Nanami Blocked Gojo On LinkedIn

The fluorescent light caught the nick on his chin, the dried blood near his nail, and the dark under his eyes.

“Me?”

You wound gauze around his hand. “Yeah.”

When you reached for the tape, he turned his wrist.

Most people who came in this late filled the silence because they were afraid of it.

Fushiguro never did.

He stood there with barely any small talk and the store equipment humming.

You cut the tape with scissors and smoothed it down.

“That’s your answer?” he asked.

“It is, but you can complain if you want.”

He picked up the tea. “I’ll think about it.”

That was more than he usually gave you.

He paid exactly, no coins left over. At the door he stopped and glanced back once at the paper before he left with the sandwich tucked in his coat pocket.

You finished the shift, counted the till, scrubbed the milk wand, wiped down the hot case, and caught the last train with coffee smell stuck in your sleeves and solder smell still under your nails from the repair shop.

---

The next night, Fushiguro came back for bandages he did not need.

After that, he kept finding reasons—sports drink, instant ramen, replacement batteries, and once even a plastic umbrella on a night without rain.

You stopped asking about the injuries that arrived one day and faded by the next night because he lied without effort, and you were already tired of boys.

He came after ten, usually, when the office workers had gone home and the middle schoolers had stopped buying melon bread, energy jelly, and gossiping outside. He talked more than he seemed to realize during that hour.

You learned things about him—like he hated pickled plums but ate them when nothing else was left, did not trust vending machine coffee, and thought people confused ego with confidence.

He also told you, at length, about breaking a rice cooker after leaving it plugged in, then refusing to let the white-haired man he lived with replace it with some imported one that talked back.

That one made you laugh.

Fushiguro looked at you for a second too long and said, “Don’t laugh.”

“You’re funny sometimes.”

“I’m really not.”

“You are to me.”

His mouth tightened like he was trying not to react as he took the canned coffee you had made for yourself by accident and drank it.

By the end of the week, you knew the barely there sound of his footsteps outside before the bell rang, and you knew better than to name what that did to you.

---

Near midnight, after a slow Thursday and an argument with the supplier over late milk deliveries, you were on a step stool reaching for a carton of filter papers from the top shelf when Fushiguro came in.

He bought nothing at first, just stood by the counter while you climbed down with the box braced against your chest.

“You’re here late again,” he observed.

“I work here.”

“You were here yesterday too.”

“My shift is late.”

He took the box before it slipped and set it on the counter.

You wiped your palms on your apron. “You’ve been talking more to me lately than I’ve seen you talk to others.”

His eyes widened by half a degree. “Have I?”

“You have.”

“That’s bad.”

“It was kind of cute.”

He made a face. “I’m not cute.”

“No.”

“Then I’m leaving.”

“I didn’t call you here.” You shot back.

He didn’t move for a long second and looked at the counter. “You still haven’t finished it?”

“What?”

“That essay.”

You glanced at the loose page hidden under the receipt tray. “Strength?”

He nodded.

You covered the paper. “You tell me.”

His gaze went to your hands—the coffee stain on your thumb, the burn near your wrist from last week’s steam accident, and the shallow cut on your index finger from a day job he didn't know about.

Then he looked at your face. “It’s doing it anyway.”

You let him continue.

His thumb brushed over the taped part of his hand. “You keep doing it tired without gratitude. Keep showing up when it would be easier to let someone else take the hit.”

“That’s your answer?”

His eyes flicked to the essay sheet, then away. “It’s what I’ve seen.”

Suddenly the air in the store felt thin—like being pressed in from every direction. Between the cigarette display and the hot case, two teenagers were standing under fluorescent lights with a sentence neither of them knew how to show.

You broke the silence. “From what I know, you’ve done all that.”

He looked away first. “You give me too much credit.”

“You’re very sweet for someone who acts like this.”

His head turned back. “Sweet?”

“And talkative.”

“Most people think I’m cold.”

“Most people aren’t here at midnight.”

He stared at you as if he could not tell whether you were serious.

You stepped closer before you could talk yourself out of it and pressed your palm to his cheek, slow enough to pretend it was a joke if he moved away.

He didn’t move away.

“There,” you said. “Cute too.”

He caught your wrist—his fingers sat over your pulse for one second too long before he let go. “Don’t do that.”

“You’re blushing.”

His mouth pressed into a hard line. “You make a habit of pushing people?”

“I haven’t done this with anyone else before.”

He stared as you turned away.

The shutter clock clicked over to 12:01. You went to flip the sign, and he followed you to the door.

Outside, the street behind the store sat empty except for the vending machines and one taxi turning the corner too fast. You bent to pull the shutter down. It stuck halfway. Fushiguro caught it one-handed and forced it the rest of the way with a metal grind.

When you locked it, the two of you were standing too close in the narrow strip between the glass and the street.

“You should go home.” He whispered.

“You first.”

“You’ll miss the last train.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve seen you run for it.”

That made your face warm.

“Look at me.”

He was so close that you had to tilt your head back to look at him, already taller than most men and still somehow seeming like he didn’t know what to do with his hands.

You looked down at his taped hand and then back up at his face. “Do you want to kiss me?”

His eyes dropped to your mouth, then bounced back to your eyes. “Y—” He cleared his throat and shifted his weight. “Yeah.”

You rose on your toes first because he was taking too long, and he bent too late, so your mouths bumped once before either of you figured out the angle.

