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TELL ME I'M YOUR NATIONAL ANTHEM!

...PAGING MR. PRESIDENT!

synopsis: when you first became mrs. gojo, you never fucking imagined you'd end up as the first lady. or that the golden boy you fell in love with and carved your whole world around could fucking cheat on you. and that somewhere along the fallout, after scandals and sleeping with his best friend back, you'd end up sitting by his beside after a failed assassination attempt. can you still salvage your marriage? or will it be burned in the wreckage of what's left of your life and his political career?

pairing: president!gojo x first lady!reader x vice president!geto

wc: 20.5k (my longest oneshot ever i think lol)

content: mdni!!! angst and smut!!! so much emotional hurt, eventual comfort, cheating, reverse cheating, complicated relationships, gojo being sleazy, but he does love reader okay!!, so much regret, pining, heartache, reader and gojo are in their late thirties/early forties but not specified, geto is down bad but gojo is down even badder, mentions of gun violence/blood (attempted assassination), taking care of injuries, slow reconciliation, messy emotions, scheming, breakups/makeups, kissing, unprotected piv sex, desperation, denying feelings, manipulation, fingering, gojo being desperate, light choking, multiple povs

a/n: this was commission for the lovely @dayanim !! gojo art is also by @/kassandraws !! <3

Once upon a time, a very successful girl met a very handsome guy.

You both had potential. A pretty word constantly applied and purred in your ears as if it didn't actually mean privilege. Like you weren't just lucky. Bright and beautiful. Ivy League educated. Wealth most people would wish for.

Living in a daydream before you even knew each other.

You juggled internships and classes, sucked up to all the right people to make connections, itching to get hired at some prestigious place in a high-paying position – prove your worth when your family saw you as an investment.

Satoru Gojo was the heir to his father's company. A genius who slid into the seat next to yours a few months before graduation and asked if you wanted to grab dinner after class, hands clasped together like he was begging, his pretty pink bottom lip jutted out for dramatic effect. Adding a soft please as if you were ever going to be stupid enough to tell him no.

As if anyone had ever told him no.

The beginning was practically storybook. The whole whirlwind romance of expensive dates and heated sex, shrouded in an almost electric air of excitement. Falling fast and hard, exchanging love confessions like they were candy, something sweet to devour instead of cherish. Everyone called you the ‘It’ couple.

A fairytale wedding came next. A couple years of career building and travelling – fancy vacations and sports cars and more sex in hotel rooms or on the beach. You passed the bar exam. Put in long hours while he continued building on the legacy his family had left for him. Clinging on his muscled arm when people started recognizing him in public, taking photos of the man who might rule the world someday at this rate. Proud to be the one he came home to. The one who got to have his last name and his ring on your finger.

The kids were after that, another one of those deliberate decisions you made purely because you thought that was what you were supposed to do. You loved him. Planned your world around what would make him happy, tried to check off every box on his list of his life goals. Even when it meant putting your own career on hold for a while for maternity leave. Satoru tried to say you should just stay at home after your first was born, but you scoffed, insisted on hiring a nanny so you could return to work once your time off was up.

He had his goals.

You didn't want to totally let go of yours.

So when he started spending less evenings having dinners with hedge fund managers and business partners and decided to start going golfing on the weekends with politicians, you said nothing. Kissed him on the cheek and told him to call you later while you chased after the kids or left them with the nanny to take your own time with friends.

It wasn't really a surprise when he decided to run for a seat in Congress, openly supporting him every step there until it was his.

He had a knack for getting what he wanted.

Satoru was just never satisfied with what he had.

Confiding in you after sex, when you were curled up on his side while he traced tiny stars over your bare hip, little laughter lines etched by his lips as they slowly parted and said the words you still hadn't forgotten, “I want more than this.”

You had sat up, tilting your head to the side as you tried to resist the urge to tell him you had everything already. The happy marriage. The healthy kids. A future filled with sunny vacations and steamy nights. Sure, you were both starting to get a little older, but your thirties had been kind to both of you, especially when you had access to plenty of resources to stall aging. Push it back as much as you could, pretending the inevitable wouldn’t come.

“Satoru,” you murmured his name, but then he said something that changed the plot you’d been so preoccupied planning out.

“What do you think about me running for president?”

What you thought hadn’t mattered after all – not when he ended up winning by a landslide anyway.

The youngest president ever inaugurated. His cheeky smile plastered on every TV, your portraits printed on magazines, interview after interview taken, a country waiting to know who the First Lady was while you watched your husband become a political figure for the history books.

Four years. Maybe eight.

You told yourself you could keep it up that long. Be the perfect wife he wanted to parade on. You’d do anything for him, after all. Smile at all the cameras and take on whatever workload was required to fulfill your own role while he checked off another dream.

There was no big, bag dragon waiting to destroy your castle.

No, it was just your husband's inability to keep his dick in his pants.

Your prince charming had started fucking pretty models on his those pesky political trips. And you were the fool that only found out when someone sent you an anonymous photo of him in some foreign country with his hand up another girl’s dress. Lipstick stains on his collar. That stupid smirk on his face while she leaned close like she was going to kiss him.

And yet, instead of leaving him, you were still stuck.

Trapped in the marriage. Unable to do anything when your union was the fucking country’s business instead of something solely for you and him.

You forgave him at first, even when you felt like a fool for doing it when he confessed and apologized, begging you to believe it wouldn’t happen again - until, of course, it did. But eventually you had to cave in, convince yourself that maybe an open relationship would work.

Only, where he was drowning in options, you were left with just one man who wasn’t scared of having sex with the First Lady without risking your husband’s wrath.

So you fucked his best friend – and vice president – in your own lewd affair.

Was it right? Mature? Responsible?

None of the above.

But Suguru made you happy. Reminded you that your future was bigger than just Satoru Gojo or his stupid dreams.

You told yourself that you and Satoru would separate eventually, that there was no fucking way you’d stay with him after all of it, especially when what was left of your relationship imploded when you both finally had to face the fact you were fucking other people. Surviving the scrutiny of the public when it became obvious the two of you weren't on good terms was hard – but it had been bearable with Suguru by your side for most of it.

The mess that had been made still seemed like one you could clean up. Until you let some of Satoru’s dirty little secrets slip to Suguru and he subsequently leaked it to the press.

He’d been pissed. Public perception of him had tanked. People throwing around impeachment. Pitchforks being raised as newspapers printed headlines about him taking bribes, his shady dealings being put in spreads while you watched the bright, shiny, boy you once knew get burned up by his greed, becoming a man you no longer recognized.

A big fight had followed, pointing fingers and shifting blame just to end up back under his thumb, both of you promising to stop sleeping around, to pull it together and try to make your marriage work. You stopped seeing Suguru, and your husband swore that he hadn’t so much as glanced at another woman.

But the fear lingered.

Your heart racing when you saw him shake someone’s hands, or brush arms against them, throat constricting when a pretty girl would come up to speak to him, stars glittering in her eyes as he nodded along to whatever she was saying.

It didn’t last.

You told yourself that public separation was for the best, a press conference to address the fact you and your husband weren’t exactly together. There was no fucking way you could just stay with him after all of it, especially when what was left of your relationship imploded when you both finally had to face the fact that it just wasn’t working when the old wounds had left such deep scars. Surviving the scrutiny of the public when it became obvious the two of you weren't on good terms was hard. But it had been bearable with Suguru by your side for most of it, restarting your relationship in spite of Satoru’s…disapproval.

Your kids didn’t take it well. Getting in fights at school. Expelled. Acting out because you and Satoru couldn’t get your shit together. Let alone an entire country.

Another scandal. Another screw-up. Another nail driven into a coffin you called a marriage.

Life had a funny way of never fucking working out how you thought it would. You had sobbed to Suguru a thousand times, balled your fists up and wished your husband would just fucking drop dead when you were going through the worst of it.

You never actually meant it.

Satoru getting shot wasn't supposed to be part of your happily ever after.

You hadn’t even wanted to be there. Only begrudgingly attending the rally, sitting at the front row with your best smile plastered on, pretending to listen to your husband campaigning for reelection - as if he wasn’t loathed by literally half the nation.

Leg bouncing up-and-down, anxious to leave, to go back to bed, to take a nice bath with Suguru and get some fucking sleep after an exhausting week of press and planning.

“I am devoted to this country, and to my-”

Crack.

You felt the whizz first, then heard the screams. You blinked, and figured out why they were screaming only as everyone behind the podium started to hit the floor. But then another crack rang out, and you saw red.

Everything was a blur, people grabbing you, secret service agents moving fast, pulling you away as your brain finally caught up to processing the horror of what was happening.

Someone just shot your husband.

Tried to fucking assassinate him in the middle of his speech.

You were pretty sure you screamed then, desperate to look, desperate to see if they succeeded, shouting Satoru’s name, begging the universe to let him reply, to hear his voice back.

Because despite everything, all the history and the heartbreak, he was still your husband. Still the father of your children.

The love of your life.

You couldn’t see him anymore.

Completely covered up by his team as you were being moved.

To a safe place, someone said.

As if anywhere could be safe when you were still begging for someone to find out how Satoru was. If he was still alive.

You were crying by the time they got you in a car, the bulletproof glass doing fucking nothing to make you feel any better as your leg bounced up and down, body curling up as small as possible as your brain stuttered and stalled attempting to piece together the fractured moments you just witnessed.

“He’s being taken to the hospital,” someone said, and the panic already bubbling up inside you just compounded, a desperate sob escaping as you struggled to stop hyperventilating.

A small voice in your head was shouting that he was fine, that he had to be fine, rationality slipping away the harder you tried to hold onto it.

“The kids-” You started, another strangled sound cutting you off before a firm voice tried to reassure you.

“We’ll have someone pull them out of school immediately and take them to a safehouse.”

You nodded, sucking in a ragged inhale, far from polished or presentable but as close as you could get.

“I need to be there,” you heard yourself say, voice cracking as your bottom lip quivered. “I have to see him.”

Everyone else might hate him.

You did sometimes.

But he was still yours even when you didn’t want him to be.

The drive there was torture.

But when you were led in the private wing, ushered in a back entrance and led up to an empty waiting area where you were informed he was in surgery, that they didn’t think his injuries were life-threatening, you still couldn’t find a single second of relief. Not until they wheeled him out, took both of you to a heavily guarded hospital room.

White walls and blinking screens. Beeping. Sterile sheets and tiled floors.

And in the middle of it all, your husband’s unconscious body, streaks of red in his pretty white hair, long lashes fluttering softly as you stared at the bandages on him.

He was lucky, the doctor informed you. The first bullet only nicked across his shoulder. The second went through his left calf. Clean entry and exit. Missed all the important stuff. They tried talking about the importance of physical therapy, that they were optimistic he’d make a full recovery. But you could barely focus on what they were saying when your eyes were glued to the man you were being reminded was a mortal instead of a god.

Satoru was still flesh and blood.

Could still break.

Your chair was dragged up to his bedside, holding onto his hand, fingers tightly gripping onto his cold ones, desperately willing him to wake up and give you that stupid smile you had been swearing you couldn’t stand for months now.

All those complicated feelings you’d been stewing over ever since he’d taken a strange clarity at the thought you almost lost him.

When the last doctor left, the secret service detail standing outside the door and leaving you alone with your husband, you were still trying to remind yourself of all the bad times. Make yourself remember who he actually was.

How it felt when you first found out he was still fucking around when he had promised he stopped. He had just hid it better. Made sure no one was around to witness it – although you still found out when his chief of staff tried to dissuade you from surprising him at his hotel when he was a couple hours away attending some stupid conference.

Satoru hadn't seen you, but you saw him when you showed up. Leading a pretty woman in a red dress into an elevator, his hand on her ass while half his security detail followed in after him. You guessed the rest were waiting on his private floor. Paid to pretend they didn't see half the things they did.

