You’re one to talk,” Choso commented, mouth curling down as he grabbed his glass to take a sip, the sight of his own aged hand reminding him that he was definitely too old for starting fights like this. 

“So she really dumped you?” Gojo grinned, irritatingly white teeth on display as he leaned forward, looking directly at him instead of the photo albums. 

“Not for that long.” 

“You should’ve fought for her more,” Gojo pointed out, before almost immediately stopping himself, brows scrunching together like he realized what he was saying and who he was saying it to. 

“I thought she didn’t want a future with me,” he shrugged. “Not when she was still thinking about what one would’ve looked like with you.” 

Always stuck in the same position. 

Torn between wanting your heart and wishing that he wasn’t second-place in it. 

“If I could’ve been there,” Gojo started, genuine remorse bleeding through, and Choso remembered once again why he’d never been able to bring himself to loathe the man you loved. 

Because they both loved you. 

“I know,” Choso murmured. “I sorta wished sometimes that you would just show up if it meant she would be happy.” 

𖥔 ݁ ˖

You weren’t sure you had ever been so fucking miserable. 

Breaking up with Choso had nearly broken you. 

You hadn’t seen him since you came back home to find every trace of him and Yuji gone. Hadn’t said his name since you had to explain to Apollo that you were going to switch him over to a new soccer team for the summer. Artemis had asked if you were happy, giving you that look like she could see through the stories you tried to keep up for them. All you could do was twist the necklace and tell her that her and her brother were all you ever needed. 

But she had wanted to go to a sleepaway space camp for the summer, and you couldn’t bring yourself to say no when everything you would have planned with Choso had fallen through. So she was hours away, gone for weeks while Apollo was busy with his own soccer camp and sleepovers with friends from school. 

When he was home, he was just complaining about how much he hated the older kids in the 9-12 group he’d gotten stuck in, muttering under his breath that his old team was better. 

You sort of thought if you stayed busy with him, you could forget about all the other stuff. 

Shut out the awful spiralling that started in your head every time you laid down in your cold, empty bed and rolled onto your side to see the unwrinkled spot next to you. 

Picturing your pretty dark-haired man there, his eyes lazily opening and noticing you staring before pulling you into a warm embrace. Waking up in a daze from a dream where your blue-eyed boy was still holding onto you, murmuring that it was all just a nightmare and to go back to sleep. 

Now you didn’t have either of them. 

God, you couldn’t even pull yourself together enough to send a video message to Satoru like you used to, staring at the unused webcam when you got ready every day and lacking the strength to even sit in front of it and say something. Couldn’t bring yourself to call your therapist either, cancelling appointments over text and shrugging your shoulders to swear that you were fine. 

You wanted to believe that you could heal from this. That there was still real happiness to be found somewhere between the lines of hurt and heartache. 

But it didn’t feel like it when you pulled into the parking lot for one of Apollo’s exhibition tournaments and he started bouncing around in the backseat swearing he was sure you passed by Yuji. 

Shit. 

God, you were sure that he wouldn’t be here. 

Yuji was in so many sports, and Choso usually coached younger kids anyway, so what the hell-

“Can I please go say hi, mom?” Apollo begged as you stopped the car. 

“Of course, sweetheart,” you nodded, going ahead and practicing your smile when the muscles to make it were a little rusty. 

The second you had slung your chair over your shoulder and opened the door for Apollo, he was sprinting over to the grassy area, Yuji’s voice calling out his name as a boy you didn’t recognize protectively puffing up his chest as he stepped between the two of them. 

“Who’s this, brother?” The boy asked, looking back to Yuji as he stepped out from around him. 

“Apollo, are you playing?” He chirped, his loose soccer jersey swaying as he rushed over.

“Yeah,” he nodded, deflating the moment he noticed how close Yuji was with his new friend. “My team kinda sucks though.” 

There really weren’t many feelings worse than watching your kid go through something you didn’t know how to help them with. 

Seeing the shock scrawled all over their face the second they thought they were replaceable. 

“You think we’ll play against each other then?” Yuji asked, grinning with a gap in his teeth, one that must have fallen out this month. 

“We’ll definitely beat you,” the other boy boasted, and you knew you shouldn’t hate a kid, but you sorta did. 

And then you looked up, glancing around just to see Choso approaching – but he was too busy talking to a blonde to notice you with his brother. Her hand on his forearm, leaning forward as he spoke all seriously about something, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she listened intently to every word. 

You hated her. 

Almost as much as you missed him. 

But you couldn’t deal with either emotion. Had no way to defend or deflect it, just putting your hand on Apollo’s shoulder and nudging him away, “Sorry, but, uh, I should get him to start his drills. It was good to see you, Yuji.” 

You didn’t stay long enough to see what kind of accusatory stare he’d give you for breaking his brother’s heart. Or run the risk of Choso coming over and catching you clinging to the remnants of your relationship by letting Apollo hang around Yuji. Rushing off to find the right field, a sick feeling spreading across your stomach, filling your lungs and choking up your throat as you set up your chair and tried to tell yourself that the chance of Yuji playing against Apollo was slim considering how many teams there were here today. 

But luck hadn’t decided to grace you today.

Because standing across the field twenty minutes later, in his stupidly attractive jersey and shorts, Choso was tying half his hair up off his face, bending over to listen to Yuji before looking over to see where Apollo was sitting on a bench, a cap hiding the steaks of white from the sun as he kicked his feet and waited for the game to start. 

You saw the way his mouth pulled tight. How his jaw clenched before he looked over to the sidelines, starting to scan it before you looked back down in your lap, pretending to be interested in something on your phone instead of staring at him. 

Just one game. 

That was all, you told yourself. 

You could make it through that. 

But fuck, it would have been so much more bearable if she wasn’t a few seats away once it started. 

Loathing didn’t quite cover the jealousy simmering inside you at the way her pretty blonde hair cascaded down her back and gleamed in the sun, how freely she bounced and cheered, clapping her hands together and calling out Yuji’s name in a chipper voice along with her own kid. 

The one who called Yuji brother. 

That was how it was now. 

Choso wanted a happy family. So he started one with some other soccer mom, huh? 

It had only been two fucking months. 

How the hell could he just move on like that? 

Maybe you broke it off, but he could have at least pretended to be bent out of shape about it when he had said he wanted to marry you. 

