Violet

Her silhouette sat curled near the balcony door, back to the room, cheek pressed against her knees, hands dug into the sleeves of her oversized shirt. The city’s failing neon lights flickered across her hair in slow, uneven rhythms. She looked like someone waiting for a disaster she’d already lived through twenty times over.

Nanami loosened his tie. He’d learned long ago to be quieter, because anything louder made her flinch.

He slipped off his glasses and stepped closer, each movement measured and predictable, a choreography he had perfected not because he was a romantic but because he genuinely saw her with the kind of patience born out of loving someone who didn’t know how to be safe around anyone. Even him on rare occasions.

Today, she didn’t look up when he entered the room.

Her breathing was shallow and far too controlled, the way people breathed when they were holding back the edges of panic. Or when they were trying to look “normal” for someone else’s peace of mind. Her shoulders were stiff and rigid, masking, he realized, not for him specifically, but out of habit, as if she didn't know there was another option.

He sat on the floor beside her, not touching.

Because touch, he’d learned, could feel like a hurricane to a nervous system already fighting the world.

So he waited.

It took her a full minute before she whispered, “I think something’s wrong with me.”

Nanami closed his eyes for a moment, just a moment, because the sound of her voice like that, raw and cracking, sliced him in a way curses never could.

When he opened them again, his face was steady. “What happened?”

She shrugged, small and tired. “Everything. My entire life. Every relationship. Every job. Every… meltdown. I thought it was my upbringing or my trauma. Maybe it’s still trauma. But maybe it’s,”

She stopped. Words tangled. The way they did when emotions became heavier than language.

Nanami didn’t finish her sentence for her. She hated that, people assuming her thoughts. People summarizing her feelings like she hadn’t spent years struggling to articulate them in the first place.

She took a breath so sharp it sounded like pain. “I think I might be neurodivergent. Like… autistic.” She laughed once, brittle. “At this age. Suddenly the universe pulls a plot twist, and I’m the joke.”

He watched the tremor moving through her shoulders. “You’re not a joke.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” Nanami said simply. But there was conviction in his tone, as if the idea was as absurd to him as pigs flying.

She looked away, embarrassed. He could see it, that instinctive recoil, the reflex to shrink, the regret of speaking at all, the fear that she’d overshared, said something stupid, or opened a vulnerability she couldn’t close, and the bracing for judgment that never came. Years of being punished for emotions had carved those reflexes deep into her. Even crying in front of others was treated like an offense. So she learned to save it for the nights when she could bury her face in a pillow and choke down the sound before the misery swallowed her whole.

Nanami knew. Of course he knew. The first time he tried to comfort her, she reacted like she’d been struck, stunned and defensive, then vanished from his orbit for three weeks. He realized then that she might never feel safe enough to hand him all the sharp, broken pieces of herself; too many people had taught her that trust was a trap.

So he didn’t push. He just stayed close enough for her to reach if she ever decided to.

She pulled inward, shoulders tight. “Only predators ever noticed something was off. No one else.”

Nanami’s jaw tightened. He didn’t need details. He carried enough fury in his ribs to destroy the world twice over if it meant she never had to say anything aloud that she didn’t want to.

Instead, he asked, vulnerable only with her, voice lowered like he was setting down a weapon, “When did it start feeling like this?”

She paused, then exhaled like the answer had been waiting behind her teeth for years. “Always? I think? I never liked when people stood too close to me. I stopped speaking when someone interrupted me. I walked in empty places for hours, alone. Pattern recognition and being alone were the only things that calmed me. Well, water calmed me the most, but I didn’t grow up near anything big enough to drown my thoughts.”

He listened without blinking, shoulders tightening the longer she went on. Not uncomfortable. Protective.

She continued, voice wandering because it needed to. “My family took me on a trip once, and I saw the ocean for the first time. It scared me and calmed me in a way my brain wasn’t designed for. Ten-year-old me just stood there staring at the waves for hours. And for the first time in my life, everything went quiet.” She gave a small, self-deprecating snort, shaking herself back to the present. “Sorry, I’m getting off topic. My point is… people never felt safe or calming until I met you. You made me realize men could be predictable. And safe. Too safe, sometimes.”

Nanami’s jaw flexed, barely, but it was the kind of movement that came from someone swallowing something sharp. Her words hit him like impact, not flattery.

She sank further into herself. “I thought I was dramatic. Or broken. Or stupid. Like I was faking my emotions even when I was crying. Faking my intelligence. Faking my love for superheroes because the girls where I grew up weren’t like me. They didn’t like games. They didn’t like me, no matter how polite or kind I was.”

He didn’t interrupt. He looked like he wanted to, but he didn’t. His hand curled once against his knee before he forced it still; restraint felt too hard for him. Overrated, in fact. But he held on to it anyway because she needed him to.

“You are none of those things,” he said, quiet but unwavering.

Her breath trembled again. “I don’t get jokes half the time. I say weird stuff. People leave. Or they take advantage. And I never know why.”

Nanami finally shifted, just enough to tilt his body toward her in a way that wasn’t aggressive, just deliberate. The kind of move meant to counter the weight she was carrying without touching it yet. “You survived by studying people instead of trusting them. You learned to mask everything because you had no other choice. Anyone would misinterpret you when you’re only showing the version that keeps you safe.”

Her eyes flickered, hope, doubt, fear crowding each other. “So you think I’m right?”

He hesitated for the first time, not because he disagreed, but because he hated that she had to ask.

“I think,” he said slowly, “you’ve been fighting battles alone that you never should’ve been left to face. And now you’re finally finding language for the way your mind works.”

He exhaled, a quiet, controlled thing that still betrayed him. “That isn’t being dramatic. That’s clarity. And you deserved it years ago.”

She swallowed, throat tight, and whispered, “Why didn’t anyone else notice?”

Nanami breathed out slowly.

He wanted to tell her the truth:

People rarely notice what isn’t convenient for them.

They only notice things that benefit them: the girls who comply, the girls who over-give, the girls who hurt quietly, the girls who never protest until it’s too late. People who are hyper-literal, hyper-empathic, and exhausted from performing “normal” are the easiest to ignore.

But Nanami Kento wasn’t a man cruel enough to give her the world’s cruelty. 

Instead, he gave her what she needed:

“Because no one ever looked closely enough,” he said. “Except the ones who wanted to use you.”

He watched her face crumple, not fully or even dramatically, but in the small, sharp way people break when they hear a truth they already suspected.

Then he added something else, not just because he loved her and that made him biased but because she didn’t deserve the things that weren’t her fault.

“You’re not difficult. People just weren’t gentle.”

Her breath caught.

He let the silence stretch; she was finally letting him witness her edges when tears came faster than she could wipe them.

“You always notice,” she murmured finally, voice small. “Why?”

Nanami glanced at her hands, clenched, nails digging in, then back to her face, where she was avoiding his eyes out of habit. Not fear. Just… overwhelmed.

“Because I pay attention,” he said. “To you. To the way your eyes get glossy when you’re overstimulated. To how you study social cues before responding. To how you regret past conversations in your head without realizing it. To how you tuck yourself into silent smiles when you’re afraid you’ll say something strange.”

Her breath trembled. “That’s embarrassing.”

“It’s human,” he corrected. “And it’s you.”

She hugged her knees tighter. “I hate being me sometimes.”

Nanami leaned back against the wall, gazing at her with the kind of tenderness that didn’t soften him but deepened him, like gravity, quiet and relentless.

“You lived through decades of misunderstanding yourself,” he said, softer still. “Of course you’re tired.”

Her lips pressed together. “Do you think I’m too much?”

“No.”

“Too broken?”

“No.”

She looked at him then, eyes wet but focused, trying to read him, trying to understand why he wasn’t pulling away the way people always did when the mask slipped.

“Then what am I?” she whispered.

Nanami didn’t move closer, didn’t touch her, and didn’t make any sudden gesture that could overload her system. He just spoke with the calm certainty she loved him all the more for.

“You’re someone whose brain was built for depth, not speed. For intensity, not superficiality. For survival, not performance.”

Her face wavered. “Sounds like a curse.”

“It’s a strength.” His voice was steady as water flowing over small stones. “But you were never taught how to use it without bleeding yourself dry.”

She let out a breath that sounded like an entire childhood unraveling.

Nanami continued, more quietly this time. “You make sense to me.”

Her throat worked. “Even when I don’t make sense to myself?”

“Especially then.”

She stared, not scared. Never that with him, but startled, as if the idea of being understood without performing was foreign.

“Why do you… stay?”

Nanami almost smiled, not a soft smile, but a tired one, the kind that came when someone finally admitted to a wound they’d been hiding too long.

“I didn’t marry a performance. I married a person.”

Her breath hitched; her tears were flowing freely now. “But what if I get worse? What if I shut down again? What if you get tired of handling me?”

Nanami looked at her the way a lighthouse might look at a ship returning in a storm: slow, deliberate, and immovable.

“You are not something to be “handled,” and I won’t get tired,” he smiled a little more. “I get frustrated at the world, not at you.”

“But I’m messy,” she whispered. “And inconsistent. And intense. And sometimes even a little hypocrite. I get overwhelmed. I panic. I…”

“You’re human,” he interrupted gently. “And you’re learning who you are as an adult. That takes courage most people will never have.”

Her shoulders loosened enough that he could see the armor cracking.

Nanami waited a few beats, then held out his hand, not touching her, just offering.

She stared at it like it was a foreign object.

Touch wasn’t something she handled on command.

But after a long second, she slowly placed her fingers into his palm, light, trembling, and hesitant.

Nanami held her hand with the gentleness of someone who knew that too much kindness could feel like violence to a raw nervous system.

“You’re safe,” he said eventually.

She exhaled long and shakily, as if the safety was something her body didn’t know how to hold yet.

He shifted closer, just an inch, until their shoulders nearly brushed.

“This isn’t a flaw,” he said. “It’s a framework. And once you understand it, you’ll stop blaming yourself for surviving.”

She stared at their hands, fingers already intertwined like muscle memory, voice breaking. “It feels like I wasted so many years.”

Nanami’s tone softened in a way only she ever heard. “You didn’t waste anything. You endured things most people can’t comprehend. That’s not waste; that’s your resilience.”

Her eyes filled again, but this time the tears didn’t fall. They hung there, shimmering.

Nanami leaned his head back against the wall, voice lower now. “You’re not alone in this.”

“Even if it takes years to fix myself?” She whispered, resting her head on his shoulder.

His fingertips brushed her knuckles, barely there, like he was afraid of startling her. “You’re not something to fix.”

She swallowed. “Then?”

He turned toward her, meeting her gaze without a flicker of doubt.

“You're mine. And worth putting in the effort to understand.”

Something in her chest cracked, not beautifully or even neatly like the movies talked about. Just the brittle edge of someone realizing she didn’t have to hold the entire world by herself.

She exhaled, slow and uneven.

Nanami didn’t rush to fill the silence. That wasn’t him.

He just stayed beside her like a quiet pillar planted in the middle of a chaotic city, and his presence alone was enough to pull the air back into her lungs.

And for the first time in longer than she cared to admit, she breathed like someone who wasn’t in the middle of drowning.

Not healed or whole or even something to fix… just understood.

And for Nanami, that was the start of something real.

He let the moment settle, then exhaled through his nose, practicality returning like muscle memory. “You haven’t eaten.”

She made a face, burrowing deeper in his chest. “I forgot.”

“I noticed.” His voice stayed soft, but a faint dry edge slipped in as his arm slid around her back, rubbing slow circles. “Do you want something delivered? Preferably before Gojo realizes I’m off-duty and attempts to involve me in whatever disaster he’s cultivating.”

She huffed into his shoulder. “He’s definitely blowing something up.”

“Or Yuji is,” he sighed. “Gojo is only supervising the explosion.”

She shifted then, slowly, exhausted, and instinctively climbed into his lap, arms looping around his shoulders as she tucked her face against his neck. “Can we get fries? Like… irresponsible amounts.”

Nanami let out one low chuckle, already reaching for his phone with his free hand. “Of course. Enough for you, and enough for me to pretend I didn’t also want fries.”

A laugh slipped out of her, thin and uneven, tangled with the remnants of crying, but undeniably real.

He didn’t mention it. He simply placed the order one-handed, the other moving in quiet, rhythmic circles along her back, more grounding than comforting.

When he finally set his phone down, he rested his head against hers, the contact light but intentional. Close enough for her to reach for him again if she chose.

She did when he asked if she wanted to move to a city near the sea.

A/N: You'd make sense to him.

Masterlist

You had preordered the last one from the cafe near your office. He stood at the counter in sunglasses, throwing money at the problem while the cashier kept saying, very politely, that the box belonged to someone else.

Then his hand slid toward it.

You’d caught his wrist.

“Since when do rich pretty boys need to shoplift?”

He stared at you as if being caught had hurt his feelings. He didn’t look guilty, just tired under the designer clothes. He was beautiful in an infuriating way, with an iced coffee full of cream and rainbow sprinkles cooling near his elbow.

You split the pastries with him because he looked seconds from crying if he didn’t get them. Or maybe he’d had a shitty day. You had thought that too.