You went back to the White House to sleep in a bed that had never really been yours.

Denial wasn't something you could live in anymore.

The anger came next.

Nanami had been sitting there on the couch in the Oval office the next morning like he was waiting for you, reading a fucking newspaper and not even bothering to peek over it to spare you a glance.

“I want a fucking divorce,” you spat out, seething and barely able to catch your breath as you glared at the seat your husband was supposed to be sitting in. So much for a fucking pillar of justice, a man of morality.

His blond chief of staff just turned the page, unamused as he sighed.

“I don't believe I'm the man you should be asking,” he dryly replied.

“Well, you see the cheating bastard more than I do these days,” you snapped back, indignation blooming under your flushed cheeks as you said it out loud. Admitted that what you suspected had been true for weeks. Satoru had started cheating on you again.

The same guy who begged you to marry him, swore that he'd make you the happiest woman alive, who used to wake you up by kissing your forehead and sleepily murmuring sweet things in your ear.

Nanami sat the newspaper down.

Huffed as he sat up straighter, adjusting the thin reading glasses on the bridge of his nose before he looked directly at you.

“Listen,” he started, and you already knew the rest would be bullshit when he was speaking to you like an adult about to let a child down. “We both know he will never let you get a divorce while he's in office.”

He was right.

And really, the idea of getting a divorce, of the whole world knowing you weren't enough for Satoru Gojo was terrifying.

So you made a stupid bargain.

Knees pressed to your chest, perched on the edge of the bed you were meant to share as the door creaked open.

Satoru stepped into the room, running his fingers through his hair, and you hated the way his ring caught the light, like his vows still meant a thing to him.

“You lied,” you murmured, wiping your exhausted eyes. Makeup smeared on your hands. Probably on your cheeks too. A mess he made.

“I-” He started, as if you wanted to hear it.

“I just, I thought you-” You stopped yourself, choking on a hard lump in your throat. “Do you not want this? Us?”

Was your marriage worth so little to him he couldn’t keep his hands off someone else?

He just had to fuck other women?

“I do,” he breathed, getting down on his knees in front of you, and all you could think of then was the moment he proposed to you, how you had whispered yes and he slipped the ring on your finger before he picked you up and twirled you around. Wondering where you’d be if you said no, if you hadn’t been blinded by how much you adored him. “I love you.”

You didn’t feel loved.

“Then why-”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he murmured, all emotional, blue eyes all big and wide, as if it could make up for what he’d done. What he kept doing.

Looking back, the whole thing had become tainted. Your own feelings tangled and twisted and so flipped around you couldn’t make sense of the memory anymore. Maybe that was just the regret though. Wishing you could rewind time and do something differently.

All you wanted was to save your relationship.

For him to stay.

“Maybe we should just open up our marriage then,” you suggested, sniffling and swallowing hard. Hoping he’d say no. Hoping he’d swear that he would stop, that all he needed was you.

But he didn’t.

Begrudging, his teeth gritted and jaw clenched tight as he said fine, probably only allowing it then because he thought you wouldn’t be able to find people to fuck the same way he could. Making a deal of no feelings being involved, promising that he’d be up front from now on, both of you struggling to stomach the idea that you’d both be sleeping with other people. It was still easier for him than it was for you.

Suguru had found you crying in some study that was hardly ever used a couple weeks later, curled up on a couch, tissues strewn across the table as he stopped in the doorway, staring at your crumpled form.

You waited for him to lie.

To come up with an excuse. Defend his best friend. Pretend to feel sorry for you.

“I heard what he did,” he spoke softly.

Another broken sob escaped you – and he shut the door behind him.

“I wanted to kill him when Nanami told me,” he breathed.

You almost laughed, blowing your nose in a tissue, your wedding ring taunting you, white gold and diamonds that meant nothing now.

“Thanks,” you bitterly mumbled, sitting up and meeting his sober stare.

“You deserve better than him.”

You weren't sure where the lines got blurred. When wanting his comfort turned into wanting him.

But you could still recall the first time you kissed him, how your heart pounded against your rib cage, holding your breath as you leaned up to kiss him, lacing your wrists around his neck and shutting your eyes as you gingerly pressed your lips to his.

The sex was usually soft and slow. His pretty purr in your ears and his warmth covering your body, skin on skin as his mouth left marks all over your breasts, your stomach, the inside of your thighs. Wherever was hidden with clothes was fair game.

It wasn’t like Satoru would see them when you hardly spoke to him.

What was Suguru doing now?

Probably pacing the floor, worrying about you somewhere, being informed of Satoru’s condition. Relieved that he wouldn’t have to fill his shoes and take over the presidency?

Even if things were tense, terrible between the two of them since you started sleeping with him, he wouldn’t want him dead.

In some fucked-up way, it sorta felt like your fault, that if you had said something else, made a different decision somewhere along the way, that you wouldn’t be here right now.

You didn’t mean to doze off, dragged into more dreams, but you guessed the morning’s stress coupled with long nights of little sleep and longer days of being drained from meetings and benefits and responsibilities you never asked for was too much for your exhausted body.

It could’ve been two minutes or two hours.

Someone was stroking your hair, familiar fingers stirring you awake as you sat up, wiping away the dampness from your face as your eyes hazily focused on the only blue in the room.

“Sweetheart,” your husband croaked, voice raw and rough as his big hand cupped your cheek. He winced when he went to move closer to you, your breath catching as your mouth fell open. “Don't cry.”

“Satoru, you were just shot,” you hissed at him, already standing up to tuck him back under the thin blankets. Wiping your face with the back of your hand, as if it would erase the evidence of tears you hadn’t meant to let fall for him again. “You shouldn't be-”

“I survived,” he grinned.

Your mouth parted, trying to think of an argument he wouldn't immediately ignore. Those were in almost as short of supply as your sensibility. Reason and rationality slipping further out of reach the longer you looked at him.

His face had pale after the surgery, but pink had started to return to his cheeks, life in his eyes that you were worried you’d never see again. Some piece of you still had a hard time accepting it. Whispering that you might be in a morgue right now if the shooter just had better aim.

What were you supposed to feel?

Happy your husband was still alive? Grateful?

So why the hell were you so torn? Ripped between the past and the present, all the different versions of Satoru you’d known and loved and hated floating in front of you so you didn’t have to deal with the one here right now.

The one who managed to cheat death too.

You guessed a doctor or a nurse had come in, a fresh glass of water by his bedside and a clipboard with notes left next to it. You started to stand to go look at it, but he made a pained or panicked groan like he wanted you to stay.

“Don’t get up,” he pleaded, and you paused.

“I won’t if you won’t,” you reluctantly muttered, sitting back down in the uncomfortable plastic. The last time you’d been in a hospital room with him had been when your youngest son was born. You were the one in the bed – but he climbed in next to you, crammed in and grinning as he cradled your baby boy in his arms between the two of you, thanking you for giving him the greatest gift of his life.

You hated how much every memory of him had been tainted.

That one of the best moments of both of your lives had been recolored now, rotted and turned sour with time.

He relented once you smoothed your skirt down, relaxing back into the bed – but not before stealing your hand, sliding his fingers through yours with an almost content sigh. As if he hadn't just been shot a handful of fucking hours ago.

“I'm happy you're here,” Satoru softly spoke. You couldn’t remember the last time the two of you had talked like this. Alone. In quiet tones instead of shouting.

“I'm your wife,” you answered, an uncomfortable ache carved into your heart as you heard the hollowness in it. You were doing your duty.

That was what your relationship had boiled down to after he'd given up love and loyalty for this dream.

He squeezed your hand, trying to pull your attention back to him. Unable to survive without someone to stare at him, probably.

“I saw you,” Satoru spoke softly, and you did turn, head tilting up of its own volition. “Just for a second, right before the bullet went into my leg.”

You stiffened, almost flinching at the sound of that awful crack still echoing in your ears.

“And all I could fucking think was I couldn't die yet. Couldn't leave things like this,” he continued, his mouth quivering.

God, it felt like you were being gutted. Ripped apart when you knew you were the only person who would stitch yourself back together.

“Satoru, what are you trying to say?” You attempted to sound level-headed. Unaffected.

You didn’t want him to know you were already falling apart at the seams.

“I couldn't leave you,” he firmly said. “I can't.”

“You’ve left me plenty of times,” you retorted, sucking in your bottom lip to stop yourself from saying something really stupid.

Satoru cringed, and you know it hit a sore point. “I know, I-”

“You know,” you repeated, shaking your head as the bile crawled up your throat.

“I’m sorry, I-”

You weren’t listening anymore. You heard his apologies before.

At least he didn’t get to make it much further, two sharp knocks on the door outside interrupting him mid-spiel. Nanami stepped in like he already knew he wouldn’t be walking in on anything intimate.

“You’re alive,” he dryly started, and you pulled your hand away from Satoru’s to the edge of the bed.

“Don’t sound so disappointed, Nanamin,” Satoru teased, but his leg twitched, another distinct flash of pain flitting across his face at the small movement.

“We need to discuss our next steps,” he flat out ignored his president, fixing his tie as his stare shifted towards you. All serious and strained, the crease between his brows deep, years of stress etched into his chiseled face.

“Which are?” You asked, swallowing hard as you started to regret not asking to be taken to the same safe house as your children were. You were sure they were fine, that someone had told them by now that Satoru was okay, that you would both be back with them as soon as you could.

“I don't care if you can barely stand to look at each other,” Nanami sternly scoffed, glancing between both of you as he stood stiffly by the door. “But until you make a complete recovery, you are a united front. The last thing this country needs right now is-”

“We get it,” Satoru groaned, waving his hand dismissively and wincing as he propped himself up with some pillow.

“No, I don't think you do,” Nanami snidely shot back, fixing his glasses to glare at his boss. You wondered how much he had to do in the hours since everything went wrong. How many fires he had to put out, how he was managing to quell the panic that was probably popping up across the nation when the president had been attacked on live TV.

“What do you want us to do?” You asked, pretending you didn't feel it when Satoru's other hand slid back on top of yours on the bed.

“Tell everyone you're back together,” Nanami scoffed, as if it was obvious. “Hold hands, say it made you realize the importance of family, I don’t really care as long as it’s believable.”

Believable.

You almost laughed. You reflexively turned to your husband, waiting for him to automatically agree, or say that it wouldn’t be a problem. Make the decision for you.

He had suggested it before, tried to convince you to get back together, but you’d denied him back them, insisted that the media would chew you up and spit you out. But the circumstances were different now, you supposed considering he’d been shot.

“What do you think?” He asked instead, your face scrunching up in surprise before you forced yourself to look back towards Nanami, masking your feelings with practiced nonchalance.

“If that’s what the nation needs,” you muttered.

One of you had to consider the country.

Do what was right.

It still felt icky when you were sitting with your fingers laced with his later the same night in front of a green screen while Satoru spoke into a microphone about his condition thankfully not being serious. Announcing he sustained relatively mild injuries, like the camera wasn’t being angled from the waist up to disguise how hurt he was. They dressed him up, passed him a speech, fed him lines to say. Probably edited the whole thing to make it look like he was back in the White House already.

“I am incredibly fortunate that the bullets only grazed me,” he lied like it was second nature, but he was squeezing your hand tight, like he needed your strength. “And that I have this wonderful woman by my side to support me.”

He brought your hand up to his mouth, kissing the back of it softly. A show of adoration. You smiled at him, small and relieved. It wasn’t hard to act like you’d been in hell for the last twelve hours. But it was hard to pretend like you were breathing in fresh air now.

Feigning that you found the light after a long, dark tunnel.

You didn’t have lines to deliver.