Were you just not that serious? Had the past few years really meant that little to him? 

Every time she cheered for Yuji felt like a fresh stab. 

It was hard to hold back your annoyance when Apollo was struggling on the field too, all his older teammates refusing to pass the ball to him on the rare chance that he got to play. 

And then came the moment that her kid knocked Apollo down, big tears welling up in his blue eyes as the ref called it and his coach had to pull him off the field for good. He tried not to cry. To hold it in and not seem like a baby in front of the big kids. 

But rage was boiling inside you, injustice at how fucking unfair everything always for you. 

You were trying to fight for your kids. 

It wasn’t like you had someone other than Suguru’s mother to rely on. Not really. 

No one else understood. 

Knew what it was like to lose your whole world and then have to hold it together anyway. To never get closure and still be expected to just move on like nothing happened. Like you weren’t reminded of what you were missing every moment of every day. 

Apollo’s team lost. And you were still trying to be the mature adult you knew he needed you to be as you folded your chair back up and slung it over your shoulder, hurrying over as he nursed his scraped knee, still trying not to sob as he bottled it all in. 

But Choso beat you there. 

Kneeling down on the ground and putting a bandaid over it as he smiled at your son softly. You used to love the way he cared for your children like they were his own. But now you were second-guessing if maybe that was just who he was, that it never had anything to do with you.  

“-did great out there, okay? You should be proud of yourself,” he spoke gently, using all the right words as you tried not to wince. But Apollo smiled, wiping his tears away with the back of his hand, ignoring the dirt and grass sticking to it before throwing himself at Choso in a big hug. 

Arms wrapped around his neck before you could move forward fast enough to pry him off. Choso patted his back, but you were already trying to pick him off yourself, swallowing the pain threatening to close your throat. 

You couldn’t breathe. 

Couldn’t think straight.

Clouded with so much distress it felt like someone had embedded sharp shards of glass in every fiber and muscle of your body, limbs robotically moving as you mentally replayed what your last conversation had been.

“Can we go out for ice cream? Please? Like we used to?” Apollo blurted out, and you hated that you knew he would hold the refusal that was about to leave your lips against you. 

Choso opened his mouth to reply, hesitating as your eyes actually met his for the first time, and you wondered if he could see the hurt in yours as the lump in his throat bobbed. 

“Choso!” The blonde called out, her tits bouncing in her shirt as she waved to him. “Time to pass out snacks!” 

“Choso’s busy, sweetheart,” you said, picking Apollo up, his long legs dangling as he kicked, trying to get put back down. Trying to save yourself from the scene of him begging for attention from a guy who wasn’t his father. 

Even if you both wanted him to be. 

He watched you leave. 

Didn’t try to make you stay. 

That wasn’t who he was, you guessed. 

No, he just wanted to throw a ring at you on the second worst day of your life and toss the fact that you’d lost the father of your children back in your face when you were on the verge of a breakdown. 

Apollo pouted the entire way back to the car, his little nose scrunched up as you pulled out of the parking lot, muttering that he didn’t want to play soccer anymore. 

You tried to talk him out of it, saying that the next game would be better. 

But you didn’t know if he believed you. 

Not with the way he was dramatically staring out the window the rest of the ride home, switching between having  arms folded across his chest and fidgeting with the seatbelt. 

“I know you’re upset, but-” 

“I’m fine,” he stubbornly insisted, shaking his head. He had his cap back on, unable to make out any of his white hair underneath it as his blue eyes looked up at you through the mirror. “Are you?” 

“Why wouldn’t I be?” You asked, even though you knew he wasn’t stupid. 

He wasn’t as scientifically minded as Satoru, or Artemis, but he read you like a book. Saw in between the lines without you having to say anything. 

“I want to sleepover at grandma’s house,” Apollo murmured, diverting his stare  as you swallowed your pride and shrugged. 

“Okay,” you muttered. “I’m sure she’d like that.” 

Suguru’s mom had never said no to either of the twins. 

And when you brought him over in the evening, watching him run straight back to the spare room she made for them, hearing faint rummaging and rustling noises as he pulled out toys to play on his own. 

“I take it the game didn’t go so well?” She asked, fine lines and wrinkles really starting to show on her soft, tanned skin. Wisdom you wished you had even a small sliver of in her kind smile as you flopped down on her couch. 

“Choso was there,” you muttered, your stupid heart stuttering just saying his name. 

“Oh?” That piqued her interest. 

She always liked him. Told him that he was good for you. Good for the kids. 

But you could see how much he reminded her of Suguru. Always chalked it up to her seeing some of her son in him. 

“He already moved on,” you bitterly huffed.. “Some other soccer mom was practically all over him. God, her kid even called Yuji brother.” 

“Honey, are you sure? Did you speak to him?” She started, trying to be careful with her words as you scoffed louder.

“No, but-” 

“Have you spoken to him at all since you broke up?” She pressed, and you could only shake your head. 

What the hell were you supposed to say? You were broken up. 

It wasn’t like you had his number blocked.

But he hadn’t reached out either. 

“That boy loves you,” she insisted. “He wouldn’t just-” 

“He left me,” you muttered. 

Well, you left him. 

But if he loved you, he wouldn’t have let you leave. Just stood there when you walked away. 

You had made that mistake before. You let Satoru go. Trusted him to come back. 

He didn’t. 

And you were the one who had been stitching yourself back up every time his memory tore your heart back open. 

But how were you supposed to marry a man who couldn’t tell when you had come undone? That you were falling apart in front of him? 

“Did you want him to stay?” She asked, and you knew the answer instantly, no matter how hard it was to actually say it. 

Of course you wanted him to stay anyway. 

Even though knowing that felt like betraying Satoru. 

“I should go home,” you murmured, picking yourself back up off the couch and snagging your purse from the floor as you threw a long look down the hall to where Apollo was, debating on peeking in to tell him good night before deciding against interrupting him. “Just, uh, call me when I should come get him.” 

Or just walk next door. 

The house was horribly quiet. 

Your footsteps echoing as you returned to your room, the silence following wherever you went as you stripped and showered, scrubbing your skin raw with soap and sighing at your blurred reflection in the fogged-up mirror after you got out feeling no fucking cleaner than you had when you stepped in.

