k a y u 🦋

THIS WAS NOT THE DATE THE TWO OF YOU HAD PLANNED OR AGREED ON EARLIER THAT DAY. You had planned to go to the mall to buy some things for your house and then eat in an Okonomiyaki restaurant, and maybe spend the rest of the night playing video games at his house.

But all the sudden, you were walking together to the train station right after school and suddenly, the idea came to you. You turned to your beloved boyfriend, volleyball ace Ryomen Sukuna and grinned at him with those bright big eyes, full of mirth and enthusiasm for something he doesn't know just yet.

For a moment, you had looked exactly like Cheshire cat to him, with your little knowing, shining eyes and your mischievous smile. He doesn't know how you got so bold, considering you hate the cold. But you squeezed his hand urgingly, starting a conversation.

"Hey, my love."

"What is it, babe?"

"We're not that far out from a coastal town, right?"

He narrowed his scarlet eyes. "Babe, you're gonna get cold."

You start making your eyes bigger, pout on your lips. "But the sea in sunset! It would be so cool to experience—"

He shook his head. "Absolutely not. I'm not risking you getting sick."

When he uttered those words, he thought he was being resolute. He was putting his foot down and for the best of intentions. For your health, first and foremost. And you hate the cold. Sunset and the sea means it is going to be cold. But somehow those words bend as easily as they utter as he found himself heading to the coastal town in that train with you, smiling at his side grinning.

"To the sea, here we go!" You cheered happily. "Wah, it's so gonna be so fun over there! It's been a while, since we've been by the sea. Oh, wait is that a soda shop? Let's go there later!"

"When did I end up so eager to say yes to everything?....." Sukuna whispered under his breath. ".....Yes, we can do to that soda shop."

You laughed, happy at his approval. "Because you love me the most in this world!"

Sukuna could not argue. "......Oi, wear my jacket."

"But's it's warm right now, my love. Later!"

"Don't say I didn't warn you." He shakes his head.

It took a while to get off the train, being the town was at the end of the tracks. But it wasn't all bad. You don't go to this part of the prefecture that often, anyway. The travel was going to be far, you know that much. Perhaps that's why you wanted to see it more than usual. You wanted to make it worth your while.

Maybe that's also why you didn't mind staying up too long either. It was going to be easy to convince your fuschia haired boyfriend. And it was Saturday tomorrow, so the concept of time was more than likely yours and Sukuna to do what you will with. And your parents won't be home until their shift ends tomorrow, so you probably will sleep at Sukuna's house tonight anyway. He can take you home afterwards.

The afternoon sun had begun its slow descent by the time the two of you reached the beach, melting into the horizon until the sea looked as though someone had poured liquid gold across its surface. You lean deeper into Sukuna's jacket, feeling your body shiver against the push of the seaside breeze.

Sukuna watches you take a breath then try your hardest to keep from sneezing. He shakes his head, but still couldn't help but smile at how adorable you looked. Before long, his long, strong arms wrapped its warmth against you, pulling you closer as you both walked.

It was so beautiful, you think to yourself. Everything about it is so picturesque, that you found yourself wishing you had brought your camera along. Just to record a memory here and there in better quality. But you supposed that this moment being recorded in your memory forever would be enough.

The two of you succumbed to relaxation as you both watched the tide rolling in with lazy confidence, waves folding over themselves before dissolving into white foam against the shore, and somewhere farther down the coast children shrieked with laughter as they chased one another through the shallows.

The ever expansive sea had always belonged to the two of you. At least it just felt like that. The traces of your enduring memories come flooding back to you in that moment, the sight holding a happy space in your heart over and over again, the more you walked towards the shoreline.

The first time Sukuna told you he loved you, the first time you both held hands. That first New Year's Eve together. After tough, exhausting exams. After long afternoons spent in the library while you buried yourself beneath university astronomy journals you definitely weren't supposed to understand yet. After Sukuna's volleyball practices, when he'd show up with sand still clinging to the soles of his shoes because he'd insisted on running here instead of taking the train.

Somehow, every road somehow led back here. It was the sea which you had allowed to be your silent witness to every little bit of your lives. It was the best listener. It always has been. But it was also the friend that had never failed you or your boyfriend. You sighed almost too happily, even if it was that cold. You were once more letting it be a witness to your joys together.

A little while later, you both found a bench and sat on it together. You were sat cross-legged with your notebook abandoned beside you, pages overflowing with half-finished calculations, crude sketches of constellations, and annotations squeezed into every available margin.

Your well drawn pencil had long since been forgotten in the sand, but your tender eyes still wandered instinctively upward every few minutes, as if expecting the first stars to appear hours before sunset.

Beside you, Sukuna lay flat against the warm sand, one arm folded beneath his head while his other hand lazily spun a volleyball over his stomach. His practice jersey was streaked with grains of sand, his hair still damp from sweat, and every now and then the breeze carried the faint scent of sunscreen mixed with the saltwater drying against his skin.

For several minutes neither of you spoke.

There had never been a need to.

Silence was easy with him all the time.

Comfortable in the love that belonged to you and only you.

Yet it was like always, the kind of silence that came only after years of knowing someone so completely that conversation no longer had to fill every empty space. When you have a look, when you have a smile or a frown or when the subtle ways your touch changes or stays, that was more than enough. That's what happens when you love someone so much that doing things, feeling things, it was just....easy.

Nothing was hard when you were together, when you hold each other, when you cherish each other. It becomes easy to exist in a world that is full of crashing waves that pulls you in to try and entrap you in its crashing sweeps. It was easy to have a language that was understood, a language that was known because of your love. It was easy to be someone. It was easy to belong.

"Babe, you know..." His voice was quiet enough that it almost disappeared beneath the rhythm of the waves.

You hummed without looking away from the horizon. "What is it?"

"I don't think I wanna play volleyball forever."

That caught your attention. You turned toward him slowly, lowering the notebook from your lap until it rested forgotten beside your knee. "You don't?"

He shrugged one shoulder. "I mean don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for what the game gave me...It gave me an outlet, it gave me a chance to reach for the sky, to reach you." He watched the volleyball spin lazily above him before catching it against his chest. "I love volleyball. I really do."

There wasn't a hint of uncertainty in those words. You knew he did. You'd seen it in every bruised knee, every taped finger, every practice that ran until the gym lights shut off around him. You'd watched him come alive the second he stepped onto a court, transforming into someone impossibly confident, impossibly bright.

"And I already know my goals because of it. I know I wanna go pro, I know that much." he continued. "I wanna play for Japan. I wanna make sure I contribute something to the sport. That's a driving force I've come to have for myself."

"That's the passion that you built for yourself." You whispered to him. "One that continues to grow because of your hard work."

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, softer than the cocky grin he usually wore after winning a match. "That's true. You know me, babe. I wanna see how far I can go." He rolled the volleyball between his palms. "I wanna know what my limit is."

You smiled. "That sounds like you, my love."

"It is. And I know it will always be, in one way or another. But the concept of doing something like that forever?" His scarlet gaze drifted toward the aure blue ocean. The smile remained, though it changed somehow, becoming quieter. "Nah....I don't think I can do it. At least wholeheartedly."

The answer hung between you, carried away by the wind before either of you spoke again. "I think......I'll play a while, at least as much as I can." He paused, choosing his words more carefully than he usually did. "But if I'm lucky, then I'd probably play until I'm satisfied."

"And then? What does my love plan to do with the rest of his life after that?" You asked him, leaning against him, your eyes meeting.

He didn't need to think about it, as he laughed. "I know this might not be everyone's dream but....I wanna stay home."

Your eyes widened, stunned. "...Stay home?"

"Mhm. That's what I want. I want to stay home." He nodded, still watching the waves. "I wanna be a stay-at-home dad."

You couldn't help but stare at him. A moment later, you realized you have been in such a trance in the thought of his words that you forgot to breathe, or blink. You finally blink, trying to still process what he had said to you. The words were so unexpected that you wondered if you'd heard him correctly.

For as long as you'd known Ryomen Sukuna, he'd always been moving toward something. Every practice, every match, every impossible goal he'd set for himself had been another step forward, another challenge to conquer.

He possessed a relentless sort of ambition that refused to sit still, always chasing the next thing to perfect, the next skill to master, the next version of himself he thought he could become. It was one of the things you'd fallen in love with. That endless, unwavering drive, the certainty with which he threw himself into everything he cared about.

You had always imagined his future in the same way he spoke about it to you. You imagined the bigger arenas packed with banners to support him, the louder crowds screaming his name, the weight of a national jersey on his shoulders, the many gut-wrenching, bone aching years spent chasing every last dream volleyball could offer him.

So hearing him say, with such quiet certainty, I wanna be a stay at home dad...It's not a bad thing. Yet you can't help but admit that he caught you completely off guard. Of course, it's not because it felt unlike him. You think it's quite the opposite.

It sounded so honest that it made you realize you'd simply never thought to imagine this side of him. Beneath all that ambition was something impossibly gentle, something that had always been there, tucked behind his competitiveness and stubbornness.

The same boy who stayed after practice to help first-years clean up the gym, who remembered your favorite snacks without ever asking, who slowed his pace whenever you became too absorbed in pointing out constellations to notice how far you'd wandered.

His dream wasn't smaller.

It wasn't a concession.

It wasn't him giving up the life he'd worked so hard for.

It was simply......tender hearted for a world that wouldn't understand it.

A future measured not by medals or trophies, but by packed lunches, school pickups, scraped knees kissed better, bedtime stories, and children who would never have to wonder whether their father was coming home.

For someone who spent so much of his life chasing greatness, there was something achingly beautiful about discovering that, in the end, the place he wanted to be most was simply there, for the people he loved.

"...Really?" You finally heard yourself say to him. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I'm pretty sure. Don't worry, you heard me right."

There was no embarrassment in his confirmation. Not even a sheepish laugh could be heard from him. And certainly no attempt to disguise it as a joke. If anything, he sounded relieved and happy to finally say it out loud. As if he was waiting for this moment to come out clean and be honest. This was not a joke for him. This was real. This was the reality he saw for himself at the end.

"I think it'd be nice, you know? I think it would be good to cook for you and to make sure everything is great in the house. You're a busy bee after all. I wanna go and make sure the only thing you do is clean yourself up, sit down or lay down. Eat the dinner I made. I like making sure you're well cared for."

His scarlet gaze narrows down to the sand, the sound of breaking waves coming and going. "Besides, I don't really remember my parents ever being around, babe. I told you all about it....so yeah. I know we're going to be together forever. If we do have kids....I do think it would be nice to just be around for them, you know? I think I'd like to watch them grow the way my parents haven't for me."

Your smile faded. You could feel your heart pounding as you move forward and lean closer to him. He just smiles at you softly and moves forward to kiss your cheek. You wish you could enjoy the warmth of his lips on yours but but you can't help but be so hyper aware. You knew. Everyone knew.

Ryomen Sukuna's parents were brilliant, successful people whose careers demanded more from them than most could imagine. And whose desire to change the world had led them to all corners of the world but home. They loved their son. You had never doubted that of them.

But the concept of their recompense for not being able to show that love in person, because of their chocies had always arrived in carefully wrapped birthday presents shipped from another country, in expensive souvenirs from airports around the world, in apologetic phone calls made from hotel rooms at impossible hours.

They were always working and always travelling. Every single time, there was always promises that next time would be different. But they never really follow through. The birthdays became video calls. School festivals became photographs sent after the fact. Volleyball tournaments became stories Sukuna retold over dinner at your family's house because there had been no one in the stands to watch them, save for you and his grandpa.

"They weren't bad people, I know that much....." he said after a while, almost as though he were defending them. "They just..."

"My love, you don't have to force yourself—"

"It's okay....I'm good." He searched for the right word before giving up with a small shrug, looking at you with morose surrender to the kindness he offers to them. "My parents...it's the truth. They just weren't there."

You didn't interrupt him then. You can tell that the moment he said that, he was already deep in the well of his feelings and he's trying to get out of it. You just took his hand onto yours and squeezed it, as if to tell him that it was okay and that everything was going to be fine. He smiled to you, mouthing words of thanks to you. You feel like crying for a moment, seeing that look on his face.

"I guess..." His thumb absentmindedly rubbed over one of the worn seams of the volleyball. "I decided a long time ago that if I ever had kids......I don't want to miss a thing." His expression softened in a way you rarely saw. "I wanna be there for all of it. Like my parents should have been. For the small things, the big things, the boring, the exciting. I wanna see it all."

He smiled to himself. You felt something tighten quietly inside your chest as he continues to speak. "I wanna make breakfast every morning and pack your lunch and our kids's lunch. I wanna go and make them cute everyday, you know with the bear characters and everything."

"You have such a dream, huh?"

Sukuna laughs, leaning forward, patting your head. "Of course, I do! I wanna make all the kids and their parents and your coworkers jealous that someone loves you at home."

You laugh, enjoying the warmth of his free hand on your head. "Oh stop! I don't think they'll stop asking me who makes them. But I'll brag every single day that you made them."

He grins, taking his hand off your head and letting rest at your knee. "You better keep that promise. Don't forget it!"

"I won't." You promised him as you smiled softly. You then use your free hand to tap his hand on your knee. "Go on, tell me more."

"Are you sure you wanna hear more of me going on and on about this? I'd never stop talking about it, babe."

You nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, I do! I wanna hear more of our future from your perspective."

"Alright, alright....what else? Hm....I wanna take them to school everyday and pick you up from work." His expression had become so earnest in that moment, shining brightly at the imagining in his head. "I wanna sit through every school play even if they're terrible. I'd like to get to know their friends, too. And make things for them."

"Now that you mention it.....my parents probably doesn't know many of our friends." You say to him in realization. "We should probably get to know them well, our kid's friends."

"Except the boys, I don't think our girls are going to be friends with any guys, babe."

You raised a brow. "Our kids are all going to be girls? And my love, they're going to have to interact with boys. Half the population in the world are boys!"

Sukuna looked at you and shook his head. "Our kids are all going to smart, sporty girls, babe. That's our fate. I saw it in my dreams once." He gets serious for a moment. "And no, they're not going to interact with boys. Boys suck. I refuse to subject our precious daughters to boys."

You start to laugh, lifting your free hand from his own and smacking his hand lightly. "My love, you met me when you were a boyish boy. You still are one! Well....we're going to be young adults soon. But that's besides the point! A boy like you became a friend to a girl like me. Then we started dating—"

He shakes his head and starts to sing loudly. "La, la, la, that's never happening. Our girls are never going to be subjected to that sort of situation. La, la, la. No boys are allowed!"

You shake your head, laughing aloud. "Yeah, yeah. We'll talk about that."

"No, that's final, no boys allowed near our girls. For eternity! Our girls are going to be precious and I won't let anyone." He vehemently declares. "Nothing is going to change my mind on that."

"Alright, fine." You snickered as you sighed contently. "What else do you want to do with them?"

"A bunch of other things. It will be trial and error for our girls and me. I'd like to get to know about the things they like and what they don't like.....I'm sure they'll like science and volleyball." He hums softly as he thought deeply about it. "If one of our girls decide to go into sport, I'm pretty sure I'd embarrass them by cheering too loud at sports day."

"You definitely will. You'll probably volunteer to coach too, whether or not if you know the sport." You snort, trying to lighten the mood. "You'll be really good at it too."

"I know I will." He grins wide, eyes full of mischief. "Your dad took time off to be on our team to help, so did grandpa. I think I learnt well from your dad and my grandpa. I learnt from the best....along with the dad jokes."

You playfully rolled your eyes. "Then save our children, cause good lord."

"Eh, they're not too bad." Your boyfriend argues to you. "The jokes are good! 片思いで肩重い!"

You gasped and lowered your head. "Oh my god....You can't be serious."

He playfully puts his hand on his chest. "Can you hear it, babe? My shoulders are so heavy from this unrequited love—"

"I swear, you need to stop spending more time with my dad....." You mutter to yourself. "......And maybe my brother. He says that stuff too."

"Hey, I'm already a bit orphaned here. Let me have my dad jokes with dad and bro too."

You stare at him, narrowing your eyes. "That's a bit of a low blow isn't it?"

He grins at you, pulling at your cheek. "Let this morose child have a family, he enjoys being part of one. He barely has one, after all. Let him enjoy the dad jokes! He enjoys your family!"

"Alright, alright, I get it. My love, my cheeks are not as elastic as yours—ugh, Ryo—"

"I'll behave." He says, as you nearly call him his real name. You pout, letting out a 'hmp' before resting your head on his shoulder. "You're so cute when you pout."

"Oh, shut it!" You say to him, in a cute manner.

He laughs softly as he leans closer to you. Silence engulfs the two of you in a few moments, the comfort of each other's body being closer shutting you both to any other words being said.

He looked away for only a second before meeting your eyes again. The breeze shifted, carrying loose strands of your hair across your face. He hesitated for a moment. He then admitted, almost too quietly for you to hear, with a tender hearted smile on his face.

"Besides....I don't want our kids wondering whether I'm coming home tonight, babe. Just wanna be there, like your dad was. Like your brother, who's always there for his kids, you know?"

The words knocked the breath from your lungs. Without thinking, you reached across until your palms reach to his face. He looks at you, scarlet eyes widened slightly and then gives you a small smile. His palms reach your own, warming you once more. You could feel the callouses in his hand, feeling those many rough years of his life given to volleyball.

Yet they were so tender and so kindly, and all you could think about was the many years of his touch being so gentle with you. So far removed from the harsh, brutish hits in the court. You could feel yourself melt at the thought of this man holding your children as warmly, as kindly, as tenderly as he does your hand now. You feel like crying now.

He curled his fingers around yours almost immediately, catching on. "It's okay. You don't have to cry about it."

"I'm sorry, my love." you whispered. "I just....I hope we do get to achieve your dream. I hope you don't ever get lonely again."

He shook his head, no bitterness in his expression. There was only certainty. "Hm, but don't cry about it, okay? We'll be happy together. It will all happen. Trust me."

Neither of you spoke for a while after that. You simply sat together, hands intertwined between you while the tide crept a little closer to shore. Eventually, Sukuna nudged your shoulder with his own. "What about you?"

"Hm? What about me?" You sounded confused, as if you hadn't just had the conversation. You suddenly realize and blush slightly. "Oh, about our dreams.....what about about it?"

"Never mind. Yours is obvious. You've got that look."

"What look?" You pondered, narrowing your eyes questioningly.

"The one you get whenever you're thinking about something ridiculously nerdy."

You gasped dramatically. "I do not."

"You absolutely do."

"I am deeply offended."

"You'll survive."

You bumped his shoulder with yours before following his gaze upward. The sky was still brilliantly blue. There was not a single star in sight. But you knew they were there. Hidden beyond the daylight. They were all there, waiting. Waiting for the dark echoes of night to let them shine. You let out a small thinking hum, before smiling at him and speaking your mind.

"Well, you already know me....being nerdy and all. But what I want to do, I think....I think I want to map them."

He followed your gaze. "...The stars?"

"The ones we haven't fully understood yet." You smiled to yourself. "I want to know how galaxies are born. I want to understand why some stars die the way they do. I want to study places humanity will probably never reach."

Your fingers drifted absentmindedly through the air, tracing invisible constellations only you could see. "I want to spend my life asking questions nobody's answered yet. I wanna figure it all out, my love. Make the map so everyone can walk it."

The words felt enormous. Far too enormous for a pair of seventeen-year-olds sitting barefoot on a beach. You laugh to yourself. "That was too dramatic for the simple thought to say that I want to become an astrophysicist."

You laughed softly at yourself. "It sounds impossible when I say it out loud, though—"

"It doesn't." He says, cutting you off. "You're too smart and too good at your shit, babe. Don't doen yourself for having a dream. Especially one I know you can achieve."

You looked at him, eyes blinking. He hadn't laughed. He hadn't smiled indulgently the way adults often did. He was simply watching you. "I'm serious, babe. You can do it. You can make it happen."

"I wanna do it, honestly."