His lips were a little dry from the cold air but warm, movements a little nervous. 

Fushiguro made a small awkward sound against your lips.

You laughed quietly.

“You’re really bad at that,” you whispered.

He looked away, but his fingers caught in the side of your jacket. “Then let me do it properly.”

This time, he leaned in first.

He still missed the angle a little. Your teeth clicked softly, and he pulled back just enough to mutter something under his breath before trying again.

His lips pressed to the corner of your mouth and then found yours fully.

You forgot what to do with your hands.

Then your fingers slid to the back of his neck, and he exhaled against your lips, shaky and warm. His mouth opened carefully. When your tongue touched his, he froze, then made a low sound and chased it like he’d decided embarrassment could be tolerated.

It was messy. Both of you learning where to put the hunger.

Your mind stopped—

Just the wet press of his mouth, the quick scrape of his breath, your fingers tightening at his neck, and the dizzy little drop in your stomach every time he came back for more.

When he pulled away, he looked wrecked by it—cheeks flushed, lips damp, eyes too bright.

And then, annoyingly, a little smug, having done it right.

You leaned in again, but he caught the strap of your bag before you could.

“You’ll miss your train.”

You froze, then looked at your wristwatch.

“Oh no, no, no, no.”

Fushiguro reached down, fixed the sliding-down bag strap, and let his knuckles brush your skin before he stepped back.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll walk you to the platform.”

---

The next afternoon, you were carrying a tray of replacement joystick modules from the station to the repair shop, your day job, when you saw him at the end of the Jujutsu Tech road.

He was with three first-years and one second-year, all in training uniforms half-zipped. A pink-haired boy was talking with his hands. Kugisaki was threatening to hit him with her shopping bag. Another girl, whom you knew as Zenin, walked a few steps ahead of the group with her bottle of water tucked under one arm.

Fushiguro saw you.

You lifted your chin and smiled. “Looking good, Fushiguro.”

His ears went red before his face did.

The others turned as one.

You kept walking because that was the point of doing it while moving. Hit and run. Save yourself from standing there long enough to look foolish.

Behind you, the pink-haired boy laughed. Kugisaki asked, “Who was that?”

Fushiguro had a tea can half-raised to his mouth.

“Some annoying girl from the store.”

The crossing light changed.

You walked.

The tray dug into your palms all the way back to the repair shop. One of the joystick modules slid loose in its slot every few steps. You kept your fingers tight around the handles until the back room door shut behind you and the smell of solder, dust, and overheated plastic swallowed you whole.

Your phone buzzed as soon as you put the tray down.

PHARMACY BALANCE REMINDER

Another one of your grandmother's treatment bills.

You dismissed it with your thumb, then stared at the cracked corner of your screen until the letters blurred.

Fushiguro had never asked why you worked two jobs, why your old school charm was still hanging from your phone when you hadn’t been in uniform for months, or why you folded receipts so fast when he came too close to the register.

You knew he had money around him. Parents' or benefactors' money that lets a boy move through life with expensive medicine and ugly bills treated as background noise.

You had never wanted any of it from him. Had never even hinted.

All you had done was tape his hand every time he’d let you, save him sandwiches, answer his stupid late-night questions, and let yourself believe for those nights that being the person he came back to meant something.

Some annoying girl from the store.

You pushed the tray too hard—a module jumped out and skittered under the workbench, and that was what finally made the tears come stupidly and silently, with both hands braced on the table because you still had a shift after this and crying properly would take too much time.

A/N: Any theories or reactions?

Ch 2 | Epilogue

Your eyes darted away, guiltily.

You tried—tried so hard—to play it cool, but his stupidly gorgeous face and that self-satisfied grin made it impossible.

He smirked, stretching his long, stupidly muscular arms behind his head, and good god, it was unfair how obnoxiously attractive he was.

His arms were amazing, yes, but no way were you letting his ego get any bigger.

Because you weren’t some blushing maiden.

No, you were a menace too.

"I think your undercut is more impressive," you hummed, tilting your head, eyes locked onto his hair.

And just like that, you had his full attention.

His white lashes flickered, his smirk faltering just a little as he processed your words.

"Oh?" he said, voice lower, intrigued. "So it’s my undercut that’s got you all hot and bothered?"

You hummed in confirmation, arms crossing as you drank in the sight of him, all smug and lounging like he owned the very air you breathed.

"I wanna touch it," you admitted, point-blank, unashamed.

Satoru stilled for half a second, and you swore you saw his pupils dilate.

Then, slowly, deliberately, he ran a hand through his undercut, dragging his fingers along the buzzed side before raking them through his longer, impossibly soft, white strands.

Smug. As. Hell.

"Is that so?" he murmured, closing into your space, voice dropping to a sinful, sultry whisper. "You wanna touch it, baby?"

Your fingers twitched, but you held back.

He leaned in, bending so his head was right in front of you, the scent of his cologne—a mix of expensive bergamot and something inherently Satoru—filling your senses.

"Go ahead," he coaxed, voice like pure temptation, the corner of his lips lifting. "I won’t stop you."

Carefully, so lightly, like a Victorian man witnessing an ankle for the first time, you reached out—

And giggled.

Like, full-on giggled, eyes sparkling, cheeks warm—because, holy shit.

His undercut was soft but sharp, the contrast between the buzzed sides and his longer, silken white strands too damn good.

Satoru stilled, his breath hitching at the sensation.

