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Synopsis: Choso has loved your voice for years.
He has your records, your rare pressings, the songs your label buried, and enough sense to stay away from Naoya Zenin’s girl.
Naoya Zenin had made you famous, then made you his.
At thirteen, you were a girl with a demo. Years later, you are a star with a sold-out tour, a controlled image, a secret fiancé, and a career tied so tightly to the Zenin name that even your pain has to wait until after soundcheck.
Then one hotel party breaks the lie open.
He should have stayed away. The Itadori and Zenin families have hated each other for years, and you were Naoya’s singer, Naoya’s investment, Naoya’s...
But then he heard you scream.
Content Tags: MDNI, explicit sexual content, protective Choso, softly toxic!Naoya, abusive relationship, emotional hurt/comfort, slow recovery, some dub-con (not all), grooming, exploitation of a minor by an entertainment company, producer/idol power imbalance, sexual coercion, rough sex used harmfully, attempted gang sexual assault (don't worry, daddy's there to save you), drugging/manipulated misrepresented medication, alcohol abuse, pill abuse, mixing pills and alcohol, addiction/substance dependency, withdrawal symptoms, panic attacks, PTSD symptoms, nightmares, dissociation, stalking, forced confinement (not like that), industry & contract abuse, dating bans, medical abuse, forged medical notes, public humiliation, betrayal, arranged engagement, physical violence, mentions of blood, threats, legal scandal, recovery after abuse, consensual sex after trauma, consent checking, praise kink, abs riding, oral, fingering, penetrative sex, condom, aftercare. WC: 17.2K Oneshot.
A/N: I wrote this in 35 hours during a hypomanic episode after watching this. Based on this request.
Moodboard | Song Naoya would listen to | Song Choso would listen to
(Notice how one is being sung to you & the other one is being sung to the homies about "a bitch.")
Playlist 1 | Playlist 2
Naoya had you pinned under him.
You had said you missed him when he pulled you back into bed. You had even laughed at first, because he used to kiss your shoulder and call you spoiled when you wanted five more minutes. He used to take his time.
But now his hand was closed around your wrists, holding them firmly above your head. His hips hit so hard that your breath kept breaking.
You tried to relax, telling yourself he had meetings, label calls, his father in his ear, and artists fighting over release dates.
Stress made people rough. Maybe it made him forget himself.
“Nh-Naoya,” you cried out, and it came out too small and shaky.
He ignored you and kept going, one hand moving to pinch your clit.
You gasped as he buried himself to the hilt and came with a grunt, his face buried in your hair.
He kissed your cheek after, warm and slow, as if that fixed the parts of your body that hurt. You lay there with your knees bent, thighs aching when you tried to move.
“You have soundcheck at four,” he said, straightening up and pulling out.
You winced from the suddenly hurried loss. “I know.”
He proceeded to reach for a towel to wipe himself down. “You can still walk, can’t you?”
You tried to laugh because he smiled when he said it. Your legs felt weak under the sheet. “Barely.”
He chucked the towel to rub your hip, right over the sore spot. “You’re tense. That’s all. You work yourself up, then your body follows. I told you to sleep earlier.”
You nodded because it made sense when he said it. It had to. He loved you. He found you when you were singing covers at local, unknown school theaters while he himself was being groomed into the company through family power.
Your mind slipped into the memory.
You had first seen him at the back of his school auditorium, in a place you had been invited to sing at but could never afford to study in. He and his boys in the last row had come in late, all expensive shoes and loose ties, acting as if the whole cultural program had been arranged for their boredom.
Naoya was sixteen and half-hidden under an oversized black hoodie, shoulders too broad for someone still in school, and an expensive pair of glasses low on his nose. He looked dragged there against his will. Gojo had one leg stretched into the aisle. Geto kept leaning over to say things that made Gojo cover his mouth. Kenjaku sat beside them, heir to the Kamo clan, smiling in that strange, watchful way.
They had been laughing before you stepped up to the mic.
Then you sang.
You were thirteen, still in a dress your grandfather had ironed twice that morning, hands sweating around the mic stand. Your voice shook at the first line. By the second, it steadied. By the bridge, the last row had gone quiet.
Naoya was staring.
You had seen it by accident when you looked up from the floor. His face had gone a hued pink under the auditorium lights. He turned away when Gojo caught him, cupped his hand around Naoya's ear, and whispered badly, “Ask her for her autograph.” Geto pretended to cough your name into his fist. Kenjaku only smiled wider.
Gojo and Geto had never seen Naoya as a friend but someone to gaslight into stupidity.
After your set, you were trying to fold the paper with your lyrics back into your bag when Naoya came over.
Up close, he was taller than any boy you had ever spoken to, and that alone made you nervous. Then you saw his sharp eyes, his ear piercings, the dark blonde hair falling over his glasses, and your brain lost the small amount of sense it had. You lowered your head and stared at the zipper of his hoodie because looking at his face directly felt rude.
“You sang the bridge wrong,” he said.
Your stomach dropped. Heat crawled up your cheeks.
You knew it had been stupid to come here. Your grandfather had pushed you, had said people with money needed to hear your talent, but now this boy from the back row was standing in front of you, and all you could think was that you had embarrassed yourself in a room full of people.
Then Naoya held out a carton of warm milk tea from the vending machine.
“The original key is bad for you,” he said, looking away before you could. “Your voice sounds better when you don’t chase it.”
You took it with both hands. “Thank you?”
His hands were bigger than yours, knuckles a little rough, fingers fidgeting around the can before he let go. By the veins on his exposed skin, you realized he had been hiding more than height under the loose hoodie. He was probably muscular too.
“I can get people to listen. If you want,” he added, then seemed to hate how that sounded. “At my family’s record company. They listen when I bring them something good.”
You blinked up at him.
His ears went redder. “You’re good.”
Behind him, Gojo made a dying sound. “Did you just try to sign her before asking her out?”
Naoya turned enough to hiss, “Shut up.”
Geto laughed into his sleeve. Kenjaku said, “He means cake. He’s trying to ask you for cake.”
“I am not,” Naoya snapped.
You looked down at the milk tea rim and hid a small smile around it.
Naoya saw it, and his face softened.
“There’s a place near the station,” he said, quieter now. “They have cake. You can bring your guardian. Or don’t. I mean, you should. Since you’re—” He stopped, jaw tightening as Gojo wheezed behind him. “Forget them. I just want to hear you sing something in your own key.”
You nodded because a handsome boy with pretty eyes had bought you milk tea and said your voice was good, and at that age, that felt close enough to being chosen.
Then the memory was gone.
Today his driver took you to the venue, and you arrived to your team waiting in your dressing room with garment bags open.
Momo saw the way you held the chair before sitting. Her brush paused near your face. Nobara stopped sorting lip colors.
“Long day?” Nobara asked.
“Just tired.”
Momo lowered her voice. “Do you need the medic?”
You shook your head fast. “I’m fine.”
Nobody pushed. They knew whose name sat above the studio doors. The Zenin family owned contracts, tour insurance, security, and lawyers who sent letters before anyone finished speaking. To the public, he was your producer, but to everyone backstage, he was the man you belonged to. And with the dating ban among other dark sides of J-Pop, they couldn’t really acknowledge your relationship with Naoya without getting permanently banned themselves.
So they worked around the pain. Nobara skillfully covered the marks near your collar with heavy concealer. Mewa chose the right hair extensions so your face would have color. Momo helped you into the dress because bending hurt. You thanked them each time because this was humiliating for someone as well known as you.
Onstage, your legs burned unbearably by the second song. By the fourth, your smile started to ache. But you hit every note because missing one would become a humiliating clip by morning. You waved, blew kisses, hit your marks when the dancers did, and laughed into the mic when the crowd sang the bridge back.
Naoya arrived near the final song. You saw him from the stage wing—black suit, neatly styled blonde hair, holding a phone in his hand.
He had missed the set and the soundcheck. Still, when you came offstage, he stepped in front of your manager and pulled you against his side.
“There’s my girl,” he said in a honeyed tone.
Cameras flashed from the small press group near the barricade. His arm tightened around your waist. You tried to stand straight.
“She killed it,” a reporter said from behind a camera.
Naoya smiled wider. “She was raw when I found her. Could barely handle a room of fifty people. Look at her now.”
Everyone laughed because it sounded sweet. Your mouth smiled by itself.
Another reporter asked how you kept getting better with each tour.
Naoya answered before you could. “Discipline. The right team. The right guidance. Talent needs someone who knows when to push.”
You nodded again. Your legs felt numb from the pain under the dress.
Backstage, the room was filled with staff, flowers, phones, fruit trays, and voices asking for five minutes. Your ears started ringing. Everything suddenly became too much—people standing near the couch, near the door, near your bags. Your breath slipped out of rhythm.
You sat down before you fell from the oncoming panic attack.
"Hey." Naoya crouched in front of you, his face softening, hand covering yours in your lap. Around you, the staff stopped to check.
“Breathe with me, hm,” your fiancé whispered.
You did as told because he sounded gentle.
“In. Out. That’s it. Good girl.”
Your chest hurt and eyes stung. You hated that you needed him to talk you through this.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. You worked hard.”
Nobara stood by the mirror, watching. Momo held a bottle of water but didn’t step closer.
Naoya brushed hair from your cheek. “You’re okay.”
His phone buzzed.
He checked the screen, and his jaw set for half a second before he put the device away.
“What happened?” you asked.
“Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
He sighed and looked toward the door. “A few of my friends are throwing a party and were wondering if you’d be available for that. They are big names, but since you’re exhausted, I’ll tell them you can’t.”
You tried to sit straighter. “I can go.”
He studied you. “You sure?”
“It’s fine. I want to help.”
His thumb stroked your knuckles. “That’s my girl.”
The party was in a hotel suite with private elevators and guards by the hall. Music played low. Mei Mei talked near the bar with two brand heads. Many celebrities and J-pop idols were there. Geto stood with Gojo by a couch. Nanami spoke to your tour manager. Iori kissed your cheek and said you looked beautiful.
You said thank you and smiled even when your face hurt.
Naoya kept his hand at your back as he moved you from group to group. “You remember her single launch,” he told a sponsor. “That strategy changed everything.”
You held your glass with both hands and waited for him to finish.
Sometime later, he took you to the side and gave you the anxiety pill with water from his own glass.
You took it because your hands had started to shake again. The room had too much noise with too many people wanting a picture with you and you answering questions you did not care about.
“Just one,” his voice was calm. “It will settle you.”
“What is it?”
“The same thing Dr. Nobuaki gave you before Osaka.” He touched your chin and tilted your face up. “You trust me, don’t you?”
You swallowed it with water from his glass.
He watched your throat move, then slipped the remaining pills into the hidden pocket sewn into the side of your dress, the one your stylists used for lip balm and earpieces.
“In case you need another later,” he said. “Don’t go digging through your bag in front of people.”
Within a few minutes, your chest loosened. Your mouth felt warm, the pain in your legs and jaw became a distant thing, and the hard knot behind your ribs softened enough for you to breathe. You leaned against him near the bar and started running your mouth telling a brand manager you hated the last perfume campaign they put you in because the dress made you look racist.
Naoya laughed fast and covered it with his hand on your lower back. “She’s joking.”
You smiled at him. “I wasn’t.”
His fingers pinched into your waist. “Sweetheart.”
The word meant stop.
And you did.
Then a few minutes later he excused the two of you and walked you down a short hall to a smaller room with a big bed, a couch, a low table, a locked cabinet, and city views behind opaque glass. He guided you inside and shut the door. “Stay here. I have to speak to some people.”
“About what?”
“Work.”
“Can I come?”
“You need to sit.”
His voice softened when your face changed. “I’ll be right back.”
You locked it after he left.
For a while, you sat on the couch with your phone in your lap. The room moved a little when you turned your head. The medicine made your body slow, but your mind kept picking at old memories.
Naoya at twenty, sitting beside you on the rehearsal room floor with his long legs stretched out and a convenience store bag between you. The studio clock had already crossed two in the morning. Your vocal coach had gone home. His father’s people had stopped calling after the fifth time he rejected the track list they wanted for you.
Neither of you had eaten since the day before.
He split instant noodles with you using the lid as a second bowl, then scolded you for burning your tongue even though he had burned his first. You laughed, and he had to cover your mouth because the night guard was sleeping outside. Naoya looked at you then, hoodie sleeves pushed up, hair falling into his eyes, and said, “I’ll take you to dinner anywhere after you sell out Tokyo Dome.”
You believed him because he said it before anyone else dared to.
Naoya sent flowers to your first real hotel room, not the cheap business hotel near the station but a suite with a bathtub too large for one person and a view you kept taking pictures of because you had never slept that high above the city before. White roses, your favorite snacks, a note written in his stiff handwriting: Don’t cry before the show. Your face swells.
You had cried.
After your first bad review, he found you sitting behind the recording booth with your knees to your chest, the magazine crumpled in your hand. He took it from you, read two lines, and threw it into the trash.
“They hate you because they can already see where you’re going,” he had said, holding your face between his hands. His thumbs were warm under your eyes. “People don’t review nobodies this hard.”
You had wanted to ask if he meant it.
He kissed your forehead before you could.
He used to call at three in the morning from company cars, hotel lobbies, family dinners he had escaped, just to ask if your throat hurt, if you had eaten, if the song still felt wrong in the second verse. Sometimes he said nothing for whole minutes. You would hear traffic on his end, his breathing, the click of his lighter before he remembered you hated the smell and put it away.
He used to wait outside the recording booth with a bottle of water already opened because your hands were too shaky from the tour stress to open the seal yourself.
He used to look at you as if the world had put something rare in front of him and he was the only person alive who knew how to keep it from breaking.
You got up to walk around and clear your head, then picked up a wine bottle from the minibar shelf. You poured a little into a glass. Then a little more. The small burn made your throat hurt, but it gave you something else to feel other than the crippling burnout.
You drank until the room felt less congested, even though you were alone.
You bent to unclasp your heels and got one foot free.
The door clicked. A keycard chirped against the panel.
You looked up, thinking Naoya was probably back.
Then remembered you had locked it.
Three men came in—one wore a loose suit and smiled at your legs before your face. Another shut the door behind him. The third said your name as if he had paid for it.
“Here you are,” he said. “Zenin said you were resting.”
You stood too fast and suddenly got hit with a dizzying spell. “My producer will be back.”
“That’s why we came now.”
Your stomach dropped. “Get out.”
The man near the door laughed. “We were told you were ready to meet.”
“I said no such thing. I don’t even know you.” Your voice cracked. “I’m calling Zenin-san.”
One of them took a step closer. “He knows.”
You grabbed your phone, but your fingers missed the screen. The room blurred around you, making you back away until your hip hit the table.
“You don’t know who you’re talking to. Zenin Naoya is my fiancé.”
“Then be nice for him.”
You screamed.
The first hand caught your arm. You pulled back and hit his chest with your glass. It slipped and broke near your feet. Someone cursed and made for your waist. You screamed again, louder, until your throat hurt.
The door hit the wall.
You flinched so hard your knees bent.
A man stood in the broken doorway. You saw black hair and a dark shirt. You couldn’t focus on his face as your vision got further blurred. One of the men let go of you.
“What the hell are you doing?” someone snapped.
The man from the hall answered with his fist.
You swear you heard bones cracking.
You stumbled past him even as the room turned into a cacophony of grunts and bodies hitting furniture.
You did not look back, just ran with one shoe on, one shoe gone, and hands dragging along the hallway walls to stay upright.
Naoya.
You needed to find Naoya.
They lied. They had to be lying.
Naoya got angry. Naoya pushed. Said cruel things when stressed.
But he would not hand you over to strangers.
He had put a ring on your finger, had chosen you. He had said ‘wife’ when you both talked about your future.
You made your way to the lift, and with worse vision, you smashed buttons that you could feel through your fingertips. Then ripped the remaining heel from your feet and threw it to the side.
The lift took you away from the floor you had been on.
You tried to keep your breathing down, trying to call Naoya, but his phone kept coming up out of reach.
The lift arrived at a floor that vaguely resembled a twenty-six on the big display when you stumbled out.
Your chest eased as soon as you heard his voice.
It came from the penthouse office near the end of the hall. The door was half cracked.
You reached for the handle, almost tripping on the carpet.
Kenjaku’s voice came first. “So when are you marrying the girlfriend?”
Naoya laughed.
Your hand froze.
“I’m not marrying her.”
The floor seemed to pull out from under your feet if you hadn't been holding the doorframe.
Kenjaku made an inquisitive sound. “That serious?”
“My father already found someone. Simple, traditional, good family. That kind of woman knows what the Zenin name means.”
“And your singer?”
“She’s useful.” Naoya sounded tired now, bored with the subject. “She isn’t worthy of the clan. If I marry her, they’ll cut me off. No inheritance, not even equity. They’ll hand more control to Megumi just to punish me.”
“I thought you guys were serious.”
No sound came from Naoya for a moment.
Then he laughed and said, “I love money more.”
Suddenly the door wasn't enough to keep you upright.
You waited for Naoya to laugh again, for him to say he was messing with Kenjaku. You waited for him to say he had been joking.
He did not.
The ringing in your ears got louder—his voice kept getting louder inside your skull. Your chest hurt and your face felt wet. You touched your cheek and looked at your fingers.
Tears.
You stepped back.
One step. Then another.
Your body moved before you decided anything. Your thoughts came late and broken—Naoya funding your demo, telling you what to wear, saying other people would use you, saying he was the only person who understood what you could become.
He had chosen your songs. Your stage name. Your trainer. Your doctors. Your interviews. Your friends.
He said he cared.
Had made every rule sound like love.
You walked down the hall in bare feet. Your shoulder brushed the wall, but your body felt none of it. You heard someone call your name from far away, but you kept moving because there was nowhere safe in the world for you anymore.
You picked up a bottle from a passing waiter.
Your pills were still in your dress pocket.
You felt at them in your palm for a long second. Your fingers shook, but you kept hearing your name again. It felt closer this time. A man’s voice like he was inside your skull, but it was drowned out by Naoya’s, “I love money more.”
You swallowed the pills with alcohol just to kill the voices.
Once you were downstairs at the party again, drunk, the bottle hit the carpet. You sat on the floor beside a couch and pulled your knees to your chest. Your tears kept coming, but your face did not move right. You cried without sound, and then even that stopped feeling real.
Someone came to you.
You tried to lift your head, but your neck felt weak.
“Hey, look at me.”
You stared at the man whose face you couldn't see.
He said your name again.
You wanted to ask if Naoya sent him, if the men were gone, or why your fiancé said he loved money more than you.
Your mouth opened, but words were too cheap to express the pain in your chest.
The next morning came in pieces.
A hotel bathroom—Momo wiping your face with a wet towel as Nobara cursed under her breath. Someone saying you needed sleep while another voice saying the label wanted a statement.
Naoya did not call.
You checked your phone until your eyes burned—no missed calls, texts, apologies, or drivers waiting downstairs, not even a voice note telling you to stop being annoying.
By noon, every entertainment page was running the same news.
Naoya Zenin stood beside a woman in a pale dress who had silky hair, a pretty old money smile, and family money. The caption said his family was pleased to announce his engagement.
Your ring was still on your finger.
You took it off in the bathroom and dropped it into the toilet. It hit the porcelain, and the sound made you gag.
People looked at you differently after that.
At meetings, men lowered their voices when you entered, and women from PR smiled in pity. Your manager asked if you wanted to take “personal time,” but only after reminding you how expensive it was to move tour dates.
You said you could work.
You stopped addressing Naoya’s name. You stopped checking news about him and stopped sleeping unless you had something to numb it all in your system first.
A week later, you walked into a recording session drunk enough that your words slurred. The new producer, Megumi, looked at your assistant. Your assistant looked at the floor.
“You good?” Megumi asked from the soundboard.
“I’m here, aren’t I?"
“That wasn’t the question.”
You laughed because it felt easier than telling him how his cousin uncle had torn your chest open and now you couldn’t sit alone with your thoughts because you couldn’t trust anyone anymore. "Ease up, CIA-san.”
Megumi’s jaw clenched, nobody laughed with you.
You sang the first take with your mouth dry and your head loose. Your voice cracked bad, and you had to laugh and ask to go again. The engineer hesitated before pressing record.
After that, it got normal.
You drank before fittings because standing still made you think. You took pills before interviews because not smiling in a haze made your chest tighten. Then you started mixing things because one thing by itself stopped working.
No one stopped you.
They just spectated.
Your makeup artists covered the dark lines under your eyes with concealer. Your manager kept mint gum in her bag. Drivers learned which back doors to use when you could not walk straight through a lobby.
Naoya smiled in public with his new fiancée.
Everyone clapped for him, for the picture of Japan’s most eligible bachelor finally settling down with his Cinderella.
You watched a video from a green room TV screen before a live show. He touched her waist the way he used to touch yours when cameras felt suffocating to you. He looked proud.
Someone beside you said, “I’m sorry.”
You turned your head slowly. “For what?”
They looked scared then.
You went onstage ten minutes later. You performed like a highly paid monkey with a smile.
That was enough for everyone.
A couple months later at a party you grabbed air, missing the car door.
Your heel slipped on the curb outside the hotel, and concrete rushed up.
A hand caught your waist before your knees hit the ground.
You heard someone curse near your ear. The grip was firm so he could hold you upright, but your body had already given up.
“Get her inside,” a man's voice said.
You tried to ask for your driver, but your tongue felt heavy and slurred.
Then the last thing you saw was a black shirt and taped fingers near your face.
The next morning you woke in a bed that was too large.
For a few seconds, you stared at the ceiling and waited for the room to magically be yours. It was not.
The sheets smelled nice, and you realized with dawning horror that your dress was gone.
You scrambled to check your underwear. It was gone too.
You lay under the blanket in an oversized black shirt that reached your thighs and nothing else.
You sat up too fast and almost threw up.
Yet your first thought was alcohol.
And the second was your phone.
You pushed the blanket back and looked around. There was water on the nightstand, some painkillers, and a folded towel. You ignored all of it and checked the drawers with hands that shook.
The door opened.
An androgynous person in a white kimono stepped in with a tray. They paused when they saw you half out of bed. “Good morning, ma’am.”
“Where are my clothes?”
“They were sent to cleaning. You were sick on them last night.”
Your face burned.
They set the tray down on a small table. “Female staff changed you after Mr. Itadori brought you in. Your belongings are in the dressing room, and your phone is charging.”
“Mr. Itadori?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
You knew the name after a few seconds—some J-rock band with all brothers that sold out stadiums with Sukuna and Yuji screaming into mics while their third brother sat behind them and looked half angry at the cymbals.
You had seen them around at shows, award nights, and afterparties. Had their dark-haired brother been the man in the doorway that night too? Maybe... The one with long hair. Your head hurt when you tried to remember it. “I need a drink,” you muttered, wincing.
The butler looked at the tray. “There is coffee.”
“I said a drink.”
“Breakfast first, ma’am.”
Your stomach growled at the mention of food.
So you ate at a long table in a robe one of the women brought you. You tried to eat in small bites, but hunger made you unmannered about it. Another woman smiled and refilled your tea without making a face.
The elevator opened after you finished half the plate.
Choso—you vaguely recalled—walked in from the lower floor in gym clothes, hair damp, and a towel over one shoulder. He looked at you, then at the empty bowl near your hand.
“You can keep the food down.”
He sounded surprised, which immediately made you irritable.
“That your greeting?”
“Yes.”
You crossed your legs under the robe. “I need my phone, my clothes, and a car. Also, whoever runs your household needs to learn boundaries.”
He pulled out the chair across from you and sat. “You were about to pass out on concrete outside a hotel at three in the morning.”
“I wear high heels. It happens.”
“You were drunk enough to choke on your own vomit.”
Your heart sank a little when he said it with that tone, but you smiled the way you did when interviewers asked about Naoya. “Are you this respectful with every woman you meet?”
His face barely moved. “Fix your shit.”
The words hit wrong in your chest. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You keep going this way, you die and become Japan's next Marilyn. Then people post clips for a week, and your label sells whatever songs you left behind until the end of time while someone else wears your costumes on a tribute stage.”
Your chair scraped back. “You don’t know me.”
“I know your team treats you like a liability. Know your hands are shaking from alcohol withdrawal. I also know Zenin’s people stopped paying attention because you aren't as profitable to him anymore.”
The breakfast tried to crawl out of your throat.
You stood up. “Where’s the door?”
He pointed toward the hall.
You went that way with your chin up. The hall turned into another hall. One door opened into a library. One into a linen room. Another needed a code. You found stairs that led to a gym, then a theater, then a locked service entrance.
You came back ten minutes later, sweating and furious.
Choso had a cup of coffee in front of him.
“I need to leave. Where's your goddam front door?”
“You stay here.”
You stared at him because there was no way you’d heard him correctly.
He stood with his coffee. “You need rehab, a doctor, and definitely real security. I’ll be gone for a few hours. My sister has female staff that will get you whatever you need. Except alcohol and an exit.”
“I’ll call my manager.”
“Your manager let you walk into parties wasted with a stalker following you.”
Your skin went cold.
He picked up his towel with his other hand. “One of my security staff noticed a man taking photos outside three different consecutive venues. Same van. Same fake badge. Last night he almost got inside your car.”
You gripped the back of the chair, color drawn away from your face.
“I handled it.” Choso’s voice softened a note. “You keep moving around drunk, and your skin ends up hanging in someone’s shed.”
You could hear your own heartbeat.
He looked tired then. Still angry, but tired under it. “Stay here and think about what you are going to do.”
After he left, a female staff member came back with tea and a change of clothes folded over one arm.
“You should eat more,” she said. “Please do not pay mind to him. His anger is fleeting.”
You sat because your knees felt weak, your hands starting to tremble with bloodcurdling fear. You tried to hide it but failed. “Is he usually that rude?”
She smiled a little. “He gets harsh when he is scared something bad’s going to happen.”
“I’ve never talked to him before.”
“He knows your music.” She placed the clothes beside you. “He joined his brothers’ band because of you.”
You looked up.
She lowered her voice. “The Zenin and Itadori families have problems going back more than a few generations of lineage. He never talked to you for that reason. Also because you were with Mr. Zenin.”
You looked at the hallway where Choso had gone.
The tea warmed your hands, but the rest of you felt unbearably cold in the unfamiliar house.
You spent the next hour looking for a way out and found nothing.
The penthouse had too many halls, and many of the doors needed codes. The elevator opened only when the androgynous butler pressed their thumb to the panel. You checked a service closet, a laundry room, two guest baths, and one door that led to a stairwell with another locked door at the bottom.
The female attendant—Aya—followed with tea in one hand and your phone in the other.
“You know I can call the police,” you muttered passive-aggressively, stomping away.
“You can.” She handed you the phone. “Do you want to?”
You stared at the screen.
No missed calls from Naoya.
You’d practically been kidnapped since last night, and he didn't care.
You shoved the phone into the robe pocket before your tears could fall. Not being able to numb anything out was messing with your emotions. You’d read somewhere that it happened after a while of substance abuse. “I want the exit.”
Aya pointed left. “That way.”
You went left and ended up in a record room.
It took a second for your eyes to settle in the dark. Wall shelves ran from floor to ceiling, filled with vinyl records that stood in clean rows behind glass. You saw Itadoris’ band first, then old punk records, some metal, old J-rock, city pop, and then your name.
Your first album in its first pressing—the one with the wrong color sleeve that had sold out in six minutes.
Next to it was your second album on clear vinyl. The overseas tour edition. A signed radio copy you did not remember signing. A test pressing your own label had told you was lost.
You stepped closer. “Wha-?”
Aya came in behind you. “He collects records.”
“Mine?”
“A lot of people collect yours.”
“Not this one.” You pointed at the test pressing. “Even I don’t have this one.”
Aya smiled at it. “He outbid a collector for it. Ryomen-sama yelled for three days.”
You checked the shelves and then his adjacent room for creepy memorabilia—photos, notes, lipstick-stained cups, anything weird. Practically upturned his whole room while Aya stood there smiling.
But there was nothing except records, sleeve covers, old ticket stubs from public concerts, and framed awards from Choso’s band.
You found no shrine, stolen clothes, printed screenshots, or even a concert costume.
Still, your face got hot.
“He is a fan,” Aya said.
“Fans don’t lock you in.”
She touched the glass case and looked at your records. “He has poor manners when frightened. The whole family does. Yuji-kun’s the only normal one, and even he once threw a chair through a vending machine because Megumi-san yelled at him for no reason. That reminds me, we had informed Megumi San about you being here.”
Your lips twitched unintentionally—you'd heard about those two but never had confirmation before.
Aya raised an eyebrow. “You look happy.”
Another security staff member came in with folded towels. Aya introduced her as Riko, and she had the fast mouth of someone who knew every secret in the building.
“Choso-san broke a door,” Riko said with a chest-puffed-up motion mimicking Choso while placing the towel like a bridge on the bed. “Like actual hard wood, not the cheap stuff. Clean in half.”
Aya clicked her tongue. “Don’t gossip.”
“He broke it?” you asked.
Riko nodded. “Ran from the garage because one of the security people called him. Didn’t even wear shoes. Security said they called lawyers because he looked ready to kill.”
Your heart gave a confusing reaction. You didn't understand men. Didn’t understand why one man could be so cruel, lying to you for years, and another you hadn’t even spoken to would show up disheveled and then lock you here.
The women kept talking about drivers, Sukuna firing a chef for serving cold eggs, and their sister stealing Yuji’s favorite guitar and pretending she had bought it first.
By late afternoon, you stopped checking every doorway.
You ate toast in the kitchen while Riko complained about rich people thinking coffee cups walked themselves to sinks. Aya cut fruits and told you which balcony had the best view of the red roses below.
You didn’t talk much. But you were relaxed because no one asked you about Naoya or gave you pitying smiles.
Choso came back after dinner had already been set at the table—soup, grilled fish, rice, and a small plate of pickled vegetables. You had planned to refuse all of it until your stomach embarrassed you again.
So you were already sitting down when he walked in, stopping near the chair across from you. He had changed into dark pants and a plain shirt that fell loose around his collarbone, and you quickly looked away before his eyes landed on you.
“You can leave,” he started.
You looked back up.
“I was wrong to stop you that way.” He pulled the chair out but did not sit yet. “I saw that glint in your eyes and reacted badly.”
“What glint?”
“My brother gets it during episodes.” His jaw moved once. “Sukuna. When he starts hunting for alcohol, when he needs to outrun his own thoughts. Doctors called it mania after he broke his hand punching a studio wall.”
You stayed still.
“Not saying you have it. But—" He ran a mildly frustrated hand through his hair as if searching for a way to put his words, then took a deep breath and sat down. “I just want to say that I’m sorry. You are an adult, and I'm no one to make those decisions for you."
You pushed rice around with your chopsticks. You should have snapped at him. You wanted to.
Instead, you took a bite because your hands needed something to do that wasn’t going to make things more awkward.
“I can arrange a car,” he said after a long moment of watching you eat. “Or drive you. Your choice.”
You swallowed. “You live here with your whole family?”
“We all have different floors.”
“That sounds nice.”
“It is.”
You almost smiled. “Who’s the worst?”
“Sukuna.”
Your lips relaxed without realizing. “Easy answer.”
“Uro is close.”
“Yuji?”
“Yuji apologizes to doors after bumping into them.”
“You look like you do the same.” You chuckled at your own joke softly.
Choso watched you with a small smile and didn't deny it, then looked down at his plate as if he had been caught.
Dinner went longer than it needed to. You asked about his band. He told you Sukuna and Yuji sang because neither of them could shut up long enough to play drums. You told him your old producer—Naoya—said rock made women sound vulgar.
Choso’s eyes lifted. “He’s stupid.”
You stared at him. He didn’t take it back.
After dinner, you asked, “Can you play something for me?”
His hand paused near his glass. “Now?”
“You have a music room, right?”
He took a sip of water, then stood and made his way to the room with you on his heels.
The music room sat one floor down. You heard a guitar before the door opened. Yuji sat on a stool with an electric guitar, fingers moving fast. He looked up, saw you, and almost dropped the pick.
“Oh my god.”
You smiled. “Hi.”
“I have your posters.”
“I have been told.”
Yuji covered his face. “That sounded creepy. I meant in a normal fan way.”
You smiled because he was sweating through the sentence despite having a record for the highest-selling shows in Japan. “Thank you.”
He packed up too fast, winked at Choso, and left before Choso could say anything. Choso glared at the closed door.
Then he sat at the drums.
The first hit went through your ribs.
You stood near the wall and forgot to hold yourself together. His arms moved with control, but the sound had bite—heavy kick, fast snare, and cymbals that made the space feel alive. It was rough in a way your label had spent years sanding out of you.
When he stopped, your throat hurt.
“That,” you cheered mildly. “That was beautiful Choso-san and what I wanted to do before Naoya found me.”
Choso rested the sticks on his thigh. “I heard about the engagement.”
The smile vanished from your face so quickly.
He looked guilty. Then you told him before he could apologize because your story needed witnesses too. You told him about the locked room he’d found you in that day, the office door, and the sentence Naoya had said about money.
Choso didn't interrupt you, offered water when you got teary-eyed, and listened to everything. It felt good to finally talk to someone about it. It helped sink in your body that it hadn’t all been in your head.
Choso’s fingers closed around a drumstick and opened his mouth after a long while of silence. “Did he reach out to you? Apologize?”
You tried to remember. “I don’t think he reached out.”
“You should drop his label.”
“I can’t. I was thirteen when my grandfather, my legal guardian then, signed me with them. He thought it was a chance for my dream to become a reality because he believed in my voice.
But it was all a trap. They own my catalog, stage name, schedule, image rights, and every contract after that that was and will be built since the first one.
Now I don’t even have my grandfather alive to go back to. It’s not for life on paper, but it might as well be.”
“You can. It will be ugly, but you can get out. Their contracts are known for traps—grooming, debt clauses, doctor control, dating bans, image rules. They bury artists who argue. And a senior of mine, who went to school with Naoya, is already working on an expos.”
“They are too powerful and well-connected.”
“I know.” He looked at the record shelves through the glass wall. “You deserve better than how they handle your discography.”
Your chest tightened for a different reason. “I do want to be independent. Don’t want to have to look at Naoya again.”
“I can help… If you are comfortable with that.”
You nodded before fear talked you out of it. “I’m scared to be alone since the party. My thoughts get dark. And hotels make them worse.
Then added under your breath, “Can I stay here for a few days? I’ll compensate you.”
You braced for polite rejection because that would have made sense. He didn't really know you. So in your head you were already deciding which hotel was least likely to trigger your C-PTSD to stay at.
But then he looked red. “Oh god, no need for that. And yes, you can stay.”
“In a room with a door I can open?” You asked with a pleading smile.
And Choso realized he had to keep his face neutral because you had such a sweet puppy face when you wanted something. Having never seen it before, he was caught off guard.
He relaxed his face into a small smile, and you noticed the tattoo across his nose crinkle with it. “Yes. You can stay in my sister’s wing.”
He walked you to the wing on the east side. Uro lived across the hall.
She had pink hair like Yuji's, but unlike Yuji, she had pink eyes too. She was wearing shorts, a tube top, red lipstick, and an expression that made it abundantly clear that she was Sukuna’s twin.
“She cries?” Uro asked Choso. “I don’t like women who cry. We should be out making men cry. I make my brothers cry daily.”
“Stop embarrassing me." Choso huffed an awkward laugh, slapping her arm inconspicuously. "And no. She sleeps like a log.”
Uro looked you over. “Fine. But if you cry, do it into a towel. These floors echo, and I’m not the emotional support sister.”
Choso sighed.
You held your borrowed clothes against your chest and nodded at her like that was a perfectly normal house rule.
She moved to let you pass.
You arranged your clothes in the attached but nearly empty guest walk-in closet and heard the two siblings bickering outside and saw Choso was getting teased by his older sister. His face was smiling unguarded, his pale cheeks red around his nose tattoo.
Choso was beautiful, you thought.
That night, you slept uncomfortably because the nightmares were persistent, but you’d tire yourself out, so it helped not wake you up too often.
By the second morning, Uro walked into your room without knocking, tossed three dresses on the bed, and said, “Wear the black one. The blue makes you look employed by a bank. Also, blue is bitch-ass Naoya’s color.”
“Can you please knock?” You mildly said it, annoyed but unable to show it out of respect because she had opened her home to you.
“Our older brother says knocking is for weak mortals.” She tsked, “I came here because Choso asked me to check if you were dead.”
You sat up against the pillows. “You could have at least not yelled.”
“I could have done many things.”
You wore the black dress that day.
You called your old therapist that afternoon, but you hung up when she started asking you suspicious questions.
So you found a doctor who worked with artists and touring crews in another country and seemed least likely to know you or tattle to Zenin Records. Then you took the therapy session over video call from the guest room with a blanket over your knees and your phone on speaker because holding it made your hand sweat.
The first session was hard—you cried, got angry, lied once or twice, then admitted you lied. After, Uro walked in with instant noodles and acted as if your swollen face wasn't in the room with them.
“Did it feel good?” she asked awkwardly despite clearly not being good with emotions.
You nodded, dabbing your tears away with the tissues.
“Now eat and praise my cooking.”
A wobbly laugh escaped you, not sure if it was because she genuinely expected praise for instant noodles or the fact that she was trying to sit near a crying person willingly.
Over the next few days, your schedule became calming in the way that helped. Since you were fresh out of a traumatic period that lasted months and could afford it, you had daily therapy in the late morning. Then you drank tea with Aya in the kitchen. After that, Uro dragged you into her office when she worked on her brother’s indie label files and let you sit on the couch while she cursed at paperwork.
Choso had rehearsals, meetings, shoots, calls, gym, and whatever family business everyone stopped talking about when you entered the room.
Still, he found time to eat at least one meal with you daily—breakfast, if he had morning time, or dinner, if he came back late. Sometimes he showed up with wet hair and drum tape still around his fingers, sat across from you, and ate rice in six bites.
“You chew?” you asked once.
“When needed.”
“You could choke.”
“You watch me eat a lot.”
You looked down at your bowl before your lips twitched. “You eat aggressively.”
“You stare aggressively.”
"Ugh," Uro groaned from the counter. “Get a room after she signs a waiver.”
Your ears burned. Choso kept eating, but the corner of his mouth moved.
One afternoon, he took you to the movies.
Uro treated it as a military operation. She stood in the middle of your room with three wigs, two pairs of sunglasses, and a tote bag full of clothes she claimed were “civilian-core.” Choso waited near the door with his arms folded, already wearing a dark baseball cap, sunglasses, and a mask.
“You look suspicious,” Uro told him, then put a wig on your head, stepped back, and smiled with too much pride. “Rich wine auntie at golf.”
You stared at yourself in the mirror. The color was wrong, the cut was worse, and somehow it worked.
She pushed sunglasses into your hand. “Don’t walk like yourself. You have that idol posture. Relax your shoulders. Make your face less approachable.”
Choso took you to a theater inside a shopping complex with too many escalators and a bakery near the entrance. You hadn’t been somewhere so ordinary in years. The air smelled of butter, coffee, perfume testers, and damp umbrellas drying near the doors. People walked past without looking twice. Choso kept half a step behind you in the crowd until you slowed.
“You can walk beside me,” you told him.
He looked down at you through the sunglasses. “I didn’t want to crowd you.”
“You look like you are stalking me.”
“Sorry.” He moved beside you.
At the ticket machine, he bent slightly because the screen sat too low for him. You watched him frown at the seat chart. “They only have seats left in the back row.”
“It’s fine.” You reassured him with a small smile, then asked. “And the movie?”
“Yuji said this one has a dog. He cried during the trailer, so it’s probably good.”
You chuckled a little, and Choso’s shoulders eased. He bought the tickets with cash. Then popcorn and a drink because he asked what you wanted and waited while you changed your mind twice. He carried everything himself, even when you reached for the tray. “I can hold popcorn.”
“I know.”
“Then give it.”
“You’ll spill it when someone recognizes you.”
“You think I’m that fragile?”
“I think this bucket is.”
You made a small sound of offense, and he finally handed it over. His fingers brushed yours at the cardboard rim. The contact lasted less than a second, but your body still registered it before your head could make sense of why.
Inside the theater, the back row was mostly empty. Choso stepped aside so you could take the inner seat, then paused. “This okay?”
You nodded.
The seats were made for normal people, which meant his knees had nowhere reasonable to go. He tried to fold himself into the chair and failed with dignity for about thirty seconds.
“You look comfortable,” you whispered, eyeing his too long legs.
“I’m fine.”
“Are your legs losing circulation?”
“My legs understand sacrifice.”
The trailers started. A phone screen lit up three rows below. Someone opened candy with the subtlety of a construction crew. You tried to focus on the screen, but for the first few minutes your body stayed busy counting heads, doors, dark corners, and the distance to the aisle.
Choso didn’t comment. He placed the popcorn bucket between you and leaned back, giving you room without making a performance of it. When a loud trailer hit too suddenly, your fingers tightened around the armrest. A second later, he nudged the drink closer to your side.
You took it. He kept looking at the screen.
By the time the movie started, your breathing had settled. The dog appeared fifteen minutes in. You ate popcorn slowly at first, then faster once the salt got addictive. Choso barely touched it. He watched the movie with such severe focus that you believed he cared deeply about the dog’s journey through rural train stations. Halfway through, your hand brushed his inside the bucket.
You pulled back. He continued to stare at the screen. “You can take the popcorn. I’ll survive.”
“You sure? You seem fragile.”
“I break doors often.”
The corner of your mouth twitched.
He glanced over, caught it, and had the nerve to look pleased.
You reached for the popcorn again. “I can’t remember the last time I saw a movie like this with other people around."
“What, Blondie never climbed down from his high horse to take you?” he asked, popping one kernel into his mouth.
You shook your head. “There were premieres. Screenings. Rooms full of people checking who I sat with.”
Choso’s brows scrunched. “That sounds miserable.”
“It was normal.”
He looked at you then. The screen threw moving color across his face, and his voice came lower. “It shouldn’t have been.”
You looked back at the movie before your throat could tighten. The dog had found a child by then.
Choso’s hand came back into the bucket after yours. His knuckles touched your fingers.
This time, he left it there. He didn’t close his hand or hook his fingers around yours. He gave you the contact and left the rest of the decision sitting in the dark between your seats.
You waited through one breath. Then another. Then you let your fingers rest against his.
His thumb moved once, barely there, against the side of your hand.
The dog made it home near the end, of course. Yuji had been right to cry. You blamed the wig for itching near your lashes when your eyes stung.
Choso handed you a napkin without looking over.
“You’re crying too,” you whispered.
He then realized he was and quickly covered his face with the mask, his ears red, making you huff out a small chuckle.
After the credits, neither of you got up right away. People left around you, talking too loudly, stepping over bags, and arguing about dinner. Choso waited until the crowd thinned, then stood and offered his hand, then almost pulled back.
You took it before he could.
His palm was warm, rough near the base of his fingers. He held yours loosely all the way down the steps, then let go in the lobby where people could see better.
Outside, the bakery had started marking down pastries for the evening.
You stopped in front of the glass.
Choso followed your eyes. “You want one?”
“You ask that as if I’m capable of saying no to discounted cake.”
He bought a few slices for you and his siblings and a paper bag of melon pan because the cashier recommended it. You ate yours in the car with the wig slightly crooked and cream on your thumb. He pretended he had missed it until you caught him staring. “What?”
“You have cream.”
You wiped the wrong side of your mouth.
His hand lifted, then stopped halfway. “Can I?”
You nodded.
He used a napkin carefully at the corner of your lip.
The car narrowed down to him concentrating on your mouth and his breath low near you.
“We can do a movie night whenever we’re free,” he said, folding the napkin once before setting it aside. “Or go out again. Your choice.”
You looked down at the cake box in your lap, smiling before you could bury it. “Only if Yuji keeps choosing movies by dog content.”
“I’ll tell him his system works.”
Outside, the city moved past the tinted window. Inside, Choso sat beside you with his knees angled badly again, guarding the pastry bag as if someone might steal it.
Your fingers found his on the seat between you.
After that, your mind changed its habits.
It still went to Naoya in odd moments. When your phone buzzed, when someone talked about your label, when a man laughed behind a closed door.
Memories weren't going to be easy to get rid of, and your therapist had taught you how to deviate from them instead of thinking they’d stop outright because that'd be unrealistic.
And the therapist's suggested techniques helped because slowly the thoughts arrived weaker each time and found less place to stick to.
You felt guilty about that.
Forgetting your first love. The person you thought you’d marry. Spend the rest of your days with.
But Naoya had left you to be humiliated in public. He had smiled with another woman while telling your team to hide bottles and pills. He’d used more than a decade of your hard work, your face, and your hunger to be loved.
Still, some part of you kept looking for the man who had once brought you soup during flu week and napped on the studio floor beside you.
Naoya had been sweet in the beginning.
That part scared you because Choso was sweet too.
What if you were being manipulated again? Would you even recover this time?
But where Naoya used to perform PR voices in public, Choso was blunt and barely answered people he didn't care about, and when he tried to be polite, it looked painful.
He forgot soft words sometimes. Then he came back, tried again, fixed what he had done wrong, and did not repeat his mess-ups. He noticed when you skipped meals, asked before touching your arm.
Naoya’s family had looked at you and seen a problem. Choso’s family met you during the worst week of your life, then saved you a seat at dinner and teased their brother about you like you were already a part of it.
Even if it broke, you thought, it would break clean.
They had helped you. Choso had helped you. So even if nothing came of it, and you packed your things next week and left before your heart got worse, you would still be in a better place than you had been after Naoya. You had therapy now and people who noticed when you stopped eating. You had resources to manage your episodes, exits, and choices.
It honestly scared you.
You started writing at night.
At first, you wrote lines on stationery from Choso’s desk. Then in your notes app. Then in the music room, at the piano, with Choso sitting by the drums and saying nothing unless you asked.
The songs came out different than your usual ones—less polished, more direct. You wrote about locked doors, stage lights, borrowed shirts, hands that caught you before concrete, and a man who treated breakfast as a promise to get you through the night.
And due to your hypomanic episode, by the end of the third week, you had an album.
At Sunday dinner, Yuji begged to hear one song. Uro told him to stop begging because it made the family look poor. Sukuna, whom you’d met for the first time, sat at the head of the table, covered in a lot more tattoos than Choso, looking annoyed, and half turned away from everyone, but even he looked at you when you opened your laptop.
Your hands shook when the track started.
Your voice filled the dining room, bare at first, then heavy with acoustic guitar Yuji added alongside your piano. The chorus had grit, and the bridge nearly broke. It sounded older than your radio songs, but it also sounded more like you.
When it ended, nobody spoke for a second.
Yuji wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “That was sick.”
Uro pointed her chopsticks at him. “Stop ugly crying, Lychee-dori.”
Sukuna leaned back. “Your label rejected music like this?”
You nodded, a little hesitant. Sukuna was a man of a truck stature—you were bound to be nervous. “Naoya said it would hurt my market.”
“He was protecting his cut.” Sukuna picked up his water glass and sipped. “I know a lawyer. Mean woman. Expensive. She’s gotten artists out of worse contracts before breakfast.”
You stared at him with many emotions climbing up your throat.
Setting the water glass down, he stretched his neck. “Meet her. Or keep feeding the Zenins’ money. Your choice.”
“Nii-san,” Choso stared at his brother, worried about Sukuna’s tone.
“What? You wanted help. I’m helping.”
You chuckled, and this time it came out without effort. You thanked Sukuna after that.
Dinner ran late. Yuji talked about guitar parts. Uro argued with Sukuna over Itadori's latest album release control. Choso refilled your water before your glass emptied. You ate until you were full and stayed at the table after the plates were cleared because leaving while everyone was still there talking over celebratory ice creams felt wrong.
Later, he walked with you on the rooftop.
The air was the cool midnight breeze of summer. You wore his jacket because he had put it over your shoulders.
“I… I think I have feelings for you,” you said before you lost nerve for the nth time.
He stopped beside the railing, turning to you.
“I’m scared, Choso. I don’t trust my own judgment well anymore.” You fidgeted with your hands in the jacket pockets, looking below the railing at passing cars. “Naoya was good to me in the beginning too. Or I thought he was. I can’t tell which parts were real.”
Choso nodded. “Then take your time.”
Your throat clenched. “You’re okay with waiting?”
“I waited before you knew my name.”
You lifted your eyes to his warm brown ones.
His face stayed calm, but his ears went red.
You smiled, eyes shifting to the column of his neck because you couldn't keep eye contact right now. “That was smooth.”
“I panicked.”
“Say more things when you panic.”
He looked away. “Go inside before I embarrass myself.”
You smiled and nodded, turning to leave.
You were a few steps ahead when Choso called your name.
You stopped and looked back. He stood with his jaw set and eyes on the ground before they lifted to you.
“Can I kiss you? Only if you want," he asked in a low voice, seemingly nervous. “You can say no. I won’t mind.”
Your breath hitched.
His hair moved in the wind, black strands loose around his face. The tattoo across his nose pulled your eyes there again, then his mouth, then the open collar of his black shirt where his throat moved when he swallowed. He looked tense, as if asking had taken more nerve than breaking that door.
You swallowed and nodded.
He came closer with care. His hand touched your waist through the jacket, light so that you could step away if you changed your mind. His other hand reached your chin, and your pulse skipped when he tilted your face up.
You closed your eyes.
He waited.
He admired your features, the slight change in your breathing when his arms brought you closer.
It didn’t seem right.
You waited with your heart thudding against your smaller ribcage.
Then his lips touched your forehead.
Your eyes opened. A tear slipped down before you could have hidden it.
He pulled back immediately. “Did I—”
You grabbed him around the waist and buried your face against his warm chest. His shirt smelled clean and expensive, with cedar, soap, and a little sweat from the long day. His arms came fully around you after a second, firm but easy to leave, a hand moving up to your hair.
You cried harder because he had asked, then waited, then kissed your forehead after you told him you were scared when people in your life had constantly manipulated and lied around you, destroying your personal boundaries and sense of self.
He walked you to your room after and sat near you until you fell asleep.
A few days later, people started taking photos.