Truthfully, you didn’t really want to look at yourself anyway. 

Clinging to the towel you wrapped yourself in, staring at the clothes in your closet as you searched for something to hide yourself in, settling on an oversized hoodie you’d bought before either man you were wrecked over. 

Throwing on pajama shorts too, wondering whether or not it was worth wasting an hour scrolling through shows and movies searching for stuff to watch or giving up and crawling into bed when you heard a knock on your front door. 

A flicker of relief slipped in, thinking that Suguru’s mom must be bringing Apollo back, that maybe he changed his mind and you could offer to let him stay up late watching whatever movie he wanted together as you scurried back towards it. 

You didn’t even ask before pulling it open, but you stopped in your tracks the second you saw who was on the other side. 

“Hey,” Choso greeted, the single word shoved out unceremoniously as you just stood there and stared.

“What are you-” 

“She, uh, called me,” he muttered, jutting his thumb over to the house next door. He had changed into an outfit you missed seeing him in. A sweater you used to steal of his, thick and cozy, in your favorite shade of purple. Jeans that were well worn. His hair was a little damp too, bangs framing his handsome face as the dim lighting made his dark eyes hard to read. “If you want me to go-” 

“You didn’t speak to me today,” you pointed out, not that you made the effort to talk to him either. Picking a fight in the first five seconds. 

“I didn’t think it was a good idea,” Choso sheepishly answered, and before you realized it, you were stepping aside, letting him back in. Although, you guessed it was better than letting half the neighborhood hear you bicker. 

“Yeah, I’m sure your new girlfriend wouldn't be happy with you talking to your ex,” you defensively said, gritting your teeth as he shut the door behind him. Throwing you a confused glance before he fully turned to you with his thick brows all pinched together. 

“What are you talking about?” He shook his head dismissively. 

“Did you think I wouldn’t see the new soccer mom all over you?” You snapped at him. Your jealousy was plain to see, painfully obvious as the words came out all wounded and weak. 

“Are you talking about Yuki?” He asked, his lips parting as you imagined her mouth meeting them.

“Oh, is that her name?” You spat it out, backing away as you resisted the urge to roll your eyes. “She’s pretty, huh?” 

Did he think she was prettier than you? That he upgraded? 

The worst part was you could barely recognize yourself right now. 

You didn’t want this to be you. Petty and pathetic and pining over something you were trying to damndest not to want. 

Since when were you so insecure? So jealous that you were starting an argument with Choso because you couldn’t get a fucking grip on yourself? 

“She is,” Choso agreed, and you wanted to throw up. 

Ruin his sweater like he ruined your day. 

You didn’t know what face you made, but whatever it was, however wrecked you must have seen before you could recover, he softened. Unlocking his jaw as his eyes crinkled, exhaling slowly. 

“I’m not into her like that,” he added. Treacherous respite rippled through your body, but you held onto your anger, resisting everything you instinctually wanted to do around him. “But, we’re not together anymore. We can see other people without-” 

“You proposed to me two months ago,” you pointed out, but the accusatory tone didn’t really do much when it came out half an octave too high. A horribly familiar lump was growing in your throat, heat crawling up your cheeks dangerously close to your eyes. “If you actually loved me, you wouldn’t just move on like we were nothing.” 

“I’m not just moving on, it’s just,” he paused, budding frustration threatening to boil over as he took a small step closer. Standing in front of you as if he was the victim, like everything was all your fault for being the fucked up one in your relationship. “I should be allowed to heal however I need to heal.” 

For a second, you couldn’t stand him. His maturity. His rationality. The way he was still collected when it felt like someone had plucked out all your seams and left you to crumble. 

Tears you couldn’t stop welling up, a choked sound coming out before your broken words, “I’m sorry I was such a horrible girlfriend you have to do so much healing.” 

“I’m healing from your rejection,” he clarified, but you couldn’t stop yourself from crying, rubbing underneath your eyes as you tried to stop yourself, scoffing a little as you tried to reel yourself back in. 

“You had an out from the beginning,” you sniffled, although it sounded more like a huff. “I told you I didn’t want to waste your time.” 

He recoiled at the reminder, and panic sprung back up, hot and bright, burning your throat. You wanted to take what you said back. 

But you were too stubborn to say that. “Our relationship wasn’t wasted time,” he muttered, and there was a hint of remorse in his tone. Disappointment that things didn’t work out the way either of you wanted. “But this argument is.” 

You were about to throw out a retort, ask him what that was supposed to mean, but then he was walking away, sweater stretched across his broad back as he started towards the door, and you were bridging the gap between you, snagging his sleeve to stop him. 

“You’re just going to leave again? Like that?” You asked, voice quivering as you forced your stare to harden. He looked down at you like it was taking everything inside him not to give in too. 

“You wanted to break up,” he murmured, and you bit down on the raw spot you chewed in your cheek, ignoring the taste of blood on your tongue as the temptation to take it all back grew harder and harder to resist. “I was stupid to think that maybe we could talk things through tonight.” 

He began to slip away again, and impulsively, you were pulling him down by his sweater, your mouth crashing into his to reclaim him in a manic kiss. 

You sort of thought he would push you away. 

Tell you that he was really done this time. Through with you and all the baggage he’d have to bear being yours. 

But then his calloused palm was cupping your cheek and he was kissing you back twice as hard, returning the fever with his own heat. It seared through you, fried your nerves as his tongue slipped past your lips, his nose nudging against yours while his body pressed up against yours. Clumsily forced back a few steps until you were both falling on the couch, sandwiched between his heavy chest and the stained cushions. 

Having sex with your ex was almost always a mistake. 

But you couldn’t bring yourself to let Choso go. 

“I hate how much I love you,” he muttered when the kiss broke, and your pulse picked up, self-loathing sinking into you as it struck you how much your fuck-ups were fucking him up too. 

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, weak and almost whimpering as your apology came out sincere this time. 

You weren’t even sure which crime of yours you were apologizing for. 

Breaking up with him to begin with. Forcing him to bear the weight of your burdens. Being too emotionally constipated to communicate what was haunting you without turning it into a fight. 

“Show me then,” Choso dared, his usually low voice dropping down to damn near dangerous while his intense stare narrowed, studying your face for some sign that you meant it. 