Sukuna didn't answer immediately. He simply watched you in that moment. The wind lifted strands of your hair again, sunlight catching your profile in a way that made the whole moment feel strangely suspended in time. He leaned close and kissed you. Pulling away, he smiled wider than before. "Like I said, babe....You'll do it. I know you can do it. You'll be the best goddamn astrophyscist in the world."

"You think so?" Your eyes looked at him, shining at him. "You think I can do it?"

"I know you can, babe. You of all people can change the world. Better than I can, I think!" You laugh at his dramatics, shaking your head. He pushed himself upright, brushing sand from the back of his shirt. "And when you discover some new star or whatever..."

"Galaxy." You added at him.

"Whatever else there is." He waved dismissively as he grins. "I'm gonna become unbearable to anyone and everyone, babe."

"Oh?" You grinned at him. "Will you really?"

"Of course! I'm gonna tell everybody. I'l use a megaphone and stand in front of the city center and do it." He puffed out his chest dramatically. "I would be like, 'That's my wife! You better know it!' Or something like that. Give me a minute, I'll come up with slogans....."

You laughed at him. "You're ridiculous, you know that? Gosh.....imagining you doing that......" You shake your head. "But then again, we're still seventeen! That's a long time away, us getting married."

"So?" He retorts to you, a wider grin pressed on his lips. "I've already got it all planned, babe. That's where we're heading, after all."

You blushed, as red as a tomato. "S-so, then maybe propose first."

"I'll get there. I'll wife you up." He says to you, leaning in again to kiss. His cheeky grin got even wider when you became more flustered. "Thst's all my plan, babe. I'll be your househusband and you'll be my Nobel Prize winning astrophyscist wife!"

".......When you say it like that!....." You find your face in your palms, redder than any rosebush. You shake your head. "My heart can't take it!"

"My, my.....you have quite the imagination!" He teases, grinning widely as he looks at you with mirth in his eyes. "I didn't know you were so naughty, babe!"

You scream, showing your red face to him. "WAH, DON'T TURN MY PRECIOUS THOUGHT DIRTY!"

He raised his arms in defense, laughing. "Hey, hey. I didn't say anything. You thought that."

"I'm not a perv, you hear me!" You scream flusteredly, pulling at his collar. "Ryomen Sukuna, you—"

"Hey, that isn't my name to you! Besides, its normal to think—"

"WAH, SHUT UP!"

THE PODCAST ALWAYS SEEMS TO BEGIN THE SAME WAY, WHICH WAS OF COURSE, CHAOS. Ryomen Sukuna could see that look in his vice captain's piercing blue eyes as he watched him making notes on his script. Sukuna couldn't help but let his scarlet eyes flicker to the notes Gojo Satoru was making in a daze. He couldn't help but let out a frustrated groan as Satoru looks at him and grins.

"You've got to stop calling it The Two Idiots Podcast, six eyes." Sukuna said as he adjusted the microphone clipped to the collar of his shirt, not bothering to look up from the soundboard in front of him. "That isn't the name of this podcast and you know it."

Across the table, Satoru only grinned wider, drumming his fingers against the desk while one of the producers silently counted them in. The red recording light blinked to life. Sukuna lowers his head, knowing Satoru was just going to do what he told him not to do. Like a child being warned by their mother to behave with a list full of things and ends up not really doing any of that anyway.

"Welcome back, folks!" Satoru announced brightly, "This is The Two Idiots Podcast."

Sukuna sighed, long and suffering. "I'm surrounded by people who refuse to listen."

"I heard you, loud and clear." Satoru replied with a laugh. "I just chose not to care. I mean, we aren't in a court right now."

"I hope you choke on your seltzer later."

"Good thing that's not happening! I have Mountain Dew right now." Satoru showed him his tongue, as though he was a child. "Suck it!"

A snort escaped one of the producers behind the cameras. Satoru leaned comfortably into his chair, settling into the rhythm he'd perfected over years of broadcasting. Sukuna rolled his eyes as he put away his own notes to the side as Satoru pulled the mic closer to his lips.

"I'm your number one host, Gojo Satoru, and joining me is Japan's current national team captain, who's taken a few months off after the league season ended. And ironically, the reluctant second host of his broadcast, and the less handsome of the two of us, Ryomen Sukuna!"

"I can't believe I'm here again, when I could be home playing with Marin and Sukumi." Sukuna says, shaking his head. "And that introduction is just stupid."

"Hey, it's not stupid to introduce you like that. It's suitable! I am way more prettier."

Sukuna snickers at him. "Pretty boy and he's not even in a relationship."

"Hey! I'm getting there." He says to you, pouting. "My ex just needs time."

"I can't believe you're getting back together.....I can't believe she's giving you a second chance."

"Well, that's love for you!" Satoru grinned at him as the red eyed man shakes his head. "Anyway, apparently your recovery's going well."

"Yeah, its been going great—"

"Though from what I've seen, recovery mostly consists of making dinosaur-shaped pancakes, building treehouses and learning how to braid his daughter's hair."

"I'm already in the advanced stages of my recovery rehab." Sukuna argues. "My doctor said I can move too. I'm fine. I still need time to recover. But you know, I still want to do things with my family. And my daughter wanted to do something. I'm not saying no to her."

"You built a treehouse. With your barehands!" Satoru argues back. "Who the hell who does rehab does that?"

"Sukumi wanted one, she saw it on the TV." Sukuna shrugs, as if it was just a matter of fact. "I mean, I sat down while doing it and took breaks. My wife yelled at me to take it easy all the time throughout. But you know, it made her happy once it was done."

"That's not easy."

Sukuna snickers. "I know it's not easy. I just did it."

Satoru shakes his head. "And somehow, you found the time to go and take breaks and then go and fix and repaint your kitchen."

"It needed repainting.....I've been planning to do it but I've always been busy, so I thought, long stick with a paint roller, why not?" The fuschia haired man says as if it was a matter of fact, as if it was normal to do that while injured. "Besides, my wife and daughter deserve a fresh, bright kitchen. And repainting it makes that happen, you know?"

"You learned to French braid too, apparently. [name]-chan told me all about it." Satoru shakes his head as he looks at his volleyball teammate. "I really think its insane how you have so much time. I mean, you apparently also took Marin to the park to play day after day. Injured as you are, you don't act like it."

"Life just moves like that, man." He says as he takes his drink and takes a sip. He shrugs. "I'm her other parent, my wife had a work trip and my daughter had ballet. Had to do it. She was happy, my wife was happy. Win for everyone." The fuschia haired man said. "Also yeah, that's true. Marin did enjoy the park. She met other dogs to have playdates with. It's been brilliant."

"I just don't know how you find the energy to do all these things." Satoru shakes his head. He looks at the notes and suddenly grins. Sukuna raised a brow. "You also apparently wore something interesting. I have a picture—"

"Don't you dare!...Shit." Sukuna glared at Satoru, who looks like he couldn't contain his laughter anymore. "Listen, it was a gift. My daughter picked it out as a Father's Day gift with my wife. I used it, I still do—"

"It says Kiss the Cook." Satoru says as he motions for the monitor to show the picture of six foot tall Ryomen Sukuna making pancakes in the kitchen wearing the apron, half naked, yawning. "Courtesy of our beloved [name]-chan who took this picture."

Sukuna curses under his breath, feeling the rush of heat on his cheeks. "Look man, this is a gift from my wife and my kid. It was Mother's Day. I have to do something special....But I don't think you would understand. No one calls you dad."

".......Well, actually—"

Sukuna groans. "Yo, don't start that. Yuck, what the heck?"

Satoru laughs. "Hey, you started it! Just telling you the truth, buddy."

The control room dissolved into quiet laughter, and even Sukuna's expression betrayed him for a fraction of a second, the corner of his mouth threatening to twitch before he caught it. For a while, the conversation drifted exactly where listeners expected it to.

Satoru complained about his students speaking in incomprehensible internet slang; Sukuna retaliated by reminding everyone that Satoru had walked straight into a glass door because he'd been too busy reading fan mail to watch where he was going.

But then somehow that became a story about Sukumi declaring she would beat her father in volleyball before she turned ten, which led to Sukuna insisting she'd inherited your stubbornness and absolutely none of his. So far today's mood had been easy and comfortable. Another one in the books for a smooth sailing recording.

The sort of conversation that made people forget there were microphones involved at all. It was then one of the producers cleared his throat. Satoru glanced toward the monitor mounted just outside the frame and, almost instantly, the lightness left his face. "…Right."

Sukuna followed his gaze. "You saw it?"

"I saw it." Satoru confirms, looking just as upset. "I can't believe it. This again?"

"If people are not aware why Satoru's going, not this again, it's because one of the players we know personally, Chikafuji Masaki has just been announced to have gotten married." Sukuna explains, calm anger layered in his tone. "But along with this, there's just been an exposee that she's being forced to step down as captain of the national team, after saying she wants to stay on after marriage."

The headline filled the screen between them. One of the country's premier women's national volleyball players had announced her marriage earlier that week. At first, the coverage had been celebratory. Congratulatory messages from teammates, interviews about balancing life and sport, photographs of the ceremony. It was then the conversation changed.

The more they dived into it, the more it wss a headache. The anonymous officials began questioning whether she'd remain committed to the national team. Sponsors reportedly expressed concerns about her "marketability" on the team. As well as what would happen when she starts to have children and is off for most of the volleyball season, taking care of her kid and recovering from birth and other preposterous statements.

Television panels debated whether marriage and the possibility of motherhood had meant it was time for her to make way for younger athletes. Rumours circulated that people within the federation had quietly encouraged her to consider stepping away from the sport altogether.

As though saying "I do" had somehow erased everything she'd accomplished on the court. Sukuna read the headline once again and again and again. He just couldn't believe what the fuck he was reading on the headlines, at least not without feeling the rise of anger flow back and forth.

His jaw tightened and then shifted. "…What the hell is wrong with these people?"

It wasn't outrage for outrage's sake, Sukuna knew that well. This was malice for malice's sake. He could not believe this. He was genuinely bewildered that in this day and age, such a situation was still so prominent. He leaned back on his chair and quickly changed position again, unable to keep himself still, full of angst about the situation.

"I'm serious. I genuinely do not know why the fuck this is still a fucking thing. What the fuck is this headline? Are we serious?" he said, looking from the monitor to Satoru before finally settling on the nearest camera. "She's still one of the best players in the country. Last I checked, signing a marriage certificate doesn't tank your vertical or knock twenty kilometres an hour off your serve, so why the hell are we talking about her marriage instead of her volleyball?"

Satoru shook his head, letting out a mocking laugh. "Because apparently she's got 'different priorities now' as said by this one stupid newspaper spread. Bro, what the fuck does that even mean? Does she stop knowing how to lead the team because she has a family?"

"It's just such a lazy argument when it's just flat out misogyny." Sukuna says confidently angry "They're being fucking stupid. Maybe volleyball is still one of her priorities. Did it ever occur to them that people can have multiple priorities? This is insane."

He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms as though trying to understand a language he'd never learned. "But you know what gets me? When I got married, nobody asked if I was planning to retire. Nobody questioned whether becoming a husband meant I wasn't committed anymore. Hell, when Sukumi was born, all anyone wanted to talk about was whether fatherhood would make me a better captain."

His laugh was brief, humourless. "But a woman gets married and suddenly everyone starts treating her like she's halfway out the door. It's shit. Why does a woman have to deal with this double standard but a man like me who do what is natural, you know, doing my part as a father, is fucking praised? Are we serious?"

Satoru let the silence hang for a beat, studying Sukuna over the rim of his coffee mug. He'd known him long enough to recognize the signs. The tight set of his jaw, the way his fingers tapped once against the tabletop before going still. Sukuna wasn't angry in the explosive, theatrical sense people expected of him. He was offended.

"What's worse in all of this is that they think this is a good thing." Satoru said, finally breaking the quiet. "I genuinely can believ that half the people saying this think they're being supportive about her life choices and her needs when theyre just being dismissive."

Sukuna looked at him. "And that's what sick! They aren't aware of their misogyny. 'Oh, she should enjoy being a wife now!' Or 'She deserves to settle down and be away from the volleyball court!' Like shut the fuck up, you're misogynists!"

"I've seen them. Like remember when Mikaichi retired too? Same fucking text and line. All the hook line and sinker for the same shitty asd misogynistic bullshit."

"As if playing volleyball and having a family are mutually exclusive." Sukuna scoffed, shaking his head. "It's the way they frame it." He reached over to pull the monitor a little closer, eyes scanning another article before gesturing toward it with the back of his hand.

"I mean look at this bullshit. They're talking about her marriage like it's an obstacle the Federation now has to work around. It's stupid." He looked up, incredulous. "Nothing worth noting here. Their concerns aren't even anything great. Have they had genuine questions about how her ACL? Or if her body can still push for more work? No, instead it is the same shitty ass line about marriage and settling down."

Satoru leaned over to read the article himself, eyebrows climbing higher the longer he skimmed. "So many comments reiteraiting their 'concerns regarding long-term commitment' to the team and to the country." he read aloud, then snorted. "It's stupid. Theyre acting like she won't try to do her fucking job. Or at least thinking she's got commitment issues. Mind you, she turned down being offers from European teams to stay for Japan. She made the female team top five in the world. What the fuck do you mean commitment issues?"

"Commitment? I can't fucking believe....." Sukuna echoed, exasperated. "She was my clubmate for youths, even though we had different places to be at, because of gendered divisions. I know how hard she works. She's committed enough to spend nearly fifteen years tearing her body apart for this sport, but one ring on her finger later and suddenly everyone's worried?"

"I'm sorry to the team, to the staff here if we're having a melt down here. We just can't believe this is still happning." Satoru laughed once under his breath, though there wasn't an ounce of amusement in it. "She's been with her boyfriend for like what, ten years? She was so committed to her boyfriend that she got married to him. She's committed to things!"

"I got married and you fuckers didn't say a word about commitment issues or how Iong I've been married. You fucking praised me for it, dipshits!" Sukuna continued as he spread his hands in the air, unsure of what to do with them. "You know what changed for me? Everything. I stopped surviving on convenience store food. I sleep more. I do better in life. Marriage makes you strive for better."

"You became significantly less unbearable too." Satoru sneaks in.

"I—" Sukuna stopped himself, clicking his tongue. "...That's debatable."

"No, that's measurable."

A few chuckles rippled through the studio, but Sukuna barely acknowledged them. "Fucking hell...My point is simple." he continued. "Marriage didn't make me less of a volleyball player."

"If anything, it makes you focus." Satoru added, "You had the best season of your career afterwards."

"Exactly." He nodded once. "No one questioned that. No one asked whether my priorities had changed. No one pulled me aside and asked if I still had the hunger to compete."

He leaned forward again, resting his forearms on the desk. "They congratulated me, they called me mature. They said having a family would ground me." His expression hardened, angered. "They said it made me a more desirable player."

"But if it's a woman...." Satoru starts to say, shaking his head. "It's a whole different scenario."

"But when it's a woman..." Sukuna continued for Satoru, as he let the sentence trail off, searching for the right words. "It's like people stop seeing the athlete. They start to see so much other of the things and stop respecting her. They see all the things society forces on her. And thats fucking sad."

He looked back toward the monitor. "The incredible volleyball player becomes secondary. Just because she becomes a wife. I can't fucking..." Sukuna sighs, exhausted. "Aren't we tired of this?"

The studio had gone unusually still. Even the producers, usually whispering to one another behind the cameras, had fallen silent. Sukuna exhaled slowly through his nose. "My wife has spent her entire adult life studying stars." His voice softened almost imperceptibly. "She chased a dream that most people would've called impossible."

There was a faint smile when he spoke about you, one Satoru noticed immediately. "I've watched her disappear into observatories and conference rooms for weeks. I've watched her spend nights awake because a calculation didn't make sense. I've watched her miss holidays because a telescope halfway across the world finally had an opening. Even pregnant, she worked!"

"She did a lot, man." Satoru mumbles as he shakes his head, memories flooding back. "She refused to sit down during dinner prep over the holidays. Mind you, Sukuna was doing everything so she wouldn't and she still refused to sit."

"That's how she is. She's just so hardworking and so devoted, it just breaks my heart that...." Sukuna feels choked up as he speaks. "I tried to do what I could then, because seeing her struggle hurt me. It was hard for me to see her hurting so bad, even when she wants to do her part even more."

"Yet even through all that.... I never once thought..." He frowned as Satoru looks at him with understanding. "I never thought to tell her that she should stop. Just because we got married and had a kid. Why should I? She doesn't stop being a human being with hopes and dreams just because we started a life together."

"I married her because she's her. She's brilliant, she's funny, she's good natured. But she's also hard working and dedicated. She is a one in a million talent and we shouldn't lose it just because she got hitched to me." He whispers lowly as everyone intently listened, not speaking or interrupting, even if it was now time for a short break. They just let him speak his heart out. He needed this.

Satoru watched him for a moment before quietly asking, "Is that why this gets under your skin so much more than you think?"

Sukuna didn't answer immediately. Instead, he looked down at the wedding band around his finger, turning it absentmindedly with his thumb. "...Partly. Okay, maybe more than that." The admission came quietly. "But I also know what it's like to have someone believe in your dream before anyone else does too."

His smile was small now, private. "Back in high school, she'd sit through every one of my matches, even the boring practice tournaments. And I'd sit with her while she rambled about black holes and galaxies I couldn't pronounce."

"You still can't."

"I still can't."

That finally earned a laugh from both of them. "But we never asked each other to choose." His expression settled again, becoming thoughtful. "It was always..." He searched for the memory, hearing the words as though they were spoken yesterday instead of decades ago. "It's always encouragements. We keep saying 'go do it' over and over again. We believe to hope the best for each other, saying 'I'll be here when you get back' and become happy with that."

He looked toward the camera. "That's what marriage is supposed to be. And thats how it should be. We don't stop being people just because we got married. Life is a big adventure and your partner cannot always be in the center of that. Women shouldn't be expected to center a man just because shes married."

"This is not healthy, this....whatever this is, its an illness." He gestured vaguely toward the articles still displayed on the monitor. "This idea that the second a woman gets married, her ambitions become negotiable."

His jaw tightened again. "And then I think about Sukumi." He smiled despite himself. For a moment, he looks like he's about to burst into tears. He clears his throats and blinks the tears away. "She's got this little notebook."

Satoru grinned. "The volleyball notebook? The red one that I gifted her for her birthday?"

"Yeah, that one." Sukuna nodded. "She was so excited for it. She was going to use it for her little drawings but she noticed I wrote things on a notebook too, when I have games. She...she asked me about it and now....now it's her volleyball notebook."

"Every time she learns something new, she writes it down. Everything I teach her is on there. 'Keep your elbow high' or 'Don't drop your shoulders' or 'Papa says footwork wins rallies' and so much more of that. I had a lot of things I say and that girl writes it all down to get it down."

Gojo Satoru felt his eyes warmed at the thought of his goddaughter enjoying what she's learning and doing with volleyball. For a moment, its reminding him of being so young, growing with Sukuna and playing the best games, the best plays, the best moves in the court.

But it makes him even more emotional at the thought that she had grown enough to be so eager to take a moment and reflect on that notebook he got her, all the things she's learning from her dad.

His eyes softened with unmistakable affection. "Satoru, she's completely obsessed." The smile faded almost as quickly as it had appeared. "And I keep wondering..." His fingers curled loosely around his mug. "If she keeps loving this game...If she gets good enough...If one day she wears the same jersey I do.......What happens when someone tells her that getting married means it's time to step aside?"

The question lingered unanswered. Sukuna looked straight into the nearest camera, his voice calm enough that it carried even more weight than if he'd shouted. "I don't care if my daughter becomes a volleyball player. I don't care if she becomes a scientist like her mother. And I don't care if she wakes up one day and decides she wants to do something neither of us has ever imagined."

"What I care about..." He paused, finally being overwhelmed and emotional. "What I care about is that nobody gets to convince her that loving one thing means she has to give up the other."