"Careful there, baby," he chuckled, his voice unusually low, shivering slightly under your touch. "You're acting like you’ve never touched a man’s hair before."

Your fingers traced small circles, feeling the contrast between the soft fuzz and the longer strands, utterly entranced.

"I haven’t touched yours," you murmured, all focus on him, on the way he reacted under your touch, still rubbing your fingers along the short fuzz, delighted.

He exhaled sharply, a pleased sound rumbling in his chest.

"That’s true," he hummed, tilting his head just a little, giving you more access. "But clearly, you’ve been thinking about it."

Your fingers trailed up, sinking into his silken white hair, reveling in the way he shuddered under your touch.

And then—because you had no self-control—you tugged. Gently, but enough.

Satoru groaned, head tipping forward, his hands snapping to your waist like instinct.

"Can’t blame you," he rasped, a little breathless, his forehead nearly touching yours now. "My undercut is pretty damn fine, if I do say so myself."

"It is," you agreed, honest, still entranced. Grinning as you continued playing with his hair, enjoying the way his eyes fluttered shut for just a second.

His smirk widened, endearing and cocky, but his cerulean eyes darkened slightly, locked onto you.

"You like it that much, huh?" His voice was a little rougher now, his hands skimming your waist, pulling you closer. "Can’t keep your eyes... or your hands... off me?"

You let out a soft hum, gazing deep into his eyes, challenging. "Maybe I can’t."

His lips parted, his expression shifting from smug to wrecked in under a second.

"Oh, I can see that, baby," he murmured, against your lips. "I don’t mind being the center of your attention."

And then, because you were both disasters, without warning, you closed the distance and kissed him, fingers tugging at his undercut, feeling the way he shuddered against you.

Satoru sucked in a sharp breath, but then he melted, crashing into you with all the force of a starving man.

His arms tightened around you, moving you to his lap effortlessly, pressing you against him like you were made to fit there, pulling you flush against his chest, and oh, holy hell—

His hands. His grip. The way he held you like he couldn’t bear the thought of letting go.

When you tugged at his hair again, his reaction was instant—a deep, unfiltered groan, his nails digging into your hips as he kissed you harder, hungrier, sweeter all at once.

By the time you broke apart, gasping, his forehead pressed against yours, his lips still brushing against you, Satoru was grinning like a fool.

His cerulean eyes, impossibly bright, impossibly soft, shone with pure, undiluted adoration.

"Baby," he murmured, lazy and smitten, kissing you again, softer this time, just because he could.

You hummed against his lips.

"You can touch my hair anytime, baby."

A/N: So, what’s the verdict? Is Gojo’s undercut the real MVP here, or is it his ability to make us all question our lives?

Unfair it is that this man isn’t real.

Next Chapter - How to flirt with Nanami Kento's Undercut (Tumblr/Ao3)

Masterlist

“Stop fidgeting, woman,” he muttered, eyes shut, cheek pressed against your thigh, one heavy arm hooked around your calf as if you might escape with the good soup pot and his soul.

On the low table, the okayu cooled in a bowl. It was simple in the way sick food should be: rice cooked soft enough to forgive the body.

You’d cooked it the way Wasuke showed you three weeks after the wedding, stiff beside the stove as though sharing his dead wife’s recipe with the foreign girl his eldest son dragged across an ocean counted as state treason. Rice soft, egg ribbons thin, ginger grated fine, scallions at the end, and sesame oil after the heat died. After that, Wasuke had looked at the pot, grunted, and left.

Sukuna had eaten two bowls that night and acted angry about the scallions.

Now he opened one eye when the steam reached him.

“That smells like hers.”

You kept your fingers in his hair, working through the damp midnight bordeaux spikes with the diligence of a woman who had learned that Ryomen Sukuna accepted care best when he could pretend it was against his will. “The version you made for me was saltier.”

“I was six when I learned it.”

That was how his mother always appeared in him now, practical and plain.

Sukuna had been six when he first started cooking for his brothers: rice for Jin, who was four and already chaotic, while three-year-old Choso sat in a high chair in a house still full of loss. Wasuke used to work until the last train and came home to three boys asleep near a lukewarm pot. Eso and Kechizu came later, two more boys folded into the family because Wasuke had never learned how to refuse a child at the door, even when he had already failed the ones inside it. Sukuna grew tall out of obligation, learned prices before jokes, learned where the clean towels were, learned which brother cried from hunger, which cried from jealousy, which one got carsick, and which one lied about homework with crumbs on his face.

You had heard pieces from Jin, more from Kaori, and almost all of it from Choso after plum wine at New Year’s. From Sukuna, you got a broken button sewn onto Jin’s kindergarten shirt, a burn mark from miso soup, Choso asleep under the table during entrance exams, and Wasuke pushing university forms across the table until Sukuna left for college abroad with Choso, two suitcases, and a face that made strangers change paths.

You saw that face during orientation, across a lecture hall filled with people pretending they understood finance. He looked bored, beautiful, and furious at the slow procession of intro slides.

The first time you’d spoken near Sukuna, you were at the court, half annoyed, half overheated, watching a guy brag after missing every shot.

“Very inspiring,” you said to your friend. “A man can fail in public and still develop varsity lore.”

Toji had coughed to hide a laugh.

Sukuna’s head slowly turned in your direction, his attention locking onto you while you walked away without noticing.