Thought he had watched the box more than he watched you until you started asking him dumb questions on purpose.

By the end, he was laughing into his coffee.

You gave him the whole box for his number.

Next week, when the cafe had the same pastry again, it reminded you of him, so you called.

The greeting that came from the other end was, “Strongest here.”

What a childish thing to say.

You snorted, and your assistant knocked on the glass wall for you to shut up.

That time was different. He seemed to be in a better mood. Made you laugh, flirted back, showed up with flowers too large for your arms.

A few weeks after that, he let you buy him a bracelet that he wore every day.

Sex was good from the start.

Then one night you offered the strap and he got pink before swearing he would hate it.

He did, for about ten minutes.

After that, your life became management: lube in the bedside drawer, charger in the wall, meetings moved because Satoru had texted, “Baby, come home,” and you had.

At first, he ate you out first, then fucked you properly, making it filthy enough that you forgot the imbalance, then enjoyed whatever you gave him with half-shaking knees.

Then he learned your softness had no boundaries. Meaning, you’d do anything to please others—even ignore your own needs and wants.

The first time had been after a bad day.

Satoru had come home and hadn’t even joked at the door. His sunglasses were in his hand, his shirt collar had been crooked, and there was a dark smear of red on his cuff he had already tried to rinse out. He stood in your kitchen, staring at the expensive cake he had bought you on the way home as if he had forgotten why he was holding it.

You took the box from him and set it on the counter. “Come here.”

He gave you a look, tired pride still trying to stand up straight. “You ordering me around now?”

“For tonight, yes.”

You slow-kissed his lips first, then his cheek, his jaw, the hinge of his hand where his fingers had gone cold. You told him he did not have to take care of you back. He made some weak noise about being the strongest, then let you guide him to bed like a man who wanted the comfort of being taken care of but needed the offer dressed up nice enough for his ego.

That night, he asked you more than once if you were sure.

After, he kissed your shoulder and said, “Thank you,” with his face turned away.

So you forgave how much of yourself it took.

The second time, he had a headache.

The third, he had a family meeting and came back mean looking.

Then he stopped asking if you had eaten before he asked if you could come home. He stopped finding the lube, though it sat in the same drawer every time. He sent photos of the harness laid out on the sheets like he had done half the work. If you said you had a call, he said he could be quick, as if the speed gave the commute time back and pleased every client waiting in the office with complaints. If you came home irritated, he acted wounded until you apologized for the mood he had caused.

Now it was a long job, then boredom, then a pretty pout from your bed while you were still in work clothes and hungry.

Your attention snapped back when Satoru made a small, offended sound beneath you because your pace had gone monotonous and void of worship.

“Baby,” he whined, cheek pressed to the pillow. “Don’t drift off on me.”

Your hand tightened on his hip.

There were words somewhere inside you to explain this. You knew there were. Words for I’m human and alive. Words for I need something too. Words for stop making me into the place you only put everything you don’t want to carry, then forget I exist as a mere mortal.

By the time they reached your mouth, all of them felt shameful.

Selfish. Cruel. Ungrateful. Mean.

So you bent over him and kissed his shoulder.

“I’m here,” you whispered, because it was the selfless thing to do. “I’ve got you. You wanted attention, pretty baby? Take it.”

He melted for you and came hard.

You still did the aftercare right—loosened the harness, wiped him down with the warm cloth, got him water, opened the mango pudding he liked from the fridge because Satoru got cranky after sex if his blood sugar dropped. He lay there pink-cheeked and boneless, one arm flung over his face, smiling into the pillow while you checked his hips and asked if anything hurt.

“Mm. You’re so good to me,” he mumbled.

“I know, baby.”

He laughed, sleepy and pleased, missing the customer-service way you said it—warm from habit instead of feeling. Then he tugged at your wrist until you sat beside him, cheek pressing into your thigh with the effortless trust of someone who had been handled with care and gotten too used to receiving it.

Your own body still ached, unfinished and irritating. Your vibrator stayed in the drawer. Your phone buzzed on the nightstand with a client email, then another, then your assistant asking if tomorrow’s lunch meeting should be moved because she felt like you’d vanish again.

Satoru kissed your knee. “Stay.”

So you stayed until he fell asleep.

In the morning, you woke under his arm with dried lube on your stomach, a dead phone, and a calendar full of apologies.

Luckily, Satoru had school to get to, or work, or whatever vague thing he mumbled about while kissing your cheek before leaving with your spare key in his pocket. You still didn’t know what he did for a living—still hadn’t met anyone from his life.

He, of course, knew your secretary because she had come by more than once with office stationery, documents to be signed, and the stupidly expensive gifts you kept ordering for him like an idiot with a credit card and poor self-preservation.

When you arrived at work, three clients had been ready to quit working with you.

By late morning, you had been only able to retain one, and that one had also given their final warning.

Then Higuruma Hiromi stopped beside your desk with a file in one hand and a vending machine coffee in the other. “Have you eaten?”

You looked up at him.

He set the coffee down. “That answers it.”

Then Higuruma’s assistant, Shimizu, dragged both of you to lunch.

Lunch became staying late.

Staying late became yakiniku, cheap beer, and Higuruma telling you about a client who tried to pay his legal fee with rare beetles. You laughed until your ribs hurt.

Satoru saw you through the restaurant window.

He had been out with Shoko, Nanami, and Ijichi, three names he tossed around while still giving you nothing solid enough about them. Some weekend nonsense, he had called it.

Though you didn’t see him until Higuruma dropped you home.

You were still chuckling softly when you unlocked the door and walked inside, heels hooked in one hand, bag slipping off your shoulder. Then the lamp clicked on.

Satoru sat on your couch in the dark, sunglasses off, one ankle over his knee, looking like he had been hired to kill you.

“Where were you?”

Your heels hit the floor with a heavy clatter, and one hand flew to your chest, bracing for the heart attack.

“Jesus Christ, Satoru. Don’t do that.”

“Tell me.”

“Dinner with coworkers. Ran late.”

“With him?”

“With who?”

“The guy in the suit.”

“You were following me?”

“I saw you.”

You went to your bedroom. He followed.

“Satoru, I want to pee without an interrogation. Please stop acting like I’m preparing to cheat just by having dinner with a coworker when I don’t even know what you did all day.”

“What meeting runs that late?”

You unzipped your skirt. He stood there waiting for an answer.

“The kind where people eat meat and complain about clients.”

You went to pee. He stood in the doorway.

“Was he flirting?”

You flushed the toilet and washed your hands. “Weren't you supposed to be with your boys or something?”

“I left.”

“Congratulations.”

He followed you into the bathroom while you turned on the shower. “Do you want him?”

“You think I want him?” You laughed once, rubbing water out of your eyes. “Satoru, I don’t even know where you go in the mornings. You sleep in my bed, use my shower, know my assistant by name, and I couldn’t pick one person from your life out of a police lineup.”

“That’s different. Don’t deflect.”

“Oh, that’s deflecting!” You wiped the steam from the glass and glared. “Rich coming from you.”

He looked stricken for a split second, and then his gaze hardened again. “You are still not answering my question.”

“You are asking me that while standing in my bathroom with my spare key in your pocket.” You looked at him through steam, alcohol, and months of swallowed irritation. “I let you bat your lashes at half the city because you get bored and I never say a word. I haven’t met any of your people, and yet you moved yourself in because, quote, my sheets were nicer, unquote, and I let it happen.”

His mouth tightened. “So you want me gone?”

“I wanted you to act like my boyfriend.”

“I am your boyfriend.”

“You are my princess with a corporate card.”

He huffed a sarcastic laugh. “So what, now you’re bored of me?”

“You’re jealous of a man who bought me grilled meat and asked if I slept.” You looked at him then and watched his jaw move. “That is how low the bar is right now.”

“So you do want him.”

“Do you even hear yourself?” You laughed, ugly and tired. “You want me available every hour, every day, ready to come home and fuck you because you got needy between errands. I am losing contracts because you text me like a dying harlot with a butt plug.”

His ears went red. “I didn’t ask. You offered.”

“And you loved it. You even beg for it.” You stepped out, wrapped in a towel, and copied his voice with cruel accuracy. “‘Baby, please, I can’t think, just a little, I’ll make it up to you.’ Then you pass out on my pillows, and I lie there wide awake, feeling like a fucking robot. When will you take care of me, Satoru? When will my time come? When will I have my bad day, huh?”

He stared at you like he’d never seen you before.

Your voice softened before you could stop it. “My family raised me into free labor. I’m good at guessing needs. Even better at neglecting myself while giving care. You used that angle well.”

The color drained from his face like you had slapped him.

For one stupid second, you wanted to take it back. You wanted to apologize and say you were drunk, tired, dramatic, and mean. Then invite him in the shower and touch his face, fixing the wounded look on him before it became another thing you had to manage.

Satoru beat you to it. “That’s what you think I’m doing?”

Your throat tightened, but you tried to stick to your boundary. “That is what you are doing.”

“So I’m using you.”

“You’re letting yourself use me because it works for you.”

He looked away first.

Water ran behind you, hitting tile, wasting money while both of you stood there half-dressed and angry in a bathroom that smelled like your body wash. Satoru’s jaw moved, but nothing came out. Not even a joke, soft baby, or dramatic threat about the lawyer.

His hand went to his hair, fingers pushing through it hard.

“You could’ve said something.”

The drunk words ran before you could think them over. “I’m not your mother. I shouldn’t have to tell you everything. You are a grown man.”

His eyes cut back to yours, bright with humiliation now. “Right.”

“Satoru—”

“No, I got it.” He nodded too fast. “Princess with a corporate card. Dying harlot. Robot. Free labor.”

You hated hearing it back.

“That isn’t—”

“It is.” He laughed, a thin sound. “You said it pretty clearly.”

He walked out before you could follow. You heard him moving through your bedroom, drawers opening, one closing too hard. A minute later, your spare key landed on the kitchen counter with a small sound.

The front door shut.

You stood in the bathroom until the steam thinned and the water ran cold.

Then you turned the shower off, wrapped the towel tighter, and picked his shirt off the floor because you hated yourself enough to fold it.

The next three days passed in the meanest way possible.

On the first day, you checked your phone every time it buzzed and felt angry when it was a client. On the second, you ordered dinner and left half of it untouched because the mango pudding in your fridge made your stomach twist. On the third, your secretary asked if you wanted the new bracelet invoice filed under personal expenses or gifts, and you stared at the email until the words blurred.

Satoru did not call.

You wrote one text, deleted it, wrote another, then deleted that too.

At 10:48 PM, with your laptop open and nothing done, you sent the worst one.

come home. i’ll buy you whatever stupid sunglasses you want.

He called after eight minutes. “They aren’t stupid.”

“You coming or shopping?”

He came over with a box and a face full of wounded pride.

“I took advantage,” he said at your door, voice rough. “I liked being taken care of, but I let you do all of it.”

You looked down at the cake inside the translucent box. “Is that my apology?”

“It’s cake and an apology. I panicked.”

You stepped aside.

Inside, he put the cake on the counter. The spare key still lay there from the night he left. Satoru looked at it and didn’t touch it.

Then he knelt in front of you before you could make a joke. His hands rested on your waist, careful for once.

“I’ll take care of you too,” he murmured. “Actually. Food, sleep, sex, work—all of it. You shouldn’t have to beg.”

Your throat closed a little.

His thumb rubbed the exposed skin at your waist. “And I’ll still be pretty.”

You huffed.

He smiled then, small and relieved. “That part feels important.”

You pulled him up by his collar. “Shut up and feed me cake.”

He kissed your cheek, grabbed two forks, and gave you the bigger piece.

A/N: What would you have done? Didn't mind, forgave him, or moved on?

Masterlist

He had spent dinner pretending to care about the acquisition scandal your imprint was currently circling like vultures. He had cut your salmon into smaller pieces without asking, slid your water closer every time you forgot to drink it, and looked tired when he smiled at you, but you’d thought it was work.

You hadn’t known he was planning how to make Alaska soft for you.

The article is still open below the search bar.

Low-impact comfort, beautiful scenery without grueling logistics, heated cabins, wide windows, warm drinks, and places where she can stay inside the car if she gets tired.

Your hand moves to scroll.

The Alaska Railroad—a heated train car with panoramic windows, no bumpy roads, and no hours on your feet.

Girdwood—aerial tram, fire pits, indoor saltwater pool, avoid hot tubs, book prenatal massage.

Fairbanks—heated dome under the northern lights, so she can watch from bed.

You press your lips together, but it doesn’t help.

Megumi shifts at the whimper you fail to swallow. His brows draw together before his eyes open.

He looks at your face. “What happened?”

You shake your head.

He’s upright in a second, glasses pushed up into his hair. “Are you in pain?”

“No.”

“Cramping?”

“No, Megumi.”

“Dizzy?”

“No.”

He reaches for you anyway, palm careful against your side, then the underside of your belly. “Then why are you crying?”

You set the glass down before you drop it. “You looked really sweet sleeping.”

He stares at you.

You sniff.

His mouth flattens. “That’s creepy.”