He leaned back in his chair. "If she's good enough to play, she plays. If she wants a family, she has one. If she wants both......Then we'll make damn sure she never has to apologize for it."

Satoru grins. "Hell yeah! That's the spirit, dad!"

Sukuna looks to the camera, pointing at the news on screen. "If the people want to fine me or sanction me for saying all that shit, go for it. But you better fix this. I refuse to let this be the world my daughter knows. I'll quit if you don't do anything."

Satoru nodded. "These two idiots will stand firm on what we said today. If Sukuna's facing it, then I'm facing it too. I'm willing to stand ten toes with him on this. So, the ball's in your court."

"That's your warning." Sukuna nodded. "If you don't do it, then good luck finding better players than these two idiots. More of our idiots will say no to you too."

Satoru grinned. "Awww, you called us two idiots. How romantic!"

Sukuna shakes his head. "Shut the fuck up. We were having a moment and now its ruined."

"I mean we can start again, fellow idiot—"

"No fucking way, dipshit. I'm not doing that. Moment's gone."

"But, pookie—"

Sukuna motioned to the camera. "We're taking a commercial break. I need to cool down before I talk about stats. And a break from him."

Satoru freigned offense. "HEY!"

But Ryomen Sukuna was already standing.

He takes his drink and goes outside to take in the air.

He sighed, heavily and found himself lowering his head.

All he could do was pray to a god he doesn't believe in that his daughter will never have to deal with that.

He prays to to god and any god out there that they protect you and your daughter.

"I wish it was better.....fuck." He drinks his drink, exasperated. He throws the empty can away and leans against the wall. "Fuck....."

He knew he can't protect Sukumi from everything.

She will grow up and see the world for what it is one day.

But he hopes he can do a good job and make sure she always smiles.

That she always smiles like you do, when you speak about your maps of stars.

epilogue

The backlash arrived exactly as everyone had expected it would. Nothing was shocking about it. If anything, it was almost predictable in its timing, as though the country had collectively inhaled the moment the episode aired, only to exhale days of debate in return.

Ryomen Sukuna, however, found himself remarkably unmoved by it all. People were always going to have opinions. They were always going to disagree, to argue, to find fault with someone who spoke too loudly or too plainly.

That had never frightened him before, and it certainly wasn't going to start now. If people wanted to criticize him for saying what he believed was right, they were welcome to. Their approval had never been what guided him in the first place.

By the following morning, clipped segments from the podcast had escaped volleyball circles entirely. What had begun as another episode between two longtime friends and volleyball teammates had quickly found its way onto popular culture.

It was all over the evening news broadcasts, sports talk shows, university discussion forums, and social media feeds belonging to people who had never watched a professional volleyball match in their lives. It was just insane to watch.

Overnight, the conversation had stopped being about a single player and had become something much larger. Some praised them for saying what so many had quietly believed for years. Others accused them of turning sport into politics.

Many had insisted Sukuna and Satoru had stirred unnecessary controversy, arguing that active national team players had no business criticizing the very federation they represented. To some, they had crossed an invisible line between athlete and activist and to others, they had simply spoken an uncomfortable truth that those in power had spent years pretending not to see.

Every sports panel seemed to dissect the podcast sentence by sentence, replaying the same clips until viewers could recite them from memory. Newspaper columns questioned whether athletes still representing Japan should be speaking publicly against federation culture, while television pundits debated whether Sukuna had behaved like a responsible captain or an unprofessional employee.

Former players, no longer constrained by contracts, began offering their own opinions. Some defended him openly. Others urged caution, insisting that internal issues should remain behind closed doors. Current athletes, meanwhile, remained noticeably quiet, their silence speaking almost as loudly as everyone else's words.

Authorities in the sport responded exactly as authorities in organizations often did. Over the next several days, statements and carefully worded press releases appeared one after another, each emphasizing the organization's commitment to professionalism, respect, and the welfare of its athletes while gently reminding contracted players of their obligations regarding public conduct.

They spoke at length about appropriate channels for communication and the importance of preserving the integrity of the sport. And of course, no names were mentioned. They didn't have to be. Everyone knew exactly who those statements were for.

A week later, Sukuna and Satoru were called into a meeting. Neither of them expected anything different. They arrived together, exchanged polite greetings with the officials waiting inside, and spent the next hour listening to carefully rehearsed corporate language delivered in calm, measured voices. No one raised their voice. No one pounded a fist against the table or issued dramatic ultimatums.

In many ways, that almost made it worse to them. That's what left a bitter taste in their mouths after. The conversation was courteous from beginning to end, every criticism wrapped in professional language that disguised reprimands as concern and consequences as necessary procedure.

By the time the meeting concluded, they had each received an official reprimand that would remain on record. They were informed that they would be required to attend mandatory media training before conducting any further public interviews and that, effective immediately, both of them would be temporarily suspended from organization-sponsored media appearances.

The officials spoke at length about maintaining unity, protecting the image of Japanese volleyball, and addressing disagreements through the proper internal channels rather than in front of microphones. None of it was particularly severe on paper. But then again, that was the point.

The consequences were carefully measured, reasonable enough to avoid public outrage. After all, these two were legends in the field, and even beyond it. They represented the fabric of Japanese life and society. People couldn't avoid that.

But everything about this carefully measured response was also carrying an unmistakable message beneath the polished language. It always does. And both of them knew it. Speak like this again, and the next punishment won't be so gentle.

Neither Sukuna nor Satoru apologized, neither admitted they had been wrong. If anything, leaving the meeting only strengthened their conviction that the conversation had needed to happen in the first place.

Ironically, the response accomplished exactly what it had hoped to avoid. News of the disciplinary action leaked within days, reigniting public discussion with even greater intensity than before. Athletes, both current and retired, began sharing experiences that had remained buried for years.

Some spoke anonymously, fearful of damaging careers that were still unfolding. Others attached their names without hesitation, deciding that silence had protected no one for long enough. But that was more than enough.

Women's players described being asked during contract negotiations whether they planned to marry within the next few years. Others recalled subtle suggestions to postpone starting families until after major international tournaments or the end of their careers.

Retired athletes admitted they had delayed pregnancies out of fear that sponsors would quietly disappear or that roster spots would no longer be waiting for them once they returned. Stories that had once existed only as whispers between teammates suddenly became public conversations.

Meanwhile, fans and people outside the bubble had continued sharing clips from the podcast. One sentence, in particular, seemed to take on a life of its own. If she's good enough to play, she plays.

It appeared everywhere. They were printed across handmade signs outside league arenas. They were painted onto fan banners hanging over stadium railings. They were shared endlessly across social media as hashtags and profile slogans. Hell, they were quoted in newspaper headline and repeated by commentators.

Even athletes, especially women athletes, from completely different sports began echoing it, applying the same principle to conversations far beyond volleyball. It was bigger than volleyball. It was touching something that had been waiting for so long to be noticed.

For every person who called Ryomen Sukuna irresponsible or accused him of jeopardizing his career, there seemed to be three more thanking him for saying aloud what so many had spent years thinking in silence.

Husband and father, Ryomen Sukuna, meanwhile, paid very little attention to any of it. He wasn't interested in any of the opinion columns or the endless debates online. He's not that interested in finding out what others think, or what's under the tags of his name.

As far as he was concerned, he'd said what needed to be said. Whether people chose to agree with him or condemn him afterward was entirely their decision. It didn't change the fact that he believed every word.

By the following weekend, he was barefoot in the backyard, fully cleared by his doctors and was running around trying to make sure that his daughter could enjoy some good, genuine, well-guided volleyball.

"Papa!" Sukumi's voice rang through the warm afternoon air as the volleyball bounced awkwardly off her forearms before veering wildly into the flowerbeds. "I almost got it!"

"You almost launched it into the neighbor's yard." Sukuna pointed out.

"I was aiming high."

"Your papa can tell."

She stuck her tongue out at him before scrambling after the ball, nearly tripping over her own feet in the process. You watched from the porch with a quiet smile, an iced tea sweating against your palm as the late afternoon sun painted long shadows across the grass.

Sukuna had spent the last twenty minutes trying—and mostly failing—to explain proper passing technique to his little child who seemed convinced that sheerand utter enthusiasm alone could compensate for her lacking in footwork.

"Bend your knees."

"I am!"

"Those are not bent knees."

"They're emotionally bent, just like your feelings."

Sukuna stared. "...Who taught you that sentence?"

Sukumi's guilty eyes drifted immediately toward you. You raised both hands, making a face at him. "It wasn't me, my love. I would never!"

"Uncle 'Toru, papa."

"I knew it." He pinched the bridge of his nose while Sukumi giggled, scooping up the volleyball before trying again. And this time it actually reached him. Well, mostly. He caught it one-handed before tossing it gently back. "Okay, baby. That was better."

"I know! I really tried my best!"

"You can still bend your knees more."

"They're trying their best."

"They can try harder."

She huffed dramatically before jogging toward the other side of the yard, determined to prove him wrong. The moment she was out of earshot, you stepped down from the porch and wandered over until you were standing beside him.

For a while, neither of you spoke. You simply watched your daughter chase a volleyball that refused to cooperate. Eventually, you reached for his hand. His fingers intertwined with yours without him even looking.

"They gave you another warning?"

He nodded once. "Mm."

"And Satoru?"

"The same. Not that he or I care, to be fair."

You let out a quiet sigh. "I'm sorry for that, my love."

He shrugged. "I expected it before I even said anything, so don't think too much about it, babe."

"I know."

That somehow didn't make it sting any less. You looked toward Sukumi again. She'd managed a surprisingly clean pass to herself. The little grin on her face made your heart swell. You sighed softly.

"You know, my love, I found myself eating breakfast earlier than usual." you said softly, "Then found myself watching the episode again while eating my food. It got cold because I got so deep in your episode."

Sukuna glanced sideways. "Oh?"

"I don't think I told you this yet."

He raised a brow. "About what?"

"Thank you."

He frowned. "...For what?"

"For saying it." You smiled faintly. "For speaking when it would've been easier not to."

His brows drew together as though the gratitude genuinely confused him. "Barely did anything."

"You've always been like that." You laughed quietly, shaking your head. "Ever since we were kids....If you loved something...you protect it. If you love something, you stand by it. You didn't care if it got hard or painful. You never looked away even when it came with consequences."

His thumb brushed absentmindedly across your knuckles. "You don't have to thank me, though. I'm serious. I didn't do anything revolutionary. The credit shouldn't be on me."

"I want to."

He shook his head, his voice is gentle. "No, I don't deserve it. I didn't do anything special to warrant it."

"You did."

"I did what anyone should've done." He watched Sukumi bump the volleyball with all the determination in the world and almost none of the technique. A smile found its way onto his face. "If something's wrong, then you say it's wrong. It's not complicated. Nothing about it should be."

You rested your head lightly against his shoulder. "The world would disagree."

"Well, the world's wrong."

You laughed. "Still impossibly stubborn."

"I've been called worse."

There was a comfortable silence between you after that, filled only by the rhythmic thump of volleyball against grass and Sukumi's triumphant cheers whenever she managed three passes in a row. Sukuna watched her with an expression so impossibly soft that it almost made him look like a different man.

"When she gets older, I know she's going to be sharp witted." he said quietly. "She's going to pay attention to what I do a lot more than what I say."

You followed his gaze. Sukumi had her tongue poking out in concentration, brows knitted together as she prepared another pass. "I know. It's going to be rough on both of us, but for you....."

"So if I tell her to stand up for people..." He bounced the volleyball once against the ground before catching it again. He shakes his head "...But she watches me stay quiet because it's inconvenient, then what does that teach her other than that its okay to be treated like that?"

"It teaches her that her papa is brave."

"I don't need her to think her papa was brave." He says to you, smiling softly. "I just need her to know that he tried to do the right thing and that is more important."

His gaze drifted back to your daughter. "I want her to grow up believing that if someone is being treated unfairly, you don't look around the room to see who's going to speak first...."

"You just do." His fingers tightened gently around yours. "Especially when the people who need someone the most don't have the power to say it themselves."

Across the yard, Sukumi finally managed five clean passes in a row. She spun around with both fists in the air. She finds herself dancing in celebration, clapping and giggling. You couldn't help but laugh and shout praise at your daughter. But no one was happier than your husband. Sukuna's face lit up immediately.

"I DID IT!"

"You did." He happily said, running up to her and scooping her up in his arms. "You were so good, 'kumi. That was impressive!"

"Papa, did you see?"

"Of course, papa saw. You were so cool out there, doing that." He praises her, leaning close and kissed her cheek. "I don't think I've seen a finer move, 'kumibear."

"Was that good?"

He grinned. "It was. Believe me, not many kids can do it the way you did."

You smiled widely and moved from your seat and towards your husband and your daughter. You wrapped your arms around them. You leaned in and kissed your husband's jaw and then your daughter's forehead.

"My two amazing players, you did so well!"

"Does this mean I get hot cocoa as a reward, mama?" Your daughter beamed at you.

You laughed, nodding. "Of course, 'kumibear can get as much as she wants."

"Yay! I'm going to drink a lot."

Sukuna laughs. "Be careful, though. It can get hot."

Sukumi pouts. "I know how to blow my hot drinks, papa!"

You and your husband laugh softly.

Sukumi continues to pout at your reaction.

The world can be cruel. The world can be unfair.

But in this world, your world, there is happiness.

Most of all, there is always going to be love.

THIS WAS NOT THE DATE THE TWO OF YOU HAD PLANNED OR AGREED ON EARLIER THAT DAY. You had planned to go to the mall to buy some things for your house and then eat in an Okonomiyaki restaurant, and maybe spend the rest of the night playing video games at his house.

But all the sudden, you were walking together to the train station right after school and suddenly, the idea came to you. You turned to your beloved boyfriend, volleyball ace Ryomen Sukuna and grinned at him with those bright big eyes, full of mirth and enthusiasm for something he doesn't know just yet.

For a moment, you had looked exactly like Cheshire cat to him, with your little knowing, shining eyes and your mischievous smile. He doesn't know how you got so bold, considering you hate the cold. But you squeezed his hand urgingly, starting a conversation.

"Hey, my love."

"What is it, babe?"

"We're not that far out from a coastal town, right?"

He narrowed his scarlet eyes. "Babe, you're gonna get cold."

You start making your eyes bigger, pout on your lips. "But the sea in sunset! It would be so cool to experience—"

He shook his head. "Absolutely not. I'm not risking you getting sick."

When he uttered those words, he thought he was being resolute. He was putting his foot down and for the best of intentions. For your health, first and foremost. And you hate the cold. Sunset and the sea means it is going to be cold. But somehow those words bend as easily as they utter as he found himself heading to the coastal town in that train with you, smiling at his side grinning.

"To the sea, here we go!" You cheered happily. "Wah, it's so gonna be so fun over there! It's been a while, since we've been by the sea. Oh, wait is that a soda shop? Let's go there later!"

"When did I end up so eager to say yes to everything?....." Sukuna whispered under his breath. ".....Yes, we can do to that soda shop."

You laughed, happy at his approval. "Because you love me the most in this world!"

Sukuna could not argue. "......Oi, wear my jacket."

"But's it's warm right now, my love. Later!"

"Don't say I didn't warn you." He shakes his head.

It took a while to get off the train, being the town was at the end of the tracks. But it wasn't all bad. You don't go to this part of the prefecture that often, anyway. The travel was going to be far, you know that much. Perhaps that's why you wanted to see it more than usual. You wanted to make it worth your while.

Maybe that's also why you didn't mind staying up too long either. It was going to be easy to convince your fuschia haired boyfriend. And it was Saturday tomorrow, so the concept of time was more than likely yours and Sukuna to do what you will with. And your parents won't be home until their shift ends tomorrow, so you probably will sleep at Sukuna's house tonight anyway. He can take you home afterwards.

The afternoon sun had begun its slow descent by the time the two of you reached the beach, melting into the horizon until the sea looked as though someone had poured liquid gold across its surface. You lean deeper into Sukuna's jacket, feeling your body shiver against the push of the seaside breeze.

Sukuna watches you take a breath then try your hardest to keep from sneezing. He shakes his head, but still couldn't help but smile at how adorable you looked. Before long, his long, strong arms wrapped its warmth against you, pulling you closer as you both walked.

It was so beautiful, you think to yourself. Everything about it is so picturesque, that you found yourself wishing you had brought your camera along. Just to record a memory here and there in better quality. But you supposed that this moment being recorded in your memory forever would be enough.

The two of you succumbed to relaxation as you both watched the tide rolling in with lazy confidence, waves folding over themselves before dissolving into white foam against the shore, and somewhere farther down the coast children shrieked with laughter as they chased one another through the shallows.

The ever expansive sea had always belonged to the two of you. At least it just felt like that. The traces of your enduring memories come flooding back to you in that moment, the sight holding a happy space in your heart over and over again, the more you walked towards the shoreline.

The first time Sukuna told you he loved you, the first time you both held hands. That first New Year's Eve together. After tough, exhausting exams. After long afternoons spent in the library while you buried yourself beneath university astronomy journals you definitely weren't supposed to understand yet. After Sukuna's volleyball practices, when he'd show up with sand still clinging to the soles of his shoes because he'd insisted on running here instead of taking the train.

Somehow, every road somehow led back here. It was the sea which you had allowed to be your silent witness to every little bit of your lives. It was the best listener. It always has been. But it was also the friend that had never failed you or your boyfriend. You sighed almost too happily, even if it was that cold. You were once more letting it be a witness to your joys together.

A little while later, you both found a bench and sat on it together. You were sat cross-legged with your notebook abandoned beside you, pages overflowing with half-finished calculations, crude sketches of constellations, and annotations squeezed into every available margin.

Your well drawn pencil had long since been forgotten in the sand, but your tender eyes still wandered instinctively upward every few minutes, as if expecting the first stars to appear hours before sunset.

Beside you, Sukuna lay flat against the warm sand, one arm folded beneath his head while his other hand lazily spun a volleyball over his stomach. His practice jersey was streaked with grains of sand, his hair still damp from sweat, and every now and then the breeze carried the faint scent of sunscreen mixed with the saltwater drying against his skin.

For several minutes neither of you spoke.

There had never been a need to.

Silence was easy with him all the time.

Comfortable in the love that belonged to you and only you.

Yet it was like always, the kind of silence that came only after years of knowing someone so completely that conversation no longer had to fill every empty space. When you have a look, when you have a smile or a frown or when the subtle ways your touch changes or stays, that was more than enough. That's what happens when you love someone so much that doing things, feeling things, it was just....easy.

Nothing was hard when you were together, when you hold each other, when you cherish each other. It becomes easy to exist in a world that is full of crashing waves that pulls you in to try and entrap you in its crashing sweeps. It was easy to have a language that was understood, a language that was known because of your love. It was easy to be someone. It was easy to belong.

"Babe, you know..." His voice was quiet enough that it almost disappeared beneath the rhythm of the waves.

You hummed without looking away from the horizon. "What is it?"

"I don't think I wanna play volleyball forever."

That caught your attention. You turned toward him slowly, lowering the notebook from your lap until it rested forgotten beside your knee. "You don't?"

He shrugged one shoulder. "I mean don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for what the game gave me...It gave me an outlet, it gave me a chance to reach for the sky, to reach you." He watched the volleyball spin lazily above him before catching it against his chest. "I love volleyball. I really do."

There wasn't a hint of uncertainty in those words. You knew he did. You'd seen it in every bruised knee, every taped finger, every practice that ran until the gym lights shut off around him. You'd watched him come alive the second he stepped onto a court, transforming into someone impossibly confident, impossibly bright.

"And I already know my goals because of it. I know I wanna go pro, I know that much." he continued. "I wanna play for Japan. I wanna make sure I contribute something to the sport. That's a driving force I've come to have for myself."

"That's the passion that you built for yourself." You whispered to him. "One that continues to grow because of your hard work."

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, softer than the cocky grin he usually wore after winning a match. "That's true. You know me, babe. I wanna see how far I can go." He rolled the volleyball between his palms. "I wanna know what my limit is."