The next day, he joined the baseball team, because sports were one of the few things Wasuke had taught him properly, and dragged Choso and Toji with him under the excuse of networking, which sounded fake even before Toji looked at the sign-up sheet and said, “I came here to get a degree, asshole.”

Sukuna signed him up without asking.

Choso lasted one practice before the coach quietly moved him into scorekeeping because he treated every missed catch like a personal family disgrace. Toji, irritatingly, had good form. Sukuna, meanwhile, had worse form at first, but he made up for it through pure spite. He practiced for more than six months with his knuckles taped, his shirt stuck to his back with sweat, and his jaw clenched whenever anyone suggested he take a break.

Years later, Choso once got wine-drunk at dinner and confessed the truth over his third glass. “He thought you had a thing for athletes.”

Sukuna had promptly shoved garlic bread in his mouth.

That season, Sukuna won the final game and walked off with the MVP trophy.

He stood under the field lights afterward, broad-shouldered and mean-looking, still breathing hard while his teammates yelled around him. You remembered pretending to look at your phone because staring at a man like that in public felt humiliating, especially when his eyes would catch you.

That night, at a frat party with cheap beer in red cups and glitter stuck to every available surface, he found you by the kitchen counter.

You were reaching for a drink when his hand appeared beside yours, palm braced on the counter, taped knuckles close enough for you to see the dried blood.

“You said that thing about folklore potential.”

You blinked up at him. “Pardon?”

Toji snorted from behind him.

Sukuna looked over with the slow, dangerous focus of a man deciding whether killing his only friend was worth it.

Toji grinned and left with his beer.

Sukuna turned back to you.

“You said it during last semester’s festival,” he said, trying to help you recall. "Courtside. Some guy missed every shot, and you called him living proof that men could fail in public and still develop folklore.”

Your fingers tightened around your cup.

He remembered the whole sentence.

The party kept moving around you, but Sukuna stood close enough for you to catch the heat coming off him, clean sweat under his cologne, whiskey on his breath, dried blood dark near the edge of his tape. His eyes dropped to your mouth once, slow, then came back up like he expected you to accuse him of it.

“You were listening?” you asked, voice softer.

His mouth moved, almost a smirk. “You said it like a challenge.”

“And you answer every challenge by joining a whole team?”

“I answer the interesting ones.”

That was annoying. So, so annoying.

He looked down at his cup, thumb rubbing over the rim, ears turning a deep red that made the whole thing worse.

“You practiced six months because I made one comment near a court?”

“I won.”

“You bled.”

“Still won.”

“You bled for my approval?”

His eyes came back to yours. “Did it work?”

Your drink touched your mouth, but you forgot to sip.

He saw that. The corner of his mouth lifted before he could stop it, and for one second he looked younger than his reputation, boyish in the most dangerous way, pleased and embarrassed and hungry all at once.

“Depends how often you plan on embarrassing yourself.”

“For you?” His gaze dropped again, softer this time, and his voice lost enough edge to make your stomach pull tight. “I could make time.”

That was the first time you saw him smile with his eyes.

It changed his face in a way you hated instantly. He looked younger under the bruising neon lights and the cheap kitchen bulbs, less carved out of spite, and almost pleased with himself in a boyish, reckless way that made your stomach dip. The same man who had cursed at teammates all season now stood in front of you with bloody tape around his knuckles and his ears turning deeper merlot red because you had noticed him.

Toji argued with someone in the hallway, while Choso called his name from another room.

Sukuna silenced it without looking.

You watched him choose badly in real time.

“It’s dangerous, you know.”

“What?”

“Wanting attention this badly.”

His thumb slowed against the cup. He leaned closer, just enough that his breath reached your lips before his hand reached the counter beside your hip.

“Only yours.”

The room seemed to thin around that. The shouting, the music, the cheap beer, the sticky counter under your fingers, all of it slid back while he looked at you like he had spent his whole life being useful and had finally found something he wanted for no reason except wanting it.

Then his voice dropped.

“Come outside.”

“You ordering me around now?”

His mouth twitched, but the look in his eyes stayed hopeful in a way he had no practice hiding yet.

“Come outside,” he said again, quieter. "Before I remembered I have a dorm to get back to.”

So you did.

The fountain sat in the middle of the courtyard, loud under the campus lights, turning the water silver where it broke over the stone. People kept passing behind you in loose groups, jackets half on, everyone too wrapped up in their own world to care about the tall man following you with a gaze that stayed fixed on your back.

Even in heels, you had to tip your chin up when he stepped close.

That pleased him for some reason.

You saw it in the slow drop of his lashes, in the way his mouth curved before he caught himself, and in the faint flush sitting high on his cheekbones from whiskey, game, and the reckless thing that had finally broken loose in him tonight.

His hand found your waist first, careful through the thin fabric of your top and large enough to make the touch feel possessive even while his thumb moved with almost shy restraint.

The first brush of his mouth was warm and rough with whiskey, softer than his face had promised.

You tasted the bite of it on his tongue when he kissed you again, and he tasted the vodka on yours with a low breath that slipped into your mouth and made your fingers tighten in his shirt.

The fountain sprayed mist against your bare ankles. Sukuna angled his body closer, broad shoulders blocking the light as if the entire campus could go around him.

He kissed like a man trying to learn greed in real time.

Slow at first, almost measured, his lips and tongue moving over yours with the same stubborn concentration he brought to every impossible thing he decided to conquer.

Then your hand slid up his chest, over the cotton, and your nails caught lightly at the base of his neck.