And then you were tethering your fingers through his hair, pulling him back down for another rushed kiss, shutting out all the thoughts of how many sins you were trying to atone for. 

You spent so long trying to be strong for the twins. For Choso. For yourself. 

But you were so tired. So exhausted from expending all your energy putting on a show pretending to be fine when you just kept failing. 

Couldn’t you just let it go for a little bit? Let yourself love Choso without holding back? 

His hands were slipping underneath the soft fabric of your hoodie, phantom shivers racing down your spine as he nudged your thighs further apart with his knee. You could feel each finger, how they tentatively ghosted across your side up to your chest, greedily grabbing a handful of one of your breasts, nothing shy or reserved about it. 

No soft questions of if it was okay, or if you wanted more, just taking what he wanted. 

And you were willing to give it. 

To let him have all of your body when you struggled to hand over your heart. 

Kissing him came easy. His palms pressed so firmly against your skin, pulling at the soft muscle and tender flesh, his lips fitting so nicely between your own as his nose nuzzled against you. The connection you had been fighting was too intense for you to resist his pull, the intimacy that used to terrify you slipping its tendrils around you and wrapping around you so tight you didn’t think you’d ever be able to escape the hold he had on you. 

He pulled away, and you were left chasing the kiss, craning your neck up, whining and missing him the moment his mouth wasn’t on yours. 

That was the truth, wasn’t it? 

You had missed him the moment he stopped being yours. You were used to loneliness. To being lost in your head and longing for someone. 

So why the hell did it feel so different with him? So visceral and raw to accept that he might move on if you couldn’t give him what he wanted? What he deserved? 

“You don’t want me but you don’t want me to go,” he accused, and you were shaking your head, pulling him back down by his hair as you locked your thighs around his waist. 

“I do want you,” you admitted, brows knitting together tightly as you practically begged him to believe you. 

Your heart and your head might both be a mess. 

But you could pick out that brutal fact between the wreckage any day. If you didn’t want him, it wouldn’t hurt half as bad as it did right now to see him hurt. 

Like he was concerned you could change your mind (or maybe before he changed his), his grip slid back down to your hips, pulling you up some so he could get your clothes off. Adjusting down so he could shimmy your shorts and panties down your thighs in one go, 

You awkwardly lifted your arms, and he was half-ripping the hoodie off of you, but the moment it was off, he was flipping you over in one rough move, one hand on the back of your neck to press your face into your throw pillow. 

He left his clothes on. 

All his shields still up when it came to you. 

Your body trembled, cool air hitting your ass as you heard the rustle of him pulling down his pants behind you. 

Usually the sex was slow with him. An hour long affair of foreplay and making out, rolling around the sheets before taking turns giving each other head, drawing out an orgasm or two before he actually fucked you, or you even rode him. 

You were in uncharted territory. 

On the outskirts of his heart instead of taking up space inside of it. 

He ran his other palm over your ass, slowly trekking over your spine and letting out a low exhale you couldn’t decipher. You tried to look back at him, but the fingers on the back of your neck kept you firmly in place, sinking in a little deeper to get you to stay. 

You shouldn’t be soaked. But you could feel the dampness leaking down your thighs, your hips aching to wiggle a little and entice him into just fucking you into feeling something other than sorry for yourself. 

There was no prep. 

Just him tentatively testing how wet you were with his swollen tip before smoothly sliding in, a drawn-out hiss leaving his throat at the way your warmth wrapped around him the same way it had a thousand times before. 

You wanted him to kiss you again. Would even settle for a handful of pecks pressed to your shoulder blade or a few tracing up your throat. 

But you didn’t feel like you had the right to make any kind of requests from him right now. 

“C-Choso,” you whispered, your voice muffled into the pillow as your walls clamped down around him mid-thrust, squeezing as he shoved his way past the first ring of resistance. 

“Don’t,” he murmured, and if he didn’t already feel so good inside you, you might’ve broken down from that single word. 

Don’t what? 

Call out for him? 

“Not unless you’re mine.” 

You knew what he was asking of you. To give him the pieces of you that you were still desperately clinging onto. To let go of the ones that were someone else’s. 

His mouth hovered over your shoulder, so close to touching and still so far away, a little squeak escaping as his cock rubbed right into a spot he knew was sensitive. 

“When you close your eyes, are you picturing me? Or him?” 

The raw sound of his voice ripped through you, painfully piercing your heart as his hips pinned you to the cushions. Bottomed out and buried inside like he was aching to claim you completely and utterly as his own, his teeth finally skimming over your throat as a moan involuntarily slipped out. 

“You,” you half-whispered, and you could see his face in your head now, dark and dreamy and dragging you over the coals of a fading fire. The fight you used to have in you, the one that kept you dreaming for the life you lost, dying out.

Choso had fire of his own. It was tamed, controlled, where the flames wouldn’t hurt if they licked your skin. A warm hearth you could curl up by without fear of being burned. 

“Promise me,” he grunted, the springs beneath you creaking as he thrusted right where he knew you’d crumble and crack, your pleasure memorized like it was his favorite book. 

“It’s you,” you echoed, a whimper echoing in your living room as his back pressed flat against your own, his hand moving your hair off the nape of your neck so he could kiss you again. Mouth leaving a messy trail of kisses, each consecutive one making the invisible thread in your stomach tense and tighten, pulled taut as he pounded you into the couch with no mercy. 

“I said promise,” he groaned just before biting down, your wrecked whine just making his cock twitch as his free hand slipped around your side, roughly beginning to rub your clit like you weren’t already on the brink of breaking. 

“I p-promise,” you stammered, clawing at the cheap pillow for grip, each of his thrusts threatening to make you jolt. But he didn’t stop fucking into you faster, no matter how hard you were clamping down around him, thighs trembling and toes curling at the force of his rough strokes. 

So stuffed you thought you were going to snap, strangled noises buried into the pillow as his thick fingers worked your sensitive bud, his mouth littering your neck with what you hoped were love bites. 

Even if he wasn’t fucking you the way he usually did, Choso was still Choso. 

Still made sure you came first, waiting until your breathy gasps turned into a broken moan, shuddering as he painted white splotches across your vision, cumming and crying his name, ruined and half-limp underneath his body. 

Hiding your face in the pillow as hot tears welled up in your eyes, knowing it would probably leave damp spots after this was over. 