You smiled. "That sounds like you, my love."

"It is. And I know it will always be, in one way or another. But the concept of doing something like that forever?" His scarlet gaze drifted toward the aure blue ocean. The smile remained, though it changed somehow, becoming quieter. "Nah....I don't think I can do it. At least wholeheartedly."

The answer hung between you, carried away by the wind before either of you spoke again. "I think......I'll play a while, at least as much as I can." He paused, choosing his words more carefully than he usually did. "But if I'm lucky, then I'd probably play until I'm satisfied."

"And then? What does my love plan to do with the rest of his life after that?" You asked him, leaning against him, your eyes meeting.

He didn't need to think about it, as he laughed. "I know this might not be everyone's dream but....I wanna stay home."

Your eyes widened, stunned. "...Stay home?"

"Mhm. That's what I want. I want to stay home." He nodded, still watching the waves. "I wanna be a stay-at-home dad."

You couldn't help but stare at him. A moment later, you realized you have been in such a trance in the thought of his words that you forgot to breathe, or blink. You finally blink, trying to still process what he had said to you. The words were so unexpected that you wondered if you'd heard him correctly.

For as long as you'd known Ryomen Sukuna, he'd always been moving toward something. Every practice, every match, every impossible goal he'd set for himself had been another step forward, another challenge to conquer.

He possessed a relentless sort of ambition that refused to sit still, always chasing the next thing to perfect, the next skill to master, the next version of himself he thought he could become. It was one of the things you'd fallen in love with. That endless, unwavering drive, the certainty with which he threw himself into everything he cared about.

You had always imagined his future in the same way he spoke about it to you. You imagined the bigger arenas packed with banners to support him, the louder crowds screaming his name, the weight of a national jersey on his shoulders, the many gut-wrenching, bone aching years spent chasing every last dream volleyball could offer him.

So hearing him say, with such quiet certainty, I wanna be a stay at home dad...It's not a bad thing. Yet you can't help but admit that he caught you completely off guard. Of course, it's not because it felt unlike him. You think it's quite the opposite.

It sounded so honest that it made you realize you'd simply never thought to imagine this side of him. Beneath all that ambition was something impossibly gentle, something that had always been there, tucked behind his competitiveness and stubbornness.

The same boy who stayed after practice to help first-years clean up the gym, who remembered your favorite snacks without ever asking, who slowed his pace whenever you became too absorbed in pointing out constellations to notice how far you'd wandered.

His dream wasn't smaller.

It wasn't a concession.

It wasn't him giving up the life he'd worked so hard for.

It was simply......tender hearted for a world that wouldn't understand it.

A future measured not by medals or trophies, but by packed lunches, school pickups, scraped knees kissed better, bedtime stories, and children who would never have to wonder whether their father was coming home.

For someone who spent so much of his life chasing greatness, there was something achingly beautiful about discovering that, in the end, the place he wanted to be most was simply there, for the people he loved.

"...Really?" You finally heard yourself say to him. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I'm pretty sure. Don't worry, you heard me right."

There was no embarrassment in his confirmation. Not even a sheepish laugh could be heard from him. And certainly no attempt to disguise it as a joke. If anything, he sounded relieved and happy to finally say it out loud. As if he was waiting for this moment to come out clean and be honest. This was not a joke for him. This was real. This was the reality he saw for himself at the end.

"I think it'd be nice, you know? I think it would be good to cook for you and to make sure everything is great in the house. You're a busy bee after all. I wanna go and make sure the only thing you do is clean yourself up, sit down or lay down. Eat the dinner I made. I like making sure you're well cared for."

His scarlet gaze narrows down to the sand, the sound of breaking waves coming and going. "Besides, I don't really remember my parents ever being around, babe. I told you all about it....so yeah. I know we're going to be together forever. If we do have kids....I do think it would be nice to just be around for them, you know? I think I'd like to watch them grow the way my parents haven't for me."

Your smile faded. You could feel your heart pounding as you move forward and lean closer to him. He just smiles at you softly and moves forward to kiss your cheek. You wish you could enjoy the warmth of his lips on yours but but you can't help but be so hyper aware. You knew. Everyone knew.

Ryomen Sukuna's parents were brilliant, successful people whose careers demanded more from them than most could imagine. And whose desire to change the world had led them to all corners of the world but home. They loved their son. You had never doubted that of them.

But the concept of their recompense for not being able to show that love in person, because of their chocies had always arrived in carefully wrapped birthday presents shipped from another country, in expensive souvenirs from airports around the world, in apologetic phone calls made from hotel rooms at impossible hours.

They were always working and always travelling. Every single time, there was always promises that next time would be different. But they never really follow through. The birthdays became video calls. School festivals became photographs sent after the fact. Volleyball tournaments became stories Sukuna retold over dinner at your family's house because there had been no one in the stands to watch them, save for you and his grandpa.

"They weren't bad people, I know that much....." he said after a while, almost as though he were defending them. "They just..."

"My love, you don't have to force yourself—"

"It's okay....I'm good." He searched for the right word before giving up with a small shrug, looking at you with morose surrender to the kindness he offers to them. "My parents...it's the truth. They just weren't there."

You didn't interrupt him then. You can tell that the moment he said that, he was already deep in the well of his feelings and he's trying to get out of it. You just took his hand onto yours and squeezed it, as if to tell him that it was okay and that everything was going to be fine. He smiled to you, mouthing words of thanks to you. You feel like crying for a moment, seeing that look on his face.

"I guess..." His thumb absentmindedly rubbed over one of the worn seams of the volleyball. "I decided a long time ago that if I ever had kids......I don't want to miss a thing." His expression softened in a way you rarely saw. "I wanna be there for all of it. Like my parents should have been. For the small things, the big things, the boring, the exciting. I wanna see it all."

He smiled to himself. You felt something tighten quietly inside your chest as he continues to speak. "I wanna make breakfast every morning and pack your lunch and our kids's lunch. I wanna go and make them cute everyday, you know with the bear characters and everything."

"You have such a dream, huh?"

Sukuna laughs, leaning forward, patting your head. "Of course, I do! I wanna make all the kids and their parents and your coworkers jealous that someone loves you at home."

You laugh, enjoying the warmth of his free hand on your head. "Oh stop! I don't think they'll stop asking me who makes them. But I'll brag every single day that you made them."

He grins, taking his hand off your head and letting rest at your knee. "You better keep that promise. Don't forget it!"

"I won't." You promised him as you smiled softly. You then use your free hand to tap his hand on your knee. "Go on, tell me more."

"Are you sure you wanna hear more of me going on and on about this? I'd never stop talking about it, babe."

You nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, I do! I wanna hear more of our future from your perspective."

"Alright, alright....what else? Hm....I wanna take them to school everyday and pick you up from work." His expression had become so earnest in that moment, shining brightly at the imagining in his head. "I wanna sit through every school play even if they're terrible. I'd like to get to know their friends, too. And make things for them."

"Now that you mention it.....my parents probably doesn't know many of our friends." You say to him in realization. "We should probably get to know them well, our kid's friends."

"Except the boys, I don't think our girls are going to be friends with any guys, babe."

You raised a brow. "Our kids are all going to be girls? And my love, they're going to have to interact with boys. Half the population in the world are boys!"

Sukuna looked at you and shook his head. "Our kids are all going to smart, sporty girls, babe. That's our fate. I saw it in my dreams once." He gets serious for a moment. "And no, they're not going to interact with boys. Boys suck. I refuse to subject our precious daughters to boys."

You start to laugh, lifting your free hand from his own and smacking his hand lightly. "My love, you met me when you were a boyish boy. You still are one! Well....we're going to be young adults soon. But that's besides the point! A boy like you became a friend to a girl like me. Then we started dating—"

He shakes his head and starts to sing loudly. "La, la, la, that's never happening. Our girls are never going to be subjected to that sort of situation. La, la, la. No boys are allowed!"

You shake your head, laughing aloud. "Yeah, yeah. We'll talk about that."

"No, that's final, no boys allowed near our girls. For eternity! Our girls are going to be precious and I won't let anyone." He vehemently declares. "Nothing is going to change my mind on that."

"Alright, fine." You snickered as you sighed contently. "What else do you want to do with them?"

"A bunch of other things. It will be trial and error for our girls and me. I'd like to get to know about the things they like and what they don't like.....I'm sure they'll like science and volleyball." He hums softly as he thought deeply about it. "If one of our girls decide to go into sport, I'm pretty sure I'd embarrass them by cheering too loud at sports day."

"You definitely will. You'll probably volunteer to coach too, whether or not if you know the sport." You snort, trying to lighten the mood. "You'll be really good at it too."

"I know I will." He grins wide, eyes full of mischief. "Your dad took time off to be on our team to help, so did grandpa. I think I learnt well from your dad and my grandpa. I learnt from the best....along with the dad jokes."

You playfully rolled your eyes. "Then save our children, cause good lord."

"Eh, they're not too bad." Your boyfriend argues to you. "The jokes are good! 片思いで肩重い!"

You gasped and lowered your head. "Oh my god....You can't be serious."

He playfully puts his hand on his chest. "Can you hear it, babe? My shoulders are so heavy from this unrequited love—"

"I swear, you need to stop spending more time with my dad....." You mutter to yourself. "......And maybe my brother. He says that stuff too."

"Hey, I'm already a bit orphaned here. Let me have my dad jokes with dad and bro too."

You stare at him, narrowing your eyes. "That's a bit of a low blow isn't it?"

He grins at you, pulling at your cheek. "Let this morose child have a family, he enjoys being part of one. He barely has one, after all. Let him enjoy the dad jokes! He enjoys your family!"

"Alright, alright, I get it. My love, my cheeks are not as elastic as yours—ugh, Ryo—"

"I'll behave." He says, as you nearly call him his real name. You pout, letting out a 'hmp' before resting your head on his shoulder. "You're so cute when you pout."

"Oh, shut it!" You say to him, in a cute manner.

He laughs softly as he leans closer to you. Silence engulfs the two of you in a few moments, the comfort of each other's body being closer shutting you both to any other words being said.

He looked away for only a second before meeting your eyes again. The breeze shifted, carrying loose strands of your hair across your face. He hesitated for a moment. He then admitted, almost too quietly for you to hear, with a tender hearted smile on his face.

"Besides....I don't want our kids wondering whether I'm coming home tonight, babe. Just wanna be there, like your dad was. Like your brother, who's always there for his kids, you know?"

The words knocked the breath from your lungs. Without thinking, you reached across until your palms reach to his face. He looks at you, scarlet eyes widened slightly and then gives you a small smile. His palms reach your own, warming you once more. You could feel the callouses in his hand, feeling those many rough years of his life given to volleyball.

Yet they were so tender and so kindly, and all you could think about was the many years of his touch being so gentle with you. So far removed from the harsh, brutish hits in the court. You could feel yourself melt at the thought of this man holding your children as warmly, as kindly, as tenderly as he does your hand now. You feel like crying now.

He curled his fingers around yours almost immediately, catching on. "It's okay. You don't have to cry about it."

"I'm sorry, my love." you whispered. "I just....I hope we do get to achieve your dream. I hope you don't ever get lonely again."

He shook his head, no bitterness in his expression. There was only certainty. "Hm, but don't cry about it, okay? We'll be happy together. It will all happen. Trust me."

Neither of you spoke for a while after that. You simply sat together, hands intertwined between you while the tide crept a little closer to shore. Eventually, Sukuna nudged your shoulder with his own. "What about you?"

"Hm? What about me?" You sounded confused, as if you hadn't just had the conversation. You suddenly realize and blush slightly. "Oh, about our dreams.....what about about it?"

"Never mind. Yours is obvious. You've got that look."

"What look?" You pondered, narrowing your eyes questioningly.

"The one you get whenever you're thinking about something ridiculously nerdy."

You gasped dramatically. "I do not."

"You absolutely do."

"I am deeply offended."

"You'll survive."

You bumped his shoulder with yours before following his gaze upward. The sky was still brilliantly blue. There was not a single star in sight. But you knew they were there. Hidden beyond the daylight. They were all there, waiting. Waiting for the dark echoes of night to let them shine. You let out a small thinking hum, before smiling at him and speaking your mind.

"Well, you already know me....being nerdy and all. But what I want to do, I think....I think I want to map them."

He followed your gaze. "...The stars?"

"The ones we haven't fully understood yet." You smiled to yourself. "I want to know how galaxies are born. I want to understand why some stars die the way they do. I want to study places humanity will probably never reach."

Your fingers drifted absentmindedly through the air, tracing invisible constellations only you could see. "I want to spend my life asking questions nobody's answered yet. I wanna figure it all out, my love. Make the map so everyone can walk it."

The words felt enormous. Far too enormous for a pair of seventeen-year-olds sitting barefoot on a beach. You laugh to yourself. "That was too dramatic for the simple thought to say that I want to become an astrophysicist."

You laughed softly at yourself. "It sounds impossible when I say it out loud, though—"

"It doesn't." He says, cutting you off. "You're too smart and too good at your shit, babe. Don't doen yourself for having a dream. Especially one I know you can achieve."

You looked at him, eyes blinking. He hadn't laughed. He hadn't smiled indulgently the way adults often did. He was simply watching you. "I'm serious, babe. You can do it. You can make it happen."

"I wanna do it, honestly."

Sukuna didn't answer immediately. He simply watched you in that moment. The wind lifted strands of your hair again, sunlight catching your profile in a way that made the whole moment feel strangely suspended in time. He leaned close and kissed you. Pulling away, he smiled wider than before. "Like I said, babe....You'll do it. I know you can do it. You'll be the best goddamn astrophyscist in the world."

"You think so?" Your eyes looked at him, shining at him. "You think I can do it?"

"I know you can, babe. You of all people can change the world. Better than I can, I think!" You laugh at his dramatics, shaking your head. He pushed himself upright, brushing sand from the back of his shirt. "And when you discover some new star or whatever..."

"Galaxy." You added at him.

"Whatever else there is." He waved dismissively as he grins. "I'm gonna become unbearable to anyone and everyone, babe."

"Oh?" You grinned at him. "Will you really?"

"Of course! I'm gonna tell everybody. I'l use a megaphone and stand in front of the city center and do it." He puffed out his chest dramatically. "I would be like, 'That's my wife! You better know it!' Or something like that. Give me a minute, I'll come up with slogans....."

You laughed at him. "You're ridiculous, you know that? Gosh.....imagining you doing that......" You shake your head. "But then again, we're still seventeen! That's a long time away, us getting married."

"So?" He retorts to you, a wider grin pressed on his lips. "I've already got it all planned, babe. That's where we're heading, after all."

You blushed, as red as a tomato. "S-so, then maybe propose first."

"I'll get there. I'll wife you up." He says to you, leaning in again to kiss. His cheeky grin got even wider when you became more flustered. "Thst's all my plan, babe. I'll be your househusband and you'll be my Nobel Prize winning astrophyscist wife!"

".......When you say it like that!....." You find your face in your palms, redder than any rosebush. You shake your head. "My heart can't take it!"

"My, my.....you have quite the imagination!" He teases, grinning widely as he looks at you with mirth in his eyes. "I didn't know you were so naughty, babe!"

You scream, showing your red face to him. "WAH, DON'T TURN MY PRECIOUS THOUGHT DIRTY!"

He raised his arms in defense, laughing. "Hey, hey. I didn't say anything. You thought that."

"I'm not a perv, you hear me!" You scream flusteredly, pulling at his collar. "Ryomen Sukuna, you—"

"Hey, that isn't my name to you! Besides, its normal to think—"

"WAH, SHUT UP!"

THE PODCAST ALWAYS SEEMS TO BEGIN THE SAME WAY, WHICH WAS OF COURSE, CHAOS. Ryomen Sukuna could see that look in his vice captain's piercing blue eyes as he watched him making notes on his script. Sukuna couldn't help but let his scarlet eyes flicker to the notes Gojo Satoru was making in a daze. He couldn't help but let out a frustrated groan as Satoru looks at him and grins.

"You've got to stop calling it The Two Idiots Podcast, six eyes." Sukuna said as he adjusted the microphone clipped to the collar of his shirt, not bothering to look up from the soundboard in front of him. "That isn't the name of this podcast and you know it."

Across the table, Satoru only grinned wider, drumming his fingers against the desk while one of the producers silently counted them in. The red recording light blinked to life. Sukuna lowers his head, knowing Satoru was just going to do what he told him not to do. Like a child being warned by their mother to behave with a list full of things and ends up not really doing any of that anyway.

"Welcome back, folks!" Satoru announced brightly, "This is The Two Idiots Podcast."

Sukuna sighed, long and suffering. "I'm surrounded by people who refuse to listen."

"I heard you, loud and clear." Satoru replied with a laugh. "I just chose not to care. I mean, we aren't in a court right now."

"I hope you choke on your seltzer later."

"Good thing that's not happening! I have Mountain Dew right now." Satoru showed him his tongue, as though he was a child. "Suck it!"

A snort escaped one of the producers behind the cameras. Satoru leaned comfortably into his chair, settling into the rhythm he'd perfected over years of broadcasting. Sukuna rolled his eyes as he put away his own notes to the side as Satoru pulled the mic closer to his lips.

"I'm your number one host, Gojo Satoru, and joining me is Japan's current national team captain, who's taken a few months off after the league season ended. And ironically, the reluctant second host of his broadcast, and the less handsome of the two of us, Ryomen Sukuna!"

"I can't believe I'm here again, when I could be home playing with Marin and Sukumi." Sukuna says, shaking his head. "And that introduction is just stupid."

"Hey, it's not stupid to introduce you like that. It's suitable! I am way more prettier."

Sukuna snickers at him. "Pretty boy and he's not even in a relationship."

"Hey! I'm getting there." He says to you, pouting. "My ex just needs time."

"I can't believe you're getting back together.....I can't believe she's giving you a second chance."

"Well, that's love for you!" Satoru grinned at him as the red eyed man shakes his head. "Anyway, apparently your recovery's going well."

"Yeah, its been going great—"

"Though from what I've seen, recovery mostly consists of making dinosaur-shaped pancakes, building treehouses and learning how to braid his daughter's hair."

"I'm already in the advanced stages of my recovery rehab." Sukuna argues. "My doctor said I can move too. I'm fine. I still need time to recover. But you know, I still want to do things with my family. And my daughter wanted to do something. I'm not saying no to her."

"You built a treehouse. With your barehands!" Satoru argues back. "Who the hell who does rehab does that?"

"Sukumi wanted one, she saw it on the TV." Sukuna shrugs, as if it was just a matter of fact. "I mean, I sat down while doing it and took breaks. My wife yelled at me to take it easy all the time throughout. But you know, it made her happy once it was done."

"That's not easy."

Sukuna snickers. "I know it's not easy. I just did it."

Satoru shakes his head. "And somehow, you found the time to go and take breaks and then go and fix and repaint your kitchen."

"It needed repainting.....I've been planning to do it but I've always been busy, so I thought, long stick with a paint roller, why not?" The fuschia haired man says as if it was a matter of fact, as if it was normal to do that while injured. "Besides, my wife and daughter deserve a fresh, bright kitchen. And repainting it makes that happen, you know?"

"You learned to French braid too, apparently. [name]-chan told me all about it." Satoru shakes his head as he looks at his volleyball teammate. "I really think its insane how you have so much time. I mean, you apparently also took Marin to the park to play day after day. Injured as you are, you don't act like it."

"Life just moves like that, man." He says as he takes his drink and takes a sip. He shrugs. "I'm her other parent, my wife had a work trip and my daughter had ballet. Had to do it. She was happy, my wife was happy. Win for everyone." The fuschia haired man said. "Also yeah, that's true. Marin did enjoy the park. She met other dogs to have playdates with. It's been brilliant."