His control slipped there, fingers flexed at your waist, and his breath left him harder. The next kiss turned deeper, warmer, and less polished, carrying the sharp sweetness of vodka and the smoke of whiskey until the party, the courtyard, the passing students, and the fountain all blurred into background noise.

You smiled against his mouth because he was so tall and broad and still bending to you, because his hand had started firm and ended careful, and because the dangerous boy with blood on his taped knuckles kissed you as if he had spent months working up the nerve and had finally found a way to be selfish.

Sukuna felt the smile and chased it.

His mouth followed yours when you leaned back for air, drunk and beautiful and almost boyish with wanting, the fountain light shifting over his face while his fingers pressed into your waist, as if he had to check that you were real before he let himself kiss you again.

“You do this often?” you asked.

“Win games?”

“Corner women beside fountains.”

His thumb brushed your lower lip. “You came outside first.”

“You followed.”

“You looked back.”

The answer caught in your throat because you had.

He leaned in slowly enough for you to move, and you hated him for that too, for giving you room while looking like a man who hated asking the universe for anything. His mouth brushed yours again, testing, warm with booze and victory, then again with less patience when your fingers curled into the back of his hair.

You remembered his arm tightening at your waist.

You remembered laughing against his mouth because his knee hit the stone rim when you tugged him closer.

But by morning, he’d forgotten.

You avoided him for weeks so aggressively that people started avoiding you too.

By finals week, the vending machine ate your coins at two in the morning, and you wrapped your hand in a scarf so the punch would leave less evidence.

A large hand caught your wrist.

“University cameras.”

You whipped around, ready to commit another felony.

Sukuna looked at the scarf around your fist, then at your face. “Pathetic technique.”

“Fuck you!”

“I’ll take the fine.” He dragged you behind him and hit the machine’s side with the heel of his palm.

The canned coffee dropped with a clunk.

You tried to pay him through Venmo.

He ignored the phone. “Coffee. Five.”

“I have exams.”

“So do I.”

“That sounds like a you problem.”

His eyes narrowed. “You hate me.”

The cold coffee sweated against your palm. “You kissed me and ignored me the next day.”

His face changed. “I kissed you.”

“Congratulations, memory champion.”

He stared at you for a long time.

“Do-over,” he said, finally letting go of your wrist.

“What—”

“Coffee. Five. I’ll be sober. Then your parents.”

Your brain went smooth. “My parents?”

“I’m serious about you. Let me prove it.”

You agreed because you thought he wouldn’t show up.

But he showed up.

On Friday, he showed up in a nice shirt, hair still slightly wild, carrying sweets your father liked and tea your mother pretended she understood. Your parents were wary until he spoke about graduate plans, housing, money, distance, flights, paperwork, and what kind of life he intended to build. He made his love sound like post-college logistics.

When your mother asked whether this was a love marriage and whether the two of you had been seeing each other for a long time, Sukuna glanced at you once.

“It can be. I’ll arrange it.”

Your father had laughed first, loud and surprised.

Your mother had stared at him over her teacup. “You are very arrogant.”

Sukuna sat across from both of your parents with his spine straight. “Useful trait for marriage.”

That earned him another cup of tea.

Your parents liked him more than they wanted to. Your father liked that he spoke plainly about rent, savings, visas, health insurance, and work. Your mother liked that he watched your plate, noticed when your tea cooled, and moved the sugar nearer without turning it into a performance for his own ego. Still, liking him and handing you over to him were two separate matters.

Your father gave him two years.

“Build something stable. Let her finish her postgraduate work. Then, depending on your situation, we will discuss marriage properly”

Your mother had been gentler, speaking of long work hours, lonely wives, and marriages that became houses shared by two tired strangers and asking if that was the silence women were expected to survive just because everyone called it adjustment.

Sukuna listened without interrupting.

When she finished, he looked at you for half a second, then back at them. “Two years.”

During those two years, you pursued your postgraduate degree, and Sukuna built his life as though he had taken your father’s condition personally. He worked, studied, pitched, saved, fought suppliers, buried Choso in spreadsheets, and sent your father practical updates other men would have found humiliating—lease terms, funding status, tax paperwork, projected income, emergency savings, and health coverage. He broke the future down into numbers because that was the only language cautious parents trusted.

Your parents softened by inches.

And during those two years, Wasuke did the opposite.

He ignored calls, rejected video chats, called the idea foolish, and referred to you as “that girl from far away” with the tone of a man describing a storm coming toward his roof.

In his head, Sukuna had already sacrificed enough of his childhood raising Jin and Choso in the gaps Wasuke left behind and learned how to become useful before he became tall.

So to Wasuke, his eldest son deserved a Japanese wife who understood the house, the language, the duties, the old rules, the rituals, and the invisible work.

A woman who would take care of Sukuna properly, because Wasuke had failed to do it when it mattered.

That was the only part he’d admit to himself.

The uglier part came out through mutters about culture, distance, manners, food, family obligations, and whether a foreign daughter-in-law could truly fit into their house.

Kaori tried to reason with him for months.

Then she gave up and became the exact daughter-in-law from Wasuke’s most traditional daydreams, except with police training, a baby on her hip, and the patience of a very focused woman.

If Japanese wives were so naturally suited to saving households, then Kaori would show him what that looked like at full volume.

She corrected him at dinner.

She corrected him in the entryway.

She corrected him during video calls with Eso and Kechizu, who had just moved abroad for university and kept joining family calls at ungodly hours with instant noodles and the kind of confidence only boys living alone for the first time possessed.