Just being there was apparently enough.

Afterwards was a blur, helping the nurse make sure he was back in his hospital bed, tucked under the blankets as you leaned uncomfortably against the cold wall. The security was tight, searches required for anyone that came in or out, the staff thoroughly being vetted, all the usual measures you took heightened times ten now.

“Sweetheart,” Satoru called you that stupid pet name again, the knife digging back into your own open wound of a heart.

“I’m, um, gonna go,” you breathed, voice nearly breaking as you blinked. “Stay with the kids overnight.”

His smile faltered. New frown lines forming by his mouth.

But he didn’t pick a fight or protest.

“Tell them I love them,” he quietly requested, and you nodded, biting down on the inside of your cheek until you could taste the blood on your tongue. Satoru was still staring, the harsh white lights only making his eyes appear broken, only a thin sliver of blue nearly swallowed up by his pupils as his lips slowly parted again. “I love you.”

You left.

But you always returned.

Back the next morning, kids in tow, ready to bring him back after he had been released. Instructions given on keeping his wounds clean, avoiding strenuous activities, pretty much precisely what you expected to hear. But they suggested getting crutches, or a cane when it came to walking more than just a minute or two at a time. And despite both of them probably being way too old for it, they were both hanging behind you as they saw him as something other than untouchable for the first time in their lives. Too scared to say anything, just staring at their father in a hospital gown, sitting up with his legs swung over the side of the bed, one wrapped in thick bandages.

Someone had left one of his suits out at the end of the bed, freshly pressed, not a single wrinkle on it as he braced himself to stand on his own for the first time.

“Dad?” Your daughter murmured, fear in her voice that Satoru tried to laugh off. Ease the tension. “Are you-”

“I’m just fine, baby,” he grinned at her, your heart thumping a little louder as he held out his arms, more bandages peeking out underneath his gown. “Come give your old man a hug.”

“You’re not old,” your son huffed, like he was offended at the idea he could have an aging father.

But they both scurried out to cluster around him. One on each side. He wrapped his arms over their growing frames, tugging them in and squeezing them until they started to scoff and squeal in his grip.

You thought you knew all the different ways your heart could hurt.

But this was something new. Seeing your babies in the arms of your husband when a day ago, you thought he might die. Acutely aware that nothing was guaranteed anymore.

And sure, they weren’t babies anymore. Old enough to not need either of you the way they used to. With friends and phones and lives you disrupted by dragging your relationship under public scrutiny.

“Mom?” Your son mumbled, looking back from his father’s embrace as he jutted out his bottom lip. He took the separation the hardest. Starting fights in school. Acting out at home and out of it. He had the same eyes as Satoru, bright and bleeding with hurt, struggling to accept what was happening as they peered into the most shattered shards of you.

“Yeah?” You asked, swallowing nervously.

“Why aren’t you hugging him too?” His sister asked, too observant for her own good.

“I just wanted you guys to have your moment with him,” you murmured, begrudgingly walking over to where they were. Leaning down to hug Satoru over them, sandwiching both of them as your hand hesitantly patted the shoulder blades you used to rake your nails down and scratch up.

His own huge palms ran over your back, keeping you there a few seconds longer than you planned, soft and steady in his hold.

“We should let your dad get dressed,” you cleared your throat, pulling back. Your hands gently on their back, trying to guide them back as if they even listened these days. But you couldn’t stop your treacherous eyes from turning back to watch him stand, his features scrunched up as he strained his muscles. Popping the pain killer the doctors had left in a cup for him by the bed and washing it down with water before he turned to start taking his suit off the hanger.

Catching a glimpse of his ass through the open flaps of the nightgown, your cheeks heating up as you reflexively glanced up – just to realize he was looking back at you, a small smirk curling up on your lips like he’d known you’d been staring.

You thought you’d return to the White House.

But you knew fifteen minutes in that you were being taken somewhere else.

The kids stuffed between you in the seats, both of them eagerly chattering his ears off like he was their captive audience while he constantly readjusted, stretching his long legs out as much as he could and glancing over at you at every turn.

“Nanami found somewhere for us to stay for now,” Satoru was speaking to you, but both the kids perked up, and he pretended it was for them. “Think of it kind of like a vacation, okay?”

Just a heavily guarded one.

“Does it have a pool?” Your daughter beamed, and you couldn’t remember the last time you’d seen her smile so big.

“Hopefully,” he winked, his eyes finding yours just for you to avoid his stare again.

A few members of approved press were waiting to snap a handful of photos of you all walking back in as a family, from an angle where it should be impossible to tell where you were staying at. Another thing to show the public that he was okay. That his personal life wasn’t the total wreck most news stations and magazines were making it out to be. Satoru’s not-wounded arm casually slung over your shoulder and squeezing you close even if it dropped the moment you were back inside, a few of his most trusted staff members waiting to bombard him with updates.

You slipped away, squirreling the kids back to where their nanny was waiting, promising that you’d be back around dinner time to check on them even though they just rolled their eyes and asked when they’d get their phones back.

It was only then that you realized you didn’t have yours either.

Had you left it in the car before his speech even started? In the one afterwards? Given it to one of the secret service agents to hold onto since you didn’t have any pockets?

Fuck.

You’d have to try to ask around – find out where it ended up. Although you were pretty good about scrubbing messages and calls from it, photos of the aftermath of your affair erased or moved somewhere no one else could reach, you still didn’t like risking someone snooping around and finding something they shouldn't if they figured out your passcode.

Those were just excuses though.

You just wanted to call Suguru.

He had to be far past stressed now. How long had it been since you'd gone twenty four hours without speaking? Weeks? A couple months?

Not since you’d separated from Satoru and started sleeping with him again.

You wanted his nose nuzzling against your neck. His scent on your skin. His soft mouth to murmur all those nice things you were craving, pretty whispers you would cling to to stop yourself from drowning.

Was he back at the White House right now? Running the show for Satoru?

You glanced back for a familiar face, anyone you could actually trust who might let you borrow theirs, frowning until you landed on Nanami watching the scene of Satoru being praised and peppered with question after question unfolding from a door frame nearby.

“I don't know who has my phone. Can I borrow yours?” You asked, quiet enough to not draw any attention from your husband.

Nanami didn't even look at you, just shook his head with that same bored expression.

“No phones here,” he vaguely explained, irritation pricking under his skin too in this situation. “Security says it's too much of a risk.”

Like having the some fucking press jackasses snap photos wasn't?

But you knew better than to argue here. Or now, where Satoru was so close by.

“Do you want me to show you around?”

The house was fairly standard. A little smaller than you expected. Hardly any windows. Crawling with agents that you supposed were there for your protection, even if their presence just felt like you were being smothered.

Nanami took you to your room.

Only to casually mention that you and Satoru would hopefully only be staying for a couple weeks while the FBI hunted down his assailant. You were nodding along, about to dismiss him until you noted the strained twitch of his mouth.

“What room will Satoru be staying in?” You asked, brows scrunched together as you opened the closet just to find your own clothes already hanging inside. Next to a slew of suits you recognized.

But Nanami’s silence had said it before you even saw them.

Great.

Just fucking great.

So you were still stuck with him.

You had insisted on at least a cot being set up by the bed, threatening to get a fucking blow-up mattress delivered id they didn't if you were being forced to share a room with him again.

As if it wasn’t hard enough to sort out how you felt about your husband when he wasn’t around.

The rest of the day dragged on, taking care of your responsibilities, filling out statements for Nanami and debating on seeing if he’d at least deliver a letter to Suguru for you or scoff in your face. Eating dinner with your kids while you tried to ignore the fact two men in black suits were standing in the same room as you and two more were waiting on the other side of the door. Coming up with another excuse for why Satoru didn’t show up, mumbling that he was probably just busy being president.

You tried to curl up on your side on the cot afterwards, but the sleep wouldn’t come.

He did. Eventually.

When the clock on the nightstand had ticked ten past eleven, the door creaking open as his voice broke through the quiet.

“Baby?” Your body betrayed you. Heart pounding too hard in your chest as you resisted the temptation to reply. “Are you awake?”

“Just go to sleep,” you muttered back, refusing to turn.

“Can we talk?” He asked. Funny, when you both had failed to have a productive conversation so many times before.

“About what?” You yawned, pressing your ear against the pillow harder like it could suffocate the effect he had on you.

“Us,” he murmured.

“How’s your leg?” You changed the subject, hoping it would dissuade him. But unfortunately for you, Satoru was the most persistent man you’d ever met.

“Hurts like a bitch,” he answered, chuckling like he was exaggerating, but you could hear how strained it was. “I’m sorry I missed dinner with the-”

“Yeah,” you cut him off.

“Are you sleepy?” He hummed, and you wondered what was the specific misstep that started this awful chain of events. What was the moment when it started? When it became too late to stop the snowball from rolling and rolling until it swallowed both of you and you were stuck making awkward conversation like you hadn’t been married for over a goddamn decade?

“Exhausted,” you shrugged, body tensing as you listened to the shuffle of him undressing. The rustle of clothes hitting the floor, the sound of the dresser opening and shutting, the now-uneven footsteps as he struggled to get dressed.

And then you heard the sound of a bandage being peeled off, a low grunt that made you flinch, sitting up as he flickered the lamp on.

You should’ve laid back down.

But all it took was a single look at his wounds and you were begrudgingly getting up, padding barefoot over to the attached bathroom where medical supplies had been stocked in advance for him.

“What are you-”

“Cleaning it,” you interrupted, hating yourself for being such a sucker for him even now.

“You don’t have to,” he said, as if he didn’t secretly want you to.

“Can you move a little?” You murmured when you returned, hesitating by the bed as you watched him try to get his leg up properly.

“You know, I think there's a doctor here I could-”

“Do you not want me to?” You asked, brows pinched together as your fingers hesitated over the bandage you had been told to clean and replace twice a day.

“I do,” he admitted.

You attempted to tell yourself it wasn’t his leg. Going through all the motions, following the steps clinically, your fingers skimming against his skin as you wiped it clean and rebandaged it carefully.

But you felt the weight of him watching you until you were finished. Even after you stood up and started walking away, putting back up what you didn’t use and tossing the previous bandages, like some invisible string tied around your wedding band tugging you back to him.

You didn't say anything. Just walked back to the cot, about to get on it before he spoke up.

“Sleep on the bed.” Was it a request? A demand? A presidential decree?

You couldn't tell with him.

“It’s not like we're actually back together,” you mumbled under your breath, getting back up on it without facing him. You wouldn't look. Couldn't in case you crumbled.

The past thirty-six hours had felt more like half a year. Wrung dry and hung up hollow.

“You’re my wife,” he echoed your earlier statement, reminding you of vows he'd broken first.

“Please don't act like that means something to you now,” you dismissively muttered. You could feel the tension ride, threatening to snap as the blankets behind you crinkled and the sound got closer.

“You're my first lady,” he said, as if it was something you wanted. Something you would've chosen for yourself if it weren't for him.

“I could've been anything,” you hissed back, fuming, furious anger ripping and shredding its way up your throat. You'd rather be in a courtroom, or hunched over a desk reviewing case notes – not thinking of how your future consisted of defending the dick you married and planning what stupid Christmas decorations to put up in a home you never wanted while pretending to give a shit.

Not making sure his gunshot wounds from an assassination attempt weren't getting infected.

And then he did something he'd never done before.

De-escalated.

“I'm sorry,” Satoru softly said, making all that rage abruptly stall just by stunning you. “I’m so fucking sorry that I can’t find the right thing to say to show you how much I hate the husband I’ve been to you.”

You didn't know what to say. What to do when it sounded like the truth.

“I feel like I just woke up from a really fucking bad dream, and all I want is my wife back,” he added, his words already starting to loop around in your head.