"I just don't know how you find the energy to do all these things." Satoru shakes his head. He looks at the notes and suddenly grins. Sukuna raised a brow. "You also apparently wore something interesting. I have a picture—"

"Don't you dare!...Shit." Sukuna glared at Satoru, who looks like he couldn't contain his laughter anymore. "Listen, it was a gift. My daughter picked it out as a Father's Day gift with my wife. I used it, I still do—"

"It says Kiss the Cook." Satoru says as he motions for the monitor to show the picture of six foot tall Ryomen Sukuna making pancakes in the kitchen wearing the apron, half naked, yawning. "Courtesy of our beloved [name]-chan who took this picture."

Sukuna curses under his breath, feeling the rush of heat on his cheeks. "Look man, this is a gift from my wife and my kid. It was Mother's Day. I have to do something special....But I don't think you would understand. No one calls you dad."

".......Well, actually—"

Sukuna groans. "Yo, don't start that. Yuck, what the heck?"

Satoru laughs. "Hey, you started it! Just telling you the truth, buddy."

The control room dissolved into quiet laughter, and even Sukuna's expression betrayed him for a fraction of a second, the corner of his mouth threatening to twitch before he caught it. For a while, the conversation drifted exactly where listeners expected it to.

Satoru complained about his students speaking in incomprehensible internet slang; Sukuna retaliated by reminding everyone that Satoru had walked straight into a glass door because he'd been too busy reading fan mail to watch where he was going.

But then somehow that became a story about Sukumi declaring she would beat her father in volleyball before she turned ten, which led to Sukuna insisting she'd inherited your stubbornness and absolutely none of his. So far today's mood had been easy and comfortable. Another one in the books for a smooth sailing recording.

The sort of conversation that made people forget there were microphones involved at all. It was then one of the producers cleared his throat. Satoru glanced toward the monitor mounted just outside the frame and, almost instantly, the lightness left his face. "…Right."

Sukuna followed his gaze. "You saw it?"

"I saw it." Satoru confirms, looking just as upset. "I can't believe it. This again?"

"If people are not aware why Satoru's going, not this again, it's because one of the players we know personally, Chikafuji Masaki has just been announced to have gotten married." Sukuna explains, calm anger layered in his tone. "But along with this, there's just been an exposee that she's being forced to step down as captain of the national team, after saying she wants to stay on after marriage."

The headline filled the screen between them. One of the country's premier women's national volleyball players had announced her marriage earlier that week. At first, the coverage had been celebratory. Congratulatory messages from teammates, interviews about balancing life and sport, photographs of the ceremony. It was then the conversation changed.

The more they dived into it, the more it wss a headache. The anonymous officials began questioning whether she'd remain committed to the national team. Sponsors reportedly expressed concerns about her "marketability" on the team. As well as what would happen when she starts to have children and is off for most of the volleyball season, taking care of her kid and recovering from birth and other preposterous statements.

Television panels debated whether marriage and the possibility of motherhood had meant it was time for her to make way for younger athletes. Rumours circulated that people within the federation had quietly encouraged her to consider stepping away from the sport altogether.

As though saying "I do" had somehow erased everything she'd accomplished on the court. Sukuna read the headline once again and again and again. He just couldn't believe what the fuck he was reading on the headlines, at least not without feeling the rise of anger flow back and forth.

His jaw tightened and then shifted. "…What the hell is wrong with these people?"

It wasn't outrage for outrage's sake, Sukuna knew that well. This was malice for malice's sake. He could not believe this. He was genuinely bewildered that in this day and age, such a situation was still so prominent. He leaned back on his chair and quickly changed position again, unable to keep himself still, full of angst about the situation.

"I'm serious. I genuinely do not know why the fuck this is still a fucking thing. What the fuck is this headline? Are we serious?" he said, looking from the monitor to Satoru before finally settling on the nearest camera. "She's still one of the best players in the country. Last I checked, signing a marriage certificate doesn't tank your vertical or knock twenty kilometres an hour off your serve, so why the hell are we talking about her marriage instead of her volleyball?"

Satoru shook his head, letting out a mocking laugh. "Because apparently she's got 'different priorities now' as said by this one stupid newspaper spread. Bro, what the fuck does that even mean? Does she stop knowing how to lead the team because she has a family?"

"It's just such a lazy argument when it's just flat out misogyny." Sukuna says confidently angry "They're being fucking stupid. Maybe volleyball is still one of her priorities. Did it ever occur to them that people can have multiple priorities? This is insane."

He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms as though trying to understand a language he'd never learned. "But you know what gets me? When I got married, nobody asked if I was planning to retire. Nobody questioned whether becoming a husband meant I wasn't committed anymore. Hell, when Sukumi was born, all anyone wanted to talk about was whether fatherhood would make me a better captain."

His laugh was brief, humourless. "But a woman gets married and suddenly everyone starts treating her like she's halfway out the door. It's shit. Why does a woman have to deal with this double standard but a man like me who do what is natural, you know, doing my part as a father, is fucking praised? Are we serious?"

Satoru let the silence hang for a beat, studying Sukuna over the rim of his coffee mug. He'd known him long enough to recognize the signs. The tight set of his jaw, the way his fingers tapped once against the tabletop before going still. Sukuna wasn't angry in the explosive, theatrical sense people expected of him. He was offended.

"What's worse in all of this is that they think this is a good thing." Satoru said, finally breaking the quiet. "I genuinely can believ that half the people saying this think they're being supportive about her life choices and her needs when theyre just being dismissive."

Sukuna looked at him. "And that's what sick! They aren't aware of their misogyny. 'Oh, she should enjoy being a wife now!' Or 'She deserves to settle down and be away from the volleyball court!' Like shut the fuck up, you're misogynists!"

"I've seen them. Like remember when Mikaichi retired too? Same fucking text and line. All the hook line and sinker for the same shitty asd misogynistic bullshit."

"As if playing volleyball and having a family are mutually exclusive." Sukuna scoffed, shaking his head. "It's the way they frame it." He reached over to pull the monitor a little closer, eyes scanning another article before gesturing toward it with the back of his hand.

"I mean look at this bullshit. They're talking about her marriage like it's an obstacle the Federation now has to work around. It's stupid." He looked up, incredulous. "Nothing worth noting here. Their concerns aren't even anything great. Have they had genuine questions about how her ACL? Or if her body can still push for more work? No, instead it is the same shitty ass line about marriage and settling down."

Satoru leaned over to read the article himself, eyebrows climbing higher the longer he skimmed. "So many comments reiteraiting their 'concerns regarding long-term commitment' to the team and to the country." he read aloud, then snorted. "It's stupid. Theyre acting like she won't try to do her fucking job. Or at least thinking she's got commitment issues. Mind you, she turned down being offers from European teams to stay for Japan. She made the female team top five in the world. What the fuck do you mean commitment issues?"

"Commitment? I can't fucking believe....." Sukuna echoed, exasperated. "She was my clubmate for youths, even though we had different places to be at, because of gendered divisions. I know how hard she works. She's committed enough to spend nearly fifteen years tearing her body apart for this sport, but one ring on her finger later and suddenly everyone's worried?"

"I'm sorry to the team, to the staff here if we're having a melt down here. We just can't believe this is still happning." Satoru laughed once under his breath, though there wasn't an ounce of amusement in it. "She's been with her boyfriend for like what, ten years? She was so committed to her boyfriend that she got married to him. She's committed to things!"

"I got married and you fuckers didn't say a word about commitment issues or how Iong I've been married. You fucking praised me for it, dipshits!" Sukuna continued as he spread his hands in the air, unsure of what to do with them. "You know what changed for me? Everything. I stopped surviving on convenience store food. I sleep more. I do better in life. Marriage makes you strive for better."

"You became significantly less unbearable too." Satoru sneaks in.

"I—" Sukuna stopped himself, clicking his tongue. "...That's debatable."

"No, that's measurable."

A few chuckles rippled through the studio, but Sukuna barely acknowledged them. "Fucking hell...My point is simple." he continued. "Marriage didn't make me less of a volleyball player."

"If anything, it makes you focus." Satoru added, "You had the best season of your career afterwards."

"Exactly." He nodded once. "No one questioned that. No one asked whether my priorities had changed. No one pulled me aside and asked if I still had the hunger to compete."

He leaned forward again, resting his forearms on the desk. "They congratulated me, they called me mature. They said having a family would ground me." His expression hardened, angered. "They said it made me a more desirable player."

"But if it's a woman...." Satoru starts to say, shaking his head. "It's a whole different scenario."

"But when it's a woman..." Sukuna continued for Satoru, as he let the sentence trail off, searching for the right words. "It's like people stop seeing the athlete. They start to see so much other of the things and stop respecting her. They see all the things society forces on her. And thats fucking sad."

He looked back toward the monitor. "The incredible volleyball player becomes secondary. Just because she becomes a wife. I can't fucking..." Sukuna sighs, exhausted. "Aren't we tired of this?"

The studio had gone unusually still. Even the producers, usually whispering to one another behind the cameras, had fallen silent. Sukuna exhaled slowly through his nose. "My wife has spent her entire adult life studying stars." His voice softened almost imperceptibly. "She chased a dream that most people would've called impossible."

There was a faint smile when he spoke about you, one Satoru noticed immediately. "I've watched her disappear into observatories and conference rooms for weeks. I've watched her spend nights awake because a calculation didn't make sense. I've watched her miss holidays because a telescope halfway across the world finally had an opening. Even pregnant, she worked!"

"She did a lot, man." Satoru mumbles as he shakes his head, memories flooding back. "She refused to sit down during dinner prep over the holidays. Mind you, Sukuna was doing everything so she wouldn't and she still refused to sit."

"That's how she is. She's just so hardworking and so devoted, it just breaks my heart that...." Sukuna feels choked up as he speaks. "I tried to do what I could then, because seeing her struggle hurt me. It was hard for me to see her hurting so bad, even when she wants to do her part even more."

"Yet even through all that.... I never once thought..." He frowned as Satoru looks at him with understanding. "I never thought to tell her that she should stop. Just because we got married and had a kid. Why should I? She doesn't stop being a human being with hopes and dreams just because we started a life together."

"I married her because she's her. She's brilliant, she's funny, she's good natured. But she's also hard working and dedicated. She is a one in a million talent and we shouldn't lose it just because she got hitched to me." He whispers lowly as everyone intently listened, not speaking or interrupting, even if it was now time for a short break. They just let him speak his heart out. He needed this.

Satoru watched him for a moment before quietly asking, "Is that why this gets under your skin so much more than you think?"

Sukuna didn't answer immediately. Instead, he looked down at the wedding band around his finger, turning it absentmindedly with his thumb. "...Partly. Okay, maybe more than that." The admission came quietly. "But I also know what it's like to have someone believe in your dream before anyone else does too."

His smile was small now, private. "Back in high school, she'd sit through every one of my matches, even the boring practice tournaments. And I'd sit with her while she rambled about black holes and galaxies I couldn't pronounce."

"You still can't."

"I still can't."

That finally earned a laugh from both of them. "But we never asked each other to choose." His expression settled again, becoming thoughtful. "It was always..." He searched for the memory, hearing the words as though they were spoken yesterday instead of decades ago. "It's always encouragements. We keep saying 'go do it' over and over again. We believe to hope the best for each other, saying 'I'll be here when you get back' and become happy with that."

He looked toward the camera. "That's what marriage is supposed to be. And thats how it should be. We don't stop being people just because we got married. Life is a big adventure and your partner cannot always be in the center of that. Women shouldn't be expected to center a man just because shes married."

"This is not healthy, this....whatever this is, its an illness." He gestured vaguely toward the articles still displayed on the monitor. "This idea that the second a woman gets married, her ambitions become negotiable."

His jaw tightened again. "And then I think about Sukumi." He smiled despite himself. For a moment, he looks like he's about to burst into tears. He clears his throats and blinks the tears away. "She's got this little notebook."

Satoru grinned. "The volleyball notebook? The red one that I gifted her for her birthday?"

"Yeah, that one." Sukuna nodded. "She was so excited for it. She was going to use it for her little drawings but she noticed I wrote things on a notebook too, when I have games. She...she asked me about it and now....now it's her volleyball notebook."

"Every time she learns something new, she writes it down. Everything I teach her is on there. 'Keep your elbow high' or 'Don't drop your shoulders' or 'Papa says footwork wins rallies' and so much more of that. I had a lot of things I say and that girl writes it all down to get it down."

Gojo Satoru felt his eyes warmed at the thought of his goddaughter enjoying what she's learning and doing with volleyball. For a moment, its reminding him of being so young, growing with Sukuna and playing the best games, the best plays, the best moves in the court.

But it makes him even more emotional at the thought that she had grown enough to be so eager to take a moment and reflect on that notebook he got her, all the things she's learning from her dad.

His eyes softened with unmistakable affection. "Satoru, she's completely obsessed." The smile faded almost as quickly as it had appeared. "And I keep wondering..." His fingers curled loosely around his mug. "If she keeps loving this game...If she gets good enough...If one day she wears the same jersey I do.......What happens when someone tells her that getting married means it's time to step aside?"

The question lingered unanswered. Sukuna looked straight into the nearest camera, his voice calm enough that it carried even more weight than if he'd shouted. "I don't care if my daughter becomes a volleyball player. I don't care if she becomes a scientist like her mother. And I don't care if she wakes up one day and decides she wants to do something neither of us has ever imagined."

"What I care about..." He paused, finally being overwhelmed and emotional. "What I care about is that nobody gets to convince her that loving one thing means she has to give up the other."

He leaned back in his chair. "If she's good enough to play, she plays. If she wants a family, she has one. If she wants both......Then we'll make damn sure she never has to apologize for it."

Satoru grins. "Hell yeah! That's the spirit, dad!"

Sukuna looks to the camera, pointing at the news on screen. "If the people want to fine me or sanction me for saying all that shit, go for it. But you better fix this. I refuse to let this be the world my daughter knows. I'll quit if you don't do anything."

Satoru nodded. "These two idiots will stand firm on what we said today. If Sukuna's facing it, then I'm facing it too. I'm willing to stand ten toes with him on this. So, the ball's in your court."

"That's your warning." Sukuna nodded. "If you don't do it, then good luck finding better players than these two idiots. More of our idiots will say no to you too."

Satoru grinned. "Awww, you called us two idiots. How romantic!"

Sukuna shakes his head. "Shut the fuck up. We were having a moment and now its ruined."

"I mean we can start again, fellow idiot—"

"No fucking way, dipshit. I'm not doing that. Moment's gone."

"But, pookie—"

Sukuna motioned to the camera. "We're taking a commercial break. I need to cool down before I talk about stats. And a break from him."

Satoru freigned offense. "HEY!"

But Ryomen Sukuna was already standing.

He takes his drink and goes outside to take in the air.

He sighed, heavily and found himself lowering his head.

All he could do was pray to a god he doesn't believe in that his daughter will never have to deal with that.

He prays to to god and any god out there that they protect you and your daughter.

"I wish it was better.....fuck." He drinks his drink, exasperated. He throws the empty can away and leans against the wall. "Fuck....."

He knew he can't protect Sukumi from everything.

She will grow up and see the world for what it is one day.

But he hopes he can do a good job and make sure she always smiles.

That she always smiles like you do, when you speak about your maps of stars.

epilogue

The backlash arrived exactly as everyone had expected it would. Nothing was shocking about it. If anything, it was almost predictable in its timing, as though the country had collectively inhaled the moment the episode aired, only to exhale days of debate in return.

Ryomen Sukuna, however, found himself remarkably unmoved by it all. People were always going to have opinions. They were always going to disagree, to argue, to find fault with someone who spoke too loudly or too plainly.

That had never frightened him before, and it certainly wasn't going to start now. If people wanted to criticize him for saying what he believed was right, they were welcome to. Their approval had never been what guided him in the first place.

By the following morning, clipped segments from the podcast had escaped volleyball circles entirely. What had begun as another episode between two longtime friends and volleyball teammates had quickly found its way onto popular culture.

It was all over the evening news broadcasts, sports talk shows, university discussion forums, and social media feeds belonging to people who had never watched a professional volleyball match in their lives. It was just insane to watch.

Overnight, the conversation had stopped being about a single player and had become something much larger. Some praised them for saying what so many had quietly believed for years. Others accused them of turning sport into politics.

Many had insisted Sukuna and Satoru had stirred unnecessary controversy, arguing that active national team players had no business criticizing the very federation they represented. To some, they had crossed an invisible line between athlete and activist and to others, they had simply spoken an uncomfortable truth that those in power had spent years pretending not to see.

Every sports panel seemed to dissect the podcast sentence by sentence, replaying the same clips until viewers could recite them from memory. Newspaper columns questioned whether athletes still representing Japan should be speaking publicly against federation culture, while television pundits debated whether Sukuna had behaved like a responsible captain or an unprofessional employee.

Former players, no longer constrained by contracts, began offering their own opinions. Some defended him openly. Others urged caution, insisting that internal issues should remain behind closed doors. Current athletes, meanwhile, remained noticeably quiet, their silence speaking almost as loudly as everyone else's words.

Authorities in the sport responded exactly as authorities in organizations often did. Over the next several days, statements and carefully worded press releases appeared one after another, each emphasizing the organization's commitment to professionalism, respect, and the welfare of its athletes while gently reminding contracted players of their obligations regarding public conduct.

They spoke at length about appropriate channels for communication and the importance of preserving the integrity of the sport. And of course, no names were mentioned. They didn't have to be. Everyone knew exactly who those statements were for.

A week later, Sukuna and Satoru were called into a meeting. Neither of them expected anything different. They arrived together, exchanged polite greetings with the officials waiting inside, and spent the next hour listening to carefully rehearsed corporate language delivered in calm, measured voices. No one raised their voice. No one pounded a fist against the table or issued dramatic ultimatums.

In many ways, that almost made it worse to them. That's what left a bitter taste in their mouths after. The conversation was courteous from beginning to end, every criticism wrapped in professional language that disguised reprimands as concern and consequences as necessary procedure.

By the time the meeting concluded, they had each received an official reprimand that would remain on record. They were informed that they would be required to attend mandatory media training before conducting any further public interviews and that, effective immediately, both of them would be temporarily suspended from organization-sponsored media appearances.

The officials spoke at length about maintaining unity, protecting the image of Japanese volleyball, and addressing disagreements through the proper internal channels rather than in front of microphones. None of it was particularly severe on paper. But then again, that was the point.

The consequences were carefully measured, reasonable enough to avoid public outrage. After all, these two were legends in the field, and even beyond it. They represented the fabric of Japanese life and society. People couldn't avoid that.

But everything about this carefully measured response was also carrying an unmistakable message beneath the polished language. It always does. And both of them knew it. Speak like this again, and the next punishment won't be so gentle.

Neither Sukuna nor Satoru apologized, neither admitted they had been wrong. If anything, leaving the meeting only strengthened their conviction that the conversation had needed to happen in the first place.

Ironically, the response accomplished exactly what it had hoped to avoid. News of the disciplinary action leaked within days, reigniting public discussion with even greater intensity than before. Athletes, both current and retired, began sharing experiences that had remained buried for years.

Some spoke anonymously, fearful of damaging careers that were still unfolding. Others attached their names without hesitation, deciding that silence had protected no one for long enough. But that was more than enough.

Women's players described being asked during contract negotiations whether they planned to marry within the next few years. Others recalled subtle suggestions to postpone starting families until after major international tournaments or the end of their careers.

Retired athletes admitted they had delayed pregnancies out of fear that sponsors would quietly disappear or that roster spots would no longer be waiting for them once they returned. Stories that had once existed only as whispers between teammates suddenly became public conversations.

Meanwhile, fans and people outside the bubble had continued sharing clips from the podcast. One sentence, in particular, seemed to take on a life of its own. If she's good enough to play, she plays.

It appeared everywhere. They were printed across handmade signs outside league arenas. They were painted onto fan banners hanging over stadium railings. They were shared endlessly across social media as hashtags and profile slogans. Hell, they were quoted in newspaper headline and repeated by commentators.