You and Choso at a late-night ramen place with caps pulled low. You and Choso leaving a theater through the back exit. You and Choso in his car while Uro yelled at a valet for scratching her door.
You moved back to your house when your therapist said it would help to reclaim your own space. Choso drove you home the first night and checked every window and alarm and even ordered groceries and stocked them before leaving.
The first night was hard because every surface reminded you of Naoya.
So you practiced the techniques your therapist had taught you, and when they didn't help fully, you put on the TV on a soft-spoken kid’s cartoon channel in a language you didn't understand with good volume to fill the silence, which helped you fall asleep with fewer nightmares.
After that, you spent weekends at Choso’s penthouse, and he came over for dinner every week whenever his schedule was open.
You kissed him properly two weeks after the rooftop.
It happened in the music room after he played drums for a track you were building. You walked over, took his face in your hands, and kissed him before fear could make a speech. He froze for half a second, then kissed you back with both hands on your waist and his thumbs still.
His lips tasted like hojicha vanilla, kuromitsu, and dark cherry from the monaka he’d brought you earlier. Sweet first, then warm and boozy at the back of your tongue, with that deep cherry taste still under it.
You moved your fingers into his hair and pulled him closer. He was sitting, so his face tilted up toward yours, his jaw brushing the neckline of your shirt from the angle. The sound he made was low and rough, something you had not heard from him before.
Then his hands tightened, and he pulled you down into his lap.
You broke the kiss just enough to breathe.
His eyes stayed on your face. “Okay?”
You nodded.
His thumb moved once at your waist. “Use words.”
“Yes,” you said, a little breathless. “It’s okay.”
Only then did he kiss you again.
You brought it up one night while you were sitting on his lap on your couch, and when his mouth had moved to your jaw, he stopped with his forehead near your shoulder. “Why do you ask me for consent so formally, Choso?”
“I was scared that night,” he answered breathlessly.
You opened your eyes. “Which night?”
“At the hotel.” His voice stayed low. “I wasn’t supposed to be there. I don’t go to those parties unless I have to. I was looking for Yuji because he’d called me to pick him up and then fallen asleep. I kept trying his cell, but it was so loud I couldn't hear him, so I went upstairs hoping for better service.”
Your fingers slowed in his hair.
“Then I heard you scream." His eyes lowered to the coffee table as if looking through the memory. “I knew it was you.”
“You recognized my voice?”
He looked embarrassed then, almost angry with himself for saying it. “I listen to your records.”
You waited.
“A lot. Most days while commuting. I’d recognize your voice anywhere,” he added. “That was all. I hadn’t been trying to know you. I didn’t think I had the right.” His jaw worked once. “Zenin looked good for you from far away. I thought you were loved. Thought staying away was better.”
Your chest hurt.
“Then I heard your bloodcurdling scream. And I didn’t think. I just knew I couldn’t let them hurt you.”
You touched the tattoo across his nose with your thumb.
He went still under your hand, warm licorice eyes meeting yours.
“You didn’t let me down.” You smiled, your thumb tapping his nose.
His mouth pressed into a line, his nose scrunching up with the frown. “I almost did.”
“No.” You leaned in until your forehead touched his. “You came.”
After that, for months, you both fooled around in pieces, away from prying eyes—his hand under your shirt on the couch, your mouth at his throat in the elevator, his voice rough in your ear when you teased him too long.
He still asked.
Sometimes you laughed and told him to stop being so formal. He said he would rather sound stupid than scare you.
You understood him.
Then the rumors started getting out of hand during the court filings.
Then Naoya came back from wherever he’d been overseas.
You heard it first from Uro, who video called you with sunglasses on her head and said, “Bitch-ass Zenin has landed. His family probably threatened him to clean up his mess.”
“I don’t think he’ll come to see me.” You knew what she meant without asking. “He hasn't contacted me, remember?"
“Still, it’d be foolish not to be careful.”
The next morning, you sat in a makeup chair before a music video shoot. Momo worked around your eyes while Nobara argued with Wardrobe near the door.
The door opened hard.
Naoya walked in a navy suit as if he still owned you.
Momo’s brush stopped.
“Sweetheart,” he grinned.
You looked at him through the mirror. “Please leave, Zenin-san.”
He smiled at the staff. “Give us a minute.”
Nobody moved.
His smile thinned. “I said, 'A minute.'"
Nobara folded her arms. “We are running late for the shoot.”
Naoya came closer nevertheless. His hand landed on your shoulder, and familiar hands now felt strange and cold. Your stomach turned, and your body was tired of being scared, being at others' mercy to live or die.
You owned nothing because of this man—even the house you went back to wasn't yours. He could kick you out to the curb whenever he pleased, record or not.
Naoya had been nothing but a leech, sucking you dry, hollowing you out every day since you were thirteen.
So this time it chose differently without thinking.
You stood up so fast you knocked the chair back.
“Don’t touch me.”
His face softened. “I understand that you’re upset but this isn't a way to talk—"
“You understand?”
“I should have called.”
You laughed once. It sounded ugly. “You groomed me my whole life for your business plan. For your family to take you seriously. You even pretended to care for me and fed me drugs from your uncle and called them meds.”
His eyes widened, his smug smile slipping.
“I had them checked.” After years of repressing yourself, bending to his every whim, every wish, and every rule, you were yelling now, unable to control it. “They weren’t what you said they were.”
His glare hardened. “Careful.”
“You left me in that room.”
“I did what?”
You scoffed and reached for your phone, pressing the emergency button, which would send your location. “Just stop talking and leave.”
Naoya grabbed your arms. His grip was hard. “Who told you that?”
Momo and Nobara grabbed his shoulders, trying to pry him off you, yelling his name and calling for security.
You tried harder to pull free, but the fear started crawling up your throat when his grip tightened.
“You left me there,” you said. “At the hotel. You said people wanted to meet me, then locked me in a room, and they came in.”
Your throat was a traitorous thing. It hiccuped even when you screamed, “You basically sold me off, Naoya.”
Your tears started falling freely, uncaring of your heart. “All I did was love you, Naoya, and you just… sold me off.”
His face went pale under the studio lights. “I didn’t send anyone.”
“Let me go!”
“I swear I didn’t.” His fingernails dug into your skin. “Who touched you?”
The door hit the wall.
Choso crossed the room before anyone could register. His hand closed around Naoya’s throat and drove him back against the vanity, breaking the glass. Nobara grabbed your wrist and pulled you behind her.
Naoya choked out something you could not hear.
Choso leaned in, voice low. “Use your hands on her again and I’ll break them first.”
Gojo, who'd arrived behind Choso, stood in the doorway with his phone to his ear, looking less amused than you had ever seen him.
“Yeah,” he said into the call. “Run it. All of it.”
Security came in. Nobara kept you behind her while Momo wrapped a jacket around your shoulders. Choso only let go when Gojo touched his arm.
Then Choso turned, lifted one arm toward you, and you walked straight into it.
You buried your face in his chest and sobbed while he held you. His body stayed between you and Naoya, who was being dragged out by security but still looking at you with an unreadable expression.
Choso didn’t look away until the man was out of sight.
The first article went live within an hour. The documents followed throughout the day.
Sukuna’s lawyer, along with Gojo’s news media network, released everything, he had been working on because he felt responsible for putting you in danger by encouraging Naoya that day when you had been nothing but nice to him every time you'd met—the contracts, the pills, the dating clauses, the forged medical notes, and even payments tied to hotel rooms, investors, party lists, and Zenin security logs.
Your hands shook as you read. Gojo stood near Choso and spoke in a low voice, explaining that they had already been building the case. This only gave them the timing they needed. It also helped move Megumi’s inheritance claim faster.
Naoya had lied about almost everything.
Maybe he had lied about that room too.
Choso stayed with you that night.
Then the next one.
Then three more.
You stopped working, and for once in your life, nobody made you feel guilty about it. Choso rubbed ointment into the bruises on your arms with his jaw tight and his hands careful. He said little, but every time your breath caught, he stopped.
“Too much?”
“No.”
He stayed near you when the nightmares started coming back. You’d wake up sweating, reaching for a door that was not there, and Choso came in from the guest room across the hall every time you called.
Then one night you asked him to sleep in the same bed, he did, and you still woke up shaking.
On the fifth morning, he stood by your bed with messy hair and tired eyes.
“Move in with me.”
You stared at him.
“Your house has too many memories. You can’t sleep there.”
You wanted to argue but you knew he was right. Naoya was in every room of your house. His clothes were gone, but his memories weren’t something you could pack into neat little boxes and hide in an attic.
So you moved in.
Choso gave you space without making it feel like distance. He arranged for a mental recovery rehab-like environment with meals on time, therapy, music, warm baths, clean sheets, and evenings with Uro and Yuji.
Locked doors you could open from the inside.
Slowly, your body stopped waiting for another jump scare, stopped waiting to be punished.
A month later, Choso took you abroad, where nobody cared who you were unless they cared about Japanese music. Some people still recognized you, but they were mostly respectful and far in between, and if someone seemed suspicious, Choso’s cold glare and his security detail were enough to deter them. You got to walk through record stores, ate late, slept in a hotel room with one keycard each.
One night, you kissed him first.
You wanted him. That part was easy.
Then, halfway through, fear came up so fast your body stiffened under him.
Choso stopped at once. “Look at me.”
You did.
“I’m here,” he said, voice rough, but his hands stayed soft. “We’ll stop.”
You cried yourself to sleep into his chest that night, feeling like the label had taken more than your voice.
Two days later, you had a nice uplifting day and thought of riding the high and trying again.
Earlier, you’d put on a nice dark set in the hotel room bathroom after dinner. Choso had taken off his rings before washing his hands. You noticed the plain care of it, the way he dried between his fingers with a towel before coming back to you.
You sat on the edge of the bed in one of his shirts. He stood in front of you, close enough for your knees to touch his thighs.
“You sure?” he asked.
You reached for his belt instead of answering.
His hand caught yours, firm for one second, then loose. “Words.”
Your face heated, and you looked to his chest. “I want you.”
He swallowed thickly. “Good.”
Choso bent and kissed you, slow at first, until your hands stopped shaking against his waist. He tasted faintly of mint and tea. His raven hair brushed your cheek when he lowered himself over you, and the mattress dipped under his weight. He was careful with where he put his knees, careful with his elbows near your ribs, careful in a way that made the rest of him feel more dangerous because you knew he was choosing restraint every second.
You pulled him closer by the back of his neck.
His mouth moved from yours to the corner of your jaw, then down your throat. He paused there when your body tensed.
His head resting on yours, “Talk to me.”
“I’m okay.”
“That sounded weak.”
You huffed a weak laugh. “You’re annoying.”
“Still want me to stop?”
You looked at his face above yours. His eyes had gone darker shades of brown, his hair falling loose around his jaw, his mouth swollen from kissing you.
You knew he wanted you, knew it by the bulge in his pants lightly hovered above your navel and the way his fingers pressed into the sheets instead of grabbing you.
Your body knew that kind of want could turn ugly, but your head knew Choso had stopped already and would do it again. The two facts sat badly together inside you.
“Go slower,” you said.
He nodded. “I can do that.”
He kissed your forehead before he touched you again. Then he moved down your body with a kind of focus that made your breath catch. His hands stayed open on your skin, palms warm, thumbs moving only when you leaned into it. Never digging in.
When he undressed you, he did it piece by piece and checked your face often. The air felt cool against your chest. When his mouth took your nipple in, pinching the other, your back arched.
Your eyes rolled back, his eyes watching your face when your breathing hitched and you moaned his name softly.
His name sounded like nectar from your lips, soft and sweet enough to make his grip tighten on the sheet near your hip.
He briefly unlatched to speak and switch nipples. “Say it again.”
You did, softer this time, fingers in his hair, bringing him flushed against you.
He made a rough sound against your skin and pulled back to look at you. “You don’t know what that does to me.”
“Then show me.”
For a second, something in his face changed. He looked almost pained by the effort it took to stay careful.
Then he kissed you again, deeper now, his body pressing yours into the mattress without trapping you there. His hands squeezing your boobs and pinching your nipples. You felt the hard length of him against your thigh and reached to touch him through the clothes.
His breath broke against your mouth. “Don’t tease me.”
“I’m not.”
His eyes lifted to your lips again. “You are.”
"Thought you were strong enough to break doors.”
His smile curved into a smirk. “Brat.”
The word made heat pool low in your stomach. You flushed before you could hide it, and he saw.
His mouth came back to yours with more heat, his hand sliding under your knee to bring your leg around him. He held you there, chest rising hard, dark eyes fixed on your face.
“You keep making that sound.”
Your face went hot. “What sound?”
His thumb pressed into the outside of your thigh, slow to make you feel the strength in his hand. Years of drums had made his palms rough in places, his grip firm even when the rest of him looked close to breaking.
“That one,” he said when your breath hitched. “I heard you sing for years. I didn’t know you sounded like this.”
You tried to look away.
Choso caught your chin, careful but firm. “Don’t hide from me.”
The words went straight to your core. The tattoo across his nose moved when his mouth brushed yours again, and you held onto his shoulders because there was too much of him above you, his neck warm under your lips, his stomach tense where your hand had slipped beneath his shirt.
“You keep touching me there,” he whispered next to your ear.
“You have a terrible habit of working out your abs.”
His mouth twitched. “That’s my fault?”
“Yes.”
He looked down at you for a long second, then sat back against the pillows and pulled his shirt over his head.
You stared, startled.
His shoulders were broad from years behind a kit, arms cut from motion instead of just gym vanity, stomach muscles so tight that your fingers curled into the sheet.
You reached out, then pulled your hand back when embarrassment caught up.
Choso took your wrist and placed your palm against his skin.
“Take what you want.”
You climbed over with shaky pride and kissed the side of his neck, biting until his head tipped back. His hand settled at your hip, guiding without forcing.
He carefully manhandled you into sitting on his stomach while he lay down below you.
When you dragged your pussy against his abs experimentally and gasped, he went firm under you for one beat, then his fingers dug into your waist.
“You like that?”
“Shut up.”
“No.”
You tried to move away. He held you there, not enough to trap you, just enough to make your body admit what your mouth refused.
“Be nice.”
You made that ruinous puppy face at him again, seemingly unaware of your ways, like the first day he’d brought you home. The difference was this time you were on top of him and said, "Please, Choso.”
And who was he to deny you. "Go on.”
Your breath broke its rhythm on the next roll of your hips.
His eyes darkened. “Keep going.”
You ground your clit against the hard ridges of him in a messy roll.
Your hips started picking up speed with each drag as he watched you, his hands moving now and then to squeeze your waist or breasts or flick your nipples or clit.
Every time he flicked it, a jolt went through your body, making your head tip back in ecstasy. Slowly gaining confidence, your hips dragged against him more lewdly, and your breathless whines started slipping out more freely.
Your orgasm kept building, but every time you reached the edge, you lost it.
Choso noticed the furrow between your brows and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Legs,” you whined. “Hurt.”
The next second, his hands were on your hips, dragging you against him. His pace was exactly what you needed, grinding you harder against his abs until your body twitched violently and you came all over his stomach, covering his abs in your juices.
When you collapsed on top of him, boneless from exhaustion, he knew he could later come from that alone, but he honestly didn’t want to.
“You okay, baby?” he asked instead.
You hummed and hid your face in his neck. He’d never used a nickname before. It made your heart flutter, along with your pussy, which was still pulsing from the orgasm right on top of his painfully hard cock.
By the time he laid you back down, your thighs were shaking and his control looked worse. He kissed your mouth, your throat, and the place below your ear that made your whole body arch into his. His hand moved between you.
A finger slid in with the same focus he had at the drums, patient rhythm first, then pressure when your hips started answering him.
You caught his wrist, panic rising out of habit.
He stopped moving at once. “Too much?”
You shook your head, but he waited.
“I’m scared,” you said, hating how weak it sounded.
Choso bent and kissed your forehead. “Then we’ll slow down.”
“I don’t want you to stop.”
“I know.”
His voice had gone rough, but his hand stayed still until your grip eased. When his fingers curled inside you again, he watched your face instead of his own hunger. He watched you closely, learning you by responses and not demands—like what made your knees pull in, made your back arch, made your voice louder in the room.
The first time you came on his single finger, he covered your mouth with his and swallowed the sound like it had to be housed inside him.
The second time, on two fingers, he cursed into your shoulder and bit down on the skin, his hips slowly grinding against your leg.
The third time, on four fingers, he looked almost angry from wanting you so badly and still refusing to rush.
“Choso, I nh—" You lost your thought in the haze and had to pause and try again. “I—uh—want more.”
He laughed breathlessly. “Yeah? Go ahead. Use your words.”
“You—hah—inside.”
His mouth dragged along your jaw, his hair brushed your cheek. He was warm everywhere, skin flushed under your hands, his sticky stomach tightening when you touched him lower.
When he reached toward the nightstand, he paused and looked back at you.
“Condom,” he said.
The word grounded you more than any promise could have. Naoya had treated your body like another part of his contract. Choso tore the packet open with his teeth, then stopped himself, exhaled hard, and used his hands properly because even now, half-feral and breathing hard, he would not get careless with you.
You reached for him.
He came over you slowly, one forearm braced near your head, the other hand holding your thigh at his waist.
His mouth came back to yours with more heat, his hand sliding under your knee to bring your leg around him.
“Look at me.”
You did.
When he entered you, he moved with care that made your eyes sting. But he was still big and girthy, and the pressure made your fingers dig into his back. He stopped before you had to ask.
“Breathe.”
“I am trying.”
“You’re arguing, baby.”
A soft laugh slipped out of you, teary but true nonetheless. His mouth softened against your cheek.
It still scared you halfway through. The pressure, the weight, the closeness. Your nails dug into his shoulder, and your breath caught in your chest.
Choso halted at once.
He did not pull away fast enough to startle you. He held himself still, muscles tight under your hands, forehead lowered near yours.
“Stay with me,” he whispered. “Look at me.”
You opened your eyes.
“There.” His voice had gone rougher, but it stayed steady. “I’ve got you. We can stop.”
You swallowed. “I don’t want to stop.”
“Then we’ll wait.”
You wanted to cry from that because it felt like you didn't deserve him. Your face scrunched up, letting a few tears slip.
He stayed there inside you, unmoving, one hand braced beside your head and the other rubbing slow circles at your hip. He kept his body over yours without using it against you. His breath warmed your cheek. The room smelled of mint, sex, his skin, and the room-freshening perfume the hotel used.
After a while, your body came back to you.
You touched his face. “Okay.”
He studied you for another second before moving again. Slower and deeper only when you pulled him down and asked. The fear loosened by degrees, replaced by heat, then the pleasure of him filling you up, then the strange relief of wanting him and being allowed to want him without a hidden clause around it.
"You're so warm inside, baby.”
He groaned against your lips, trying to keep himself under and not embarrassingly come from just this—the first time he was going to have sex with his favorite idol. Then because all his blood had rushed down south and his brain cells were now on vacation, “Have I ever told you how sexy you are?”
Your cheeks got hotter when he stared directly into your eyes, saying those words.
“Stop talking.”
Choso laughed. It was a breathy sound that you instantly fell in love with.
Once he was fully in, filling you with a welcome stretch, he didn't pick up the pace immediately.
Instead, he kissed you deeply, his tongue moving with yours, his hips fighting to start grinding in.
When you told him to move, he did, slow enough that your body had time to accept him instead of bracing against him. His forearm stayed planted beside your head, his other hand firm at your hip, thumb rubbing there as he eased into a rhythm that made your breath come apart in small pieces.
Soon he grew bolder, pulling back just enough to push in deeper. A loud moan climbed up your throat, and when you tried to smother it with your palm, he caught your hand and kissed it instead.
Choso watched your face the whole time.
That made it worse—harder to hide from him.
Every time your brows pulled together, he slowed. Every time your hips chased his, he gave you a little more, deeper until your fingers locked behind his neck and pulled him down because you needed his weight, his mouth, the heat of his chest against yours.
His hair fell around you, brushing your cheek when he kissed you. The tattoo across his nose creased when he grunted, and his dark brown eyes kept dropping to your mouth whenever you tried to swallow a sound.
“Don’t do that,” he muttered.
You blinked up at him, dizzy.
“Sing for me.”
Your face burned, but he rolled his hips again before you could form a sentence, and it came out as a moan, and he praised it by shifting closer. You could feel his cock hit the right spots that had your back arching and vision going blurry. All that was audible were the sounds you were making, hip slapping, and your pussy squelching around his cock.
His arm shook near your head because everything about you was like a siren’s call to him. You were writhing under him, calling his name, dragging him under. He'd never even dared to dream of this. His fingers tightened on your body, then loosened right away. He reminded himself that wanting you did not mean to forget himself.
“Fuck,” he said against your mouth. “Your voice.”
You kissed him because you did not know what to do with the way he said it, low and almost hurt.
He let you have the kiss for a few seconds, then broke it only to press his mouth to your cheek, your jaw, and the corner of your lips—his hips never relenting, but increasing the pace had your brain going fuzzy.
“My girl,” he groaned against your hair. “My baby. You have no idea what you do to me.”
Your nails dragged into his back, making him shudder. The movement sent shivers through his back into his hips. The pace slipped rougher for a moment, and pleasure sparked up your spine so fast your legs tightened around him.
“There?” he asked, his breath uneven.
You nodded, then remembered to say it. “Yes, baby. There.”
He made a sound so loud that it vibrated through your chest.
His mouth found yours again when you got louder, swallowing the cry without smothering it. He kept the angle because you had asked for it. He kept himself under control even while his abdomen hardened against your stomach, his shoulders tense under your palms, his voice breaking into rough praise each time you took him deeper.
“Good,” he breathed. “So good for me. I used to hear you sing and think that was enough.” An animalistic grunt as he dragged you impossibly closer to him. “I was so fucking stupid.”
You laughed, breathless, and he kissed the sound out of you with a groan.
“Do that again.”
“Laugh?”
“Exist.”
His face went hot the second he said it, but he didn’t take it back. “Just stay with me.”
Your legs tightened around him, and he moved a hand between you, circling your clit quickly in time with his thrusts.
“Fuck, cum on my cock, baby, please. I’ll do anything. Please just—"
The pathetic pleading at the end caught you off guard because you had never heard anything like that from him before. It did something to you. Your whole body arched within seconds, your vision going hazy as you caught his lower lip between your teeth and bit down.
It caught him off guard too.
Choso came with you, burying himself to the hilt as he spilled in with a rough sound against your mouth.
He lost some of his control near the end. His jaw clenched, his hand slid under your back, and his voice dropped into something strained when he said your name. Even then, he listened. When you told him to stay there, he stayed there.
When your legs shook, he held you through it. He kept one hand under your head so it would not hit the headboard as you both continued lazily kissing.
After he carefully pulled out, he cleaned you with a warm towel. He moved slowly around your thighs, your stomach, the places where your skin still felt sensitive, checking your face before every pass. When you reached for him out of habit, he caught your wrist and kissed your palm. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “I’ve got it.”
He brought you water after, then another glass when you finished the first one faster than you meant to. Your mouth tasted of him, mint, and the expensive hotel sheets. He opened the window a little for air, pulled the blanket higher over your hip, then climbed back into bed with damp hair falling loose around his face.
You curled against him, tired, and his hand settled between your shoulder blades, broad and warm, rubbing in slow passes until your breathing matched his and you fell asleep with his heartbeat steady under your cheek.
The next morning, sunlight slipped through the curtains in pale strips. You woke with your leg thrown over his thigh and a sore ache sitting deep in your hips. Choso was already awake, watching a cooking show at low volume, one hand resting on your calf. “You alive?”
You pressed your face into his chest. “Barely.”
His mouth moved against your hair. “Good sign.”
You kicked him weakly, which made your thigh cramp. Choso sat up at once, caught your ankle, and worked his thumb into the muscle until the pain loosened. Then he kept going, massaging your calves, your knees, the backs of your thighs while you lay there useless and smug under the blanket.
“You did this,” you muttered.
His whole face went red fast.
Later, he carried you, first to the bathroom, then back to bed when you complained about walking. You spent the rest of the morning half-dressed under the sheets, sharing fruit from room service, arguing over the TV, and laughing at things that would have sounded stupid to anyone else.
For the first time in months, happiness came without begging for it. It sat in the messy blankets, in his hand around your ankle, in your voice when you called his name, and he looked up as if he still felt lucky to hear it.
---
Elsewhere, Naoya found the men in a private room under one of the old clubs.
For a moment, before the door opened, he thought of her at thirteen.
She had been scared of him then. He knew that now. At the time, he had mistaken it for shyness, manners, or whatever girls with cheap school bags did when boys from better families spoke to them.
He had made it worse because he had no idea how to be gentle without sounding bored first.
One day he would tell her she sang beautifully, then spend three hours correcting her breath control until her eyes went wet. Another day he would buy her cake and leave it on the bench beside her without saying it was for her, then get irritated when she asked if she was allowed to eat it. He remembered her small hands around the fork, her cautious glance up at him, as if he might take it back.
He had hated that look.
Then he had kept earning it.
At sixteen, Naoya had thought protection meant standing between her and the world while deciding which parts of the world she got to see. He had thought her voice needed sharpening, her clothes needed fixing, her manners needed training, and her fear needed patience only he could provide.
Years later, when his family told him he couldn’t marry her after he had already given her the ring, Naoya remembered her laughing with a paper cup of convenience-store coffee in both hands.
That should be the worst thing because of all the things his head could hold onto, it keeps his regrets. No stage lights, contract room, or first-week sales report under his father’s approving hand. Just some ugly little coffee cup from a shop near the station, the kind with a plastic lid that never fit right..
She had stolen his hoodie because she said the studio AC made her bones hurt. Naoya told her she had no bones, just complaints. She kicked his ankle under the table and missed because her legs were too short to reach.
He laughed so hard he almost choked on yakisoba bread.
She looked offended for maybe five seconds, then started laughing too, mouth covered with his sleeve because she had crumbs on her lips and thought he’d point them out.
Naoya did point them out.
She called him mean.
He told her she was lucky he was honest.
She said, “You’re lucky I’m talented.”
Naoya thought he should have kissed her then. He should have taken her to dinner somewhere proper, in public, instead of hotels and apartments. Somewhere his family wouldn’t go. Somewhere with a menu he couldn’t turn into a lesson.
Instead, he bought her pudding from the combini because she wanted to try the new one with the rabbit on the lid, and they sat on a curb behind the rehearsal building with his driver parked two streets away, pretending he couldn’t see them.
Naoya’s phone rang nine times that night after he’d stormed out of the house earlier. Father. An uncle. Father again. He turned it face down on the pavement.
She noticed because she noticed everything that affected Naoya. “Won’t you get in trouble?”
“I’m already in trouble.”
“For what?”
“For existing.”
She stayed silent for a moment. Then she pushed the unopened pudding toward him carefully. “You should eat.”
“What?”
“You get dramatic when you’re hungry.”
Naoya looked at her for a long second, his head full of label nonsense, inheritance shares, the way men in his family spoke about women as if they were furniture with wombs, the way they spoke about him as if he had been built wrong and could still be corrected with enough pressure.
Then she peeled the lid off the pudding for him because his hands were shaking.
Naoya forgot them after that.
For a few hours, he forgot his father. Forgot the company. Forgot the Zenin name sitting on his neck. She hummed some stupid chorus under her breath and fed him one bite from the plastic spoon, then took the rest for herself because she was a greedy little thing when she stopped being shy.
He kept watching her mouth move around the spoon.
She caught him and stared back as if he had given her proof of something certain about her.
He had been happy then, or at least content, away from the house. In the street, at the curb, he had forgotten the Zenin name for whole nights because she laughed at his insults when she finally learned where the softness hid.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“You’re lying.”
“You sing better when you’re angry.”
“That is the worst compliment.”
“It’s still a compliment.”
She smiled down at the pudding cup.
Naoya remembered thinking, with the full stupidity of a young man who had been praised for cruelty and mistook possession for devotion, that this was fine. This was his. This little pocket behind the building, her shoulder pressed against his, the cheap pudding, the hoodie hanging past her wrists, the phone face down and useless.
He thought he could keep this while taking everything else.
A trophy wife with the correct family. The seat at the table. The shares. The old men shutting up when he entered a room. Her in a hotel room afterward, angry for a few days, then soft again when he called.
He thought she would curse him, cry, throw the ring at his head, then come back when she remembered who knew her throat before every tour and which key made her voice open.
That was how ugly he had let himself become.
He wanted her kept where he could reach her.
Then he grew older and started calling it strategy.
The men inside the club looked worse than they had on the security footage. Choso had done most of the damage that night, but Naoya finished what was left.
He grabbed the first one by the collar and slammed him into the table.
“Why did you say I sent you?”
The man cried through blood and spit. “We didn’t know she’d believe it.”
Naoya’s hand tightened.
That was the ugliest part.
She had believed it because he had trained her to.
“That wasn’t the question.”
He hit him again.
The second man tried crawling away. Naoya kicked a chair into his path and stepped over him. His hand still hurt from the studio, from Choso’s grip on his throat, from the way everyone had looked at him as if he had become some cheap monster.
He had been many expensive monsters.
He had used her. Managed her. Lied to her. Fed her whatever kept her useful, calm, soft enough to steer. He had planned to marry another woman and keep her close afterward, because some stupid part of him had thought she would rage, cry, stop answering for a month, then come back when she remembered who knew her best.
He had taken her for granted so completely that he had mistaken her survival for loyalty.
But he had not sent those men.
“Who paid you?”
The men answered with more incessant sobbing.
His phone rang.
His fiancée’s name flashed across the screen.
Naoya answered and put it to his ear, breathing hard.
“Where are you?” she snapped. “My father is asking questions. The press is outside my house. Fix this.”
Naoya looked at the man on the floor.
A laugh came out of him, dry and wrong.
“Naoya.”
“Shut up.”
Silence.
“What did you just say?”
“I said shut up. I never cared about you. I don’t care about your father. I don’t care about the wedding. I’m being accused of something I didn’t do because your family wanted tax evasion and mine wanted a bride who knew when to lower her eyes.”
Her voice went thin. “I’ll destroy you, you son of a bitch.”
“Try.”
“You think I won’t?”
“I don’t care anymore.”
He hung up.
The man on the floor sobbed harder.
Naoya crouched beside him and smiled without feeling it.
“Now,” he said, “give me the name.”
A/N:
I’ve never really written Naoya as even remotely tolerable before (bc he & I are natural born enemies/I will traumatize himz), but this version is giving me complicated feelings. I might want to play with a softer, less canon-compliant Naoya at some point, though I don’t have a proper idea for him yet. Also, I loved writing Choso here. Absolute best baby girl.
Also, not me writing "Sukuna's truck stature."
Do let me know if you'd let Naoya explain himself?
Masterlist
Hope you enjoyed @alebrasil0101! And thank you to my bbg @blackrimmedrose for beta reading parts of this and for her encouragement.
Synopsis: Choso has loved your voice for years.
He has your records, your rare pressings, the songs your label buried, and enough sense to stay away from Naoya Zenin’s girl.
Naoya Zenin had made you famous, then made you his.
At thirteen, you were a girl with a demo. Years later, you are a star with a sold-out tour, a controlled image, a secret fiancé, and a career tied so tightly to the Zenin name that even your pain has to wait until after soundcheck.
Then one hotel party breaks the lie open.
He should have stayed away. The Itadori and Zenin families have hated each other for years, and you were Naoya’s singer, Naoya’s investment, Naoya’s...
But then he heard you scream.
Content Tags: MDNI, explicit sexual content, protective Choso, softly toxic!Naoya, abusive relationship, emotional hurt/comfort, slow recovery, some dub-con (not all), grooming, exploitation of a minor by an entertainment company, producer/idol power imbalance, sexual coercion, rough sex used harmfully, attempted gang sexual assault (don't worry, daddy's there to save you), drugging/manipulated misrepresented medication, alcohol abuse, pill abuse, mixing pills and alcohol, addiction/substance dependency, withdrawal symptoms, panic attacks, PTSD symptoms, nightmares, dissociation, stalking, forced confinement (not like that), industry & contract abuse, dating bans, medical abuse, forged medical notes, public humiliation, betrayal, arranged engagement, physical violence, mentions of blood, threats, legal scandal, recovery after abuse, consensual sex after trauma, consent checking, praise kink, abs riding, oral, fingering, penetrative sex, condom, aftercare. WC: 17.2K Oneshot.
A/N: I wrote this in 35 hours during a hypomanic episode after watching this. Based on this request.
Moodboard | Song Naoya would listen to | Song Choso would listen to
(Notice how one is being sung to you & the other one is being sung to the homies about "a bitch.")
Playlist 1 | Playlist 2
Naoya had you pinned under him.
You had said you missed him when he pulled you back into bed. You had even laughed at first, because he used to kiss your shoulder and call you spoiled when you wanted five more minutes. He used to take his time.
But now his hand was closed around your wrists, holding them firmly above your head. His hips hit so hard that your breath kept breaking.
You tried to relax, telling yourself he had meetings, label calls, his father in his ear, and artists fighting over release dates.
Stress made people rough. Maybe it made him forget himself.
“Nh-Naoya,” you cried out, and it came out too small and shaky.
He ignored you and kept going, one hand moving to pinch your clit.
You gasped as he buried himself to the hilt and came with a grunt, his face buried in your hair.
He kissed your cheek after, warm and slow, as if that fixed the parts of your body that hurt. You lay there with your knees bent, thighs aching when you tried to move.
“You have soundcheck at four,” he said, straightening up and pulling out.
You winced from the suddenly hurried loss. “I know.”
He proceeded to reach for a towel to wipe himself down. “You can still walk, can’t you?”
You tried to laugh because he smiled when he said it. Your legs felt weak under the sheet. “Barely.”
He chucked the towel to rub your hip, right over the sore spot. “You’re tense. That’s all. You work yourself up, then your body follows. I told you to sleep earlier.”
You nodded because it made sense when he said it. It had to. He loved you. He found you when you were singing covers at local, unknown school theaters while he himself was being groomed into the company through family power.
Your mind slipped into the memory.
You had first seen him at the back of his school auditorium, in a place you had been invited to sing at but could never afford to study in. He and his boys in the last row had come in late, all expensive shoes and loose ties, acting as if the whole cultural program had been arranged for their boredom.
Naoya was sixteen and half-hidden under an oversized black hoodie, shoulders too broad for someone still in school, and an expensive pair of glasses low on his nose. He looked dragged there against his will. Gojo had one leg stretched into the aisle. Geto kept leaning over to say things that made Gojo cover his mouth. Kenjaku sat beside them, heir to the Kamo clan, smiling in that strange, watchful way.
They had been laughing before you stepped up to the mic.
Then you sang.
You were thirteen, still in a dress your grandfather had ironed twice that morning, hands sweating around the mic stand. Your voice shook at the first line. By the second, it steadied. By the bridge, the last row had gone quiet.
Naoya was staring.
You had seen it by accident when you looked up from the floor. His face had gone a hued pink under the auditorium lights. He turned away when Gojo caught him, cupped his hand around Naoya's ear, and whispered badly, “Ask her for her autograph.” Geto pretended to cough your name into his fist. Kenjaku only smiled wider.
Gojo and Geto had never seen Naoya as a friend but someone to gaslight into stupidity.
After your set, you were trying to fold the paper with your lyrics back into your bag when Naoya came over.
Up close, he was taller than any boy you had ever spoken to, and that alone made you nervous. Then you saw his sharp eyes, his ear piercings, the dark blonde hair falling over his glasses, and your brain lost the small amount of sense it had. You lowered your head and stared at the zipper of his hoodie because looking at his face directly felt rude.
“You sang the bridge wrong,” he said.
Your stomach dropped. Heat crawled up your cheeks.
You knew it had been stupid to come here. Your grandfather had pushed you, had said people with money needed to hear your talent, but now this boy from the back row was standing in front of you, and all you could think was that you had embarrassed yourself in a room full of people.
Then Naoya held out a carton of warm milk tea from the vending machine.
“The original key is bad for you,” he said, looking away before you could. “Your voice sounds better when you don’t chase it.”
You took it with both hands. “Thank you?”
His hands were bigger than yours, knuckles a little rough, fingers fidgeting around the can before he let go. By the veins on his exposed skin, you realized he had been hiding more than height under the loose hoodie. He was probably muscular too.
“I can get people to listen. If you want,” he added, then seemed to hate how that sounded. “At my family’s record company. They listen when I bring them something good.”
You blinked up at him.
His ears went redder. “You’re good.”
Behind him, Gojo made a dying sound. “Did you just try to sign her before asking her out?”
Naoya turned enough to hiss, “Shut up.”
Geto laughed into his sleeve. Kenjaku said, “He means cake. He’s trying to ask you for cake.”
“I am not,” Naoya snapped.
You looked down at the milk tea rim and hid a small smile around it.
Naoya saw it, and his face softened.
“There’s a place near the station,” he said, quieter now. “They have cake. You can bring your guardian. Or don’t. I mean, you should. Since you’re—” He stopped, jaw tightening as Gojo wheezed behind him. “Forget them. I just want to hear you sing something in your own key.”
You nodded because a handsome boy with pretty eyes had bought you milk tea and said your voice was good, and at that age, that felt close enough to being chosen.
Then the memory was gone.
Today his driver took you to the venue, and you arrived to your team waiting in your dressing room with garment bags open.
Momo saw the way you held the chair before sitting. Her brush paused near your face. Nobara stopped sorting lip colors.
“Long day?” Nobara asked.
“Just tired.”
Momo lowered her voice. “Do you need the medic?”
You shook your head fast. “I’m fine.”
Nobody pushed. They knew whose name sat above the studio doors. The Zenin family owned contracts, tour insurance, security, and lawyers who sent letters before anyone finished speaking. To the public, he was your producer, but to everyone backstage, he was the man you belonged to. And with the dating ban among other dark sides of J-Pop, they couldn’t really acknowledge your relationship with Naoya without getting permanently banned themselves.
So they worked around the pain. Nobara skillfully covered the marks near your collar with heavy concealer. Mewa chose the right hair extensions so your face would have color. Momo helped you into the dress because bending hurt. You thanked them each time because this was humiliating for someone as well known as you.
Onstage, your legs burned unbearably by the second song. By the fourth, your smile started to ache. But you hit every note because missing one would become a humiliating clip by morning. You waved, blew kisses, hit your marks when the dancers did, and laughed into the mic when the crowd sang the bridge back.
Naoya arrived near the final song. You saw him from the stage wing—black suit, neatly styled blonde hair, holding a phone in his hand.
He had missed the set and the soundcheck. Still, when you came offstage, he stepped in front of your manager and pulled you against his side.
“There’s my girl,” he said in a honeyed tone.
Cameras flashed from the small press group near the barricade. His arm tightened around your waist. You tried to stand straight.
“She killed it,” a reporter said from behind a camera.
Naoya smiled wider. “She was raw when I found her. Could barely handle a room of fifty people. Look at her now.”
Everyone laughed because it sounded sweet. Your mouth smiled by itself.
Another reporter asked how you kept getting better with each tour.
Naoya answered before you could. “Discipline. The right team. The right guidance. Talent needs someone who knows when to push.”
You nodded again. Your legs felt numb from the pain under the dress.
Backstage, the room was filled with staff, flowers, phones, fruit trays, and voices asking for five minutes. Your ears started ringing. Everything suddenly became too much—people standing near the couch, near the door, near your bags. Your breath slipped out of rhythm.
You sat down before you fell from the oncoming panic attack.
"Hey." Naoya crouched in front of you, his face softening, hand covering yours in your lap. Around you, the staff stopped to check.
“Breathe with me, hm,” your fiancé whispered.
You did as told because he sounded gentle.
“In. Out. That’s it. Good girl.”
Your chest hurt and eyes stung. You hated that you needed him to talk you through this.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. You worked hard.”
Nobara stood by the mirror, watching. Momo held a bottle of water but didn’t step closer.
Naoya brushed hair from your cheek. “You’re okay.”
His phone buzzed.
He checked the screen, and his jaw set for half a second before he put the device away.
“What happened?” you asked.
“Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
He sighed and looked toward the door. “A few of my friends are throwing a party and were wondering if you’d be available for that. They are big names, but since you’re exhausted, I’ll tell them you can’t.”
You tried to sit straighter. “I can go.”
He studied you. “You sure?”
“It’s fine. I want to help.”
His thumb stroked your knuckles. “That’s my girl.”
The party was in a hotel suite with private elevators and guards by the hall. Music played low. Mei Mei talked near the bar with two brand heads. Many celebrities and J-pop idols were there. Geto stood with Gojo by a couch. Nanami spoke to your tour manager. Iori kissed your cheek and said you looked beautiful.
You said thank you and smiled even when your face hurt.
Naoya kept his hand at your back as he moved you from group to group. “You remember her single launch,” he told a sponsor. “That strategy changed everything.”
You held your glass with both hands and waited for him to finish.
Sometime later, he took you to the side and gave you the anxiety pill with water from his own glass.
You took it because your hands had started to shake again. The room had too much noise with too many people wanting a picture with you and you answering questions you did not care about.
“Just one,” his voice was calm. “It will settle you.”
“What is it?”
“The same thing Dr. Nobuaki gave you before Osaka.” He touched your chin and tilted your face up. “You trust me, don’t you?”
You swallowed it with water from his glass.
He watched your throat move, then slipped the remaining pills into the hidden pocket sewn into the side of your dress, the one your stylists used for lip balm and earpieces.
“In case you need another later,” he said. “Don’t go digging through your bag in front of people.”
Within a few minutes, your chest loosened. Your mouth felt warm, the pain in your legs and jaw became a distant thing, and the hard knot behind your ribs softened enough for you to breathe. You leaned against him near the bar and started running your mouth telling a brand manager you hated the last perfume campaign they put you in because the dress made you look racist.
Naoya laughed fast and covered it with his hand on your lower back. “She’s joking.”
You smiled at him. “I wasn’t.”
His fingers pinched into your waist. “Sweetheart.”
The word meant stop.
And you did.
Then a few minutes later he excused the two of you and walked you down a short hall to a smaller room with a big bed, a couch, a low table, a locked cabinet, and city views behind opaque glass. He guided you inside and shut the door. “Stay here. I have to speak to some people.”
“About what?”
“Work.”
“Can I come?”
“You need to sit.”
His voice softened when your face changed. “I’ll be right back.”
You locked it after he left.
For a while, you sat on the couch with your phone in your lap. The room moved a little when you turned your head. The medicine made your body slow, but your mind kept picking at old memories.
Naoya at twenty, sitting beside you on the rehearsal room floor with his long legs stretched out and a convenience store bag between you. The studio clock had already crossed two in the morning. Your vocal coach had gone home. His father’s people had stopped calling after the fifth time he rejected the track list they wanted for you.
Neither of you had eaten since the day before.
He split instant noodles with you using the lid as a second bowl, then scolded you for burning your tongue even though he had burned his first. You laughed, and he had to cover your mouth because the night guard was sleeping outside. Naoya looked at you then, hoodie sleeves pushed up, hair falling into his eyes, and said, “I’ll take you to dinner anywhere after you sell out Tokyo Dome.”
You believed him because he said it before anyone else dared to.
Naoya sent flowers to your first real hotel room, not the cheap business hotel near the station but a suite with a bathtub too large for one person and a view you kept taking pictures of because you had never slept that high above the city before. White roses, your favorite snacks, a note written in his stiff handwriting: Don’t cry before the show. Your face swells.
You had cried.
After your first bad review, he found you sitting behind the recording booth with your knees to your chest, the magazine crumpled in your hand. He took it from you, read two lines, and threw it into the trash.
“They hate you because they can already see where you’re going,” he had said, holding your face between his hands. His thumbs were warm under your eyes. “People don’t review nobodies this hard.”
You had wanted to ask if he meant it.
He kissed your forehead before you could.
He used to call at three in the morning from company cars, hotel lobbies, family dinners he had escaped, just to ask if your throat hurt, if you had eaten, if the song still felt wrong in the second verse. Sometimes he said nothing for whole minutes. You would hear traffic on his end, his breathing, the click of his lighter before he remembered you hated the smell and put it away.
He used to wait outside the recording booth with a bottle of water already opened because your hands were too shaky from the tour stress to open the seal yourself.
He used to look at you as if the world had put something rare in front of him and he was the only person alive who knew how to keep it from breaking.
You got up to walk around and clear your head, then picked up a wine bottle from the minibar shelf. You poured a little into a glass. Then a little more. The small burn made your throat hurt, but it gave you something else to feel other than the crippling burnout.
You drank until the room felt less congested, even though you were alone.
You bent to unclasp your heels and got one foot free.
The door clicked. A keycard chirped against the panel.
You looked up, thinking Naoya was probably back.
Then remembered you had locked it.
Three men came in—one wore a loose suit and smiled at your legs before your face. Another shut the door behind him. The third said your name as if he had paid for it.
“Here you are,” he said. “Zenin said you were resting.”
You stood too fast and suddenly got hit with a dizzying spell. “My producer will be back.”
“That’s why we came now.”
Your stomach dropped. “Get out.”
The man near the door laughed. “We were told you were ready to meet.”
“I said no such thing. I don’t even know you.” Your voice cracked. “I’m calling Zenin-san.”
One of them took a step closer. “He knows.”
You grabbed your phone, but your fingers missed the screen. The room blurred around you, making you back away until your hip hit the table.
“You don’t know who you’re talking to. Zenin Naoya is my fiancé.”
“Then be nice for him.”
You screamed.
The first hand caught your arm. You pulled back and hit his chest with your glass. It slipped and broke near your feet. Someone cursed and made for your waist. You screamed again, louder, until your throat hurt.
The door hit the wall.
You flinched so hard your knees bent.
A man stood in the broken doorway. You saw black hair and a dark shirt. You couldn’t focus on his face as your vision got further blurred. One of the men let go of you.
“What the hell are you doing?” someone snapped.
The man from the hall answered with his fist.
You swear you heard bones cracking.
You stumbled past him even as the room turned into a cacophony of grunts and bodies hitting furniture.
You did not look back, just ran with one shoe on, one shoe gone, and hands dragging along the hallway walls to stay upright.
Naoya.
You needed to find Naoya.
They lied. They had to be lying.
Naoya got angry. Naoya pushed. Said cruel things when stressed.
But he would not hand you over to strangers.
He had put a ring on your finger, had chosen you. He had said ‘wife’ when you both talked about your future.
You made your way to the lift, and with worse vision, you smashed buttons that you could feel through your fingertips. Then ripped the remaining heel from your feet and threw it to the side.
The lift took you away from the floor you had been on.
You tried to keep your breathing down, trying to call Naoya, but his phone kept coming up out of reach.
The lift arrived at a floor that vaguely resembled a twenty-six on the big display when you stumbled out.
Your chest eased as soon as you heard his voice.
It came from the penthouse office near the end of the hall. The door was half cracked.
You reached for the handle, almost tripping on the carpet.
Kenjaku’s voice came first. “So when are you marrying the girlfriend?”
Naoya laughed.
Your hand froze.
“I’m not marrying her.”
The floor seemed to pull out from under your feet if you hadn't been holding the doorframe.
Kenjaku made an inquisitive sound. “That serious?”
“My father already found someone. Simple, traditional, good family. That kind of woman knows what the Zenin name means.”
“And your singer?”
“She’s useful.” Naoya sounded tired now, bored with the subject. “She isn’t worthy of the clan. If I marry her, they’ll cut me off. No inheritance, not even equity. They’ll hand more control to Megumi just to punish me.”
“I thought you guys were serious.”
No sound came from Naoya for a moment.
Then he laughed and said, “I love money more.”
Suddenly the door wasn't enough to keep you upright.
You waited for Naoya to laugh again, for him to say he was messing with Kenjaku. You waited for him to say he had been joking.
He did not.
The ringing in your ears got louder—his voice kept getting louder inside your skull. Your chest hurt and your face felt wet. You touched your cheek and looked at your fingers.
Tears.
You stepped back.
One step. Then another.
Your body moved before you decided anything. Your thoughts came late and broken—Naoya funding your demo, telling you what to wear, saying other people would use you, saying he was the only person who understood what you could become.
He had chosen your songs. Your stage name. Your trainer. Your doctors. Your interviews. Your friends.
He said he cared.
Had made every rule sound like love.
You walked down the hall in bare feet. Your shoulder brushed the wall, but your body felt none of it. You heard someone call your name from far away, but you kept moving because there was nowhere safe in the world for you anymore.
You picked up a bottle from a passing waiter.
Your pills were still in your dress pocket.
You felt at them in your palm for a long second. Your fingers shook, but you kept hearing your name again. It felt closer this time. A man’s voice like he was inside your skull, but it was drowned out by Naoya’s, “I love money more.”
You swallowed the pills with alcohol just to kill the voices.
Once you were downstairs at the party again, drunk, the bottle hit the carpet. You sat on the floor beside a couch and pulled your knees to your chest. Your tears kept coming, but your face did not move right. You cried without sound, and then even that stopped feeling real.
Someone came to you.
You tried to lift your head, but your neck felt weak.
“Hey, look at me.”
You stared at the man whose face you couldn't see.
He said your name again.
You wanted to ask if Naoya sent him, if the men were gone, or why your fiancé said he loved money more than you.
Your mouth opened, but words were too cheap to express the pain in your chest.
The next morning came in pieces.
A hotel bathroom—Momo wiping your face with a wet towel as Nobara cursed under her breath. Someone saying you needed sleep while another voice saying the label wanted a statement.
Naoya did not call.
You checked your phone until your eyes burned—no missed calls, texts, apologies, or drivers waiting downstairs, not even a voice note telling you to stop being annoying.
By noon, every entertainment page was running the same news.
Naoya Zenin stood beside a woman in a pale dress who had silky hair, a pretty old money smile, and family money. The caption said his family was pleased to announce his engagement.
Your ring was still on your finger.
You took it off in the bathroom and dropped it into the toilet. It hit the porcelain, and the sound made you gag.
People looked at you differently after that.
At meetings, men lowered their voices when you entered, and women from PR smiled in pity. Your manager asked if you wanted to take “personal time,” but only after reminding you how expensive it was to move tour dates.
You said you could work.