Wasuke would start one of his speeches about family values, and Eso would say from a dorm room several time zones away, “Dad, I ate cereal from a rice cooker yesterday. No foreign woman wants me.”

Kechizu, wrapped in a blanket with his hair sticking up, would add, “Aniki’s foreign wife sounds advanced. Can she teach me laundry?”

Kaori would smile with all her teeth. “Look at your useful Japanese sons.”

She corrected him while holding a sleeping Yuji against her shoulder with one hand and pointing a rice paddle at him with the other.

She told him Japanese women were human beings, rather than household appliances gifted by the municipal office after marriage registration.

She told him she had married Jin, which meant the family already had one Japanese wife with opinions, a badge, and access to handcuffs. Then she added that they should all stay humble until Choso brought someone home, since, with their luck, he might choose a Japanese husband and make Wasuke learn new vocabulary at his age.

Jin wisely stayed silent because Kaori looked just about ready to arrest the entire family tree.

Choso worked himself raw beside Sukuna until the startup received its first funding, partly because he believed in the business and partly because he understood that Wasuke respected proof more than pleading. Eso and Kechizu sent useless encouragement from abroad, mostly memes, pictures of terrible dorm food, and one voice note of Kechizu saying, “Brother, become rich fast. Dad will get calmer when money appears.”

Sukuna played it once accidentally during a conference call and regretted letting them have phones.

Only after the funding came through did Wasuke answer properly, voice rough through the speaker.

“Bring her home.”

That did less than Sukuna thought.

After the wedding, the house accepted you on paper before it accepted you in practice.

Sukuna left before sunrise, came back with tired eyes, and still put himself between you and every sharp thing his father almost said.

Wasuke lasted ten minutes in a room with you before inventing errands. He watched your hands in the kitchen, your shoes near the genkan, your Japanese at dinner, the way you folded towels, and the way you soothed Yuji when he cried.

Every small difference became evidence until Kaori started making his life hell on purpose.

Yuji had already been little during the long marriage negotiations, and after you moved to Japan, taking care of him became the first thing that made the house feel less hostile.

You learned street signs, trash days, family recipes, Kaori’s coffee, Choso’s favorite saucepan, and the exact way to hold Yuji against your hip when he got sick. You learned which conversations stopped when you entered and learned how long you could sit downstairs before Wasuke’s silence made the room feel smaller.

Sukuna noticed everything.

The fight finally came after dinner one night when Wasuke said something mild enough for guests and cruel enough for family.

Sukuna set his bowl down.

The whole table went still.

“You had me raise your children,” he said, voice flat. “Jin, Choso, Eso, Kechizu. I cooked for them. Bathed them. Packed their bags. Took Choso abroad because you could barely look at the house after she died. I did everything useful. I wanted one selfish thing, and you still found a way to make her pay for it.”

Wasuke’s face went stone cold.

“I can’t do this anymore. I’ll take her and leave.”

Your hand reached for his arm, but he caught your fingers before you could soften the blow for him.

The house had heard Sukuna angry before. Everyone had heard Sukuna angry.

This was different. He was quiet, planned, and already half done in his head.

Kaori folded her arms. “You see this? I’ve been warning you.”

Jin whispered, “Kaori.”

She kicked him under the table.

Wasuke stared at Sukuna, then at you, then at the demon named Kaori, then at Yuji asleep with his cheek mashed against Choso’s shoulder, and something in him finally seemed to understand the shape of what he was about to lose if he kept mistaking stubbornness for authority, or at least who he’d get stuck with.

He calmed down after that.

Very slowly and very poorly, with all the grace of an old man swallowing a nail and the pride of a man who would rather die than call it an apology.

Sukuna’s work hours eased, and the house adjusted by inches.

Wasuke began buying vegetables you liked. Choso started buying you more of the good tea. Kaori stopped hovering near you during every family meal, though she still watched Wasuke like a prison guard. Yuji called you ‘Auntie,’ then forgot your name entirely for one week and called you ‘my one’ because Sukuna had said it once while half-asleep on the couch. Sukuna mildly scolded him for the bad grammar.

And Wasuke, who still struggled to stay in a room with shame, began staying fifteen minutes.

Then twenty.

Then long enough to let you know that Sukuna’s mother grated the ginger finer.

The marriage had been arranged in the stupidest way, by the only man in it who had already fallen before you knew his name.

A cough dragged you back.

Sukuna turned his face deeper into your lap, heat rolling off his skin. “Stop sniffling.”

You blinked hard and wiped under your eyes. “You’re awake?”

His eyes were still closed beneath the fever patch. “Barely.”

You reached for the bowl and stirred the porridge. “Sit up.”

He cracked one eye open. “You enjoy ordering me around too much.”

“I learned from a tyrant.” You slid a hand under the back of his head and helped him up.

He complained through the whole movement and then opened his mouth when you lifted the spoon.

After the first bite, his gaze dropped.

You knew better than to look victorious.

“Too much ginger.”

“You finished two full bowls at breakfast.”

“I was being charitable.”

“You stole Jin’s lunch too.”

“Jin breathes too much. He can eat air.”

You fed him again, and this time his hand closed around your wrist, holding the spoon steady after he swallowed.

For a second, he looked past you into some small kitchen years ago, where a child stood on a stool and stirred dinner for boys who had already lost more than they understood.