A laugh breaks out of you. “You looked very sweet, husband.”

He stares at you confused.

You wipe under your eye with the heel of your hand, and he catches your wrist before you can be rough with your own face, his thumb rubs softly over your skin.

The baby shifts, a slow roll under your ribs.

Megumi feels it.

Neither of you speaks.

That’s the thing nobody had told you about finally getting what you begged science, money, bloodwork, calendars, injections, and your own tired hope to give you after years of trying. Joy would not arrive alone but would bring fear with it in the nursery boxes you were both too superstitious to fully unpack. It slept between you when the baby was too still for thirty minutes.

Megumi lowers his forehead against your belly.

“Hey,” he murmurs there. “Don’t scare your mother.”

The baby kicks him.

You laugh again.

He looks up at you, offended in the sleepy, handsome way that made you marry him. “She’s already disrespectful.”

“She gets that from her father.”

“I’m a respected attorney.”

“You fell asleep researching.”

His face changes. It’s not noticeable.

But you know him.

You pretend not to see the laptop. “Come to bed.”

He closes the laptop with one hand and stands, heavier than he used to be, broader through the shoulders, softer only where your hands liked him best. Then he bends, picks up your glass, and guides you toward the kitchen first.

“Water,” he says.

In the kitchen, you drink because he watches until you do.

The next morning, you dress like you have no idea—a nice long wool coat, a loose turtleneck, hair pulled back, gold earrings, a long wool skirt, and boots that Megumi had already checked twice for traction.

He comes out of the bedroom holding a scarf.

“No, I look editorial.”

“You look cold.”

“I’m seven months pregnant and still better dressed than half the state.”

“You’ll be warm.”

He wraps the scarf around you himself, careful with your hair, then crouches to zip your boot when the zipper catches.

You look down at your stern, overbuilt husband on one knee in the entryway.

Your chest does that dangerous thing again.

He glances up.

Then winks.

Your soul leaves your body. “Did you just—"

“No one will believe you.”

You smack his shoulder with your glove.

He catches your hand, kisses the knuckles through the wool, then stands.

Later, the train is warm.

Megumi has gotten you seats by the window, tea in a paper cup, ginger candies in his coat pocket, a folded blanket he bought outside in case you got cold, and a printed reservation schedule marked in his neat handwriting.

You sit beside him and watch snow catch on black spruce, mountains shouldering up through the morning, the whole world cold and enormous while your husband keeps one hand under your coat, palm spread over your belly.

The baby kicks after the train starts moving.

Megumi looks down.

“She likes it,” you say.

He smiles that small smile and kisses the side of your head

You lean your head against his arm.

After a while, he opens his coat so you can tuck closer without asking. His chin rests briefly on your hair. Outside, Alaska rolls past in white and blue and dark green, and inside, Megumi checks your tea temperature before handing it back.

You take one sip.

Perfect.

At the wildlife conservation center, he drives the loop slowly enough that a four-year-old toddler in a stroller passes you.

“Megumi.”

“You said your back hurt.”

“A moose is judging us.”

“The moose can mind his business.”

You watch bison move through snow, a brown bear sleeps in the distance like a dropped coat, and wolves pace beyond the fence, pale and elegant and uninterested in the people whispering from warm cars.

Megumi keeps the heater low because you said the air made you nauseous when it got too dry. He opens your Sailor Boy Pilot Bread packet with his teeth when your gloves get in the way, then holds the bag out without looking, eyes on the road.

Then you take one and hold another toward him.

Megumi glances over once, only long enough to see what you’re offering, then opens his mouth. His eyes go back to the road before his teeth close around it.

You chew faster than he does.

By the time he finishes, you’re already digging around in the bag again.

Another for you.

Another shoved toward his mouth.

He takes it with the same tired patience people use around unstable explosives.

Snow crunches softly under the tires as the sanctuary road curves ahead. Megumi keeps one hand steady on the wheel between bites, shoulders forward, attention fixed like the whole world has narrowed to the road, your seatbelt, and the baby in your belly.

You finish yours first again.

Then immediately pick another cracker out and push it against his mouth.

You feed him half the packet over the next ten minutes through pure insistence. Crackers, then dried fruits, then the weird little ginger-infused wild berry jam you bought at the station because the old woman at the register said they helped with nausea.

Megumi eats every single thing you hand him, his jaw moving slowly while his attention stays fixed on the icy road ahead.

Then you stare at him again.

“What?” he says finally.

“You’ll survive in captivity.”

He frowns. “What does that mean?”

“You eat whatever I hand you with no questions. Totally domesticated.”

He flings your blanket over your head. “Nap time.” 

You remove it with a chuckle, stare at the side of his face while he drives, at the small crease between his brows, at the careful set of his mouth, at the man who packed three kinds of snack foods and still forgot to eat until you put food directly against his lips.

“What?” he asks, quieter this time.

You reach over and brush a crumb from the corner of his mouth. “You’re my home, Megumi.”

His hand tightens on the wheel.

For a second, he says nothing.

Then he pulls into the next viewing spot, parks, and turns to you. “We moved here because you wanted quiet.”

You nod, because you had wanted distance from elevators full of people who stared too long, from office bathrooms where you had cried over negative tests, from family calls that turned every question into a pressure point. You wanted snow, locked doors, slow mornings, a place where no one knew how long it had taken.

Megumi looks down at your joined hands.

“I can’t make your head quiet,” his voice softens. “I know that.”

Your mouth trembles before you can stop it.

His thumb moves once over your knuckles.

“But I can make the day smaller.” His voice stays low, almost careful. “I can check the road before you wake up. Keep food where you can reach it. Find places where you don’t have to stand too long.”

He glances briefly toward the back seat, where your blanket and spare gloves sit folded beside the bag he packed without mentioning it.

“I can bring you home the second you’re tired,” he tells you. “Even if you say you’re fine.”

You laugh once, but it comes out ruined, and then you’re crying.

Megumi unbuckles his seatbelt, turns as much as the car allows and reaches for your face, thumb catching the tear before it gets past your cheek.

“Hey,” he whispers. “Don’t do that.”

“It’s the pregnancy."

“I know.” His hand stays on your cheek. “I read the books.”

Outside, the moose keeps chewing through a mouthful of brush, calm and enormous and uninterested in the fact that your husband has just cracked your chest open in a parked car.

You cover his hand where it rests against your face. “You make me feel like we’re going to be okay.”

His expression shifts into something small and full of hope.

Then he leans across the console and kisses you, slow and careful.

When he pulls back, his ears are pink. “You knew about the search.”

You keep your face very still. “I don’t know what search you mean.”

Megumi stares at you.

You stare back with grave composure.

His thumb brushes under your eye again. “You’re bad at lying.”

You look out the windshield, pretending to study the moose. “I only saw the title.”

“That’s the worst part.”

You press your lips together.

He watches you try not to smile, and something in his face loosens. “I wanted to get it right.”

The sentence is low enough that it almost disappears under the hum of the heater.

You look back at him.

Megumi’s gaze has dropped to your belly again. “You’ve had to be careful for months.”

Your hand finds his over the curve of your coat.

The baby shifts under both of your palms.

Megumi breathes out slowly, as if she answered him.

“You got it right,” you say.

He nods, eyes still too soft.

Then he turns back, puts the car in drive, and eases out of the viewing spot.

A few minutes later, when the lodge comes into view and you spot the low orange flicker of fire pits through the snow, you gasp a little too early.

Megumi doesn’t even look at you. “Awful acting.”

You smile into your scarf. “I was surprised.”

This time, his mouth moves first, almost a smile.

“Stay there,” he says when he parks.

You do, watching him come around to your side through the windshield. He opens your door, blocks the wind with his body, and wraps the blanket around your shoulders before your boots touch the ground.

A/N: I can be persuaded to do a Yuji one in the same AU.

Masterlist | Yuji's Version

Images are from Anime (S3)/Pinterest; the sparkling divider is from @pixopix, the trees are from @firefly-graphics, and the engagement banner is from @saradika-graphics.

Megumi looked between them, already hearing the fault line.

Toji wiped his hands on the dishcloth and hung it over the oven handle. “Put the pan down.”

Megumi set it on the counter.

Tsumiki leaned back with her arms folded, one leg tucked under her. She had her mother’s mouth when she was holding herself in, and her temper too.

Megumi asked again. “Was it the university?”

“No.”

“Money?”

A brief laugh left Toji. “Your mother stopped plenty of things over principles. It was never about just the money.”

That pulled the corner of Megumi’s mouth.

On the fridge, under a university bookstore magnet, her faculty schedule hung with committee meetings circled and narrow notes running up one side. She had left before dawn that morning with one heel in her hand, her bag half open, muttering about first-year essays and a dean who thought poetry could be merged into media studies and sold back to parents as modern communication skills.

There had been a time when half the papers in this kitchen had been hers: drafts, proofs, galley copies, thin little journals with editors’ names on the backs, and matte covers. She used to write at this table after both children slept. Megumi had grown up with her pages under his palms.

At five, he had carried one of her paperbacks around upside down because it had his name in the dedication.

At six, he had demanded the dinosaur poem again, then the Yu-Gi-Oh! one, then the ridiculous Minecraft one she had written after he spent three days trying to build a house.

She had made his blocky little world sound noble. “She wrote because she meant it.”

Megumi frowned. “That doesn’t answer it.”

“It does if you let it.”

Tsumiki pushed her chair back an inch. “People lifted her work.”

Toji’s eyes stayed on the dishcloth.

She kept going. “They took the shape, cleaned it up, and sold easier-to-digest versions.”

Megumi frowned. “They stole it?”

“Close enough,” Toji sighed.

“To anyone with eyes,” Tsumiki snapped.

“Tsumiki.”

“What do you want me to call it? Borrowing? Influence? Market conversion?”

Megumi looked at Toji again. “She told them to stop?”

“A couple of times.”

“And?”

“And a few people pretended they got there on their own.”

Tsumiki laughed once, ugly and brief. “Same staircase, same broken lightbulb, same damn family photo in the hall.”

Toji stayed quiet.

Megumi’s face had gone hard in the way it did when wrong simplified itself inside him. At his age, he still believed a crime should have a visible owner and a visible consequence. Part of Toji hoped he would keep that. Another part knew better.

“They got bigger from it,” Tsumiki continued, head tipping back against the wall. “Because they cut out the money trouble, the class stuff, the parts where people had to clean up actual messes. They left the pretty parts in and made it easier to clap for.”

Toji should have stopped her sooner.

But he was tired of pretending nothing had changed.

“And Mom just let that happen?”

The lane light reached the table legs.

“She fought where she could.”

“That means nothing.”

“It means some damage leaves scars; some you just live with and never have proof to show for.”

Megumi’s fingers moved over the edge of the speech sheet, fixing and flattening the same corner. “She was good.”

“Yeah.”

A dog barked twice beyond the wall, and Tsumiki looked at the cupboard where her mother kept tea, then away from it.

Toji rose and opened the lower cabinet of the sideboard.

The books were still there.

He kept them in two neat rows because she wouldn’t. She shelved everyone else’s work carefully and treated her own books like spare copies from the printer. First editions from small presses. One anthology with a ribbon still hanging out of it. Three slim volumes from before he met her.

And the fourth book.

The one he had bought the day before the launch, then read at the kitchen table until two in the morning with cold tea at his elbow and toddler Megumi breathing softly down the hall.

He pulled it out.

The spine was creased in two places. His old receipt still sat between pages forty-three and forty-four.

Megumi straightened. “I remember this one.”

“You chewed the corner off when you were six.”

“It was once, Dad."

“You were concentrating really hard.”

Megumi’s mouth twitched, unwilling.

Toji set the book between them and opened it to the receipt.

“When your mother first met me,” he said, “I had maybe six proper sentences in me.”

Tsumiki smiled despite herself. “That many?”

Toji’s lips twitched, but he continued.

“Publishing was different in the 2000s from what it is now. She had a poem in the paper one Sunday. Someone left the arts section in the staff room. I read it over a stale bagel because the break was ten minutes, and I was pretending that it counted as lunch.”

He paused.

“By the time I finished, I was sitting down, and I didn’t remember deciding to. So I folded the page into my planner and went back to teaching.”

Megumi watched him with full attention.

Toji rarely gave them whole stories, so they knew not to interrupt when he did.

“Your birth mother had been gone for a few years,” he said, not looking at Megumi. “You were still waking up at night and coming into my room with your blanket dragging behind you. I was sleeping badly, eating worse, doing a decent impression of someone who had things handled.”

He tapped the book once.

“Then I bought this because the poem annoyed me.”

Megumi looked scandalized. “Annoyed you?”

“It knew too much about kitchens.”

Tsumiki laughed.

“I read half the book after you went to sleep. The rest, I carried around for lunches and free periods. A week later, she was doing a book launch near the station, and I wanted more of her books signed because she was funny in a morbid way. So I put you in a purple sweater, bribed you with orange juice, and took the train.”

Megumi’s mouth softened.

He remembered it in pieces: the table stacked with books, the woman in the black dress kneeling to ask if he wanted the dragonfly bookmark or the plain one, and his father standing too straight beside him with a paperback in one hand and the boy’s mitten in the other.