Even athletes, especially women athletes, from completely different sports began echoing it, applying the same principle to conversations far beyond volleyball. It was bigger than volleyball. It was touching something that had been waiting for so long to be noticed.

For every person who called Ryomen Sukuna irresponsible or accused him of jeopardizing his career, there seemed to be three more thanking him for saying aloud what so many had spent years thinking in silence.

Husband and father, Ryomen Sukuna, meanwhile, paid very little attention to any of it. He wasn't interested in any of the opinion columns or the endless debates online. He's not that interested in finding out what others think, or what's under the tags of his name.

As far as he was concerned, he'd said what needed to be said. Whether people chose to agree with him or condemn him afterward was entirely their decision. It didn't change the fact that he believed every word.

By the following weekend, he was barefoot in the backyard, fully cleared by his doctors and was running around trying to make sure that his daughter could enjoy some good, genuine, well-guided volleyball.

"Papa!" Sukumi's voice rang through the warm afternoon air as the volleyball bounced awkwardly off her forearms before veering wildly into the flowerbeds. "I almost got it!"

"You almost launched it into the neighbor's yard." Sukuna pointed out.

"I was aiming high."

"Your papa can tell."

She stuck her tongue out at him before scrambling after the ball, nearly tripping over her own feet in the process. You watched from the porch with a quiet smile, an iced tea sweating against your palm as the late afternoon sun painted long shadows across the grass.

Sukuna had spent the last twenty minutes trying—and mostly failing—to explain proper passing technique to his little child who seemed convinced that sheerand utter enthusiasm alone could compensate for her lacking in footwork.

"Bend your knees."

"I am!"

"Those are not bent knees."

"They're emotionally bent, just like your feelings."

Sukuna stared. "...Who taught you that sentence?"

Sukumi's guilty eyes drifted immediately toward you. You raised both hands, making a face at him. "It wasn't me, my love. I would never!"

"Uncle 'Toru, papa."

"I knew it." He pinched the bridge of his nose while Sukumi giggled, scooping up the volleyball before trying again. And this time it actually reached him. Well, mostly. He caught it one-handed before tossing it gently back. "Okay, baby. That was better."

"I know! I really tried my best!"

"You can still bend your knees more."

"They're trying their best."

"They can try harder."

She huffed dramatically before jogging toward the other side of the yard, determined to prove him wrong. The moment she was out of earshot, you stepped down from the porch and wandered over until you were standing beside him.

For a while, neither of you spoke. You simply watched your daughter chase a volleyball that refused to cooperate. Eventually, you reached for his hand. His fingers intertwined with yours without him even looking.

"They gave you another warning?"

He nodded once. "Mm."

"And Satoru?"

"The same. Not that he or I care, to be fair."

You let out a quiet sigh. "I'm sorry for that, my love."

He shrugged. "I expected it before I even said anything, so don't think too much about it, babe."

"I know."

That somehow didn't make it sting any less. You looked toward Sukumi again. She'd managed a surprisingly clean pass to herself. The little grin on her face made your heart swell. You sighed softly.

"You know, my love, I found myself eating breakfast earlier than usual." you said softly, "Then found myself watching the episode again while eating my food. It got cold because I got so deep in your episode."

Sukuna glanced sideways. "Oh?"

"I don't think I told you this yet."

He raised a brow. "About what?"

"Thank you."

He frowned. "...For what?"

"For saying it." You smiled faintly. "For speaking when it would've been easier not to."

His brows drew together as though the gratitude genuinely confused him. "Barely did anything."

"You've always been like that." You laughed quietly, shaking your head. "Ever since we were kids....If you loved something...you protect it. If you love something, you stand by it. You didn't care if it got hard or painful. You never looked away even when it came with consequences."

His thumb brushed absentmindedly across your knuckles. "You don't have to thank me, though. I'm serious. I didn't do anything revolutionary. The credit shouldn't be on me."

"I want to."

He shook his head, his voice is gentle. "No, I don't deserve it. I didn't do anything special to warrant it."

"You did."

"I did what anyone should've done." He watched Sukumi bump the volleyball with all the determination in the world and almost none of the technique. A smile found its way onto his face. "If something's wrong, then you say it's wrong. It's not complicated. Nothing about it should be."

You rested your head lightly against his shoulder. "The world would disagree."

"Well, the world's wrong."

You laughed. "Still impossibly stubborn."

"I've been called worse."

There was a comfortable silence between you after that, filled only by the rhythmic thump of volleyball against grass and Sukumi's triumphant cheers whenever she managed three passes in a row. Sukuna watched her with an expression so impossibly soft that it almost made him look like a different man.

"When she gets older, I know she's going to be sharp witted." he said quietly. "She's going to pay attention to what I do a lot more than what I say."

You followed his gaze. Sukumi had her tongue poking out in concentration, brows knitted together as she prepared another pass. "I know. It's going to be rough on both of us, but for you....."

"So if I tell her to stand up for people..." He bounced the volleyball once against the ground before catching it again. He shakes his head "...But she watches me stay quiet because it's inconvenient, then what does that teach her other than that its okay to be treated like that?"

"It teaches her that her papa is brave."

"I don't need her to think her papa was brave." He says to you, smiling softly. "I just need her to know that he tried to do the right thing and that is more important."

His gaze drifted back to your daughter. "I want her to grow up believing that if someone is being treated unfairly, you don't look around the room to see who's going to speak first...."

"You just do." His fingers tightened gently around yours. "Especially when the people who need someone the most don't have the power to say it themselves."

Across the yard, Sukumi finally managed five clean passes in a row. She spun around with both fists in the air. She finds herself dancing in celebration, clapping and giggling. You couldn't help but laugh and shout praise at your daughter. But no one was happier than your husband. Sukuna's face lit up immediately.

"I DID IT!"

"You did." He happily said, running up to her and scooping her up in his arms. "You were so good, 'kumi. That was impressive!"

"Papa, did you see?"

"Of course, papa saw. You were so cool out there, doing that." He praises her, leaning close and kissed her cheek. "I don't think I've seen a finer move, 'kumibear."

"Was that good?"

He grinned. "It was. Believe me, not many kids can do it the way you did."

You smiled widely and moved from your seat and towards your husband and your daughter. You wrapped your arms around them. You leaned in and kissed your husband's jaw and then your daughter's forehead.

"My two amazing players, you did so well!"

"Does this mean I get hot cocoa as a reward, mama?" Your daughter beamed at you.

You laughed, nodding. "Of course, 'kumibear can get as much as she wants."

"Yay! I'm going to drink a lot."

Sukuna laughs. "Be careful, though. It can get hot."

Sukumi pouts. "I know how to blow my hot drinks, papa!"

You and your husband laugh softly.

Sukumi continues to pout at your reaction.

The world can be cruel. The world can be unfair.

But in this world, your world, there is happiness.

Most of all, there is always going to be love.

THIS WAS NOT THE DATE THE TWO OF YOU HAD PLANNED OR AGREED ON EARLIER THAT DAY. You had planned to go to the mall to buy some things for your house and then eat in an Okonomiyaki restaurant, and maybe spend the rest of the night playing video games at his house.

But all the sudden, you were walking together to the train station right after school and suddenly, the idea came to you. You turned to your beloved boyfriend, volleyball ace Ryomen Sukuna and grinned at him with those bright big eyes, full of mirth and enthusiasm for something he doesn't know just yet.

For a moment, you had looked exactly like Cheshire cat to him, with your little knowing, shining eyes and your mischievous smile. He doesn't know how you got so bold, considering you hate the cold. But you squeezed his hand urgingly, starting a conversation.

"Hey, my love."

"What is it, babe?"

"We're not that far out from a coastal town, right?"

He narrowed his scarlet eyes. "Babe, you're gonna get cold."

You start making your eyes bigger, pout on your lips. "But the sea in sunset! It would be so cool to experience—"

He shook his head. "Absolutely not. I'm not risking you getting sick."

When he uttered those words, he thought he was being resolute. He was putting his foot down and for the best of intentions. For your health, first and foremost. And you hate the cold. Sunset and the sea means it is going to be cold. But somehow those words bend as easily as they utter as he found himself heading to the coastal town in that train with you, smiling at his side grinning.

"To the sea, here we go!" You cheered happily. "Wah, it's so gonna be so fun over there! It's been a while, since we've been by the sea. Oh, wait is that a soda shop? Let's go there later!"

"When did I end up so eager to say yes to everything?....." Sukuna whispered under his breath. ".....Yes, we can do to that soda shop."

You laughed, happy at his approval. "Because you love me the most in this world!"

Sukuna could not argue. "......Oi, wear my jacket."

"But's it's warm right now, my love. Later!"

"Don't say I didn't warn you." He shakes his head.

It took a while to get off the train, being the town was at the end of the tracks. But it wasn't all bad. You don't go to this part of the prefecture that often, anyway. The travel was going to be far, you know that much. Perhaps that's why you wanted to see it more than usual. You wanted to make it worth your while.

Maybe that's also why you didn't mind staying up too long either. It was going to be easy to convince your fuschia haired boyfriend. And it was Saturday tomorrow, so the concept of time was more than likely yours and Sukuna to do what you will with. And your parents won't be home until their shift ends tomorrow, so you probably will sleep at Sukuna's house tonight anyway. He can take you home afterwards.

The afternoon sun had begun its slow descent by the time the two of you reached the beach, melting into the horizon until the sea looked as though someone had poured liquid gold across its surface. You lean deeper into Sukuna's jacket, feeling your body shiver against the push of the seaside breeze.

Sukuna watches you take a breath then try your hardest to keep from sneezing. He shakes his head, but still couldn't help but smile at how adorable you looked. Before long, his long, strong arms wrapped its warmth against you, pulling you closer as you both walked.

It was so beautiful, you think to yourself. Everything about it is so picturesque, that you found yourself wishing you had brought your camera along. Just to record a memory here and there in better quality. But you supposed that this moment being recorded in your memory forever would be enough.

The two of you succumbed to relaxation as you both watched the tide rolling in with lazy confidence, waves folding over themselves before dissolving into white foam against the shore, and somewhere farther down the coast children shrieked with laughter as they chased one another through the shallows.

The ever expansive sea had always belonged to the two of you. At least it just felt like that. The traces of your enduring memories come flooding back to you in that moment, the sight holding a happy space in your heart over and over again, the more you walked towards the shoreline.

The first time Sukuna told you he loved you, the first time you both held hands. That first New Year's Eve together. After tough, exhausting exams. After long afternoons spent in the library while you buried yourself beneath university astronomy journals you definitely weren't supposed to understand yet. After Sukuna's volleyball practices, when he'd show up with sand still clinging to the soles of his shoes because he'd insisted on running here instead of taking the train.

Somehow, every road somehow led back here. It was the sea which you had allowed to be your silent witness to every little bit of your lives. It was the best listener. It always has been. But it was also the friend that had never failed you or your boyfriend. You sighed almost too happily, even if it was that cold. You were once more letting it be a witness to your joys together.

A little while later, you both found a bench and sat on it together. You were sat cross-legged with your notebook abandoned beside you, pages overflowing with half-finished calculations, crude sketches of constellations, and annotations squeezed into every available margin.

Your well drawn pencil had long since been forgotten in the sand, but your tender eyes still wandered instinctively upward every few minutes, as if expecting the first stars to appear hours before sunset.

Beside you, Sukuna lay flat against the warm sand, one arm folded beneath his head while his other hand lazily spun a volleyball over his stomach. His practice jersey was streaked with grains of sand, his hair still damp from sweat, and every now and then the breeze carried the faint scent of sunscreen mixed with the saltwater drying against his skin.

For several minutes neither of you spoke.

There had never been a need to.

Silence was easy with him all the time.

Comfortable in the love that belonged to you and only you.

Yet it was like always, the kind of silence that came only after years of knowing someone so completely that conversation no longer had to fill every empty space. When you have a look, when you have a smile or a frown or when the subtle ways your touch changes or stays, that was more than enough. That's what happens when you love someone so much that doing things, feeling things, it was just....easy.

Nothing was hard when you were together, when you hold each other, when you cherish each other. It becomes easy to exist in a world that is full of crashing waves that pulls you in to try and entrap you in its crashing sweeps. It was easy to have a language that was understood, a language that was known because of your love. It was easy to be someone. It was easy to belong.

"Babe, you know..." His voice was quiet enough that it almost disappeared beneath the rhythm of the waves.

You hummed without looking away from the horizon. "What is it?"

"I don't think I wanna play volleyball forever."

That caught your attention. You turned toward him slowly, lowering the notebook from your lap until it rested forgotten beside your knee. "You don't?"

He shrugged one shoulder. "I mean don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for what the game gave me...It gave me an outlet, it gave me a chance to reach for the sky, to reach you." He watched the volleyball spin lazily above him before catching it against his chest. "I love volleyball. I really do."

There wasn't a hint of uncertainty in those words. You knew he did. You'd seen it in every bruised knee, every taped finger, every practice that ran until the gym lights shut off around him. You'd watched him come alive the second he stepped onto a court, transforming into someone impossibly confident, impossibly bright.

"And I already know my goals because of it. I know I wanna go pro, I know that much." he continued. "I wanna play for Japan. I wanna make sure I contribute something to the sport. That's a driving force I've come to have for myself."

"That's the passion that you built for yourself." You whispered to him. "One that continues to grow because of your hard work."

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, softer than the cocky grin he usually wore after winning a match. "That's true. You know me, babe. I wanna see how far I can go." He rolled the volleyball between his palms. "I wanna know what my limit is."

You smiled. "That sounds like you, my love."

"It is. And I know it will always be, in one way or another. But the concept of doing something like that forever?" His scarlet gaze drifted toward the aure blue ocean. The smile remained, though it changed somehow, becoming quieter. "Nah....I don't think I can do it. At least wholeheartedly."

The answer hung between you, carried away by the wind before either of you spoke again. "I think......I'll play a while, at least as much as I can." He paused, choosing his words more carefully than he usually did. "But if I'm lucky, then I'd probably play until I'm satisfied."

"And then? What does my love plan to do with the rest of his life after that?" You asked him, leaning against him, your eyes meeting.

He didn't need to think about it, as he laughed. "I know this might not be everyone's dream but....I wanna stay home."

Your eyes widened, stunned. "...Stay home?"

"Mhm. That's what I want. I want to stay home." He nodded, still watching the waves. "I wanna be a stay-at-home dad."

You couldn't help but stare at him. A moment later, you realized you have been in such a trance in the thought of his words that you forgot to breathe, or blink. You finally blink, trying to still process what he had said to you. The words were so unexpected that you wondered if you'd heard him correctly.

For as long as you'd known Ryomen Sukuna, he'd always been moving toward something. Every practice, every match, every impossible goal he'd set for himself had been another step forward, another challenge to conquer.

He possessed a relentless sort of ambition that refused to sit still, always chasing the next thing to perfect, the next skill to master, the next version of himself he thought he could become. It was one of the things you'd fallen in love with. That endless, unwavering drive, the certainty with which he threw himself into everything he cared about.

You had always imagined his future in the same way he spoke about it to you. You imagined the bigger arenas packed with banners to support him, the louder crowds screaming his name, the weight of a national jersey on his shoulders, the many gut-wrenching, bone aching years spent chasing every last dream volleyball could offer him.

So hearing him say, with such quiet certainty, I wanna be a stay at home dad...It's not a bad thing. Yet you can't help but admit that he caught you completely off guard. Of course, it's not because it felt unlike him. You think it's quite the opposite.

It sounded so honest that it made you realize you'd simply never thought to imagine this side of him. Beneath all that ambition was something impossibly gentle, something that had always been there, tucked behind his competitiveness and stubbornness.

The same boy who stayed after practice to help first-years clean up the gym, who remembered your favorite snacks without ever asking, who slowed his pace whenever you became too absorbed in pointing out constellations to notice how far you'd wandered.

His dream wasn't smaller.

It wasn't a concession.

It wasn't him giving up the life he'd worked so hard for.

It was simply......tender hearted for a world that wouldn't understand it.

A future measured not by medals or trophies, but by packed lunches, school pickups, scraped knees kissed better, bedtime stories, and children who would never have to wonder whether their father was coming home.

For someone who spent so much of his life chasing greatness, there was something achingly beautiful about discovering that, in the end, the place he wanted to be most was simply there, for the people he loved.

"...Really?" You finally heard yourself say to him. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I'm pretty sure. Don't worry, you heard me right."

There was no embarrassment in his confirmation. Not even a sheepish laugh could be heard from him. And certainly no attempt to disguise it as a joke. If anything, he sounded relieved and happy to finally say it out loud. As if he was waiting for this moment to come out clean and be honest. This was not a joke for him. This was real. This was the reality he saw for himself at the end.

"I think it'd be nice, you know? I think it would be good to cook for you and to make sure everything is great in the house. You're a busy bee after all. I wanna go and make sure the only thing you do is clean yourself up, sit down or lay down. Eat the dinner I made. I like making sure you're well cared for."

His scarlet gaze narrows down to the sand, the sound of breaking waves coming and going. "Besides, I don't really remember my parents ever being around, babe. I told you all about it....so yeah. I know we're going to be together forever. If we do have kids....I do think it would be nice to just be around for them, you know? I think I'd like to watch them grow the way my parents haven't for me."

Your smile faded. You could feel your heart pounding as you move forward and lean closer to him. He just smiles at you softly and moves forward to kiss your cheek. You wish you could enjoy the warmth of his lips on yours but but you can't help but be so hyper aware. You knew. Everyone knew.

Ryomen Sukuna's parents were brilliant, successful people whose careers demanded more from them than most could imagine. And whose desire to change the world had led them to all corners of the world but home. They loved their son. You had never doubted that of them.

But the concept of their recompense for not being able to show that love in person, because of their chocies had always arrived in carefully wrapped birthday presents shipped from another country, in expensive souvenirs from airports around the world, in apologetic phone calls made from hotel rooms at impossible hours.

They were always working and always travelling. Every single time, there was always promises that next time would be different. But they never really follow through. The birthdays became video calls. School festivals became photographs sent after the fact. Volleyball tournaments became stories Sukuna retold over dinner at your family's house because there had been no one in the stands to watch them, save for you and his grandpa.

"They weren't bad people, I know that much....." he said after a while, almost as though he were defending them. "They just..."

"My love, you don't have to force yourself—"

"It's okay....I'm good." He searched for the right word before giving up with a small shrug, looking at you with morose surrender to the kindness he offers to them. "My parents...it's the truth. They just weren't there."

You didn't interrupt him then. You can tell that the moment he said that, he was already deep in the well of his feelings and he's trying to get out of it. You just took his hand onto yours and squeezed it, as if to tell him that it was okay and that everything was going to be fine. He smiled to you, mouthing words of thanks to you. You feel like crying for a moment, seeing that look on his face.

"I guess..." His thumb absentmindedly rubbed over one of the worn seams of the volleyball. "I decided a long time ago that if I ever had kids......I don't want to miss a thing." His expression softened in a way you rarely saw. "I wanna be there for all of it. Like my parents should have been. For the small things, the big things, the boring, the exciting. I wanna see it all."

He smiled to himself. You felt something tighten quietly inside your chest as he continues to speak. "I wanna make breakfast every morning and pack your lunch and our kids's lunch. I wanna go and make them cute everyday, you know with the bear characters and everything."

"You have such a dream, huh?"

Sukuna laughs, leaning forward, patting your head. "Of course, I do! I wanna make all the kids and their parents and your coworkers jealous that someone loves you at home."

You laugh, enjoying the warmth of his free hand on your head. "Oh stop! I don't think they'll stop asking me who makes them. But I'll brag every single day that you made them."

He grins, taking his hand off your head and letting rest at your knee. "You better keep that promise. Don't forget it!"

"I won't." You promised him as you smiled softly. You then use your free hand to tap his hand on your knee. "Go on, tell me more."

"Are you sure you wanna hear more of me going on and on about this? I'd never stop talking about it, babe."

You nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, I do! I wanna hear more of our future from your perspective."