Were the two of you still over? 

Now probably wasn’t the time to ask. 

He pulled out at the last second, hand furiously pumping his cock, cum spurting out to spill all across your bare back as you started to come back down to earth from your climax. 

Waiting for him to say something first, shutting your eyes as you struggled to catch your breath, the metal of your necklace pressing hard into your chest as his weight shifted. Carefully moving off of you instead of collapsing like he used to. Sometimes you could spend half an hour afterwards just with his body melting onto yours, playing with each other’s hair or listening to him murmur about whatever was on his mind. Letting him trace pretty shapes over your skin while he swore he adored you. 

“I got some in your hair,” he mumbled instead.

Oh. 

Right. 

“We can shower,” you offered quietly, turning your head to the side, but still barely able to make out any of him in your peripheral vision. 

You thought he’d turn you down. 

Leave anyway now that he fucked you. 

“Okay,” he agreed. 

There was no big conversation. No emotional breakthrough under the hot water. 

Choso cleaned you with the same attention he always had. Scrubbing your skin with the loofah, massaging your scalp when he washed your hair. 

Taking care of you like a lover. 

Even if you didn’t deserve it. 

You knew you should have a proper conversation. Address what had landed you here, adjusting the water and pretending not to notice the ghost in the room. 

But then the shower was over, and he was stepping out first, tying a towel loosely around his defined hips, water droplets still clinging to his happy trail as he handed you your own towel wordlessly. Was this just how things were going to be from now on? 

You watched him in the steamy mirror as you dried yourself off, searched him for remorse before he bent over to pick up his phone from the pocket of his discarded jeans.  

“Yuji wants me to pick him up from Todo’s,” he muttered, looking back at you with an uncertain expression. 

“Oh,” you muttered, stomach twisting with discomfort you once again didn’t want to vocalize. Todo. Wasn’t he the one that belonged to the blonde? “So Yuki’s place?” 

And despite what he said earlier, a poisonous part of you whispered that he might be going over to just repeat what he’d done with her instead. 

That perhaps he had just picked up those moves from being in her bed. 

“Yeah,” he casually confirmed with a small nod. 

You didn’t know what to say. 

How to bring up your insecurity when you couldn’t even commit to him how he wanted in the first place. 

So instead you deflected, biting down on your bottom lip before tilting your head to the side, “Do, um, you wanna come back over tomorrow?” 

Surprise registered on his face, and he slowly nodded. 

“What time?” 

He was at your door the next afternoon while the kids were off at camp. 

And the one after that. 

Keeping your bed warm for an entire week, fucking you into your mattress like he was hoping to leave an imprint by the time he finished. To permanently press the shape of your bodies into the sheets, mold it around both of you while he molded you around him in everything from mating presses to reverse cowgirl. Any position where he could make a point in seeing how hard you would cum for him. Even in the shower afterwards when he was supposed to be cleaning you up. 

Kissing you from the moment he crossed the threshold to the time he left. Desperate ones that gave away the craving you both shared, the hunger that seemed to spread and sink you further into starvation. 

You didn’t know what this was. 

What your relationship with him would be once the summer camps were over and you wouldn’t have the time to spare for having steamy sex with your sorta-ex. 

“Shit,” he groaned, throwing his head back, the outline of his Adam's apple bobbing hard in his throat as you stole a glance over your shoulder at him. On your hands and knees, cum sticking to your ass and connecting your skin to his cock as he came a few seconds after you. His muscled abs glistened in the fading daylight, toned ridges and divots on display as he finished fucking his frustrations out on you doggy-style. 

Pulling out instead of using condoms, the risk of it making your stomach flutter all funny even if you had a hard time imagining yourself ever having another kid. 

You knew he wanted one though. 

Another conversation you’d been avoiding. 

But before you could even consider broaching it, your phone started to buzz beside the bed, and he was leaning over to pick it up for you, face softening as he held it out. 

“It’s Artemis,” he muttered. 

“Shit, okay,” you blinked, climbing off the bed in a hurry to grab your robe off the back of your desk chair, hastily throwing it on and tying it around your waist before rushing back to take it. 

You barely got to speak to her since she’d been so busy with her space camp. 

Answering before it could end, biting your lip as the facetime automatically connected, the image of her all fuzzy and blurred for a few seconds before becoming clear. 

“Hi, sweetheart,” you greeted, heart rapidly thumping in your chest as you made sure she wouldn’t be able to see the rest of your room.

“I missed you, mom,” she grinned. 

Artemis had a light in her eyes that you missed. That spark, that gleam of excitement that was infectious, smiling easily back at her as she pushed a planetary model in front of the camera to show off. 

“Check it out. Do you like it?” She beamed, proud of her work as you instinctively thought of what Satoru would make of it. How he’d probably grin and goad her into going over every detail. How happy he’d be that she was into the same stuff as him. 

“I love it,” you promised, nodding along as she started rambling about how they were learning about worm holes earlier, bouncing up and down as you tried to not let the sinking pit in your stomach swallow you up with how much she reminded you of her father. 

But if he was really still here, would he be here to see this? Or would he still be choosing work over the three of you? 

You were so distracted, you didn’t hear Choso creeping back up until you felt the weight of him against your back, bending over to rest his chin on your collarbone as he saw Artemis’ project on your phone. 

“You made that all by yourself?” He asked, and you could see his soft smile on your screen, admiring her work like she was his. The pretty picture of a perfect father. “Choso?” Artemis blinked, mouth falling open and nose scrunching up in surprise as she looked back at you with sheer confusion. 

You stammered something out, a weak excuse about her brother calling, ending the call before you had to actually answer her reasonable questions about what you were doing with him. Turning back the second you were sure she wouldn’t overhear, scoffing as you shook your head at him. 

“Why did you do that?” You asked, blowing a short puff of air out of your nose as his palms settled on your hips. 

“Do what? Talk to Artemis? We’re back together,” He said it as if it was obvious, and you reflexively wanted to refuse. To sabotage the slice of heaven you were living in for the past week. 

“I never said that.”

The moment those four words left your lips, you wanted to put them back. 

Freezing as his hands fell away from you, loathing yourself for letting this happen, seeing how hard and fast he recoiled from you.