You stopped addressing Naoya’s name. You stopped checking news about him and stopped sleeping unless you had something to numb it all in your system first.
A week later, you walked into a recording session drunk enough that your words slurred. The new producer, Megumi, looked at your assistant. Your assistant looked at the floor.
“You good?” Megumi asked from the soundboard.
“I’m here, aren’t I?"
“That wasn’t the question.”
You laughed because it felt easier than telling him how his cousin uncle had torn your chest open and now you couldn’t sit alone with your thoughts because you couldn’t trust anyone anymore. "Ease up, CIA-san.”
Megumi’s jaw clenched, nobody laughed with you.
You sang the first take with your mouth dry and your head loose. Your voice cracked bad, and you had to laugh and ask to go again. The engineer hesitated before pressing record.
After that, it got normal.
You drank before fittings because standing still made you think. You took pills before interviews because not smiling in a haze made your chest tighten. Then you started mixing things because one thing by itself stopped working.
No one stopped you.
They just spectated.
Your makeup artists covered the dark lines under your eyes with concealer. Your manager kept mint gum in her bag. Drivers learned which back doors to use when you could not walk straight through a lobby.
Naoya smiled in public with his new fiancée.
Everyone clapped for him, for the picture of Japan’s most eligible bachelor finally settling down with his Cinderella.
You watched a video from a green room TV screen before a live show. He touched her waist the way he used to touch yours when cameras felt suffocating to you. He looked proud.
Someone beside you said, “I’m sorry.”
You turned your head slowly. “For what?”
They looked scared then.
You went onstage ten minutes later. You performed like a highly paid monkey with a smile.
That was enough for everyone.
A couple months later at a party you grabbed air, missing the car door.
Your heel slipped on the curb outside the hotel, and concrete rushed up.
A hand caught your waist before your knees hit the ground.
You heard someone curse near your ear. The grip was firm so he could hold you upright, but your body had already given up.
“Get her inside,” a man's voice said.
You tried to ask for your driver, but your tongue felt heavy and slurred.
Then the last thing you saw was a black shirt and taped fingers near your face.
The next morning you woke in a bed that was too large.
For a few seconds, you stared at the ceiling and waited for the room to magically be yours. It was not.
The sheets smelled nice, and you realized with dawning horror that your dress was gone.
You scrambled to check your underwear. It was gone too.
You lay under the blanket in an oversized black shirt that reached your thighs and nothing else.
You sat up too fast and almost threw up.
Yet your first thought was alcohol.
And the second was your phone.
You pushed the blanket back and looked around. There was water on the nightstand, some painkillers, and a folded towel. You ignored all of it and checked the drawers with hands that shook.
The door opened.
An androgynous person in a white kimono stepped in with a tray. They paused when they saw you half out of bed. “Good morning, ma’am.”
“Where are my clothes?”
“They were sent to cleaning. You were sick on them last night.”
Your face burned.
They set the tray down on a small table. “Female staff changed you after Mr. Itadori brought you in. Your belongings are in the dressing room, and your phone is charging.”
“Mr. Itadori?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
You knew the name after a few seconds—some J-rock band with all brothers that sold out stadiums with Sukuna and Yuji screaming into mics while their third brother sat behind them and looked half angry at the cymbals.
You had seen them around at shows, award nights, and afterparties. Had their dark-haired brother been the man in the doorway that night too? Maybe... The one with long hair. Your head hurt when you tried to remember it. “I need a drink,” you muttered, wincing.
The butler looked at the tray. “There is coffee.”
“I said a drink.”
“Breakfast first, ma’am.”
Your stomach growled at the mention of food.
So you ate at a long table in a robe one of the women brought you. You tried to eat in small bites, but hunger made you unmannered about it. Another woman smiled and refilled your tea without making a face.
The elevator opened after you finished half the plate.
Choso—you vaguely recalled—walked in from the lower floor in gym clothes, hair damp, and a towel over one shoulder. He looked at you, then at the empty bowl near your hand.
“You can keep the food down.”
He sounded surprised, which immediately made you irritable.
“That your greeting?”
“Yes.”
You crossed your legs under the robe. “I need my phone, my clothes, and a car. Also, whoever runs your household needs to learn boundaries.”
He pulled out the chair across from you and sat. “You were about to pass out on concrete outside a hotel at three in the morning.”
“I wear high heels. It happens.”
“You were drunk enough to choke on your own vomit.”
Your heart sank a little when he said it with that tone, but you smiled the way you did when interviewers asked about Naoya. “Are you this respectful with every woman you meet?”
His face barely moved. “Fix your shit.”
The words hit wrong in your chest. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You keep going this way, you die and become Japan's next Marilyn. Then people post clips for a week, and your label sells whatever songs you left behind until the end of time while someone else wears your costumes on a tribute stage.”
Your chair scraped back. “You don’t know me.”
“I know your team treats you like a liability. Know your hands are shaking from alcohol withdrawal. I also know Zenin’s people stopped paying attention because you aren't as profitable to him anymore.”
The breakfast tried to crawl out of your throat.
You stood up. “Where’s the door?”
He pointed toward the hall.
You went that way with your chin up. The hall turned into another hall. One door opened into a library. One into a linen room. Another needed a code. You found stairs that led to a gym, then a theater, then a locked service entrance.
You came back ten minutes later, sweating and furious.
Choso had a cup of coffee in front of him.
“I need to leave. Where's your goddam front door?”
“You stay here.”
You stared at him because there was no way you’d heard him correctly.
He stood with his coffee. “You need rehab, a doctor, and definitely real security. I’ll be gone for a few hours. My sister has female staff that will get you whatever you need. Except alcohol and an exit.”
“I’ll call my manager.”
“Your manager let you walk into parties wasted with a stalker following you.”
Your skin went cold.
He picked up his towel with his other hand. “One of my security staff noticed a man taking photos outside three different consecutive venues. Same van. Same fake badge. Last night he almost got inside your car.”
You gripped the back of the chair, color drawn away from your face.
“I handled it.” Choso’s voice softened a note. “You keep moving around drunk, and your skin ends up hanging in someone’s shed.”
You could hear your own heartbeat.
He looked tired then. Still angry, but tired under it. “Stay here and think about what you are going to do.”
After he left, a female staff member came back with tea and a change of clothes folded over one arm.
“You should eat more,” she said. “Please do not pay mind to him. His anger is fleeting.”
You sat because your knees felt weak, your hands starting to tremble with bloodcurdling fear. You tried to hide it but failed. “Is he usually that rude?”
She smiled a little. “He gets harsh when he is scared something bad’s going to happen.”
“I’ve never talked to him before.”
“He knows your music.” She placed the clothes beside you. “He joined his brothers’ band because of you.”
You looked up.
She lowered her voice. “The Zenin and Itadori families have problems going back more than a few generations of lineage. He never talked to you for that reason. Also because you were with Mr. Zenin.”
You looked at the hallway where Choso had gone.
The tea warmed your hands, but the rest of you felt unbearably cold in the unfamiliar house.
You spent the next hour looking for a way out and found nothing.
The penthouse had too many halls, and many of the doors needed codes. The elevator opened only when the androgynous butler pressed their thumb to the panel. You checked a service closet, a laundry room, two guest baths, and one door that led to a stairwell with another locked door at the bottom.
The female attendant—Aya—followed with tea in one hand and your phone in the other.
“You know I can call the police,” you muttered passive-aggressively, stomping away.
“You can.” She handed you the phone. “Do you want to?”
You stared at the screen.
No missed calls from Naoya.
You’d practically been kidnapped since last night, and he didn't care.
You shoved the phone into the robe pocket before your tears could fall. Not being able to numb anything out was messing with your emotions. You’d read somewhere that it happened after a while of substance abuse. “I want the exit.”
Aya pointed left. “That way.”
You went left and ended up in a record room.
It took a second for your eyes to settle in the dark. Wall shelves ran from floor to ceiling, filled with vinyl records that stood in clean rows behind glass. You saw Itadoris’ band first, then old punk records, some metal, old J-rock, city pop, and then your name.
Your first album in its first pressing—the one with the wrong color sleeve that had sold out in six minutes.
Next to it was your second album on clear vinyl. The overseas tour edition. A signed radio copy you did not remember signing. A test pressing your own label had told you was lost.
You stepped closer. “Wha-?”
Aya came in behind you. “He collects records.”
“Mine?”
“A lot of people collect yours.”
“Not this one.” You pointed at the test pressing. “Even I don’t have this one.”
Aya smiled at it. “He outbid a collector for it. Ryomen-sama yelled for three days.”
You checked the shelves and then his adjacent room for creepy memorabilia—photos, notes, lipstick-stained cups, anything weird. Practically upturned his whole room while Aya stood there smiling.
But there was nothing except records, sleeve covers, old ticket stubs from public concerts, and framed awards from Choso’s band.
You found no shrine, stolen clothes, printed screenshots, or even a concert costume.
Still, your face got hot.
“He is a fan,” Aya said.
“Fans don’t lock you in.”
She touched the glass case and looked at your records. “He has poor manners when frightened. The whole family does. Yuji-kun’s the only normal one, and even he once threw a chair through a vending machine because Megumi-san yelled at him for no reason. That reminds me, we had informed Megumi San about you being here.”
Your lips twitched unintentionally—you'd heard about those two but never had confirmation before.
Aya raised an eyebrow. “You look happy.”
Another security staff member came in with folded towels. Aya introduced her as Riko, and she had the fast mouth of someone who knew every secret in the building.
“Choso-san broke a door,” Riko said with a chest-puffed-up motion mimicking Choso while placing the towel like a bridge on the bed. “Like actual hard wood, not the cheap stuff. Clean in half.”
Aya clicked her tongue. “Don’t gossip.”
“He broke it?” you asked.
Riko nodded. “Ran from the garage because one of the security people called him. Didn’t even wear shoes. Security said they called lawyers because he looked ready to kill.”
Your heart gave a confusing reaction. You didn't understand men. Didn’t understand why one man could be so cruel, lying to you for years, and another you hadn’t even spoken to would show up disheveled and then lock you here.
The women kept talking about drivers, Sukuna firing a chef for serving cold eggs, and their sister stealing Yuji’s favorite guitar and pretending she had bought it first.
By late afternoon, you stopped checking every doorway.
You ate toast in the kitchen while Riko complained about rich people thinking coffee cups walked themselves to sinks. Aya cut fruits and told you which balcony had the best view of the red roses below.
You didn’t talk much. But you were relaxed because no one asked you about Naoya or gave you pitying smiles.
Choso came back after dinner had already been set at the table—soup, grilled fish, rice, and a small plate of pickled vegetables. You had planned to refuse all of it until your stomach embarrassed you again.
So you were already sitting down when he walked in, stopping near the chair across from you. He had changed into dark pants and a plain shirt that fell loose around his collarbone, and you quickly looked away before his eyes landed on you.
“You can leave,” he started.
You looked back up.
“I was wrong to stop you that way.” He pulled the chair out but did not sit yet. “I saw that glint in your eyes and reacted badly.”
“What glint?”
“My brother gets it during episodes.” His jaw moved once. “Sukuna. When he starts hunting for alcohol, when he needs to outrun his own thoughts. Doctors called it mania after he broke his hand punching a studio wall.”
You stayed still.
“Not saying you have it. But—" He ran a mildly frustrated hand through his hair as if searching for a way to put his words, then took a deep breath and sat down. “I just want to say that I’m sorry. You are an adult, and I'm no one to make those decisions for you."
You pushed rice around with your chopsticks. You should have snapped at him. You wanted to.
Instead, you took a bite because your hands needed something to do that wasn’t going to make things more awkward.
“I can arrange a car,” he said after a long moment of watching you eat. “Or drive you. Your choice.”
You swallowed. “You live here with your whole family?”
“We all have different floors.”
“That sounds nice.”
“It is.”
You almost smiled. “Who’s the worst?”
“Sukuna.”
Your lips relaxed without realizing. “Easy answer.”
“Uro is close.”
“Yuji?”
“Yuji apologizes to doors after bumping into them.”
“You look like you do the same.” You chuckled at your own joke softly.
Choso watched you with a small smile and didn't deny it, then looked down at his plate as if he had been caught.
Dinner went longer than it needed to. You asked about his band. He told you Sukuna and Yuji sang because neither of them could shut up long enough to play drums. You told him your old producer—Naoya—said rock made women sound vulgar.
Choso’s eyes lifted. “He’s stupid.”
You stared at him. He didn’t take it back.
After dinner, you asked, “Can you play something for me?”
His hand paused near his glass. “Now?”
“You have a music room, right?”
He took a sip of water, then stood and made his way to the room with you on his heels.
The music room sat one floor down. You heard a guitar before the door opened. Yuji sat on a stool with an electric guitar, fingers moving fast. He looked up, saw you, and almost dropped the pick.
“Oh my god.”
You smiled. “Hi.”
“I have your posters.”
“I have been told.”
Yuji covered his face. “That sounded creepy. I meant in a normal fan way.”
You smiled because he was sweating through the sentence despite having a record for the highest-selling shows in Japan. “Thank you.”
He packed up too fast, winked at Choso, and left before Choso could say anything. Choso glared at the closed door.
Then he sat at the drums.
The first hit went through your ribs.
You stood near the wall and forgot to hold yourself together. His arms moved with control, but the sound had bite—heavy kick, fast snare, and cymbals that made the space feel alive. It was rough in a way your label had spent years sanding out of you.
When he stopped, your throat hurt.
“That,” you cheered mildly. “That was beautiful Choso-san and what I wanted to do before Naoya found me.”
Choso rested the sticks on his thigh. “I heard about the engagement.”
The smile vanished from your face so quickly.
He looked guilty. Then you told him before he could apologize because your story needed witnesses too. You told him about the locked room he’d found you in that day, the office door, and the sentence Naoya had said about money.
Choso didn't interrupt you, offered water when you got teary-eyed, and listened to everything. It felt good to finally talk to someone about it. It helped sink in your body that it hadn’t all been in your head.
Choso’s fingers closed around a drumstick and opened his mouth after a long while of silence. “Did he reach out to you? Apologize?”
You tried to remember. “I don’t think he reached out.”
“You should drop his label.”
“I can’t. I was thirteen when my grandfather, my legal guardian then, signed me with them. He thought it was a chance for my dream to become a reality because he believed in my voice.
But it was all a trap. They own my catalog, stage name, schedule, image rights, and every contract after that that was and will be built since the first one.
Now I don’t even have my grandfather alive to go back to. It’s not for life on paper, but it might as well be.”
“You can. It will be ugly, but you can get out. Their contracts are known for traps—grooming, debt clauses, doctor control, dating bans, image rules. They bury artists who argue. And a senior of mine, who went to school with Naoya, is already working on an expos.”
“They are too powerful and well-connected.”
“I know.” He looked at the record shelves through the glass wall. “You deserve better than how they handle your discography.”
Your chest tightened for a different reason. “I do want to be independent. Don’t want to have to look at Naoya again.”
“I can help… If you are comfortable with that.”
You nodded before fear talked you out of it. “I’m scared to be alone since the party. My thoughts get dark. And hotels make them worse.
Then added under your breath, “Can I stay here for a few days? I’ll compensate you.”
You braced for polite rejection because that would have made sense. He didn't really know you. So in your head you were already deciding which hotel was least likely to trigger your C-PTSD to stay at.
But then he looked red. “Oh god, no need for that. And yes, you can stay.”
“In a room with a door I can open?” You asked with a pleading smile.
And Choso realized he had to keep his face neutral because you had such a sweet puppy face when you wanted something. Having never seen it before, he was caught off guard.
He relaxed his face into a small smile, and you noticed the tattoo across his nose crinkle with it. “Yes. You can stay in my sister’s wing.”
He walked you to the wing on the east side. Uro lived across the hall.
She had pink hair like Yuji's, but unlike Yuji, she had pink eyes too. She was wearing shorts, a tube top, red lipstick, and an expression that made it abundantly clear that she was Sukuna’s twin.
“She cries?” Uro asked Choso. “I don’t like women who cry. We should be out making men cry. I make my brothers cry daily.”
“Stop embarrassing me." Choso huffed an awkward laugh, slapping her arm inconspicuously. "And no. She sleeps like a log.”
Uro looked you over. “Fine. But if you cry, do it into a towel. These floors echo, and I’m not the emotional support sister.”
Choso sighed.
You held your borrowed clothes against your chest and nodded at her like that was a perfectly normal house rule.
She moved to let you pass.
You arranged your clothes in the attached but nearly empty guest walk-in closet and heard the two siblings bickering outside and saw Choso was getting teased by his older sister. His face was smiling unguarded, his pale cheeks red around his nose tattoo.
Choso was beautiful, you thought.
That night, you slept uncomfortably because the nightmares were persistent, but you’d tire yourself out, so it helped not wake you up too often.
By the second morning, Uro walked into your room without knocking, tossed three dresses on the bed, and said, “Wear the black one. The blue makes you look employed by a bank. Also, blue is bitch-ass Naoya’s color.”
“Can you please knock?” You mildly said it, annoyed but unable to show it out of respect because she had opened her home to you.
“Our older brother says knocking is for weak mortals.” She tsked, “I came here because Choso asked me to check if you were dead.”
You sat up against the pillows. “You could have at least not yelled.”
“I could have done many things.”
You wore the black dress that day.
You called your old therapist that afternoon, but you hung up when she started asking you suspicious questions.
So you found a doctor who worked with artists and touring crews in another country and seemed least likely to know you or tattle to Zenin Records. Then you took the therapy session over video call from the guest room with a blanket over your knees and your phone on speaker because holding it made your hand sweat.
The first session was hard—you cried, got angry, lied once or twice, then admitted you lied. After, Uro walked in with instant noodles and acted as if your swollen face wasn't in the room with them.
“Did it feel good?” she asked awkwardly despite clearly not being good with emotions.
You nodded, dabbing your tears away with the tissues.
“Now eat and praise my cooking.”
A wobbly laugh escaped you, not sure if it was because she genuinely expected praise for instant noodles or the fact that she was trying to sit near a crying person willingly.
Over the next few days, your schedule became calming in the way that helped. Since you were fresh out of a traumatic period that lasted months and could afford it, you had daily therapy in the late morning. Then you drank tea with Aya in the kitchen. After that, Uro dragged you into her office when she worked on her brother’s indie label files and let you sit on the couch while she cursed at paperwork.
Choso had rehearsals, meetings, shoots, calls, gym, and whatever family business everyone stopped talking about when you entered the room.
Still, he found time to eat at least one meal with you daily—breakfast, if he had morning time, or dinner, if he came back late. Sometimes he showed up with wet hair and drum tape still around his fingers, sat across from you, and ate rice in six bites.
“You chew?” you asked once.
“When needed.”
“You could choke.”
“You watch me eat a lot.”
You looked down at your bowl before your lips twitched. “You eat aggressively.”
“You stare aggressively.”
"Ugh," Uro groaned from the counter. “Get a room after she signs a waiver.”
Your ears burned. Choso kept eating, but the corner of his mouth moved.
One afternoon, he took you to the movies.
Uro treated it as a military operation. She stood in the middle of your room with three wigs, two pairs of sunglasses, and a tote bag full of clothes she claimed were “civilian-core.” Choso waited near the door with his arms folded, already wearing a dark baseball cap, sunglasses, and a mask.
“You look suspicious,” Uro told him, then put a wig on your head, stepped back, and smiled with too much pride. “Rich wine auntie at golf.”
You stared at yourself in the mirror. The color was wrong, the cut was worse, and somehow it worked.
She pushed sunglasses into your hand. “Don’t walk like yourself. You have that idol posture. Relax your shoulders. Make your face less approachable.”
Choso took you to a theater inside a shopping complex with too many escalators and a bakery near the entrance. You hadn’t been somewhere so ordinary in years. The air smelled of butter, coffee, perfume testers, and damp umbrellas drying near the doors. People walked past without looking twice. Choso kept half a step behind you in the crowd until you slowed.
“You can walk beside me,” you told him.
He looked down at you through the sunglasses. “I didn’t want to crowd you.”
“You look like you are stalking me.”
“Sorry.” He moved beside you.
At the ticket machine, he bent slightly because the screen sat too low for him. You watched him frown at the seat chart. “They only have seats left in the back row.”
“It’s fine.” You reassured him with a small smile, then asked. “And the movie?”
“Yuji said this one has a dog. He cried during the trailer, so it’s probably good.”
You chuckled a little, and Choso’s shoulders eased. He bought the tickets with cash. Then popcorn and a drink because he asked what you wanted and waited while you changed your mind twice. He carried everything himself, even when you reached for the tray. “I can hold popcorn.”
“I know.”
“Then give it.”
“You’ll spill it when someone recognizes you.”
“You think I’m that fragile?”
“I think this bucket is.”
You made a small sound of offense, and he finally handed it over. His fingers brushed yours at the cardboard rim. The contact lasted less than a second, but your body still registered it before your head could make sense of why.
Inside the theater, the back row was mostly empty. Choso stepped aside so you could take the inner seat, then paused. “This okay?”
You nodded.
The seats were made for normal people, which meant his knees had nowhere reasonable to go. He tried to fold himself into the chair and failed with dignity for about thirty seconds.
“You look comfortable,” you whispered, eyeing his too long legs.
“I’m fine.”
“Are your legs losing circulation?”
“My legs understand sacrifice.”
The trailers started. A phone screen lit up three rows below. Someone opened candy with the subtlety of a construction crew. You tried to focus on the screen, but for the first few minutes your body stayed busy counting heads, doors, dark corners, and the distance to the aisle.
Choso didn’t comment. He placed the popcorn bucket between you and leaned back, giving you room without making a performance of it. When a loud trailer hit too suddenly, your fingers tightened around the armrest. A second later, he nudged the drink closer to your side.
You took it. He kept looking at the screen.
By the time the movie started, your breathing had settled. The dog appeared fifteen minutes in. You ate popcorn slowly at first, then faster once the salt got addictive. Choso barely touched it. He watched the movie with such severe focus that you believed he cared deeply about the dog’s journey through rural train stations. Halfway through, your hand brushed his inside the bucket.
You pulled back. He continued to stare at the screen. “You can take the popcorn. I’ll survive.”
“You sure? You seem fragile.”
“I break doors often.”
The corner of your mouth twitched.
He glanced over, caught it, and had the nerve to look pleased.
You reached for the popcorn again. “I can’t remember the last time I saw a movie like this with other people around."
“What, Blondie never climbed down from his high horse to take you?” he asked, popping one kernel into his mouth.
You shook your head. “There were premieres. Screenings. Rooms full of people checking who I sat with.”
Choso’s brows scrunched. “That sounds miserable.”
“It was normal.”
He looked at you then. The screen threw moving color across his face, and his voice came lower. “It shouldn’t have been.”
You looked back at the movie before your throat could tighten. The dog had found a child by then.
Choso’s hand came back into the bucket after yours. His knuckles touched your fingers.
This time, he left it there. He didn’t close his hand or hook his fingers around yours. He gave you the contact and left the rest of the decision sitting in the dark between your seats.
You waited through one breath. Then another. Then you let your fingers rest against his.
His thumb moved once, barely there, against the side of your hand.
The dog made it home near the end, of course. Yuji had been right to cry. You blamed the wig for itching near your lashes when your eyes stung.
Choso handed you a napkin without looking over.
“You’re crying too,” you whispered.
He then realized he was and quickly covered his face with the mask, his ears red, making you huff out a small chuckle.
After the credits, neither of you got up right away. People left around you, talking too loudly, stepping over bags, and arguing about dinner. Choso waited until the crowd thinned, then stood and offered his hand, then almost pulled back.
You took it before he could.
His palm was warm, rough near the base of his fingers. He held yours loosely all the way down the steps, then let go in the lobby where people could see better.
Outside, the bakery had started marking down pastries for the evening.
You stopped in front of the glass.
Choso followed your eyes. “You want one?”
“You ask that as if I’m capable of saying no to discounted cake.”
He bought a few slices for you and his siblings and a paper bag of melon pan because the cashier recommended it. You ate yours in the car with the wig slightly crooked and cream on your thumb. He pretended he had missed it until you caught him staring. “What?”
“You have cream.”
You wiped the wrong side of your mouth.
His hand lifted, then stopped halfway. “Can I?”
You nodded.
He used a napkin carefully at the corner of your lip.
The car narrowed down to him concentrating on your mouth and his breath low near you.
“We can do a movie night whenever we’re free,” he said, folding the napkin once before setting it aside. “Or go out again. Your choice.”
You looked down at the cake box in your lap, smiling before you could bury it. “Only if Yuji keeps choosing movies by dog content.”
“I’ll tell him his system works.”
Outside, the city moved past the tinted window. Inside, Choso sat beside you with his knees angled badly again, guarding the pastry bag as if someone might steal it.
Your fingers found his on the seat between you.
After that, your mind changed its habits.
It still went to Naoya in odd moments. When your phone buzzed, when someone talked about your label, when a man laughed behind a closed door.
Memories weren't going to be easy to get rid of, and your therapist had taught you how to deviate from them instead of thinking they’d stop outright because that'd be unrealistic.
And the therapist's suggested techniques helped because slowly the thoughts arrived weaker each time and found less place to stick to.
You felt guilty about that.
Forgetting your first love. The person you thought you’d marry. Spend the rest of your days with.
But Naoya had left you to be humiliated in public. He had smiled with another woman while telling your team to hide bottles and pills. He’d used more than a decade of your hard work, your face, and your hunger to be loved.
Still, some part of you kept looking for the man who had once brought you soup during flu week and napped on the studio floor beside you.
Naoya had been sweet in the beginning.
That part scared you because Choso was sweet too.
What if you were being manipulated again? Would you even recover this time?
But where Naoya used to perform PR voices in public, Choso was blunt and barely answered people he didn't care about, and when he tried to be polite, it looked painful.
He forgot soft words sometimes. Then he came back, tried again, fixed what he had done wrong, and did not repeat his mess-ups. He noticed when you skipped meals, asked before touching your arm.
Naoya’s family had looked at you and seen a problem. Choso’s family met you during the worst week of your life, then saved you a seat at dinner and teased their brother about you like you were already a part of it.
Even if it broke, you thought, it would break clean.
They had helped you. Choso had helped you. So even if nothing came of it, and you packed your things next week and left before your heart got worse, you would still be in a better place than you had been after Naoya. You had therapy now and people who noticed when you stopped eating. You had resources to manage your episodes, exits, and choices.
It honestly scared you.
You started writing at night.
At first, you wrote lines on stationery from Choso’s desk. Then in your notes app. Then in the music room, at the piano, with Choso sitting by the drums and saying nothing unless you asked.
The songs came out different than your usual ones—less polished, more direct. You wrote about locked doors, stage lights, borrowed shirts, hands that caught you before concrete, and a man who treated breakfast as a promise to get you through the night.
And due to your hypomanic episode, by the end of the third week, you had an album.
At Sunday dinner, Yuji begged to hear one song. Uro told him to stop begging because it made the family look poor. Sukuna, whom you’d met for the first time, sat at the head of the table, covered in a lot more tattoos than Choso, looking annoyed, and half turned away from everyone, but even he looked at you when you opened your laptop.
Your hands shook when the track started.
Your voice filled the dining room, bare at first, then heavy with acoustic guitar Yuji added alongside your piano. The chorus had grit, and the bridge nearly broke. It sounded older than your radio songs, but it also sounded more like you.
When it ended, nobody spoke for a second.
Yuji wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “That was sick.”
Uro pointed her chopsticks at him. “Stop ugly crying, Lychee-dori.”
Sukuna leaned back. “Your label rejected music like this?”
You nodded, a little hesitant. Sukuna was a man of a truck stature—you were bound to be nervous. “Naoya said it would hurt my market.”
“He was protecting his cut.” Sukuna picked up his water glass and sipped. “I know a lawyer. Mean woman. Expensive. She’s gotten artists out of worse contracts before breakfast.”
You stared at him with many emotions climbing up your throat.
Setting the water glass down, he stretched his neck. “Meet her. Or keep feeding the Zenins’ money. Your choice.”
“Nii-san,” Choso stared at his brother, worried about Sukuna’s tone.
“What? You wanted help. I’m helping.”
You chuckled, and this time it came out without effort. You thanked Sukuna after that.
Dinner ran late. Yuji talked about guitar parts. Uro argued with Sukuna over Itadori's latest album release control. Choso refilled your water before your glass emptied. You ate until you were full and stayed at the table after the plates were cleared because leaving while everyone was still there talking over celebratory ice creams felt wrong.
Later, he walked with you on the rooftop.
The air was the cool midnight breeze of summer. You wore his jacket because he had put it over your shoulders.
“I… I think I have feelings for you,” you said before you lost nerve for the nth time.
He stopped beside the railing, turning to you.
“I’m scared, Choso. I don’t trust my own judgment well anymore.” You fidgeted with your hands in the jacket pockets, looking below the railing at passing cars. “Naoya was good to me in the beginning too. Or I thought he was. I can’t tell which parts were real.”
Choso nodded. “Then take your time.”
Your throat clenched. “You’re okay with waiting?”
“I waited before you knew my name.”
You lifted your eyes to his warm brown ones.
His face stayed calm, but his ears went red.
You smiled, eyes shifting to the column of his neck because you couldn't keep eye contact right now. “That was smooth.”
“I panicked.”
“Say more things when you panic.”
He looked away. “Go inside before I embarrass myself.”
You smiled and nodded, turning to leave.
You were a few steps ahead when Choso called your name.
You stopped and looked back. He stood with his jaw set and eyes on the ground before they lifted to you.
“Can I kiss you? Only if you want," he asked in a low voice, seemingly nervous. “You can say no. I won’t mind.”
Your breath hitched.
His hair moved in the wind, black strands loose around his face. The tattoo across his nose pulled your eyes there again, then his mouth, then the open collar of his black shirt where his throat moved when he swallowed. He looked tense, as if asking had taken more nerve than breaking that door.
You swallowed and nodded.
He came closer with care. His hand touched your waist through the jacket, light so that you could step away if you changed your mind. His other hand reached your chin, and your pulse skipped when he tilted your face up.
You closed your eyes.
He waited.
He admired your features, the slight change in your breathing when his arms brought you closer.
It didn’t seem right.
You waited with your heart thudding against your smaller ribcage.
Then his lips touched your forehead.
Your eyes opened. A tear slipped down before you could have hidden it.
He pulled back immediately. “Did I—”
You grabbed him around the waist and buried your face against his warm chest. His shirt smelled clean and expensive, with cedar, soap, and a little sweat from the long day. His arms came fully around you after a second, firm but easy to leave, a hand moving up to your hair.
You cried harder because he had asked, then waited, then kissed your forehead after you told him you were scared when people in your life had constantly manipulated and lied around you, destroying your personal boundaries and sense of self.
He walked you to your room after and sat near you until you fell asleep.
A few days later, people started taking photos.
You and Choso at a late-night ramen place with caps pulled low. You and Choso leaving a theater through the back exit. You and Choso in his car while Uro yelled at a valet for scratching her door.
You moved back to your house when your therapist said it would help to reclaim your own space. Choso drove you home the first night and checked every window and alarm and even ordered groceries and stocked them before leaving.
The first night was hard because every surface reminded you of Naoya.
So you practiced the techniques your therapist had taught you, and when they didn't help fully, you put on the TV on a soft-spoken kid’s cartoon channel in a language you didn't understand with good volume to fill the silence, which helped you fall asleep with fewer nightmares.
After that, you spent weekends at Choso’s penthouse, and he came over for dinner every week whenever his schedule was open.
You kissed him properly two weeks after the rooftop.
It happened in the music room after he played drums for a track you were building. You walked over, took his face in your hands, and kissed him before fear could make a speech. He froze for half a second, then kissed you back with both hands on your waist and his thumbs still.
His lips tasted like hojicha vanilla, kuromitsu, and dark cherry from the monaka he’d brought you earlier. Sweet first, then warm and boozy at the back of your tongue, with that deep cherry taste still under it.
You moved your fingers into his hair and pulled him closer. He was sitting, so his face tilted up toward yours, his jaw brushing the neckline of your shirt from the angle. The sound he made was low and rough, something you had not heard from him before.
Then his hands tightened, and he pulled you down into his lap.
You broke the kiss just enough to breathe.
His eyes stayed on your face. “Okay?”
You nodded.
His thumb moved once at your waist. “Use words.”
“Yes,” you said, a little breathless. “It’s okay.”
Only then did he kiss you again.
You brought it up one night while you were sitting on his lap on your couch, and when his mouth had moved to your jaw, he stopped with his forehead near your shoulder. “Why do you ask me for consent so formally, Choso?”
“I was scared that night,” he answered breathlessly.
You opened your eyes. “Which night?”
“At the hotel.” His voice stayed low. “I wasn’t supposed to be there. I don’t go to those parties unless I have to. I was looking for Yuji because he’d called me to pick him up and then fallen asleep. I kept trying his cell, but it was so loud I couldn't hear him, so I went upstairs hoping for better service.”
Your fingers slowed in his hair.
“Then I heard you scream." His eyes lowered to the coffee table as if looking through the memory. “I knew it was you.”
“You recognized my voice?”
He looked embarrassed then, almost angry with himself for saying it. “I listen to your records.”
You waited.
“A lot. Most days while commuting. I’d recognize your voice anywhere,” he added. “That was all. I hadn’t been trying to know you. I didn’t think I had the right.” His jaw worked once. “Zenin looked good for you from far away. I thought you were loved. Thought staying away was better.”
Your chest hurt.
“Then I heard your bloodcurdling scream. And I didn’t think. I just knew I couldn’t let them hurt you.”
You touched the tattoo across his nose with your thumb.
He went still under your hand, warm licorice eyes meeting yours.
“You didn’t let me down.” You smiled, your thumb tapping his nose.
His mouth pressed into a line, his nose scrunching up with the frown. “I almost did.”
“No.” You leaned in until your forehead touched his. “You came.”
After that, for months, you both fooled around in pieces, away from prying eyes—his hand under your shirt on the couch, your mouth at his throat in the elevator, his voice rough in your ear when you teased him too long.
He still asked.
Sometimes you laughed and told him to stop being so formal. He said he would rather sound stupid than scare you.
You understood him.
Then the rumors started getting out of hand during the court filings.
Then Naoya came back from wherever he’d been overseas.
You heard it first from Uro, who video called you with sunglasses on her head and said, “Bitch-ass Zenin has landed. His family probably threatened him to clean up his mess.”
“I don’t think he’ll come to see me.” You knew what she meant without asking. “He hasn't contacted me, remember?"
“Still, it’d be foolish not to be careful.”
The next morning, you sat in a makeup chair before a music video shoot. Momo worked around your eyes while Nobara argued with Wardrobe near the door.
The door opened hard.
Naoya walked in a navy suit as if he still owned you.
Momo’s brush stopped.
“Sweetheart,” he grinned.
You looked at him through the mirror. “Please leave, Zenin-san.”
He smiled at the staff. “Give us a minute.”
Nobody moved.
His smile thinned. “I said, 'A minute.'"
Nobara folded her arms. “We are running late for the shoot.”
Naoya came closer nevertheless. His hand landed on your shoulder, and familiar hands now felt strange and cold. Your stomach turned, and your body was tired of being scared, being at others' mercy to live or die.
You owned nothing because of this man—even the house you went back to wasn't yours. He could kick you out to the curb whenever he pleased, record or not.
Naoya had been nothing but a leech, sucking you dry, hollowing you out every day since you were thirteen.
So this time it chose differently without thinking.
You stood up so fast you knocked the chair back.
“Don’t touch me.”
His face softened. “I understand that you’re upset but this isn't a way to talk—"
“You understand?”
“I should have called.”
You laughed once. It sounded ugly. “You groomed me my whole life for your business plan. For your family to take you seriously. You even pretended to care for me and fed me drugs from your uncle and called them meds.”
His eyes widened, his smug smile slipping.
“I had them checked.” After years of repressing yourself, bending to his every whim, every wish, and every rule, you were yelling now, unable to control it. “They weren’t what you said they were.”
His glare hardened. “Careful.”
“You left me in that room.”
“I did what?”
You scoffed and reached for your phone, pressing the emergency button, which would send your location. “Just stop talking and leave.”
Naoya grabbed your arms. His grip was hard. “Who told you that?”
Momo and Nobara grabbed his shoulders, trying to pry him off you, yelling his name and calling for security.
You tried harder to pull free, but the fear started crawling up your throat when his grip tightened.
“You left me there,” you said. “At the hotel. You said people wanted to meet me, then locked me in a room, and they came in.”
Your throat was a traitorous thing. It hiccuped even when you screamed, “You basically sold me off, Naoya.”
Your tears started falling freely, uncaring of your heart. “All I did was love you, Naoya, and you just… sold me off.”
His face went pale under the studio lights. “I didn’t send anyone.”
“Let me go!”
“I swear I didn’t.” His fingernails dug into your skin. “Who touched you?”
The door hit the wall.
Choso crossed the room before anyone could register. His hand closed around Naoya’s throat and drove him back against the vanity, breaking the glass. Nobara grabbed your wrist and pulled you behind her.
Naoya choked out something you could not hear.
Choso leaned in, voice low. “Use your hands on her again and I’ll break them first.”
Gojo, who'd arrived behind Choso, stood in the doorway with his phone to his ear, looking less amused than you had ever seen him.
“Yeah,” he said into the call. “Run it. All of it.”
Security came in. Nobara kept you behind her while Momo wrapped a jacket around your shoulders. Choso only let go when Gojo touched his arm.
Then Choso turned, lifted one arm toward you, and you walked straight into it.
You buried your face in his chest and sobbed while he held you. His body stayed between you and Naoya, who was being dragged out by security but still looking at you with an unreadable expression.
Choso didn’t look away until the man was out of sight.
The first article went live within an hour. The documents followed throughout the day.
Sukuna’s lawyer, along with Gojo’s news media network, released everything, he had been working on because he felt responsible for putting you in danger by encouraging Naoya that day when you had been nothing but nice to him every time you'd met—the contracts, the pills, the dating clauses, the forged medical notes, and even payments tied to hotel rooms, investors, party lists, and Zenin security logs.
Your hands shook as you read. Gojo stood near Choso and spoke in a low voice, explaining that they had already been building the case. This only gave them the timing they needed. It also helped move Megumi’s inheritance claim faster.
Naoya had lied about almost everything.
Maybe he had lied about that room too.
Choso stayed with you that night.
Then the next one.
Then three more.
You stopped working, and for once in your life, nobody made you feel guilty about it. Choso rubbed ointment into the bruises on your arms with his jaw tight and his hands careful. He said little, but every time your breath caught, he stopped.
“Too much?”
“No.”
He stayed near you when the nightmares started coming back. You’d wake up sweating, reaching for a door that was not there, and Choso came in from the guest room across the hall every time you called.
Then one night you asked him to sleep in the same bed, he did, and you still woke up shaking.
On the fifth morning, he stood by your bed with messy hair and tired eyes.
“Move in with me.”
You stared at him.
“Your house has too many memories. You can’t sleep there.”
You wanted to argue but you knew he was right. Naoya was in every room of your house. His clothes were gone, but his memories weren’t something you could pack into neat little boxes and hide in an attic.
So you moved in.
Choso gave you space without making it feel like distance. He arranged for a mental recovery rehab-like environment with meals on time, therapy, music, warm baths, clean sheets, and evenings with Uro and Yuji.
Locked doors you could open from the inside.
Slowly, your body stopped waiting for another jump scare, stopped waiting to be punished.
A month later, Choso took you abroad, where nobody cared who you were unless they cared about Japanese music. Some people still recognized you, but they were mostly respectful and far in between, and if someone seemed suspicious, Choso’s cold glare and his security detail were enough to deter them. You got to walk through record stores, ate late, slept in a hotel room with one keycard each.
One night, you kissed him first.
You wanted him. That part was easy.
Then, halfway through, fear came up so fast your body stiffened under him.
Choso stopped at once. “Look at me.”
You did.
“I’m here,” he said, voice rough, but his hands stayed soft. “We’ll stop.”
You cried yourself to sleep into his chest that night, feeling like the label had taken more than your voice.
Two days later, you had a nice uplifting day and thought of riding the high and trying again.
Earlier, you’d put on a nice dark set in the hotel room bathroom after dinner. Choso had taken off his rings before washing his hands. You noticed the plain care of it, the way he dried between his fingers with a towel before coming back to you.
You sat on the edge of the bed in one of his shirts. He stood in front of you, close enough for your knees to touch his thighs.
“You sure?” he asked.
You reached for his belt instead of answering.
His hand caught yours, firm for one second, then loose. “Words.”
Your face heated, and you looked to his chest. “I want you.”
He swallowed thickly. “Good.”
Choso bent and kissed you, slow at first, until your hands stopped shaking against his waist. He tasted faintly of mint and tea. His raven hair brushed your cheek when he lowered himself over you, and the mattress dipped under his weight. He was careful with where he put his knees, careful with his elbows near your ribs, careful in a way that made the rest of him feel more dangerous because you knew he was choosing restraint every second.
You pulled him closer by the back of his neck.
His mouth moved from yours to the corner of your jaw, then down your throat. He paused there when your body tensed.
His head resting on yours, “Talk to me.”
“I’m okay.”
“That sounded weak.”
You huffed a weak laugh. “You’re annoying.”
“Still want me to stop?”
You looked at his face above yours. His eyes had gone darker shades of brown, his hair falling loose around his jaw, his mouth swollen from kissing you.
You knew he wanted you, knew it by the bulge in his pants lightly hovered above your navel and the way his fingers pressed into the sheets instead of grabbing you.
Your body knew that kind of want could turn ugly, but your head knew Choso had stopped already and would do it again. The two facts sat badly together inside you.
“Go slower,” you said.
He nodded. “I can do that.”
He kissed your forehead before he touched you again. Then he moved down your body with a kind of focus that made your breath catch. His hands stayed open on your skin, palms warm, thumbs moving only when you leaned into it. Never digging in.
When he undressed you, he did it piece by piece and checked your face often. The air felt cool against your chest. When his mouth took your nipple in, pinching the other, your back arched.
Your eyes rolled back, his eyes watching your face when your breathing hitched and you moaned his name softly.
His name sounded like nectar from your lips, soft and sweet enough to make his grip tighten on the sheet near your hip.
He briefly unlatched to speak and switch nipples. “Say it again.”
You did, softer this time, fingers in his hair, bringing him flushed against you.
He made a rough sound against your skin and pulled back to look at you. “You don’t know what that does to me.”
“Then show me.”
For a second, something in his face changed. He looked almost pained by the effort it took to stay careful.
Then he kissed you again, deeper now, his body pressing yours into the mattress without trapping you there. His hands squeezing your boobs and pinching your nipples. You felt the hard length of him against your thigh and reached to touch him through the clothes.
His breath broke against your mouth. “Don’t tease me.”
“I’m not.”
His eyes lifted to your lips again. “You are.”
"Thought you were strong enough to break doors.”
His smile curved into a smirk. “Brat.”
The word made heat pool low in your stomach. You flushed before you could hide it, and he saw.
His mouth came back to yours with more heat, his hand sliding under your knee to bring your leg around him. He held you there, chest rising hard, dark eyes fixed on your face.
“You keep making that sound.”
Your face went hot. “What sound?”
His thumb pressed into the outside of your thigh, slow to make you feel the strength in his hand. Years of drums had made his palms rough in places, his grip firm even when the rest of him looked close to breaking.
“That one,” he said when your breath hitched. “I heard you sing for years. I didn’t know you sounded like this.”
You tried to look away.
Choso caught your chin, careful but firm. “Don’t hide from me.”
The words went straight to your core. The tattoo across his nose moved when his mouth brushed yours again, and you held onto his shoulders because there was too much of him above you, his neck warm under your lips, his stomach tense where your hand had slipped beneath his shirt.
“You keep touching me there,” he whispered next to your ear.
“You have a terrible habit of working out your abs.”
His mouth twitched. “That’s my fault?”
“Yes.”
He looked down at you for a long second, then sat back against the pillows and pulled his shirt over his head.
You stared, startled.
His shoulders were broad from years behind a kit, arms cut from motion instead of just gym vanity, stomach muscles so tight that your fingers curled into the sheet.
You reached out, then pulled your hand back when embarrassment caught up.
Choso took your wrist and placed your palm against his skin.
“Take what you want.”
You climbed over with shaky pride and kissed the side of his neck, biting until his head tipped back. His hand settled at your hip, guiding without forcing.
He carefully manhandled you into sitting on his stomach while he lay down below you.
When you dragged your pussy against his abs experimentally and gasped, he went firm under you for one beat, then his fingers dug into your waist.
“You like that?”
“Shut up.”
“No.”
You tried to move away. He held you there, not enough to trap you, just enough to make your body admit what your mouth refused.
“Be nice.”
You made that ruinous puppy face at him again, seemingly unaware of your ways, like the first day he’d brought you home. The difference was this time you were on top of him and said, "Please, Choso.”
And who was he to deny you. "Go on.”
Your breath broke its rhythm on the next roll of your hips.
His eyes darkened. “Keep going.”
You ground your clit against the hard ridges of him in a messy roll.
Your hips started picking up speed with each drag as he watched you, his hands moving now and then to squeeze your waist or breasts or flick your nipples or clit.
Every time he flicked it, a jolt went through your body, making your head tip back in ecstasy. Slowly gaining confidence, your hips dragged against him more lewdly, and your breathless whines started slipping out more freely.
Your orgasm kept building, but every time you reached the edge, you lost it.
Choso noticed the furrow between your brows and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Legs,” you whined. “Hurt.”
The next second, his hands were on your hips, dragging you against him. His pace was exactly what you needed, grinding you harder against his abs until your body twitched violently and you came all over his stomach, covering his abs in your juices.
When you collapsed on top of him, boneless from exhaustion, he knew he could later come from that alone, but he honestly didn’t want to.
“You okay, baby?” he asked instead.
You hummed and hid your face in his neck. He’d never used a nickname before. It made your heart flutter, along with your pussy, which was still pulsing from the orgasm right on top of his painfully hard cock.
By the time he laid you back down, your thighs were shaking and his control looked worse. He kissed your mouth, your throat, and the place below your ear that made your whole body arch into his. His hand moved between you.
A finger slid in with the same focus he had at the drums, patient rhythm first, then pressure when your hips started answering him.
You caught his wrist, panic rising out of habit.
He stopped moving at once. “Too much?”
You shook your head, but he waited.
“I’m scared,” you said, hating how weak it sounded.
Choso bent and kissed your forehead. “Then we’ll slow down.”
“I don’t want you to stop.”
“I know.”
His voice had gone rough, but his hand stayed still until your grip eased. When his fingers curled inside you again, he watched your face instead of his own hunger. He watched you closely, learning you by responses and not demands—like what made your knees pull in, made your back arch, made your voice louder in the room.
The first time you came on his single finger, he covered your mouth with his and swallowed the sound like it had to be housed inside him.
The second time, on two fingers, he cursed into your shoulder and bit down on the skin, his hips slowly grinding against your leg.
The third time, on four fingers, he looked almost angry from wanting you so badly and still refusing to rush.
“Choso, I nh—" You lost your thought in the haze and had to pause and try again. “I—uh—want more.”
He laughed breathlessly. “Yeah? Go ahead. Use your words.”
“You—hah—inside.”
His mouth dragged along your jaw, his hair brushed your cheek. He was warm everywhere, skin flushed under your hands, his sticky stomach tightening when you touched him lower.
When he reached toward the nightstand, he paused and looked back at you.
“Condom,” he said.
The word grounded you more than any promise could have. Naoya had treated your body like another part of his contract. Choso tore the packet open with his teeth, then stopped himself, exhaled hard, and used his hands properly because even now, half-feral and breathing hard, he would not get careless with you.
You reached for him.
He came over you slowly, one forearm braced near your head, the other hand holding your thigh at his waist.
His mouth came back to yours with more heat, his hand sliding under your knee to bring your leg around him.
“Look at me.”
You did.
When he entered you, he moved with care that made your eyes sting. But he was still big and girthy, and the pressure made your fingers dig into his back. He stopped before you had to ask.
“Breathe.”
“I am trying.”
“You’re arguing, baby.”
A soft laugh slipped out of you, teary but true nonetheless. His mouth softened against your cheek.
It still scared you halfway through. The pressure, the weight, the closeness. Your nails dug into his shoulder, and your breath caught in your chest.
Choso halted at once.
He did not pull away fast enough to startle you. He held himself still, muscles tight under your hands, forehead lowered near yours.
“Stay with me,” he whispered. “Look at me.”
You opened your eyes.
“There.” His voice had gone rougher, but it stayed steady. “I’ve got you. We can stop.”
You swallowed. “I don’t want to stop.”
“Then we’ll wait.”
You wanted to cry from that because it felt like you didn't deserve him. Your face scrunched up, letting a few tears slip.
He stayed there inside you, unmoving, one hand braced beside your head and the other rubbing slow circles at your hip. He kept his body over yours without using it against you. His breath warmed your cheek. The room smelled of mint, sex, his skin, and the room-freshening perfume the hotel used.
After a while, your body came back to you.
You touched his face. “Okay.”
He studied you for another second before moving again. Slower and deeper only when you pulled him down and asked. The fear loosened by degrees, replaced by heat, then the pleasure of him filling you up, then the strange relief of wanting him and being allowed to want him without a hidden clause around it.
"You're so warm inside, baby.”
He groaned against your lips, trying to keep himself under and not embarrassingly come from just this—the first time he was going to have sex with his favorite idol. Then because all his blood had rushed down south and his brain cells were now on vacation, “Have I ever told you how sexy you are?”
Your cheeks got hotter when he stared directly into your eyes, saying those words.
“Stop talking.”
Choso laughed. It was a breathy sound that you instantly fell in love with.
Once he was fully in, filling you with a welcome stretch, he didn't pick up the pace immediately.
Instead, he kissed you deeply, his tongue moving with yours, his hips fighting to start grinding in.
When you told him to move, he did, slow enough that your body had time to accept him instead of bracing against him. His forearm stayed planted beside your head, his other hand firm at your hip, thumb rubbing there as he eased into a rhythm that made your breath come apart in small pieces.