“She signed my sticker book first,” Megumi recalled quietly.

“She did.”

Tsumiki reached for the sticker book tucked next to the old diaries and flipped through it. Their mother’s old handwriting tilted across it in black ink.

For Megumi, who loves dragonflies.

He remembered that too.

“She thought you were handsome,” Tsumiki told Toji.

“I doubt that.”

“She told Aunt Uro that she thought you looked like you had wandered into the wrong century and should have been a lumberjack in the 1800s. Basically gave her Arthur Morgan vibes in the 2000s."

Megumi let out a surprised half-laugh.

Toji looked down at the page.

He could hear her too clearly all at once.

At the signing table, she had asked his name. He’d told her.

Then, she had asked whether he wanted the inscription addressed to him or his son for his own copy.

Megumi had been leaning against his leg by then, glassy-eyed with boredom and sleep.

He had said, “Both, if you don’t mind.”

She had glanced up at him then.

Later, when he tried to explain why he liked her first book and did a poor job of it, he told her one poem had made a room in his house easier to stand in after Megumi’s mother died.

That was the most he’d managed without feeling like crawling out of his skin.

She had not smiled in that soft, pitying way people did when men reached for language and came up short. She only nodded, sincere, like being spoken to as a person, and she had answered him the same way without comfort or pity.

Just words that left him less alone with the grieving.

That night, he went home and finished the book in two hours.

A week later, he found her Twitter because the handle was printed on the back flap, followed her mainly to keep up with her future publications.

She used to post like someone who had accepted the world was rotten but still found parts of it funny. Some joke about grief, grocery store flowers, and the particular violence of university coffee made him laugh once into his hand in the staff room, which was embarrassing enough that he put his phone away for the rest of lunch.

A month later, she reblogged a post about a summer seminar at the university where she taught.

He thought nothing of it until an email arrived from the department coordinator the next morning, polite and plain, asking whether he wanted the registration form.

Toji stared at it for the whole one-hour lunch break.

Because in what world??

Then he wrote back.

Hello,

Thank you for sending the form.

I teach mathematics to fourteen-year-olds for a living, so I’m not sure I have any business sitting in a poetry room. Most of my day is spent explaining fractions to boys who don’t believe in deodorant and arguing with children who think “show your work” is a reason for a panic attack.

I read her book because it was good, and that is probably the extent of my qualification.

Regards,

Zen’in Toji 

The reply came three days later during Megumi’s pizza night, not from the coordinator.

From her.

Mr. Zen’in,

You read like someone who would keep the exits clear during a fire and still remember what color the burning curtains were.

That is useful in a poetry room. Slightly concerning in a civilian world, but useful.

You do not have to write anything if that sounds unbearable. Just come to listen, drink bad coffee, judge us silently, and learn what language is capable of when it is not being used to fill forms, argue with parents, or make condolences sound formal.

If you want the form, I’ll ask the coordinator to send it again.

He read that twice.

Then he printed the registration form before he could talk himself out of it.

During one of his mundane classes, a boy in the back of his classroom was trying to stab an eraser with a compass. Another one had written 80085 on his calculator and was wheezing into his sleeve.

Toji looked at the form again.

Then he filled it out before the bell rang.

“So you went?” Megumi asked.

“I went.”

He was bad at it.

For twelve days, he sat in a lecture room with old desks, a noisy fan, and people who brought special pens to write about suffering. He wrote ugly sentences, then crossed most of them out, then drank burnt coffee from the vending machine and learned that poets could argue for forty minutes over where to put a comma, which made thirteen-year-olds look reasonable.

“Your mother was there most days. Never hovered or tried to save me. Just sitting two rows ahead with ink on her fingers and Tsumiki’s hair tie around her wrist.”

Tsumiki tried to hide a smile.

On the fourth day, she found him revising the same line for the sixth time.

She looked at the page, then at him.

“Mr. Zen’in,” she said, “I promise no one is grading your masculinity.”

He had found her annoying for about five whole minutes.

Then he fixed the line.

By the end of the seminar, Megumi knew her as the lady who kept emergency dino cookies in her bag. Tsumiki knew Toji as the quiet man from her mother’s poetry thing who did not talk to children like they were stupid.

By autumn, Megumi and Tsumiki were fighting over crayons in her office while she met students.

By winter, dinner for two adults had become dinner for four if the timing worked out and sometimes even when it didn’t.

And by the next winter, Toji was signing school forms with a name that no longer belonged to the Zenin family.

Megumi looked at the book again. “You married her because of the poems?”

“I married her because she wrote about death like someone who’d actually had to clean up after it,” Toji answered. “No moonlight nonsense the way they soften the pain. It was incense smoke in your shirt as the relatives ate rice in the next room while counting condolence money at the table. Convenience-store rice balls because nobody had the energy to cook. A kid asleep in the corner because crying for his dead mother wore him out.”

Megumi’s hand tightened on the book.

Tsumiki looked out of the window. “And then people made her work ‘corporate friendly.’”

He looked at her.

This time, he didn’t correct her.

Megumi stared at the page. “So she quit because they ruined it.”

“She stopped publishing,” Toji said. “She stopped putting work out where strangers could sand it down and call the softer version theirs.”

“That’s the same thing.”

“It isn’t.”

Megumi’s head came up.

Toji nodded toward the fridge, the marked speech, the stack of essays she had brought home to grade, and the old notebook visible through the half-open drawer by the phone.

“She writes on grocery lists, in margins, on envelopes, in your lunchbox notes when she thinks you’re having a bad week, in birthday cards that make your sister cry and pretend it’s allergies, and in feedback on student work. She wrote a whole lullaby because you spent a month building that block dinosaur enclosure and I accidentally broke it.”

Tsumiki covered her face with her hand, laughing into it.

Megumi looked offended by the memory. “That was good.”

“It was excellent,” Tsumiki hummed.

“It ended with the T. rex forgiving him because Mom said even dinosaurs had to be bigger people than dad.”

“That took skill.”

The laughter left quietly. Megumi looked down at the green notes on his speech again. “She should still publish books.”

Toji leaned back. “Maybe.”

“That sounds stupid.”

No one answered.

The front door opened.

All three heads turned.

Her footsteps came down the hall with the tired drag of late faculty hours. Keys touched the bowl by the entrance, her bag hit the bench, and then she appeared in the kitchen doorway with loose hair, glasses still on, and a stack of stapled papers clamped under one arm.

She took in the open book, the scholarship papers, the three faces turned toward her, and the particular silence of people who had been talking about her.

“What happened,” she asked slowly, “and if this is about the leftovers—"

Megumi moved first.

He grabbed one of the old books from the table and crossed the kitchen before anyone else spoke. He held it out with both hands respectfully, stiff and embarrassed.

“I still like the dinosaur one,” he explained. “And the Minecraft one. And you fixed my speech better than dad could have. That’s all.”

She looked at the book, then at him.

For a second, Toji saw the old caution pass over her face while Megumi stood there with his shoulders too square, his hair falling into his face, and her whole face changed.

“Oh, baby.”

Megumi’s eyes widened. “What?”

She put her papers down on the counter and took the book from him carefully, but her other hand was already reaching for his sleeve.

“Did I forget Mother’s Day?” she asked, tugging him closer.

“It’s not—”

“Come here.”

“I’m standing right here.”

She pulled him down by the back of his hoodie.

Megumi went rigid the second she hugged him.

He was taller than her now, all long bones and awkward, his arms hovering uselessly at his sides while she wrapped one arm around his middle and held the book against his back with the other hand. She pressed her cheek to his chest.

Toji watched Megumi’s face go through several emergencies at once.

Tsumiki covered her mouth.

“Don’t laugh,” Megumi said, staring at the ceiling.

“I am not laughing,” Tsumiki shot back, already laughing.

His mother squeezed him once, firm and delighted. “You have gotten so sweet buba.”

“I’m not being sweet.”

“You’re being awful,” Tsumiki said, cringing.

Megumi’s hand twitched, then landed lightly on their mother’s shoulder.

Toji’s wife went still for half a breath.

Then she spared him the embarrassment and patted his back twice as if this happened every day. “I am glad you still like the dinosaur one.”

Megumi’s face changed at once. “He broke the enclosure.”

Toji leaned back. “It was one block.”

“It was the load-bearing block.”

“You had too many triceratops in one place. The zoning was bad.”

“You never said that before.”

“I was being generous.”

Megumi looked wounded. “You were wrong.”

“That too.”

The room loosened around them.

Toji’s wife finally let Megumi go, although her hand stayed at his elbow for another second. He stepped back and busied himself with a nick in the table edge.

She looked down at the book again, thumb moving over the worn cover.

The smile took effort.

“Wash up,” she told Megumi, voice steady again. “Then let’s eat.”

Megumi brightened so fast Toji had to look away. He turned toward the sink at once, bumping his hip against the chair on the way.

She shifted the book against her chest and turned to her husband.

Across the kitchen, Toji caught the tired shine in her eyes. She was pretending it had nothing to do with the boy washing his hands too fast at the sink.

He stood and took her bag. “You ate?”

“A biscuit from my desk that may have been older than Tsumiki.”

“Lunch’s still warm.”

“Bless you.”

“It’s miso.”

“It’s hot, and I didn’t make it. Bless you.”

Toji huffed a laugh, set her bag on the chair, and reached for the pot.

Behind him, water ran at the sink. Megumi wiped his hands with intense focus, still red at the ears. Tsumiki’s laptop keys picked up again. Toji's wife opened the book to the dedication and stood there, reading her own old blue ink.

Toji stirred the miso, lowered the flame, and gave her the privacy she needed.

Then Megumi cleared his throat from the sink.

“You still have to listen to the speech,” he said, too quickly. “Since you said you would.”

She looked up, and this time the smile reached properly.

“Of course,” she said. “Bring it here, baby.”

Megumi made a face at the word, but brought the speech.

---

By the next morning, Hajime called while she was packing store-bought sandwiches into a cooler bag.

She had the phone trapped between her shoulder and ear, one hand writing on the lid of a plastic container because Tsumiki did not eat tomato and Megumi claimed he did not care about capsicum but picked it out every time.

“No, Kashi, I heard you,” she grumbled. “The practice match is today. You told Tsumiki, not me. Yes, there is a difference because Tsumiki tells me things based on whether she thinks I will make her bring sunscreen.”

Toji stood by the table, drinking coffee from the chipped mug Megumi had bought him on a school trip. It said World’s Okayest Dad in English. He claimed he hated it but used it every morning.

From the hallway, Tsumiki yelled, “I don’t burn!”

“You burn,” Toji’s wife called back.

Tsumiki appeared with her kit bag over one shoulder, hair tied back, shin guards sticking out of the side pocket. “That was one time.”

“You cried because the convenience store stopped selling the pudding you liked.”

“I was looking forward to it.”

Megumi came in behind her, still buttoning his shirt, face flat with the effort of being awake before noon on a Saturday. “It was three puddings.”

Tsumiki pointed at him. “Scholarship boys are banned from speaking.”

Toji’s wife covered the phone and looked at Toji. “Kashimo says he’ll meet us at the field with wife number…”

“Don’t,” Tsumiki said.

“Current,” his wife corrected pleasantly. “His current wife.”

Toji snorted into his coffee.

Kashimo was not a bad man, which made the arrangement more annoying. He was loud, competitive, late to most things, generous at strange times, and hard to speak to for longer than four minutes. Kashimo and Toji’s wife had married too young and divorced with more exhaustion than hatred. Now they spoke with the careful politeness of people who knew which topics could wreck a day.

Tsumiki loved him, so that counted.

Tsumiki loved Toji too, though she showed it mostly by stealing his fries and insulting his goalkeeping skills.

They took the bikes because the field was close enough, and Tsumiki said arriving by car made her feel ten. Toji rode ahead with Megumi behind him. His wife followed on the smaller bike with Tsumiki, who spent the first five minutes giving directions nobody needed.

The field was already crowded when they arrived.

Parents clustered under umbrellas and patchy shade. Players in matching kits ran drills near the touchline. Someone had brought a cooler full of sports drinks. Someone else had brought a younger sibling crying because his ice pop had cracked in half.

Kashimo was not there.

His text arrived five minutes before kickoff.

Running late. Traffic. Tell Tsumiki best of luck.

Toji’s wife read it, looked up at the sky, and said, “May all divorced men who say traffic face one parking attendant they can’t bribe.”

Tsumiki sighed, bending over with her hands on her knees.

Then the whistle blew, and Toji became unbearable. “Left side is open.”

“Tsumiki, stop letting number eleven cross.”

“Good. Again.”

“Ref, if that was clean, I’m a dentist.”

Toji’s wife sat under a tree with Megumi, passing him an egg sandwich from the cooler. “Your father is going to be asked to leave.”

“He’ll say the other team started it.”

On the field, Tsumiki stole the ball from a taller girl, cut left, and sent it clean past the keeper.

For half a second, there was only the bright, stupid shock of it.

Then Toji stood with both arms in the air, proud enough for three benches to cover their ears.

“That’s my kid,” he said. “I taught her that.”