“I’m such a fucking moron,” he muttered, turning around and grabbing his sweater from the bed, pulling it over his head as your body seized with dread. “You’re just using me. You never wanted a life with me.” 

“No,” you breathed the word, but you were already sure it was too late. You screwed it up again. “I didn’t-” 

“Stop with the stupid lies,” he shook his head, not believing you. 

“Stay, please,” you half-whispered, the slowly-growing guilt gripping your heart encasing it completely. “I wasn’t trying to-” 

“To what?” He interrupted. 

“I panicked,” you weakly explained, an excuse forming on your tongue about not wanting to confuse the kids anymore, but he wasn’t about to let it go this time. 

“Why don’t you want to marry me?” He bluntly asked. 

No room for wiggling out of the conversation or wishing it away when it meant watching him walk out your door again. 

You had to be honest. 

No matter how much your brain was trying to convince you that you were just jinxing it. Cursing him to follow the same fate as your former fiancé by saying the words out loud. Condemning yourself by tying yourself down to someone you were scared would slip away too.   

“The day you proposed,” you hesitated, holding your breath as you swallowed hard. “While you weren’t here, someone from NASA stopped by that afternoon to tell me Satoru had officially been declared dead.” 

You didn’t know why it had even surprised you. 

All the years he’d been gone, the excuses his old coworkers had offered started to dry up, the same old stories they sold you not holding the same hope. 

And now they were admitting there wasn’t any. 

Satoru was dead to them. 

And you didn’t even really get to be a widow. 

“I went to his grave after you got home, but I just, I don’t know how to say goodbye to him,” you muttered, thinking about how it felt to sit there knowing his body would never be buried by his headstone. About the life he deserved and never got. Where he got to be a father and a husband and be a family. “And then you came home and pulled out the ring, and it was like everything was happening all over again.” 

The memory of it was a blur, your head a complete mess as an awful as intrusive thoughts threw everything you were terrified of straight in your face. 

Telling you that you were just replacing Satoru. That he would hate you if he knew you had moved on. Insisted that if you said yes, Choso wouldn’t stick around either. 

So scared that he’d leave you too, that you nearly lost him anyway. 

“Baby, if you had told me-” 

“I know,” your voice broke, body trembling as he wrapped a warm arm around your shoulders to tug you into a tender embrace. “I should’ve said something. But I didn’t know how to bring it up and I just shut down, and-” 

“If I had waited, would you have said yes?” He asked, and you couldn’t answer straight away. 

Was it a betrayal to Satoru to say yes? 

Or were you losing the best thing in your life by clinging onto the ghost of a man who hadn’t loved you enough to listen and stay in the first place? 

“I don’t know,” you admitted. “I don’t want another proposal if it ends in losing the person I love.” 

Looking up at him anxiously, waiting for the foundation you were standing on to crack and crumble – for him to prove you right. For the world to rip him away now that you admitted that you loved him enough to fear living without him too. 

“The only way you’ll lose me is if you keep pushing me away,” he comforted you, and you wanted to cry. 

“I don’t want to push you away,” you mumbled. 

“Then let me in,” he whispered, pulling you onto the bed and placing you on his lap. Letting you curl up on him, holding you tight like he was trying to make it clear he wasn’t going to let you go. 

Your sniffles turned into soft sobs, all the tears you’d been holding in, all the mourning you’d been rejecting released the moment you had someone to lean on. 

“Are you still seeing your therapist?” He pressed, and you hung your head lower.  

“No,” you confessed through the tears. “I haven’t been since we broke up.” 

“You need to go back,” he softly goaded, and you knew he was right. That you were only hurting yourself the more you held it all in. 

“Could, um, you go with me?” You muttered, unsure and anxious as you searched his face for some sign that you weren’t making a mistake, rubbing the damp streaks off of your cheeks as he nodded. 

“If you want me there,” he muttered. 

And you could finally admit to yourself that you did. 

That you wanted there when you went to sleep, and when you woke up, and for everything in between. 

“I want you here for everything,” you whispered. 

“I’m sorry that I didn’t see what you were going through-” 

𖥔 ݁ ˖

“So what? The second she thinks I’m dead she decides to marry you?” Gojo interrupted his retelling of it, Choso’s mouth finding it hard not to frown at how much he sort of reminded him of you. Seeing the bits of his personality that had melted into yours, picturing how the two of you might have worked together if the positions were reversed. 

“It wasn’t like that,” Choso muttered. 

“That’s what it sounds like,” he retorted. 

His phone vibrated on the table, Artemis' name flashing on the screen before Gojo snatched it off and shoved it in his pocket. 

“You can answer that,” Choso muttered, shrugging his shoulders. It was a little uncomfortable sharing a daughter, but she was too grown for him to say anything about it. And between the twins, she was the one who always had a soft spot for the father she lost to the very thing she was studying. 

Of course she was going to be excited that he was home. 

Even if some things were better left in her imagination than in real life. 

Choso had never planned on meeting him. Never considered what he might actually be like.

Although he did find it a little annoying that he was somehow even more obsessed and in love with you than he ever conceived. 

“I’ll call her back later,” Gojo answered, but there was a nervous glint to his eyes as he cleared his throat before picking up his fork to shove some food in his mouth, still talking mid-chew. “How long, exactly, did it take for you to marry my-” 

He nearly said fiancée. 

But Gojo corrected himself, clearing his throat, “Her.” 

“Your friend’s mother, she, uh, got cancer a year later,” Choso muttered, still a little haunted by the look on your face when she announced it. At the hard memories always attached to the good ones. “The doctors thought she only had six months to live.”

“Oh,” Gojo muttered, a crease forming between his brows on his pretty, wrinkle-free face. 

“It changed things.” 

If it hadn’t been for her, he wasn’t sure if the two of you would’ve found your way back together at all. 

It had been her birthday. All of you over at her house, the kids playing in the living room while you helped her clean up. Choso was supposed to be keeping an eye on the twins and Yuji, but he was within earshot of your conversation, beating a level that was too hard for them on the game console she’d bought them last Christmas.

He nearly died the second he heard the words terminally ill leave her mouth, using every ounce of his self-composure not to snap his head around and ask all the questions he was itching to know. But then the kids would notice, and the idea of the twins realizing that they were about to lose the closest thing they had to a grandparent was enough to make him hold onto his cool. Force his face into a neutral expression as he clicked buttons haphazardly. 