Soon he grew bolder, pulling back just enough to push in deeper. A loud moan climbed up your throat, and when you tried to smother it with your palm, he caught your hand and kissed it instead.
Choso watched your face the whole time.
That made it worse—harder to hide from him.
Every time your brows pulled together, he slowed. Every time your hips chased his, he gave you a little more, deeper until your fingers locked behind his neck and pulled him down because you needed his weight, his mouth, the heat of his chest against yours.
His hair fell around you, brushing your cheek when he kissed you. The tattoo across his nose creased when he grunted, and his dark brown eyes kept dropping to your mouth whenever you tried to swallow a sound.
“Don’t do that,” he muttered.
You blinked up at him, dizzy.
“Sing for me.”
Your face burned, but he rolled his hips again before you could form a sentence, and it came out as a moan, and he praised it by shifting closer. You could feel his cock hit the right spots that had your back arching and vision going blurry. All that was audible were the sounds you were making, hip slapping, and your pussy squelching around his cock.
His arm shook near your head because everything about you was like a siren’s call to him. You were writhing under him, calling his name, dragging him under. He'd never even dared to dream of this. His fingers tightened on your body, then loosened right away. He reminded himself that wanting you did not mean to forget himself.
“Fuck,” he said against your mouth. “Your voice.”
You kissed him because you did not know what to do with the way he said it, low and almost hurt.
He let you have the kiss for a few seconds, then broke it only to press his mouth to your cheek, your jaw, and the corner of your lips—his hips never relenting, but increasing the pace had your brain going fuzzy.
“My girl,” he groaned against your hair. “My baby. You have no idea what you do to me.”
Your nails dragged into his back, making him shudder. The movement sent shivers through his back into his hips. The pace slipped rougher for a moment, and pleasure sparked up your spine so fast your legs tightened around him.
“There?” he asked, his breath uneven.
You nodded, then remembered to say it. “Yes, baby. There.”
He made a sound so loud that it vibrated through your chest.
His mouth found yours again when you got louder, swallowing the cry without smothering it. He kept the angle because you had asked for it. He kept himself under control even while his abdomen hardened against your stomach, his shoulders tense under your palms, his voice breaking into rough praise each time you took him deeper.
“Good,” he breathed. “So good for me. I used to hear you sing and think that was enough.” An animalistic grunt as he dragged you impossibly closer to him. “I was so fucking stupid.”
You laughed, breathless, and he kissed the sound out of you with a groan.
“Do that again.”
“Laugh?”
“Exist.”
His face went hot the second he said it, but he didn’t take it back. “Just stay with me.”
Your legs tightened around him, and he moved a hand between you, circling your clit quickly in time with his thrusts.
“Fuck, cum on my cock, baby, please. I’ll do anything. Please just—"
The pathetic pleading at the end caught you off guard because you had never heard anything like that from him before. It did something to you. Your whole body arched within seconds, your vision going hazy as you caught his lower lip between your teeth and bit down.
It caught him off guard too.
Choso came with you, burying himself to the hilt as he spilled in with a rough sound against your mouth.
He lost some of his control near the end. His jaw clenched, his hand slid under your back, and his voice dropped into something strained when he said your name. Even then, he listened. When you told him to stay there, he stayed there.
When your legs shook, he held you through it. He kept one hand under your head so it would not hit the headboard as you both continued lazily kissing.
After he carefully pulled out, he cleaned you with a warm towel. He moved slowly around your thighs, your stomach, the places where your skin still felt sensitive, checking your face before every pass. When you reached for him out of habit, he caught your wrist and kissed your palm. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “I’ve got it.”
He brought you water after, then another glass when you finished the first one faster than you meant to. Your mouth tasted of him, mint, and the expensive hotel sheets. He opened the window a little for air, pulled the blanket higher over your hip, then climbed back into bed with damp hair falling loose around his face.
You curled against him, tired, and his hand settled between your shoulder blades, broad and warm, rubbing in slow passes until your breathing matched his and you fell asleep with his heartbeat steady under your cheek.
The next morning, sunlight slipped through the curtains in pale strips. You woke with your leg thrown over his thigh and a sore ache sitting deep in your hips. Choso was already awake, watching a cooking show at low volume, one hand resting on your calf. “You alive?”
You pressed your face into his chest. “Barely.”
His mouth moved against your hair. “Good sign.”
You kicked him weakly, which made your thigh cramp. Choso sat up at once, caught your ankle, and worked his thumb into the muscle until the pain loosened. Then he kept going, massaging your calves, your knees, the backs of your thighs while you lay there useless and smug under the blanket.
“You did this,” you muttered.
His whole face went red fast.
Later, he carried you, first to the bathroom, then back to bed when you complained about walking. You spent the rest of the morning half-dressed under the sheets, sharing fruit from room service, arguing over the TV, and laughing at things that would have sounded stupid to anyone else.
For the first time in months, happiness came without begging for it. It sat in the messy blankets, in his hand around your ankle, in your voice when you called his name, and he looked up as if he still felt lucky to hear it.
---
Elsewhere, Naoya found the men in a private room under one of the old clubs.
For a moment, before the door opened, he thought of her at thirteen.
She had been scared of him then. He knew that now. At the time, he had mistaken it for shyness, manners, or whatever girls with cheap school bags did when boys from better families spoke to them.
He had made it worse because he had no idea how to be gentle without sounding bored first.
One day he would tell her she sang beautifully, then spend three hours correcting her breath control until her eyes went wet. Another day he would buy her cake and leave it on the bench beside her without saying it was for her, then get irritated when she asked if she was allowed to eat it. He remembered her small hands around the fork, her cautious glance up at him, as if he might take it back.
He had hated that look.
Then he had kept earning it.
At sixteen, Naoya had thought protection meant standing between her and the world while deciding which parts of the world she got to see. He had thought her voice needed sharpening, her clothes needed fixing, her manners needed training, and her fear needed patience only he could provide.
Years later, when his family told him he couldn’t marry her after he had already given her the ring, Naoya remembered her laughing with a paper cup of convenience-store coffee in both hands.
That should be the worst thing because of all the things his head could hold onto, it keeps his regrets. No stage lights, contract room, or first-week sales report under his father’s approving hand. Just some ugly little coffee cup from a shop near the station, the kind with a plastic lid that never fit right..
She had stolen his hoodie because she said the studio AC made her bones hurt. Naoya told her she had no bones, just complaints. She kicked his ankle under the table and missed because her legs were too short to reach.
He laughed so hard he almost choked on yakisoba bread.
She looked offended for maybe five seconds, then started laughing too, mouth covered with his sleeve because she had crumbs on her lips and thought he’d point them out.
Naoya did point them out.
She called him mean.
He told her she was lucky he was honest.
She said, “You’re lucky I’m talented.”
Naoya thought he should have kissed her then. He should have taken her to dinner somewhere proper, in public, instead of hotels and apartments. Somewhere his family wouldn’t go. Somewhere with a menu he couldn’t turn into a lesson.
Instead, he bought her pudding from the combini because she wanted to try the new one with the rabbit on the lid, and they sat on a curb behind the rehearsal building with his driver parked two streets away, pretending he couldn’t see them.
Naoya’s phone rang nine times that night after he’d stormed out of the house earlier. Father. An uncle. Father again. He turned it face down on the pavement.
She noticed because she noticed everything that affected Naoya. “Won’t you get in trouble?”
“I’m already in trouble.”
“For what?”
“For existing.”
She stayed silent for a moment. Then she pushed the unopened pudding toward him carefully. “You should eat.”
“What?”
“You get dramatic when you’re hungry.”
Naoya looked at her for a long second, his head full of label nonsense, inheritance shares, the way men in his family spoke about women as if they were furniture with wombs, the way they spoke about him as if he had been built wrong and could still be corrected with enough pressure.
Then she peeled the lid off the pudding for him because his hands were shaking.
Naoya forgot them after that.
For a few hours, he forgot his father. Forgot the company. Forgot the Zenin name sitting on his neck. She hummed some stupid chorus under her breath and fed him one bite from the plastic spoon, then took the rest for herself because she was a greedy little thing when she stopped being shy.
He kept watching her mouth move around the spoon.
She caught him and stared back as if he had given her proof of something certain about her.
He had been happy then, or at least content, away from the house. In the street, at the curb, he had forgotten the Zenin name for whole nights because she laughed at his insults when she finally learned where the softness hid.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“You’re lying.”
“You sing better when you’re angry.”
“That is the worst compliment.”
“It’s still a compliment.”
She smiled down at the pudding cup.
Naoya remembered thinking, with the full stupidity of a young man who had been praised for cruelty and mistook possession for devotion, that this was fine. This was his. This little pocket behind the building, her shoulder pressed against his, the cheap pudding, the hoodie hanging past her wrists, the phone face down and useless.
He thought he could keep this while taking everything else.
A trophy wife with the correct family. The seat at the table. The shares. The old men shutting up when he entered a room. Her in a hotel room afterward, angry for a few days, then soft again when he called.
He thought she would curse him, cry, throw the ring at his head, then come back when she remembered who knew her throat before every tour and which key made her voice open.
That was how ugly he had let himself become.
He wanted her kept where he could reach her.
Then he grew older and started calling it strategy.
The men inside the club looked worse than they had on the security footage. Choso had done most of the damage that night, but Naoya finished what was left.
He grabbed the first one by the collar and slammed him into the table.
“Why did you say I sent you?”
The man cried through blood and spit. “We didn’t know she’d believe it.”
Naoya’s hand tightened.
That was the ugliest part.
She had believed it because he had trained her to.
“That wasn’t the question.”
He hit him again.
The second man tried crawling away. Naoya kicked a chair into his path and stepped over him. His hand still hurt from the studio, from Choso’s grip on his throat, from the way everyone had looked at him as if he had become some cheap monster.
He had been many expensive monsters.
He had used her. Managed her. Lied to her. Fed her whatever kept her useful, calm, soft enough to steer. He had planned to marry another woman and keep her close afterward, because some stupid part of him had thought she would rage, cry, stop answering for a month, then come back when she remembered who knew her best.
He had taken her for granted so completely that he had mistaken her survival for loyalty.
But he had not sent those men.
“Who paid you?”
The men answered with more incessant sobbing.
His phone rang.
His fiancée’s name flashed across the screen.
Naoya answered and put it to his ear, breathing hard.
“Where are you?” she snapped. “My father is asking questions. The press is outside my house. Fix this.”
Naoya looked at the man on the floor.
A laugh came out of him, dry and wrong.
“Naoya.”
“Shut up.”
Silence.
“What did you just say?”
“I said shut up. I never cared about you. I don’t care about your father. I don’t care about the wedding. I’m being accused of something I didn’t do because your family wanted tax evasion and mine wanted a bride who knew when to lower her eyes.”
Her voice went thin. “I’ll destroy you, you son of a bitch.”
“Try.”
“You think I won’t?”
“I don’t care anymore.”
He hung up.
The man on the floor sobbed harder.
Naoya crouched beside him and smiled without feeling it.
“Now,” he said, “give me the name.”
A/N:
I’ve never really written Naoya as even remotely tolerable before (bc he & I are natural born enemies/I will traumatize himz), but this version is giving me complicated feelings. I might want to play with a softer, less canon-compliant Naoya at some point, though I don’t have a proper idea for him yet. Also, I loved writing Choso here. Absolute best baby girl.
Also, not me writing "Sukuna's truck stature."
Do let me know if you'd let Naoya explain himself?
Masterlist
Hope you enjoyed @alebrasil0101! And thank you to my bbg @blackrimmedrose for beta reading parts of this and for her encouragement.
Hi! I am the artist of the boxer gojo and his husband nanami art on Twitter. I have hence
Hi! I am the artist who made the boxer gojo and his husband nanami fanart on X. I have since deleted the work but today I was scrolling ao3 and found your fic dedicated to my art. It made me feel really good that someone felt like my art was good enough to make a fic on it, thank you. I recognised your username and hence came out to find your tumblr lol, I've known you since before I was even active on x as a gonana-er 🥲 loved your analysis on why nanago makes sense. What's your X acc if you don't mind sharing??
Oh my god, this genuinely made my day. You have immaculate taste in ships (I think you appreciate FushiIta too), and I’m kind of stunned that you knew my work before you even became active on X as a Gonana artist.
I loved that piece because it gave Gojo and Nanami room to exist as themselves, away from all the responsibilities JJK keeps piling onto them. It felt warm and lived-in, and it stayed with me long enough that I ended up writing an entire fic around it. Thank you for creating it in the first place. I’m so glad you found the fic, and even happier that the dedication reached you.
I recently made a new X account, though I’m less active there at the moment. Here it is:
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
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Synopsis: Choso has loved your voice for years.
He has your records, your rare pressings, the songs your label buried, and enough sense to stay away from Naoya Zenin’s girl.
Naoya Zenin had made you famous, then made you his.
At thirteen, you were a girl with a demo. Years later, you are a star with a sold-out tour, a controlled image, a secret fiancé, and a career tied so tightly to the Zenin name that even your pain has to wait until after soundcheck.
Then one hotel party breaks the lie open.
He should have stayed away. The Itadori and Zenin families have hated each other for years, and you were Naoya’s singer, Naoya’s investment, Naoya’s...
But then he heard you scream.
Content Tags: MDNI, explicit sexual content, protective Choso, softly toxic!Naoya, abusive relationship, emotional hurt/comfort, slow recovery, some dub-con (not all), grooming, exploitation of a minor by an entertainment company, producer/idol power imbalance, sexual coercion, rough sex used harmfully, attempted gang sexual assault (don't worry, daddy's there to save you), drugging/manipulated misrepresented medication, alcohol abuse, pill abuse, mixing pills and alcohol, addiction/substance dependency, withdrawal symptoms, panic attacks, PTSD symptoms, nightmares, dissociation, stalking, forced confinement (not like that), industry & contract abuse, dating bans, medical abuse, forged medical notes, public humiliation, betrayal, arranged engagement, physical violence, mentions of blood, threats, legal scandal, recovery after abuse, consensual sex after trauma, consent checking, praise kink, abs riding, oral, fingering, penetrative sex, condom, aftercare. WC: 17.2K Oneshot.
A/N: I wrote this in 35 hours during a hypomanic episode after watching this. Based on this request.
Moodboard | Song Naoya would listen to | Song Choso would listen to
(Notice how one is being sung to you & the other one is being sung to the homies about "a bitch.")
Playlist 1 | Playlist 2
Naoya had you pinned under him.
You had said you missed him when he pulled you back into bed. You had even laughed at first, because he used to kiss your shoulder and call you spoiled when you wanted five more minutes. He used to take his time.
But now his hand was closed around your wrists, holding them firmly above your head. His hips hit so hard that your breath kept breaking.
You tried to relax, telling yourself he had meetings, label calls, his father in his ear, and artists fighting over release dates.
Stress made people rough. Maybe it made him forget himself.
“Nh-Naoya,” you cried out, and it came out too small and shaky.
He ignored you and kept going, one hand moving to pinch your clit.
You gasped as he buried himself to the hilt and came with a grunt, his face buried in your hair.
He kissed your cheek after, warm and slow, as if that fixed the parts of your body that hurt. You lay there with your knees bent, thighs aching when you tried to move.
“You have soundcheck at four,” he said, straightening up and pulling out.
You winced from the suddenly hurried loss. “I know.”
He proceeded to reach for a towel to wipe himself down. “You can still walk, can’t you?”
You tried to laugh because he smiled when he said it. Your legs felt weak under the sheet. “Barely.”
He chucked the towel to rub your hip, right over the sore spot. “You’re tense. That’s all. You work yourself up, then your body follows. I told you to sleep earlier.”
You nodded because it made sense when he said it. It had to. He loved you. He found you when you were singing covers at local, unknown school theaters while he himself was being groomed into the company through family power.
Your mind slipped into the memory.
You had first seen him at the back of his school auditorium, in a place you had been invited to sing at but could never afford to study in. He and his boys in the last row had come in late, all expensive shoes and loose ties, acting as if the whole cultural program had been arranged for their boredom.
Naoya was sixteen and half-hidden under an oversized black hoodie, shoulders too broad for someone still in school, and an expensive pair of glasses low on his nose. He looked dragged there against his will. Gojo had one leg stretched into the aisle. Geto kept leaning over to say things that made Gojo cover his mouth. Kenjaku sat beside them, heir to the Kamo clan, smiling in that strange, watchful way.
They had been laughing before you stepped up to the mic.
Then you sang.
You were thirteen, still in a dress your grandfather had ironed twice that morning, hands sweating around the mic stand. Your voice shook at the first line. By the second, it steadied. By the bridge, the last row had gone quiet.
Naoya was staring.
You had seen it by accident when you looked up from the floor. His face had gone a hued pink under the auditorium lights. He turned away when Gojo caught him, cupped his hand around Naoya's ear, and whispered badly, “Ask her for her autograph.” Geto pretended to cough your name into his fist. Kenjaku only smiled wider.
Gojo and Geto had never seen Naoya as a friend but someone to gaslight into stupidity.
After your set, you were trying to fold the paper with your lyrics back into your bag when Naoya came over.
Up close, he was taller than any boy you had ever spoken to, and that alone made you nervous. Then you saw his sharp eyes, his ear piercings, the dark blonde hair falling over his glasses, and your brain lost the small amount of sense it had. You lowered your head and stared at the zipper of his hoodie because looking at his face directly felt rude.
“You sang the bridge wrong,” he said.
Your stomach dropped. Heat crawled up your cheeks.
You knew it had been stupid to come here. Your grandfather had pushed you, had said people with money needed to hear your talent, but now this boy from the back row was standing in front of you, and all you could think was that you had embarrassed yourself in a room full of people.
Then Naoya held out a carton of warm milk tea from the vending machine.
“The original key is bad for you,” he said, looking away before you could. “Your voice sounds better when you don’t chase it.”
You took it with both hands. “Thank you?”
His hands were bigger than yours, knuckles a little rough, fingers fidgeting around the can before he let go. By the veins on his exposed skin, you realized he had been hiding more than height under the loose hoodie. He was probably muscular too.
“I can get people to listen. If you want,” he added, then seemed to hate how that sounded. “At my family’s record company. They listen when I bring them something good.”
You blinked up at him.
His ears went redder. “You’re good.”
Behind him, Gojo made a dying sound. “Did you just try to sign her before asking her out?”
Naoya turned enough to hiss, “Shut up.”
Geto laughed into his sleeve. Kenjaku said, “He means cake. He’s trying to ask you for cake.”
“I am not,” Naoya snapped.
You looked down at the milk tea rim and hid a small smile around it.
Naoya saw it, and his face softened.
“There’s a place near the station,” he said, quieter now. “They have cake. You can bring your guardian. Or don’t. I mean, you should. Since you’re—” He stopped, jaw tightening as Gojo wheezed behind him. “Forget them. I just want to hear you sing something in your own key.”
You nodded because a handsome boy with pretty eyes had bought you milk tea and said your voice was good, and at that age, that felt close enough to being chosen.
Then the memory was gone.
Today his driver took you to the venue, and you arrived to your team waiting in your dressing room with garment bags open.
Momo saw the way you held the chair before sitting. Her brush paused near your face. Nobara stopped sorting lip colors.
“Long day?” Nobara asked.
“Just tired.”
Momo lowered her voice. “Do you need the medic?”
You shook your head fast. “I’m fine.”
Nobody pushed. They knew whose name sat above the studio doors. The Zenin family owned contracts, tour insurance, security, and lawyers who sent letters before anyone finished speaking. To the public, he was your producer, but to everyone backstage, he was the man you belonged to. And with the dating ban among other dark sides of J-Pop, they couldn’t really acknowledge your relationship with Naoya without getting permanently banned themselves.
So they worked around the pain. Nobara skillfully covered the marks near your collar with heavy concealer. Mewa chose the right hair extensions so your face would have color. Momo helped you into the dress because bending hurt. You thanked them each time because this was humiliating for someone as well known as you.
Onstage, your legs burned unbearably by the second song. By the fourth, your smile started to ache. But you hit every note because missing one would become a humiliating clip by morning. You waved, blew kisses, hit your marks when the dancers did, and laughed into the mic when the crowd sang the bridge back.
Naoya arrived near the final song. You saw him from the stage wing—black suit, neatly styled blonde hair, holding a phone in his hand.
He had missed the set and the soundcheck. Still, when you came offstage, he stepped in front of your manager and pulled you against his side.
“There’s my girl,” he said in a honeyed tone.
Cameras flashed from the small press group near the barricade. His arm tightened around your waist. You tried to stand straight.
“She killed it,” a reporter said from behind a camera.
Naoya smiled wider. “She was raw when I found her. Could barely handle a room of fifty people. Look at her now.”
Everyone laughed because it sounded sweet. Your mouth smiled by itself.
Another reporter asked how you kept getting better with each tour.
Naoya answered before you could. “Discipline. The right team. The right guidance. Talent needs someone who knows when to push.”
You nodded again. Your legs felt numb from the pain under the dress.
Backstage, the room was filled with staff, flowers, phones, fruit trays, and voices asking for five minutes. Your ears started ringing. Everything suddenly became too much—people standing near the couch, near the door, near your bags. Your breath slipped out of rhythm.
You sat down before you fell from the oncoming panic attack.
"Hey." Naoya crouched in front of you, his face softening, hand covering yours in your lap. Around you, the staff stopped to check.
“Breathe with me, hm,” your fiancé whispered.
You did as told because he sounded gentle.
“In. Out. That’s it. Good girl.”
Your chest hurt and eyes stung. You hated that you needed him to talk you through this.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. You worked hard.”
Nobara stood by the mirror, watching. Momo held a bottle of water but didn’t step closer.
Naoya brushed hair from your cheek. “You’re okay.”
His phone buzzed.
He checked the screen, and his jaw set for half a second before he put the device away.
“What happened?” you asked.
“Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
He sighed and looked toward the door. “A few of my friends are throwing a party and were wondering if you’d be available for that. They are big names, but since you’re exhausted, I’ll tell them you can’t.”
You tried to sit straighter. “I can go.”
He studied you. “You sure?”
“It’s fine. I want to help.”
His thumb stroked your knuckles. “That’s my girl.”
The party was in a hotel suite with private elevators and guards by the hall. Music played low. Mei Mei talked near the bar with two brand heads. Many celebrities and J-pop idols were there. Geto stood with Gojo by a couch. Nanami spoke to your tour manager. Iori kissed your cheek and said you looked beautiful.
You said thank you and smiled even when your face hurt.
Naoya kept his hand at your back as he moved you from group to group. “You remember her single launch,” he told a sponsor. “That strategy changed everything.”
You held your glass with both hands and waited for him to finish.
Sometime later, he took you to the side and gave you the anxiety pill with water from his own glass.
You took it because your hands had started to shake again. The room had too much noise with too many people wanting a picture with you and you answering questions you did not care about.
“Just one,” his voice was calm. “It will settle you.”
“What is it?”
“The same thing Dr. Nobuaki gave you before Osaka.” He touched your chin and tilted your face up. “You trust me, don’t you?”
You swallowed it with water from his glass.
He watched your throat move, then slipped the remaining pills into the hidden pocket sewn into the side of your dress, the one your stylists used for lip balm and earpieces.
“In case you need another later,” he said. “Don’t go digging through your bag in front of people.”
Within a few minutes, your chest loosened. Your mouth felt warm, the pain in your legs and jaw became a distant thing, and the hard knot behind your ribs softened enough for you to breathe. You leaned against him near the bar and started running your mouth telling a brand manager you hated the last perfume campaign they put you in because the dress made you look racist.
Naoya laughed fast and covered it with his hand on your lower back. “She’s joking.”
You smiled at him. “I wasn’t.”
His fingers pinched into your waist. “Sweetheart.”
The word meant stop.
And you did.
Then a few minutes later he excused the two of you and walked you down a short hall to a smaller room with a big bed, a couch, a low table, a locked cabinet, and city views behind opaque glass. He guided you inside and shut the door. “Stay here. I have to speak to some people.”
“About what?”
“Work.”
“Can I come?”
“You need to sit.”
His voice softened when your face changed. “I’ll be right back.”
You locked it after he left.
For a while, you sat on the couch with your phone in your lap. The room moved a little when you turned your head. The medicine made your body slow, but your mind kept picking at old memories.
Naoya at twenty, sitting beside you on the rehearsal room floor with his long legs stretched out and a convenience store bag between you. The studio clock had already crossed two in the morning. Your vocal coach had gone home. His father’s people had stopped calling after the fifth time he rejected the track list they wanted for you.
Neither of you had eaten since the day before.
He split instant noodles with you using the lid as a second bowl, then scolded you for burning your tongue even though he had burned his first. You laughed, and he had to cover your mouth because the night guard was sleeping outside. Naoya looked at you then, hoodie sleeves pushed up, hair falling into his eyes, and said, “I’ll take you to dinner anywhere after you sell out Tokyo Dome.”
You believed him because he said it before anyone else dared to.
Naoya sent flowers to your first real hotel room, not the cheap business hotel near the station but a suite with a bathtub too large for one person and a view you kept taking pictures of because you had never slept that high above the city before. White roses, your favorite snacks, a note written in his stiff handwriting: Don’t cry before the show. Your face swells.
You had cried.
After your first bad review, he found you sitting behind the recording booth with your knees to your chest, the magazine crumpled in your hand. He took it from you, read two lines, and threw it into the trash.
“They hate you because they can already see where you’re going,” he had said, holding your face between his hands. His thumbs were warm under your eyes. “People don’t review nobodies this hard.”
You had wanted to ask if he meant it.
He kissed your forehead before you could.
He used to call at three in the morning from company cars, hotel lobbies, family dinners he had escaped, just to ask if your throat hurt, if you had eaten, if the song still felt wrong in the second verse. Sometimes he said nothing for whole minutes. You would hear traffic on his end, his breathing, the click of his lighter before he remembered you hated the smell and put it away.
He used to wait outside the recording booth with a bottle of water already opened because your hands were too shaky from the tour stress to open the seal yourself.
He used to look at you as if the world had put something rare in front of him and he was the only person alive who knew how to keep it from breaking.
You got up to walk around and clear your head, then picked up a wine bottle from the minibar shelf. You poured a little into a glass. Then a little more. The small burn made your throat hurt, but it gave you something else to feel other than the crippling burnout.
You drank until the room felt less congested, even though you were alone.
You bent to unclasp your heels and got one foot free.
The door clicked. A keycard chirped against the panel.
You looked up, thinking Naoya was probably back.
Then remembered you had locked it.
Three men came in—one wore a loose suit and smiled at your legs before your face. Another shut the door behind him. The third said your name as if he had paid for it.
“Here you are,” he said. “Zenin said you were resting.”
You stood too fast and suddenly got hit with a dizzying spell. “My producer will be back.”
“That’s why we came now.”
Your stomach dropped. “Get out.”
The man near the door laughed. “We were told you were ready to meet.”
“I said no such thing. I don’t even know you.” Your voice cracked. “I’m calling Zenin-san.”
One of them took a step closer. “He knows.”
You grabbed your phone, but your fingers missed the screen. The room blurred around you, making you back away until your hip hit the table.
“You don’t know who you’re talking to. Zenin Naoya is my fiancé.”
“Then be nice for him.”
You screamed.
The first hand caught your arm. You pulled back and hit his chest with your glass. It slipped and broke near your feet. Someone cursed and made for your waist. You screamed again, louder, until your throat hurt.
The door hit the wall.
You flinched so hard your knees bent.
A man stood in the broken doorway. You saw black hair and a dark shirt. You couldn’t focus on his face as your vision got further blurred. One of the men let go of you.
“What the hell are you doing?” someone snapped.
The man from the hall answered with his fist.
You swear you heard bones cracking.
You stumbled past him even as the room turned into a cacophony of grunts and bodies hitting furniture.
You did not look back, just ran with one shoe on, one shoe gone, and hands dragging along the hallway walls to stay upright.
Naoya.
You needed to find Naoya.
They lied. They had to be lying.
Naoya got angry. Naoya pushed. Said cruel things when stressed.
But he would not hand you over to strangers.
He had put a ring on your finger, had chosen you. He had said ‘wife’ when you both talked about your future.
You made your way to the lift, and with worse vision, you smashed buttons that you could feel through your fingertips. Then ripped the remaining heel from your feet and threw it to the side.
The lift took you away from the floor you had been on.
You tried to keep your breathing down, trying to call Naoya, but his phone kept coming up out of reach.
The lift arrived at a floor that vaguely resembled a twenty-six on the big display when you stumbled out.
Your chest eased as soon as you heard his voice.
It came from the penthouse office near the end of the hall. The door was half cracked.
You reached for the handle, almost tripping on the carpet.
Kenjaku’s voice came first. “So when are you marrying the girlfriend?”
Naoya laughed.
Your hand froze.
“I’m not marrying her.”
The floor seemed to pull out from under your feet if you hadn't been holding the doorframe.
Kenjaku made an inquisitive sound. “That serious?”
“My father already found someone. Simple, traditional, good family. That kind of woman knows what the Zenin name means.”
“And your singer?”
“She’s useful.” Naoya sounded tired now, bored with the subject. “She isn’t worthy of the clan. If I marry her, they’ll cut me off. No inheritance, not even equity. They’ll hand more control to Megumi just to punish me.”
“I thought you guys were serious.”
No sound came from Naoya for a moment.
Then he laughed and said, “I love money more.”
Suddenly the door wasn't enough to keep you upright.
You waited for Naoya to laugh again, for him to say he was messing with Kenjaku. You waited for him to say he had been joking.
He did not.
The ringing in your ears got louder—his voice kept getting louder inside your skull. Your chest hurt and your face felt wet. You touched your cheek and looked at your fingers.
Tears.
You stepped back.
One step. Then another.
Your body moved before you decided anything. Your thoughts came late and broken—Naoya funding your demo, telling you what to wear, saying other people would use you, saying he was the only person who understood what you could become.
He had chosen your songs. Your stage name. Your trainer. Your doctors. Your interviews. Your friends.
He said he cared.
Had made every rule sound like love.
You walked down the hall in bare feet. Your shoulder brushed the wall, but your body felt none of it. You heard someone call your name from far away, but you kept moving because there was nowhere safe in the world for you anymore.
You picked up a bottle from a passing waiter.
Your pills were still in your dress pocket.
You felt at them in your palm for a long second. Your fingers shook, but you kept hearing your name again. It felt closer this time. A man’s voice like he was inside your skull, but it was drowned out by Naoya’s, “I love money more.”
You swallowed the pills with alcohol just to kill the voices.
Once you were downstairs at the party again, drunk, the bottle hit the carpet. You sat on the floor beside a couch and pulled your knees to your chest. Your tears kept coming, but your face did not move right. You cried without sound, and then even that stopped feeling real.
Someone came to you.
You tried to lift your head, but your neck felt weak.
“Hey, look at me.”
You stared at the man whose face you couldn't see.
He said your name again.
You wanted to ask if Naoya sent him, if the men were gone, or why your fiancé said he loved money more than you.
Your mouth opened, but words were too cheap to express the pain in your chest.
The next morning came in pieces.
A hotel bathroom—Momo wiping your face with a wet towel as Nobara cursed under her breath. Someone saying you needed sleep while another voice saying the label wanted a statement.
Naoya did not call.
You checked your phone until your eyes burned—no missed calls, texts, apologies, or drivers waiting downstairs, not even a voice note telling you to stop being annoying.
By noon, every entertainment page was running the same news.
Naoya Zenin stood beside a woman in a pale dress who had silky hair, a pretty old money smile, and family money. The caption said his family was pleased to announce his engagement.
Your ring was still on your finger.
You took it off in the bathroom and dropped it into the toilet. It hit the porcelain, and the sound made you gag.
People looked at you differently after that.
At meetings, men lowered their voices when you entered, and women from PR smiled in pity. Your manager asked if you wanted to take “personal time,” but only after reminding you how expensive it was to move tour dates.
You said you could work.
You stopped addressing Naoya’s name. You stopped checking news about him and stopped sleeping unless you had something to numb it all in your system first.
A week later, you walked into a recording session drunk enough that your words slurred. The new producer, Megumi, looked at your assistant. Your assistant looked at the floor.
“You good?” Megumi asked from the soundboard.
“I’m here, aren’t I?"
“That wasn’t the question.”
You laughed because it felt easier than telling him how his cousin uncle had torn your chest open and now you couldn’t sit alone with your thoughts because you couldn’t trust anyone anymore. "Ease up, CIA-san.”
Megumi’s jaw clenched, nobody laughed with you.
You sang the first take with your mouth dry and your head loose. Your voice cracked bad, and you had to laugh and ask to go again. The engineer hesitated before pressing record.
After that, it got normal.
You drank before fittings because standing still made you think. You took pills before interviews because not smiling in a haze made your chest tighten. Then you started mixing things because one thing by itself stopped working.
No one stopped you.
They just spectated.
Your makeup artists covered the dark lines under your eyes with concealer. Your manager kept mint gum in her bag. Drivers learned which back doors to use when you could not walk straight through a lobby.
Naoya smiled in public with his new fiancée.
Everyone clapped for him, for the picture of Japan’s most eligible bachelor finally settling down with his Cinderella.
You watched a video from a green room TV screen before a live show. He touched her waist the way he used to touch yours when cameras felt suffocating to you. He looked proud.
Someone beside you said, “I’m sorry.”
You turned your head slowly. “For what?”
They looked scared then.
You went onstage ten minutes later. You performed like a highly paid monkey with a smile.
That was enough for everyone.
A couple months later at a party you grabbed air, missing the car door.
Your heel slipped on the curb outside the hotel, and concrete rushed up.
A hand caught your waist before your knees hit the ground.
You heard someone curse near your ear. The grip was firm so he could hold you upright, but your body had already given up.
“Get her inside,” a man's voice said.
You tried to ask for your driver, but your tongue felt heavy and slurred.
Then the last thing you saw was a black shirt and taped fingers near your face.
The next morning you woke in a bed that was too large.
For a few seconds, you stared at the ceiling and waited for the room to magically be yours. It was not.
The sheets smelled nice, and you realized with dawning horror that your dress was gone.
You scrambled to check your underwear. It was gone too.
You lay under the blanket in an oversized black shirt that reached your thighs and nothing else.
You sat up too fast and almost threw up.
Yet your first thought was alcohol.
And the second was your phone.
You pushed the blanket back and looked around. There was water on the nightstand, some painkillers, and a folded towel. You ignored all of it and checked the drawers with hands that shook.
The door opened.
An androgynous person in a white kimono stepped in with a tray. They paused when they saw you half out of bed. “Good morning, ma’am.”
“Where are my clothes?”
“They were sent to cleaning. You were sick on them last night.”
Your face burned.
They set the tray down on a small table. “Female staff changed you after Mr. Itadori brought you in. Your belongings are in the dressing room, and your phone is charging.”
“Mr. Itadori?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
You knew the name after a few seconds—some J-rock band with all brothers that sold out stadiums with Sukuna and Yuji screaming into mics while their third brother sat behind them and looked half angry at the cymbals.
You had seen them around at shows, award nights, and afterparties. Had their dark-haired brother been the man in the doorway that night too? Maybe... The one with long hair. Your head hurt when you tried to remember it. “I need a drink,” you muttered, wincing.
The butler looked at the tray. “There is coffee.”
“I said a drink.”
“Breakfast first, ma’am.”
Your stomach growled at the mention of food.
So you ate at a long table in a robe one of the women brought you. You tried to eat in small bites, but hunger made you unmannered about it. Another woman smiled and refilled your tea without making a face.
The elevator opened after you finished half the plate.
Choso—you vaguely recalled—walked in from the lower floor in gym clothes, hair damp, and a towel over one shoulder. He looked at you, then at the empty bowl near your hand.
“You can keep the food down.”
He sounded surprised, which immediately made you irritable.
“That your greeting?”
“Yes.”
You crossed your legs under the robe. “I need my phone, my clothes, and a car. Also, whoever runs your household needs to learn boundaries.”
He pulled out the chair across from you and sat. “You were about to pass out on concrete outside a hotel at three in the morning.”
“I wear high heels. It happens.”
“You were drunk enough to choke on your own vomit.”
Your heart sank a little when he said it with that tone, but you smiled the way you did when interviewers asked about Naoya. “Are you this respectful with every woman you meet?”
His face barely moved. “Fix your shit.”
The words hit wrong in your chest. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You keep going this way, you die and become Japan's next Marilyn. Then people post clips for a week, and your label sells whatever songs you left behind until the end of time while someone else wears your costumes on a tribute stage.”
Your chair scraped back. “You don’t know me.”
“I know your team treats you like a liability. Know your hands are shaking from alcohol withdrawal. I also know Zenin’s people stopped paying attention because you aren't as profitable to him anymore.”
The breakfast tried to crawl out of your throat.
You stood up. “Where’s the door?”
He pointed toward the hall.
You went that way with your chin up. The hall turned into another hall. One door opened into a library. One into a linen room. Another needed a code. You found stairs that led to a gym, then a theater, then a locked service entrance.
You came back ten minutes later, sweating and furious.
Choso had a cup of coffee in front of him.
“I need to leave. Where's your goddam front door?”
“You stay here.”
You stared at him because there was no way you’d heard him correctly.
He stood with his coffee. “You need rehab, a doctor, and definitely real security. I’ll be gone for a few hours. My sister has female staff that will get you whatever you need. Except alcohol and an exit.”
“I’ll call my manager.”
“Your manager let you walk into parties wasted with a stalker following you.”
Your skin went cold.
He picked up his towel with his other hand. “One of my security staff noticed a man taking photos outside three different consecutive venues. Same van. Same fake badge. Last night he almost got inside your car.”
You gripped the back of the chair, color drawn away from your face.
“I handled it.” Choso’s voice softened a note. “You keep moving around drunk, and your skin ends up hanging in someone’s shed.”
You could hear your own heartbeat.
He looked tired then. Still angry, but tired under it. “Stay here and think about what you are going to do.”
After he left, a female staff member came back with tea and a change of clothes folded over one arm.
“You should eat more,” she said. “Please do not pay mind to him. His anger is fleeting.”
You sat because your knees felt weak, your hands starting to tremble with bloodcurdling fear. You tried to hide it but failed. “Is he usually that rude?”
She smiled a little. “He gets harsh when he is scared something bad’s going to happen.”
“I’ve never talked to him before.”
“He knows your music.” She placed the clothes beside you. “He joined his brothers’ band because of you.”
You looked up.
She lowered her voice. “The Zenin and Itadori families have problems going back more than a few generations of lineage. He never talked to you for that reason. Also because you were with Mr. Zenin.”
You looked at the hallway where Choso had gone.
The tea warmed your hands, but the rest of you felt unbearably cold in the unfamiliar house.
You spent the next hour looking for a way out and found nothing.
The penthouse had too many halls, and many of the doors needed codes. The elevator opened only when the androgynous butler pressed their thumb to the panel. You checked a service closet, a laundry room, two guest baths, and one door that led to a stairwell with another locked door at the bottom.
The female attendant—Aya—followed with tea in one hand and your phone in the other.
“You know I can call the police,” you muttered passive-aggressively, stomping away.
“You can.” She handed you the phone. “Do you want to?”
You stared at the screen.
No missed calls from Naoya.
You’d practically been kidnapped since last night, and he didn't care.
You shoved the phone into the robe pocket before your tears could fall. Not being able to numb anything out was messing with your emotions. You’d read somewhere that it happened after a while of substance abuse. “I want the exit.”
Aya pointed left. “That way.”
You went left and ended up in a record room.
It took a second for your eyes to settle in the dark. Wall shelves ran from floor to ceiling, filled with vinyl records that stood in clean rows behind glass. You saw Itadoris’ band first, then old punk records, some metal, old J-rock, city pop, and then your name.
Your first album in its first pressing—the one with the wrong color sleeve that had sold out in six minutes.
Next to it was your second album on clear vinyl. The overseas tour edition. A signed radio copy you did not remember signing. A test pressing your own label had told you was lost.
You stepped closer. “Wha-?”
Aya came in behind you. “He collects records.”
“Mine?”
“A lot of people collect yours.”
“Not this one.” You pointed at the test pressing. “Even I don’t have this one.”
Aya smiled at it. “He outbid a collector for it. Ryomen-sama yelled for three days.”
You checked the shelves and then his adjacent room for creepy memorabilia—photos, notes, lipstick-stained cups, anything weird. Practically upturned his whole room while Aya stood there smiling.
But there was nothing except records, sleeve covers, old ticket stubs from public concerts, and framed awards from Choso’s band.
You found no shrine, stolen clothes, printed screenshots, or even a concert costume.
Still, your face got hot.
“He is a fan,” Aya said.
“Fans don’t lock you in.”
She touched the glass case and looked at your records. “He has poor manners when frightened. The whole family does. Yuji-kun’s the only normal one, and even he once threw a chair through a vending machine because Megumi-san yelled at him for no reason. That reminds me, we had informed Megumi San about you being here.”
Your lips twitched unintentionally—you'd heard about those two but never had confirmation before.
Aya raised an eyebrow. “You look happy.”
Another security staff member came in with folded towels. Aya introduced her as Riko, and she had the fast mouth of someone who knew every secret in the building.
“Choso-san broke a door,” Riko said with a chest-puffed-up motion mimicking Choso while placing the towel like a bridge on the bed. “Like actual hard wood, not the cheap stuff. Clean in half.”
Aya clicked her tongue. “Don’t gossip.”
“He broke it?” you asked.
Riko nodded. “Ran from the garage because one of the security people called him. Didn’t even wear shoes. Security said they called lawyers because he looked ready to kill.”
Your heart gave a confusing reaction. You didn't understand men. Didn’t understand why one man could be so cruel, lying to you for years, and another you hadn’t even spoken to would show up disheveled and then lock you here.
The women kept talking about drivers, Sukuna firing a chef for serving cold eggs, and their sister stealing Yuji’s favorite guitar and pretending she had bought it first.
By late afternoon, you stopped checking every doorway.
You ate toast in the kitchen while Riko complained about rich people thinking coffee cups walked themselves to sinks. Aya cut fruits and told you which balcony had the best view of the red roses below.
You didn’t talk much. But you were relaxed because no one asked you about Naoya or gave you pitying smiles.
Choso came back after dinner had already been set at the table—soup, grilled fish, rice, and a small plate of pickled vegetables. You had planned to refuse all of it until your stomach embarrassed you again.
So you were already sitting down when he walked in, stopping near the chair across from you. He had changed into dark pants and a plain shirt that fell loose around his collarbone, and you quickly looked away before his eyes landed on you.
“You can leave,” he started.
You looked back up.
“I was wrong to stop you that way.” He pulled the chair out but did not sit yet. “I saw that glint in your eyes and reacted badly.”
“What glint?”
“My brother gets it during episodes.” His jaw moved once. “Sukuna. When he starts hunting for alcohol, when he needs to outrun his own thoughts. Doctors called it mania after he broke his hand punching a studio wall.”
You stayed still.
“Not saying you have it. But—" He ran a mildly frustrated hand through his hair as if searching for a way to put his words, then took a deep breath and sat down. “I just want to say that I’m sorry. You are an adult, and I'm no one to make those decisions for you."
You pushed rice around with your chopsticks. You should have snapped at him. You wanted to.
Instead, you took a bite because your hands needed something to do that wasn’t going to make things more awkward.
“I can arrange a car,” he said after a long moment of watching you eat. “Or drive you. Your choice.”
You swallowed. “You live here with your whole family?”
“We all have different floors.”
“That sounds nice.”
“It is.”
You almost smiled. “Who’s the worst?”
“Sukuna.”
Your lips relaxed without realizing. “Easy answer.”
“Uro is close.”
“Yuji?”
“Yuji apologizes to doors after bumping into them.”
“You look like you do the same.” You chuckled at your own joke softly.
Choso watched you with a small smile and didn't deny it, then looked down at his plate as if he had been caught.
Dinner went longer than it needed to. You asked about his band. He told you Sukuna and Yuji sang because neither of them could shut up long enough to play drums. You told him your old producer—Naoya—said rock made women sound vulgar.
Choso’s eyes lifted. “He’s stupid.”
You stared at him. He didn’t take it back.
After dinner, you asked, “Can you play something for me?”
His hand paused near his glass. “Now?”
“You have a music room, right?”
He took a sip of water, then stood and made his way to the room with you on his heels.
The music room sat one floor down. You heard a guitar before the door opened. Yuji sat on a stool with an electric guitar, fingers moving fast. He looked up, saw you, and almost dropped the pick.
“Oh my god.”
You smiled. “Hi.”
“I have your posters.”
“I have been told.”
Yuji covered his face. “That sounded creepy. I meant in a normal fan way.”
You smiled because he was sweating through the sentence despite having a record for the highest-selling shows in Japan. “Thank you.”
He packed up too fast, winked at Choso, and left before Choso could say anything. Choso glared at the closed door.
Then he sat at the drums.
The first hit went through your ribs.
You stood near the wall and forgot to hold yourself together. His arms moved with control, but the sound had bite—heavy kick, fast snare, and cymbals that made the space feel alive. It was rough in a way your label had spent years sanding out of you.
When he stopped, your throat hurt.
“That,” you cheered mildly. “That was beautiful Choso-san and what I wanted to do before Naoya found me.”
Choso rested the sticks on his thigh. “I heard about the engagement.”
The smile vanished from your face so quickly.
He looked guilty. Then you told him before he could apologize because your story needed witnesses too. You told him about the locked room he’d found you in that day, the office door, and the sentence Naoya had said about money.
Choso didn't interrupt you, offered water when you got teary-eyed, and listened to everything. It felt good to finally talk to someone about it. It helped sink in your body that it hadn’t all been in your head.
Choso’s fingers closed around a drumstick and opened his mouth after a long while of silence. “Did he reach out to you? Apologize?”
You tried to remember. “I don’t think he reached out.”
“You should drop his label.”
“I can’t. I was thirteen when my grandfather, my legal guardian then, signed me with them. He thought it was a chance for my dream to become a reality because he believed in my voice.
But it was all a trap. They own my catalog, stage name, schedule, image rights, and every contract after that that was and will be built since the first one.
Now I don’t even have my grandfather alive to go back to. It’s not for life on paper, but it might as well be.”
“You can. It will be ugly, but you can get out. Their contracts are known for traps—grooming, debt clauses, doctor control, dating bans, image rules. They bury artists who argue. And a senior of mine, who went to school with Naoya, is already working on an expos.”
“They are too powerful and well-connected.”
“I know.” He looked at the record shelves through the glass wall. “You deserve better than how they handle your discography.”
Your chest tightened for a different reason. “I do want to be independent. Don’t want to have to look at Naoya again.”
“I can help… If you are comfortable with that.”
You nodded before fear talked you out of it. “I’m scared to be alone since the party. My thoughts get dark. And hotels make them worse.
Then added under your breath, “Can I stay here for a few days? I’ll compensate you.”
You braced for polite rejection because that would have made sense. He didn't really know you. So in your head you were already deciding which hotel was least likely to trigger your C-PTSD to stay at.
But then he looked red. “Oh god, no need for that. And yes, you can stay.”
“In a room with a door I can open?” You asked with a pleading smile.
And Choso realized he had to keep his face neutral because you had such a sweet puppy face when you wanted something. Having never seen it before, he was caught off guard.
He relaxed his face into a small smile, and you noticed the tattoo across his nose crinkle with it. “Yes. You can stay in my sister’s wing.”
He walked you to the wing on the east side. Uro lived across the hall.
She had pink hair like Yuji's, but unlike Yuji, she had pink eyes too. She was wearing shorts, a tube top, red lipstick, and an expression that made it abundantly clear that she was Sukuna’s twin.
“She cries?” Uro asked Choso. “I don’t like women who cry. We should be out making men cry. I make my brothers cry daily.”
“Stop embarrassing me." Choso huffed an awkward laugh, slapping her arm inconspicuously. "And no. She sleeps like a log.”
Uro looked you over. “Fine. But if you cry, do it into a towel. These floors echo, and I’m not the emotional support sister.”
Choso sighed.
You held your borrowed clothes against your chest and nodded at her like that was a perfectly normal house rule.
She moved to let you pass.
You arranged your clothes in the attached but nearly empty guest walk-in closet and heard the two siblings bickering outside and saw Choso was getting teased by his older sister. His face was smiling unguarded, his pale cheeks red around his nose tattoo.
Choso was beautiful, you thought.
That night, you slept uncomfortably because the nightmares were persistent, but you’d tire yourself out, so it helped not wake you up too often.
By the second morning, Uro walked into your room without knocking, tossed three dresses on the bed, and said, “Wear the black one. The blue makes you look employed by a bank. Also, blue is bitch-ass Naoya’s color.”
“Can you please knock?” You mildly said it, annoyed but unable to show it out of respect because she had opened her home to you.
“Our older brother says knocking is for weak mortals.” She tsked, “I came here because Choso asked me to check if you were dead.”
You sat up against the pillows. “You could have at least not yelled.”
“I could have done many things.”
You wore the black dress that day.
You called your old therapist that afternoon, but you hung up when she started asking you suspicious questions.
So you found a doctor who worked with artists and touring crews in another country and seemed least likely to know you or tattle to Zenin Records. Then you took the therapy session over video call from the guest room with a blanket over your knees and your phone on speaker because holding it made your hand sweat.
The first session was hard—you cried, got angry, lied once or twice, then admitted you lied. After, Uro walked in with instant noodles and acted as if your swollen face wasn't in the room with them.
“Did it feel good?” she asked awkwardly despite clearly not being good with emotions.
You nodded, dabbing your tears away with the tissues.
“Now eat and praise my cooking.”
A wobbly laugh escaped you, not sure if it was because she genuinely expected praise for instant noodles or the fact that she was trying to sit near a crying person willingly.
Over the next few days, your schedule became calming in the way that helped. Since you were fresh out of a traumatic period that lasted months and could afford it, you had daily therapy in the late morning. Then you drank tea with Aya in the kitchen. After that, Uro dragged you into her office when she worked on her brother’s indie label files and let you sit on the couch while she cursed at paperwork.
Choso had rehearsals, meetings, shoots, calls, gym, and whatever family business everyone stopped talking about when you entered the room.