Then his thumb moved once over your pulse.

“She would have liked you,” he said, rough, trying to sound irritated by the admission.

Your throat tightened.

From downstairs, Yuji shrieked, “Auntie! Uncle Ryo’s face looks like spicy mentaiko!”

Kaori yelled, “Yuji, indoor voice.”

“It is indoor!” Yuji shouted back, deeply offended. “Yuji is inside!”

Wasuke’s voice followed, dry and pleased, from the dining room. “Good. Fever might season him into a decent person.”

Sukuna shut his eyes. “Pack my bags.”

“You say that every day.”

“I mean it every day.”

You carefully changed the fever patch on his forehead. “Did you eat Wasuke’s pickled daikon? He was looking for it earlier.”

“No..”

“He made extra for you this morning.”

Sukuna rubbed his forehead. “It was poisonous.”

“Then why did I catch you licking the container clean on the kitchen camera?”

“I was checking for poison.”

Downstairs, Yuji yelled again, “Auntie! Grandpa said Uncle looks like a boiled crab!”

Kaori’s voice arrived like judgment. “Father.”

Wasuke muttered something about weak modern men and ginger compresses.

Sukuna opened his eyes, fever-bright and deeply offended by affection. You lifted another spoonful before he could argue himself into a worse temperature.

He ate it.

Then he settled back into your lap, dragging your hand onto his hair as if every soft thing in this house belonged to him by conquest.

“Five more minutes,” he muttered.

“You have been here an hour.”

“Your lap is improving.”

Downstairs, Yuji started chanting for ice cream. Jin attempted a police voice and lost control of the room in seconds. Choso said something that made Kaori laugh. Wasuke complained over everyone, louder than the kettle.

Sukuna exhaled against your knee, heavy and warm.

You kept combing your fingers through his hair until his grip around your calf loosened again.

On the table, the okayu waited, still warm enough for a second bowl.

A/N: Let me know your thoughts?

Chopsticks/No Tattoos | Masterlist

Tiny Okayu/Sick-Day Rice Porridge Recipe

It is lovely when you feel sick, tired, sad, agitated, or married to a man who pretends soup is an attack.

Take 1 cup cooked rice and simmer it with 2–3 cups water or broth until the rice breaks down and turns soft, creamy, and porridge-like.

Add salt to taste.

If you want it richer, stir in a beaten egg near the end.

If you want it warmer, add grated ginger.

If you want comfort, add sesame oil, scallions, pepper, chicken, tofu, mushrooms, vegetables, chili oil, butter, ghee, soy sauce, or whatever your household would put in sick-day food.

Basically: rice + liquid + patience.

Make it plain, make it spicy, make it like your own culture’s comfort food.

The point is that someone cared enough to stand over a pot for you.

For my Indian baddies, eat khichdi.

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

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

The article is still open below the search bar.

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

Your hand moves to scroll.

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

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

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

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

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

He looks at your face. “What happened?”

You shake your head.

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

“No.”

“Cramping?”

“No, Megumi.”

“Dizzy?”

“No.”

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

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

He stares at you.

You sniff.

His mouth flattens. “That’s creepy.”

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

He stares at you confused.

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

The baby shifts, a slow roll under your ribs.

Megumi feels it.

Neither of you speaks.

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

Megumi lowers his forehead against your belly.

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

The baby kicks him.

You laugh again.

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

“She gets that from her father.”

“I’m a respected attorney.”

“You fell asleep researching.”

His face changes. It’s not noticeable.

But you know him.

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

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

“Water,” he says.

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

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

He comes out of the bedroom holding a scarf.

“No, I look editorial.”

“You look cold.”

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

“You’ll be warm.”

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

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

Your chest does that dangerous thing again.

He glances up.

Then winks.

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

“No one will believe you.”

You smack his shoulder with your glove.

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

Later, the train is warm.

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

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

The baby kicks after the train starts moving.

Megumi looks down.

“She likes it,” you say.

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

You lean your head against his arm.

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

You take one sip.

Perfect.

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

“Megumi.”

“You said your back hurt.”

“A moose is judging us.”

“The moose can mind his business.”

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

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

Then you take one and hold another toward him.

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

You chew faster than he does.

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

Another for you.

Another shoved toward his mouth.

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

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

You finish yours first again.

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

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

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

Then you stare at him again.

“What?” he says finally.

“You’ll survive in captivity.”

He frowns. “What does that mean?”

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

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

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

“What?” he asks, quieter this time.

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

His hand tightens on the wheel.

For a second, he says nothing.

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

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

Megumi looks down at your joined hands.

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

Your mouth trembles before you can stop it.

His thumb moves once over your knuckles.

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

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

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

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

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

“Hey,” he whispers. “Don’t do that.”

“It’s the pregnancy."

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

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

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

His expression shifts into something small and full of hope.

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

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

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

Megumi stares at you.

You stare back with grave composure.

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

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

“That’s the worst part.”

You press your lips together.

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

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

You look back at him.

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

Your hand finds his over the curve of your coat.

The baby shifts under both of your palms.

Megumi breathes out slowly, as if she answered him.

“You got it right,” you say.

He nods, eyes still too soft.

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

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

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

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

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

“Stay there,” he says when he parks.

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

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

Masterlist

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

The fluorescent light caught the nick on his chin, the dried blood near his nail, and the dark under his eyes.

“Me?”

You wound gauze around his hand. “Yeah.”

When you reached for the tape, he turned his wrist.