“You shouldn't-” Your breath got caught in your throat, voice breaking off as you closed your eyes before you could start to cry.

“I can't believe what I did to you. To us,” he added, and you loathed how eagerly part of you began to absorb his pretty words. How warm his affection felt when you'd been missing it and him for so fucking long. “I'll regret it for the rest of my life.”

You hoped he did.

“Good night, Satoru,” you whispered, laying back down and pulling the blanket back on top of you.

You still dreamed of him. Of the before days that had been given up for this. Where he only ever made you laugh instead of cry. Where he came home from work practically ready to worship you, picking you up and peppering your face with kisses. But just as the dream started to morph, twist into a cruel reminder of your current reality, you woke up.

Satoru was still there for once. Sleeping on the side of the bed closest to you, messy hair strewn across the pillow, snoring softly. You frowned, hand reaching out, about to nudge his shoulder and wake him up, but you paused. Stopped yourself before your fingers could touch him again.

He didn't need you for stuff like that.

Not anymore.

You thought being here would be like it'd been back at the White House. Paths that only got crossed when they had to, only catching glimpses of him when he was walking somewhere else, standing on the other side of a closed office door.

But when it was time for lunch, when you were walking in with your daughter and listening to her complain about some idiot boy in her class, he was already there, sitting at the head of the table and taking a long sip from a glass of soda.

“Well, as long as you don't marry him, you'll be fine,” you muttered, eyes narrowing as your husband choked on his drink, coughing and clearing his throat while your daughter made some disgusted noise.

“How are my favorite girls doing?” Satoru tried to ask, pretending this was normal. That he hadn't been missing family meals for so long, you couldn't quite recall when it started anymore.

But he was back for dinner.

And the next breakfast.

Sometimes he was a few minutes late, or had to shoo away the handful of staff allowed access here away until after he ate, but he kept showing up.

He'd taken to using a cane to get around, supporting his weight on his left leg on it, usually wincing by the time he walked in, resting the cane on the table while you all ate. But he smiled at the kids, at you, cracked jokes and asked them about their friends, their interests, trying to make up for his absence by being here now.

His attention was enough for them.

Honestly, you hadn't seen them this happy since the first year he'd taken office. Your son openly asking if you all would really have to leave here, white brows scrunched together in frustration when he pressed to know if this meant you two were going to finally get back together.

You opened your mouth, ready to accept being the bad guy to them and reiterate that this was temporary, that you were waiting for the FBI to find who shot their father and that things would go back to your typical normal soon.

But Satoru cleared his throat first, a surprisingly stern expression on his face as he looked at his youngest.

“It's my fault your mother and I aren't together anymore,” he addressed him, your fork frozen in your hand as the lump in his throat bobbed. “I broke her trust and-”

“Can't she just forgive you already?” Your son whined back, still childish despite his latest growth spurt. He would probably be as tall as his dad one day, but right now, he just seemed like a boy. Clueless to what a relationship was supposed to look like outside of the mess of a marriage you were doing a shitty job setting an example of.

“She doesn't have to forgive me at all,” Satoru shut him down anyway, and your stupid heart stalled. “I messed up, okay? If you want to blame someone, blame me.”

They would always love him though.

Incapable of doing anything other than looking up to him.

Your feelings were…more complicated.

Your nighttime conversations had almost become more casual. He asked about your day, tried to ask if there was anything he could request staff to pick up for you, thanked you when you helped clean his healing wounds. Constantly attempted to convince you to let him take the cot like it was the proverbial dog house.

His offers were rejected.

But it would be a lie to say that the hardened shell around your heart hadn’t started to form a few cracks. The glue just wouldn’t hold.

Nanami showed up two weeks later, folders stacked in his arms as he called you both in for a meeting. Running back over things you were missing, schedules that were behind, boring business stuff.

Laying out articles and outlining what new laws were trying to slip through to get passed without Satoru there. His reputation had surprisingly managed to improve in spite of the assassination, or maybe because of it. His name leaving people’s mouths without being accompanied by the word impeachment.

Most of it was boring, nodding along while he and Satoru argued and bickered over little details while you itched for a chance to speak to him privately. Ask him again about how long this was meant to last. Almost sure you wouldn’t get the opportunity until he started packing his stuff up, his pen precariously left on the edge.

You uncrossed your legs, purposely bumping into the table while Satoru brought up the status of the investigation, neither of them noticing the soft thump of it hitting the floor.

“There should be an update soon,” he vaguely replied.

Nanami stood up, slinging his laptop bag over his shoulder, holding the folders to his chest as one of the agents opened the door for him to go.

Your hand tightened around the pen as you bent over to pick it up from underneath the table, guilt blossoming in the pit of your stomach from a seed you'd been watering with every thought of Suguru.

“I’ll go give it to him,” you muttered, holding it up in your palm as if your husband wouldn't know it was some flimsy excuse.

Nanami was halfway out the front door, but you jogged to catch up, out-of-breath but not from the exertion by the time you made it to him. He stopped, turning halfway towards you, his hazel eyes raking over you like he already knew what you were doing. What you wanted from him. “When can I speak to Suguru?” You softly asked, swallowing the lump in your throat as his brows subtly arched up.

“You do understand the security you are under is for your own safety, right?” He wryly asked, as if you hadn't heard the spiel before.

“He's the vice president,” you said, almost immediately feeling stupid once it was out loud. Cold reality sinking in that your relationship was just asking for another major scandal, something that would strip Satoru of the last of his power if anyone else ever found out.

“Which is precisely why he cannot be in the same location when the FBI does not have anyone in custody. Right now, the entire world is looking at you and your husband,” Nanami reminded you, your mouth closed tight as the regret coiled in your stomach. “You can speak to your boyfriend once Satoru shows the public he's completely recovered.”

You watched him in silence as he walked back out to where a blacked-out car was waiting for him.

Only shutting the door and turning away after he got in the backseat, his last sentence lingering in your thoughts as the slam of a car door echoed between the noise of chirping birds and the soft sway of the wind.

You were still holding his pen.

“You could’ve asked about him in front of me,” Satoru spoke up from behind you. You looked back, but the rest of the foyer was empty. You supposed he must've ordered all his agents to wait somewhere else. He was standing maybe four feet away, but the distance felt too far for either of you to cross, unable to build a bridge when you were sure one of you would just burn it down anyway.

“What?” You blinked.

“Him,” he muttered, his voice dry. Hurt. It made you happier than it should. To shatter him the way he broke you so long ago.

“What do you want from me, Satoru?” You stiffly asked, not sure if you had anything left to give him.

“I want you to miss me the way you miss him,” Satoru said, and it took all of your restraint not to respond. “I know it’s not fair, and it’s-”

“Do you miss sleeping with other women?” You tilted your head to the side, unable to contain the tremble in the question.

Satoru recoiled.

“I miss when you were mine,” he muttered, shaking his head a little, regret etched into every line of his face as he took the tiniest step towards you. “Miss the man I was before I fucked everything up with us.”

“Yeah,” you scoffed. “Me too.”

The next few days dragged on. The hardest part was not staring at your husband. Pretending that this sad puppy version of him had no effect on you. That his long looks and pretty pout weren’t working at all, as if your body wasn’t a total traitor when you had to fall asleep listening to his breathing at night.

Trusting him again was something only an idiot would do.

Satoru Gojo would only let you down.

He couldn’t help it, you supposed. It was who he was now.

And you ended up sitting alone at the table waiting for him and his mini-mes to show up, familiar disappointment beginning to bubble in your stomach as you counted the seconds in your head.

But before you could give up and get up, the door swung open, your kids stumbling in first with arms full of plates. Satoru close behind them, cradling a big one himself, the warm scent of food flooding in with them.

“We made dinner,” your daughter giggled, a bright glimmer in her eyes that you missed seeing. “Your favorite.”

“I’m a little rusty in the kitchen,” Satoru muttered as they laid out the dishes. There was no air of expectation. Running his fingers through his hair, shrugging his shoulders almost as if he was shy or nervous. Two things he’d never been in his life. “Not sure how good it’ll be.”

“It’s nice,” you managed. And weirdly enough, you meant it.

They made you sit there and wait for them to bring everything out, your son leaning over to pile food on your plate, picking up your fork and taking small bites just to be surprised by the taste anyway. The hint of too much salt. The familiar texture. The little details that confirmed Satoru had really been the one to make it.

Your eyes flitted over to him, a small smile curling up on your lips when you saw he was already staring at you. Intimacy that flickered instead of burned. Like a candle on a birthday cake instead of a wildfire ready to wipe out an entire forest.

For once, you didn’t feel like your head was under water when you went to sleep that night.

And the next morning brought the news you’d been waiting for.

Nanami returning back up with nothing but a briefcase, adjusting his tie as his stare flickered between you and Satoru, like he could sense the tension returning – or picked up on how much less toxic it was compared to a month ago.

“They have a suspect,” he muttered, your brows arching up as a strange feeling floated up. Discomfort?

Whatever it was, it was strangling, your voice tight as you tried to sound not bothered, “In custody?”

“No,” he said, but it was careful. Calculated. “Not yet.”

You swallowed hard, cautiously glancing over to Satoru, who was listening with a distant expression, staring out one of the few windows here. Maybe disappointed that your vacation might be coming to an end sooner than he thought. “So what does that mean?”

“You’ll be able to return to the White House today.”

The rest was a blur.

The few staff here had started packing up your stuff, your kids complaining when you mentioned they’d have to be returning to their classes and studies, begging to stay a few more days while you discreetly listened to Satoru and Nanami making arrangements for some gala against gun violence to make a point that Satoru was still strong enough to lead the country and take a stance when it counted.

Your mouth turned down, wondering how the hell it would work when he was still relying on a cane when he had to walk for more than a few minutes. On pain killers and sheer willpower?

But you guessed it wasn’t your concern.

You would just be expected to show up and be his favorite accessory. Cling to his arm and charm the old men whose favor he craved.

Returning to the White House was practically its own event. Cameras flashing and microphones being shoved out, sure to be highly publicized as you and Satoru both sheltered your children through, throwing out small waves and practiced smiles.

The sun was starting to slip lower, a million people itching to speak to Satoru, but you were searching through the crowd for a different face. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Someone who would turn all your confusion into something that made sense.

But Suguru wasn’t there.

Not waiting for you, or even hanging around the edges ready to offer Satoru an update on what he’d been doing in the weeks since either of you had seen him.

Your jaw clenched, barely able to conceal your reaction as you returned through halls that didn’t feel familiar anymore. You hated it here.

Loathed every painting on the wall and the carpet on the floors and the paths you used to take. It felt like a prison.

Did that make Satoru your warden?

His presidency your sentence?

At least you wouldn't have to spend so much time with him – not when you were sure things would return to the limbo you'd been living in where you rarely saw him.

Except, when you showed up for dinner, he was already there. The kids teasing him for some silvery strands that has started to pepper through the white of his hair, all of them turning to smile brightly at you as you walked through the door. An empty seat beside him, waiting for you to take it.

Your throat was closing up as you did, smoothing out your dress as you desperately controlled your face.

“Is this going to be like, a thing now?” You asked under your breath as you picked at your food with a fork. Wouldn't this just make it so much fucking harder for all of you once you went back to normal? What about after his term? Once he wasn't a president anymore and you filed for divorce?

“I made a decision I should've made a long time ago,” Satoru quietly replied. “I'm putting my family first.”

Your mouth opened, but you just took a reluctant bite of your food before you could say it was too late.

“You're my priority,” he murmured, and a piece of you that probably lacked brain cells wished that he had this revelation years ago. “I promise.”

How much of that was actually real?