Still, he found time to eat at least one meal with you daily—breakfast, if he had morning time, or dinner, if he came back late. Sometimes he showed up with wet hair and drum tape still around his fingers, sat across from you, and ate rice in six bites.
“You chew?” you asked once.
“When needed.”
“You could choke.”
“You watch me eat a lot.”
You looked down at your bowl before your lips twitched. “You eat aggressively.”
“You stare aggressively.”
"Ugh," Uro groaned from the counter. “Get a room after she signs a waiver.”
Your ears burned. Choso kept eating, but the corner of his mouth moved.
One afternoon, he took you to the movies.
Uro treated it as a military operation. She stood in the middle of your room with three wigs, two pairs of sunglasses, and a tote bag full of clothes she claimed were “civilian-core.” Choso waited near the door with his arms folded, already wearing a dark baseball cap, sunglasses, and a mask.
“You look suspicious,” Uro told him, then put a wig on your head, stepped back, and smiled with too much pride. “Rich wine auntie at golf.”
You stared at yourself in the mirror. The color was wrong, the cut was worse, and somehow it worked.
She pushed sunglasses into your hand. “Don’t walk like yourself. You have that idol posture. Relax your shoulders. Make your face less approachable.”
Choso took you to a theater inside a shopping complex with too many escalators and a bakery near the entrance. You hadn’t been somewhere so ordinary in years. The air smelled of butter, coffee, perfume testers, and damp umbrellas drying near the doors. People walked past without looking twice. Choso kept half a step behind you in the crowd until you slowed.
“You can walk beside me,” you told him.
He looked down at you through the sunglasses. “I didn’t want to crowd you.”
“You look like you are stalking me.”
“Sorry.” He moved beside you.
At the ticket machine, he bent slightly because the screen sat too low for him. You watched him frown at the seat chart. “They only have seats left in the back row.”
“It’s fine.” You reassured him with a small smile, then asked. “And the movie?”
“Yuji said this one has a dog. He cried during the trailer, so it’s probably good.”
You chuckled a little, and Choso’s shoulders eased. He bought the tickets with cash. Then popcorn and a drink because he asked what you wanted and waited while you changed your mind twice. He carried everything himself, even when you reached for the tray. “I can hold popcorn.”
“I know.”
“Then give it.”
“You’ll spill it when someone recognizes you.”
“You think I’m that fragile?”
“I think this bucket is.”
You made a small sound of offense, and he finally handed it over. His fingers brushed yours at the cardboard rim. The contact lasted less than a second, but your body still registered it before your head could make sense of why.
Inside the theater, the back row was mostly empty. Choso stepped aside so you could take the inner seat, then paused. “This okay?”
You nodded.
The seats were made for normal people, which meant his knees had nowhere reasonable to go. He tried to fold himself into the chair and failed with dignity for about thirty seconds.
“You look comfortable,” you whispered, eyeing his too long legs.
“I’m fine.”
“Are your legs losing circulation?”
“My legs understand sacrifice.”
The trailers started. A phone screen lit up three rows below. Someone opened candy with the subtlety of a construction crew. You tried to focus on the screen, but for the first few minutes your body stayed busy counting heads, doors, dark corners, and the distance to the aisle.
Choso didn’t comment. He placed the popcorn bucket between you and leaned back, giving you room without making a performance of it. When a loud trailer hit too suddenly, your fingers tightened around the armrest. A second later, he nudged the drink closer to your side.
You took it. He kept looking at the screen.
By the time the movie started, your breathing had settled. The dog appeared fifteen minutes in. You ate popcorn slowly at first, then faster once the salt got addictive. Choso barely touched it. He watched the movie with such severe focus that you believed he cared deeply about the dog’s journey through rural train stations. Halfway through, your hand brushed his inside the bucket.
You pulled back. He continued to stare at the screen. “You can take the popcorn. I’ll survive.”
“You sure? You seem fragile.”
“I break doors often.”
The corner of your mouth twitched.
He glanced over, caught it, and had the nerve to look pleased.
You reached for the popcorn again. “I can’t remember the last time I saw a movie like this with other people around."
“What, Blondie never climbed down from his high horse to take you?” he asked, popping one kernel into his mouth.
You shook your head. “There were premieres. Screenings. Rooms full of people checking who I sat with.”
Choso’s brows scrunched. “That sounds miserable.”
“It was normal.”
He looked at you then. The screen threw moving color across his face, and his voice came lower. “It shouldn’t have been.”
You looked back at the movie before your throat could tighten. The dog had found a child by then.
Choso’s hand came back into the bucket after yours. His knuckles touched your fingers.
This time, he left it there. He didn’t close his hand or hook his fingers around yours. He gave you the contact and left the rest of the decision sitting in the dark between your seats.
You waited through one breath. Then another. Then you let your fingers rest against his.
His thumb moved once, barely there, against the side of your hand.
The dog made it home near the end, of course. Yuji had been right to cry. You blamed the wig for itching near your lashes when your eyes stung.
Choso handed you a napkin without looking over.
“You’re crying too,” you whispered.
He then realized he was and quickly covered his face with the mask, his ears red, making you huff out a small chuckle.
After the credits, neither of you got up right away. People left around you, talking too loudly, stepping over bags, and arguing about dinner. Choso waited until the crowd thinned, then stood and offered his hand, then almost pulled back.
You took it before he could.
His palm was warm, rough near the base of his fingers. He held yours loosely all the way down the steps, then let go in the lobby where people could see better.
Outside, the bakery had started marking down pastries for the evening.
You stopped in front of the glass.
Choso followed your eyes. “You want one?”
“You ask that as if I’m capable of saying no to discounted cake.”
He bought a few slices for you and his siblings and a paper bag of melon pan because the cashier recommended it. You ate yours in the car with the wig slightly crooked and cream on your thumb. He pretended he had missed it until you caught him staring. “What?”
“You have cream.”
You wiped the wrong side of your mouth.
His hand lifted, then stopped halfway. “Can I?”
You nodded.
He used a napkin carefully at the corner of your lip.
The car narrowed down to him concentrating on your mouth and his breath low near you.
“We can do a movie night whenever we’re free,” he said, folding the napkin once before setting it aside. “Or go out again. Your choice.”
You looked down at the cake box in your lap, smiling before you could bury it. “Only if Yuji keeps choosing movies by dog content.”
“I’ll tell him his system works.”
Outside, the city moved past the tinted window. Inside, Choso sat beside you with his knees angled badly again, guarding the pastry bag as if someone might steal it.
Your fingers found his on the seat between you.
After that, your mind changed its habits.
It still went to Naoya in odd moments. When your phone buzzed, when someone talked about your label, when a man laughed behind a closed door.
Memories weren't going to be easy to get rid of, and your therapist had taught you how to deviate from them instead of thinking they’d stop outright because that'd be unrealistic.
And the therapist's suggested techniques helped because slowly the thoughts arrived weaker each time and found less place to stick to.
You felt guilty about that.
Forgetting your first love. The person you thought you’d marry. Spend the rest of your days with.
But Naoya had left you to be humiliated in public. He had smiled with another woman while telling your team to hide bottles and pills. He’d used more than a decade of your hard work, your face, and your hunger to be loved.
Still, some part of you kept looking for the man who had once brought you soup during flu week and napped on the studio floor beside you.
Naoya had been sweet in the beginning.
That part scared you because Choso was sweet too.
What if you were being manipulated again? Would you even recover this time?
But where Naoya used to perform PR voices in public, Choso was blunt and barely answered people he didn't care about, and when he tried to be polite, it looked painful.
He forgot soft words sometimes. Then he came back, tried again, fixed what he had done wrong, and did not repeat his mess-ups. He noticed when you skipped meals, asked before touching your arm.
Naoya’s family had looked at you and seen a problem. Choso’s family met you during the worst week of your life, then saved you a seat at dinner and teased their brother about you like you were already a part of it.
Even if it broke, you thought, it would break clean.
They had helped you. Choso had helped you. So even if nothing came of it, and you packed your things next week and left before your heart got worse, you would still be in a better place than you had been after Naoya. You had therapy now and people who noticed when you stopped eating. You had resources to manage your episodes, exits, and choices.
It honestly scared you.
You started writing at night.
At first, you wrote lines on stationery from Choso’s desk. Then in your notes app. Then in the music room, at the piano, with Choso sitting by the drums and saying nothing unless you asked.
The songs came out different than your usual ones—less polished, more direct. You wrote about locked doors, stage lights, borrowed shirts, hands that caught you before concrete, and a man who treated breakfast as a promise to get you through the night.
And due to your hypomanic episode, by the end of the third week, you had an album.
At Sunday dinner, Yuji begged to hear one song. Uro told him to stop begging because it made the family look poor. Sukuna, whom you’d met for the first time, sat at the head of the table, covered in a lot more tattoos than Choso, looking annoyed, and half turned away from everyone, but even he looked at you when you opened your laptop.
Your hands shook when the track started.
Your voice filled the dining room, bare at first, then heavy with acoustic guitar Yuji added alongside your piano. The chorus had grit, and the bridge nearly broke. It sounded older than your radio songs, but it also sounded more like you.
When it ended, nobody spoke for a second.
Yuji wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “That was sick.”
Uro pointed her chopsticks at him. “Stop ugly crying, Lychee-dori.”
Sukuna leaned back. “Your label rejected music like this?”
You nodded, a little hesitant. Sukuna was a man of a truck stature—you were bound to be nervous. “Naoya said it would hurt my market.”
“He was protecting his cut.” Sukuna picked up his water glass and sipped. “I know a lawyer. Mean woman. Expensive. She’s gotten artists out of worse contracts before breakfast.”
You stared at him with many emotions climbing up your throat.
Setting the water glass down, he stretched his neck. “Meet her. Or keep feeding the Zenins’ money. Your choice.”
“Nii-san,” Choso stared at his brother, worried about Sukuna’s tone.
“What? You wanted help. I’m helping.”
You chuckled, and this time it came out without effort. You thanked Sukuna after that.
Dinner ran late. Yuji talked about guitar parts. Uro argued with Sukuna over Itadori's latest album release control. Choso refilled your water before your glass emptied. You ate until you were full and stayed at the table after the plates were cleared because leaving while everyone was still there talking over celebratory ice creams felt wrong.
Later, he walked with you on the rooftop.
The air was the cool midnight breeze of summer. You wore his jacket because he had put it over your shoulders.
“I… I think I have feelings for you,” you said before you lost nerve for the nth time.
He stopped beside the railing, turning to you.
“I’m scared, Choso. I don’t trust my own judgment well anymore.” You fidgeted with your hands in the jacket pockets, looking below the railing at passing cars. “Naoya was good to me in the beginning too. Or I thought he was. I can’t tell which parts were real.”
Choso nodded. “Then take your time.”
Your throat clenched. “You’re okay with waiting?”
“I waited before you knew my name.”
You lifted your eyes to his warm brown ones.
His face stayed calm, but his ears went red.
You smiled, eyes shifting to the column of his neck because you couldn't keep eye contact right now. “That was smooth.”
“I panicked.”
“Say more things when you panic.”
He looked away. “Go inside before I embarrass myself.”
You smiled and nodded, turning to leave.
You were a few steps ahead when Choso called your name.
You stopped and looked back. He stood with his jaw set and eyes on the ground before they lifted to you.
“Can I kiss you? Only if you want," he asked in a low voice, seemingly nervous. “You can say no. I won’t mind.”
Your breath hitched.
His hair moved in the wind, black strands loose around his face. The tattoo across his nose pulled your eyes there again, then his mouth, then the open collar of his black shirt where his throat moved when he swallowed. He looked tense, as if asking had taken more nerve than breaking that door.
You swallowed and nodded.
He came closer with care. His hand touched your waist through the jacket, light so that you could step away if you changed your mind. His other hand reached your chin, and your pulse skipped when he tilted your face up.
You closed your eyes.
He waited.
He admired your features, the slight change in your breathing when his arms brought you closer.
It didn’t seem right.
You waited with your heart thudding against your smaller ribcage.
Then his lips touched your forehead.
Your eyes opened. A tear slipped down before you could have hidden it.
He pulled back immediately. “Did I—”
You grabbed him around the waist and buried your face against his warm chest. His shirt smelled clean and expensive, with cedar, soap, and a little sweat from the long day. His arms came fully around you after a second, firm but easy to leave, a hand moving up to your hair.
You cried harder because he had asked, then waited, then kissed your forehead after you told him you were scared when people in your life had constantly manipulated and lied around you, destroying your personal boundaries and sense of self.
He walked you to your room after and sat near you until you fell asleep.
A few days later, people started taking photos.
You and Choso at a late-night ramen place with caps pulled low. You and Choso leaving a theater through the back exit. You and Choso in his car while Uro yelled at a valet for scratching her door.
You moved back to your house when your therapist said it would help to reclaim your own space. Choso drove you home the first night and checked every window and alarm and even ordered groceries and stocked them before leaving.
The first night was hard because every surface reminded you of Naoya.
So you practiced the techniques your therapist had taught you, and when they didn't help fully, you put on the TV on a soft-spoken kid’s cartoon channel in a language you didn't understand with good volume to fill the silence, which helped you fall asleep with fewer nightmares.
After that, you spent weekends at Choso’s penthouse, and he came over for dinner every week whenever his schedule was open.
You kissed him properly two weeks after the rooftop.
It happened in the music room after he played drums for a track you were building. You walked over, took his face in your hands, and kissed him before fear could make a speech. He froze for half a second, then kissed you back with both hands on your waist and his thumbs still.
His lips tasted like hojicha vanilla, kuromitsu, and dark cherry from the monaka he’d brought you earlier. Sweet first, then warm and boozy at the back of your tongue, with that deep cherry taste still under it.
You moved your fingers into his hair and pulled him closer. He was sitting, so his face tilted up toward yours, his jaw brushing the neckline of your shirt from the angle. The sound he made was low and rough, something you had not heard from him before.
Then his hands tightened, and he pulled you down into his lap.
You broke the kiss just enough to breathe.
His eyes stayed on your face. “Okay?”
You nodded.
His thumb moved once at your waist. “Use words.”
“Yes,” you said, a little breathless. “It’s okay.”
Only then did he kiss you again.
You brought it up one night while you were sitting on his lap on your couch, and when his mouth had moved to your jaw, he stopped with his forehead near your shoulder. “Why do you ask me for consent so formally, Choso?”
“I was scared that night,” he answered breathlessly.
You opened your eyes. “Which night?”
“At the hotel.” His voice stayed low. “I wasn’t supposed to be there. I don’t go to those parties unless I have to. I was looking for Yuji because he’d called me to pick him up and then fallen asleep. I kept trying his cell, but it was so loud I couldn't hear him, so I went upstairs hoping for better service.”
Your fingers slowed in his hair.
“Then I heard you scream." His eyes lowered to the coffee table as if looking through the memory. “I knew it was you.”
“You recognized my voice?”
He looked embarrassed then, almost angry with himself for saying it. “I listen to your records.”
You waited.
“A lot. Most days while commuting. I’d recognize your voice anywhere,” he added. “That was all. I hadn’t been trying to know you. I didn’t think I had the right.” His jaw worked once. “Zenin looked good for you from far away. I thought you were loved. Thought staying away was better.”
Your chest hurt.
“Then I heard your bloodcurdling scream. And I didn’t think. I just knew I couldn’t let them hurt you.”
You touched the tattoo across his nose with your thumb.
He went still under your hand, warm licorice eyes meeting yours.
“You didn’t let me down.” You smiled, your thumb tapping his nose.
His mouth pressed into a line, his nose scrunching up with the frown. “I almost did.”
“No.” You leaned in until your forehead touched his. “You came.”
After that, for months, you both fooled around in pieces, away from prying eyes—his hand under your shirt on the couch, your mouth at his throat in the elevator, his voice rough in your ear when you teased him too long.
He still asked.
Sometimes you laughed and told him to stop being so formal. He said he would rather sound stupid than scare you.
You understood him.
Then the rumors started getting out of hand during the court filings.
Then Naoya came back from wherever he’d been overseas.
You heard it first from Uro, who video called you with sunglasses on her head and said, “Bitch-ass Zenin has landed. His family probably threatened him to clean up his mess.”
“I don’t think he’ll come to see me.” You knew what she meant without asking. “He hasn't contacted me, remember?"
“Still, it’d be foolish not to be careful.”
The next morning, you sat in a makeup chair before a music video shoot. Momo worked around your eyes while Nobara argued with Wardrobe near the door.
The door opened hard.
Naoya walked in a navy suit as if he still owned you.
Momo’s brush stopped.
“Sweetheart,” he grinned.
You looked at him through the mirror. “Please leave, Zenin-san.”
He smiled at the staff. “Give us a minute.”
Nobody moved.
His smile thinned. “I said, 'A minute.'"
Nobara folded her arms. “We are running late for the shoot.”
Naoya came closer nevertheless. His hand landed on your shoulder, and familiar hands now felt strange and cold. Your stomach turned, and your body was tired of being scared, being at others' mercy to live or die.
You owned nothing because of this man—even the house you went back to wasn't yours. He could kick you out to the curb whenever he pleased, record or not.
Naoya had been nothing but a leech, sucking you dry, hollowing you out every day since you were thirteen.
So this time it chose differently without thinking.
You stood up so fast you knocked the chair back.
“Don’t touch me.”
His face softened. “I understand that you’re upset but this isn't a way to talk—"
“You understand?”
“I should have called.”
You laughed once. It sounded ugly. “You groomed me my whole life for your business plan. For your family to take you seriously. You even pretended to care for me and fed me drugs from your uncle and called them meds.”
His eyes widened, his smug smile slipping.
“I had them checked.” After years of repressing yourself, bending to his every whim, every wish, and every rule, you were yelling now, unable to control it. “They weren’t what you said they were.”
His glare hardened. “Careful.”
“You left me in that room.”
“I did what?”
You scoffed and reached for your phone, pressing the emergency button, which would send your location. “Just stop talking and leave.”
Naoya grabbed your arms. His grip was hard. “Who told you that?”
Momo and Nobara grabbed his shoulders, trying to pry him off you, yelling his name and calling for security.
You tried harder to pull free, but the fear started crawling up your throat when his grip tightened.
“You left me there,” you said. “At the hotel. You said people wanted to meet me, then locked me in a room, and they came in.”
Your throat was a traitorous thing. It hiccuped even when you screamed, “You basically sold me off, Naoya.”
Your tears started falling freely, uncaring of your heart. “All I did was love you, Naoya, and you just… sold me off.”
His face went pale under the studio lights. “I didn’t send anyone.”
“Let me go!”
“I swear I didn’t.” His fingernails dug into your skin. “Who touched you?”
The door hit the wall.
Choso crossed the room before anyone could register. His hand closed around Naoya’s throat and drove him back against the vanity, breaking the glass. Nobara grabbed your wrist and pulled you behind her.
Naoya choked out something you could not hear.
Choso leaned in, voice low. “Use your hands on her again and I’ll break them first.”
Gojo, who'd arrived behind Choso, stood in the doorway with his phone to his ear, looking less amused than you had ever seen him.
“Yeah,” he said into the call. “Run it. All of it.”
Security came in. Nobara kept you behind her while Momo wrapped a jacket around your shoulders. Choso only let go when Gojo touched his arm.
Then Choso turned, lifted one arm toward you, and you walked straight into it.
You buried your face in his chest and sobbed while he held you. His body stayed between you and Naoya, who was being dragged out by security but still looking at you with an unreadable expression.
Choso didn’t look away until the man was out of sight.
The first article went live within an hour. The documents followed throughout the day.
Sukuna’s lawyer, along with Gojo’s news media network, released everything, he had been working on because he felt responsible for putting you in danger by encouraging Naoya that day when you had been nothing but nice to him every time you'd met—the contracts, the pills, the dating clauses, the forged medical notes, and even payments tied to hotel rooms, investors, party lists, and Zenin security logs.
Your hands shook as you read. Gojo stood near Choso and spoke in a low voice, explaining that they had already been building the case. This only gave them the timing they needed. It also helped move Megumi’s inheritance claim faster.
Naoya had lied about almost everything.
Maybe he had lied about that room too.
Choso stayed with you that night.
Then the next one.
Then three more.
You stopped working, and for once in your life, nobody made you feel guilty about it. Choso rubbed ointment into the bruises on your arms with his jaw tight and his hands careful. He said little, but every time your breath caught, he stopped.
“Too much?”
“No.”
He stayed near you when the nightmares started coming back. You’d wake up sweating, reaching for a door that was not there, and Choso came in from the guest room across the hall every time you called.
Then one night you asked him to sleep in the same bed, he did, and you still woke up shaking.
On the fifth morning, he stood by your bed with messy hair and tired eyes.
“Move in with me.”
You stared at him.
“Your house has too many memories. You can’t sleep there.”
You wanted to argue but you knew he was right. Naoya was in every room of your house. His clothes were gone, but his memories weren’t something you could pack into neat little boxes and hide in an attic.
So you moved in.
Choso gave you space without making it feel like distance. He arranged for a mental recovery rehab-like environment with meals on time, therapy, music, warm baths, clean sheets, and evenings with Uro and Yuji.
Locked doors you could open from the inside.
Slowly, your body stopped waiting for another jump scare, stopped waiting to be punished.
A month later, Choso took you abroad, where nobody cared who you were unless they cared about Japanese music. Some people still recognized you, but they were mostly respectful and far in between, and if someone seemed suspicious, Choso’s cold glare and his security detail were enough to deter them. You got to walk through record stores, ate late, slept in a hotel room with one keycard each.
One night, you kissed him first.
You wanted him. That part was easy.
Then, halfway through, fear came up so fast your body stiffened under him.
Choso stopped at once. “Look at me.”
You did.
“I’m here,” he said, voice rough, but his hands stayed soft. “We’ll stop.”
You cried yourself to sleep into his chest that night, feeling like the label had taken more than your voice.
Two days later, you had a nice uplifting day and thought of riding the high and trying again.
Earlier, you’d put on a nice dark set in the hotel room bathroom after dinner. Choso had taken off his rings before washing his hands. You noticed the plain care of it, the way he dried between his fingers with a towel before coming back to you.
You sat on the edge of the bed in one of his shirts. He stood in front of you, close enough for your knees to touch his thighs.
“You sure?” he asked.
You reached for his belt instead of answering.
His hand caught yours, firm for one second, then loose. “Words.”
Your face heated, and you looked to his chest. “I want you.”
He swallowed thickly. “Good.”
Choso bent and kissed you, slow at first, until your hands stopped shaking against his waist. He tasted faintly of mint and tea. His raven hair brushed your cheek when he lowered himself over you, and the mattress dipped under his weight. He was careful with where he put his knees, careful with his elbows near your ribs, careful in a way that made the rest of him feel more dangerous because you knew he was choosing restraint every second.
You pulled him closer by the back of his neck.
His mouth moved from yours to the corner of your jaw, then down your throat. He paused there when your body tensed.
His head resting on yours, “Talk to me.”
“I’m okay.”
“That sounded weak.”
You huffed a weak laugh. “You’re annoying.”
“Still want me to stop?”
You looked at his face above yours. His eyes had gone darker shades of brown, his hair falling loose around his jaw, his mouth swollen from kissing you.
You knew he wanted you, knew it by the bulge in his pants lightly hovered above your navel and the way his fingers pressed into the sheets instead of grabbing you.
Your body knew that kind of want could turn ugly, but your head knew Choso had stopped already and would do it again. The two facts sat badly together inside you.
“Go slower,” you said.
He nodded. “I can do that.”
He kissed your forehead before he touched you again. Then he moved down your body with a kind of focus that made your breath catch. His hands stayed open on your skin, palms warm, thumbs moving only when you leaned into it. Never digging in.
When he undressed you, he did it piece by piece and checked your face often. The air felt cool against your chest. When his mouth took your nipple in, pinching the other, your back arched.
Your eyes rolled back, his eyes watching your face when your breathing hitched and you moaned his name softly.
His name sounded like nectar from your lips, soft and sweet enough to make his grip tighten on the sheet near your hip.
He briefly unlatched to speak and switch nipples. “Say it again.”
You did, softer this time, fingers in his hair, bringing him flushed against you.
He made a rough sound against your skin and pulled back to look at you. “You don’t know what that does to me.”
“Then show me.”
For a second, something in his face changed. He looked almost pained by the effort it took to stay careful.
Then he kissed you again, deeper now, his body pressing yours into the mattress without trapping you there. His hands squeezing your boobs and pinching your nipples. You felt the hard length of him against your thigh and reached to touch him through the clothes.
His breath broke against your mouth. “Don’t tease me.”
“I’m not.”
His eyes lifted to your lips again. “You are.”
"Thought you were strong enough to break doors.”
His smile curved into a smirk. “Brat.”
The word made heat pool low in your stomach. You flushed before you could hide it, and he saw.
His mouth came back to yours with more heat, his hand sliding under your knee to bring your leg around him. He held you there, chest rising hard, dark eyes fixed on your face.
“You keep making that sound.”
Your face went hot. “What sound?”
His thumb pressed into the outside of your thigh, slow to make you feel the strength in his hand. Years of drums had made his palms rough in places, his grip firm even when the rest of him looked close to breaking.
“That one,” he said when your breath hitched. “I heard you sing for years. I didn’t know you sounded like this.”
You tried to look away.
Choso caught your chin, careful but firm. “Don’t hide from me.”
The words went straight to your core. The tattoo across his nose moved when his mouth brushed yours again, and you held onto his shoulders because there was too much of him above you, his neck warm under your lips, his stomach tense where your hand had slipped beneath his shirt.
“You keep touching me there,” he whispered next to your ear.
“You have a terrible habit of working out your abs.”
His mouth twitched. “That’s my fault?”
“Yes.”
He looked down at you for a long second, then sat back against the pillows and pulled his shirt over his head.
You stared, startled.
His shoulders were broad from years behind a kit, arms cut from motion instead of just gym vanity, stomach muscles so tight that your fingers curled into the sheet.
You reached out, then pulled your hand back when embarrassment caught up.
Choso took your wrist and placed your palm against his skin.
“Take what you want.”
You climbed over with shaky pride and kissed the side of his neck, biting until his head tipped back. His hand settled at your hip, guiding without forcing.
He carefully manhandled you into sitting on his stomach while he lay down below you.
When you dragged your pussy against his abs experimentally and gasped, he went firm under you for one beat, then his fingers dug into your waist.
“You like that?”
“Shut up.”
“No.”
You tried to move away. He held you there, not enough to trap you, just enough to make your body admit what your mouth refused.
“Be nice.”
You made that ruinous puppy face at him again, seemingly unaware of your ways, like the first day he’d brought you home. The difference was this time you were on top of him and said, "Please, Choso.”
And who was he to deny you. "Go on.”
Your breath broke its rhythm on the next roll of your hips.
His eyes darkened. “Keep going.”
You ground your clit against the hard ridges of him in a messy roll.
Your hips started picking up speed with each drag as he watched you, his hands moving now and then to squeeze your waist or breasts or flick your nipples or clit.
Every time he flicked it, a jolt went through your body, making your head tip back in ecstasy. Slowly gaining confidence, your hips dragged against him more lewdly, and your breathless whines started slipping out more freely.
Your orgasm kept building, but every time you reached the edge, you lost it.
Choso noticed the furrow between your brows and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Legs,” you whined. “Hurt.”
The next second, his hands were on your hips, dragging you against him. His pace was exactly what you needed, grinding you harder against his abs until your body twitched violently and you came all over his stomach, covering his abs in your juices.
When you collapsed on top of him, boneless from exhaustion, he knew he could later come from that alone, but he honestly didn’t want to.
“You okay, baby?” he asked instead.
You hummed and hid your face in his neck. He’d never used a nickname before. It made your heart flutter, along with your pussy, which was still pulsing from the orgasm right on top of his painfully hard cock.
By the time he laid you back down, your thighs were shaking and his control looked worse. He kissed your mouth, your throat, and the place below your ear that made your whole body arch into his. His hand moved between you.
A finger slid in with the same focus he had at the drums, patient rhythm first, then pressure when your hips started answering him.
You caught his wrist, panic rising out of habit.
He stopped moving at once. “Too much?”
You shook your head, but he waited.
“I’m scared,” you said, hating how weak it sounded.
Choso bent and kissed your forehead. “Then we’ll slow down.”
“I don’t want you to stop.”
“I know.”
His voice had gone rough, but his hand stayed still until your grip eased. When his fingers curled inside you again, he watched your face instead of his own hunger. He watched you closely, learning you by responses and not demands—like what made your knees pull in, made your back arch, made your voice louder in the room.
The first time you came on his single finger, he covered your mouth with his and swallowed the sound like it had to be housed inside him.
The second time, on two fingers, he cursed into your shoulder and bit down on the skin, his hips slowly grinding against your leg.
The third time, on four fingers, he looked almost angry from wanting you so badly and still refusing to rush.
“Choso, I nh—" You lost your thought in the haze and had to pause and try again. “I—uh—want more.”
He laughed breathlessly. “Yeah? Go ahead. Use your words.”
“You—hah—inside.”
His mouth dragged along your jaw, his hair brushed your cheek. He was warm everywhere, skin flushed under your hands, his sticky stomach tightening when you touched him lower.
When he reached toward the nightstand, he paused and looked back at you.
“Condom,” he said.
The word grounded you more than any promise could have. Naoya had treated your body like another part of his contract. Choso tore the packet open with his teeth, then stopped himself, exhaled hard, and used his hands properly because even now, half-feral and breathing hard, he would not get careless with you.
You reached for him.
He came over you slowly, one forearm braced near your head, the other hand holding your thigh at his waist.
His mouth came back to yours with more heat, his hand sliding under your knee to bring your leg around him.
“Look at me.”
You did.
When he entered you, he moved with care that made your eyes sting. But he was still big and girthy, and the pressure made your fingers dig into his back. He stopped before you had to ask.
“Breathe.”
“I am trying.”
“You’re arguing, baby.”
A soft laugh slipped out of you, teary but true nonetheless. His mouth softened against your cheek.
It still scared you halfway through. The pressure, the weight, the closeness. Your nails dug into his shoulder, and your breath caught in your chest.
Choso halted at once.
He did not pull away fast enough to startle you. He held himself still, muscles tight under your hands, forehead lowered near yours.
“Stay with me,” he whispered. “Look at me.”
You opened your eyes.
“There.” His voice had gone rougher, but it stayed steady. “I’ve got you. We can stop.”
You swallowed. “I don’t want to stop.”
“Then we’ll wait.”
You wanted to cry from that because it felt like you didn't deserve him. Your face scrunched up, letting a few tears slip.
He stayed there inside you, unmoving, one hand braced beside your head and the other rubbing slow circles at your hip. He kept his body over yours without using it against you. His breath warmed your cheek. The room smelled of mint, sex, his skin, and the room-freshening perfume the hotel used.
After a while, your body came back to you.
You touched his face. “Okay.”
He studied you for another second before moving again. Slower and deeper only when you pulled him down and asked. The fear loosened by degrees, replaced by heat, then the pleasure of him filling you up, then the strange relief of wanting him and being allowed to want him without a hidden clause around it.
"You're so warm inside, baby.”
He groaned against your lips, trying to keep himself under and not embarrassingly come from just this—the first time he was going to have sex with his favorite idol. Then because all his blood had rushed down south and his brain cells were now on vacation, “Have I ever told you how sexy you are?”
Your cheeks got hotter when he stared directly into your eyes, saying those words.
“Stop talking.”
Choso laughed. It was a breathy sound that you instantly fell in love with.
Once he was fully in, filling you with a welcome stretch, he didn't pick up the pace immediately.
Instead, he kissed you deeply, his tongue moving with yours, his hips fighting to start grinding in.
When you told him to move, he did, slow enough that your body had time to accept him instead of bracing against him. His forearm stayed planted beside your head, his other hand firm at your hip, thumb rubbing there as he eased into a rhythm that made your breath come apart in small pieces.
Soon he grew bolder, pulling back just enough to push in deeper. A loud moan climbed up your throat, and when you tried to smother it with your palm, he caught your hand and kissed it instead.
Choso watched your face the whole time.
That made it worse—harder to hide from him.
Every time your brows pulled together, he slowed. Every time your hips chased his, he gave you a little more, deeper until your fingers locked behind his neck and pulled him down because you needed his weight, his mouth, the heat of his chest against yours.
His hair fell around you, brushing your cheek when he kissed you. The tattoo across his nose creased when he grunted, and his dark brown eyes kept dropping to your mouth whenever you tried to swallow a sound.
“Don’t do that,” he muttered.
You blinked up at him, dizzy.
“Sing for me.”
Your face burned, but he rolled his hips again before you could form a sentence, and it came out as a moan, and he praised it by shifting closer. You could feel his cock hit the right spots that had your back arching and vision going blurry. All that was audible were the sounds you were making, hip slapping, and your pussy squelching around his cock.
His arm shook near your head because everything about you was like a siren’s call to him. You were writhing under him, calling his name, dragging him under. He'd never even dared to dream of this. His fingers tightened on your body, then loosened right away. He reminded himself that wanting you did not mean to forget himself.
“Fuck,” he said against your mouth. “Your voice.”
You kissed him because you did not know what to do with the way he said it, low and almost hurt.
He let you have the kiss for a few seconds, then broke it only to press his mouth to your cheek, your jaw, and the corner of your lips—his hips never relenting, but increasing the pace had your brain going fuzzy.
“My girl,” he groaned against your hair. “My baby. You have no idea what you do to me.”
Your nails dragged into his back, making him shudder. The movement sent shivers through his back into his hips. The pace slipped rougher for a moment, and pleasure sparked up your spine so fast your legs tightened around him.
“There?” he asked, his breath uneven.
You nodded, then remembered to say it. “Yes, baby. There.”
He made a sound so loud that it vibrated through your chest.
His mouth found yours again when you got louder, swallowing the cry without smothering it. He kept the angle because you had asked for it. He kept himself under control even while his abdomen hardened against your stomach, his shoulders tense under your palms, his voice breaking into rough praise each time you took him deeper.
“Good,” he breathed. “So good for me. I used to hear you sing and think that was enough.” An animalistic grunt as he dragged you impossibly closer to him. “I was so fucking stupid.”
You laughed, breathless, and he kissed the sound out of you with a groan.
“Do that again.”
“Laugh?”
“Exist.”
His face went hot the second he said it, but he didn’t take it back. “Just stay with me.”
Your legs tightened around him, and he moved a hand between you, circling your clit quickly in time with his thrusts.
“Fuck, cum on my cock, baby, please. I’ll do anything. Please just—"
The pathetic pleading at the end caught you off guard because you had never heard anything like that from him before. It did something to you. Your whole body arched within seconds, your vision going hazy as you caught his lower lip between your teeth and bit down.
It caught him off guard too.
Choso came with you, burying himself to the hilt as he spilled in with a rough sound against your mouth.
He lost some of his control near the end. His jaw clenched, his hand slid under your back, and his voice dropped into something strained when he said your name. Even then, he listened. When you told him to stay there, he stayed there.
When your legs shook, he held you through it. He kept one hand under your head so it would not hit the headboard as you both continued lazily kissing.
After he carefully pulled out, he cleaned you with a warm towel. He moved slowly around your thighs, your stomach, the places where your skin still felt sensitive, checking your face before every pass. When you reached for him out of habit, he caught your wrist and kissed your palm. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “I’ve got it.”
He brought you water after, then another glass when you finished the first one faster than you meant to. Your mouth tasted of him, mint, and the expensive hotel sheets. He opened the window a little for air, pulled the blanket higher over your hip, then climbed back into bed with damp hair falling loose around his face.
You curled against him, tired, and his hand settled between your shoulder blades, broad and warm, rubbing in slow passes until your breathing matched his and you fell asleep with his heartbeat steady under your cheek.
The next morning, sunlight slipped through the curtains in pale strips. You woke with your leg thrown over his thigh and a sore ache sitting deep in your hips. Choso was already awake, watching a cooking show at low volume, one hand resting on your calf. “You alive?”
You pressed your face into his chest. “Barely.”
His mouth moved against your hair. “Good sign.”
You kicked him weakly, which made your thigh cramp. Choso sat up at once, caught your ankle, and worked his thumb into the muscle until the pain loosened. Then he kept going, massaging your calves, your knees, the backs of your thighs while you lay there useless and smug under the blanket.
“You did this,” you muttered.
His whole face went red fast.
Later, he carried you, first to the bathroom, then back to bed when you complained about walking. You spent the rest of the morning half-dressed under the sheets, sharing fruit from room service, arguing over the TV, and laughing at things that would have sounded stupid to anyone else.
For the first time in months, happiness came without begging for it. It sat in the messy blankets, in his hand around your ankle, in your voice when you called his name, and he looked up as if he still felt lucky to hear it.
---
Elsewhere, Naoya found the men in a private room under one of the old clubs.
For a moment, before the door opened, he thought of her at thirteen.
She had been scared of him then. He knew that now. At the time, he had mistaken it for shyness, manners, or whatever girls with cheap school bags did when boys from better families spoke to them.
He had made it worse because he had no idea how to be gentle without sounding bored first.
One day he would tell her she sang beautifully, then spend three hours correcting her breath control until her eyes went wet. Another day he would buy her cake and leave it on the bench beside her without saying it was for her, then get irritated when she asked if she was allowed to eat it. He remembered her small hands around the fork, her cautious glance up at him, as if he might take it back.
He had hated that look.
Then he had kept earning it.
At sixteen, Naoya had thought protection meant standing between her and the world while deciding which parts of the world she got to see. He had thought her voice needed sharpening, her clothes needed fixing, her manners needed training, and her fear needed patience only he could provide.
Years later, when his family told him he couldn’t marry her after he had already given her the ring, Naoya remembered her laughing with a paper cup of convenience-store coffee in both hands.
That should be the worst thing because of all the things his head could hold onto, it keeps his regrets. No stage lights, contract room, or first-week sales report under his father’s approving hand. Just some ugly little coffee cup from a shop near the station, the kind with a plastic lid that never fit right..
She had stolen his hoodie because she said the studio AC made her bones hurt. Naoya told her she had no bones, just complaints. She kicked his ankle under the table and missed because her legs were too short to reach.
He laughed so hard he almost choked on yakisoba bread.
She looked offended for maybe five seconds, then started laughing too, mouth covered with his sleeve because she had crumbs on her lips and thought he’d point them out.
Naoya did point them out.
She called him mean.
He told her she was lucky he was honest.
She said, “You’re lucky I’m talented.”
Naoya thought he should have kissed her then. He should have taken her to dinner somewhere proper, in public, instead of hotels and apartments. Somewhere his family wouldn’t go. Somewhere with a menu he couldn’t turn into a lesson.
Instead, he bought her pudding from the combini because she wanted to try the new one with the rabbit on the lid, and they sat on a curb behind the rehearsal building with his driver parked two streets away, pretending he couldn’t see them.
Naoya’s phone rang nine times that night after he’d stormed out of the house earlier. Father. An uncle. Father again. He turned it face down on the pavement.
She noticed because she noticed everything that affected Naoya. “Won’t you get in trouble?”
“I’m already in trouble.”
“For what?”
“For existing.”
She stayed silent for a moment. Then she pushed the unopened pudding toward him carefully. “You should eat.”
“What?”
“You get dramatic when you’re hungry.”
Naoya looked at her for a long second, his head full of label nonsense, inheritance shares, the way men in his family spoke about women as if they were furniture with wombs, the way they spoke about him as if he had been built wrong and could still be corrected with enough pressure.
Then she peeled the lid off the pudding for him because his hands were shaking.
Naoya forgot them after that.
For a few hours, he forgot his father. Forgot the company. Forgot the Zenin name sitting on his neck. She hummed some stupid chorus under her breath and fed him one bite from the plastic spoon, then took the rest for herself because she was a greedy little thing when she stopped being shy.
He kept watching her mouth move around the spoon.
She caught him and stared back as if he had given her proof of something certain about her.
He had been happy then, or at least content, away from the house. In the street, at the curb, he had forgotten the Zenin name for whole nights because she laughed at his insults when she finally learned where the softness hid.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“You’re lying.”
“You sing better when you’re angry.”
“That is the worst compliment.”
“It’s still a compliment.”
She smiled down at the pudding cup.
Naoya remembered thinking, with the full stupidity of a young man who had been praised for cruelty and mistook possession for devotion, that this was fine. This was his. This little pocket behind the building, her shoulder pressed against his, the cheap pudding, the hoodie hanging past her wrists, the phone face down and useless.
He thought he could keep this while taking everything else.
A trophy wife with the correct family. The seat at the table. The shares. The old men shutting up when he entered a room. Her in a hotel room afterward, angry for a few days, then soft again when he called.
He thought she would curse him, cry, throw the ring at his head, then come back when she remembered who knew her throat before every tour and which key made her voice open.
That was how ugly he had let himself become.
He wanted her kept where he could reach her.
Then he grew older and started calling it strategy.
The men inside the club looked worse than they had on the security footage. Choso had done most of the damage that night, but Naoya finished what was left.
He grabbed the first one by the collar and slammed him into the table.
“Why did you say I sent you?”
The man cried through blood and spit. “We didn’t know she’d believe it.”
Naoya’s hand tightened.
That was the ugliest part.
She had believed it because he had trained her to.
“That wasn’t the question.”
He hit him again.
The second man tried crawling away. Naoya kicked a chair into his path and stepped over him. His hand still hurt from the studio, from Choso’s grip on his throat, from the way everyone had looked at him as if he had become some cheap monster.
He had been many expensive monsters.
He had used her. Managed her. Lied to her. Fed her whatever kept her useful, calm, soft enough to steer. He had planned to marry another woman and keep her close afterward, because some stupid part of him had thought she would rage, cry, stop answering for a month, then come back when she remembered who knew her best.
He had taken her for granted so completely that he had mistaken her survival for loyalty.
But he had not sent those men.
“Who paid you?”
The men answered with more incessant sobbing.
His phone rang.
His fiancée’s name flashed across the screen.
Naoya answered and put it to his ear, breathing hard.
“Where are you?” she snapped. “My father is asking questions. The press is outside my house. Fix this.”
Naoya looked at the man on the floor.
A laugh came out of him, dry and wrong.
“Naoya.”
“Shut up.”
Silence.
“What did you just say?”
“I said shut up. I never cared about you. I don’t care about your father. I don’t care about the wedding. I’m being accused of something I didn’t do because your family wanted tax evasion and mine wanted a bride who knew when to lower her eyes.”
Her voice went thin. “I’ll destroy you, you son of a bitch.”
“Try.”
“You think I won’t?”
“I don’t care anymore.”
He hung up.
The man on the floor sobbed harder.
Naoya crouched beside him and smiled without feeling it.
“Now,” he said, “give me the name.”
A/N:
I’ve never really written Naoya as even remotely tolerable before (bc he & I are natural born enemies/I will traumatize himz), but this version is giving me complicated feelings. I might want to play with a softer, less canon-compliant Naoya at some point, though I don’t have a proper idea for him yet. Also, I loved writing Choso here. Absolute best baby girl.
Also, not me writing "Sukuna's truck stature."
Do let me know if you'd let Naoya explain himself?
Masterlist
Hope you enjoyed @alebrasil0101! And thank you to my bbg @blackrimmedrose for beta reading parts of this and for her encouragement.
I'm still recovering from the last chapter of The Somatic Bond Theory. I loved it, girl.
So, why not a Naoya Zenin x female reader x Choso Kamo story?
Hey, babygirl!!
You sent this to me on 3 Dec last year, and back then I was in a dumb space and mentally blocked, so now to make up for it here's 14k of my manic episode writing. Hope you enjoy it :)
FYI, it's gonna get mildly dark before the light. Based it a lot on the darker side of J-pop as per our discussion.
Summary: Nanami Kento is a man of discipline, reason, and impeccable self-control. But when his alien girlfriend learns about "consent" from Yuki Tsukumo's questionable PowerPoint, his life spirals into chaos. Now, he’s eating cereal in the corner of his apartment, questioning his choices, and plotting revenge.
Warnings: Mild Sexual Content (nothing in detail, only in comedy), Comedic Misunderstandings, Emotional Damage (mostly Nanami’s). WC: 1k.
Nanami Kento prided himself on being a man of discipline. A man of reason. A man who kept his emotions in check, even in the face of absolute chaos.
And yet.
Here he was.
Sitting in the corner of their shared apartment. Arms crossed. Shoulders slumped. Staring at the floor like a scolded dog.
Why?
Because his alien girlfriend had just denied him for the fifth time this week.
Not because she was upset. Not because she was uninterested. But because—
“I learned about consent, Kento. I’m saying no.”
Nanami winced at the memory.
It had started a few days ago.
A normal evening. A peaceful one.
Nanami had just returned home from a mission, exhausted but relieved to see his girlfriend—his strange, beautiful, extraterrestrial girlfriend—lounging on the couch, flipping through one of the books Yuki Tsukumo had given her about “modern human ethics.”
“Welcome back,” she said, not looking up.
Nanami hummed, loosening his tie, walking over to kiss her forehead—
Only for her to place a single hand on his chest and push him away.
“No.”
Nanami stared. “No?”
She nodded, dead serious. “Consent, Nanami.”
“…I see.”
He did not, in fact, see.
Yuki Tsukumo had given you The Talk.
Not the human birds-and-bees talk, mind you. The alien and humans talk. Specifically, a 45-minute PowerPoint titled "Consent: Earth’s Weirdest Social Construct (And Why You Should Care)."
You, an intergalactic diplomat with the emotional subtlety of a sledgehammer, took notes.
The next few days were hell.
Nanami poured two glasses of wine after dinner. A ritual. A prelude.
You, perched on the couch like a nervous meerkat, watched him unbutton his shirt cuff. Your antennae (disguised as a very chic headband) twitched.
Step 1: Human male initiates a courtship ritual.
Step 2: Female must DENY.
Step 3: ??? Profit???
“Kento,” you blurted as he leaned in, his lips inches from yours. “NO.”
Nanami froze. “...No?”
“Correct.” You nodded solemnly. “Consent protocol. Denial is mandatory.”
He blinked. “But… you’re literally glowing.”
Your bioluminescent skin was pulsing neon pink, the universal sign of “I would like to interface with your reproductive organs, please.”
“Irrelevant!” You barked, sweating. “Yuki said always say no first! It’s empowering!”
The next few days were a blur.
Attempt 1: Nanami brought you coffee in bed. You karate-chopped the mug out of his hand. “NO SEDUCTION!”
Attempt 2: He complimented your hair. You screamed, “VERBAL COERCION DETECTED!” and hid in the closet.
Attempt 3: He looked at you. You threw a couch pillow at his face.
Nanami, being a rational adult, had respected your newfound boundaries.
But then, he started noticing something off.
You were actively avoiding being too close to him.
You would stare at him for long periods, looking extremely troubled.
You would sigh. A lot.
At first, he thought you were mad at him. Had he done something wrong? Were you tired of Earth’s customs? Were you planning on returning to space???
But then—
One evening, as he passed by the bedroom, he heard something suspicious.
A frustrated groan.
The sound of sheets rustling.
Then, a very pained, very dramatic—“UGH! WHY IS THIS SO DIFFICULT??”
Nanami froze.
Slowly, he opened the door—
And there you were.
Sitting on the bed.
Legs crossed.
A book in your lap.
And a very clear sexual frustration-induced meltdown written all over your face.
“…Darling?”
You jerked up, tossing the book aside. “K-Kento! What are you doing here?”
Nanami squinted. “This is my bedroom.”
“…Oh.”
Silence.
His gaze flickered to the book. It was one of Yuki’s.
The title?
“BASIC CONSENT AND HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS: HOW TO SAY NO”
Nanami sighed.
He was going to kill Tsukumo.
Nanami now sat in the corner of your and his apartment, wrapped in a blanket, eating cereal straight from the box. “I’ve been defeated by a PowerPoint,” he mumbled.
You, finally sensing distress, approached. “Kento? Why are you emitting ‘sad elevator music’ energy?”
He stared into the void (his cereal). “You’ve rejected me 30 times in 192 hours. I’m starting to think you’ve lost interest.”
“Nonsense!” You pulled up Yuki’s slides on your hologram watch. “See? Slide 12: ‘Consent = saying no until they write you a sonnet’.”
Nanami squinted. “That’s… not what that means.”
“But Yuki said—”
“Yuki also thinks monogamy is a scam and once tried to marry a beer vending machine.”
You paused. “…Ah.”
Sitting up, Nanami pinched the bridge of his nose as you sat across from him, looking incredibly confused.
“So,” he continued, “you’ve been avoiding intimacy with me because you think you have to say no.”
You crossed your arms. “Yes. Consent.”
“Consent,” he repeated, voice dry, “also means you can say yes.”
You froze.
“…Huh?”
Nanami blinked slowly, tucking a stray strand of hair behind your ear. “Darling. Consent is about choice. You are allowed to say no, but you are also allowed to say yes if you want to.”
You gasped.
Your entire worldview shattered.
Nanami, the patient king, drew a Venn diagram on a napkin:
Circle A: “Things Yuki Says”
Circle B: “Things That Make Sense”
Overlap: None.
You gasped. "So... when you touch my antennae and I say 'yes, please’, that’s allowed?”
“Encouraged, even.”
“You mean—” You leaned forward, gripping his hands, eyes wide with revelation—“I can consent to being railed??”
Nanami choked on air.
“…I—” He exhaled sharply, regaining composure. “Yes. That is exactly what I am saying.”
Your eyes lit up.
But then you squinted, “But what about Step 3: Profit?”
He kissed you, cutting off the PowerPoint forever.
And then you stood up so fast you knocked the chair over.
“Well, why didn’t you say so earlier?? Nanami, get in the bedroom. Immediately.”
Later that night, after several rounds of making up for lost time, Nanami lay on his back, staring at the ceiling.
You, his alien girlfriend, rested beside him, very pleased with yourself.
You stretched, “Humans are so complicated.”
Nanami didn’t even have the energy to argue. “You learned it wrong.”
“I learned something.”
He turned his head, exhausted. “I’m having a word with Tsukumo tomorrow.”
You snorted. “What, are you going to complain that your girlfriend was too respectful of consent?”
Nanami sighed deeply.