Tsumiki turned away from him, embarrassed and glowing.

Their mother clapped with both hands over her head. Megumi, who had been pretending to eat with dignity, smiled into his sandwich.

“She’s going to yell at him,” he said.

“She enjoys it.”

Megumi considered that, then took another bite.

Kashimo arrived near the end with his current wife, a pretty woman in sunglasses who carried bottled drinks and waved at Tsumiki with determined cheer. Kashimo apologized too loudly, blamed traffic, blamed roadwork, blamed a cyclist, and then cheered violently when Tsumiki assisted in the final goal, so Toji took it as a personal challenge.

After the match, Tsumiki came off the field flushed and sweaty, grinning.

Her girlfriend Hana followed two steps behind, holding Tsumiki’s water bottle and bracing herself for Toji Fushiguro.

Toji folded his arms. “So.”

Tsumiki narrowed her eyes. “No.”

Hana straightened. “Hello, sir.”

“Sir?” Tsumiki echoed, appalled. “You don’t need to do that.”

Toji gave Hana the same flat stare he used on repairmen. “What are your intentions with our daughter?”

"Toji," his wife tried.

“What? I’m asking.”

Tsumiki put both hands over her face. “I can't wait to get into college to get away from you.”

Hana turned red to the tips of her ears. “I like her very much.”

“That’s not an intention.”

“Toji,” his wife warned, but she was laughing now.

Kashimo watched this with unholy glee.

Megumi looked over from the shade, deadpan. “Ask if she can defend a lead in the last ten minutes.”

Toji pointed at him. “Good question.”

Tsumiki threw her towel at Megumi’s head.

Megumi ducked.

Toji’s wife caught it one-handed, passed Megumi the second half of his sandwich, and went back to watching the argument. Soccer, interrogation, thrown towels, egg salad on white bread, Kashimo arguing with Toji about the ref, Tsumiki trying not to smile too hard while Hana stood close enough for their shoulders to touch.

Megumi leaned back against the tree trunk.

His mother looked at him. “You have mayonnaise on your sleeve.”

He checked. “No, I don’t.”

“Made you look."

He ate the last bite instead of answering.

For a while, they watched Tsumiki laugh at something Hana said. Kashimo was taking pictures now, bossing everyone into frame. Toji stood beside Tsumiki with one hand on her head, ruining her hair on purpose while she yelled at him to stop. Kashimo’s wife adjusted Tsumiki’s collar for the photo, gentle and careful, and Tsumiki let her.

Toji’s wife’s smile softened.

Megumi saw it.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“That means something.”

She looked down at the sandwich wrapper in her lap and folded one corner over with her thumb. “I was thinking I should buy more of these next time. You ate two.”

Megumi gave her a flat look.

She held out for about three seconds.

Then she sighed. “I was thinking you were going to leave sooner than I expected.”

Megumi looked away.

Across the field, Toji was now interrogating Hana about whether she knew how to change a tire. Tsumiki was threatening to disown him in front of both her biological father and the woman currently married to him.

“I haven’t decided yet,” Megumi said.

“The scholarship papers say otherwise.”

“I can still say no.”

“You can,” she said.

He looked at her then, suspicious of how easily she had said it.

She smiled a little. “I am your mother, not your monk.”

He went still.

She had not made a performance of the words. She had not asked for it, corrected him into it, or tried to climb into the place his first mother had left behind. She had stayed long enough that the house learned her footsteps. His lunchbox notes had her handwriting. His fever memories had her cool hand in them, too.

Megumi picked at the sandwich wrapper. “You think I should go?”

“I think you should have the kind of life where you get to choose hard things because you want them, not because the house needs rescuing.”

His mouth thinned.

She bumped his knee with hers. “And I think I am allowed to be proud and miserable about it at the same time.”

“That sounds inconvenient.”

“It is. Motherhood is mostly snacks and inconvenient emotions.”

Megumi looked back at the field. Tsumiki had finally escaped Toji and was taking a picture with Hana, both of them laughing too much to pose properly.

“I’ll come home,” he said.

His mother turned toward him.

He kept his eyes on the field. “Not every weekend. But some.”

She smiled and nodded. “I’d love nothing more.”

Then, she reached into the cooler bag and pulled out the pudding Tsumiki had sworn she was over.

“Eat,” she said, setting it in his hand. “Your father will pretend he does not miss you and become impossible to live with.”

Megumi looked down at the pudding. “This is Tsumiki’s.”

“I bought multiple.”

He huffed, almost a laugh.

A whistle blew from another field. Kashimo shouted something triumphant and wrong. Toji told him to stop giving tactical advice to children. Tsumiki’s towel flew again and hit Kashimo in the shoulder this time.

Under the tree, Megumi opened the pudding and handed her the first spoonful without looking at her.

She accepted it the same way, without making it bigger than he could stand.

Across the grass, Toji glanced over and caught them sharing it. Toji's wife raised the spoon in his direction.

Toji looked at Megumi, then at her, then back at Kashimo and Hana and the whole loud, tangled mess of them.

He said nothing, only stood a little easier in the sun.

---

A night ago, the house had been noisy—Tsumiki laughing too hard over Hana’s messages as Megumi pretended he hated being fussed over while eating half the food you packed for him before the trip. Toji carrying boxes with one hand and insulting campus parking under his breath.

You hated how quiet the house was now.

A towel slipped off the pile and hit the floor.

You bent to pick it up, and a hand closed around your wrist before you touched it.

Toji stood behind you in his work shirt, collar open and raised, hair damp from the shower. He smelled of soap and his morning coffee, which meant he was getting ready to leave for work.

“You were staring again.”

You tried to pull your wrist back.

He didn’t let you.

“They’re fine,” you said.

“Didn’t ask that.”

Your throat worked. “I’m fine too.”

His mouth twitched with no belief.

The sadness sat low in your chest—you had wanted them to go, to build lives so wide they came home with stories you had to Google. You wanted Megumi to argue with professors and Tsumiki to stay out late, eat bad cafeteria food, fall asleep on Hana’s shoulder, win things, lose things, and grow.

You wanted all of that.

But your arms still ached when you passed their rooms.

Toji took the laundry basket from you and set it on the floor. His hand moved to your waist, turning you until your back touched the hallway wall.

“Toji.”

“Mm.”

“I had plans.”

“To fold towels?”

“Very important plans.”

His knee nudged between yours. “So sad.”

You looked up at him, ready to be annoyed, and lost the thought at his stupidly handsome face.

He had been watching the rooms too. It was there in the hard line of his mouth, the old ache he treated as a private injury. He had done this once before with a smaller child and a dead woman’s empty side of the bed. Then he had done it again with you and two teenagers who stopped needing rides, stopped needing lunch packed, stopped yelling for a missing sock.

He dipped his head and kissed you.

It started slow.

His mouth came down hard, warm and rough lips slotting over yours, heavy hands dropping to your hips to wrench you flush against him.

You made a small sound and grabbed his shirt.

He took the sound, tongue sliding in, body crowding you until the wall met your shoulder blades and his thigh pressed high between yours.

Your body reacted before your mind caught up, hips grinding against him.

Toji felt it.

His hand slid down, gripped your thigh, and hitched it over his hip. “That fast?”

“Shut up.” Your arms circled his broad shoulders.

He smiled against your mouth. “Miss having a full house, wife?”

Your breath caught.

He kissed your jaw, then the side of your neck, teeth catching the skin there until your toes curled. His palm moved under your shirt and spread over your stomach.

“Don’t.”

His voice dropped. “Don’t what?”

“Look at me that way.”

His thumb dragged under the waistband of your leggings. “What way?”

Your throat made a low sound.

He pulled back just far enough to see your face. His attention dropped to your mouth, then to your hand pressed over his, and stayed there until your fingers curled.

“Say it.”

You shook your head.

His hand moved lower—under the cotton underwear. Fingers sliding through you, making your knees soften.

“Toji.”

“You’re so wet.”

Your cunt clenched around nothing.

His jaw worked.

Your face burned—you tried to look away, and he caught your chin between his fingers, making you face him while his other hand kept stroking you open.

“Use your words.”

You wanted him so badly your hips moved against his hand.

“I miss them,” you whispered.

“I know.”

“And I hate this hallway.”

“I know.”

“And I hate cooking for two.”

His fingers pressed harder over your clit.

Your mouth fell open.

He watched it happen with that ruined little focus that made him look half-starved.

“Keep going.”

Your nails dug into his forearm. “I hate how clean the table is, the extra food. I hate—”

He pushed his fingers inside you.

Your head hit the wall.

“Say what you really want.”

Your body clenched hard around him. The words came out broken. “I want a baby.”

For a second, Toji forgot how to breathe.

Then his mouth crashed into yours.

It turned rough at once.

His fingers fucked into you while his tongue pushed past yours, and you grabbed his shirt with both hands, dragging him closer, needing his weight, his heat, the brutal comfort of being handled.

He pulled his fingers away, and the loss made your hips twitch. 

“Say it again. Without moaning.”

You stared at his wet hand, at the shine of you on his skin, and your voice came out wrecked.

“I want your baby.”

Toji groaned and pushed his fingers into your mouth.

You sucked them clean, tongue sliding between them, tasting yourself off his skin while his eyes stayed fixed on your mouth. It got worse the longer you looked up at him.

You pulled off with a wet pop.

He didn’t give you room to breathe.

“You don’t have to go to work?” you muttered, still dazed enough to ask something that stupid.

Toji was already fishing his phone from his pocket.

He held up one finger, called someone, and said, “Can’t come in. Use someone else.”

A pause.

“No, it’s not negotiable.”

He hung up and looked at you.

“Bedroom.”

You let out a breathless chuckle.

“Stop laughing.”

He caught you at the doorway, spun you around, and bent you over the foot of the bed before you could get your balance.

Your hands hit the blanket.

Behind you, his belt came loose with a rough metallic clink.

Your leggings were dragged down hard enough to catch at your knees.

“Toji—”

His hand cracked across your ass, making your hips buck.

“Don’t start acting shy now.”

“I’m trying to get my pants off.”

“You’re slow.”

He pushed your underwear aside and dragged the head of his cock through you.

The words died.

He was already hard, thick, and already leaking at the tip. Toji slid against your cunt in lazy strokes that made you push back.

He laughed. “Look at you.”

“Put it in.”

“Ask nicely.”

You gripped the blanket until your knuckles hurt. “Fuck me.”

He slapped your ass again, hand rubbing the sore spot, then leaned over your back, chest pressing you into the bed. His mouth brushed your ear.

“Ask for what you really want.”

Your breath shook.

“I want you to breed me.”

He finally pushed in.

The stretch punched the air out of you.

Your mouth opened on a broken cry, body pulled tight around him.

He stayed buried, hips flush to yours, breathing hard against your neck while your cunt struggled to take him.

“Fuck,” he muttered. “You’re so hot, baby. Feel so fucking good.”

You pushed back, greedy and shaking.

He caught your hips and started fucking into you.

Toji was hard and deep with it—each thrust drove you into the bed, sheets bunching under your fingers. He kept you pinned exactly where he wanted you, one hand on your hip, the other sliding under you to cup your stomach.

“Gonna fill this house again,” he said, voice raw. “You want that?”

“Y-yes.”

“Want me doing school runs with a baby seat in the back?”

Your cunt squeezed him so hard he cursed.

“Oh, you want it bad, huh?”

“Yes, fuck, yes.”

He drove in harder, making the bedframe hit the wall.

Your face pressed into the blanket, and you bit down on it to muffle the sound crawling out of you.

Toji’s hand slid up to your throat, holding you there rather than squeezing, pulling you upright against him. Your back met his chest. His cock rammed through deep, hips driving up into you from behind, each stroke squelching now, rougher, angled so he hit the spot that made your legs go weak.

You reached back, grabbing at his hair. “I want another kid with you, Toji.”

His teeth sank into your shoulder through your shirt. One of his hands slid down between your legs and found your clit, rubbing in hard, messy strokes that matched his hips.

“Mine?”

You sobbed. “Yours.”

“Mine to put in you?”

“Yes.”

“Mine to keep you full?”

Your head dropped back against his shoulder. “Yes, yes, please.”

Toji groaned into your neck.

He pushed you down again, manhandling you higher onto the mattress.

Your leggings dragged off your knees.

He spread your thighs wider with his own and fucked you into the bed until every thought went stupid. The room filled with the bed hitting the wall, his breathing, your choked little noises, the wet sound of him driving into you.

You reached for him behind you. He caught your hand and pinned it to the blanket near your head.

“Taking it so well,” he rasped. “This cunt missed me making decisions for it?”

Your pussy fluttered around his cock.

He laughed, breathless and mean. “Yeah. Thought so.”

The next thrust shoved a sound out of you that caught in the blanket.

“Gonna buy a nice crib,” he grunted in sync with his thrusts, breath hot against your neck. “One of those dinosaur ones, or galaxy."

Your cunt clenched hard around him.

He felt it and laughed once, wrecked. “Yeah?”

“What else—”

“And the little bottle rack to put by the sink. Fuck it, I’ll make one.”