You ended up just sitting on the edge of your old bed asking yourself questions you already knew the answers to. Wearing an old slip you found in the bottom of the drawer, something soft and lacey, but you weren't even sure who you were wearing it for. Was Suguru even staying here? Had they put him up in a safe house of his own? Or maybe let him stay in his own place with just extra security?

Satoru probably wouldn't show up.

He basically had his own bedroom now, one on the same floor and wing since your separation started.

Why would he-

“Hey,” his voice cut through the silence, your head snapping over to watch him limp in, cane in hand as he slowly started over.

“I figured you would sleep in your, um, other room,” you replied. Not harsh or hateful. More of an observation, you guessed.

“Can I still sleep here?” He asked, and you couldn’t believe the slow bob of your head up and down instead of left and right.

He walked over to you, footsteps slow, unsure. One leg dragging a little behind the other until he stopped just in front of the bed. Slowly turning to sit next to you, hardly an inch between your thigh and his, sinking into the soft mattress.

“What happened to us?” You whispered into the air. If the clock could turn back, would you try to save him? If you woke up tomorrow back in college, would you have scoffed and said no to that date? Reset your fate?

Would he?

“I think about that first night sometimes,” he muttered, a sharp sting stabbing through your heart as you realized which one he was talking about. “How fucking stupid it was.”

“Satoru,” you breathed his name, the sharp teeth of panic sinking into your heart as you started shaking your head.

“I just, I still can’t fucking believe I did it. Me and Suguru were just drinking, taking shots at the bar and celebrating, fuck, I mean, we were talking about you, and the next thing I know, I’m waking up next to some stranger in the sheets and-”

“Stop,” you were begging, tears trying to choke you up. What the hell was he talking about? Suguru had never once mentioned being there, acted like it was as big of a fucking surprise to him as it was to you when you found out about all the cheating.

“I don’t know what the fuck was wrong with me. Why I kept doing it afterwards, I-I just couldn’t stop feeling so slimy, and wanted so fucking badly to forget, but all I ever seemed to do was keep sabotaging myself,” he was rambling now, inhaling hard as he buried his face in his hands. His left leg was stretched out, twitching as he talked.

“Why are you-” You stopped yourself, clinging to all of your own jagged edges even when it hurt so much. “Why are you even saying this?”

“It was never about you,” he murmured. “I was the one who didn’t deserve you. Who was stupid and insecure and jealous-”

“I already know that,” you half-huffed, forcing yourself to look down at the floor before you fell apart completely.

“And then I saw the way Suguru started staring at you, like, like he was just fucking waiting to snatch you, and I-”

“Satoru,” you repeated, wiping away a stray tear that fell, a little broken noise escaping before he finally shut up.

And then he was brushing away the dampness from your cheeks, flinching when you felt that first gentle graze of his fingertips. But you just sat there, let his hand cup your face, your body betraying you by slowly melting into his touch.

You should recoil. Retreat. Remove yourself.

Something.

All you could do was stay wrapped in his warm cloud of comfort, his cologne clinging to your skin and your eyes on his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. A promise that sounded so pretty coming from his perfect lips. “I’m so sorry. I love you so much.”

It would be the easiest thing in your life to believe him.

Second-nature to accept what he said.

Your mind was already savoring it, turning over every tremor, picking apart his tone. You wanted to hear it for so long. Hear him breaking and bending for you.

“You don’t have to say it back,” he breathed, his thumb dragging over your cheekbone like he was scared you might not feel the same anymore. That he’d lost your love forever with just himself to blame for it.

“I-” You started, not totally sure where you were going with it, too much spit pooling in your mouth to continue. You glanced down at your lap, only then realizing your thigh was pressed against his now. Did he move closer?

Or was that one on you?

“I miss you,” you finally admitted, but the relief was bittersweet.

“Can I show you how much I miss you too?” He asked, and you loathed that you let him.

His finger skimmed over your shoulder, pulling down your slip as his nose subtly brushed against yours as if he was getting ready to kiss you.

You froze, an awful, icky feeling washing over your entire body, fingers shaking as your breath got stuck in your throat.

“Sweetheart,” Satoru whispered, and you realized you were shaking your head now, your whole body trembling as you mechanically forced yourself away from him. A cruel thought bouncing around in your brain that you couldn't shut down.

Did he call the other girls that?

Whisper it in their ear like a promise? Tell them that he was leaving you soon or spin a pretty tale about your relationship being for show these days?

“What's wrong?” He pressed, those blue eyes you had adored so much glittering in the light of the moon, but all you could fucking feel was that they didn't shine for you.

“I thought maybe I could, but I can't,” you swallowed, stepping back from the bed, covering up your body as you bent over to rummage through your dresser for a robe.

“Why?” Satoru inhaled, sounding almost choked up about it. “Baby, don't-”

“It disgusts me,” you admitted, the word coming out raw and wounded, ripped from some primal part of you. “When I think of you putting your fucking dick inside of someone else-”

“I-”

“No,” you stopped him. “You don’t get it. Weren’t there to see how many nights I cried because of you.”

“Don’t you think I would do anything I could to take it back?” He desperately begged, limping after you as you tied the robe tight around your waist.

“I don’t know what you really think,” you dryly muttered. “What to believe from you.”

“Believe me when I tell you that I’d do anything for you,” Satoru grabbed your hand, squeezing as half of you wanted to stay and the rest of you was screaming to run. “That I will spend my life showing you how sorry I really am.”

“You know how hard it is to trust you when-” You couldn’t even finish the sentence, sucking in on your cheek and biting down hard as you scrunched your eyes shut.

“How do you think it feels every time I think about Suguru?” Satoru rebutted, his voice low. Like a weak wounded animal. “Watching you fall for him, look at him the way you used to look at me.”

“Don’t act like it’s his fault,” you defended him. “He-”

“He was there. Always fucking there and just waiting for me to fuck up,” he argued back, and you couldn’t stand that he was starting to change your mind. Or, at least, make you see things were even more crooked than you thought they were if you were considering the chance that Suguru had something to do with Satoru cheating on you.

“What do you want?” Your voice cracked.

“You.”

“No, no, you-” You were about to start crying, a thick sob building up because if you believed that, then what would be next?

“Just stop seeing him. Please. I’ll do anything,” he was begging, fingers trying to slither into your palm so he could hold your hand. “Whatever it takes to fix us.”

“You know I had sex with him on our bed,” you admitted, halfway hoping to hurt him, dig the knife in and create a matching wound. He used to say you were soulmates. Wouldn’t it make sense to have matching scars? “Let him bend me over right there and fuck me until I forgot your name.”

Satoru went stiff, hand rigid in yours before you ripped it away.

And as soon as the anger was out, hanging in the air between you, you just felt like you were the one bleeding too. Sliced by your own blade of hurt and hate.

“I should sleep in one of the guest bedrooms,” you muttered, gutted and hollow.

It didn’t take a genius to see he didn’t want you to, mouth open like he might try to work his magic and make you stay, or maybe attempt to stand and follow you out, but you snatched his cane by the bed on your way out.

“Are you seriously-”

You slammed the door shut before you could keep arguing.

The ceiling in the closest spare room wasn't so comforting either.

Just made you think of Suguru more. Wondering where he was. If he was in his own bed thinking of you right now.

You hated not being able to go to him right now. Completely clear the air and let him reassure you that he was the innocent one here. That Satoru was still the evil husband that was eventually going to be your ex.

You were half-tempted to sneak around the halls on the off-chance he might still be in his office here.

God, it felt sort of disgusting for leaving him out like this, for the treacherous feelings Satoru kept stirring up when you were supposed to still be separated.

Even if the public thought you were back together, you'd be lying to yourself if you tried to say the lines weren't starting to get blurred in private. God, you were going to sleep in the same bed as him. Nearly let him undress you with just that pout and those puppy dog eyes.

When for all you knew, the second he started walking entirely on his own, he’d start fucking around again.

Tossing and turning in a cold bed, biting your lip as you wrestled for any kind of rest.

And then there was a knock.

Just a short, somehow uncertain one.

Your heart skipped a beat before you even considered who it could be from.

“I can’t sleep leaving things like that,” Satoru spoke into the dark, his voice tinged with raw pain. You almost said that you had left things far fucking worse before, but what was the point of bringing up the past?

“Why not?” You whispered, pulling the blanket around you protectively.

“Because I want better for us.”

He walked in, one foot dragging along the floor until the mattress shifted, dimpling under his weight as he leaned on it for support.

“I want to be a man you can rely on, not run away from,” he breathed.

God, you were so sick of running.

But stopping sounded even scarier.

And still, despite the fact it felt like your heart was being torn in half, you stayed silent when you heard him get into bed next to you, just bit your cheek at his low hiss of pain after chasing you here.

You didn’t tell him to get out or go.

The most terrifying part was how well you slept with him there.

Actually waking up rested for once, his strong arm wrapped around your waist that you had to slip out from, unable to stop yourself from rolling him over to stop him from snoring. Leaving the cane by his side of the bed, wrapping the robe around you tighter as you tried to sneak back to the main bedroom to get changed.

Some invisible, intangible thing lifted off your chest now that you finally felt like you had something over Satoru. That he was, at last, the loser.

Chasing and crying and desperate for a change.

You still half-expected that he’d go back on his grand promises. To fall back into old patterns.

But as the days dragged on, his presence didn’t dwindle.

In fact, in spite of how slammed he was with far more important stuff, he found a way to show up. No longer missed meals, or made a habit of disappearing or drowning himself in paperwork and problems in the Oval Office. Finding you in whatever room or study you tried to hole up in, trying to bribe his way back into your heart with snacks and sweet gestures.

And Suguru was nowhere to be seen.

Heard, sure. His presence was a phantom and passed down by second or thirdhand accounts. Nanami said he was working from his own place, under his own security detail for the time being.

Until the FBI finished had their suspect officially in custody.

You were surprised it had taken them this long, especially when the public had shifted enough to start turning their vitriol towards their investigation. Suspicious that no arrest had been made, wild stories being spread as magazines and news stations desperately tried to request interviews with your husband for any details.

He took a few, but insisted on you being there, his hand on your side keeping you close as you both answered questions and smiled at the cameras, reassuring the nation that he was recovering well, that your relationship was only getting stronger.

It didn’t feel like a lie.

And when he walked out holding your hand, you honestly forgot to drop his for longer than you’d care to admit.

You hadn’t fought since that night. No bitter arguments or big blowouts. But the quiet wasn’t so awkward. Didn’t carry the same angry tension it had before. You hadn’t forgiven him. But you were tired of hating him.

Holding onto the hurt just felt like you were making the wound worse.

It didn’t help your resolve when he had opened up an entirely new worry, your tedious trust in Suguru starting to fray now that you had a reason to suspect that maybe he lied to you too.

You didn’t know when you’d be able to see him again.

Weren’t totally sure what you would say when you did.

Things were different in a way you still couldn’t quite qualify. And you couldn’t shake the feeling you were standing at a crossroads, scared to choose the wrong path.

You stared at your own reflection.

Dolled up in some absurdly expensive dress, makeup done and set, hair sprayed into place as you touched the diamond necklace dangling down your collarbone. Ready to be paraded around a party while your husband charmed the crowd and reminded them why anyone voted for him in the first place. A gala against gun violence, a statement to be made. Satoru stepped up behind you, popping a couple painkillers as he tried to disguise his limp.

He looked down at you, and your stupid heart fluttered at the sight of him.

His red tie was just a little crooked, the same as his soft smile, glancing between you and the mirror as he stood by your side, his gold wedding band gleaming in the overhead light. “You look gorgeous.”

“You’re not terrible looking,” you begrudgingly hummed, and he grinned like it was the best compliment he ever heard.

“Are you ready?” He asked, cocking his head to the side and jutting his thumb towards the door.