A/N: Yuki received a 1-star review on her consent seminar.
Shout out that dirty blonde-haired guy for letting me hallucinate what Naoya would even look like irl. I didn't have any such difficulties with our glorious baby Choso, though.
Thank you @alebrasil0101 for the super cool request. 💌
Synopsis: Itadori Ryomen Choso has loved your voice for years.
He has your records, your rare pressings, the songs your label buried, and enough sense to stay away from Naoya Zenin’s girl.
Naoya Zenin had made you famous, then made you his.
At thirteen, you were a girl with a demo. Years later, you are a star with a sold-out tour, a controlled image, a secret fiancé, and a career tied so tightly to the Zenin name that even your pain has to wait until after soundcheck.
Then one hotel party breaks the lie open.
He should have stayed away. The Itadori and Zenin families have hated each other for years, and you were Naoya’s singer, Naoya’s investment, Naoya’s...
But then he heard you scream.
Content Tags: MDNI, explicit sexual content, protective Choso, softly toxic!Naoya, abusive relationship, emotional hurt/comfort, slow recovery, some dub-con (not all), grooming, exploitation of a minor by an entertainment company, producer/idol power imbalance, sexual coercion, rough sex used harmfully, attempted gang sexual assault (don't worry, daddy's there to save you), drugging/manipulated misrepresented medication, alcohol abuse, pill abuse, mixing pills and alcohol, addiction/substance dependency, withdrawal symptoms, panic attacks, PTSD symptoms, nightmares, dissociation, stalking, forced confinement (not like that), industry & contract abuse, dating bans, medical abuse, forged medical notes, public humiliation, betrayal, arranged engagement, physical violence, mentions of blood, threats, legal scandal, recovery after abuse, consensual sex after trauma, consent checking, praise kink, abs riding, oral, fingering, penetrative sex, condom, aftercare. Roughly 13-14k oneshot. (It got out of hand.)
Song Naoya would listen to | Song Choso would listen to
(Notice how one is being sung to you & the other one is being sung to the homies about "a bitch.")
A/N: I’ve never really written Naoya as even remotely tolerable before (bc he & I are natural born enemies/I will traumatize himz), but this version is giving me complicated feelings. I might want to play with a softer, less canon-compliant Naoya at some point, though I don’t have a proper idea for him yet.
If you have one, feel free to throw it at me.
Also, I loved writing Choso here. Absolute best baby girl.
(ft. Fushiita, GoShoko, InuOoku, NobaMaki (all aged up to present day, 2026).)
16.7k | Explicit | Post-JJK AU
Summary: LOCAL WOMAN REMOVES ORANGE PITH. MAN WITH EIGHT YEARS OF REPRESSION IS SEEN MALFUNCTIONING LIKE A TESLA BECAUSE THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED.
Or, Nanami only comes to his own birthday camping trip because Gojo steals his keys. He plans to survive one hour, avoid the group photo & leave before anyone can make a speech. Then you hand him a plate exactly the way he likes it, Shoko says what everyone has been pretending not to know, & one bad photograph catches the truth before he can look away. + Other couples have their own moments.
Warnings: MDNI, Crack-Treated-Serious, Canon Divergence eight years Post-JJK (2026), eyepatch, facial scarring, body insecurity, chronic pain/knee pain, injury recovery, medical caretaking history, trauma aftermath, references to Shibuya/Mahito, reader with no verifiable family/past records, alcohol mention, adult former students now sorcerers/teachers, background ships, audible background voyeuristic sex (for petty reasons), One bed/hotel room, scar/body worship, eyepatch Nanami, emotional comfort, caretaking history, friends-to-lovers, mutual pining, Explicit sex, oral sex, face-fucking, gagging, titty-fucking, cumming on chest, fingering, cunnilingus, size kink, praise kink, pet names (good girl), tummy bulge, hand on throat/breath play, rough sex, overstimulation, marathon sex, multiple positions, missionary, cuddle-fucking, mating press, aftercare, protected sex, condom theft & mentions of morning-after pills (not for reader).
A/N: Happy birthday to my man, my man, my man, and also me for 2 years of fic writing. This is a well-awaited sequel to my first-ever fic, which I wrote on his birthday in 2024 & is finally an answer to the first-ever ask I got on Tumblr, based on an amazing ask from this anon. TBH this is the fluffiest fic I have ever written. Based on this event.
Nanami arrived at his own birthday camping trip late.
He had said he wouldn’t show up.
Then Gojo stole his car keys.
“You look nice, Nanamin!”
Yuji, twenty-four years old, called from the fold-out chair by the river, taller and broader now, older around the scars, with the same smile.
Nanami adjusted his eyepatch, damp with sweat under the strap. The burn scars pulled a little near his mouth when he answered, “You’ve grown into a terrible liar.”
Yuji laughed and carded his fingers through Megumi’s hair, where Megumi had dozed off against his knee.
You were by the picnic blanket, sleeves rolled up, turning skewers on the small grill while Nobara yelled at Inumaki over the paint set, one eye narrowed above the edge of her eyepatch, and Maki opened a jar with one hand better than most people could with both.
Panda had somehow been put in charge of the same fruit he'd been caught stealing earlier.
Gojo had been kept away from touching the food after he tried to “improve” the rice balls with frosting. You looked up when Nanami reached you.
“Hi,” you said, holding tongs in one hand. “You made it.”
“I was kidnapped.”
“You still came.”
“That is what kidnapping means.”
Your smile got bigger, and he pretended not to notice how easily that worked on him. Eight years, and he still acted as if your face had caught him off guard.
The first year after Shibuya had been the worst. You had arrived on the day he should have died with no past anyone could verify, both hands full of cursed energy and panic, and somehow dragged him to Shoko before death could finish making its case. He survived, but the burns still took his eye. Then you stayed through bandages and fever. From the first time he saw his face, he turned the mirror to the wall. Through every meal, he claimed he could cook for himself and then left it untouched—he had called you a nuisance. You still brought him soup the next mornings.
Now you handed him a plate before he even thought to ask, loaded with rice balls, grilled chicken, and orange slices without the white threads because he hated them. “You remembered,” he muttered as if it still somehow caught him by surprise after eight years.
You gave him a look. “I lived in your apartment for a year to care for you, Kento. I picked up things.”
Across the blanket, Gojo gasped. “He let you live with him? Kento, you slut.”
Nanami turned away. “I’m sitting with Yaga.”
“Yaga’s asleep,” Gojo grinned at Nanami, chucking the man his car keys back.
Nanami caught the car keys, muttered something passive-aggressive, and stomped away to check his tent.
“So,” Shoko turned back to you, red in the face from canned beer. “When are you two going to stop making the rest of us pretend this is friendship?”
Your hand stopped over the salad bowl, and Gojo’s grin went feral with interest. “Oh, this is good.”
“Shoko.”
“What?” Shoko tipped her can toward Nanami, who had come back for something and then gone still behind you. “You saved his life, fed him for a year, planned his every birthday since, and know he gets weird about orange pith. At some point, paperwork should get involved.”
You looked over your shoulder. Nanami glanced back. And for a second, the river was louder than everyone.
Then you turned to the salad and said, “The potatoes are burning.” They were not.
After that the late lunch passed in silence while you both avoided eye contact until Gojo called to take a group picture. “Everyone in,” he grinned, holding his phone too high. “Birthday boy in the middle before he starts pretending he has emails.”
“I do have emails,” Nanami grumbled.
“Your internet is working?” Maki asked.
Nanami did not answer, which was an answer. Then he already started creeping toward the edge of the group when you noticed his hand go to the strap of his eyepatch. You saw it before anyone else did—the way his mouth thinned where the scar tissue pulled from the old, ugly habit of remembering his face existed.
“I’ll take it,” you said, reaching for Gojo’s phone.
Gojo looked offended. “I have the longest arms.”
“You’ll make everyone look short.”
Shoko rubbed Gojo’s pant leg comfortingly because she was drunk enough to show emotions in public.
You ignored Gojo and waved everyone closer. Yuta ducked behind Panda. Yuji shoved Nobara’s elbow out of his ribs. Inumaki held up two rice balls like peace signs. Shoko stayed seated with her beer and lifted two fingers without moving. And the rest awkwardly gathered around. While Nanami tried to stand behind you.
You looked over your shoulder. “Kento.”
He stopped.
“Come here.”
His mouth shifted, almost not at all, but you knew that almost. You had known it in hospital rooms, in pharmacy aisles, and in his bathroom when he turned the mirror to face the wall and told you he did not need help shaving. But you never told him to smile or that he looked fine, nor did you tilt his face toward the unscarred side or pretend the scarred side was not there.
Nanami was too proud a man for those things.
He stepped closer, looking at you, maybe in a warning or a plea not to make a thing of it. So you didn’t and took the phone, herded everyone into place, and, when Nanami tried to stand at the edge, said, “Kento, hold this.” And handed him the paper plate with the two skewers on it.
He frowned. “Why?”
“Because if Gojo holds it, he’ll eat them.”
“I’m not a big back,” Gojo said, already chewing.
Nanami took the plate because it gave his hands somewhere to be and confused him enough to get distracted from his body.
“Fine, fine,” Gojo said, lifting the phone higher. “Everyone act like you like each other.”
“I don’t act,” Maki declared.
“That’s why we cherish you, Kiki-chan.”
Maki’s hand immediately lunged to yank Gojo’s hair back.
You only stepped beside Nanami when the others crowded in, your shoulder brushing his arm as it had in hospital corridors, Jujutsu Tech halls, his kitchen at three in the morning, and every quiet place where he had tried to become awful so you’d leave him alone but failed because you kept coming back with groceries. “Ready?”
Nanami looked down at you, and for one second, his face shifted again—less alone, maybe. “Yes,” he answered. Then he turned his head at the last second because you chuckled when Shoko pinched Gojo’s cheeks—your eyes bright, one hand caught at Nanami’s sleeve, like you had done it without thinking.
The shutter clicked.
The picture happened in the middle of everyone laughing, talking, or yelling.
When you lowered the phone, Gojo took it back, glanced at the screen, and said, much softer than usual, “Oh.”
Nanami reached for the phone thinking Gojo was about to make fun of him. But then he saw the picture and realized he was not looking at the camera at all. Not even facing it.
He was looking at you.
The angle had hidden most of the eyepatch from view. His face was turned far enough that the scarred side fell into shadow, but that was the first thing his mind usually reached for, out of habit since Shibuya.
Then he followed his gaze in the picture and saw you.
You were smiling like the whole noisy riverside had narrowed to the space between your hand on his sleeve and his shoulder beside yours without any careful softness meant to spare him. Instead it was happiness, plain and unguarded—caught before either of you could hide it.
Nanami stared too long, and Gojo, for once, did not ruin it.
You too leaned closer, looking at the screen. “Oh.”
Nanami’s thumb squeezed against the edge of the phone.
“I look ridiculous,” you said, staring at something else.
“No,” he answered, too quickly.
You looked up at him.
His ears were faintly red. “You look…” He stopped. Everyone was still close enough to hear, and dignity was a habit even when it no longer saved him.
Gojo’s grin started spreading menicingly.
Nanami locked the phone and handed it back. “Send that to me.”
Gojo’s eyebrows climbed. “Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting.”
Shoko slapped his arm. “Satoru.” And Nanami thought she would be the voice of reason, but he’d forgotten the woman was drunk. “Let him do the Fushiguro thing in peace.”
Megumi looked up from where Yuji was showing him the backup photo his phone had taken from where it was propped against the cooler. “What thing?”
Gojo’s grin changed targets with speed. “Oh, you don’t know?”
Nanami had never been happier for Gojo’s lack of attention span.
Yuji zoomed in the picture on his phone before Megumi. And low and behold, in the corner of the photo, Megumi was looking at Yuji.
It wasn’t near him or past him but directly at him, with a small smile he clearly had no memory of making.
Nobara leaned over Yuji’s shoulder and made a noise of pure disgusted delight. “Oh, that’s embarrassing.”
“It was an accident,” Megumi snapped, snatching the phone away.
“You do this in every picture,” Panda laughed.
“I do not.”
Inumaki, already scrolling, turned his own phone around to show an old photo from their trip to Osaka.
Megumi lunged for it too, but Gojo caught the back of his shirt without even looking.
Yuji smiled traitorously. “You stare at me?”
“I was checking your surroundings.”
“By staring at my sleeping face in a locked train compartment?”
Megumi went red to the ears and tried to get Inumaki again. “Give me the phone.”
Gojo, delighted, lifted it out of reach.
Yuji leaned into Megumi’s shoulder, warm and shameless. “That’s cute.”
Megumi flicked the back of his head. “It’s not.”
Yuji rubbed the back of his own head but continued to grin dumbly.
Megumi covered Yuji’s face with one hand. “I’m going to kill all of you.”
“I’m sending it,” Gojo said to Nanami, still grinning, but he did not say anything else about the way Nanami had looked at you.
Your phone buzzed first. Then Nanami’s.
---
After dinner and the cake—which had been cut badly by Gojo while he was trying to get the biggest piece for himself and fixed by Maki’s blade—was eaten, everyone spread out. Nobara and Maki vanished into the woods with one lantern and two blankets. Shoko drank by the fire, her feet in Gojo’s lap while he massaged them and argued with her about the terms of their bet. Ijichi snored in a chair. Panda and Yaga were talking over roasted marshmallows. Inumaki and Yuta were catching fish in the dark with too much confidence. Far down the river, Yuji walked with Megumi, their shoulders bumping.
“Sensei’s sitting alone again,” Yuji said, nodding toward you by the water.
Megumi followed his gaze. “Nanami-san will go.”
“You think?”
“He has been watching her for twenty minutes.”
Yuji grinned. “They’re so married for people who say, ‘we’re just friends.’”
Megumi shoved his hands in his pockets. “He looks at her a lot.”
“She knows how he takes his coffee and practically everything he likes and dislikes.”
“He keeps pain medicine in his office for her cramps. Asked me to fetch it last time.”
“You know she bought him that ugly beige camping mug.”
Megumi’s mouth twitched, but he didn’t look at Yuji when his arm slid around his waist casually. “He says it was a practical gift.”
Yuji laughed and leaned into Megumi’s side. “The man is down bad in business casual.”
“You would know,” Megumi mildly smirked.
Yuji’s grin widened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re holding my waist while saying that, so it’s not nothing.”
Megumi looked away toward the river, where the lantern light caught the scars cutting across his own face: one near his left temple and eye, the other paler on the opposite side, half-lost when he ducked his head. “You were walking too close to the water.”
Yuji looked delighted by this.
Megumi’s hand tightened once at his side before Yuji could start testing him. “Shut up.”
Farther downriver, Yuta lifted the lantern higher while Inumaki crouched near the bank, one sleeve pinned and empty where his other arm used to be. The light caught the stitches across Yuta’s forehead when he bent too close, watching Inumaki’s face again instead of the water.
“Salmon,” Inumaki warned without looking up.
Yuta straightened immediately. “Right. Sorry.”
Inumaki glanced back at him, eyes soft above his collar, then pointed at the river like Yuta had been the one scaring the tiny fish away.
Yuji followed Megumi’s gaze and smiled softer this time. “Everyone’s kind of obvious tonight.”
Megumi huffed a small laugh. “You’re one to talk.”
“Huh?”
“You were staring at me in the picture too.”
“I can admit that…" Yuji’s grin went soft around the scar cutting through his lip. “Maybe I like looking at you.”
Megumi looked away first, jaw working like he wanted to argue and couldn’t find anything worth saying. The distant lantern light caught the scars near his left temple and eye before he leaned in closer, his hand moving lower on Yuji’s waist. “Shut up,” he muttered, eyes dropping to Yuji’s mouth as he dragged him closer. “Come here.”
Yuji’s hands fisted in Megumi’s hoodie as he glanced back toward camp. “What if someone sees?”
“We’re not fifteen anymore,” Megumi whispered near his ear, moving Yuji’s face back toward him with a careful hand. “And everybody here has seen far worse things than grown adults kissing.”
Yuji laughed under his breath, his breath warm against Megumi’s mouth. “That’s true.”
Megumi pushed him back against the nearest tree to get them out of the path where the firelight could reach. His hand slipped under the hem of Yuji’s hoodie and settled burning at his waist.
Yuji stayed still for half a breath.
Megumi felt it because he’d trained himself to trace the tiny delay before Yuji remembered where he was. The way his body sometimes braced for bad things before his mind caught up, like some old part of him was still waiting for another voice in his head.
Megumi’s thumb tapped into his skin.
Yuji continued to stare at nothing.
Megumi rubbed his skin again, gentler, and Yuji’s shoulders loosened. “Sorry,” he murmured.
“Don’t be.”
Yuji looked at him.
“Don’t apologize for that,” Megumi said, with his eyes dropping briefly to the scar through Yuji’s lip before returning to his face. “Just stay here.”
Yuji’s smile came back. “Bossy.”
“Yeah.” His hand stayed where it was, and for a second, Megumi thought about the stupid unfairness of it. Nanami could give someone things and call it practical. Gojo could make a public nuisance of himself with Shoko and somehow still have the world bend around it. But what Megumi wanted with Yuji, something with same surnames, still had to be phrased around loopholes, paperwork, and whichever court felt generous enough to recognize it.
He would still ask anyway.
Just not tonight. Tonight was someone else's.
But Megumi would ask soon. And Yuji would make some awful noise when he realized. Might laugh first, then cry after, then ask, ‘Are you sure?’ Like Fushiguro Megumi hadn’t built his whole life around being sure of very few things, and selfishly choosing Itadori Yuji every day wasn’t always going to be top of them.
Megumi hooked his thumb in Yuji’s belt loop, keeping him close. “Besides,” he said, lower now, eyes dropping to Yuji’s mouth, “it’s easier to appreciate you in the dark.”
Yuji’s smile got warmer. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” Megumi muttered, having difficulty taking his eyes off Yuji’s lips. “Oh.”
Yuji’s gaze flicked once toward the firelight, then back to him. “You gonna use your technique, bro?”
“Don’t—” Megumi’s ears went red, but he knew to suppress his reaction because he knew that Yuji said dumb things when flustered or nervous or excited—pretty much all the time. “Don’t make it sound weird.”
“You’re the one who said it.”
“I meant so no one sees you panic every time someone walks past.”
Yuji’s smile softened at the edges.
“And yeah,” Megumi’s other thumb brushed against Yuji’s lips and his scar, and he added, quieter. “Only if you want.”
Yuji stared at his mouth and at the broader line of Megumi’s shoulders, where he crowded him against the tree without actually pinning him there. “Yeah,” it came easily, his breath catching around the word. “I—ah—want you to.”
The shadow at Megumi’s feet started to gather around them, darkening the space between the tree and the river until the campfire disappeared into a dark blur through the leaves.
Yuji let out a small, nervous laugh. “That’s kind of hot.”
Megumi closed his eyes and kissed him before Yuji could make the moment difficult by being sweet.
Yuji wrapped both arms around him because Yuji had never learned how to accept small things from Megumi without giving his whole body back.
---
Back by the river, you sat with your feet near the water, your lantern beside you. The paper plate on your lap held a slice of cake you had barely touched.
Nanami stopped beside you. “May I sit?”
“It’s your day.” You smiled up at him.
“I was told I’m allowed very little free will today.”
“That’s because you were trying to ditch your own birthday party.” You moved your plate, and he sat on the grass with a careful breath. His knee clicked. You reached into the bag beside you to hand him the small cushion you had packed.
He stared at it.
“For your knee,” you told him. “Take it before I throw it at you.”
He took it, and for a while, you both just watched the river pull silver lines around the stones.
“I heard Shoko,” he murmured.
“I figured.”
“I should have answered.”
You picked at the cake with your fork. “You don’t owe people an answer about me.”
“I owe you one.”
Your hand stilled for half a second before going back to picking at the cake.
Nanami looked down at his plate, keeping his scarred side half out of the lantern light.
“I wanted to spend today alone. That was the plan. A quiet mountain cabin. Sandwich from a shop. A book I would barely read.”
You nodded.
“Then you sent a list of food. A map. A reminder about sunscreen. Then seven messages about whether I could still eat spicy sauce.”
“You can’t.”
“I can. It just comes with regret.” His mouth curved a little.
Then he sighed. “I was annoyed. Then I looked forward to it all week.”
Your throat worked around a small laugh that came out thin. “You’re bad at gratitude.”
“I’m worse at friendship, apparently.”
You finally looked at him. He met your eyes, and this time he didn’t look away first. “You were there when I was hard to be near. Then I made it harder. I knew you would come back, so I let myself be careless with your feelings.”
Your fork dug into the cake because you didn’t know what to say to that. Some small part of you tried to make sense of it before you could hope. Pity, obligation, eight years of habit, his loneliness finding the nearest person who already knew where the medicine was kept.
Then Nanami reached into his jacket, pulled out a small box wrapped in brown paper and tied with kitchen string, and handed it to you. “I bought this months ago,” he whispered. “Just kept waiting for a dignified moment.”
You opened it.
A key sat inside, along with a tiny wooden tag carved with your name.
Your breath caught and you looked up at him. “Is this because you feel responsible for me?”
His answer came too fast to be polite. “No.”
Then he lowered his voice. “I would like you to come home.” His voice roughened at the edges. “As mine. In whatever order you can accept. Girlfriend first, if that is easier. Partner. Wife, someday, if you can forgive the delay. If you still want that after we learn how to stop pretending.”
Your palm pressed to your mouth.
He looked alarmed. “Was that too much?”
You laughed into your palm. “Kento, you gave me a house key as a birthday gift on your birthday.”
“It seemed practical.”
“You are so stupid.”
“Yes,” he smiled, softer now. “I am aware.”
You leaned over and kissed the scarred side of his mouth before he could brace for it, his skin warm against your lips.
Behind you, from across the camp, Gojo screamed, “PAY UP, SHOKO!”
You smiled against him.
He sighed, warm and beaten. “I should have invited you to the mountains.” His hand closed over yours, and he kept the key pressed between both your palms.
Gojo’s voice carried across the camp again, loud enough to make bats startle somewhere in the trees. “SHOKO, YOU CAN’T CHANGE THE TERMS AFTER THE KISS. MY SIX EYES CONFIRMED IT.”
“I can do whatever I want,” Shoko called back, flat and drunk. “Your first choice is dead.”
The camp went still for half a second.
Then Gojo shouted, “Take that back.”
“I meant I’m the only doctor you idiots have.”
“WE HAVE MY GOOD STUDENT YUTA NOW.”
Yuta immediately grabbed Inumaki’s sleeve and started dragging him farther downriver.
“I did surgery on him. And you. I’m superior.”
“YAGA, SHE’S BULLYING ME AGAIN.”
Nanami closed his eye. “Ignore them.”
You laughed softly, and the sound made his hand tighten around yours. You were still too close to him, leaving small pecks against the scarred side of his lips. The little wooden tag pressed into your palm, your name carved into it like a promise. “Kento.”
“Yes?” He hummed.
“I’d like to come home with you.”
He went still.
You looked down at your joined hands because saying it while looking at his face would have made your voice crack. “Not tonight. I mean, obviously, but I mean properly. I want to move in. I want to start dating. I want…”
Nanami’s face changed slowly, like watching the door open after standing outside with his hand raised for years. “Girlfriend first,” he added, quieter.
You nodded.
“Partner when you are ready.”
You looked up at him. “I’m not the only one who has to be ready.”
He lowered his gaze, thumb moving over your knuckles, careful around the key. “I have been ready in undignified ways for some time.”
Your smile broadened. “That might be the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.”
He gave you half a smile. “Hope it’s not the last. I intend to do better.”
“You’d better.”
He looked toward the river because smiling at you too openly still cost him.
You remembered his face before Shibuya only in fragments now: old photographs, mission reports.
This was the face you knew better. “I do need time,” you admitted. “For the move, I mean. I have things at my apartment, clothes, books, souvenirs, the kettle you said was a fire hazard.”
“It was a fire hazard.”
You smiled down at the key. “I’ll bring the kettle last.”
“I will dispose of it humanely.”
You slapped his arm lightly. “You will not.”
“I will hire someone.” He sounded like he was going to get someone from the dark web.
“Kento.”
His mouth curved, small so that nobody across the camp would have noticed. You did because you had always noticed him in the margins.
He glanced down at your plate. “You did not eat your cake.”
“I got proposed to by a man who doesn’t know if he asked me to be his girlfriend or his wife. I don’t care about the cake right now.”
His expression sharpened with immediate concern. “Do you want something else?”
“No. I’m teasing you.”
“I still need an answer.”
You loved him for that. In his dry insistence, he could be given a kiss, a key accepted, and a future placed in his hand and still worry about your blood sugar before his own feelings. “I’m okay,” you answered. “Just tired.”
That, he believed. Then he stood with effort, offered you his hand, and you let him pull you up. His knee bothered him. You knew the exact stiffness in his jaw that meant it had started to ache.
“You should go back. Before Gojo remembers he has lungs and yells again.”
“He never forgets.”
“No. He simply uses them irresponsibly.”
He walked you back through the camp slowly. The fire had sunk low. Shoko was laughing at something Gojo was saying too close to her ear, her cheeks flushed from beer, one hand resting on the back of his neck as if she’d put it there to keep him from running off into the dark. Yaga and Ijichi had already retreated to their tents on the far end of the site. Panda lay outside his father’s tent with one paw over his face, asleep under the stars with a plushy like a log and snoring as one.
You saw Nanami notice all of it.
Nobara and Maki had not come back. Neither had Megumi and Yuji. Inumaki and Yuta were still missing somewhere downriver with the lantern and the knife, which you chose not to examine too closely.
At your tent, Nanami stopped. The zipper was halfway open. Inside, your blanket had been kicked into a pile, your overnight bag still unlatched, clothes spilling out because Nobara had insisted she could style you for glamping and then abandoned the project the second Maki called her name.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” Nanami told you.
“You’re not going to make sure I’m zipped inside so a bear won't attack me at night?”
“There are no bears here.”
“You looked up bears before coming here?”
“I know you would have.”
“Touché,” you said, stepping into the tent. “Good night, boyfriend.”
The word sank in him for the first time.
He stood there for half a second longer than necessary, his expression caught inside something softer. Then he bowed his head once, because Nanami Kento had no available defense against being called yours except good manners.
“Good night,” he repeated, lower this time. Then he walked back to his tent with red ears.
You waited until his silhouette disappeared past the fire before you looked at the key again.
You did not sleep but lay on your back under the thin blanket, phone held above your face, the key box sitting on your stomach because you just couldn't put it away tonight.
Outside, the river moved, leaves shifted, someone’s tent zipper caught, and bamboo wind chimes knocked softly near the picnic shelter.
You opened your messages.
You: I should probably ask what your move-in requirements are before I accidentally bring the fire-hazard kettle.
His reply came so fast that your chest warmed.
Kento: The kettle is not entering my home.
You: Is it not mine?
There was a pause long enough for you to worry you had made it too much too fast, even though it had been eight years.
Then his typing bubble appeared.
Kento: Our home. The kettle is still not entering it.
You covered your mouth with your hand.
You: Cruel landlord.
Kento: Boyfriend. Possibly partner. Future husband, if I do not lose the position over fire safety.
You stared at the message until the letters blurred at the edges.
Outside, Gojo laughed somewhere, quieter than usual. Shoko told him to shut up in a voice that had no real conviction behind it.
You: You’re very confident about future husband.
Kento: I have been accused of waiting too long. I am correcting the record.
You: By proposing an entire life on your birthday.
Kento: It seemed practical. I deserved a gift, and you deserved something permanent for planning this day and everything before it.
You: I’m going to bite you.
Kento: That is not a logistical concern.
The squeal you made into your blanket was embarrassing and muffled. You rolled onto your side, holding the phone close to your face.
You: I keep thinking I’ll wake up and you’ll decide this was fever brain.
Kento: I am not feverish.
You: The key is beautiful, and my name carved into it looks good.
Kento: I had a professional do that. (It was Megumi.)
You realized he didn't want anyone to spoil it.
You: That makes it sweet, actually.
Kento: I am aware.
The next message came after a long moment of his typing bubble appearing and disappearing and reappearing.
Kento: I wanted you to have something that could not be mistaken.
Your throat tightened. All the noise outside seemed to move further away. Even the river sounded softer from inside the tent.
You: Kento.
Kento: You have had very little permanence since you came here.
You stopped breathing for a second.
Kento: No family records or household. No one to call if something went wrong who belonged to you before this world took you in. You have made a life anyway. I know that. I am proud of that. But I wanted you to have a door that opened because your name belonged there.
You pressed the phone to your chest and stared at the dark fabric of the tent roof.
Untethered.
You hated that word. It made drifting sound graceful.
Gojo and Ijichi had made you legal enough for payroll, rent, hospital forms, and mission reports, but none of it reached backward. There were still blank spaces where parents should have gone. No childhood address. No family name that meant anything here. No one who could say what you were like before this world took you in.
You had caught yourself envying the students for ugly things: clan fights, dead relatives, living relatives, inheritance arguments, grief with names attached. At least someone had known them before.
Jujutsu Tech gave you a file. Shoko gave you headache medicine before you asked. Gojo bought things you never requested and called it community support. The others made room for you without making speeches.
And Kento.
Kento with the second phone charger he pretended came in a pack of two. Kento whose apartment had become the only place your body slept properly. And now he was saying your name belonged on the door.
You typed and deleted six different replies.
You: I don’t know how to say what that means to me without sounding pathetic.
Kento: You have listened to me say “girlfriend first, partner, wife someday” beside a river. I no longer have grounds to judge anyone’s process.
You laughed, but it broke halfway into a few tears.
You: I didn’t think I’d get to be someone’s family officially here. I know that sounds stupid because people choose each other all the time, but I didn’t think it would happen to me. Especially not with someone who knows I drink coffee like it counts as water.
Kento: It does not.
You: I’m being vulnerable. You can be nice.
Kento: You are. I am keeping you grounded.
You: By attacking my coffee?
Kento: By reminding you that I know it.
You blinked hard, looking for the right emoji to express your distaste.
Kento: When you first appeared, I was suspicious of you.
You: Romantic.
Kento: You had no file, no verifiable history, and enough cursed energy to drag a half-dead man out of Mahito’s grasp. Suspicion seemed reasonable.
You: Still romantic.
Kento: I was also afraid you would disappear the same way you arrived.
You did not know what to say to that.
Kento: I expected someone to explain you eventually as a curse, technique, or a temporary consequence of some larger cruelty. I thought if I became too accustomed to you, the world would correct itself and take you back.
Your fingers hovered above the keyboard.
Kento: Then you stayed. Argued with my pharmacist, replaced the mirror I turned to the wall with one too small for me to avoid entirely. You even left soup at my door after I called you a nuisance. You became domestic before I was ready for you to be irreplaceable.
The tent blurred. You wiped at your face with the heel of your hand and nearly dropped the phone.
You: You can’t say things like this over text.
Kento: I can say them outside your tent if you would prefer.
Your whole body went warm.
You: Oh lord no.
Kento: Understood.
You: I mean yes? Or no. I mean I’m wearing an old shirt and crying.
Kento: I have seen worse.
You: You are so bad at this.
Kento: Noted. I will improve.
You smiled into the dark. Then his next message came.
Kento: If things become too dangerous again, I need you to understand something.
You sat up.
Kento: I will not let Jujutsu society decide what happens to you. I have given enough of my life to institutions that eat people and call it duty. If the choice is between staying and keeping you safe, I will take you and leave.
You reread that message, a mix of emotions swirling inside you and choking in your throat.
You: You mean that?
Kento: Yes.
You: But you love your work.
Kento: I love being able to help where I can. That is not the same thing.
You: And if I say I don’t want you giving everything up for me?
Kento: Then we will discuss it like adults. And I will still keep the car maintained.
It was just so like him, devotion inside an emergency plan.
You were still staring at the message when another sound came from outside.
At first, Nanami ignored it.
In his own tent, sitting upright with his back against a rolled sleeping bag because lying down had proved useless, he heard canvas shift from the direction of Gojo’s tent and assumed the man was awake.
Which was not unusual. Satoru rarely slept like other people. Three hours, sometimes less, then he would wander the halls of the school or appear in kitchens, bright-eyed and awake past reason, eating someone else’s food and pretending insomnia was a lifestyle choice.
Nanami typed another message, thumb moving carefully.
Kento: For clarity, I am not planning to take your choice away. I am saying you have one with me now. If something like Shibuya happens. If we need to leave, we leave together.
The shuffling continued. A soft thump. A rustle. Then something like a hand catching against tent fabric.
Nanami paused. Then resumed typing because whatever Gojo Satoru did at night was between him, God, and the nearest vending machine.
Kento: I should have told you earlier. Years ago.
A muffled laugh came from the other tent.
Shoko’s.
Nanami’s typing slowed. Another rustle followed, lower this time, rhythmic enough that his mind and his technique, traitorous and precise, started assembling possibilities he did not want.
No. Absolutely not.
Satoru would not.
Nanami stared at the wall of his tent.
Then a muffled sentence came through canvas and night air, Satoru’s voice far too pleased with itself to be mistaken for sleep talking.
Nanami closed his eye. And for several seconds, he sat very still.
Satoru wouldn't do that. Wouldn't traumatize his students like that, would he?
And there were students nearby.
Former students, yes. Grown adults now, all of them old enough to drink, vote, kill curses, and make bad decisions in forests. But still. They had been children once. Children Satoru had bequeathed and taught. Children Nanami had, against his will and better judgment, worried about.
Except Nobara and Maki had disappeared into the trees hours ago. Megumi and Yuji had walked off in opposite direction around the same time—even their cursed energies weren't within a detectable radius now. Inumaki and Yuta had not returned from whatever fishing ritual required one knife and an alarming amount of staring contest. Panda slept like a boulder on the other side of camp. Yaga slept like a dead man with a pension. Ijichi slept like a person who had spent fifteen years being emotionally waterboarded by Gojo Satoru and could sleep through artillery if it meant nobody needed him.
So Satoru was traumatizing no one he cared about except Nanami.
Oh, but wait… Ijichi.
Nanami’s eye opened. That was it, wasn't it?
Satoru had pointed out, years ago to Kento, the way Ijichi hovered around Shoko with the doomed attentiveness of a man bringing coffee to a woman miles out of his league. Had mocked him for it, interfered with it, sabotaged it, and once bought him a book on “assertive romantic communication” that Ijichi had accepted with both hands and visible despair. The book contained the worst possible advice, such as shaving your head made you more aerodynamic for dates.
That was not poor judgment.
It was Satoru declaring territory.
Nanami put on his headphones. Then his gaze dropped to his phone.
You were in the tent near his—awake, emotional, and his to care for. And you could probably hear this. His thumb moved before he had fully decided.
Kento: Pack your bag.
Your reply came quickly.
You: what
Kento: Quietly. Ten minutes. Meet me just outside the campsite entrance.
You: Kento what happened
He glanced toward the canvas wall as another sound reached him.
Kento: Satoru.
A momentary pause.
You: oh my god
Kento: Yes.
You: shoko?????
Kento: Unfortunately.
You: is everyone else asleep
Kento: Gone, asleep, or morally unreachable.
You: what does morally unreachable mean?
Kento: Panda.
You: Kento I can’t just flee a campsite because Gojo and Shoko are having sex
Kento: I can. Pack.
You were outside in eight minutes after having packed so quickly that even your bag was zipped wrong and your hair had come loose around your face.
Nanami was already waiting near the entrance sign with his overnight bag in one hand. His hair was mussed from where he had dragged his fingers through it, and his eyepatch strap sat a little crooked. He looked you over once, checking that you had your shoes, your bag, yourself, then said, “My car is nearby. There is a hotel ten minutes from here. We will return in the morning.”
You followed him to the car. He opened the passenger door for you, and you hid a smile because he had always done that, even before tonight, even when he could still pretend it was only manners. Now the same small gesture felt claimed. He shut the door once you were inside, walked around to the driver’s side, and started the engine.
Neither of you spoke for the first few minutes of the drive. The road out of the campsite was narrow and dark, trees pressing close on either side. Nanami drove with one hand on the wheel, his profile lit by the dashboard glow. The eyepatch hid one side of him. The scars caught in uneven lines. You watched his hand shift, steady on the gear, and remembered the way it had held yours around the key. Halfway to the hotel, his expression changed.
“What?” you asked.
He looked horrified. “Have you been drinking?”
You stared. “What?”
“At the camp. Shoko was giving everyone beer. Gojo had that terrible sweet alcohol. You were emotional. I should have asked before taking you anywhere.”
“I had half a canned peach thing four hours ago.”
His jaw tightened. “That is not an answer.”
“It was barely alcohol.”
“That is also not an answer.”
“Kento, I am not drunk.”
“You were crying.”
“Forgive a girl for being emotional after pining after a guy for eight years then suddenly being pulled out of the friend zone.”
He opened his mouth. “That was not—" Then he realized better and closed it. His grip eased slightly on the wheel, and he tried again. “That was not intended to impair judgment.”
“Well, it did.”
“Then I shouldn’t have sent the texts.”
“I didn’t say that.” You leaned your head against the window, smiling despite the ache in your chest. “I’m sober. Just feeling happy because you accidentally became my whole life and then asked me that we could stop pretending.”
He swallowed. The car stayed very quiet after that.
At the hotel, Nanami carried both bags, and you let him because arguing with him in the lobby would have turned him into stone.
The receptionist looked at the two of you—your rumpled clothes, his serious face, the bags, the hour—and made a decision behind her polite smile.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “We only have one room available.”
Tumblr is so annoying sometimes, won't let me post all in one.
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Summary: You nurse Qifrey through a fever and fall in love. Will he return the feelings, or is there someone already crossing bridges for him?
Content notes: Soft!Qifrey, no spoilers, medical setting, fever, collapse/unconsciousness, infected burn/wound care, possibly unrequited feelings, bittersweet, established Qifrey/Olruggio. WC: 2.8k.
A/N: My first fic in the WHA fandom kinda nervous, please don't spoil me because at the moment I'm anime-only but will read the manga soon.
The witch collapsed before he could knock
You saw him through the front windows of the ward, tall, his witch hat dipped low over pale hair, coat hanging from one shoulder. He tried to straighten when he saw you.
You caught him under the arms as he collapsed.
He weighed less than you expected. “Sir? Can you hear me?”
His breath came hot against your temple. His lashes fluttered, raven against skin gone faintly gray. There was a travel bag at his feet, mud on the hem of his coat, and a folded card held so tightly in his hand that his glove had creased around it.
“Bring a stretcher,” you called over your shoulder.
A night nurse came running. The man tried to speak while you eased him down. His voice scraped out in a whisper.
“Apologies.”
Then he fainted.
After triage, his chart landed under your name for fever, infected burn, observation.
The staff learned very little from his pockets. His card was sealed, the ink smudged where sweat had dampened the paper, but the name was visible.
Qifrey.
Under it sat an atelier seal for an atelier several towns away and the name Olruggio in a different, heavier script. On the back, in a heavier hand, someone had written, “If he says he is fine, he is lying. If he says he can walk, make him sit. If he asks for thornbark, ignore him.”
You sent a runner with the message as soon as you finished checking him in. The road had been damaged by a landslide two towns over, according to the courier desk. Whoever Olruggio was, it would take time to even inform them because your small village didn't have any resident witches.
The first runner came back with mud-covered knees before sunset. The bridge past Lannor was split, the lower road had sunk, and the courier desk would need another route before any message reached the atelier.
Over the next two days, during your nightly rounds, you heard Qifrey murmur names in his sleep. Coco. Tetia. Richeh. Agott. Sometimes Olruggio, lower, rougher, with a strain that made you pause beside the bed.
The names meant nothing to you, but his voice did.
Qifrey needed a lot of help—by the second night, his chart had three extra pages clipped to it.
He had a fever that refused to break, a cough that tore through him even while he slept, and a burn across his palm that looked several days old. It had been treated poorly. By himself, you guessed, after seeing how clean the bandage had been despite the infection underneath. A man used to handling trouble alone.
On the third day, you cut away the spoiled wrapping to change the bandage, as you had been doing daily since his arrival.
He stirred then, face pinched with pain.
“Can you hear me, sir?”
His hand flexed in yours, his voice rough from disuse. “Mm. I hear you.”
“You are in St. Gillian’s ward. You passed out at the door.”
“That seems… inconvenient.”
“You picked a good door.”
A small breath left him. It might have been a laugh.
You washed the wound, set herbs to draw down the swelling, and fed him medicine by the spoon when his fever didn't let him swallow easily.
By fifth morning, Qifrey’s fever had settled into a stubborn heat rather than a blaze. He woke while you were changing the water at his bedside.
His visible eye opened first—clear blue, tired, and assessing.
He looked at the ceiling, the window, and the medicine tray, then at you.
“Good morning,” he said, his voice rough but better than before.
You stared at him for half a second.
Most patients woke up confused, angry, frightened, or all of it. Qifrey woke as though he had been invited to a formal breakfast. “You remember where you are?”
“A clinic?”
“Hospital ward.”
“Ah. Better funded than I feared.”
You sat on the stool beside him and checked his pulse. His skin was still hot. He watched your hand as though your work interested him.
Once you were done, he gave you a mild smile.
You looked down at his pulse before your face gave you away.
“I sent word to the atelier listed on your card,” you said instead. “Someone named Olruggio was mentioned. The roads are caved in next town over, so a reply still may take a day or two.”
His face changed from smiling to serious. “Did the message say I was stable?”
“I sent it when you arrived so it said you were under care.”
His fingers clenched in the sheet. “That will make him angry.”
“Concerned?”
Qifrey looked toward the window. “With him, the two travel together.”
You took his temperature and pretended that answered anything.
For the rest of the day, he slept between treatments. By evening, he could sit up against pillows, so you brought tea because the ward broth had been rejected with such gentle sadness that you had felt bad for him.
He accepted the cup with both hands carefully. “Thank you.”
“It may taste medicinal.”
“I have survived worse things.”
“You say that as if you mean it.”
Qifrey’s eye lowered to the steam. “I do.”
You shouldn't have pried, should have gone back to the desk, finished your chart, and taken your meal before it went cold.
“What went wrong?”
“I misjudged a cough.”
“And the burn?”
“Misjudged a flame.”
“Careless for a Witch Master.”
He smiled into the cup. “You wound me.”
“You arrived wounded.”
“A fair correction.”
You chuckled before you could stop yourself.
He looked pleased, though he hid it by drinking.
The next evening brought more improvement. He could walk from the bed to the chair by the window with your hand under his elbow. His hair bobbed in uneven waves, white and soft from fever sweat. You washed it for him in a basin because he lacked the strength to lift both arms.
He endured the indignity with great dignity.
“You may complain,” you said, working soap through the ends.
“I am trying to decide how.”
“Most people start with the water temperature.”
“I hate water.”
“That may be the fever talking.”
“No, I just hate it in general.”
You poured clean water through his hair and watched his shoulders loosen. “You talk around everything. It’s like you are deflecting.”
“I talk through things. Around them takes more effort.”
“Do you have family?”
The question came out because you had spent the afternoon thinking about Olruggio’s name on that card. Because Qifrey said it in sleep with the same exhausted care people used for loved ones. Or maybe because you were a fool.
His shoulders stilled for a breath.
Then he said, “There are people waiting for me.”
“That was also around the question.”
“Yes.”
You should have taken the answer for what it was. Instead, you felt his silence settle between you and chose the safer thing. “You have students.”
“I do.”
“Those names you said in your sleep?”
A small smile touched his mouth. “My apprentices.”
“You worry them?”
“I am afraid so.”
“You seem habitual at that.”
His laugh came out soft and tired. “One of my oldest habits.”
You dried his hair with a towel. He sat patiently, head bowed. The back of his neck looked vulnerable. You moved your hands with professional care, and your chest did the foolish work of skipping a beat.
That evening, you brought tea again. He asked about you.
It wasn't anything new, patients asked out of politeness all the time. Qifrey listened as though each answer fitted into a private ledger.
You told him about the hospital. About training under a surgeon who threw instruments when angry. About the old woman in room four who lied about her sweets. About your rented rooms above the bakery and the landlord’s whiskercat who had claimed your spare chair.
Qifrey laughed at that. “A whiskercat recognizes vacant authority.”
“He bites doctors.”
“Then he recognizes false authority as well.”
You looked at him over your cup.
“You would get along with him.”
“High praise.”
“It was a warning.”
He held the cup near his mouth, smiling.
The next day, his fever broke.
You found him awake before dawn, sitting at the side of the bed with his coat folded across his knees. His hand shook when he tried to fasten a clasp.
You leaned against the doorway. “Planning an escape?”
He looked up, guilt neatly arranged into charm. “Need to perform an assessment.”
“Of the hallway?”
“Of my general readiness.”
“You are terrible at being a patient.”
“Many have said so with greater volume.”
“Olruggio?”
Qifrey paused.
Then he gave a helpless little smile, fondness slipping through before he could tuck it away. “Most often, yes.”
“Your next of kin has strong opinions.”
“He has earned the right.”
Your heart did a small flip because Qifrey looked at you with such warmth after. Then again later, when you brought him lunch, he mentioned noticing that you seemed to dislike thornbark. Then again at tea, when he asked whether you ever left the ward before the lamps were lit and when you said rarely, he told you you were allowed to be cared for without becoming less productive.
It sounded rehearsed in the sense that he had probably said it to children before. Children, friends, himself, perhaps.
You adored him for some reason after that.
By late afternoon, the senior physician cleared him for a few hours out of bed. The hospital had a small courtyard used by staff during breaks. You took him there because he asked for air and because you had poor discipline where he was concerned.
He walked slowly, tried to hide the weakness from you and failed. At the bench, he sank down with a controlled breath.
“You see?” he said. “A flawless expedition.”
“You are sweating.”
“An atmospheric detail.”
“You made it twelve steps.”
“Thirteen. You miscounted.”
“You counted?”
“I needed a victory.”
You handed him tea from the kitchen pot, thinned with milk to spare his throat. He held it between both palms and watched the courtyard gate.
“Will Olruggio be upset when he comes?” you asked.
“Yes.”
“You sound pleased.”
“I would rather face his anger than his fear.”
That was the first honest answer he gave you without deflecting.
You sat beside him. “What is he to you?”
Qifrey turned the cup slowly. “My person.”
The words came with care.
“Family?”
“Yes.”
The courtyard seemed smaller after that.
You looked at your own cup. “I almost invited you to dinner.”
“You still may.”
You glanced at him, startled.
He met your gaze with an expression so gentle it hurt.
“Or not,” he added.
There it was again. The step back. The offered dignity. The chance to recover without being seen.
You took it because he gave it willingly. “Then I am inviting you to dinner tonight at the staffroom table as a patient who owes me for ruining three sets of sheets.”
His eyes crinkled with a smile. “I accept with gratitude.”
Dinner happened in a quiet manner because Qifrey tired faster than he admitted. You brought rice, broth, pickled vegetables, and a small cake from the bakery below your rooms. He ate slowly like a man who had learned to make small comforts last. You talked about ordinary things because ordinary things had become precious with him.
He asked about the town. You asked about teaching.
He told you about a girl who loved picture books and questions, another who spoke with boldness she had earned through fear, another with an eye for beauty in small work, and another who needed rules to push against before she trusted them.
“You seem to love them a lot.” You smiled.
He looked down at his plate. “I try to be worthy of them.”
The answer made your throat tighten. “You are.”
“You have known me only a few days.”
“I have cared for you. That speeds judgment.”
His laugh loosened, warmer now.
You thought of saying it then—so please write to me or some adult version with a chance for refusal and less humiliation.
The words rose, reached your mouth, and died when footsteps pounded down the corridor.
Someone shouted at the front desk. A man’s voice, rough with fear. “Where is he?”
Qifrey stood so quickly his chair scraped back.
His face changed.
Every soft, evasive line vanished. He looked shaken open.
You followed him into the hall.
A man stood at the far end, travel cloak hanging off one shoulder, dark hair loose, hands clenched as if he had been holding himself together. His eyes found Qifrey, and the anger you had expected was there.
So was terror.
“Qifrey.”
“Olruggio,” Qifrey said.
Olruggio crossed the corridor before anyone could stop him. He caught Qifrey by the shoulders, then checked him with furious, trembling care—forehead, pulse, bandaged hand, face.
Qifrey let him. In fact, he more than let him. He leaned into it for half a second, small and human in a way he had hidden from you.
“You sent a card?” Olruggio snapped. “A card? I got ‘under care’ and a hospital mark, and the road was out. Do you have any idea how worried the kids were?”
“I am sorry.”
“You are a complete idiot.”
“Yes.”
Olruggio groaned in frustration.
Qifrey smiled at him, tender and tired. “You came quickly.”
“I know.” Olruggio’s hands froze on Qifrey’s sleeves. His voice dropped. “You scared me.”
Qifrey lifted his bandaged hand and rested it against Olruggio’s wrist. “I know.”
You stood by the staff room door, and the ward clerk came up beside you and whispered, “Is that his husband?”
The word sank through your chest with force.
Husband.
You looked back at the two men.
Olruggio had turned halfway toward the desk, still keeping one hand on Qifrey as if the floor might swallow him. “Who treated him?”
You stepped forward because your muscle memory knew work even when your heart lagged behind. “I did.”
Olruggio crossed to you. Up close, he looked exhausted. “Thank you for keeping him alive.”
“It was the ward, really.”
“It was you.” His voice softened. “He is skilled at making people underestimate how bad things are.”
Qifrey, from behind him, said, “I can hear you.”
“Good. Hear it and improve.”
You managed a smile. “He needs rest for another few days. The fever broke, but the infection needs watching. His hand should be cleaned twice daily. He should avoid travel until the physician clears him.”
“I will make sure of it.”
Qifrey’s mouth curved in a wider smile. “You say that as if I am difficult.”
Olruggio turned on him. “You are sleeping.”
“In a bed, yes.”
“In a bed where I can see you.”
The intimacy of it had no flourish but domesticity—it stood in the hallway with muddy boots and a travel bag. It belonged there. They belonged together.
You handed Olruggio the written care instructions.
That night, you sat with tea that had gone cold on the staffroom table.