You saw it for half a second—plastic drying rods beside the soap, a tiny shirt hooked over the bathroom door. Toji half-asleep with a baby tucked against his chest, one huge hand covering their whole back.

Your hips pushed back into him.

He rubbed faster, cock driving into you deep, making your knees shake.

“Megumi’ll act like he doesn’t care,” he groaned, voice breaking against your ear. “Then carefully hold it when no one's looking.”

A sob slipped out of you.

“Tsumiki’ll take fifty pictures.”

Your fingers twisted in the blanket. The pressure in your navel pulled tight, hot and low, every dirty little plan hitting you harder.

You whimpered into the bed.

“Toji, I’m close.”

“I know.” His fingers sped up, rough little strokes that made your legs shake. “Give it to me first.”

The order dragged a broken sound out of you.

Your cunt clamped down hard, orgasm ripping through you in tight, hot pulls. Toji cursed behind you, hips stuttering once before he drove back in deeper.

He kept touching you through it.

“Toji, wait—”

“You wanted my baby.”

His gruff voice made your head cloudy. You grabbed at his wrist weakly, body jerking away from his fingers and then grinding back onto his cock in the same breath.

He caught the feeble movement with a wrecked laugh, his teeth scraping your ear. “That’s it. Run from it and take it anyway.”

You sobbed his name.

“Take it, wife.” His grip crushed your pinned hand into the blanket, hips turning rough, each thrust dragging a wet sound out of you while his fingers kept you shaking. “Milk my cock. Then I’ll give you what you asked for.”

“You…ngh—”

He buried himself deep and came with a broken groan against your shoulder.

His cock pulsed inside you, hot bursts filling you until your body went loose under him. He kept moving in short, filthy grinds, deep breaths tearing out of him, one hand sliding back to your stomach like he could press it all into place.

His cum slipped out around his cock from your pussy.

Toji saw it and shoved it back in deeper.

You laughed weakly.

He pulled out just enough to see the mess, then shoved back in.

You cried out his name, oversensitivity taking over.

“Gotta make sure it takes.”

He leaned down and kissed the back of your neck, slower now, though his cock twitched inside you again.

“Don’t hide after begging me to knock you up.”

He stayed there after, heavy over your back, breathing like he had run himself into the ground.

You were still shaking when his palm found your stomach again.

“Toji.”

“Mm.”

“You’re crushing me.”

“Good.”

You laughed into the blanket, ruined and breathless, and felt him smile against the back of your neck.

A second later, his phone buzzed on the floor.

He ignored it.

“Toji, work.”

He reached down, grabbed the phone, and tossed it farther away without checking the screen.

Then he pulled out because there was no clean way to turn you while staying buried, and the loss made you whine before you could stop it.

Toji saw the mess spill out of you.

He shoved three fingers into you, trying to push it back in.

You muffled your moan into your fist, eyes rolling back.

You barely had time to glare before his hands moved to catch your hips and rolled you onto your back. His cum leaked onto the sheet between your thighs, warm and obscene, and his eyes stayed there for a second too long.

Your eyes followed his gaze a little dumbfounded.

His hands went to your shirt next—shoved it up, got impatient halfway, and dragged it over your head. Your ruined panties followed, peeled from where they stuck wet against your skin and tossed somewhere near the fallen blankets.

You reached for him on instinct, fingers catching the open front of his shirt.

It was already ruined—damp at the collar, wrinkled from your hands, buttons hanging wrong where you had pulled too hard earlier. He shrugged it off and dropped it on the floor, then pushed his trousers down with the same rough impatience, kicking them aside before crawling back over you.

Your eyes widened.

He caught it, and a slow, filthy kind of pride moved over his face. “What?”

You swallowed, staring at him, at the way he was still hard and heavy, making your thighs press together even after he had already filled you.

He hooked one hand under your knee and spread you back open. “Don’t act surprised. You like me so much more after I’ve already made you come.”

Heat hit your face.

His mouth curved. “Yeah. Keep making that face.”

He settled between your thighs, bare skin hot against yours now, one hand pressing your knee higher while the other slid over your stomach. His cock dragged through the mess he had left there, wet and heavy, rubbing against your swollen cunt until your hips twitched.

“You okay?” he asked, low.

You nodded too fast.

His hand squeezed your thigh. “Words.”

“I’m okay.”

“Want me to stop?”

Your arms locked around his neck. “Don’t you dare.”

His eyes had gone wrecked and dark green. He kissed you again, teeth biting your tongue, before lining himself up again. The push back in was slow only because both of you were too sensitive. You felt every inch, every slick vein, every pulse of him forcing his own cum deeper as your body opened around him again.

Your nails dug into his shoulders.

“Fuck, baby.”

“Right there?”

“Yes.”

He folded your knees back until your thighs pressed against your ribs, cock driving deep.

By the third thrust, he had his mouth at your ear and his hips moving with that harsh, uneven hunger that meant he had stopped pretending he could pace himself.

“Gonna keep you like this today,” he said, voice wrecked. “Open, full, leaking all over the sheets.”

You moaned and dragged him closer.

His hand slid down between your legs, thumb finding your clit through the mess. Your whole body jerked.

“There,” he murmured. “Knew you’d take it.”

“Toji—”

“Whole day,” he said, hips snapping harder now. “College kids call on Sunday. I’ve got time to make sure it takes before then.”

Neither Toji nor you had really believed that you guys could get pregnant in your forties.

---

A few months later, the room was dead silent around the box of tiny socks.

Tsumiki stared at them.

Megumi stared at you.

Toji looked at the ceiling, already useless.

You had meant to hide the gift bag before they came in. Dinner first, tea after, then the announcement when everyone had food in them and fewer escape excuses.

Then Megumi opened the wrong drawer looking for a charger, and the blue dinosaur socks rolled out.

Tsumiki picked one up. “Please tell me this is for someone else.”

Your throat tightened. “No…”

Megumi went still.

“Toji,” you slapped his arm.

The man exhaled deeply. “Your mother’s pregnant.”

Tsumiki shut her eyes. “Oh my god.”

Megumi dragged a hand down his face. “I’m gonna be sick.”

Tsumiki sat down slowly. “How far?”

“Fourteen weeks.”

Megumi counted, horrified.

“That was drop-off week.”

Toji looked away.

Tsumiki made a wounded sound. “You couldn’t even wait until we unpacked?”

Toji folded his arms. “Everyone was already moved in.”

Megumi stood. “I’m going to Itadori’s.”

“You just got here.”

“I made a mistake.”

Tsumiki still held the sock. Her mouth twisted, embarrassed and too soft for half a second. “Dinosaurs?”

You nodded toward Megumi. “Your brother’s fault.”

Megumi looked offended. “Do not put this on me.”

Tsumiki’s phone was already in her hand, snapping pictures.

Then she looked down, frowning.

“What?” Megumi said.

“Mom, you didn’t tell Dad?" Tsumiki’s face drained of color, guilty and horrified. “I sent Dad a picture of the sock.”

Megumi stared at the screen. “He’s asking where you are.”

Your phone buzzed on the counter.

You picked it up, already afraid.

Kashi: YOU’RE PREGNANT?

Your fingers froze.

Another message came in.

Kashi: WHY?

You turned away from the table.

Behind you, Tsumiki whispered, “Mom?”

“It’s nothing, baby,” you said, too fast.

Kashi: WHY WOULD YOU LET HIM KNOCK YOU UP

Kashi: CALL ME. NOW.

Dividers by @uzmacchiato.

A/N: What's Kashimo's deal?

He had a calm voice and a nice laugh. One month and a half of decent conversation, book recommendations, a very confident opinion about soup dumplings, and enough green flags that you had lowered your guard by four percent to show up here without thinking of ending up on Dateline.

You checked your phone again.

7:16 PM.

The meeting time had been 6:30.

You called once more, and it went straight to ringing, then voicemail.

You opened your chat with Uro.

You: i hope all his hair falls out.

Uro: Did he arrive?

You: if he did he is doing a stealth mission.

Uro: Men from dating apps need ankle monitors.

You: i wore the boots.

Uro: The black ones?

You: yes.

Uro: Jail.

you: he hasn’t picked up once.

Uro: Jail with soap drops.

You stood near a booth where a man in a foam hot-dog hat shouted about ring toss prizes. A toddler screamed at a plush duck. Couples passed with paper trays of fries and stupidly linked hands. Then you got startled by a generator coughing behind the cotton candy stand.

Your phone buzzed again.

Uro: I have to pick up my niece from my sister’s. She tried to feed a Lego to the dog.

you: that’s advanced.

Uro: I’d have brought her, but she's three, so fairs are still beyond her. Go enjoy the place. You already paid for parking and the outfit.

you: I got stood up.

Uro: But your boots are innocent, babes. Just eat overpriced food, and have fun. God knows you need it.

You looked down at your boots.

They really were.

you: fine. if i die on a carnival ride-

Uro: I’ll sue the park.

You put your phone away and bought cotton candy from a teenager. Pink sugar melted against your tongue. It was too sweet, coating your teeth, but the outrageousness helped.

The fair had a local committee feel—half the lights flickered, the prizes looked as if they had been won in divorce court, a banner near the main stage promised LIVE MUSIC AT 8 but the band currently tuning looked prepubescent.

You wandered because you were good at taking yourself out. That skill had come from practice. Movies, cafes, bookstores, and whole birthdays turned into errands because if you waited for people to show up on time, you spent half your life facing an empty chair.

So you did the stalls.

You threw darts at balloons and missed every single one, which the booth guy treated as a genuine tragedy.

You watched a little boy win a plastic sword bigger than his arm and immediately whack his father in the shin.

You texted Uro a photo of a plush frog with one eye sewn higher than the other.

you: this is suguru.

Uro: Too handsome.

you: true. suguru had better hair.

Uro: Frog has better commitment.

You laughed and got powdered sugar on your lips.

By the time you reached the rides, the sun had dropped behind the school building beside the fairground. The Tilt-A-Whirl sat near the back, painted red and yellow, its bulbs blinking in frantic loops. The cars spun in drunken circles while a group of teenagers shrieked.

Your stomach did a happy little flip with them.

You loved rides that ruined balance—Ferris wheels were pretty, carousels felt decorative, and the Tilt-A-Whirl was nonsense with bolts. It made your insides lift and swoop, and for three minutes your head cleared out.

You bought a ticket and climbed into an empty two-person car with your cotton candy tucked against your side. You hoped the operator would forget about you or place a woman beside you.

You continued to eat through your leftover cotton candy while looking at what other rides you could go on after this one.

The car dipped as someone sat right next to you.

You half turned.

Tattoos.

Black Line Tattoos.

Your hand clenched around the paper cone.

He was looking away, one elbow braced on the edge of the car, his phone in his hand. His hair was shorter than when you had last seen him. He wore a black jacket over a plain t-shirt, and the side of his neck still had that faint tan line from racing gear. He looked rich in the way drivers did after sponsors got involved—expensive, mildly sleep-deprived, capable of getting photographed beside a model and smirking through the headline.

You looked away so fast your neck nearly clicked.

Fine. Fine. He hadn’t seen you.

Maybe.

The fair was crowded. The ride was loud. The universe had placed him next to you as a practical joke, but you had survived worse jokes.

You reached for the lap bar to lift it.

It locked.

The operator gave the car a bored shove.

The ride started.

Your soul left your outfit.

Sukuna still hadn’t turned. He was watching someone by the fence. You followed his line of sight without moving your head much and caught sight of Yuji waving both arms while Choso held a paper plate piled with funnel cake. Some younger cousin or family friend bounced beside them with a flashing wand—so they were out on family night.

Aww cute.

No.

Horrible.

Your exit routes had been sealed by machinery and his entire goddamn bloodline.

The first spin was mild—your car rolled around the platform, gaining momentum. Wind pulled at your hair, and the cotton candy trembled in your grip.

Sukuna’s knee hit the side.

You tried to look at him from the corner of your eye without turning fully toward him.

His jaw had tightened.

Oh.

You remembered now.

He could take corners at speeds that made sports commentators develop religion. He could slide a car through rain, through smoke, through the hideous math of another driver trying to cut him off.

Yet put him on a county fair ride operated by a boy named Mason with an energy drink, and Ryomen Sukuna became a trapped alien.

The car swung harder.

His hand landed on the seat between you, palm pressed flat.

You turned your face away and bit the inside of your cheek.

Another spin, faster. The platform tilted. Your stomach tingled in the way you loved, a bright swoop that rushed up your ribs. You almost laughed.

Sukuna made a sound that could have been a cough—if coughs carried primal fear.

You stared at the painted horse on the booth across the ride and, without looking at him, placed your hand over his.

He seemed too busy fighting for his life to notice.

But the car spun again, and his hand gripped yours on instinct, hard enough to make your rings press into your skin. He still didn’t turn. Maybe he thought you were a stranger. Maybe he was far gone in battle with the Tilt-A-Whirl deity. Maybe he had recognized you from the first second and decided mutual delusion was better than conversation.

You kept your face angled away.

The ride grew faster and meaner, so your laughter broke out, helpless and breathy. Sukuna’s shoulder bumped yours, his body almost lurching forward.