“You can get a second opinion, or, or-” You were stumbling over your words, in denial as Mrs. Geto tutted at you. 

“Sometimes, it’s just a person’s time,” she softly said. “I’ve lived a long life. A happy one.” 

Choso glanced back right as your entire face fell, devastation obvious in every line etched into your skin, shaking your head hard as you rejected it. 

You tried to speak, but nothing came out. 

“I want to be with my husband and son,” she said, and you were trying so hard not to cry. Eyes watering with tears you were quick to blink away. “I’ve made my peace with it.” 

Choso knew you. Could see how hard you were resisting the urge to say that you wanted her here too. 

“Don’t give me that look, dear,” she lightly said, reading you like an open book too. “All I want now is to know that you’ll be okay when I’m gone. All three of you.” 

You might not be her daughter. But you were damn near close to it after nearly a decade of leaning on each other for support. 

“You know Choso takes good care of us,” you softly replied, your voice barely audible as you sniffled. Rubbing your face from the spot you’d frozen in, lip still quivering. 

“He does, doesn’t he?” She knowingly said, and you were nodding. 

“He’s great,” you reiterated, and even when the timing was terrible, he couldn’t help but feel a small flicker of gratitude at hearing you speak about him like that. On you counting on him. 

“Not great enough to marry?” 

He almost flinched. 

A game over screen flashing across the TV as the kids groaned in unison, little fingers poking and pushing and telling him to try again. 

“I don’t need his last name to know I love him,” you muttered. 

“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t marry him,” she argued, and Choso felt his chest constrict, wondering whether or not he should even be listening when she started talking about Suguru, so fondly, recounting a memory of his father, her husband, the weight of her missing them present in every syllable. “Even if it hurts sometimes, I wouldn’t take any of it back.” 

You knew what that felt like. 

Choso could see the contemplation scrawled across your face, struggling to keep his focus on the game as Mrs. Geto continued. 

“You’ve known him longer than Satoru, sweetheart,” she guided, touching your shoulder tenderly as he caught a glimpse of you chewing on your lip. “He loves you just as much.”

It wasn’t a competition. 

Even if sometimes did feel like he was fighting a phantom for your love. 

“He would understand if you went all in with him,” she spoke gently. “All any of us have ever wanted is for you to be happy.”

You were about to start bawling, but you held it in, nodding along like you knew she was right. And Choso was already planning on sending her a gift basket the next day with all her favorite foods and snacks, including a note promising to make time to take her to any appointments she needed. 

“I loved Satoru like he was my own too, but even if they came back tomorrow, I don’t know if he’d be the one that’s right for you now, dear,” she gently goaded, guiding you as you sucked in a sharp breath. 

Choso waited for you to shake your head, to tell her that she was wrong. 

But you didn’t. 

And he was still thinking about what you were thinking that night. You told him about her illness after the kids had fallen asleep in their beds, sitting up with a pillow pressed against your chest as you gave him that look you always did when you were deep in thought. 

He pretended not to know, just wrapping his arms around you to offer whatever comfort you needed. He wasn’t going to push. Press about marriage just because you had spoken with Mrs. Geto about it. 

Truthfully, he didn’t expect anything to actually come of it. 

He understood your reservations. Those fears you were still working through with your therapist. 

So you caught him off guard when you looked up at him with wide eyes and nervously asked, “Do you still think about marrying me?” 

“Of course I do,” he answered a little too fast. “But I understand why you don’t want to.” 

He would take a forever of being your boyfriend than a future where you weren’t anything to him. 

“Why do you want to?” You asked, the question coming out slightly stilted, a hint of something he had a hard time placing. It wasn’t dismissive. Not completely curious, more like, searching for confirmation from him. 

“You already know I’m in love with you,” he murmured, reaching over to brush his fingers across your cheek. “And how much I love our family.” 

You and the twins. The way you readily accepted Yuji as their sibling. Loved his little brother without hesitation. 

“I want to grow old with you. Spend as many moments of our lives together as we can. Watch the kids graduate and get families of their own,” he mumbled, finding more confidence with each sentence as you leaned into his hand. “I want to write cheesy vows and say them in front of all our friends. I want Yuji to be my best man and Apollo to carry the rings while Artemis tosses flower petals down the aisle.” And fuck, when you were looking at him like that, like you wanted all of it and more too, he nearly melted on the spot. 

“I want to see you in a white dress, walking towards me while I cry at how beautiful you are,” Choso whispered, his gravelly voice standing out in the soft silence, the sound of crickets chirping through the cracked window as a breeze filtered in. “But really, I just want you to choose me. Forever.”

He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life waiting and wondering if he was the one you wanted. 

You swallowed hard, your hand reaching over to graze against his fingers affectionately. 

“Ask me again,” you breathed.

He stared for a moment, barely believing what had just left your lips. But the moment it sunk in, he was rushing off the bed, nearly stumbling towards his nightstand, pulling it open and rummaging through everything to find the ring box he tucked in the back when he moved in with you again. 

You sat on the edge of the bed, a ghost of a smile curling up on your lips as you watched him hurry to get down on one knee and pop open the box, revealing the ring you didn’t get to see last time. 

“Will you marry me?” 

Gojo looked like he was about to puke over the photo album in front of him. 

There you were, standing in your wedding dress, Choso’s hand slung on your waist as you leaned into him. Mrs. Geto was by your side, using a walker as her illness left her struggling to get around the way she used to. Yuji clinging onto the leg of his tux, grinning and sticking his tongue out at the photographer by his new step-siblings. Artemis and Apollo were in front of you, your bouquet in her hands while Apollo beamed at the camera, proud of himself for doing a good job not tripping or falling with the rings. 

“She’s glowing,” Gojo murmured, tracing over your face down to the wedding dress, face twisting up in pained tension. Maybe thinking of what his photos might have looked like with you. 

All his plans wrecked by his own confidence that the world would bend to what he wanted. 

And before Choso could really react, tears welled up in his blue eyes, his jaw clenched tight as he tried to hide the fact he was crying at the photo. 

“She was pregnant,” Choso explained, feeling himself getting choked up too thinking about that year. “It wasn’t planned.” 

Honestly, when you told him, stepping out of the bathroom with a positive test, that nervous glint of pure fear in your eyes as you held it out, he was sure you were going to tell him you didn’t want it. 