"Alright, alright....what else? Hm....I wanna take them to school everyday and pick you up from work." His expression had become so earnest in that moment, shining brightly at the imagining in his head. "I wanna sit through every school play even if they're terrible. I'd like to get to know their friends, too. And make things for them."

"Now that you mention it.....my parents probably doesn't know many of our friends." You say to him in realization. "We should probably get to know them well, our kid's friends."

"Except the boys, I don't think our girls are going to be friends with any guys, babe."

You raised a brow. "Our kids are all going to be girls? And my love, they're going to have to interact with boys. Half the population in the world are boys!"

Sukuna looked at you and shook his head. "Our kids are all going to smart, sporty girls, babe. That's our fate. I saw it in my dreams once." He gets serious for a moment. "And no, they're not going to interact with boys. Boys suck. I refuse to subject our precious daughters to boys."

You start to laugh, lifting your free hand from his own and smacking his hand lightly. "My love, you met me when you were a boyish boy. You still are one! Well....we're going to be young adults soon. But that's besides the point! A boy like you became a friend to a girl like me. Then we started dating—"

He shakes his head and starts to sing loudly. "La, la, la, that's never happening. Our girls are never going to be subjected to that sort of situation. La, la, la. No boys are allowed!"

You shake your head, laughing aloud. "Yeah, yeah. We'll talk about that."

"No, that's final, no boys allowed near our girls. For eternity! Our girls are going to be precious and I won't let anyone." He vehemently declares. "Nothing is going to change my mind on that."

"Alright, fine." You snickered as you sighed contently. "What else do you want to do with them?"

"A bunch of other things. It will be trial and error for our girls and me. I'd like to get to know about the things they like and what they don't like.....I'm sure they'll like science and volleyball." He hums softly as he thought deeply about it. "If one of our girls decide to go into sport, I'm pretty sure I'd embarrass them by cheering too loud at sports day."

"You definitely will. You'll probably volunteer to coach too, whether or not if you know the sport." You snort, trying to lighten the mood. "You'll be really good at it too."

"I know I will." He grins wide, eyes full of mischief. "Your dad took time off to be on our team to help, so did grandpa. I think I learnt well from your dad and my grandpa. I learnt from the best....along with the dad jokes."

You playfully rolled your eyes. "Then save our children, cause good lord."

"Eh, they're not too bad." Your boyfriend argues to you. "The jokes are good! 片思いで肩重い!"

You gasped and lowered your head. "Oh my god....You can't be serious."

He playfully puts his hand on his chest. "Can you hear it, babe? My shoulders are so heavy from this unrequited love—"

"I swear, you need to stop spending more time with my dad....." You mutter to yourself. "......And maybe my brother. He says that stuff too."

"Hey, I'm already a bit orphaned here. Let me have my dad jokes with dad and bro too."

You stare at him, narrowing your eyes. "That's a bit of a low blow isn't it?"

He grins at you, pulling at your cheek. "Let this morose child have a family, he enjoys being part of one. He barely has one, after all. Let him enjoy the dad jokes! He enjoys your family!"

"Alright, alright, I get it. My love, my cheeks are not as elastic as yours—ugh, Ryo—"

"I'll behave." He says, as you nearly call him his real name. You pout, letting out a 'hmp' before resting your head on his shoulder. "You're so cute when you pout."

"Oh, shut it!" You say to him, in a cute manner.

He laughs softly as he leans closer to you. Silence engulfs the two of you in a few moments, the comfort of each other's body being closer shutting you both to any other words being said.

He looked away for only a second before meeting your eyes again. The breeze shifted, carrying loose strands of your hair across your face. He hesitated for a moment. He then admitted, almost too quietly for you to hear, with a tender hearted smile on his face.

"Besides....I don't want our kids wondering whether I'm coming home tonight, babe. Just wanna be there, like your dad was. Like your brother, who's always there for his kids, you know?"

The words knocked the breath from your lungs. Without thinking, you reached across until your palms reach to his face. He looks at you, scarlet eyes widened slightly and then gives you a small smile. His palms reach your own, warming you once more. You could feel the callouses in his hand, feeling those many rough years of his life given to volleyball.

Yet they were so tender and so kindly, and all you could think about was the many years of his touch being so gentle with you. So far removed from the harsh, brutish hits in the court. You could feel yourself melt at the thought of this man holding your children as warmly, as kindly, as tenderly as he does your hand now. You feel like crying now.

He curled his fingers around yours almost immediately, catching on. "It's okay. You don't have to cry about it."

"I'm sorry, my love." you whispered. "I just....I hope we do get to achieve your dream. I hope you don't ever get lonely again."

He shook his head, no bitterness in his expression. There was only certainty. "Hm, but don't cry about it, okay? We'll be happy together. It will all happen. Trust me."

Neither of you spoke for a while after that. You simply sat together, hands intertwined between you while the tide crept a little closer to shore. Eventually, Sukuna nudged your shoulder with his own. "What about you?"

"Hm? What about me?" You sounded confused, as if you hadn't just had the conversation. You suddenly realize and blush slightly. "Oh, about our dreams.....what about about it?"

"Never mind. Yours is obvious. You've got that look."

"What look?" You pondered, narrowing your eyes questioningly.

"The one you get whenever you're thinking about something ridiculously nerdy."

You gasped dramatically. "I do not."

"You absolutely do."

"I am deeply offended."

"You'll survive."

You bumped his shoulder with yours before following his gaze upward. The sky was still brilliantly blue. There was not a single star in sight. But you knew they were there. Hidden beyond the daylight. They were all there, waiting. Waiting for the dark echoes of night to let them shine. You let out a small thinking hum, before smiling at him and speaking your mind.

"Well, you already know me....being nerdy and all. But what I want to do, I think....I think I want to map them."

He followed your gaze. "...The stars?"

"The ones we haven't fully understood yet." You smiled to yourself. "I want to know how galaxies are born. I want to understand why some stars die the way they do. I want to study places humanity will probably never reach."

Your fingers drifted absentmindedly through the air, tracing invisible constellations only you could see. "I want to spend my life asking questions nobody's answered yet. I wanna figure it all out, my love. Make the map so everyone can walk it."

The words felt enormous. Far too enormous for a pair of seventeen-year-olds sitting barefoot on a beach. You laugh to yourself. "That was too dramatic for the simple thought to say that I want to become an astrophysicist."

You laughed softly at yourself. "It sounds impossible when I say it out loud, though—"

"It doesn't." He says, cutting you off. "You're too smart and too good at your shit, babe. Don't doen yourself for having a dream. Especially one I know you can achieve."

You looked at him, eyes blinking. He hadn't laughed. He hadn't smiled indulgently the way adults often did. He was simply watching you. "I'm serious, babe. You can do it. You can make it happen."

"I wanna do it, honestly."

Sukuna didn't answer immediately. He simply watched you in that moment. The wind lifted strands of your hair again, sunlight catching your profile in a way that made the whole moment feel strangely suspended in time. He leaned close and kissed you. Pulling away, he smiled wider than before. "Like I said, babe....You'll do it. I know you can do it. You'll be the best goddamn astrophyscist in the world."

"You think so?" Your eyes looked at him, shining at him. "You think I can do it?"

"I know you can, babe. You of all people can change the world. Better than I can, I think!" You laugh at his dramatics, shaking your head. He pushed himself upright, brushing sand from the back of his shirt. "And when you discover some new star or whatever..."

"Galaxy." You added at him.

"Whatever else there is." He waved dismissively as he grins. "I'm gonna become unbearable to anyone and everyone, babe."

"Oh?" You grinned at him. "Will you really?"

"Of course! I'm gonna tell everybody. I'l use a megaphone and stand in front of the city center and do it." He puffed out his chest dramatically. "I would be like, 'That's my wife! You better know it!' Or something like that. Give me a minute, I'll come up with slogans....."

You laughed at him. "You're ridiculous, you know that? Gosh.....imagining you doing that......" You shake your head. "But then again, we're still seventeen! That's a long time away, us getting married."

"So?" He retorts to you, a wider grin pressed on his lips. "I've already got it all planned, babe. That's where we're heading, after all."

You blushed, as red as a tomato. "S-so, then maybe propose first."

"I'll get there. I'll wife you up." He says to you, leaning in again to kiss. His cheeky grin got even wider when you became more flustered. "Thst's all my plan, babe. I'll be your househusband and you'll be my Nobel Prize winning astrophyscist wife!"

".......When you say it like that!....." You find your face in your palms, redder than any rosebush. You shake your head. "My heart can't take it!"

"My, my.....you have quite the imagination!" He teases, grinning widely as he looks at you with mirth in his eyes. "I didn't know you were so naughty, babe!"

You scream, showing your red face to him. "WAH, DON'T TURN MY PRECIOUS THOUGHT DIRTY!"

He raised his arms in defense, laughing. "Hey, hey. I didn't say anything. You thought that."

"I'm not a perv, you hear me!" You scream flusteredly, pulling at his collar. "Ryomen Sukuna, you—"

"Hey, that isn't my name to you! Besides, its normal to think—"

"WAH, SHUT UP!"

THE PODCAST ALWAYS SEEMS TO BEGIN THE SAME WAY, WHICH WAS OF COURSE, CHAOS. Ryomen Sukuna could see that look in his vice captain's piercing blue eyes as he watched him making notes on his script. Sukuna couldn't help but let his scarlet eyes flicker to the notes Gojo Satoru was making in a daze. He couldn't help but let out a frustrated groan as Satoru looks at him and grins.

"You've got to stop calling it The Two Idiots Podcast, six eyes." Sukuna said as he adjusted the microphone clipped to the collar of his shirt, not bothering to look up from the soundboard in front of him. "That isn't the name of this podcast and you know it."

Across the table, Satoru only grinned wider, drumming his fingers against the desk while one of the producers silently counted them in. The red recording light blinked to life. Sukuna lowers his head, knowing Satoru was just going to do what he told him not to do. Like a child being warned by their mother to behave with a list full of things and ends up not really doing any of that anyway.

"Welcome back, folks!" Satoru announced brightly, "This is The Two Idiots Podcast."

Sukuna sighed, long and suffering. "I'm surrounded by people who refuse to listen."

"I heard you, loud and clear." Satoru replied with a laugh. "I just chose not to care. I mean, we aren't in a court right now."

"I hope you choke on your seltzer later."

"Good thing that's not happening! I have Mountain Dew right now." Satoru showed him his tongue, as though he was a child. "Suck it!"

A snort escaped one of the producers behind the cameras. Satoru leaned comfortably into his chair, settling into the rhythm he'd perfected over years of broadcasting. Sukuna rolled his eyes as he put away his own notes to the side as Satoru pulled the mic closer to his lips.

"I'm your number one host, Gojo Satoru, and joining me is Japan's current national team captain, who's taken a few months off after the league season ended. And ironically, the reluctant second host of his broadcast, and the less handsome of the two of us, Ryomen Sukuna!"

"I can't believe I'm here again, when I could be home playing with Marin and Sukumi." Sukuna says, shaking his head. "And that introduction is just stupid."

"Hey, it's not stupid to introduce you like that. It's suitable! I am way more prettier."

Sukuna snickers at him. "Pretty boy and he's not even in a relationship."

"Hey! I'm getting there." He says to you, pouting. "My ex just needs time."

"I can't believe you're getting back together.....I can't believe she's giving you a second chance."

"Well, that's love for you!" Satoru grinned at him as the red eyed man shakes his head. "Anyway, apparently your recovery's going well."

"Yeah, its been going great—"

"Though from what I've seen, recovery mostly consists of making dinosaur-shaped pancakes, building treehouses and learning how to braid his daughter's hair."

"I'm already in the advanced stages of my recovery rehab." Sukuna argues. "My doctor said I can move too. I'm fine. I still need time to recover. But you know, I still want to do things with my family. And my daughter wanted to do something. I'm not saying no to her."

"You built a treehouse. With your barehands!" Satoru argues back. "Who the hell who does rehab does that?"

"Sukumi wanted one, she saw it on the TV." Sukuna shrugs, as if it was just a matter of fact. "I mean, I sat down while doing it and took breaks. My wife yelled at me to take it easy all the time throughout. But you know, it made her happy once it was done."

"That's not easy."

Sukuna snickers. "I know it's not easy. I just did it."

Satoru shakes his head. "And somehow, you found the time to go and take breaks and then go and fix and repaint your kitchen."

"It needed repainting.....I've been planning to do it but I've always been busy, so I thought, long stick with a paint roller, why not?" The fuschia haired man says as if it was a matter of fact, as if it was normal to do that while injured. "Besides, my wife and daughter deserve a fresh, bright kitchen. And repainting it makes that happen, you know?"

"You learned to French braid too, apparently. [name]-chan told me all about it." Satoru shakes his head as he looks at his volleyball teammate. "I really think its insane how you have so much time. I mean, you apparently also took Marin to the park to play day after day. Injured as you are, you don't act like it."

"Life just moves like that, man." He says as he takes his drink and takes a sip. He shrugs. "I'm her other parent, my wife had a work trip and my daughter had ballet. Had to do it. She was happy, my wife was happy. Win for everyone." The fuschia haired man said. "Also yeah, that's true. Marin did enjoy the park. She met other dogs to have playdates with. It's been brilliant."

"I just don't know how you find the energy to do all these things." Satoru shakes his head. He looks at the notes and suddenly grins. Sukuna raised a brow. "You also apparently wore something interesting. I have a picture—"

"Don't you dare!...Shit." Sukuna glared at Satoru, who looks like he couldn't contain his laughter anymore. "Listen, it was a gift. My daughter picked it out as a Father's Day gift with my wife. I used it, I still do—"

"It says Kiss the Cook." Satoru says as he motions for the monitor to show the picture of six foot tall Ryomen Sukuna making pancakes in the kitchen wearing the apron, half naked, yawning. "Courtesy of our beloved [name]-chan who took this picture."

Sukuna curses under his breath, feeling the rush of heat on his cheeks. "Look man, this is a gift from my wife and my kid. It was Mother's Day. I have to do something special....But I don't think you would understand. No one calls you dad."

".......Well, actually—"

Sukuna groans. "Yo, don't start that. Yuck, what the heck?"

Satoru laughs. "Hey, you started it! Just telling you the truth, buddy."

The control room dissolved into quiet laughter, and even Sukuna's expression betrayed him for a fraction of a second, the corner of his mouth threatening to twitch before he caught it. For a while, the conversation drifted exactly where listeners expected it to.

Satoru complained about his students speaking in incomprehensible internet slang; Sukuna retaliated by reminding everyone that Satoru had walked straight into a glass door because he'd been too busy reading fan mail to watch where he was going.

But then somehow that became a story about Sukumi declaring she would beat her father in volleyball before she turned ten, which led to Sukuna insisting she'd inherited your stubbornness and absolutely none of his. So far today's mood had been easy and comfortable. Another one in the books for a smooth sailing recording.

The sort of conversation that made people forget there were microphones involved at all. It was then one of the producers cleared his throat. Satoru glanced toward the monitor mounted just outside the frame and, almost instantly, the lightness left his face. "…Right."

Sukuna followed his gaze. "You saw it?"

"I saw it." Satoru confirms, looking just as upset. "I can't believe it. This again?"

"If people are not aware why Satoru's going, not this again, it's because one of the players we know personally, Chikafuji Masaki has just been announced to have gotten married." Sukuna explains, calm anger layered in his tone. "But along with this, there's just been an exposee that she's being forced to step down as captain of the national team, after saying she wants to stay on after marriage."

The headline filled the screen between them. One of the country's premier women's national volleyball players had announced her marriage earlier that week. At first, the coverage had been celebratory. Congratulatory messages from teammates, interviews about balancing life and sport, photographs of the ceremony. It was then the conversation changed.

The more they dived into it, the more it wss a headache. The anonymous officials began questioning whether she'd remain committed to the national team. Sponsors reportedly expressed concerns about her "marketability" on the team. As well as what would happen when she starts to have children and is off for most of the volleyball season, taking care of her kid and recovering from birth and other preposterous statements.

Television panels debated whether marriage and the possibility of motherhood had meant it was time for her to make way for younger athletes. Rumours circulated that people within the federation had quietly encouraged her to consider stepping away from the sport altogether.

As though saying "I do" had somehow erased everything she'd accomplished on the court. Sukuna read the headline once again and again and again. He just couldn't believe what the fuck he was reading on the headlines, at least not without feeling the rise of anger flow back and forth.

His jaw tightened and then shifted. "…What the hell is wrong with these people?"

It wasn't outrage for outrage's sake, Sukuna knew that well. This was malice for malice's sake. He could not believe this. He was genuinely bewildered that in this day and age, such a situation was still so prominent. He leaned back on his chair and quickly changed position again, unable to keep himself still, full of angst about the situation.

"I'm serious. I genuinely do not know why the fuck this is still a fucking thing. What the fuck is this headline? Are we serious?" he said, looking from the monitor to Satoru before finally settling on the nearest camera. "She's still one of the best players in the country. Last I checked, signing a marriage certificate doesn't tank your vertical or knock twenty kilometres an hour off your serve, so why the hell are we talking about her marriage instead of her volleyball?"

Satoru shook his head, letting out a mocking laugh. "Because apparently she's got 'different priorities now' as said by this one stupid newspaper spread. Bro, what the fuck does that even mean? Does she stop knowing how to lead the team because she has a family?"

"It's just such a lazy argument when it's just flat out misogyny." Sukuna says confidently angry "They're being fucking stupid. Maybe volleyball is still one of her priorities. Did it ever occur to them that people can have multiple priorities? This is insane."

He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms as though trying to understand a language he'd never learned. "But you know what gets me? When I got married, nobody asked if I was planning to retire. Nobody questioned whether becoming a husband meant I wasn't committed anymore. Hell, when Sukumi was born, all anyone wanted to talk about was whether fatherhood would make me a better captain."

His laugh was brief, humourless. "But a woman gets married and suddenly everyone starts treating her like she's halfway out the door. It's shit. Why does a woman have to deal with this double standard but a man like me who do what is natural, you know, doing my part as a father, is fucking praised? Are we serious?"

Satoru let the silence hang for a beat, studying Sukuna over the rim of his coffee mug. He'd known him long enough to recognize the signs. The tight set of his jaw, the way his fingers tapped once against the tabletop before going still. Sukuna wasn't angry in the explosive, theatrical sense people expected of him. He was offended.

"What's worse in all of this is that they think this is a good thing." Satoru said, finally breaking the quiet. "I genuinely can believ that half the people saying this think they're being supportive about her life choices and her needs when theyre just being dismissive."

Sukuna looked at him. "And that's what sick! They aren't aware of their misogyny. 'Oh, she should enjoy being a wife now!' Or 'She deserves to settle down and be away from the volleyball court!' Like shut the fuck up, you're misogynists!"

"I've seen them. Like remember when Mikaichi retired too? Same fucking text and line. All the hook line and sinker for the same shitty asd misogynistic bullshit."

"As if playing volleyball and having a family are mutually exclusive." Sukuna scoffed, shaking his head. "It's the way they frame it." He reached over to pull the monitor a little closer, eyes scanning another article before gesturing toward it with the back of his hand.

"I mean look at this bullshit. They're talking about her marriage like it's an obstacle the Federation now has to work around. It's stupid." He looked up, incredulous. "Nothing worth noting here. Their concerns aren't even anything great. Have they had genuine questions about how her ACL? Or if her body can still push for more work? No, instead it is the same shitty ass line about marriage and settling down."

Satoru leaned over to read the article himself, eyebrows climbing higher the longer he skimmed. "So many comments reiteraiting their 'concerns regarding long-term commitment' to the team and to the country." he read aloud, then snorted. "It's stupid. Theyre acting like she won't try to do her fucking job. Or at least thinking she's got commitment issues. Mind you, she turned down being offers from European teams to stay for Japan. She made the female team top five in the world. What the fuck do you mean commitment issues?"