When the ride slowed, you pulled your hand back before he could catch it properly. The lap bar lifted, and you stood while everyone around you stumbled out.

Sukuna finally turned.

His eyes caught on your waist, right where his hand used to land before dawn when his alarm went off and he reached across the bed half-asleep, finding you before he found his phone.

Recognition moved through his face with vulgar speed.

You were already moving through the crowd.

You didn’t run because that would imply guilt. You were simply a dignified woman fleeing a carnival ride because your ex had discovered your waist by sight.

He called out your name, but it was so loud he couldn't hear his own voice.

A child with a glow stick cut across your path. You dodged. Someone spilled lemonade near the duck pond game. You stepped around it. Your heart was making a ridiculous amount of effort for a body that had only eaten sugar.

You almost reached the row of food trucks when a hand closed around your arm.

You turned.

Sukuna let go at once.

For a second he looked exactly as stupid as you remembered him.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I thought that was you.”

You stared at him.

His mouth opened, then closed. His eyes flicked over your face, the boots, and the cone of cotton candy crushed in your hand.

“You changed your hair,” he said.

“You still scared of rides at a carnival.” Adreline made you blurt it out before you could stop yourself.

His face loosened, his crimson eyes relaxed into his features, and it reminded you too much of the day you’d last seen him.

You cleared your throat. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“How have you been?”

“Driving in circles for money.”

“Healthy career path.”

“You?”

You nodded toward the fair in general. “Being abandoned beside a corn dog booth. Thriving.”

His brow moved. “Abandoned?”

Your phone buzzed in your bag. Probably Uro asking if she could pay an Etsy witch to get Suguru stalked by goats.

“Long story.”

Sukuna studied you, then glanced toward the ride. “You stayed on.”

“I was trapped.”

“You held my hand.”

“You were dying.”

“I was assessing structural failure.”

“Mason looked very qualified.”

“The operator?”

“He had a whistle.”

Sukuna’s mouth twitched. “Powerful credential.”

You hated how fast your face warmed. You hated the stupid, familiar muscle memory. You hated that the air between you could still find the old groove with one push.

“I saw your last race,” you said, because your mouth had chosen arson.

Genuine surprise crossed his face. “You watch them?”

You scrunched your nose mildly, accidentally. The way you did when you’d been caught.

Sukuna stared at that tiny movement. He’d never told you about that one tell.

His expression did a weird thing—softened at the edges, then caught itself.

You swallowed. “Some highlights came on. At a gay bar with friends.”

His brows rose. “I have gay bar fans?”

“You have fans with betting habits everywhere.”

“Which bar?”

You refused to explain that you had begged the bartender to put the race on while you sat alone PMSing, a gin and tonic beside your hand, pretending you wanted sports because sports had become a pathetic substitute for his absence. You had watched his car move through the screen while drunk men argued behind you about karaoke. You had missed him so badly you had ordered fries you didn’t want just to stay until the podium interview.

“Some place downtown,” you said. “The bartender said you were probably annoying.”

He leaned a little closer. “You care about other people’s opinions of me?”

“I was doing community outreach.”

“So you follow me.”

“You have gotten hard to miss.”

He smiled then, infuriatingly flustered beneath the smirk. “Are you seeing someone?”

Your grip tightened on the cotton candy cone again.

You could have said you had been stood up by a man whose most impressive quality was voice-note confidence. You could have said everyone after Sukuna had felt as if they never really saw you. You could have said you had wanted him to be there so many times that no one would ever compare.

Instead, you said, “How’s the model?”

“The model?”

“The one from the news about the rooftop dinner. Tall one.”

He huffed. “You follow me pretty closely for somebody asking casual questions.”

It should have made you laugh.

That was the script. He teased, you deflected, he leaned closer, you rolled your eyes and pretended your heartbeat didn’t sing for him.

Instead, something inside you slipped.

Satoru would have loved this. He would have demanded screenshots, then called Sukuna a pink-haired lizard, then told you to stop acting as if a breakup suddenly made you mature. 

Your smile thinned before you could poker-face it.

Sukuna saw.

He stopped teasing so fast it hurt more than anything.

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

He looked at your face as if he could pull the answer out, then seemed to think better of it. His hand flexed at his side.

“I fly back the day after tomorrow,” he said, instead. “Before that, can we get coffee tomorrow night?”

You watched a father lift his daughter onto his shoulders near the balloon stall. The little girl had blue face paint smeared across one cheek.

You said zilch.

Sukuna’s mouth thinned. “I need an answer. I can’t call you.” He paused. “Same number?”

You had blocked him so thoroughly your phone treated his existence as malware.

“Same number,” you mumbled.

“I’ll pick you up.”

“I can drive.”

He ignored you. “You live at the same place?”

“Next to the old one.”

“Six then.”

“I didn’t agree.”

“I did for both of us.”

You should have hated that.

But your lips twitched before you could stop them.

He saw that and looked pathetically relieved for a man paid to risk death.

At home, you called Uro from the couch.

She answered with, “Tell me Suguru got shingles.”

“I saw Sukuna.”

There was some scrambling on the other side.

“Ryomen Sukuna?”

“How many Sukuna exes do you think I have?”

“With your taste? I fear categories.”

You told her everything—the Tilt-A-Whirl, the hand, the gay bar lie, the coffee.

Uro went silent.

Then she sighed. “You should go.”

You sat up. “Why?”

“Sukuna didn’t cause this.”

You looked toward the TV, where a cooking show contestant was crying over burned fish.

Uro lowered her voice. “You ended it because of Satoru.”

Your throat tightened.

“You told Sukuna he was boring,” she continued. “Which was insane, by the way. That man has a lethal jawline and a deadly career.”

“He did become boring.”

"No, honey, you panicked because your brother relapsed, and the illness came back worse, and Sukuna was training for the season that could make his career. You thought he’d throw everything away and come sit in oncology waiting rooms.”

You pressed your thumb under your ring, twisting it.

Uro added, “You also kept telling everyone you were fine, which was your least convincing era.”

“I couldn’t make him choose.”

“You chose for him.”

You closed your eyes.

“Go for coffee,” she said, smiling. “You can still leave if he’s gotten stupid. I’ll key his car.”

That made you laugh, but it hurt coming out.

After the call, you fell asleep with your boots still beside the couch.

Satoru woke you by poking your ankle over the blanket. “Breakfast.”

You opened your eyes in the old house, in his room, on the giant bed you had practically moved into during the bad months. The emergency bell sat on the nightstand beside many bottles of prescription eye drops, a strip of tablets, and the ugly plastic water bottle he hated because it made him “feel eighty in a hospital commercial.”

He stood at the doorway in sweatpants and a sweatshirt, hair white around his face and paler at the lashes. Before the cancer, he had black hair and caramel eyes. He used to say the universe stole his color and made him ethereal.

You sat up too fast. “Why are you moving around?”

He waved a hand. “I made pancakes, nurse warden.”

“You’re meant to rest.”

“I am resting.”

“Satoru.”

“I feel better, let me have this.” His smile spread, bright and crooked, a little thinner than it used to be. “Breakfast for my baby sister.”

You followed him to the kitchen because arguing with him had once been a full-time job and you missed him having the energy for it.

His pancakes were your favorite—he'd made them with extra fruit and too much syrup, even warmed the plate.

You took a bite.

The taste was wrong.

It was floury, flat, and a little bitter.

Satoru’s smile faltered. “Meds messed with my taste buds again, huh?”

“It’s good.”

“Liar. Give me the plate. I’ll remake it.”

You pulled the plate closer. “It’s perfect.”

“Add more syrup.”

He sank into the chair across from you, breathing a little heavier than he wanted you to hear.

“Will Kento or Shoko come by today?” you asked.

“Don’t feel like socializing.” He sighed, stretching his shoulders with a wince he couldn't hide well. “I was thinking we watch a movie.”

You fully looked up.

He shrugged. “Unless you have better plans. Like maybe calling your bubblegum-haired ego a problem."

“Sukuna has a name.”

“Sukuna has anger issues.”

You laughed.

Satoru leaned back, pleased. “Call him back.”

“I broke up with him.”

“Why?”

“He should focus on his career.”

“If he’s going to be worth anything, he should learn to multitask." He speared a piece of fruit from your plate. “If he has a girl, she’s high maintenance. He’ll have training.”

“You barely know him.”

“I know he looks at you as if you’re a pit stop he wants to marry.”

You choked on syrup.

Satoru waited until you stopped coughing. He passed you water, then kept his hand around the glass for a second, as if he knew you might use it to hide your face.

“I’m serious,” he said.

You wiped your mouth with the back of your hand. “That’s new.”

“Don’t get cute. That’s my job.”

“You’re bad at it.”

“I’m excellent at everything. Keep up.” His smile faded before it could become a joke. “You shouldn’t have broken up with him because of me.”

You looked down at your plate. “I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to. You make every decision like every part of your life has to consider me first.”

“That’s not—"

“It’s true.”

You pressed your fork into the pancake. “You’re sick, Satoru. You need me.”

“I know that.” His voice stayed steady, but his fingers tightened around his mug. “I need my sister. I don’t need you to turn into a nurse with no life after me.”

Your throat burned. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”

“It’s a horrible thing to watch.”

You looked at him then.

He held your eyes, tired and pale and still your brother under all of it. The same brother who had signed your school forms when your parents forgot, who had shown up to parent-teacher meetings in his uniform because he had practice right after, who had made your lunch badly for a month before he learned how to pack fruit without smashing it. He had been loud about everything except the things that mattered most.

“You think I don’t see it?” he asked. “You don’t sleep unless I sleep. You don’t eat unless I complain first. You keep your phone face down because you’re scared he’ll call and you’ll want to answer. None of this is good for you.”

You swallowed.

“Sukuna makes you happy,” he said. “He also annoys you, which is good. You get unbearable when nobody argues with you.”

A weak laugh left you, then quickly turned into tears you blinked away.

“I’m scared too.” Satoru leaned back, breathing through the small cost of sitting upright for more than his body was able to bear right now. “I don’t want to say that because then you look at me like your whole chest got kicked in. But I’m scared. And I still don’t want your life to shrink down to this house.”

“Satoru—”

“No. Listen to me.” His voice cut through yours, low and clear. “Love me. Take care of me. Fight with doctors. Make ugly pancakes taste worse with extra syrup. Fine. But don’t throw away someone you love because you think suffering alone is what you deserve.”

You wiped away the tears that came treacherously anyway.

“I raised you better than that,” he said, softer now.

You tried to smile anyway. “You raised me to be dramatic and suspicious.”

“I raised you to have standards, and somehow you picked a race car demon, but I’m choosing peace.”

“He’s not a demon."

“He has face tattoos.”

You laughed again, a little bit bigger this time.

Satoru opened his arm to let you tuck in. “Promise me you’ll call him. If he’s useless, I’ll hate him with you. If he shows up, let him.”

“You make that sound easy.”

“It won’t be.” His hand rubbed against your temple, careful and warm. “Do it anyway.”

He grinned, and for a second he looked sixteen again—school jacket half-zipped, practice bag slung over one shoulder, his mock-test rank posted near the top of the board. Boys copied his notes despite hating him. Girls found reasons to borrow erasers. Teachers used his name in warnings and compliments in the same breath. He played whichever sport had a vacancy that week, won enough to make coaches greedy, then came home with convenience-store candy for you because you had texted him a sad face during math.

You spent the afternoon watching a dumb action movie. It had three explosions in the first twenty minutes and a villain with an accent from nowhere. Satoru kept making comments under his breath, weaker than his usual running commentary but smug enough.

Halfway through, his head tipped against the back of the couch, heavy medication dragging him under.

“You’re missing the part where the car jumps through a hospital.”

“Mmph.” He made a lazy sound, eyes closed.

You let him sleep.

The medicine did that to him lately—took his words first, then made his limbs sluggish, then the rest of him slower to react. You checked the time on your phone, compared it with the notebook on the table, and saw his next dose still had some time. Fine. He could sleep. You could give him that.

The movie kept playing—someone on-screen was shouting about a bomb as Satoru breathed beside you, shallow but steady, so your body allowed itself to unwind.

You must have drifted off too, because when you opened your eyes again, the room had shifted into evening. The TV had gone to the streaming menu, and the house had that late-day smell, dust, syrup, old coffee in the mug by his elbow.

Your neck hurt from the couch angle.

You yawned and nudged his knee with your foot. “Toru. Go to bed.”

He stayed slumped against the cushion.

You rubbed your eyes and sat up properly. “Seriously. Your back’s going to hurt more if you sleep here.”

His hand rested palm-up on the couch between you—long fingers, pale knuckles, and a small bruise near the wrist from the last blood draw. You nudged his palm.

“Medication time soon,” you added. “Come on. I’ll help you walk.”

He stayed still.

A small irritation rose in your chest, familiar and domestic. The type of annoyed you got when he acted dramatic during eye drops or complained about water tasting “aggressively round.”

“Satoru.”

You leaned closer and shook his shoulder.

His body moved with the shake, then settled.

Your irritation thinned.

“Toru?”

You touched his cheek.