“Hold on,” you murmured, and he paused in place. For a moment, it felt like you were five years younger, seeing him in his dark suit, hair hanging a little longer, a light in his eyes you'd almost forgotten. You couldn't remember the last time you'd seen it.

You had to bite down on the inside of your cheek, stop yourself from telling him he really did look handsome and feeding his ego as your hands reached up to adjust his tie.

How you used to back when things weren't so…hard.

The ride to the gala was torture.

Trying to hold yourself together and act like you didn’t notice a thousand little details about him. The subtle bounce of his healthy leg, the way his hand kept drifting closer and closer towards yours in the backseat, how he kept trying to discreetly steal glances at you. Making small talk about the kids and the economy and what new reforms he was pushing to pass.

A far cry from the guy who’d been taking bribes a year ago and lazily slapping his signature across bills a year ago.

He sounded like he had before he had taken the office. Almost optimistic.

Hoping for a better world, you guessed – one he thought he could create.

But it was the bad kind of nostalgia when you made it there, the twinkling lights and the big bright room filled with people you hated. Usually, you would try to slip away, excuse yourself for a drink or the bathroom just for the chane to breathe.

Tonight, though, Satoru’s hand refused to leave your back, his gaze constantly returning to your face no matter who he was speaking to. Your stomach was cramping though, nerves bouncing around when he had to stand up in front of all of them and give some grand speech about strength at the start of the night, fear you hadn’t expected coiling tight with the worry that someone might show up to finish what they started and you’d end up a widow instead of a divorcee.

Everything here was centered around him. Senators and congressmen, anyone with pockets they hoped he’d be filling, all came up to congratulate him, wishing him well, asking how the two of you were holding up together.

“Are you okay?” Satoru murmured as you watched one of them walk away, leaning down so his breath was warm on your skin. Reaching over to fix where your necklace had gotten crooked, moving it into the proper place as you hesitated over the answer. “You seem-”

“It’s a little claustrophobic in here,” you hummed, your dress clinging tighter than it had an hour ago, the tag scratching at your skin as you scanned the crowd, wondering if you would finally get your chance to see a certain someone.

Was Suguru around here somewhere? Schmoozing with the dickheads and downing a champagne glass?

“You want some fresh air?” He offered, concern flecked in the pretty colors of his eyes.

“I think I’ll just get a drink,” you shrugged, looking back around at the number of security agents stationed at different points around the room. A lot fucking more than there had been at the last one of these dumb parties he dragged you to. But you guessed that was sorta to be expected when the president had taken two bullets at a public event.

Someone else started walking up, another old man you could never remember the name of.

Satoru kissed the top of your forehead, lips gently pressing just above your brows as his hand slipped off of your back. “Grab me one too?”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to mix your pain killers with alcohol," you dryly admonished him, arching a brow up with a small sigh. He had ditched the cane tonight in favor of standing in one place and sitting when he could, trying to portray an image that not even an assassination attempt would break him.

“Fine,” he automatically gave in, leaning in to sneak another kiss on your cheek. “Whatever my wife says.”

The title didn’t harbor as much hurt as it used to.

And despite how much you wanted you to pretend it didn’t affect you, that he didn’t anymore, your chest felt all fuzzy and warm as you pulled away from him to start towards the open bar.

The alcohol didn’t help.

Sipping on a pretty glass of something strong, letting all those mixed feelings swirl around your stomach as you studied the people milling around. Your husband was already swarmed, people trying to shake his hand and clap his back while he wore a practiced smile, nose scrunching up when he laughed. It didn’t take long for him to be blocked from your sight entirely, only wisps of white and flashes of blue breaking through as you finished your drink and debated on asking for a second one.

Cologne you hadn’t caught a whiff of in forever wrapped around you as you felt his presence before you saw him there.

“I was worried you wouldn’t-”

“I need to ask you something,” you preemptively cut him off, dropping your voice down to a soft whisper as you glanced back over your shoulder to make sure no one was paying attention to the Vice President sliding up to the First Lady.

“Can it-” Suguru started, and you had to force yourself to interrupt him, to get the question out while you still had the courage. Sneaking a glance to your right to find his familiar frame standing tall, dark hair hanging loose over his broad shoulders. His features were tight as he searched your face, dark circles etched underneath his eyes as his fingers anxiously tapped the bartop. It was obvious he was stressed. Bending under the weight of the world he’d been carrying for Satoru.

“Were you there? The night Satoru first cheated on me?” You heard yourself ask, not totally sure what you would even do with the truth. If he was there, if he knew, then what would happen next?

Suguru looked back at you, confusion and something closer to hurt scrunching up on his face before his stare swept back to the rest of the gala still going on.

“Is that seriously what you want to know? What the hell did he say to you?” He hissed back, not looking directly at you, trying to pretend that you weren’t having anything other than a casual conversation. But that wasn’t a denial, was it?

Wouldn’t he just scoff and say no if he wasn’t there? Insist his innocence?

Your lips parted, but then he spotted something.

His face fell in a single second. His jaw went slack, something dark shining in his eyes.

You craned your neck to catch a peek, but the only thing that stood out was one of Satoru’s secret service agents cutting through the cluster of partygoers to speak to him.

“Shit,” Suguru muttered. “I thought we had more time.”

He grabbed your arm, fingers sinking into the soft skin as he dragged you away from the bar and through the closest hallway, digging in deeper when you tried to step back. More time? That was probably the one thing neither of you ever had enough of.

“Suguru, please-”

“We can’t talk here,” he hissed back, and you almost recoiled, surprised at how rough his voice suddenly sounded. His hold was possessive, pulling you further away from the party. Prying into muscles now, tight enough that you thought he might leave fingerprints.

“You’re hurting me,” you murmured, stifling a sound as you resisted his tug. Honestly, he was scaring the shit out of you, but you were trying to trust that he had a reason.

His grip loosened, but not enough for you to break free.

“I’m sorry, beautiful,” he half-whispered, and you realized what it was in his growl. Panic. “But we have to go.”

“Go where?” You asked, glancing back over your shoulder at the dimming lights of the gala. The opening to the hall shrinking with every step you took.

Satoru would-

“There’s a car waiting to take us to a private plane, and-”

You dug your heels in the ground, stopping in place as you took a stunned breath.

“What are you talking about?” You gaped, unable to wrap your brain around what he was suggesting. Still thinking back to the question he hadn’t really answered, Satoru’s words echoing in your head, about Suguru waiting to snatch you, an uneasy feeling sitting heavy inside you, too deep to scoop out. “A plane?”

“I don’t have time to explain here, baby, but we need to leave now,” he insisted, but you couldn’t just accept that. Take the jump when you were terrified to fall.

“What about my kids?”

“He would never let us take them,” Suguru shook his head, and you could only scoff, taken aback as you tried again to move back. But he was stronger than you.

And the rock you were counting on him being, the net you thought was waiting for you, had abruptly moved.

“You want me to leave them?” You asked, breath hitching as you shook your head. Fuck, they were yours, you carried them and birthed them and held their chubby fingers when they were babies and baked their birthday cakes every year. Maybe they were whiny and impulsive and stuck with the same DNA that made Satoru who he was, but you loved them. And maybe him still too.

“If you don’t-”

The red dot of a scope being lined up was suddenly on his chest.

“Down on the ground,” some deep voice shouted, three more dots popping up before you had blinked.

“Let go of the First Lady,” someone else grunted, but Suguru tried to pull you back towards a blinking EXIT sign. But you could hear the noise out there too, the loud footsteps and muffled voices screaming that he was already surrounded.

That it was already too late.

“What’s happening?” Your question was drowned out by the spectacle, heart straining inside your chest and threatening to break through your ribcage as you realized it was a fucking SWAT team.

It took you a few painful seconds to figure out what this was. What you’d been caught in the middle of. They were arresting Suguru. Threatening to fucking shoot him if he didn’t release you, blow his brains out in the middle of a gala against gun violence.

“I didn't-” Suguru started behind you, your attention flicking around too fast to focus on anyone, starting to hyperventilate as Suguru held you like he was scared of what would happen once the connection broke. As if it was the last time he'd get to touch your skin.

“You’re being arrested in connection to the attempted murder of-”

“Don’t trust them,” Suguru insisted in a panic, trying to pull your attention back to him, your head swiveling around to catch one more glimpse of his beautiful face. His eyes bleeding into you, the pretty slope of his nose turned up as his starry stare begged you to believe him. “I promise, I didn’t-”

Someone else was grabbing you, pulling you back before he could finish.

“Get your hands off my fucking wife,” Satoru growled, your back pressed against his chest, an arm around your waist, each second somehow adding more distance between you and Suguru until you realized he was leading you away. Picking up pieces from the mess unfolding in front of you, snippets of the shouts, shattered still images your brain was struggling to process as Satoru let his best friend get put in cuffs for trying to murder him.

“No, no, he couldn’t-” Your voice broke. You were pretty sure you did too.

Watching a man you thought you might love get forced down on his knees, hands behind his head as he argued as he got arrested.

“An agent just filled me in,” Satoru murmured in your ear, stroking your hair softly, trying to cushion the blow as he held you back. “He was seen on surveillance footage meeting with their suspect and handing him cash. They got the guy in custody yesterday. I guess he confessed to everything.”

“Suguru's your best friend,” you gaped, grasping at straws, refusing to believe he could be capable of something like this. “He wouldn't-”

“What?” Satoru snapped. “Fuck my wife?”

Your lips clamped shut, but not before a tiny broken breath escaped. Tearing your stare away from the sight of Suguru being dragged out that back entrance he was about to take you through to look back at your husband, not sure what you were supposed to think or feel anymore.

Did you really not know Suguru either? Cursed to have terrible taste in men?

“Why wouldn't he want me dead?” Your husband continued, cocking his head to the side, cold blue eyes burning with barely concealed hurt. He threw a pained look back in the direction of the guy who once grew up with, the one who’d been there before you, a tight grimace on his pretty lips before he spoke again.“He'd get what he always wanted. My presidency. My wife. My whole life.”

He turned you around so you had to face him, face this, softly rubbing over the sore spot on your arm where Suguru had grabbed you, the gesture surprisingly soothing enough that the last of your resolve dissolved.

Satoru pulled you into his broad chest, his chin resting on top of your head as he supported you through the broken sobs racking through your body.

“Did he do it because of me?” You asked out loud through your tears, body trembling in his arms as he held you tight.

“No, sweetheart,” he attempted to comfort you, but in between the betrayal and the disbelief and the jagged edges of your grief, guilt was blossoming.

The next few minutes were a blur, secret service agents surrounding both of you as they helped you cut through the confused crowd and return to where the bulletproof car was waiting outside, someone passing Satoru a thick folder on the way out – one he appeared to be expecting.

You weren’t numb. But the whole thing felt like a dream sequence, dazed as you played your supporting role of the lady being escorted away from the scene.

“What is that?” You asked, even though you had your suspicions. Could guess what you would find if you peeked inside. Proof.

“I skimmed over some of it right before they, well,” he cleared his throat, handing it over before leaning over to buckle your seatbelt for you. “You should see for yourself.”

It was ironic, wasn’t it?

Desperately craving the truth only to flinch when you found it?

Reading through the files they compiled, the surveillance photos, the fucking lovelorn letters they found when they got a search warrant for his apartment a few hours away – the one he used to take you to, where he’d whisper into your skin and wish for a future you had told him was foolish. Where you could be his without anyone else intervening. How many times had you told yourself it was just the sex talking? That he didn’t really mean it. Lied that all you were both doing was venting frustrations and helping the other one heal.

All you’d done was make him worse.

Feed into some grand delusion that Satoru had stolen the life that should’ve been his – made him feel like his hand had been forced.