Qifrey came to find you before settling back into bed. Olruggio hovered far away at the corridor turn, pretending to inspect the wall while watching every breath Qifrey took.
“You didn't come for your nightly round,” Qifrey inquired.
“I was giving you time.”
“That is kind.”
“It is practical.”
His expression gentled. He understood more than you wanted him to. Perhaps he had understood from the first cup of tea.
“I owe you dinner,” he said.
“You owe me rest.”
He looked at you for a long moment.
“You are very easy to speak with.” He said it gently, and with that same small step back he had offered every time you reached too close.
“That sounds impulsive, coming from you.”
“It may be.”
“Then keep it for your husband.”
Qifrey’s eye lowered. He accepted the small hurt because you had earned the right to.
“I will,” he said instead. “And I will remember your kindness.”
You gave a short nod.
Behind him, Olruggio called, “Qifrey. Bed.”
Qifrey sighed with theatrical patience. “You see my situation.”
“You seem well taken care of.”
His smile faded into gratitude. “Yes.”
He returned to Olruggio. The other man scolded him under his breath the whole way back to the bed, one hand firm at his back. Qifrey listened with his head slightly bent, smiling as though each complaint was a love letter.
You went to the staff dining room and cleared the cups.
The cake sat half-eaten on the plate. His fork had left a neat mark through the icing.
You washed everything by hand, slower than needed.
In the morning, you would check his fever, teach Olruggio the bandage fold, and write the discharge notes as usual. Tonight, you scrubbed icing from the fork until the silver squeaked.
Down the corridor, Olruggio’s voice rose again. “You are laughing? You think this is funny?”
Qifrey answered, too soft for you to catch.
Then Olruggio said, lower, breaking around the words, “Do that again, and I swear I will lock your boots in the oven.”
Qifrey laughed then, small and real.
You closed your eyes.
You had wanted to ask him to stay.
Someone else had already crossed blocked roads and broken bridges to bring him home.
A/N: This one hurt me a little because the reader isn’t wrong for catching feelings, and Qifrey isn’t cruel for being gentle. Qifrey and Olruggio kind of remind me of Gojo and Nanami, and this anime has me by the throat.
I’m still figuring out how I like writing Witch Hat Atelier, so if anyone has Qifrey, Olruggio, or atelier-adjacent thoughts, please come yell in my inbox. I want to write more plot-heavy fluff (even with reader inserts), but I’m empty of ideas rn, so send some my way.
Masterlist
Images are from Pinterest/anime/manga, dividers are from @pixopix, and the support banner is from @strangergraphics.
Summary: You nurse Qifrey through a fever and fall in love. Will he return the feelings, or is there someone already crossing bridges for him?
Content notes: Soft!Qifrey, no spoilers, medical setting, fever, collapse/unconsciousness, infected burn/wound care, possibly unrequited feelings, bittersweet, established Qifrey/Olruggio. WC: 2.8k.
A/N: My first fic in the WHA fandom kinda nervous, please don't spoil me because at the moment I'm anime-only but will read the manga soon.
The witch collapsed before he could knock
You saw him through the front windows of the ward, tall, his witch hat dipped low over pale hair, coat hanging from one shoulder. He tried to straighten when he saw you.
You caught him under the arms as he collapsed.
He weighed less than you expected. “Sir? Can you hear me?”
His breath came hot against your temple. His lashes fluttered, raven against skin gone faintly gray. There was a travel bag at his feet, mud on the hem of his coat, and a folded card held so tightly in his hand that his glove had creased around it.
“Bring a stretcher,” you called over your shoulder.
A night nurse came running. The man tried to speak while you eased him down. His voice scraped out in a whisper.
“Apologies.”
Then he fainted.
After triage, his chart landed under your name for fever, infected burn, observation.
The staff learned very little from his pockets. His card was sealed, the ink smudged where sweat had dampened the paper, but the name was visible.
Qifrey.
Under it sat an atelier seal for an atelier several towns away and the name Olruggio in a different, heavier script. On the back, in a heavier hand, someone had written, “If he says he is fine, he is lying. If he says he can walk, make him sit. If he asks for thornbark, ignore him.”
You sent a runner with the message as soon as you finished checking him in. The road had been damaged by a landslide two towns over, according to the courier desk. Whoever Olruggio was, it would take time to even inform them because your small village didn't have any resident witches.
The first runner came back with mud-covered knees before sunset. The bridge past Lannor was split, the lower road had sunk, and the courier desk would need another route before any message reached the atelier.
Over the next two days, during your nightly rounds, you heard Qifrey murmur names in his sleep. Coco. Tetia. Richeh. Agott. Sometimes Olruggio, lower, rougher, with a strain that made you pause beside the bed.
The names meant nothing to you, but his voice did.
Qifrey needed a lot of help—by the second night, his chart had three extra pages clipped to it.
He had a fever that refused to break, a cough that tore through him even while he slept, and a burn across his palm that looked several days old. It had been treated poorly. By himself, you guessed, after seeing how clean the bandage had been despite the infection underneath. A man used to handling trouble alone.
On the third day, you cut away the spoiled wrapping to change the bandage, as you had been doing daily since his arrival.
He stirred then, face pinched with pain.
“Can you hear me, sir?”
His hand flexed in yours, his voice rough from disuse. “Mm. I hear you.”
“You are in St. Gillian’s ward. You passed out at the door.”
“That seems… inconvenient.”
“You picked a good door.”
A small breath left him. It might have been a laugh.
You washed the wound, set herbs to draw down the swelling, and fed him medicine by the spoon when his fever didn't let him swallow easily.
By fifth morning, Qifrey’s fever had settled into a stubborn heat rather than a blaze. He woke while you were changing the water at his bedside.
His visible eye opened first—clear blue, tired, and assessing.
He looked at the ceiling, the window, and the medicine tray, then at you.
“Good morning,” he said, his voice rough but better than before.
You stared at him for half a second.
Most patients woke up confused, angry, frightened, or all of it. Qifrey woke as though he had been invited to a formal breakfast. “You remember where you are?”
“A clinic?”
“Hospital ward.”
“Ah. Better funded than I feared.”
You sat on the stool beside him and checked his pulse. His skin was still hot. He watched your hand as though your work interested him.
Once you were done, he gave you a mild smile.
You looked down at his pulse before your face gave you away.
“I sent word to the atelier listed on your card,” you said instead. “Someone named Olruggio was mentioned. The roads are caved in next town over, so a reply still may take a day or two.”
His face changed from smiling to serious. “Did the message say I was stable?”
“I sent it when you arrived so it said you were under care.”
His fingers clenched in the sheet. “That will make him angry.”
“Concerned?”
Qifrey looked toward the window. “With him, the two travel together.”
You took his temperature and pretended that answered anything.
For the rest of the day, he slept between treatments. By evening, he could sit up against pillows, so you brought tea because the ward broth had been rejected with such gentle sadness that you had felt bad for him.
He accepted the cup with both hands carefully. “Thank you.”
“It may taste medicinal.”
“I have survived worse things.”
“You say that as if you mean it.”
Qifrey’s eye lowered to the steam. “I do.”
You shouldn't have pried, should have gone back to the desk, finished your chart, and taken your meal before it went cold.
“What went wrong?”
“I misjudged a cough.”
“And the burn?”
“Misjudged a flame.”
“Careless for a Witch Master.”
He smiled into the cup. “You wound me.”
“You arrived wounded.”
“A fair correction.”
You chuckled before you could stop yourself.
He looked pleased, though he hid it by drinking.
The next evening brought more improvement. He could walk from the bed to the chair by the window with your hand under his elbow. His hair bobbed in uneven waves, white and soft from fever sweat. You washed it for him in a basin because he lacked the strength to lift both arms.
He endured the indignity with great dignity.
“You may complain,” you said, working soap through the ends.
“I am trying to decide how.”
“Most people start with the water temperature.”
“I hate water.”
“That may be the fever talking.”
“No, I just hate it in general.”
You poured clean water through his hair and watched his shoulders loosen. “You talk around everything. It’s like you are deflecting.”
“I talk through things. Around them takes more effort.”
“Do you have family?”
The question came out because you had spent the afternoon thinking about Olruggio’s name on that card. Because Qifrey said it in sleep with the same exhausted care people used for loved ones. Or maybe because you were a fool.
His shoulders stilled for a breath.
Then he said, “There are people waiting for me.”
“That was also around the question.”
“Yes.”
You should have taken the answer for what it was. Instead, you felt his silence settle between you and chose the safer thing. “You have students.”
“I do.”
“Those names you said in your sleep?”
A small smile touched his mouth. “My apprentices.”
“You worry them?”
“I am afraid so.”
“You seem habitual at that.”
His laugh came out soft and tired. “One of my oldest habits.”
You dried his hair with a towel. He sat patiently, head bowed. The back of his neck looked vulnerable. You moved your hands with professional care, and your chest did the foolish work of skipping a beat.
That evening, you brought tea again. He asked about you.
It wasn't anything new, patients asked out of politeness all the time. Qifrey listened as though each answer fitted into a private ledger.
You told him about the hospital. About training under a surgeon who threw instruments when angry. About the old woman in room four who lied about her sweets. About your rented rooms above the bakery and the landlord’s whiskercat who had claimed your spare chair.
Qifrey laughed at that. “A whiskercat recognizes vacant authority.”
“He bites doctors.”
“Then he recognizes false authority as well.”
You looked at him over your cup.
“You would get along with him.”
“High praise.”
“It was a warning.”
He held the cup near his mouth, smiling.
The next day, his fever broke.
You found him awake before dawn, sitting at the side of the bed with his coat folded across his knees. His hand shook when he tried to fasten a clasp.
You leaned against the doorway. “Planning an escape?”
He looked up, guilt neatly arranged into charm. “Need to perform an assessment.”
“Of the hallway?”
“Of my general readiness.”
“You are terrible at being a patient.”
“Many have said so with greater volume.”
“Olruggio?”
Qifrey paused.
Then he gave a helpless little smile, fondness slipping through before he could tuck it away. “Most often, yes.”
“Your next of kin has strong opinions.”
“He has earned the right.”
Your heart did a small flip because Qifrey looked at you with such warmth after. Then again later, when you brought him lunch, he mentioned noticing that you seemed to dislike thornbark. Then again at tea, when he asked whether you ever left the ward before the lamps were lit and when you said rarely, he told you you were allowed to be cared for without becoming less productive.
It sounded rehearsed in the sense that he had probably said it to children before. Children, friends, himself, perhaps.
You adored him for some reason after that.
By late afternoon, the senior physician cleared him for a few hours out of bed. The hospital had a small courtyard used by staff during breaks. You took him there because he asked for air and because you had poor discipline where he was concerned.
He walked slowly, tried to hide the weakness from you and failed. At the bench, he sank down with a controlled breath.
“You see?” he said. “A flawless expedition.”
“You are sweating.”
“An atmospheric detail.”
“You made it twelve steps.”
“Thirteen. You miscounted.”
“You counted?”
“I needed a victory.”
You handed him tea from the kitchen pot, thinned with milk to spare his throat. He held it between both palms and watched the courtyard gate.
“Will Olruggio be upset when he comes?” you asked.
“Yes.”
“You sound pleased.”
“I would rather face his anger than his fear.”
That was the first honest answer he gave you without deflecting.
You sat beside him. “What is he to you?”
Qifrey turned the cup slowly. “My person.”
The words came with care.
“Family?”
“Yes.”
The courtyard seemed smaller after that.
You looked at your own cup. “I almost invited you to dinner.”
“You still may.”
You glanced at him, startled.
He met your gaze with an expression so gentle it hurt.
“Or not,” he added.
There it was again. The step back. The offered dignity. The chance to recover without being seen.
You took it because he gave it willingly. “Then I am inviting you to dinner tonight at the staffroom table as a patient who owes me for ruining three sets of sheets.”
His eyes crinkled with a smile. “I accept with gratitude.”
Dinner happened in a quiet manner because Qifrey tired faster than he admitted. You brought rice, broth, pickled vegetables, and a small cake from the bakery below your rooms. He ate slowly like a man who had learned to make small comforts last. You talked about ordinary things because ordinary things had become precious with him.
He asked about the town. You asked about teaching.
He told you about a girl who loved picture books and questions, another who spoke with boldness she had earned through fear, another with an eye for beauty in small work, and another who needed rules to push against before she trusted them.
“You seem to love them a lot.” You smiled.
He looked down at his plate. “I try to be worthy of them.”
The answer made your throat tighten. “You are.”
“You have known me only a few days.”
“I have cared for you. That speeds judgment.”
His laugh loosened, warmer now.
You thought of saying it then—so please write to me or some adult version with a chance for refusal and less humiliation.
The words rose, reached your mouth, and died when footsteps pounded down the corridor.
Someone shouted at the front desk. A man’s voice, rough with fear. “Where is he?”
Qifrey stood so quickly his chair scraped back.
His face changed.
Every soft, evasive line vanished. He looked shaken open.
You followed him into the hall.
A man stood at the far end, travel cloak hanging off one shoulder, dark hair loose, hands clenched as if he had been holding himself together. His eyes found Qifrey, and the anger you had expected was there.
So was terror.
“Qifrey.”
“Olruggio,” Qifrey said.
Olruggio crossed the corridor before anyone could stop him. He caught Qifrey by the shoulders, then checked him with furious, trembling care—forehead, pulse, bandaged hand, face.
Qifrey let him. In fact, he more than let him. He leaned into it for half a second, small and human in a way he had hidden from you.
“You sent a card?” Olruggio snapped. “A card? I got ‘under care’ and a hospital mark, and the road was out. Do you have any idea how worried the kids were?”
“I am sorry.”
“You are a complete idiot.”
“Yes.”
Olruggio groaned in frustration.
Qifrey smiled at him, tender and tired. “You came quickly.”
“I know.” Olruggio’s hands froze on Qifrey’s sleeves. His voice dropped. “You scared me.”
Qifrey lifted his bandaged hand and rested it against Olruggio’s wrist. “I know.”
You stood by the staff room door, and the ward clerk came up beside you and whispered, “Is that his husband?”
The word sank through your chest with force.
Husband.
You looked back at the two men.
Olruggio had turned halfway toward the desk, still keeping one hand on Qifrey as if the floor might swallow him. “Who treated him?”
You stepped forward because your muscle memory knew work even when your heart lagged behind. “I did.”
Olruggio crossed to you. Up close, he looked exhausted. “Thank you for keeping him alive.”
“It was the ward, really.”
“It was you.” His voice softened. “He is skilled at making people underestimate how bad things are.”
Qifrey, from behind him, said, “I can hear you.”
“Good. Hear it and improve.”
You managed a smile. “He needs rest for another few days. The fever broke, but the infection needs watching. His hand should be cleaned twice daily. He should avoid travel until the physician clears him.”
“I will make sure of it.”
Qifrey’s mouth curved in a wider smile. “You say that as if I am difficult.”
Olruggio turned on him. “You are sleeping.”
“In a bed, yes.”
“In a bed where I can see you.”
The intimacy of it had no flourish but domesticity—it stood in the hallway with muddy boots and a travel bag. It belonged there. They belonged together.
You handed Olruggio the written care instructions.
That night, you sat with tea that had gone cold on the staffroom table.
Qifrey came to find you before settling back into bed. Olruggio hovered far away at the corridor turn, pretending to inspect the wall while watching every breath Qifrey took.
“You didn't come for your nightly round,” Qifrey inquired.
“I was giving you time.”
“That is kind.”
“It is practical.”
His expression gentled. He understood more than you wanted him to. Perhaps he had understood from the first cup of tea.
“I owe you dinner,” he said.
“You owe me rest.”
He looked at you for a long moment.
“You are very easy to speak with.” He said it gently, and with that same small step back he had offered every time you reached too close.
“That sounds impulsive, coming from you.”
“It may be.”
“Then keep it for your husband.”
Qifrey’s eye lowered. He accepted the small hurt because you had earned the right to.
“I will,” he said instead. “And I will remember your kindness.”
You gave a short nod.
Behind him, Olruggio called, “Qifrey. Bed.”
Qifrey sighed with theatrical patience. “You see my situation.”
“You seem well taken care of.”
His smile faded into gratitude. “Yes.”
He returned to Olruggio. The other man scolded him under his breath the whole way back to the bed, one hand firm at his back. Qifrey listened with his head slightly bent, smiling as though each complaint was a love letter.
You went to the staff dining room and cleared the cups.
The cake sat half-eaten on the plate. His fork had left a neat mark through the icing.
You washed everything by hand, slower than needed.
In the morning, you would check his fever, teach Olruggio the bandage fold, and write the discharge notes as usual. Tonight, you scrubbed icing from the fork until the silver squeaked.
Down the corridor, Olruggio’s voice rose again. “You are laughing? You think this is funny?”
Qifrey answered, too soft for you to catch.
Then Olruggio said, lower, breaking around the words, “Do that again, and I swear I will lock your boots in the oven.”
Qifrey laughed then, small and real.
You closed your eyes.
You had wanted to ask him to stay.
Someone else had already crossed blocked roads and broken bridges to bring him home.
A/N: This one hurt me a little because the reader isn’t wrong for catching feelings, and Qifrey isn’t cruel for being gentle. Qifrey and Olruggio kind of remind me of Gojo and Nanami, and this anime has me by the throat.
I’m still figuring out how I like writing Witch Hat Atelier, so if anyone has Qifrey, Olruggio, or atelier-adjacent thoughts, please come yell in my inbox. I want to write more plot-heavy fluff (even with reader inserts), but I’m empty of ideas rn, so send some my way.
Masterlist
Images are from Pinterest/anime/manga, dividers are from @pixopix, and the support banner is from @strangergraphics.
I'm already in love with your writing, and this one. This one.
I'm trying to be coherent here, but I just want to SCREAM about how beautifully, poignantly, perfectly this is written.
All of your subtlety in depicting emotion, the way you write conversation like a dance between two people with blades hidden up their sleeves, an absolute masterclass of "show, not tell".
The way you wrote Qifrey. Ugh, he's perfect, in every sense. This is canon Quifrey, carving through the narrative, a hidden facet of him, an untold story by your hand.
The way you wield language as a means to paint pictures of characters and places, settings and moods, is just incredible. In just ONE sentence you nailed the personality and hallmarks of all of the students.
The thousand little tells the RC picks up on, when it comes to how QIfrey sees Olruggio is so brilliantly written as well, and the fact that they are catching feelings is never explicitly stated, but SO evident in every simple thought and action. Violet, I am TAKING NOTES. THIS right here, is how yearning, unrequited love and the undercurrent of emotion are harnessed to give something truly artful. I feel like I'm in my Brontë sisters era again 🤣🤣.
The last line. Devastating. So beautiful, just -
I'm running out of adjectives here.
Suffice to say, I'm an CRAZY about this, and please, please, tag me in any future WHA works you write!
This is such an incredibly lovely feedback; thank you so much. 😭
And the blade line—oh Jesus, I'm gonna fall.
I can't tell you how much this made my day that all the restraint and subtext came through, because I’m genuinely obsessive about “show, don’t tell” and spend far too long making sure the feelings sit in the small details instead of being explained outright.
I'm also really happy that Qifling's descriptions were close to them.
I was nervous about writing Qifrey for the first time, so hearing that he felt canon to you means a lot. And the Brontë sisters' comparison has fully made me too high in the clouds!!!💛
I don't even have enough words to put it as eloquently as you shared your love for this, and yeah, I'll tag you in future WHA works. Thank you so so much for sharing such a thoughtful message with me!!
Summary: You nurse Qifrey through a fever and fall in love. Will he return the feelings, or is there someone already crossing bridges for him?
Content notes: Soft!Qifrey, no spoilers, medical setting, fever, collapse/unconsciousness, infected burn/wound care, possibly unrequited feelings, bittersweet, established Qifrey/Olruggio. WC: 2.8k.
A/N: My first fic in the WHA fandom kinda nervous, please don't spoil me because at the moment I'm anime-only but will read the manga soon.
The witch collapsed before he could knock
You saw him through the front windows of the ward, tall, his witch hat dipped low over pale hair, coat hanging from one shoulder. He tried to straighten when he saw you.
You caught him under the arms as he collapsed.
He weighed less than you expected. “Sir? Can you hear me?”
His breath came hot against your temple. His lashes fluttered, raven against skin gone faintly gray. There was a travel bag at his feet, mud on the hem of his coat, and a folded card held so tightly in his hand that his glove had creased around it.
“Bring a stretcher,” you called over your shoulder.
A night nurse came running. The man tried to speak while you eased him down. His voice scraped out in a whisper.
“Apologies.”
Then he fainted.
After triage, his chart landed under your name for fever, infected burn, observation.
The staff learned very little from his pockets. His card was sealed, the ink smudged where sweat had dampened the paper, but the name was visible.
Qifrey.
Under it sat an atelier seal for an atelier several towns away and the name Olruggio in a different, heavier script. On the back, in a heavier hand, someone had written, “If he says he is fine, he is lying. If he says he can walk, make him sit. If he asks for thornbark, ignore him.”
You sent a runner with the message as soon as you finished checking him in. The road had been damaged by a landslide two towns over, according to the courier desk. Whoever Olruggio was, it would take time to even inform them because your small village didn't have any resident witches.
The first runner came back with mud-covered knees before sunset. The bridge past Lannor was split, the lower road had sunk, and the courier desk would need another route before any message reached the atelier.
Over the next two days, during your nightly rounds, you heard Qifrey murmur names in his sleep. Coco. Tetia. Richeh. Agott. Sometimes Olruggio, lower, rougher, with a strain that made you pause beside the bed.
The names meant nothing to you, but his voice did.
Qifrey needed a lot of help—by the second night, his chart had three extra pages clipped to it.
He had a fever that refused to break, a cough that tore through him even while he slept, and a burn across his palm that looked several days old. It had been treated poorly. By himself, you guessed, after seeing how clean the bandage had been despite the infection underneath. A man used to handling trouble alone.
On the third day, you cut away the spoiled wrapping to change the bandage, as you had been doing daily since his arrival.
He stirred then, face pinched with pain.
“Can you hear me, sir?”
His hand flexed in yours, his voice rough from disuse. “Mm. I hear you.”
“You are in St. Gillian’s ward. You passed out at the door.”
“That seems… inconvenient.”
“You picked a good door.”
A small breath left him. It might have been a laugh.
You washed the wound, set herbs to draw down the swelling, and fed him medicine by the spoon when his fever didn't let him swallow easily.
By fifth morning, Qifrey’s fever had settled into a stubborn heat rather than a blaze. He woke while you were changing the water at his bedside.
His visible eye opened first—clear blue, tired, and assessing.
He looked at the ceiling, the window, and the medicine tray, then at you.
“Good morning,” he said, his voice rough but better than before.
You stared at him for half a second.
Most patients woke up confused, angry, frightened, or all of it. Qifrey woke as though he had been invited to a formal breakfast. “You remember where you are?”
“A clinic?”
“Hospital ward.”
“Ah. Better funded than I feared.”
You sat on the stool beside him and checked his pulse. His skin was still hot. He watched your hand as though your work interested him.
Once you were done, he gave you a mild smile.
You looked down at his pulse before your face gave you away.
“I sent word to the atelier listed on your card,” you said instead. “Someone named Olruggio was mentioned. The roads are caved in next town over, so a reply still may take a day or two.”
His face changed from smiling to serious. “Did the message say I was stable?”
“I sent it when you arrived so it said you were under care.”
His fingers clenched in the sheet. “That will make him angry.”
“Concerned?”
Qifrey looked toward the window. “With him, the two travel together.”
You took his temperature and pretended that answered anything.
For the rest of the day, he slept between treatments. By evening, he could sit up against pillows, so you brought tea because the ward broth had been rejected with such gentle sadness that you had felt bad for him.
He accepted the cup with both hands carefully. “Thank you.”
“It may taste medicinal.”
“I have survived worse things.”
“You say that as if you mean it.”
Qifrey’s eye lowered to the steam. “I do.”
You shouldn't have pried, should have gone back to the desk, finished your chart, and taken your meal before it went cold.
“What went wrong?”
“I misjudged a cough.”
“And the burn?”
“Misjudged a flame.”
“Careless for a Witch Master.”
He smiled into the cup. “You wound me.”
“You arrived wounded.”
“A fair correction.”
You chuckled before you could stop yourself.
He looked pleased, though he hid it by drinking.
The next evening brought more improvement. He could walk from the bed to the chair by the window with your hand under his elbow. His hair bobbed in uneven waves, white and soft from fever sweat. You washed it for him in a basin because he lacked the strength to lift both arms.
He endured the indignity with great dignity.
“You may complain,” you said, working soap through the ends.
“I am trying to decide how.”
“Most people start with the water temperature.”
“I hate water.”
“That may be the fever talking.”
“No, I just hate it in general.”
You poured clean water through his hair and watched his shoulders loosen. “You talk around everything. It’s like you are deflecting.”
“I talk through things. Around them takes more effort.”
“Do you have family?”
The question came out because you had spent the afternoon thinking about Olruggio’s name on that card. Because Qifrey said it in sleep with the same exhausted care people used for loved ones. Or maybe because you were a fool.
His shoulders stilled for a breath.
Then he said, “There are people waiting for me.”
“That was also around the question.”
“Yes.”
You should have taken the answer for what it was. Instead, you felt his silence settle between you and chose the safer thing. “You have students.”
“I do.”
“Those names you said in your sleep?”
A small smile touched his mouth. “My apprentices.”
“You worry them?”
“I am afraid so.”
“You seem habitual at that.”
His laugh came out soft and tired. “One of my oldest habits.”
You dried his hair with a towel. He sat patiently, head bowed. The back of his neck looked vulnerable. You moved your hands with professional care, and your chest did the foolish work of skipping a beat.
That evening, you brought tea again. He asked about you.
It wasn't anything new, patients asked out of politeness all the time. Qifrey listened as though each answer fitted into a private ledger.
You told him about the hospital. About training under a surgeon who threw instruments when angry. About the old woman in room four who lied about her sweets. About your rented rooms above the bakery and the landlord’s whiskercat who had claimed your spare chair.
Qifrey laughed at that. “A whiskercat recognizes vacant authority.”
“He bites doctors.”
“Then he recognizes false authority as well.”
You looked at him over your cup.
“You would get along with him.”
“High praise.”
“It was a warning.”
He held the cup near his mouth, smiling.
The next day, his fever broke.
You found him awake before dawn, sitting at the side of the bed with his coat folded across his knees. His hand shook when he tried to fasten a clasp.
You leaned against the doorway. “Planning an escape?”
He looked up, guilt neatly arranged into charm. “Need to perform an assessment.”
“Of the hallway?”
“Of my general readiness.”
“You are terrible at being a patient.”
“Many have said so with greater volume.”
“Olruggio?”
Qifrey paused.
Then he gave a helpless little smile, fondness slipping through before he could tuck it away. “Most often, yes.”
“Your next of kin has strong opinions.”
“He has earned the right.”
Your heart did a small flip because Qifrey looked at you with such warmth after. Then again later, when you brought him lunch, he mentioned noticing that you seemed to dislike thornbark. Then again at tea, when he asked whether you ever left the ward before the lamps were lit and when you said rarely, he told you you were allowed to be cared for without becoming less productive.
It sounded rehearsed in the sense that he had probably said it to children before. Children, friends, himself, perhaps.
You adored him for some reason after that.
By late afternoon, the senior physician cleared him for a few hours out of bed. The hospital had a small courtyard used by staff during breaks. You took him there because he asked for air and because you had poor discipline where he was concerned.
He walked slowly, tried to hide the weakness from you and failed. At the bench, he sank down with a controlled breath.
“You see?” he said. “A flawless expedition.”
“You are sweating.”
“An atmospheric detail.”
“You made it twelve steps.”
“Thirteen. You miscounted.”
“You counted?”
“I needed a victory.”
You handed him tea from the kitchen pot, thinned with milk to spare his throat. He held it between both palms and watched the courtyard gate.
“Will Olruggio be upset when he comes?” you asked.
“Yes.”
“You sound pleased.”
“I would rather face his anger than his fear.”
That was the first honest answer he gave you without deflecting.
You sat beside him. “What is he to you?”
Qifrey turned the cup slowly. “My person.”
The words came with care.
“Family?”
“Yes.”
The courtyard seemed smaller after that.
You looked at your own cup. “I almost invited you to dinner.”
“You still may.”
You glanced at him, startled.
He met your gaze with an expression so gentle it hurt.
“Or not,” he added.
There it was again. The step back. The offered dignity. The chance to recover without being seen.
You took it because he gave it willingly. “Then I am inviting you to dinner tonight at the staffroom table as a patient who owes me for ruining three sets of sheets.”
His eyes crinkled with a smile. “I accept with gratitude.”
Dinner happened in a quiet manner because Qifrey tired faster than he admitted. You brought rice, broth, pickled vegetables, and a small cake from the bakery below your rooms. He ate slowly like a man who had learned to make small comforts last. You talked about ordinary things because ordinary things had become precious with him.
He asked about the town. You asked about teaching.
He told you about a girl who loved picture books and questions, another who spoke with boldness she had earned through fear, another with an eye for beauty in small work, and another who needed rules to push against before she trusted them.
“You seem to love them a lot.” You smiled.
He looked down at his plate. “I try to be worthy of them.”
The answer made your throat tighten. “You are.”
“You have known me only a few days.”
“I have cared for you. That speeds judgment.”
His laugh loosened, warmer now.
You thought of saying it then—so please write to me or some adult version with a chance for refusal and less humiliation.
The words rose, reached your mouth, and died when footsteps pounded down the corridor.
Someone shouted at the front desk. A man’s voice, rough with fear. “Where is he?”
Qifrey stood so quickly his chair scraped back.
His face changed.
Every soft, evasive line vanished. He looked shaken open.
You followed him into the hall.
A man stood at the far end, travel cloak hanging off one shoulder, dark hair loose, hands clenched as if he had been holding himself together. His eyes found Qifrey, and the anger you had expected was there.
So was terror.
“Qifrey.”
“Olruggio,” Qifrey said.
Olruggio crossed the corridor before anyone could stop him. He caught Qifrey by the shoulders, then checked him with furious, trembling care—forehead, pulse, bandaged hand, face.
Qifrey let him. In fact, he more than let him. He leaned into it for half a second, small and human in a way he had hidden from you.
“You sent a card?” Olruggio snapped. “A card? I got ‘under care’ and a hospital mark, and the road was out. Do you have any idea how worried the kids were?”
“I am sorry.”
“You are a complete idiot.”
“Yes.”
Olruggio groaned in frustration.
Qifrey smiled at him, tender and tired. “You came quickly.”
“I know.” Olruggio’s hands froze on Qifrey’s sleeves. His voice dropped. “You scared me.”
Qifrey lifted his bandaged hand and rested it against Olruggio’s wrist. “I know.”
You stood by the staff room door, and the ward clerk came up beside you and whispered, “Is that his husband?”
The word sank through your chest with force.
Husband.
You looked back at the two men.
Olruggio had turned halfway toward the desk, still keeping one hand on Qifrey as if the floor might swallow him. “Who treated him?”
You stepped forward because your muscle memory knew work even when your heart lagged behind. “I did.”
Olruggio crossed to you. Up close, he looked exhausted. “Thank you for keeping him alive.”
“It was the ward, really.”
“It was you.” His voice softened. “He is skilled at making people underestimate how bad things are.”
Qifrey, from behind him, said, “I can hear you.”
“Good. Hear it and improve.”
You managed a smile. “He needs rest for another few days. The fever broke, but the infection needs watching. His hand should be cleaned twice daily. He should avoid travel until the physician clears him.”
“I will make sure of it.”
Qifrey’s mouth curved in a wider smile. “You say that as if I am difficult.”
Olruggio turned on him. “You are sleeping.”
“In a bed, yes.”
“In a bed where I can see you.”
The intimacy of it had no flourish but domesticity—it stood in the hallway with muddy boots and a travel bag. It belonged there. They belonged together.
You handed Olruggio the written care instructions.
That night, you sat with tea that had gone cold on the staffroom table.
Qifrey came to find you before settling back into bed. Olruggio hovered far away at the corridor turn, pretending to inspect the wall while watching every breath Qifrey took.
“You didn't come for your nightly round,” Qifrey inquired.
“I was giving you time.”
“That is kind.”
“It is practical.”
His expression gentled. He understood more than you wanted him to. Perhaps he had understood from the first cup of tea.
“I owe you dinner,” he said.
“You owe me rest.”
He looked at you for a long moment.
“You are very easy to speak with.” He said it gently, and with that same small step back he had offered every time you reached too close.
“That sounds impulsive, coming from you.”
“It may be.”
“Then keep it for your husband.”
Qifrey’s eye lowered. He accepted the small hurt because you had earned the right to.
“I will,” he said instead. “And I will remember your kindness.”
You gave a short nod.
Behind him, Olruggio called, “Qifrey. Bed.”
Qifrey sighed with theatrical patience. “You see my situation.”
“You seem well taken care of.”
His smile faded into gratitude. “Yes.”
He returned to Olruggio. The other man scolded him under his breath the whole way back to the bed, one hand firm at his back. Qifrey listened with his head slightly bent, smiling as though each complaint was a love letter.
You went to the staff dining room and cleared the cups.
The cake sat half-eaten on the plate. His fork had left a neat mark through the icing.
You washed everything by hand, slower than needed.
In the morning, you would check his fever, teach Olruggio the bandage fold, and write the discharge notes as usual. Tonight, you scrubbed icing from the fork until the silver squeaked.
Down the corridor, Olruggio’s voice rose again. “You are laughing? You think this is funny?”
Qifrey answered, too soft for you to catch.
Then Olruggio said, lower, breaking around the words, “Do that again, and I swear I will lock your boots in the oven.”
Qifrey laughed then, small and real.
You closed your eyes.
You had wanted to ask him to stay.
Someone else had already crossed blocked roads and broken bridges to bring him home.
A/N: This one hurt me a little because the reader isn’t wrong for catching feelings, and Qifrey isn’t cruel for being gentle. Qifrey and Olruggio kind of remind me of Gojo and Nanami, and this anime has me by the throat.
I’m still figuring out how I like writing Witch Hat Atelier, so if anyone has Qifrey, Olruggio, or atelier-adjacent thoughts, please come yell in my inbox. I want to write more plot-heavy fluff (even with reader inserts), but I’m empty of ideas rn, so send some my way.
Masterlist
Images are from Pinterest/anime/manga, dividers are from @pixopix, and the support banner is from @strangergraphics.
(ft. Fushiita, GoShoko, InuOoku, NobaMaki (all aged up to present day, 2026).)
16.7k | Explicit | Post-JJK AU
Summary: LOCAL WOMAN REMOVES ORANGE PITH. MAN WITH EIGHT YEARS OF REPRESSION IS SEEN MALFUNCTIONING LIKE A TESLA BECAUSE THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED.
Or, Nanami only comes to his own birthday camping trip because Gojo steals his keys. He plans to survive one hour, avoid the group photo & leave before anyone can make a speech. Then you hand him a plate exactly the way he likes it, Shoko says what everyone has been pretending not to know, & one bad photograph catches the truth before he can look away. + Other couples have their own moments.
Warnings: MDNI, Crack-Treated-Serious, Canon Divergence eight years Post-JJK (2026), eyepatch, facial scarring, body insecurity, chronic pain/knee pain, injury recovery, medical caretaking history, trauma aftermath, references to Shibuya/Mahito, reader with no verifiable family/past records, alcohol mention, adult former students now sorcerers/teachers, background ships, audible background voyeuristic sex (for petty reasons), One bed/hotel room, scar/body worship, eyepatch Nanami, emotional comfort, caretaking history, friends-to-lovers, mutual pining, Explicit sex, oral sex, face-fucking, gagging, titty-fucking, cumming on chest, fingering, cunnilingus, size kink, praise kink, pet names (good girl), tummy bulge, hand on throat/breath play, rough sex, overstimulation, marathon sex, multiple positions, missionary, cuddle-fucking, mating press, aftercare, protected sex, condom theft & mentions of morning-after pills (not for reader).
A/N: Happy birthday to my man, my man, my man, and also me for 2 years of fic writing. This is a well-awaited sequel to my first-ever fic, which I wrote on his birthday in 2024 & is finally an answer to the first-ever ask I got on Tumblr, based on an amazing ask from this anon. TBH this is the fluffiest fic I have ever written. Based on this event.
Nanami arrived at his own birthday camping trip late.
He had said he wouldn’t show up.
Then Gojo stole his car keys.
“You look nice, Nanamin!”
Yuji, twenty-four years old, called from the fold-out chair by the river, taller and broader now, older around the scars, with the same smile.
Nanami adjusted his eyepatch, damp with sweat under the strap. The burn scars pulled a little near his mouth when he answered, “You’ve grown into a terrible liar.”
Yuji laughed and carded his fingers through Megumi’s hair, where Megumi had dozed off against his knee.
You were by the picnic blanket, sleeves rolled up, turning skewers on the small grill while Nobara yelled at Inumaki over the paint set, one eye narrowed above the edge of her eyepatch, and Maki opened a jar with one hand better than most people could with both.
Panda had somehow been put in charge of the same fruit he'd been caught stealing earlier.
Gojo had been kept away from touching the food after he tried to “improve” the rice balls with frosting. You looked up when Nanami reached you.
“Hi,” you said, holding tongs in one hand. “You made it.”
“I was kidnapped.”
“You still came.”
“That is what kidnapping means.”
Your smile got bigger, and he pretended not to notice how easily that worked on him. Eight years, and he still acted as if your face had caught him off guard.
The first year after Shibuya had been the worst. You had arrived on the day he should have died with no past anyone could verify, both hands full of cursed energy and panic, and somehow dragged him to Shoko before death could finish making its case. He survived, but the burns still took his eye. Then you stayed through bandages and fever. From the first time he saw his face, he turned the mirror to the wall. Through every meal, he claimed he could cook for himself and then left it untouched—he had called you a nuisance. You still brought him soup the next mornings.
Now you handed him a plate before he even thought to ask, loaded with rice balls, grilled chicken, and orange slices without the white threads because he hated them. “You remembered,” he muttered as if it still somehow caught him by surprise after eight years.
You gave him a look. “I lived in your apartment for a year to care for you, Kento. I picked up things.”
Across the blanket, Gojo gasped. “He let you live with him? Kento, you slut.”
Nanami turned away. “I’m sitting with Yaga.”
“Yaga’s asleep,” Gojo grinned at Nanami, chucking the man his car keys back.
Nanami caught the car keys, muttered something passive-aggressive, and stomped away to check his tent.
“So,” Shoko turned back to you, red in the face from canned beer. “When are you two going to stop making the rest of us pretend this is friendship?”
Your hand stopped over the salad bowl, and Gojo’s grin went feral with interest. “Oh, this is good.”
“Shoko.”
“What?” Shoko tipped her can toward Nanami, who had come back for something and then gone still behind you. “You saved his life, fed him for a year, planned his every birthday since, and know he gets weird about orange pith. At some point, paperwork should get involved.”
You looked over your shoulder. Nanami glanced back. And for a second, the river was louder than everyone.
Then you turned to the salad and said, “The potatoes are burning.” They were not.
After that the late lunch passed in silence while you both avoided eye contact until Gojo called to take a group picture. “Everyone in,” he grinned, holding his phone too high. “Birthday boy in the middle before he starts pretending he has emails.”
“I do have emails,” Nanami grumbled.
“Your internet is working?” Maki asked.
Nanami did not answer, which was an answer. Then he already started creeping toward the edge of the group when you noticed his hand go to the strap of his eyepatch. You saw it before anyone else did—the way his mouth thinned where the scar tissue pulled from the old, ugly habit of remembering his face existed.
“I’ll take it,” you said, reaching for Gojo’s phone.
Gojo looked offended. “I have the longest arms.”
“You’ll make everyone look short.”
Shoko rubbed Gojo’s pant leg comfortingly because she was drunk enough to show emotions in public.
You ignored Gojo and waved everyone closer. Yuta ducked behind Panda. Yuji shoved Nobara’s elbow out of his ribs. Inumaki held up two rice balls like peace signs. Shoko stayed seated with her beer and lifted two fingers without moving. And the rest awkwardly gathered around. While Nanami tried to stand behind you.
You looked over your shoulder. “Kento.”
He stopped.
“Come here.”
His mouth shifted, almost not at all, but you knew that almost. You had known it in hospital rooms, in pharmacy aisles, and in his bathroom when he turned the mirror to face the wall and told you he did not need help shaving. But you never told him to smile or that he looked fine, nor did you tilt his face toward the unscarred side or pretend the scarred side was not there.
Nanami was too proud a man for those things.
He stepped closer, looking at you, maybe in a warning or a plea not to make a thing of it. So you didn’t and took the phone, herded everyone into place, and, when Nanami tried to stand at the edge, said, “Kento, hold this.” And handed him the paper plate with the two skewers on it.
He frowned. “Why?”
“Because if Gojo holds it, he’ll eat them.”
“I’m not a big back,” Gojo said, already chewing.
Nanami took the plate because it gave his hands somewhere to be and confused him enough to get distracted from his body.
“Fine, fine,” Gojo said, lifting the phone higher. “Everyone act like you like each other.”
“I don’t act,” Maki declared.
“That’s why we cherish you, Kiki-chan.”
Maki’s hand immediately lunged to yank Gojo’s hair back.
You only stepped beside Nanami when the others crowded in, your shoulder brushing his arm as it had in hospital corridors, Jujutsu Tech halls, his kitchen at three in the morning, and every quiet place where he had tried to become awful so you’d leave him alone but failed because you kept coming back with groceries. “Ready?”
Nanami looked down at you, and for one second, his face shifted again—less alone, maybe. “Yes,” he answered. Then he turned his head at the last second because you chuckled when Shoko pinched Gojo’s cheeks—your eyes bright, one hand caught at Nanami’s sleeve, like you had done it without thinking.
The shutter clicked.
The picture happened in the middle of everyone laughing, talking, or yelling.
When you lowered the phone, Gojo took it back, glanced at the screen, and said, much softer than usual, “Oh.”
Nanami reached for the phone thinking Gojo was about to make fun of him. But then he saw the picture and realized he was not looking at the camera at all. Not even facing it.
He was looking at you.
The angle had hidden most of the eyepatch from view. His face was turned far enough that the scarred side fell into shadow, but that was the first thing his mind usually reached for, out of habit since Shibuya.
Then he followed his gaze in the picture and saw you.
You were smiling like the whole noisy riverside had narrowed to the space between your hand on his sleeve and his shoulder beside yours without any careful softness meant to spare him. Instead it was happiness, plain and unguarded—caught before either of you could hide it.
Nanami stared too long, and Gojo, for once, did not ruin it.
You too leaned closer, looking at the screen. “Oh.”
Nanami’s thumb squeezed against the edge of the phone.
“I look ridiculous,” you said, staring at something else.
“No,” he answered, too quickly.
You looked up at him.
His ears were faintly red. “You look…” He stopped. Everyone was still close enough to hear, and dignity was a habit even when it no longer saved him.
Gojo’s grin started spreading menicingly.
Nanami locked the phone and handed it back. “Send that to me.”
Gojo’s eyebrows climbed. “Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting.”
Shoko slapped his arm. “Satoru.” And Nanami thought she would be the voice of reason, but he’d forgotten the woman was drunk. “Let him do the Fushiguro thing in peace.”
Megumi looked up from where Yuji was showing him the backup photo his phone had taken from where it was propped against the cooler. “What thing?”
Gojo’s grin changed targets with speed. “Oh, you don’t know?”
Nanami had never been happier for Gojo’s lack of attention span.
Yuji zoomed in the picture on his phone before Megumi. And low and behold, in the corner of the photo, Megumi was looking at Yuji.
It wasn’t near him or past him but directly at him, with a small smile he clearly had no memory of making.
Nobara leaned over Yuji’s shoulder and made a noise of pure disgusted delight. “Oh, that’s embarrassing.”
“It was an accident,” Megumi snapped, snatching the phone away.
“You do this in every picture,” Panda laughed.
“I do not.”
Inumaki, already scrolling, turned his own phone around to show an old photo from their trip to Osaka.
Megumi lunged for it too, but Gojo caught the back of his shirt without even looking.
Yuji smiled traitorously. “You stare at me?”
“I was checking your surroundings.”
“By staring at my sleeping face in a locked train compartment?”
Megumi went red to the ears and tried to get Inumaki again. “Give me the phone.”
Gojo, delighted, lifted it out of reach.
Yuji leaned into Megumi’s shoulder, warm and shameless. “That’s cute.”
Megumi flicked the back of his head. “It’s not.”
Yuji rubbed the back of his own head but continued to grin dumbly.
Megumi covered Yuji’s face with one hand. “I’m going to kill all of you.”
“I’m sending it,” Gojo said to Nanami, still grinning, but he did not say anything else about the way Nanami had looked at you.
Your phone buzzed first. Then Nanami’s.
---
After dinner and the cake—which had been cut badly by Gojo while he was trying to get the biggest piece for himself and fixed by Maki’s blade—was eaten, everyone spread out. Nobara and Maki vanished into the woods with one lantern and two blankets. Shoko drank by the fire, her feet in Gojo’s lap while he massaged them and argued with her about the terms of their bet. Ijichi snored in a chair. Panda and Yaga were talking over roasted marshmallows. Inumaki and Yuta were catching fish in the dark with too much confidence. Far down the river, Yuji walked with Megumi, their shoulders bumping.
“Sensei’s sitting alone again,” Yuji said, nodding toward you by the water.
Megumi followed his gaze. “Nanami-san will go.”
“You think?”
“He has been watching her for twenty minutes.”
Yuji grinned. “They’re so married for people who say, ‘we’re just friends.’”
Megumi shoved his hands in his pockets. “He looks at her a lot.”
“She knows how he takes his coffee and practically everything he likes and dislikes.”
“He keeps pain medicine in his office for her cramps. Asked me to fetch it last time.”
“You know she bought him that ugly beige camping mug.”
Megumi’s mouth twitched, but he didn’t look at Yuji when his arm slid around his waist casually. “He says it was a practical gift.”
Yuji laughed and leaned into Megumi’s side. “The man is down bad in business casual.”
“You would know,” Megumi mildly smirked.
Yuji’s grin widened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re holding my waist while saying that, so it’s not nothing.”
Megumi looked away toward the river, where the lantern light caught the scars cutting across his own face: one near his left temple and eye, the other paler on the opposite side, half-lost when he ducked his head. “You were walking too close to the water.”
Yuji looked delighted by this.
Megumi’s hand tightened once at his side before Yuji could start testing him. “Shut up.”
Farther downriver, Yuta lifted the lantern higher while Inumaki crouched near the bank, one sleeve pinned and empty where his other arm used to be. The light caught the stitches across Yuta’s forehead when he bent too close, watching Inumaki’s face again instead of the water.
“Salmon,” Inumaki warned without looking up.
Yuta straightened immediately. “Right. Sorry.”
Inumaki glanced back at him, eyes soft above his collar, then pointed at the river like Yuta had been the one scaring the tiny fish away.
Yuji followed Megumi’s gaze and smiled softer this time. “Everyone’s kind of obvious tonight.”
Megumi huffed a small laugh. “You’re one to talk.”
“Huh?”
“You were staring at me in the picture too.”
“I can admit that…" Yuji’s grin went soft around the scar cutting through his lip. “Maybe I like looking at you.”
Megumi looked away first, jaw working like he wanted to argue and couldn’t find anything worth saying. The distant lantern light caught the scars near his left temple and eye before he leaned in closer, his hand moving lower on Yuji’s waist. “Shut up,” he muttered, eyes dropping to Yuji’s mouth as he dragged him closer. “Come here.”
Yuji’s hands fisted in Megumi’s hoodie as he glanced back toward camp. “What if someone sees?”
“We’re not fifteen anymore,” Megumi whispered near his ear, moving Yuji’s face back toward him with a careful hand. “And everybody here has seen far worse things than grown adults kissing.”
Yuji laughed under his breath, his breath warm against Megumi’s mouth. “That’s true.”
Megumi pushed him back against the nearest tree to get them out of the path where the firelight could reach. His hand slipped under the hem of Yuji’s hoodie and settled burning at his waist.
Yuji stayed still for half a breath.
Megumi felt it because he’d trained himself to trace the tiny delay before Yuji remembered where he was. The way his body sometimes braced for bad things before his mind caught up, like some old part of him was still waiting for another voice in his head.
Megumi’s thumb tapped into his skin.
Yuji continued to stare at nothing.
Megumi rubbed his skin again, gentler, and Yuji’s shoulders loosened. “Sorry,” he murmured.
“Don’t be.”
Yuji looked at him.
“Don’t apologize for that,” Megumi said, with his eyes dropping briefly to the scar through Yuji’s lip before returning to his face. “Just stay here.”
Yuji’s smile came back. “Bossy.”
“Yeah.” His hand stayed where it was, and for a second, Megumi thought about the stupid unfairness of it. Nanami could give someone things and call it practical. Gojo could make a public nuisance of himself with Shoko and somehow still have the world bend around it. But what Megumi wanted with Yuji, something with same surnames, still had to be phrased around loopholes, paperwork, and whichever court felt generous enough to recognize it.
He would still ask anyway.
Just not tonight. Tonight was someone else's.
But Megumi would ask soon. And Yuji would make some awful noise when he realized. Might laugh first, then cry after, then ask, ‘Are you sure?’ Like Fushiguro Megumi hadn’t built his whole life around being sure of very few things, and selfishly choosing Itadori Yuji every day wasn’t always going to be top of them.
Megumi hooked his thumb in Yuji’s belt loop, keeping him close. “Besides,” he said, lower now, eyes dropping to Yuji’s mouth, “it’s easier to appreciate you in the dark.”
Yuji’s smile got warmer. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” Megumi muttered, having difficulty taking his eyes off Yuji’s lips. “Oh.”
Yuji’s gaze flicked once toward the firelight, then back to him. “You gonna use your technique, bro?”
“Don’t—” Megumi’s ears went red, but he knew to suppress his reaction because he knew that Yuji said dumb things when flustered or nervous or excited—pretty much all the time. “Don’t make it sound weird.”