It was warm but too still under your palm. His lashes were pale against his skin, white from the treatment and the strange pigment loss.

“Hey.” Your voice came out softer. “Wake up. You have to take the evening meds.”

The notebook lay open on the coffee table—pills and drops listed by time. The little boxes you had drawn and checked and checked again.

You reached for his wrist.

His pulse was hard to find.

Your own pulse got in the way, slamming through your fingertips.

“Satoru, stop it.”

You pressed harder at his wrist, then shifted to his throat the way the nurse had taught you during one of the discharge briefings.

“Wake up,” you said, even louder. “Go to your bed. You’re too tall for the couch, and I’m sick of hearing you complain about your spine.”

His head stayed angled toward the TV.

You grabbed his shoulder with both hands.

“Satoru!”

The name came out in a cracked scream.

You shook him again, rougher than you had touched him in months.

“Stop. This isn’t funny. Toru, get up.”

You bent close to his mouth.

For one awful second you thought you felt breath, then realized it was yours hitting his skin and coming back.

“No,” you said, and the word came out small, stupid, and useless.

You pressed your ear to his chest.

You waited.

You moved your ear, searching.

You held your own breath so you could hear his.

Nothing came.

Your hands began to shake so hard his shirt wrinkled under your fists.

“Toru,” you whispered.

Then you screamed for him.

The dream broke there, same as it did every time.

You woke on the couch in your apartment, gasping, sweat cooling under the collar of your shirt. The TV had gone to sleep, your phone had slipped between cushions and outside, daylight had already moved across the room and started fading again.

You had slept through most of the day.

Coffee was in an hour.

You got ready in simpler clothes because the idea of another date outfit made you feel stupid. New jeans, clean socks and the oversized white cashmere sweater Satoru had bought you years ago, back when he had health, black hair, caramel eyes, and a talent for buying gifts that made you cry in private.

Downstairs, Sukuna waited beside a car you couldn’t place. New or rental.

He straightened when he saw you.

Then he opened the passenger door and held out flowers.

You stared at them.

They were real flowers—pink and white, wrapped in brown paper, tied with twine.

“For you,” he said when you kept staring at them.

“I gathered.”

“You going to take them?”

“I’m thinking.”

He waited.

You took them.

He looked away, and the edge of his mouth moved, almost smug.

You wanted to beat the smugness off with the said flowers, but instead you got in.

The car ride carried all the comfort of small talk. He asked about traffic near your building. You asked about his flight schedule. He mentioned a sponsor event. You said the fair food was probably giving him diarrhea. Sukuna laughed.

The cafe was small, upscale, and filled with people who seemed able to drink espresso after sunset without ruining their nervous systems.

Sukuna held the door. You hated that too.

At the counter he asked, “Usual?”

You nodded.

He ordered it correctly.

You took a table near the wall.

“So,” he said once he sat, “what are you doing these days?”

“Work sabbatical. Finishing my degree.”

His eyes stayed on you. “That good?”

"Please, I don’t need judgment from a man who believed cigarettes were breakfast.”

His mouth twitched. “I matured.”

“You bought a sports car.”

“It was assigned.”

“What? Corporate custody?”

“Something along those lines.”

The server arrived with drinks plus a small pizza cut into uneven squares. Your usual.

You stared at the tray for a second too long.

He sipped his coffee. “How’s Satoru?”

Your body became hyperaware of your reality.

The hiss of the steamer grew enormous. A chair scraped behind you. Someone laughed near the window, high and sudden. The chili oil on the pizza smelled acidic. The sweater collar touched your throat.

“He died.”

Sukuna froze, frowning. “What?”

“It’ll be a year soon.”

His hand hovered near the table, then lowered. “How?”

You folded your napkin, then unfolded it. “Peaceful, according to the doctors.”

His jaw worked. “Are you living alone?”

“Yes.”

“Family?”

You almost smiled. “Satoru was the family.”

The words hurt to speak aloud.

Sukuna knew you had family, but having and being reciprocative with affection and meeting a child's needs were two different things. They didn’t like you or satoru much.

“Have you…” Sukuna looked at you for a long moment. "Cried since?”

Your hands felt cold. “What?”

“Since he passed.”

You pushed back from the table—the legs screeched. The cafe turned its head toward you in a hundred tiny ways. Every cup, every voice, every light on the wall became a separate grating sound.

Sukuna rose with you, fast enough to catch your wrist before you could knock something over.

You flinched, and he released you.

Then he stepped close enough that his voice could reach your ear and no one else. “Breathe. You can skip the answer. I pushed.”

You shook your head.

“Breathe,” he said again. “Look at me or the door. Pick one.”

You looked at the door because you didn't have the capacity to look at him right now—his crimson eyes were too expressive at the worst of the times.

"Please…" You took a deep breath in. “I want to go home.”

“Okay.”

The drive back was short.

He made zero attempts at conversation, keeping both hands on the wheel, eyes on the road. At your building, he parked and walked around to open your door.

“I can get upstairs.”

“I know.”

He followed anyway, carrying the pizza and flowers, as if the evening had become a delivery service with unresolved romantic history.

Inside your apartment, Toru stood in the hallway—white fur and blue eyes. A body shaped by luxury and criminal entitlement.

The cat looked at Sukuna, then at you, then back at Sukuna.

Sukuna stared.

You mildly introduced them, “That’s Toru.”

Toru blinked slowly, withholding citizenship.

Sukuna took off his shoes. “Does he bite?”

“He does and also loudly meowdals every old man complains he has.”

“Fair.”

You went to the couch because your bones had become heavy. Sukuna went into the kitchen without asking, which should have annoyed you, except you were less overwhelmed now. He filled the kettle. Opened cabinets and found the pan.

Toru followed him and sat near the fridge, supervising with contempt.

“You eat?” Sukuna asked the cat.

Toru’s tail moved softly.

“Useful answer.” He paused, then asked. “She eat?”

You pulled a pillow over your face, quite far away to hear any of this.

Sukuna continued, fully serious. “Blink once for very little. Twice, if she survives on coffee.”

Toru blinked once.

“He seems credible," Sukuna called out to you.

“He licks plastic bags.” You yelled back.

Sukuna smirked towards Toru and tapped his nose, making the cat paw at its own nose. “It’s okay. Witnesses are allowed to have flaws.”

The cat squared up and hissed, which meant he was flawless.

From the couch, you heard the scrape of a knife, the tap of the cutting board, and the click of the stove. He made coffee first. Then stir-fry, simple and fast, with vegetables cut the way you used to cut them and sauce mixed from memory.

Your recipe.

Stolen.

Also, the only thing he’d eat after a long day.

You hadn’t realized you had fallen asleep until Sukuna stood over you with a bowl in one hand and the remote in the other. You woke up with the smell of garlic and soy.

“Sit up.”

You sat up because your body, treacherous thing, wanted the food.

He sat beside you with his own bowl and put on a terrible movie. Some action sequel where cars exploded for reasons that offended even him. Toru jumped onto the armchair and watched Sukuna as if waiting for a confession.

The first bite loosened your chest. Warm rice, vegetables, and sauce with slightly too much garlic because he remembered you liked it that way.

“You still cook it wrong.”

He glanced over. “You’re eating fast for a critic.”

“You stole my recipe.”

“I improved it.”

“You put too much ginger.”

“You need flavor.”

“You need to be humbled.”

“Tried it. Bad fit.”

A huff of a laugh escaped you.

Sukuna looked at your face, then back to the TV.

You ate half the bowl before speaking again. “Satoru wanted a cat.”

Sukuna kept his eyes on the screen. His body shifted into less performative ease and more attention.

“Our parents would never let us have one,” you continued. “Which made sense in the practical way. Then it made less sense because they weren’t indulgent with anything, so it became this larger question of why they had children at all.”

Toru groomed one paw, deeply unmoved by human origin stories.

“Satoru used to send me photos of cats. He said once he got better after treatment, he’d buy a bigger house and fill it with cats who were babied and spoiled.”

Sukuna set his bowl down.

“During the last months, his hair went whiter. Lashes too. The doctors explained it, saying it was pigment cells, immune response, and treatment side effects. His eyes were the first problem. He couldn’t see well, but we could work around that while the meds still worked. There were tools, routines, labels on bottles, brighter lamps, audiobooks when reading hurt too much. Then—”

You swallowed, eyes distant, because if you’d stopped now, it’d stay stuck in there forever and eat you worse. “Then the liver got worse. He had these drops, and scans, and appointments where everyone used gentle voices at us. He made jokes about turning into a designer ghost.”

Sukuna made a small sound, almost a laugh, because Satoru had deserved that much.

The crying began softly—a few tears you could have blamed on the movie.

“I kept thinking if I managed the appointments and the meds and the food and the calls, it would make a difference. If I stayed in his room and stayed awake, I’d catch everything. If I heard every breath, if I woke up fast enough...” Your spoon rested against the bowl.

“It didn’t matter.”

Sukuna said your name.

Your face hit his chest, and the sound that came out of you was ugly and torn loose. Years of holding yourself upright broke down into his shirt. He moved your bowl away with one hand and pulled you in properly.

You cried until your nose ran, until Toru abandoned the armchair and jumped onto the couch, until Sukuna’s shirt was damp and his hand had settled at the back of your head, warm and familiar in a way your body accepted before you realized.

“I told you that you were boring,” you choked out because he deserved that. “I was lying.”

“I know.”

“I thought you’d ruin everything.”

“You should’ve let me choose.”

“I’m sorry.”

His mouth pressed to your hair. “I know.”

His eyes burned once before he blinked hard and looked away. The wins had come with the money, the cameras, and the noise.

But none of it fixed the part of him that still looked for you after every flight, every podium, every room full of people talking too much.

Every success felt a little thinner because every hotel room still ended with him reaching for a phone he couldn’t use to call the only woman he’d ever cared about.

Back then he’d known you were lying, he just hadn’t known how to make you come home.

You cried harder because you probably hadn't since your brother left.

At some point the movie ended and the streaming app tried to play another. Toru fell asleep against your thigh. Sukuna kept holding you until your body gave out.

You woke once when he picked you up, mumbled something unintelligible, and fell asleep again.

He carried you to your bedroom.

You hadn’t slept there in weeks. The bed looked almost staged.

Sukuna set you down and left only long enough to bring water, your phone, and Toru, who protested being handled until Sukuna told him, “Your landlord requires supervision.”

Toru bit his arm.

Sukuna winced and let the cat curl up to you.

Sukuna got into bed beside you fully clothed. He didn’t crowd you at first. He lay on his back, one arm open.

You moved into it.

The sweater smelled faintly of your perfume and old cashmere. Sukuna smelled of coffee and the same cologne he used to wear when he had early flights and kissed you in doorways while pretending he had plenty of time.

You slept deeply.

Morning arrived without the usual panic of dreams.

For a few seconds, you knew that before you knew anything else. Your body had rested properly because your jaw didn’t ache and your hands weren’t curled into fists under the blanket.

Then you reached beside you.

The pillow held a dent, but Toru had claimed Sukuna’s side of the bed and looked pleased.

Your chest tightened, then eased in a tired, resigned way.

Of course. He had a flight. He had said so.

Maybe last night had been a mercy visit from an ex.

That was fine.

It had helped.

You could survive that much.

You got up to feed Toru.

A note was stuck to his bowl in Sukuna’s handwriting.

I’ll be back next month. Unblock me.

You stared at it.

Toru headbutted your ankle because romance meant little compared to tuna.

You fed him first.

Then you unblocked Sukuna.

A text came through almost at once with a photo.

You were asleep on his chest the night before, your cheek squashed against his shirt, Toru sitting on your hip as if guarding property. Your hair was everywhere and your mouth was slightly open. Sukuna’s jaw was only partly visible, but his hand rested over your back, his thumb blurred mid-stroke.

Below it came a calendar invite, already adjusted to your time zone.

1:30 PM Video Call.

Don’t dodge me.

You clicked on the calendar and saw that he'd squeezed it in after his team debrief. It was surreal to see that your ex had a Ferrari schedule, a flight, and a body people paid millions to keep functional, and still he had blocked out time to annoy you himself.

You accepted it.

Then you went into the kitchen and saw the flowers resting in a mug of water on top of the fridge.

And inside, cold brew waited in a glass bottle, labeled with tape.

Eat something first.

Beside it sat the remaining pizza, wrapped properly, and a container of leftover stir-fry.

You took out the bottle of cold brew, took a photo of it, and sent it.

You: i’m sorry, and i’ll wait for you.

The typing bubbles appeared so fast you almost dropped the phone.

A picture arrived.

Toru sat on the kitchen counter near the same coffee bottle in the gray morning light, tail curled around his paws, blue eyes aimed at Sukuna behind the camera. Beneath it, Sukuna had written:

Your brother might approve.

A/N: I hope you loved this piece as much as I did writing it even if the keyboard was blurry through most of it. I wanted to write only crack and fluff in this; however, Satoru stole my keyboard midway. So hopefully the next story I post isn't going to be as hurt/comforting.

Want to read the same pairings but with Gojo as the endgame?

Masterlist | Rabies | Chuki