That you could marry him, but you would draw the line at having his kid. Sure that you wouldn’t want to put your body through it again, especially ten years after having twins. 

But you just anxiously asked if he wanted it, if he thought the two of you could really handle it. 

“How was it?” Gojo asked, a surprising sincerity to the question. Genuinely wanting to know, maybe because he missed his chance to go through it with you. Only got a handful of videos you sent when you were pregnant. Didn’t get to be there for the sonograms, or the appointments, or the birth. 

Missed buying baby clothes and painting a nursery. Picking out names together. 

Although, it had been you who suggested naming her Keso, after one of his brothers who passed when he was younger. “It was hard, sometimes,” he admitted. The later months especially. Your anxiety picking up the closer your due date came, convinced that something would go wrong, going to see your therapist every other week until your delivery date.  “But our daughter was healthy, and I was there to help her recover.” 

Choso never left you once. 

Was there for every diaper change and late night feed. Comforted every time he picked up his little girl relief he hadn’t expected blooming in his chest at having one that looked like him. He had told himself it wouldn’t matter. That he would’ve loved a little girl that looked like you too. Especially since he already adored Artemis. 

But it was nice to know that strangers would see his girl and know she was absolutely his. 

Gojo had only met her once since she came back at a big family dinner, and she was too preoccupied with her own husband and kids now to care about the man her mother once loved, just offering him an awkward smile before going back to talking to Artemis. 

He was wiping his face, pretending like he hadn’t been crying as he flipped the pages back in the photo album, finding one where you were sprawled out in the backyard on a towel and smiling at the camera, shielding your face from the sun. Artemis was laying next to you, her head buried in a book. 

“Can I have this one?” He asked, and Choso wanted to say no. 

Not let him have any more pieces of you than he’d already stolen. 

But it was hard to actually say no when he knew there was a second copy of the photo underneath, reluctantly nodding. “I suppose.” 

“I’m glad she got to move on,” he mumbled, not that it sounded even remotely truthful. The only thing there was regret. “That she could forget about me.” 

“I meant what I said,” Choso sighed, turning more serious as he looked into those frustratingly familiar eyes. He loved you too much to hate him. Loved Apollo and Artemis too much to loathe the man he had to thank for them. “She never forgot you.”

Gojo was the one who was struggling to swallow the fact he had to share your heart with someone else now. 

“Yeah,” he dismissively muttered, lips pressing together. 

“When she got sick a few years ago, her memory started to go too,” Choso reluctantly broached his least favorite subject, recalling the long months of watching you waste away. “Eventually, she forgot almost everything. Except you.” 

Gojo didn’t know what to say. 

Sitting there stunned as he stared at Choso, finding it too hard to meet his eyes and turning his attention to the wedding band still on his fourth finger. 

“She couldn’t remember the twins or our grandkids. But she still talked about you. Called me your name a couple times when I helped her get out of bed. Looked up at the sky and told everyone who visited that you were up there,” Choso admitted, his voice wavering as he tried his damndest not to hold it against you. To remember all the decades that had come before that when you were more than happy to be his. “Swore that her husband was just with the stars for a little bit before he’d come back for her.” 

He wasn’t quite as emotional as he had once been. But it was hard to not break down at the fact that he’d lost you long before you passed away. 

That in the end, he hadn’t carved himself deep enough into you to be the one you recalled. 

Sure, you still had moments of clarity. Rare days where you were almost like your old self, where you’d kiss him and hold him and swear you loved him more than anything. 

And those were enough. You were enough. Even when there was barely anything left. 

“We both loved her,” Choso murmured, although love didn’t seem like a big enough word for it. He had a feeling that Gojo would understand anyway. Know what he was trying to get at here. That they’d both felt the full spectrum of emotions, the highest highs and the lowest lows that came with worshipping you. “And lost her too.” 

“Yeah,” Gojo whispered. “I guess we did.”

“I don’t know what’s worse,” Choso exhaled, taking one last sip of his drink. “Losing her all at once like you or seeing her disappear piece by piece.” 

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, and Choso looked up to see the way his face had scrunched up, his brows furrowed as he twisted around the wedding band he started wearing too. The one you bought for him once upon a time. 

“You don’t need to apologize,” Choso shook his head. 

If anyone understood what it was like to miss you, it was him. Even if he spent most of his adult life despising him to some degree.

But Gojo was still staring at him with guilt he hadn’t anticipated. Like he knew everything was his fault and he didn’t know how to fix it. 

Choso contemplated telling him that there wasn’t anything left to fix. 

It wasn’t like he could go back in time to change anything. And even if he could, Choso wouldn’t change a single moment. Not when he’d gotten you. Gotten his daughter – and two bonus kids. 

His life had been filled with your warmth and laughter and a million smiles he wouldn’t trade for anything. 

Even if the ending had been a bit lackluster. Even if he had to spend the next ten years on his own wishing you were still around. 

“I’m going to Apollo’s place,” he announced. “His daughter brought her baby over.” 

Awkwardly extending an invitation even if his son wouldn’t exactly be thrilled at having the father that was now younger than him around. 

“Oh,” Gojo said, his mouth curling down like he knew it too. 

Recognized where he wasn’t wanted. 

It might be too late for Apollo. But he still had time to get to know the rest of his family if he stopped focusing on the past and learned to live in the present. 

“Don’t you want to come spend some time with your great grandson?” Choso asked, his voice coming out gravelly as his knee ached with the effort of standing. Gojo’s stare flicked down at his lap, towards the pocket he shoved his phone in. 

And even though Artemis didn’t share his physical features, he recognized that distracted look of hers in Gojo now, like he was working out a problem too complex for anyone else to solve. 

“I’ll, uh, catch you guys there later,” he excused, running his thumb over the edge of the photo. 

He didn’t have the energy left in him to convince him to come. 

Gojo would just have to learn for himself how little time there was left with the people he loved in this life. 

Choso supposed he should consider himself lucky. At least he got to spend most of his by your side. 

It wasn’t jealousy that plagued him as he collected his photo albums, the proof of every year you’d given him while Gojo was gone, but pure pity. 

If only he had the foresight to realize how misplaced his empathy was. 

But even if he had, he wasn’t the one who could turn back time.