Every dirty detail laid out in their plan from the confession they obtained from some creep named Mahito, your eyes dragging over the transcript while Satoru’s hand rested reassuringly on your thigh.

Suguru had forked over a ridiculous sum for him to shoot Satoru. Got him an unregistered firearm. A security pass to blend in. All the information he needed in order to execute your husband in front of the entire country. In front of you.

He just hadn’t picked a skilled enough shooter, you supposed.

All in the name of your affair.

Although, he hadn’t admitted it to his accomplice. Hadn’t told him why he wanted him to commit treason.

No, you supposed that was a secret that was only shared between you, your husband, and the man you no longer knew if you loved or hated.

You didn’t even realize it when you got back.

Clutching onto the folder, Satoru supporting you even when he was struggling to keep up his own weight without his cane, surrounded by agents who led you safely back inside. For once, it was oddly quiet. Maybe it was the side entrance they ushered you through, but the halls were practically vacant, like it had been arranged for them to go work in different parts so you wouldn’t be disturbed making it back to your room.

And for the first time in a long time, you were thankful Satoru was there as you stepped in a space that suddenly felt too small, too suffocating.

How were you supposed to breathe when everything had fallen apart?

“It’s my fault,” you murmured, dropping the folder down on the dresser. The picture it painted had been clear enough.

Your assumption he wanted a more serious relationship hadn’t been all that off. But you hadn’t seen him spiralling into obsession. Never considered that maybe, he’d been looking at you far longer than you were looking at him. That maybe everything had been in motion before you were even married.

Reevaluating every single moment of your friendship with him, from the day you met him through Satoru and he gave you that sly smirk of his while you shook his hand to how he held your fucking newborns in the hospital while Satoru went to grab you food.

Was it real? Fake?

Maybe Satoru was right. Maybe Suguru had been waiting to set him up from the start.

“I should’ve seen it,” Satoru murmured, leaning down to press the faintest of kisses to the tip of your shoulder. You stood still, bottom lip quivering as one of his huge hands settled on your hip. “I shouldn’t have let him-”

“I had sex with him, and he tried to kill you,” you scoffed, a fresh tear rolling down and threatening to mess up your probably already smeared makeup. “I told him things. About us. About you.”

The sort of stuff that would sink his presidency if it came out in a confession.

Things that probably pushed him closer and closer to the edge of a cliff until he felt like he had to make a choice for you.

It was him or your husband.

“I know,” Satoru murmured. “But it’s not your fault.”

You shook your head harder, his fingers dipping deeper into your hip to hold you steady. “I-”

“If I’d taken better care of you, if I had just been there the way I should’ve been, then none of this would have happened,” he added, remorse bleeding into every wound-tight word.

You couldn’t come up with a reasonable response.

Nothing fit right. All your feelings were too big, unraveling into one tangled ball where you couldn’t discern where the regret ended and the shame started. Unsure if the line still existed between love and loathing.

You had sex with Suguru because you wanted to hurt Satoru.

And now you were hurting so much you’d do anything to get it to just stop.

“What did he say to you?” He asked, and your stomach did another somersault.

“I think he wanted me to run away with him,” you admitted. A plane to who knows where, fake passports probably made, the last step of a plan he knew was failing. His last chance to actually steal you if he couldn’t become president.

“Oh,” Satoru exhaled. You could hear it in just a single syllable that he thought you would have accepted. Taken his offer.

“I wasn’t going to go,” you whispered. Even if the SWAT team hadn’t showed up, you would’ve chosen him and your children.

Satoru turned you around, readjusting his grip on your hip, his stare slicing through every shield you spent so long building.

And then he kissed you.

Not one of those shallow, barely-there ones saved for public appearances. But hard, hungry. Making up for lost time. His teeth bumping into yours, his tongue desperately trying to slip inside your mouth and claim it again. Wash away the fact Suguru had been the last one to do it.

He only broke it when you needed air.

“Satoru,” you sucked in a small breath, a hard lump forming in your throat you knew would be too tough to swallow as your nose brushed against his. “Do you seriously think there’s still a chance for us? After everything-”

“Aboslutely,” he murmured, apparently still capable of being annoyingly confident. “There’s nothing in our way now.”

He dragged a thumb underneath your eyes, wiping away your mascara as you blinked up at him. And maybe you couldn’t say it out loud, but your hands trembled and reached up to do something you used to cherish. Slowly loosening his tie for him, tugging it out and tossing it over his head.

Satoru smiled, and you remembered how easy it was to let your life revolve around it again.

He pulled you closer, your chest against his, his hands slowly tracing long patterns up-and-down your back, across your waist, far softer than you were used to. In the past, he’d been more like a starving dog, pawing and squeezing and ready to rut into you like an animal.

“Everything will be perfect once my presidency is over,” he promised, craning down to allow his soft lips to skim across your throat.

You once put your entire life in his hands. Stood in front of all your friends and family and said ‘I do’ because you were so sure that he was the one. Could you do it again?

“I’ll buy you a new house.Wherever you want,” he hummed, punctuating every few words with more gentle pecks. “By the beach. Another country. Get a pool. The kids won’t care if we fly out their friends a few times a year.”

“I don’t want a new house,” you murmured, rolling your eyes as he kissed. You missed your old one. Technically, you still had it, but you only really went back to it for holidays, or occasionally on birthdays. Where you had painted the rooms together and picked out furniture from catalogues and stores. Where you had taught your kids to walk and talk, their heights measured on doorframes. The place that still held all your favorite memories.

“I’m sorry,” he placated, another affectionate brush of his mouth over your damp cheeks. “Tell me what you want.”

“I don’t know anymore,” you whispered.

“Do you want this?” He asked, delicately tracing over your side in your tight dress. “Me?”

A handful of months ago you would’ve huffed at him. Said never.

And yet, you were slowly nodding. Biting your lip as you broke, gave into the inevitable.

It really was till death do you part, you supposed.

“I do.”

Satoru stripped you down until you were just wearing your jewelry. A diamond ring. The glittering necklace around your throat. The ones dangling from your ears. All signs of who you belonged to.

Standing bare in front of him, slowly taking off his suit jacket before slowly unbuttoning his crisp white shirt, your fingers slightly shaking as you pulled off his belt and fiddled with his zipper. He had to sit down to get them off, the muscles in his legs twitching as he got them off. The puckered scar on his calf making you wince, another reminder of how fucked this all was.

Another faint one on his arm, healed better, a different shade of white on his pale skin.

“I-”

His mouth was on yours before you could apologize again.

It only took him thirty seconds to have you on the bed.

Body pressed into the sheets, his hands spreading you open before he buried himself between your legs.

He kissed the inside of your thighs, savoring the plush flesh, before planting himself right above your sensitive clit, aching to be touched as much as the rest of you.

“My pretty wife,” he hummed, his breath hot as it drifted over the neglected bud. “Been missing you. This.”

White lashes fluttering as you hesitantly took the plunge, but rather than freezing water, cold disappointment, Satoru was warm.

The clouds were clearing so your sun could shine again.

Sure, the sky was still stormy, scattered with dark spots, but you no longer felt like you were standing under the downpour.

Satoru was shelter. Safety.

You shut your eyes, letting your hands feel the scruff of his hair, the strands sifting through your fingers as his own started to slip inside you. Testing the waters himself, seeing how wet you were for him.

And embarrassingly enough, you were already soaked.

Thighs tense as he sank inside your heat, trembling as he tenderly began to stretch you out. He still remembered every sweet spot. Where to push, how to pull you apart, what the right amount of pressure was to have you falling apart – and for him again.

“Just let go, baby,” he purred, tugging at some loose thread attached to your heart simply by thrusting his fingers in deeper. Asking you to let go of Suguru. Sweeping against your walls as you weakly sucked him in, scraping what was left of you back together to form something new. “Let me take care of you.”

“S-S-” You couldn't even manage a syllable.

Squirming as he offered comfort in the form of sex. Stopping you from sobbing or splintering by turning all your sounds into breathless moans, broken whines you couldn't hold in. Had no space left inside you anymore, nowhere for any of your feelings to go except the air when your husband had two fingers stuffed deep.

He slotted a third finger inside you, your hips wiggling as you tried to move back, but he didn't let you budge, keeping you still with his free hand pressed against your stomach just below your belly button.

“I just want you to be all mine,” he dreamily murmured, dragging his fingers out and back in, his nose grazing against your clit before he moved his mouth just over it. Lips lingering there like he wanted you to ask for more. Resisting the urge to tease and taunt, to sink his teeth in and tear. Doing his best to be delicate.

“W-what happens if I say I am?” You managed to ask, back arching up off the bed as his taste buds dragged over that tight bundle of nerves, sparks raking down your spine.

“I'm never letting you go,” he whispered, wrapping his lips around your clit like he could prove it if he just made you cum. Showed you that he could fuck you better than Suguru did.

His jealousy wasn't discreet.

It was in the way his fingers dug into your skin a little deeper, how deliberate every swirl of his thick digits inside you felt, making sure you wouldn't miss a single touch, the constant desperate glances he'd take, peering from between your thighs to watch your reactions.

In the things he didn't ask.

Was he wondering how you had done it with his best friend? If he made you cum harder? Faster? What positions you preferred with him?

Some sick piece of you still hoped he was thinking that.

You didn't give him a real answer.

But you were losing the ability to think of one once he started painting practiced circles over your clit, hyper aware of how close you were to cumming as your toes curled tight.

“Toru, it's too-” You cried out a protest, but you didn't really mean it. Didn't make it through the sentence without cumming hard on his hand, squeezing down as he coaxed you through your climax.

“Too much, pretty?” He teased, falling back into old rhythms like it was second nature. Taking back his place in your bed, in your pussy, like both had always belonged to him. “Too little?”

You made some strangled sound, gasping as you started coming back down only for it to turn into a desperate whine the moment he pulled his fingers back out.

“You’re too much,” you complained, but there was no more venom in your voice.

“You married me,” he wryly said, his greedy gaze soaking in the sight of your slick pussy after he played with it.

“I did,” you muttered back, swallowing your disappointment although you were sure a sliver reached the surface.

“I really am sorry,” he apologized quietly, his stare shifting up to hold you captive. “For everything. I'll spend the rest of my life saying it if I have to.”

It didn't make it all okay.

Or even equal.

But you guessed you each had your own burdens to bear. Consequences and decisions you had to live with.

“I’m sorry too,” you whispered, unable to catch your breath as he climbed completely on top of you. One arm planted next to your head, keeping you caged in, his other hand cupping your cheek as he wiped away another tear you hadn't realized fallen.

“Stop thinking about him,” he murmured. “It’s just us now.”

Forever.

For better or worse.

And when he angled his cock at your entrance, you just wrapped your wrists behind his neck, cradling him close as he buried himself in the crook of your collarbone, you told yourself you needed him. That he could save you. Solve this. Nose nuzzling against your neck, inhaling your perfume while you toyed with his hair, glancing down to watch the first few inches slip in, the pretty pink head of his cock disappearing into your warmth.

Reminding you of every ridge, molding you again to his size, shaping you around him once more.

“Fuck, fuck,” your husband hissed, sucking a rough mark on the inside of your throat like he was trying to stop himself from snapping. You could feel the clench of his jaw against your skin, his nose scrunching up, the muscles in his back getting all tense as his hips kept sinking down. “Feels like heaven, angel.”

He fucked you like he was the devil.

Dragging you under, down down down into the flames, burning desire searing through every nerve ending and rewiring your synapses until you couldn't remember how you got here.

Okay, perhaps that wasn't totally true.

But you could ignore it.

“Forget about everything else,” he whispered into your ear, breathing hot and heavy as he split you open, snugly grinding against your womb as your hips shifted under his weight. “Jus’ focus on me.”