“You’re the one who said it.”
“I meant so no one sees you panic every time someone walks past.”
Yuji’s smile softened at the edges.
“And yeah,” Megumi’s other thumb brushed against Yuji’s lips and his scar, and he added, quieter. “Only if you want.”
Yuji stared at his mouth and at the broader line of Megumi’s shoulders, where he crowded him against the tree without actually pinning him there. “Yeah,” it came easily, his breath catching around the word. “I—ah—want you to.”
The shadow at Megumi’s feet started to gather around them, darkening the space between the tree and the river until the campfire disappeared into a dark blur through the leaves.
Yuji let out a small, nervous laugh. “That’s kind of hot.”
Megumi closed his eyes and kissed him before Yuji could make the moment difficult by being sweet.
Yuji wrapped both arms around him because Yuji had never learned how to accept small things from Megumi without giving his whole body back.
---
Back by the river, you sat with your feet near the water, your lantern beside you. The paper plate on your lap held a slice of cake you had barely touched.
Nanami stopped beside you. “May I sit?”
“It’s your day.” You smiled up at him.
“I was told I’m allowed very little free will today.”
“That’s because you were trying to ditch your own birthday party.” You moved your plate, and he sat on the grass with a careful breath. His knee clicked. You reached into the bag beside you to hand him the small cushion you had packed.
He stared at it.
“For your knee,” you told him. “Take it before I throw it at you.”
He took it, and for a while, you both just watched the river pull silver lines around the stones.
“I heard Shoko,” he murmured.
“I figured.”
“I should have answered.”
You picked at the cake with your fork. “You don’t owe people an answer about me.”
“I owe you one.”
Your hand stilled for half a second before going back to picking at the cake.
Nanami looked down at his plate, keeping his scarred side half out of the lantern light.
“I wanted to spend today alone. That was the plan. A quiet mountain cabin. Sandwich from a shop. A book I would barely read.”
You nodded.
“Then you sent a list of food. A map. A reminder about sunscreen. Then seven messages about whether I could still eat spicy sauce.”
“You can’t.”
“I can. It just comes with regret.” His mouth curved a little.
Then he sighed. “I was annoyed. Then I looked forward to it all week.”
Your throat worked around a small laugh that came out thin. “You’re bad at gratitude.”
“I’m worse at friendship, apparently.”
You finally looked at him. He met your eyes, and this time he didn’t look away first. “You were there when I was hard to be near. Then I made it harder. I knew you would come back, so I let myself be careless with your feelings.”
Your fork dug into the cake because you didn’t know what to say to that. Some small part of you tried to make sense of it before you could hope. Pity, obligation, eight years of habit, his loneliness finding the nearest person who already knew where the medicine was kept.
Then Nanami reached into his jacket, pulled out a small box wrapped in brown paper and tied with kitchen string, and handed it to you. “I bought this months ago,” he whispered. “Just kept waiting for a dignified moment.”
You opened it.
A key sat inside, along with a tiny wooden tag carved with your name.
Your breath caught and you looked up at him. “Is this because you feel responsible for me?”
His answer came too fast to be polite. “No.”
Then he lowered his voice. “I would like you to come home.” His voice roughened at the edges. “As mine. In whatever order you can accept. Girlfriend first, if that is easier. Partner. Wife, someday, if you can forgive the delay. If you still want that after we learn how to stop pretending.”
Your palm pressed to your mouth.
He looked alarmed. “Was that too much?”
You laughed into your palm. “Kento, you gave me a house key as a birthday gift on your birthday.”
“It seemed practical.”
“You are so stupid.”
“Yes,” he smiled, softer now. “I am aware.”
You leaned over and kissed the scarred side of his mouth before he could brace for it, his skin warm against your lips.
Behind you, from across the camp, Gojo screamed, “PAY UP, SHOKO!”
You smiled against him.
He sighed, warm and beaten. “I should have invited you to the mountains.” His hand closed over yours, and he kept the key pressed between both your palms.
Gojo’s voice carried across the camp again, loud enough to make bats startle somewhere in the trees. “SHOKO, YOU CAN’T CHANGE THE TERMS AFTER THE KISS. MY SIX EYES CONFIRMED IT.”
“I can do whatever I want,” Shoko called back, flat and drunk. “Your first choice is dead.”
The camp went still for half a second.
Then Gojo shouted, “Take that back.”
“I meant I’m the only doctor you idiots have.”
“WE HAVE MY GOOD STUDENT YUTA NOW.”
Yuta immediately grabbed Inumaki’s sleeve and started dragging him farther downriver.
“I did surgery on him. And you. I’m superior.”
“YAGA, SHE’S BULLYING ME AGAIN.”
Nanami closed his eye. “Ignore them.”
You laughed softly, and the sound made his hand tighten around yours. You were still too close to him, leaving small pecks against the scarred side of his lips. The little wooden tag pressed into your palm, your name carved into it like a promise. “Kento.”
“Yes?” He hummed.
“I’d like to come home with you.”
He went still.
You looked down at your joined hands because saying it while looking at his face would have made your voice crack. “Not tonight. I mean, obviously, but I mean properly. I want to move in. I want to start dating. I want…”
Nanami’s face changed slowly, like watching the door open after standing outside with his hand raised for years. “Girlfriend first,” he added, quieter.
You nodded.
“Partner when you are ready.”
You looked up at him. “I’m not the only one who has to be ready.”
He lowered his gaze, thumb moving over your knuckles, careful around the key. “I have been ready in undignified ways for some time.”
Your smile broadened. “That might be the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.”
He gave you half a smile. “Hope it’s not the last. I intend to do better.”
“You’d better.”
He looked toward the river because smiling at you too openly still cost him.
You remembered his face before Shibuya only in fragments now: old photographs, mission reports.
This was the face you knew better. “I do need time,” you admitted. “For the move, I mean. I have things at my apartment, clothes, books, souvenirs, the kettle you said was a fire hazard.”
“It was a fire hazard.”
You smiled down at the key. “I’ll bring the kettle last.”
“I will dispose of it humanely.”
You slapped his arm lightly. “You will not.”
“I will hire someone.” He sounded like he was going to get someone from the dark web.
“Kento.”
His mouth curved, small so that nobody across the camp would have noticed. You did because you had always noticed him in the margins.
He glanced down at your plate. “You did not eat your cake.”
“I got proposed to by a man who doesn’t know if he asked me to be his girlfriend or his wife. I don’t care about the cake right now.”
His expression sharpened with immediate concern. “Do you want something else?”
“No. I’m teasing you.”
“I still need an answer.”
You loved him for that. In his dry insistence, he could be given a kiss, a key accepted, and a future placed in his hand and still worry about your blood sugar before his own feelings. “I’m okay,” you answered. “Just tired.”
That, he believed. Then he stood with effort, offered you his hand, and you let him pull you up. His knee bothered him. You knew the exact stiffness in his jaw that meant it had started to ache.
“You should go back. Before Gojo remembers he has lungs and yells again.”
“He never forgets.”
“No. He simply uses them irresponsibly.”
He walked you back through the camp slowly. The fire had sunk low. Shoko was laughing at something Gojo was saying too close to her ear, her cheeks flushed from beer, one hand resting on the back of his neck as if she’d put it there to keep him from running off into the dark. Yaga and Ijichi had already retreated to their tents on the far end of the site. Panda lay outside his father’s tent with one paw over his face, asleep under the stars with a plushy like a log and snoring as one.
You saw Nanami notice all of it.
Nobara and Maki had not come back. Neither had Megumi and Yuji. Inumaki and Yuta were still missing somewhere downriver with the lantern and the knife, which you chose not to examine too closely.
At your tent, Nanami stopped. The zipper was halfway open. Inside, your blanket had been kicked into a pile, your overnight bag still unlatched, clothes spilling out because Nobara had insisted she could style you for glamping and then abandoned the project the second Maki called her name.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” Nanami told you.
“You’re not going to make sure I’m zipped inside so a bear won't attack me at night?”
“There are no bears here.”
“You looked up bears before coming here?”
“I know you would have.”
“Touché,” you said, stepping into the tent. “Good night, boyfriend.”
The word sank in him for the first time.
He stood there for half a second longer than necessary, his expression caught inside something softer. Then he bowed his head once, because Nanami Kento had no available defense against being called yours except good manners.
“Good night,” he repeated, lower this time. Then he walked back to his tent with red ears.
You waited until his silhouette disappeared past the fire before you looked at the key again.
You did not sleep but lay on your back under the thin blanket, phone held above your face, the key box sitting on your stomach because you just couldn't put it away tonight.
Outside, the river moved, leaves shifted, someone’s tent zipper caught, and bamboo wind chimes knocked softly near the picnic shelter.
You opened your messages.
You: I should probably ask what your move-in requirements are before I accidentally bring the fire-hazard kettle.
His reply came so fast that your chest warmed.
Kento: The kettle is not entering my home.
You: Is it not mine?
There was a pause long enough for you to worry you had made it too much too fast, even though it had been eight years.
Then his typing bubble appeared.
Kento: Our home. The kettle is still not entering it.
You covered your mouth with your hand.
You: Cruel landlord.
Kento: Boyfriend. Possibly partner. Future husband, if I do not lose the position over fire safety.
You stared at the message until the letters blurred at the edges.
Outside, Gojo laughed somewhere, quieter than usual. Shoko told him to shut up in a voice that had no real conviction behind it.
You: You’re very confident about future husband.
Kento: I have been accused of waiting too long. I am correcting the record.
You: By proposing an entire life on your birthday.
Kento: It seemed practical. I deserved a gift, and you deserved something permanent for planning this day and everything before it.
You: I’m going to bite you.
Kento: That is not a logistical concern.
The squeal you made into your blanket was embarrassing and muffled. You rolled onto your side, holding the phone close to your face.
You: I keep thinking I’ll wake up and you’ll decide this was fever brain.
Kento: I am not feverish.
You: The key is beautiful, and my name carved into it looks good.
Kento: I had a professional do that. (It was Megumi.)
You realized he didn't want anyone to spoil it.
You: That makes it sweet, actually.
Kento: I am aware.
The next message came after a long moment of his typing bubble appearing and disappearing and reappearing.
Kento: I wanted you to have something that could not be mistaken.
Your throat tightened. All the noise outside seemed to move further away. Even the river sounded softer from inside the tent.
You: Kento.
Kento: You have had very little permanence since you came here.
You stopped breathing for a second.
Kento: No family records or household. No one to call if something went wrong who belonged to you before this world took you in. You have made a life anyway. I know that. I am proud of that. But I wanted you to have a door that opened because your name belonged there.
You pressed the phone to your chest and stared at the dark fabric of the tent roof.
Untethered.
You hated that word. It made drifting sound graceful.
Gojo and Ijichi had made you legal enough for payroll, rent, hospital forms, and mission reports, but none of it reached backward. There were still blank spaces where parents should have gone. No childhood address. No family name that meant anything here. No one who could say what you were like before this world took you in.
You had caught yourself envying the students for ugly things: clan fights, dead relatives, living relatives, inheritance arguments, grief with names attached. At least someone had known them before.
Jujutsu Tech gave you a file. Shoko gave you headache medicine before you asked. Gojo bought things you never requested and called it community support. The others made room for you without making speeches.
And Kento.
Kento with the second phone charger he pretended came in a pack of two. Kento whose apartment had become the only place your body slept properly. And now he was saying your name belonged on the door.
You typed and deleted six different replies.
You: I don’t know how to say what that means to me without sounding pathetic.
Kento: You have listened to me say “girlfriend first, partner, wife someday” beside a river. I no longer have grounds to judge anyone’s process.
You laughed, but it broke halfway into a few tears.
You: I didn’t think I’d get to be someone’s family officially here. I know that sounds stupid because people choose each other all the time, but I didn’t think it would happen to me. Especially not with someone who knows I drink coffee like it counts as water.
Kento: It does not.
You: I’m being vulnerable. You can be nice.
Kento: You are. I am keeping you grounded.
You: By attacking my coffee?
Kento: By reminding you that I know it.
You blinked hard, looking for the right emoji to express your distaste.
Kento: When you first appeared, I was suspicious of you.
You: Romantic.
Kento: You had no file, no verifiable history, and enough cursed energy to drag a half-dead man out of Mahito’s grasp. Suspicion seemed reasonable.
You: Still romantic.
Kento: I was also afraid you would disappear the same way you arrived.
You did not know what to say to that.
Kento: I expected someone to explain you eventually as a curse, technique, or a temporary consequence of some larger cruelty. I thought if I became too accustomed to you, the world would correct itself and take you back.
Your fingers hovered above the keyboard.
Kento: Then you stayed. Argued with my pharmacist, replaced the mirror I turned to the wall with one too small for me to avoid entirely. You even left soup at my door after I called you a nuisance. You became domestic before I was ready for you to be irreplaceable.
The tent blurred. You wiped at your face with the heel of your hand and nearly dropped the phone.
You: You can’t say things like this over text.
Kento: I can say them outside your tent if you would prefer.
Your whole body went warm.
You: Oh lord no.
Kento: Understood.
You: I mean yes? Or no. I mean I’m wearing an old shirt and crying.
Kento: I have seen worse.
You: You are so bad at this.
Kento: Noted. I will improve.
You smiled into the dark. Then his next message came.
Kento: If things become too dangerous again, I need you to understand something.
You sat up.
Kento: I will not let Jujutsu society decide what happens to you. I have given enough of my life to institutions that eat people and call it duty. If the choice is between staying and keeping you safe, I will take you and leave.
You reread that message, a mix of emotions swirling inside you and choking in your throat.
You: You mean that?
Kento: Yes.
You: But you love your work.
Kento: I love being able to help where I can. That is not the same thing.
You: And if I say I don’t want you giving everything up for me?
Kento: Then we will discuss it like adults. And I will still keep the car maintained.
It was just so like him, devotion inside an emergency plan.
You were still staring at the message when another sound came from outside.
At first, Nanami ignored it.
In his own tent, sitting upright with his back against a rolled sleeping bag because lying down had proved useless, he heard canvas shift from the direction of Gojo’s tent and assumed the man was awake.
Which was not unusual. Satoru rarely slept like other people. Three hours, sometimes less, then he would wander the halls of the school or appear in kitchens, bright-eyed and awake past reason, eating someone else’s food and pretending insomnia was a lifestyle choice.
Nanami typed another message, thumb moving carefully.
Kento: For clarity, I am not planning to take your choice away. I am saying you have one with me now. If something like Shibuya happens. If we need to leave, we leave together.
The shuffling continued. A soft thump. A rustle. Then something like a hand catching against tent fabric.
Nanami paused. Then resumed typing because whatever Gojo Satoru did at night was between him, God, and the nearest vending machine.
Kento: I should have told you earlier. Years ago.
A muffled laugh came from the other tent.
Shoko’s.
Nanami’s typing slowed. Another rustle followed, lower this time, rhythmic enough that his mind and his technique, traitorous and precise, started assembling possibilities he did not want.
No. Absolutely not.
Satoru would not.
Nanami stared at the wall of his tent.
Then a muffled sentence came through canvas and night air, Satoru’s voice far too pleased with itself to be mistaken for sleep talking.
Nanami closed his eye. And for several seconds, he sat very still.
Satoru wouldn't do that. Wouldn't traumatize his students like that, would he?
And there were students nearby.
Former students, yes. Grown adults now, all of them old enough to drink, vote, kill curses, and make bad decisions in forests. But still. They had been children once. Children Satoru had bequeathed and taught. Children Nanami had, against his will and better judgment, worried about.
Except Nobara and Maki had disappeared into the trees hours ago. Megumi and Yuji had walked off in opposite direction around the same time—even their cursed energies weren't within a detectable radius now. Inumaki and Yuta had not returned from whatever fishing ritual required one knife and an alarming amount of staring contest. Panda slept like a boulder on the other side of camp. Yaga slept like a dead man with a pension. Ijichi slept like a person who had spent fifteen years being emotionally waterboarded by Gojo Satoru and could sleep through artillery if it meant nobody needed him.
So Satoru was traumatizing no one he cared about except Nanami.
Oh, but wait… Ijichi.
Nanami’s eye opened. That was it, wasn't it?
Satoru had pointed out, years ago to Kento, the way Ijichi hovered around Shoko with the doomed attentiveness of a man bringing coffee to a woman miles out of his league. Had mocked him for it, interfered with it, sabotaged it, and once bought him a book on “assertive romantic communication” that Ijichi had accepted with both hands and visible despair. The book contained the worst possible advice, such as shaving your head made you more aerodynamic for dates.
That was not poor judgment.
It was Satoru declaring territory.
Nanami put on his headphones. Then his gaze dropped to his phone.
You were in the tent near his—awake, emotional, and his to care for. And you could probably hear this. His thumb moved before he had fully decided.
Kento: Pack your bag.
Your reply came quickly.
You: what
Kento: Quietly. Ten minutes. Meet me just outside the campsite entrance.
You: Kento what happened
He glanced toward the canvas wall as another sound reached him.
Kento: Satoru.
A momentary pause.
You: oh my god
Kento: Yes.
You: shoko?????
Kento: Unfortunately.
You: is everyone else asleep
Kento: Gone, asleep, or morally unreachable.
You: what does morally unreachable mean?
Kento: Panda.
You: Kento I can’t just flee a campsite because Gojo and Shoko are having sex
Kento: I can. Pack.
You were outside in eight minutes after having packed so quickly that even your bag was zipped wrong and your hair had come loose around your face.
Nanami was already waiting near the entrance sign with his overnight bag in one hand. His hair was mussed from where he had dragged his fingers through it, and his eyepatch strap sat a little crooked. He looked you over once, checking that you had your shoes, your bag, yourself, then said, “My car is nearby. There is a hotel ten minutes from here. We will return in the morning.”
You followed him to the car. He opened the passenger door for you, and you hid a smile because he had always done that, even before tonight, even when he could still pretend it was only manners. Now the same small gesture felt claimed. He shut the door once you were inside, walked around to the driver’s side, and started the engine.
Neither of you spoke for the first few minutes of the drive. The road out of the campsite was narrow and dark, trees pressing close on either side. Nanami drove with one hand on the wheel, his profile lit by the dashboard glow. The eyepatch hid one side of him. The scars caught in uneven lines. You watched his hand shift, steady on the gear, and remembered the way it had held yours around the key. Halfway to the hotel, his expression changed.
“What?” you asked.
He looked horrified. “Have you been drinking?”
You stared. “What?”
“At the camp. Shoko was giving everyone beer. Gojo had that terrible sweet alcohol. You were emotional. I should have asked before taking you anywhere.”
“I had half a canned peach thing four hours ago.”
His jaw tightened. “That is not an answer.”
“It was barely alcohol.”
“That is also not an answer.”
“Kento, I am not drunk.”
“You were crying.”
“Forgive a girl for being emotional after pining after a guy for eight years then suddenly being pulled out of the friend zone.”
He opened his mouth. “That was not—" Then he realized better and closed it. His grip eased slightly on the wheel, and he tried again. “That was not intended to impair judgment.”
“Well, it did.”
“Then I shouldn’t have sent the texts.”
“I didn’t say that.” You leaned your head against the window, smiling despite the ache in your chest. “I’m sober. Just feeling happy because you accidentally became my whole life and then asked me that we could stop pretending.”
He swallowed. The car stayed very quiet after that.
At the hotel, Nanami carried both bags, and you let him because arguing with him in the lobby would have turned him into stone.
The receptionist looked at the two of you—your rumpled clothes, his serious face, the bags, the hour—and made a decision behind her polite smile.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “We only have one room available.”
Tumblr is so annoying sometimes, won't let me post all in one.
Summary: You nurse Qifrey through a fever and fall in love. Will he return the feelings, or is there someone already crossing bridges for him?
Content notes: Soft!Qifrey, no spoilers, medical setting, fever, collapse/unconsciousness, infected burn/wound care, possibly unrequited feelings, bittersweet, established Qifrey/Olruggio. WC: 2.8k.
A/N: My first fic in the WHA fandom kinda nervous, please don't spoil me because at the moment I'm anime-only but will read the manga soon.
The witch collapsed before he could knock
You saw him through the front windows of the ward, tall, his witch hat dipped low over pale hair, coat hanging from one shoulder. He tried to straighten when he saw you.
You caught him under the arms as he collapsed.
He weighed less than you expected. “Sir? Can you hear me?”
His breath came hot against your temple. His lashes fluttered, raven against skin gone faintly gray. There was a travel bag at his feet, mud on the hem of his coat, and a folded card held so tightly in his hand that his glove had creased around it.
“Bring a stretcher,” you called over your shoulder.
A night nurse came running. The man tried to speak while you eased him down. His voice scraped out in a whisper.
“Apologies.”
Then he fainted.
After triage, his chart landed under your name for fever, infected burn, observation.
The staff learned very little from his pockets. His card was sealed, the ink smudged where sweat had dampened the paper, but the name was visible.
Qifrey.
Under it sat an atelier seal for an atelier several towns away and the name Olruggio in a different, heavier script. On the back, in a heavier hand, someone had written, “If he says he is fine, he is lying. If he says he can walk, make him sit. If he asks for thornbark, ignore him.”
You sent a runner with the message as soon as you finished checking him in. The road had been damaged by a landslide two towns over, according to the courier desk. Whoever Olruggio was, it would take time to even inform them because your small village didn't have any resident witches.
The first runner came back with mud-covered knees before sunset. The bridge past Lannor was split, the lower road had sunk, and the courier desk would need another route before any message reached the atelier.
Over the next two days, during your nightly rounds, you heard Qifrey murmur names in his sleep. Coco. Tetia. Richeh. Agott. Sometimes Olruggio, lower, rougher, with a strain that made you pause beside the bed.
The names meant nothing to you, but his voice did.
Qifrey needed a lot of help—by the second night, his chart had three extra pages clipped to it.
He had a fever that refused to break, a cough that tore through him even while he slept, and a burn across his palm that looked several days old. It had been treated poorly. By himself, you guessed, after seeing how clean the bandage had been despite the infection underneath. A man used to handling trouble alone.
On the third day, you cut away the spoiled wrapping to change the bandage, as you had been doing daily since his arrival.
He stirred then, face pinched with pain.
“Can you hear me, sir?”
His hand flexed in yours, his voice rough from disuse. “Mm. I hear you.”
“You are in St. Gillian’s ward. You passed out at the door.”
“That seems… inconvenient.”
“You picked a good door.”
A small breath left him. It might have been a laugh.
You washed the wound, set herbs to draw down the swelling, and fed him medicine by the spoon when his fever didn't let him swallow easily.
By fifth morning, Qifrey’s fever had settled into a stubborn heat rather than a blaze. He woke while you were changing the water at his bedside.
His visible eye opened first—clear blue, tired, and assessing.
He looked at the ceiling, the window, and the medicine tray, then at you.
“Good morning,” he said, his voice rough but better than before.
You stared at him for half a second.
Most patients woke up confused, angry, frightened, or all of it. Qifrey woke as though he had been invited to a formal breakfast. “You remember where you are?”
“A clinic?”
“Hospital ward.”
“Ah. Better funded than I feared.”
You sat on the stool beside him and checked his pulse. His skin was still hot. He watched your hand as though your work interested him.
Once you were done, he gave you a mild smile.
You looked down at his pulse before your face gave you away.
“I sent word to the atelier listed on your card,” you said instead. “Someone named Olruggio was mentioned. The roads are caved in next town over, so a reply still may take a day or two.”
His face changed from smiling to serious. “Did the message say I was stable?”
“I sent it when you arrived so it said you were under care.”
His fingers clenched in the sheet. “That will make him angry.”
“Concerned?”
Qifrey looked toward the window. “With him, the two travel together.”
You took his temperature and pretended that answered anything.
For the rest of the day, he slept between treatments. By evening, he could sit up against pillows, so you brought tea because the ward broth had been rejected with such gentle sadness that you had felt bad for him.
He accepted the cup with both hands carefully. “Thank you.”
“It may taste medicinal.”
“I have survived worse things.”
“You say that as if you mean it.”
Qifrey’s eye lowered to the steam. “I do.”
You shouldn't have pried, should have gone back to the desk, finished your chart, and taken your meal before it went cold.
“What went wrong?”
“I misjudged a cough.”
“And the burn?”
“Misjudged a flame.”
“Careless for a Witch Master.”
He smiled into the cup. “You wound me.”
“You arrived wounded.”
“A fair correction.”
You chuckled before you could stop yourself.
He looked pleased, though he hid it by drinking.
The next evening brought more improvement. He could walk from the bed to the chair by the window with your hand under his elbow. His hair bobbed in uneven waves, white and soft from fever sweat. You washed it for him in a basin because he lacked the strength to lift both arms.
He endured the indignity with great dignity.
“You may complain,” you said, working soap through the ends.
“I am trying to decide how.”
“Most people start with the water temperature.”
“I hate water.”
“That may be the fever talking.”
“No, I just hate it in general.”
You poured clean water through his hair and watched his shoulders loosen. “You talk around everything. It’s like you are deflecting.”
“I talk through things. Around them takes more effort.”
“Do you have family?”
The question came out because you had spent the afternoon thinking about Olruggio’s name on that card. Because Qifrey said it in sleep with the same exhausted care people used for loved ones. Or maybe because you were a fool.
His shoulders stilled for a breath.
Then he said, “There are people waiting for me.”
“That was also around the question.”
“Yes.”
You should have taken the answer for what it was. Instead, you felt his silence settle between you and chose the safer thing. “You have students.”
“I do.”
“Those names you said in your sleep?”
A small smile touched his mouth. “My apprentices.”
“You worry them?”
“I am afraid so.”
“You seem habitual at that.”
His laugh came out soft and tired. “One of my oldest habits.”
You dried his hair with a towel. He sat patiently, head bowed. The back of his neck looked vulnerable. You moved your hands with professional care, and your chest did the foolish work of skipping a beat.
That evening, you brought tea again. He asked about you.
It wasn't anything new, patients asked out of politeness all the time. Qifrey listened as though each answer fitted into a private ledger.
You told him about the hospital. About training under a surgeon who threw instruments when angry. About the old woman in room four who lied about her sweets. About your rented rooms above the bakery and the landlord’s whiskercat who had claimed your spare chair.
Qifrey laughed at that. “A whiskercat recognizes vacant authority.”
“He bites doctors.”
“Then he recognizes false authority as well.”
You looked at him over your cup.
“You would get along with him.”
“High praise.”
“It was a warning.”
He held the cup near his mouth, smiling.
The next day, his fever broke.
You found him awake before dawn, sitting at the side of the bed with his coat folded across his knees. His hand shook when he tried to fasten a clasp.
You leaned against the doorway. “Planning an escape?”
He looked up, guilt neatly arranged into charm. “Need to perform an assessment.”
“Of the hallway?”
“Of my general readiness.”
“You are terrible at being a patient.”
“Many have said so with greater volume.”
“Olruggio?”
Qifrey paused.
Then he gave a helpless little smile, fondness slipping through before he could tuck it away. “Most often, yes.”
“Your next of kin has strong opinions.”
“He has earned the right.”
Your heart did a small flip because Qifrey looked at you with such warmth after. Then again later, when you brought him lunch, he mentioned noticing that you seemed to dislike thornbark. Then again at tea, when he asked whether you ever left the ward before the lamps were lit and when you said rarely, he told you you were allowed to be cared for without becoming less productive.
It sounded rehearsed in the sense that he had probably said it to children before. Children, friends, himself, perhaps.
You adored him for some reason after that.
By late afternoon, the senior physician cleared him for a few hours out of bed. The hospital had a small courtyard used by staff during breaks. You took him there because he asked for air and because you had poor discipline where he was concerned.
He walked slowly, tried to hide the weakness from you and failed. At the bench, he sank down with a controlled breath.
“You see?” he said. “A flawless expedition.”
“You are sweating.”
“An atmospheric detail.”
“You made it twelve steps.”
“Thirteen. You miscounted.”
“You counted?”
“I needed a victory.”
You handed him tea from the kitchen pot, thinned with milk to spare his throat. He held it between both palms and watched the courtyard gate.
“Will Olruggio be upset when he comes?” you asked.
“Yes.”
“You sound pleased.”
“I would rather face his anger than his fear.”
That was the first honest answer he gave you without deflecting.
You sat beside him. “What is he to you?”
Qifrey turned the cup slowly. “My person.”
The words came with care.
“Family?”
“Yes.”
The courtyard seemed smaller after that.
You looked at your own cup. “I almost invited you to dinner.”
“You still may.”
You glanced at him, startled.
He met your gaze with an expression so gentle it hurt.
“Or not,” he added.
There it was again. The step back. The offered dignity. The chance to recover without being seen.
You took it because he gave it willingly. “Then I am inviting you to dinner tonight at the staffroom table as a patient who owes me for ruining three sets of sheets.”
His eyes crinkled with a smile. “I accept with gratitude.”
Dinner happened in a quiet manner because Qifrey tired faster than he admitted. You brought rice, broth, pickled vegetables, and a small cake from the bakery below your rooms. He ate slowly like a man who had learned to make small comforts last. You talked about ordinary things because ordinary things had become precious with him.
He asked about the town. You asked about teaching.
He told you about a girl who loved picture books and questions, another who spoke with boldness she had earned through fear, another with an eye for beauty in small work, and another who needed rules to push against before she trusted them.
“You seem to love them a lot.” You smiled.
He looked down at his plate. “I try to be worthy of them.”
The answer made your throat tighten. “You are.”
“You have known me only a few days.”
“I have cared for you. That speeds judgment.”
His laugh loosened, warmer now.
You thought of saying it then—so please write to me or some adult version with a chance for refusal and less humiliation.
The words rose, reached your mouth, and died when footsteps pounded down the corridor.
Someone shouted at the front desk. A man’s voice, rough with fear. “Where is he?”
Qifrey stood so quickly his chair scraped back.
His face changed.
Every soft, evasive line vanished. He looked shaken open.
You followed him into the hall.
A man stood at the far end, travel cloak hanging off one shoulder, dark hair loose, hands clenched as if he had been holding himself together. His eyes found Qifrey, and the anger you had expected was there.
So was terror.
“Qifrey.”
“Olruggio,” Qifrey said.
Olruggio crossed the corridor before anyone could stop him. He caught Qifrey by the shoulders, then checked him with furious, trembling care—forehead, pulse, bandaged hand, face.
Qifrey let him. In fact, he more than let him. He leaned into it for half a second, small and human in a way he had hidden from you.
“You sent a card?” Olruggio snapped. “A card? I got ‘under care’ and a hospital mark, and the road was out. Do you have any idea how worried the kids were?”
“I am sorry.”
“You are a complete idiot.”
“Yes.”
Olruggio groaned in frustration.
Qifrey smiled at him, tender and tired. “You came quickly.”
“I know.” Olruggio’s hands froze on Qifrey’s sleeves. His voice dropped. “You scared me.”
Qifrey lifted his bandaged hand and rested it against Olruggio’s wrist. “I know.”
You stood by the staff room door, and the ward clerk came up beside you and whispered, “Is that his husband?”
The word sank through your chest with force.
Husband.
You looked back at the two men.
Olruggio had turned halfway toward the desk, still keeping one hand on Qifrey as if the floor might swallow him. “Who treated him?”
You stepped forward because your muscle memory knew work even when your heart lagged behind. “I did.”
Olruggio crossed to you. Up close, he looked exhausted. “Thank you for keeping him alive.”
“It was the ward, really.”
“It was you.” His voice softened. “He is skilled at making people underestimate how bad things are.”
Qifrey, from behind him, said, “I can hear you.”
“Good. Hear it and improve.”
You managed a smile. “He needs rest for another few days. The fever broke, but the infection needs watching. His hand should be cleaned twice daily. He should avoid travel until the physician clears him.”
“I will make sure of it.”
Qifrey’s mouth curved in a wider smile. “You say that as if I am difficult.”
Olruggio turned on him. “You are sleeping.”
“In a bed, yes.”
“In a bed where I can see you.”
The intimacy of it had no flourish but domesticity—it stood in the hallway with muddy boots and a travel bag. It belonged there. They belonged together.
You handed Olruggio the written care instructions.
That night, you sat with tea that had gone cold on the staffroom table.
Qifrey came to find you before settling back into bed. Olruggio hovered far away at the corridor turn, pretending to inspect the wall while watching every breath Qifrey took.
“You didn't come for your nightly round,” Qifrey inquired.
“I was giving you time.”
“That is kind.”
“It is practical.”
His expression gentled. He understood more than you wanted him to. Perhaps he had understood from the first cup of tea.
“I owe you dinner,” he said.
“You owe me rest.”
He looked at you for a long moment.
“You are very easy to speak with.” He said it gently, and with that same small step back he had offered every time you reached too close.
“That sounds impulsive, coming from you.”
“It may be.”
“Then keep it for your husband.”
Qifrey’s eye lowered. He accepted the small hurt because you had earned the right to.
“I will,” he said instead. “And I will remember your kindness.”
You gave a short nod.
Behind him, Olruggio called, “Qifrey. Bed.”
Qifrey sighed with theatrical patience. “You see my situation.”
“You seem well taken care of.”
His smile faded into gratitude. “Yes.”
He returned to Olruggio. The other man scolded him under his breath the whole way back to the bed, one hand firm at his back. Qifrey listened with his head slightly bent, smiling as though each complaint was a love letter.
You went to the staff dining room and cleared the cups.
The cake sat half-eaten on the plate. His fork had left a neat mark through the icing.
You washed everything by hand, slower than needed.
In the morning, you would check his fever, teach Olruggio the bandage fold, and write the discharge notes as usual. Tonight, you scrubbed icing from the fork until the silver squeaked.
Down the corridor, Olruggio’s voice rose again. “You are laughing? You think this is funny?”
Qifrey answered, too soft for you to catch.
Then Olruggio said, lower, breaking around the words, “Do that again, and I swear I will lock your boots in the oven.”
Qifrey laughed then, small and real.
You closed your eyes.
You had wanted to ask him to stay.
Someone else had already crossed blocked roads and broken bridges to bring him home.
A/N: This one hurt me a little because the reader isn’t wrong for catching feelings, and Qifrey isn’t cruel for being gentle. Qifrey and Olruggio kind of remind me of Gojo and Nanami, and this anime has me by the throat.
I’m still figuring out how I like writing Witch Hat Atelier, so if anyone has Qifrey, Olruggio, or atelier-adjacent thoughts, please come yell in my inbox. I want to write more plot-heavy fluff (even with reader inserts), but I’m empty of ideas rn, so send some my way.
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Summary: You nurse Qifrey through a fever and fall in love. Will he return the feelings, or is there someone already crossing bridges for him?
Content notes: Soft!Qifrey, no spoilers, medical setting, fever, collapse/unconsciousness, infected burn/wound care, possibly unrequited feelings, bittersweet, established Qifrey/Olruggio. WC: 2.8k.
A/N: My first fic in the WHA fandom kinda nervous, please don't spoil me because at the moment I'm anime-only but will read the manga soon.
The witch collapsed before he could knock
You saw him through the front windows of the ward, tall, his witch hat dipped low over pale hair, coat hanging from one shoulder. He tried to straighten when he saw you.
You caught him under the arms as he collapsed.
He weighed less than you expected. “Sir? Can you hear me?”
His breath came hot against your temple. His lashes fluttered, raven against skin gone faintly gray. There was a travel bag at his feet, mud on the hem of his coat, and a folded card held so tightly in his hand that his glove had creased around it.
“Bring a stretcher,” you called over your shoulder.
A night nurse came running. The man tried to speak while you eased him down. His voice scraped out in a whisper.
“Apologies.”
Then he fainted.
After triage, his chart landed under your name for fever, infected burn, observation.
The staff learned very little from his pockets. His card was sealed, the ink smudged where sweat had dampened the paper, but the name was visible.
Qifrey.
Under it sat an atelier seal for an atelier several towns away and the name Olruggio in a different, heavier script. On the back, in a heavier hand, someone had written, “If he says he is fine, he is lying. If he says he can walk, make him sit. If he asks for thornbark, ignore him.”
You sent a runner with the message as soon as you finished checking him in. The road had been damaged by a landslide two towns over, according to the courier desk. Whoever Olruggio was, it would take time to even inform them because your small village didn't have any resident witches.
The first runner came back with mud-covered knees before sunset. The bridge past Lannor was split, the lower road had sunk, and the courier desk would need another route before any message reached the atelier.
Over the next two days, during your nightly rounds, you heard Qifrey murmur names in his sleep. Coco. Tetia. Richeh. Agott. Sometimes Olruggio, lower, rougher, with a strain that made you pause beside the bed.
The names meant nothing to you, but his voice did.
Qifrey needed a lot of help—by the second night, his chart had three extra pages clipped to it.
He had a fever that refused to break, a cough that tore through him even while he slept, and a burn across his palm that looked several days old. It had been treated poorly. By himself, you guessed, after seeing how clean the bandage had been despite the infection underneath. A man used to handling trouble alone.
On the third day, you cut away the spoiled wrapping to change the bandage, as you had been doing daily since his arrival.
He stirred then, face pinched with pain.
“Can you hear me, sir?”
His hand flexed in yours, his voice rough from disuse. “Mm. I hear you.”
“You are in St. Gillian’s ward. You passed out at the door.”
“That seems… inconvenient.”
“You picked a good door.”
A small breath left him. It might have been a laugh.
You washed the wound, set herbs to draw down the swelling, and fed him medicine by the spoon when his fever didn't let him swallow easily.
By fifth morning, Qifrey’s fever had settled into a stubborn heat rather than a blaze. He woke while you were changing the water at his bedside.
His visible eye opened first—clear blue, tired, and assessing.
He looked at the ceiling, the window, and the medicine tray, then at you.
“Good morning,” he said, his voice rough but better than before.
You stared at him for half a second.
Most patients woke up confused, angry, frightened, or all of it. Qifrey woke as though he had been invited to a formal breakfast. “You remember where you are?”
“A clinic?”
“Hospital ward.”
“Ah. Better funded than I feared.”
You sat on the stool beside him and checked his pulse. His skin was still hot. He watched your hand as though your work interested him.
Once you were done, he gave you a mild smile.
You looked down at his pulse before your face gave you away.
“I sent word to the atelier listed on your card,” you said instead. “Someone named Olruggio was mentioned. The roads are caved in next town over, so a reply still may take a day or two.”
His face changed from smiling to serious. “Did the message say I was stable?”
“I sent it when you arrived so it said you were under care.”
His fingers clenched in the sheet. “That will make him angry.”
“Concerned?”
Qifrey looked toward the window. “With him, the two travel together.”
You took his temperature and pretended that answered anything.
For the rest of the day, he slept between treatments. By evening, he could sit up against pillows, so you brought tea because the ward broth had been rejected with such gentle sadness that you had felt bad for him.
He accepted the cup with both hands carefully. “Thank you.”
“It may taste medicinal.”
“I have survived worse things.”
“You say that as if you mean it.”
Qifrey’s eye lowered to the steam. “I do.”
You shouldn't have pried, should have gone back to the desk, finished your chart, and taken your meal before it went cold.
“What went wrong?”
“I misjudged a cough.”
“And the burn?”
“Misjudged a flame.”
“Careless for a Witch Master.”
He smiled into the cup. “You wound me.”
“You arrived wounded.”
“A fair correction.”
You chuckled before you could stop yourself.
He looked pleased, though he hid it by drinking.
The next evening brought more improvement. He could walk from the bed to the chair by the window with your hand under his elbow. His hair bobbed in uneven waves, white and soft from fever sweat. You washed it for him in a basin because he lacked the strength to lift both arms.
He endured the indignity with great dignity.
“You may complain,” you said, working soap through the ends.
“I am trying to decide how.”
“Most people start with the water temperature.”
“I hate water.”
“That may be the fever talking.”
“No, I just hate it in general.”
You poured clean water through his hair and watched his shoulders loosen. “You talk around everything. It’s like you are deflecting.”
“I talk through things. Around them takes more effort.”
“Do you have family?”
The question came out because you had spent the afternoon thinking about Olruggio’s name on that card. Because Qifrey said it in sleep with the same exhausted care people used for loved ones. Or maybe because you were a fool.
His shoulders stilled for a breath.
Then he said, “There are people waiting for me.”
“That was also around the question.”
“Yes.”
You should have taken the answer for what it was. Instead, you felt his silence settle between you and chose the safer thing. “You have students.”
“I do.”
“Those names you said in your sleep?”
A small smile touched his mouth. “My apprentices.”
“You worry them?”
“I am afraid so.”
“You seem habitual at that.”
His laugh came out soft and tired. “One of my oldest habits.”
You dried his hair with a towel. He sat patiently, head bowed. The back of his neck looked vulnerable. You moved your hands with professional care, and your chest did the foolish work of skipping a beat.
That evening, you brought tea again. He asked about you.
It wasn't anything new, patients asked out of politeness all the time. Qifrey listened as though each answer fitted into a private ledger.
You told him about the hospital. About training under a surgeon who threw instruments when angry. About the old woman in room four who lied about her sweets. About your rented rooms above the bakery and the landlord’s whiskercat who had claimed your spare chair.
Qifrey laughed at that. “A whiskercat recognizes vacant authority.”
“He bites doctors.”
“Then he recognizes false authority as well.”
You looked at him over your cup.
“You would get along with him.”
“High praise.”
“It was a warning.”
He held the cup near his mouth, smiling.
The next day, his fever broke.
You found him awake before dawn, sitting at the side of the bed with his coat folded across his knees. His hand shook when he tried to fasten a clasp.
You leaned against the doorway. “Planning an escape?”
He looked up, guilt neatly arranged into charm. “Need to perform an assessment.”
“Of the hallway?”
“Of my general readiness.”
“You are terrible at being a patient.”
“Many have said so with greater volume.”
“Olruggio?”
Qifrey paused.
Then he gave a helpless little smile, fondness slipping through before he could tuck it away. “Most often, yes.”
“Your next of kin has strong opinions.”
“He has earned the right.”
Your heart did a small flip because Qifrey looked at you with such warmth after. Then again later, when you brought him lunch, he mentioned noticing that you seemed to dislike thornbark. Then again at tea, when he asked whether you ever left the ward before the lamps were lit and when you said rarely, he told you you were allowed to be cared for without becoming less productive.
It sounded rehearsed in the sense that he had probably said it to children before. Children, friends, himself, perhaps.
You adored him for some reason after that.
By late afternoon, the senior physician cleared him for a few hours out of bed. The hospital had a small courtyard used by staff during breaks. You took him there because he asked for air and because you had poor discipline where he was concerned.
He walked slowly, tried to hide the weakness from you and failed. At the bench, he sank down with a controlled breath.
“You see?” he said. “A flawless expedition.”
“You are sweating.”
“An atmospheric detail.”
“You made it twelve steps.”
“Thirteen. You miscounted.”
“You counted?”
“I needed a victory.”
You handed him tea from the kitchen pot, thinned with milk to spare his throat. He held it between both palms and watched the courtyard gate.
“Will Olruggio be upset when he comes?” you asked.
“Yes.”
“You sound pleased.”
“I would rather face his anger than his fear.”
That was the first honest answer he gave you without deflecting.
You sat beside him. “What is he to you?”
Qifrey turned the cup slowly. “My person.”
The words came with care.
“Family?”
“Yes.”
The courtyard seemed smaller after that.
You looked at your own cup. “I almost invited you to dinner.”
“You still may.”
You glanced at him, startled.
He met your gaze with an expression so gentle it hurt.
“Or not,” he added.
There it was again. The step back. The offered dignity. The chance to recover without being seen.
You took it because he gave it willingly. “Then I am inviting you to dinner tonight at the staffroom table as a patient who owes me for ruining three sets of sheets.”
His eyes crinkled with a smile. “I accept with gratitude.”
Dinner happened in a quiet manner because Qifrey tired faster than he admitted. You brought rice, broth, pickled vegetables, and a small cake from the bakery below your rooms. He ate slowly like a man who had learned to make small comforts last. You talked about ordinary things because ordinary things had become precious with him.
He asked about the town. You asked about teaching.
He told you about a girl who loved picture books and questions, another who spoke with boldness she had earned through fear, another with an eye for beauty in small work, and another who needed rules to push against before she trusted them.
“You seem to love them a lot.” You smiled.
He looked down at his plate. “I try to be worthy of them.”
The answer made your throat tighten. “You are.”
“You have known me only a few days.”
“I have cared for you. That speeds judgment.”
His laugh loosened, warmer now.
You thought of saying it then—so please write to me or some adult version with a chance for refusal and less humiliation.
The words rose, reached your mouth, and died when footsteps pounded down the corridor.
Someone shouted at the front desk. A man’s voice, rough with fear. “Where is he?”
Qifrey stood so quickly his chair scraped back.
His face changed.
Every soft, evasive line vanished. He looked shaken open.
You followed him into the hall.
A man stood at the far end, travel cloak hanging off one shoulder, dark hair loose, hands clenched as if he had been holding himself together. His eyes found Qifrey, and the anger you had expected was there.
So was terror.
“Qifrey.”
“Olruggio,” Qifrey said.
Olruggio crossed the corridor before anyone could stop him. He caught Qifrey by the shoulders, then checked him with furious, trembling care—forehead, pulse, bandaged hand, face.
Qifrey let him. In fact, he more than let him. He leaned into it for half a second, small and human in a way he had hidden from you.
“You sent a card?” Olruggio snapped. “A card? I got ‘under care’ and a hospital mark, and the road was out. Do you have any idea how worried the kids were?”
“I am sorry.”
“You are a complete idiot.”
“Yes.”
Olruggio groaned in frustration.
Qifrey smiled at him, tender and tired. “You came quickly.”
“I know.” Olruggio’s hands froze on Qifrey’s sleeves. His voice dropped. “You scared me.”
Qifrey lifted his bandaged hand and rested it against Olruggio’s wrist. “I know.”
You stood by the staff room door, and the ward clerk came up beside you and whispered, “Is that his husband?”
The word sank through your chest with force.
Husband.
You looked back at the two men.
Olruggio had turned halfway toward the desk, still keeping one hand on Qifrey as if the floor might swallow him. “Who treated him?”
You stepped forward because your muscle memory knew work even when your heart lagged behind. “I did.”
Olruggio crossed to you. Up close, he looked exhausted. “Thank you for keeping him alive.”
“It was the ward, really.”
“It was you.” His voice softened. “He is skilled at making people underestimate how bad things are.”
Qifrey, from behind him, said, “I can hear you.”
“Good. Hear it and improve.”
You managed a smile. “He needs rest for another few days. The fever broke, but the infection needs watching. His hand should be cleaned twice daily. He should avoid travel until the physician clears him.”
“I will make sure of it.”
Qifrey’s mouth curved in a wider smile. “You say that as if I am difficult.”
Olruggio turned on him. “You are sleeping.”
“In a bed, yes.”
“In a bed where I can see you.”
The intimacy of it had no flourish but domesticity—it stood in the hallway with muddy boots and a travel bag. It belonged there. They belonged together.
You handed Olruggio the written care instructions.
That night, you sat with tea that had gone cold on the staffroom table.
Qifrey came to find you before settling back into bed. Olruggio hovered far away at the corridor turn, pretending to inspect the wall while watching every breath Qifrey took.
“You didn't come for your nightly round,” Qifrey inquired.
“I was giving you time.”
“That is kind.”
“It is practical.”
His expression gentled. He understood more than you wanted him to. Perhaps he had understood from the first cup of tea.
“I owe you dinner,” he said.
“You owe me rest.”
He looked at you for a long moment.
“You are very easy to speak with.” He said it gently, and with that same small step back he had offered every time you reached too close.
“That sounds impulsive, coming from you.”
“It may be.”
“Then keep it for your husband.”
Qifrey’s eye lowered. He accepted the small hurt because you had earned the right to.
“I will,” he said instead. “And I will remember your kindness.”
You gave a short nod.
Behind him, Olruggio called, “Qifrey. Bed.”
Qifrey sighed with theatrical patience. “You see my situation.”
“You seem well taken care of.”
His smile faded into gratitude. “Yes.”
He returned to Olruggio. The other man scolded him under his breath the whole way back to the bed, one hand firm at his back. Qifrey listened with his head slightly bent, smiling as though each complaint was a love letter.
You went to the staff dining room and cleared the cups.
The cake sat half-eaten on the plate. His fork had left a neat mark through the icing.
You washed everything by hand, slower than needed.
In the morning, you would check his fever, teach Olruggio the bandage fold, and write the discharge notes as usual. Tonight, you scrubbed icing from the fork until the silver squeaked.
Down the corridor, Olruggio’s voice rose again. “You are laughing? You think this is funny?”
Qifrey answered, too soft for you to catch.
Then Olruggio said, lower, breaking around the words, “Do that again, and I swear I will lock your boots in the oven.”
Qifrey laughed then, small and real.
You closed your eyes.
You had wanted to ask him to stay.
Someone else had already crossed blocked roads and broken bridges to bring him home.
A/N: This one hurt me a little because the reader isn’t wrong for catching feelings, and Qifrey isn’t cruel for being gentle. Qifrey and Olruggio kind of remind me of Gojo and Nanami, and this anime has me by the throat.
I’m still figuring out how I like writing Witch Hat Atelier, so if anyone has Qifrey, Olruggio, or atelier-adjacent thoughts, please come yell in my inbox. I want to write more plot-heavy fluff (even with reader inserts), but I’m empty of ideas rn, so send some my way.
Masterlist
Images are from Pinterest/anime/manga, dividers are from @pixopix, and the support banner is from @strangergraphics.
You made me question whether being alive is worth the emotional cost.
All my works are screen-reader friendly because I use one too. :)
I Write
This is mainly an adult-leaning space (ideally 25+), though I post general-audience work too.
A lot of my stories deal with obsession, grief, power imbalance, morally difficult choices, and loving the wrong thing for too long. I tag everything carefully, so please read the warnings and curate your own experience.
Explicit material shows up sometimes, but usually when it fits the character, emotional damage, slow burn, or the spiral.
I prefer writing canon-consistent characters getting shoved into situations they were barely built to survive.
There’s dark canon divergence, alternate universes, psychological fallout, heavy angst, and a lot of crack premises treated with a concerning amount of commitment.