"Commitment? I can't fucking believe....." Sukuna echoed, exasperated. "She was my clubmate for youths, even though we had different places to be at, because of gendered divisions. I know how hard she works. She's committed enough to spend nearly fifteen years tearing her body apart for this sport, but one ring on her finger later and suddenly everyone's worried?"

"I'm sorry to the team, to the staff here if we're having a melt down here. We just can't believe this is still happning." Satoru laughed once under his breath, though there wasn't an ounce of amusement in it. "She's been with her boyfriend for like what, ten years? She was so committed to her boyfriend that she got married to him. She's committed to things!"

"I got married and you fuckers didn't say a word about commitment issues or how Iong I've been married. You fucking praised me for it, dipshits!" Sukuna continued as he spread his hands in the air, unsure of what to do with them. "You know what changed for me? Everything. I stopped surviving on convenience store food. I sleep more. I do better in life. Marriage makes you strive for better."

"You became significantly less unbearable too." Satoru sneaks in.

"I—" Sukuna stopped himself, clicking his tongue. "...That's debatable."

"No, that's measurable."

A few chuckles rippled through the studio, but Sukuna barely acknowledged them. "Fucking hell...My point is simple." he continued. "Marriage didn't make me less of a volleyball player."

"If anything, it makes you focus." Satoru added, "You had the best season of your career afterwards."

"Exactly." He nodded once. "No one questioned that. No one asked whether my priorities had changed. No one pulled me aside and asked if I still had the hunger to compete."

He leaned forward again, resting his forearms on the desk. "They congratulated me, they called me mature. They said having a family would ground me." His expression hardened, angered. "They said it made me a more desirable player."

"But if it's a woman...." Satoru starts to say, shaking his head. "It's a whole different scenario."

"But when it's a woman..." Sukuna continued for Satoru, as he let the sentence trail off, searching for the right words. "It's like people stop seeing the athlete. They start to see so much other of the things and stop respecting her. They see all the things society forces on her. And thats fucking sad."

He looked back toward the monitor. "The incredible volleyball player becomes secondary. Just because she becomes a wife. I can't fucking..." Sukuna sighs, exhausted. "Aren't we tired of this?"

The studio had gone unusually still. Even the producers, usually whispering to one another behind the cameras, had fallen silent. Sukuna exhaled slowly through his nose. "My wife has spent her entire adult life studying stars." His voice softened almost imperceptibly. "She chased a dream that most people would've called impossible."

There was a faint smile when he spoke about you, one Satoru noticed immediately. "I've watched her disappear into observatories and conference rooms for weeks. I've watched her spend nights awake because a calculation didn't make sense. I've watched her miss holidays because a telescope halfway across the world finally had an opening. Even pregnant, she worked!"

"She did a lot, man." Satoru mumbles as he shakes his head, memories flooding back. "She refused to sit down during dinner prep over the holidays. Mind you, Sukuna was doing everything so she wouldn't and she still refused to sit."

"That's how she is. She's just so hardworking and so devoted, it just breaks my heart that...." Sukuna feels choked up as he speaks. "I tried to do what I could then, because seeing her struggle hurt me. It was hard for me to see her hurting so bad, even when she wants to do her part even more."

"Yet even through all that.... I never once thought..." He frowned as Satoru looks at him with understanding. "I never thought to tell her that she should stop. Just because we got married and had a kid. Why should I? She doesn't stop being a human being with hopes and dreams just because we started a life together."

"I married her because she's her. She's brilliant, she's funny, she's good natured. But she's also hard working and dedicated. She is a one in a million talent and we shouldn't lose it just because she got hitched to me." He whispers lowly as everyone intently listened, not speaking or interrupting, even if it was now time for a short break. They just let him speak his heart out. He needed this.

Satoru watched him for a moment before quietly asking, "Is that why this gets under your skin so much more than you think?"

Sukuna didn't answer immediately. Instead, he looked down at the wedding band around his finger, turning it absentmindedly with his thumb. "...Partly. Okay, maybe more than that." The admission came quietly. "But I also know what it's like to have someone believe in your dream before anyone else does too."

His smile was small now, private. "Back in high school, she'd sit through every one of my matches, even the boring practice tournaments. And I'd sit with her while she rambled about black holes and galaxies I couldn't pronounce."

"You still can't."

"I still can't."

That finally earned a laugh from both of them. "But we never asked each other to choose." His expression settled again, becoming thoughtful. "It was always..." He searched for the memory, hearing the words as though they were spoken yesterday instead of decades ago. "It's always encouragements. We keep saying 'go do it' over and over again. We believe to hope the best for each other, saying 'I'll be here when you get back' and become happy with that."

He looked toward the camera. "That's what marriage is supposed to be. And thats how it should be. We don't stop being people just because we got married. Life is a big adventure and your partner cannot always be in the center of that. Women shouldn't be expected to center a man just because shes married."

"This is not healthy, this....whatever this is, its an illness." He gestured vaguely toward the articles still displayed on the monitor. "This idea that the second a woman gets married, her ambitions become negotiable."

His jaw tightened again. "And then I think about Sukumi." He smiled despite himself. For a moment, he looks like he's about to burst into tears. He clears his throats and blinks the tears away. "She's got this little notebook."

Satoru grinned. "The volleyball notebook? The red one that I gifted her for her birthday?"

"Yeah, that one." Sukuna nodded. "She was so excited for it. She was going to use it for her little drawings but she noticed I wrote things on a notebook too, when I have games. She...she asked me about it and now....now it's her volleyball notebook."

"Every time she learns something new, she writes it down. Everything I teach her is on there. 'Keep your elbow high' or 'Don't drop your shoulders' or 'Papa says footwork wins rallies' and so much more of that. I had a lot of things I say and that girl writes it all down to get it down."

Gojo Satoru felt his eyes warmed at the thought of his goddaughter enjoying what she's learning and doing with volleyball. For a moment, its reminding him of being so young, growing with Sukuna and playing the best games, the best plays, the best moves in the court.

But it makes him even more emotional at the thought that she had grown enough to be so eager to take a moment and reflect on that notebook he got her, all the things she's learning from her dad.

His eyes softened with unmistakable affection. "Satoru, she's completely obsessed." The smile faded almost as quickly as it had appeared. "And I keep wondering..." His fingers curled loosely around his mug. "If she keeps loving this game...If she gets good enough...If one day she wears the same jersey I do.......What happens when someone tells her that getting married means it's time to step aside?"

The question lingered unanswered. Sukuna looked straight into the nearest camera, his voice calm enough that it carried even more weight than if he'd shouted. "I don't care if my daughter becomes a volleyball player. I don't care if she becomes a scientist like her mother. And I don't care if she wakes up one day and decides she wants to do something neither of us has ever imagined."

"What I care about..." He paused, finally being overwhelmed and emotional. "What I care about is that nobody gets to convince her that loving one thing means she has to give up the other."

He leaned back in his chair. "If she's good enough to play, she plays. If she wants a family, she has one. If she wants both......Then we'll make damn sure she never has to apologize for it."

Satoru grins. "Hell yeah! That's the spirit, dad!"

Sukuna looks to the camera, pointing at the news on screen. "If the people want to fine me or sanction me for saying all that shit, go for it. But you better fix this. I refuse to let this be the world my daughter knows. I'll quit if you don't do anything."

Satoru nodded. "These two idiots will stand firm on what we said today. If Sukuna's facing it, then I'm facing it too. I'm willing to stand ten toes with him on this. So, the ball's in your court."

"That's your warning." Sukuna nodded. "If you don't do it, then good luck finding better players than these two idiots. More of our idiots will say no to you too."

Satoru grinned. "Awww, you called us two idiots. How romantic!"

Sukuna shakes his head. "Shut the fuck up. We were having a moment and now its ruined."

"I mean we can start again, fellow idiot—"

"No fucking way, dipshit. I'm not doing that. Moment's gone."

"But, pookie—"

Sukuna motioned to the camera. "We're taking a commercial break. I need to cool down before I talk about stats. And a break from him."

Satoru freigned offense. "HEY!"

But Ryomen Sukuna was already standing.

He takes his drink and goes outside to take in the air.

He sighed, heavily and found himself lowering his head.

All he could do was pray to a god he doesn't believe in that his daughter will never have to deal with that.

He prays to to god and any god out there that they protect you and your daughter.

"I wish it was better.....fuck." He drinks his drink, exasperated. He throws the empty can away and leans against the wall. "Fuck....."

He knew he can't protect Sukumi from everything.

She will grow up and see the world for what it is one day.

But he hopes he can do a good job and make sure she always smiles.

That she always smiles like you do, when you speak about your maps of stars.

epilogue

The backlash arrived exactly as everyone had expected it would. Nothing was shocking about it. If anything, it was almost predictable in its timing, as though the country had collectively inhaled the moment the episode aired, only to exhale days of debate in return.

Ryomen Sukuna, however, found himself remarkably unmoved by it all. People were always going to have opinions. They were always going to disagree, to argue, to find fault with someone who spoke too loudly or too plainly.

That had never frightened him before, and it certainly wasn't going to start now. If people wanted to criticize him for saying what he believed was right, they were welcome to. Their approval had never been what guided him in the first place.

By the following morning, clipped segments from the podcast had escaped volleyball circles entirely. What had begun as another episode between two longtime friends and volleyball teammates had quickly found its way onto popular culture.

It was all over the evening news broadcasts, sports talk shows, university discussion forums, and social media feeds belonging to people who had never watched a professional volleyball match in their lives. It was just insane to watch.

Overnight, the conversation had stopped being about a single player and had become something much larger. Some praised them for saying what so many had quietly believed for years. Others accused them of turning sport into politics.

Many had insisted Sukuna and Satoru had stirred unnecessary controversy, arguing that active national team players had no business criticizing the very federation they represented. To some, they had crossed an invisible line between athlete and activist and to others, they had simply spoken an uncomfortable truth that those in power had spent years pretending not to see.

Every sports panel seemed to dissect the podcast sentence by sentence, replaying the same clips until viewers could recite them from memory. Newspaper columns questioned whether athletes still representing Japan should be speaking publicly against federation culture, while television pundits debated whether Sukuna had behaved like a responsible captain or an unprofessional employee.

Former players, no longer constrained by contracts, began offering their own opinions. Some defended him openly. Others urged caution, insisting that internal issues should remain behind closed doors. Current athletes, meanwhile, remained noticeably quiet, their silence speaking almost as loudly as everyone else's words.

Authorities in the sport responded exactly as authorities in organizations often did. Over the next several days, statements and carefully worded press releases appeared one after another, each emphasizing the organization's commitment to professionalism, respect, and the welfare of its athletes while gently reminding contracted players of their obligations regarding public conduct.

They spoke at length about appropriate channels for communication and the importance of preserving the integrity of the sport. And of course, no names were mentioned. They didn't have to be. Everyone knew exactly who those statements were for.

A week later, Sukuna and Satoru were called into a meeting. Neither of them expected anything different. They arrived together, exchanged polite greetings with the officials waiting inside, and spent the next hour listening to carefully rehearsed corporate language delivered in calm, measured voices. No one raised their voice. No one pounded a fist against the table or issued dramatic ultimatums.

In many ways, that almost made it worse to them. That's what left a bitter taste in their mouths after. The conversation was courteous from beginning to end, every criticism wrapped in professional language that disguised reprimands as concern and consequences as necessary procedure.

By the time the meeting concluded, they had each received an official reprimand that would remain on record. They were informed that they would be required to attend mandatory media training before conducting any further public interviews and that, effective immediately, both of them would be temporarily suspended from organization-sponsored media appearances.

The officials spoke at length about maintaining unity, protecting the image of Japanese volleyball, and addressing disagreements through the proper internal channels rather than in front of microphones. None of it was particularly severe on paper. But then again, that was the point.

The consequences were carefully measured, reasonable enough to avoid public outrage. After all, these two were legends in the field, and even beyond it. They represented the fabric of Japanese life and society. People couldn't avoid that.

But everything about this carefully measured response was also carrying an unmistakable message beneath the polished language. It always does. And both of them knew it. Speak like this again, and the next punishment won't be so gentle.

Neither Sukuna nor Satoru apologized, neither admitted they had been wrong. If anything, leaving the meeting only strengthened their conviction that the conversation had needed to happen in the first place.

Ironically, the response accomplished exactly what it had hoped to avoid. News of the disciplinary action leaked within days, reigniting public discussion with even greater intensity than before. Athletes, both current and retired, began sharing experiences that had remained buried for years.

Some spoke anonymously, fearful of damaging careers that were still unfolding. Others attached their names without hesitation, deciding that silence had protected no one for long enough. But that was more than enough.

Women's players described being asked during contract negotiations whether they planned to marry within the next few years. Others recalled subtle suggestions to postpone starting families until after major international tournaments or the end of their careers.

Retired athletes admitted they had delayed pregnancies out of fear that sponsors would quietly disappear or that roster spots would no longer be waiting for them once they returned. Stories that had once existed only as whispers between teammates suddenly became public conversations.

Meanwhile, fans and people outside the bubble had continued sharing clips from the podcast. One sentence, in particular, seemed to take on a life of its own. If she's good enough to play, she plays.

It appeared everywhere. They were printed across handmade signs outside league arenas. They were painted onto fan banners hanging over stadium railings. They were shared endlessly across social media as hashtags and profile slogans. Hell, they were quoted in newspaper headline and repeated by commentators.

Even athletes, especially women athletes, from completely different sports began echoing it, applying the same principle to conversations far beyond volleyball. It was bigger than volleyball. It was touching something that had been waiting for so long to be noticed.

For every person who called Ryomen Sukuna irresponsible or accused him of jeopardizing his career, there seemed to be three more thanking him for saying aloud what so many had spent years thinking in silence.

Husband and father, Ryomen Sukuna, meanwhile, paid very little attention to any of it. He wasn't interested in any of the opinion columns or the endless debates online. He's not that interested in finding out what others think, or what's under the tags of his name.

As far as he was concerned, he'd said what needed to be said. Whether people chose to agree with him or condemn him afterward was entirely their decision. It didn't change the fact that he believed every word.

By the following weekend, he was barefoot in the backyard, fully cleared by his doctors and was running around trying to make sure that his daughter could enjoy some good, genuine, well-guided volleyball.

"Papa!" Sukumi's voice rang through the warm afternoon air as the volleyball bounced awkwardly off her forearms before veering wildly into the flowerbeds. "I almost got it!"

"You almost launched it into the neighbor's yard." Sukuna pointed out.

"I was aiming high."

"Your papa can tell."

She stuck her tongue out at him before scrambling after the ball, nearly tripping over her own feet in the process. You watched from the porch with a quiet smile, an iced tea sweating against your palm as the late afternoon sun painted long shadows across the grass.

Sukuna had spent the last twenty minutes trying—and mostly failing—to explain proper passing technique to his little child who seemed convinced that sheerand utter enthusiasm alone could compensate for her lacking in footwork.

"Bend your knees."

"I am!"

"Those are not bent knees."

"They're emotionally bent, just like your feelings."

Sukuna stared. "...Who taught you that sentence?"

Sukumi's guilty eyes drifted immediately toward you. You raised both hands, making a face at him. "It wasn't me, my love. I would never!"

"Uncle 'Toru, papa."

"I knew it." He pinched the bridge of his nose while Sukumi giggled, scooping up the volleyball before trying again. And this time it actually reached him. Well, mostly. He caught it one-handed before tossing it gently back. "Okay, baby. That was better."

"I know! I really tried my best!"

"You can still bend your knees more."

"They're trying their best."

"They can try harder."

She huffed dramatically before jogging toward the other side of the yard, determined to prove him wrong. The moment she was out of earshot, you stepped down from the porch and wandered over until you were standing beside him.

For a while, neither of you spoke. You simply watched your daughter chase a volleyball that refused to cooperate. Eventually, you reached for his hand. His fingers intertwined with yours without him even looking.

"They gave you another warning?"

He nodded once. "Mm."

"And Satoru?"

"The same. Not that he or I care, to be fair."

You let out a quiet sigh. "I'm sorry for that, my love."

He shrugged. "I expected it before I even said anything, so don't think too much about it, babe."

"I know."

That somehow didn't make it sting any less. You looked toward Sukumi again. She'd managed a surprisingly clean pass to herself. The little grin on her face made your heart swell. You sighed softly.

"You know, my love, I found myself eating breakfast earlier than usual." you said softly, "Then found myself watching the episode again while eating my food. It got cold because I got so deep in your episode."

Sukuna glanced sideways. "Oh?"

"I don't think I told you this yet."

He raised a brow. "About what?"

"Thank you."

He frowned. "...For what?"

"For saying it." You smiled faintly. "For speaking when it would've been easier not to."

His brows drew together as though the gratitude genuinely confused him. "Barely did anything."

"You've always been like that." You laughed quietly, shaking your head. "Ever since we were kids....If you loved something...you protect it. If you love something, you stand by it. You didn't care if it got hard or painful. You never looked away even when it came with consequences."

His thumb brushed absentmindedly across your knuckles. "You don't have to thank me, though. I'm serious. I didn't do anything revolutionary. The credit shouldn't be on me."

"I want to."

He shook his head, his voice is gentle. "No, I don't deserve it. I didn't do anything special to warrant it."

"You did."

"I did what anyone should've done." He watched Sukumi bump the volleyball with all the determination in the world and almost none of the technique. A smile found its way onto his face. "If something's wrong, then you say it's wrong. It's not complicated. Nothing about it should be."

You rested your head lightly against his shoulder. "The world would disagree."

"Well, the world's wrong."

You laughed. "Still impossibly stubborn."

"I've been called worse."

There was a comfortable silence between you after that, filled only by the rhythmic thump of volleyball against grass and Sukumi's triumphant cheers whenever she managed three passes in a row. Sukuna watched her with an expression so impossibly soft that it almost made him look like a different man.

"When she gets older, I know she's going to be sharp witted." he said quietly. "She's going to pay attention to what I do a lot more than what I say."

You followed his gaze. Sukumi had her tongue poking out in concentration, brows knitted together as she prepared another pass. "I know. It's going to be rough on both of us, but for you....."

"So if I tell her to stand up for people..." He bounced the volleyball once against the ground before catching it again. He shakes his head "...But she watches me stay quiet because it's inconvenient, then what does that teach her other than that its okay to be treated like that?"

"It teaches her that her papa is brave."

"I don't need her to think her papa was brave." He says to you, smiling softly. "I just need her to know that he tried to do the right thing and that is more important."

His gaze drifted back to your daughter. "I want her to grow up believing that if someone is being treated unfairly, you don't look around the room to see who's going to speak first...."

"You just do." His fingers tightened gently around yours. "Especially when the people who need someone the most don't have the power to say it themselves."

Across the yard, Sukumi finally managed five clean passes in a row. She spun around with both fists in the air. She finds herself dancing in celebration, clapping and giggling. You couldn't help but laugh and shout praise at your daughter. But no one was happier than your husband. Sukuna's face lit up immediately.

"I DID IT!"

"You did." He happily said, running up to her and scooping her up in his arms. "You were so good, 'kumi. That was impressive!"

"Papa, did you see?"

"Of course, papa saw. You were so cool out there, doing that." He praises her, leaning close and kissed her cheek. "I don't think I've seen a finer move, 'kumibear."

"Was that good?"

He grinned. "It was. Believe me, not many kids can do it the way you did."

You smiled widely and moved from your seat and towards your husband and your daughter. You wrapped your arms around them. You leaned in and kissed your husband's jaw and then your daughter's forehead.

"My two amazing players, you did so well!"

"Does this mean I get hot cocoa as a reward, mama?" Your daughter beamed at you.

You laughed, nodding. "Of course, 'kumibear can get as much as she wants."

"Yay! I'm going to drink a lot."

Sukuna laughs. "Be careful, though. It can get hot."

Sukumi pouts. "I know how to blow my hot drinks, papa!"

You and your husband laugh softly.

Sukumi continues to pout at your reaction.

The world can be cruel. The world can be unfair.

But in this world, your world, there is happiness.

Most of all, there is always going to be love.