Did your focus ever really shift anywhere else?

Had your world revolved around anything but him since the first date? The first time he kissed you and called you his? When you had sex in the back of his car and he called you the most beautiful girl he'd ever met?

You believed every line back then.

And here you were, about to believe him again.

Your heart throbbed. His cock did too.

Satoru lifted up your hips, readjusting to dig his knees into the mattress, to get more leverage to start pounding into you faster. It wasn't mean, or even rough. Just, calculated. Controlling the angle, the pressure, measuring what face you made when he hit those sensitive spots he previously memorized.

“Nothing fuckin’ compares to you,” he groaned, the lump in his throat bobbing hard as he paused with his tip practically smushed against your cervix, staring down at the sight of you sweating and panting under his muscled frame.

And not that you wanted to make your own comparisons, but you had to admit that sex with Satoru was nothing like it was with Suguru. Familiar guilt gnawing at your bones as you remembered how hard you tried to feed the awful emptiness inside yourself by letting Suguru fill you up himself.

But it was something only Satoru could touch.

He was leaner than before, you guessed from stress, or how ragged he’d been running himself.

Maybe you’d need to put in a request for him to be served more food at your family meals.

You let one of your hands drift down his chest, feeling the outlines of thick muscles, the defined ridges and divots. “You’re not eating enough.”

He grinned, abruptly dropping your hips back onto the plush mattress as he reached up to move a sweaty strand of hair out of your face. “Is my beautiful wife worrying about me?”

“N-no,” you lied, sucking on your lower lip as you felt his cock twitch, so stuffed you didn’t think you had any more room for him.

He laughed, light, airy, one of those sounds that made the room feel brighter.

And then he was rutting into you faster, desperation etched into every breath, every creak of the bed, felt in his fingers and his touch.

Craving you guessed he couldn’t deny any more either.

“Tell me you love me,” he groaned, a hand wrapped around your throat, not hard enough to hurt, applying the precise amount of pressure to make it difficult to breathe. Sucking in shallow inhales, your nails dragging down his shoulder blades as his cock throbbed inside of you. “Please, I'm begging, say you still love me.”

You wished it was just the sex that made you say it.

But you were clutching onto him, taking every thrust as the headboard banged into the wall, nodding as much as you could with his palm pressed against your throat.

“I do,” you whispered. “I love you.”

It didn't matter what you wanted. How hard you fought it.

Some things were just facts.

“I love you so fucking much,” Satoru promised back, kissing you as his other hand drifted down to grip the underside of your thigh, pushing it up higher to get a deeper angle.

Filthy squelches echoing in time with the bed creaking, the mattress dipping under your combined weight, in-and-out, in-and-out, your body on the brink of unravelling all over again.

There was admittedly something filthy in the fact your husband was about to drag another orgasm out of you just from how hard he was fucking you, your thighs preemptively tensing in anticipation as he threw his head back and dug his thumb in deeper on your throat.

Dragging his cock along your walls, so full you were pretty sure he managed to lodge your heart in your lungs, unable to suck any air in when your pussy was preoccupied sucking him in.

You didn’t know which one of you finished first. Falling apart into each other, his cock throbbing, thick, warm ropes of cum filling you up as white stars splotched your vision. And when you opened your eyes, there was just more white, his hair dangling down in your face as he let go of your throat to reach down and rub your clit instead, to help get you through your second, intense climax of the night, shuddering hard in the sheets as you clawed at his back for purchase.

He didn’t pull out. Let you scratch his back, like he’d take any mark you left on him.

Satoru just kissed you again, sucking softly on your bottom lip, soothing you as his hands found new positions. Caressing your cheek. Holding your waist. Your arms awkwardly settling over his shoulders, his hair tickling your face as you made some distant mental note to tell him to go get a haircut soon.

Damp cum leaking down your thighs as a sudden thought struck you about twenty minutes too late.

“Satoru,” you breathed your husband’s name, unable to sit up or squirm with his heavy weight keeping you pinned to the bed. “I’m not on birth control right now.”

You were before, but with the assassination attempt and the safehouse, and then moving back, you’d forgotten to ask someone to pick up your prescription for you. Just slipped your mind when you were too stressed to think about having sex.

And now here you were, stuffed with your husband’s cum, sticky and damp as his cock throbbed and leaked out the last drops, your throat threatening to close up while he shrugged his broad shoulders and snuggled up closer.

“I’ll have someone pick up the morning after pill for you,” he murmured. “But you know, maybe, a baby wouldn’t be so bad.”

“You’re not funny,” you mumbled, wiggling just for him to let out a low moan. You’d done the whole pregnancy and chasing after children thing in your twenties. Knew that it would be harder now, that everything was. Especially now that you had no clue how long he’d be limping for, or if he’d always need a cane now. It wasn’t that you totally hated it, no repulsion or disgust simmering under the surface, just some of your rationality finally returning. You could get like, a cat or a fish, if he wanted something new. “You could’ve died. Do you think now’s the time-”

“Maybe not now,” he hummed. “But I’m not going to be president forever.”

You blinked, your fingers reflexively reaching up to brush his hair back from his face. Looking into his eyes and trying to decide if this was really what he wanted. If you were. And then he was craning his neck down, capturing your mouth in a gentle kiss before breaking away.

“I’m always going to be your husband.”

“Good morning, gorgeous.”

Satoru didn't really want to wake you. If it was up to him, he'd spend the entire day like this. Your cheek squished on his chest, your bare body tangled in the sheets with him. Watching you start to stir, sleepily blinking up at him as your palm tried to press off his shoulder to sit up.

But he held you down, kept you close as the morning sun streamed through the window. “We can stay in bed a little longer.”

You were worth the risk of being late to a meeting or two.

“Satoru,” you said his name, a hint of caution still bleeding through your tired voice. “Last night, we-”

“We can take this slow, okay? Work on us,” he murmured, stroking your hair softly as he didn't say the last part he was thinking out loud. Without Suguru to interfere.

He finally had his fucking life back.

His wife.

“Did you mean everything you said?” You yawned, letting him draw faint shapes on your skin, your eyes fluttering shut as you started to drift back into your dreams.

“Every word,” he softly said.

His back was sore, leg already throbbing before he even moved. Throat dry from the sounds you ripped from it. But his chest felt warm, completely content for the first time in fucking years now that you were next to him again.

You made a small sound, a little mmph, but you rolled over, off of him to squint at the time on the alarm clock, reaching out to turn it off before it could even ring.

“I’m never letting you go,” he added quietly. Soberly.

Not now. Not ever.

“You should go to your morning meeting,” you mumbled, rubbing your eyes. Turning over on your side to stare at his side profile. Your finger slowly reaching out to trace over the slope of his nose, over the edges of his mouth, across his jaw. “If you promise to be back for lunch.”

He leaned in to kiss the tip of your own nose, almost groaning at how good you smelled. How much he missed this.

But there wouldn’t be another morning that he’d go without it.

“Pinky promise.”

You helped him get in the shower, scrubbing the sex and sweat from his body before he awkwardly yanked his pants up and popped a pain killer. Listened to you talk about maybe taking the kids somewhere for an actual vacation after his term was up, suggesting foreign beaches and going sightseeing as he smiled and nodded along. You even let him kiss you goodbye, a silky robe tied around your waist as you leaned out the door to watch him walk down the hall.

But still, he didn’t mind doing his job.

He had a duty after all.

Sitting in the Oval Office, reclaiming his chair as people surrounded him with problems only he could solve.

Everyone was ignoring the elephant in the room, the absence that could be felt, or rather seen, in the newspaper on the table. The photograph of the man who was no longer vice president.

His former best friend.

While another old one was sitting on the couch, his chief of staff just blankly waited without making any notes for once, only watching as other members flitted in-and-out.

Nanami glared at him after everyone else left, the door thudding shut as the two of them were left alone.

Satoru was used to it, but it still caught him off-guard when the blond spoke up, “I’m resigning.”

“Why?” He blanched, almost laughing at the absurdity of it.

Things had never been better. Approval ratings were through the roof. News stations were already covering the story, Suguru’s face splashed across every headline as people speculated about his plot to become president.

“I know what you did.”

He chuckled, leaning forward in his seat as he cocked his head to the side. “And what, exactly, did I do?”

“You framed Suguru,” Nanami scoffed, hazel eyes squinting accusingly. “Set him up.”

Guilty as charged.

But then again, he’d never be charged.

“How would I-”

“Who do you think he came to when he started to suspect something was off about his security detail?” Nanami interrupted his poor attempt at feigning innocence, standing up and smoothing out the wrinkles in his pants.

“Well, it's not your problem or mine, anymore,” Satoru dismissed it, waving his hand as he resisted scoffing. There was no plea deal or bargain left for Suguru to make.

His guilt was predetermined.

And Satoru had no plans to pardon him.

Nanami took a few steps towards the door, and Satoru pressed his palm on his desk to brace himself to stand. His left leg was uncomfortably stiff, a dull ache radiating across the injured limb that he doubted would go away any time soon. The scar was ugly, something that admittedly pricked at him more than it should, but he supposed it was a small price to pay to have you back.

Besides, he always liked listening to you scold him, to give you a reason to pay him a little extra attention. Peace of mind to know that while Suguru was staring at concrete walls, he got to watch you fawn over how much he ate and how he was healing.

“What are you going to do about it?” He asked before Nanami could reach the door.

“Nothing,” Nanami muttered, pausing to let out an exhausted exhale. “That’s why I’m quitting.”

“You’re not even curious why?” Satoru asked, nose scrunching up.

“I assume it was because he had sex with your wife,” Nanami dryly replied. “Although, I admit I don’t fully understand how you did it.”

“The hardest part was finding someone who looked enough like Suguru,” Satoru snickered, running his fingers through his grown-out hair, missing the soft buzz of his undercut. But he wanted to be what you liked. Who you liked. For now, at least, until you remembered all the reasons why Satoru was superior.

Nanami huffed, like he couldn’t believe him.

“It’s funny how easy it is to get people to do what you want when you pay them enough,” he vaguely added, limping around to lean against his desk.

Kenjaku was a bit of an asshole, but he looked enough like Suguru that anyone watching the surveillance footage of their meeting would assume it was him especially when it was coupled with Mahito’s confession, there wasn’t much the real one could do when he didn’t have an actual alibi. No, he’d been too busy sneaking around with you, bringing you to his place that didn’t have security cameras to record your affair with his phone shut off to save himself from being framed.

He doubted that you’d remember the exact date of the last time you slept with his best friend. Wouldn’t be able to recall that you were the only person who might be capable of clearing him.

Suguru had sealed his own fate.

Nanami opened the door a crack, jaw clenched tight as Satoru contemplated what his price would be.

“I'll need a new VP in the next election,” Satoru hummed, watching Nanami’s brows scrunch together before he sighed. “Position's yours if you want it.”

“No thanks,” Nanami grimaced, but Satoru simply shrugged. He couldn't exactly blame him given what fate had befallen his former VP. Rotting in a high security prison cell for the crime of fucking his wife. “I think I'm going to move to Malaysia.”

“Yeah?” He arched up a brow.

“You should think of moving on too,” Nanami coolly suggested, standing up and straightening his tie. “Don't run for reelection.”

“The nation needs me,” Satoru scoffed. And he'd be damned if he let his mark on history just be rumors of getting impeached and an attempted assassination attempt.

“What about your wife?” Nanami challenged, as if he knew anything about the two of you.

Nanami wasn't married. Didn't have a partner.

He didn't understand.

Marriage meant sacrifice sometimes. Support. Satoru wasn't about to make the same mistakes again. You wouldn't slip away from him this time. He would do everything right.

Suguru would be stuck with a life sentence.

And Satoru would get everything he ever wanted.

“She loves me.”

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