Most people who came in this late filled the silence because they were afraid of it.

Fushiguro never did.

He stood there with barely any small talk and the store equipment humming.

You cut the tape with scissors and smoothed it down.

“That’s your answer?” he asked.

“It is, but you can complain if you want.”

He picked up the tea. “I’ll think about it.”

That was more than he usually gave you.

He paid exactly, no coins left over. At the door he stopped and glanced back once at the paper before he left with the sandwich tucked in his coat pocket.

You finished the shift, counted the till, scrubbed the milk wand, wiped down the hot case, and caught the last train with coffee smell stuck in your sleeves and solder smell still under your nails from the repair shop.

---

The next night, Fushiguro came back for bandages he did not need.

After that, he kept finding reasons—sports drink, instant ramen, replacement batteries, and once even a plastic umbrella on a night without rain.

You stopped asking about the injuries that arrived one day and faded by the next night because he lied without effort, and you were already tired of boys.

He came after ten, usually, when the office workers had gone home and the middle schoolers had stopped buying melon bread, energy jelly, and gossiping outside. He talked more than he seemed to realize during that hour.

You learned things about him—like he hated pickled plums but ate them when nothing else was left, did not trust vending machine coffee, and thought people confused ego with confidence.

He also told you, at length, about breaking a rice cooker after leaving it plugged in, then refusing to let the white-haired man he lived with replace it with some imported one that talked back.

That one made you laugh.

Fushiguro looked at you for a second too long and said, “Don’t laugh.”

“You’re funny sometimes.”

“I’m really not.”

“You are to me.”

His mouth tightened like he was trying not to react as he took the canned coffee you had made for yourself by accident and drank it.

By the end of the week, you knew the barely there sound of his footsteps outside before the bell rang, and you knew better than to name what that did to you.

---

Near midnight, after a slow Thursday and an argument with the supplier over late milk deliveries, you were on a step stool reaching for a carton of filter papers from the top shelf when Fushiguro came in.

He bought nothing at first, just stood by the counter while you climbed down with the box braced against your chest.

“You’re here late again,” he observed.

“I work here.”

“You were here yesterday too.”

“My shift is late.”

He took the box before it slipped and set it on the counter.

You wiped your palms on your apron. “You’ve been talking more to me lately than I’ve seen you talk to others.”

His eyes widened by half a degree. “Have I?”

“You have.”

“That’s bad.”

“It was kind of cute.”

He made a face. “I’m not cute.”

“No.”

“Then I’m leaving.”

“I didn’t call you here.” You shot back.

He didn’t move for a long second and looked at the counter. “You still haven’t finished it?”

“What?”

“That essay.”

You glanced at the loose page hidden under the receipt tray. “Strength?”

He nodded.

You covered the paper. “You tell me.”

His gaze went to your hands—the coffee stain on your thumb, the burn near your wrist from last week’s steam accident, and the shallow cut on your index finger from a day job he didn't know about.

Then he looked at your face. “It’s doing it anyway.”

You let him continue.

His thumb brushed over the taped part of his hand. “You keep doing it tired without gratitude. Keep showing up when it would be easier to let someone else take the hit.”

“That’s your answer?”

His eyes flicked to the essay sheet, then away. “It’s what I’ve seen.”

Suddenly the air in the store felt thin—like being pressed in from every direction. Between the cigarette display and the hot case, two teenagers were standing under fluorescent lights with a sentence neither of them knew how to show.

You broke the silence. “From what I know, you’ve done all that.”

He looked away first. “You give me too much credit.”

“You’re very sweet for someone who acts like this.”

His head turned back. “Sweet?”

“And talkative.”

“Most people think I’m cold.”

“Most people aren’t here at midnight.”

He stared at you as if he could not tell whether you were serious.

You stepped closer before you could talk yourself out of it and pressed your palm to his cheek, slow enough to pretend it was a joke if he moved away.

He didn’t move away.

“There,” you said. “Cute too.”

He caught your wrist—his fingers sat over your pulse for one second too long before he let go. “Don’t do that.”

“You’re blushing.”

His mouth pressed into a hard line. “You make a habit of pushing people?”

“I haven’t done this with anyone else before.”

He stared as you turned away.

The shutter clock clicked over to 12:01. You went to flip the sign, and he followed you to the door.

Outside, the street behind the store sat empty except for the vending machines and one taxi turning the corner too fast. You bent to pull the shutter down. It stuck halfway. Fushiguro caught it one-handed and forced it the rest of the way with a metal grind.

When you locked it, the two of you were standing too close in the narrow strip between the glass and the street.

“You should go home.” He whispered.

“You first.”

“You’ll miss the last train.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve seen you run for it.”

That made your face warm.

“Look at me.”

He was so close that you had to tilt your head back to look at him, already taller than most men and still somehow seeming like he didn’t know what to do with his hands.

You looked down at his taped hand and then back up at his face. “Do you want to kiss me?”

His eyes dropped to your mouth, then bounced back to your eyes. “Y—” He cleared his throat and shifted his weight. “Yeah.”

You rose on your toes first because he was taking too long, and he bent too late, so your mouths bumped once before either of you figured out the angle.

His lips were a little dry from the cold air but warm, movements a little nervous. 

Fushiguro made a small awkward sound against your lips.

You laughed quietly.

“You’re really bad at that,” you whispered.

He looked away, but his fingers caught in the side of your jacket. “Then let me do it properly.”

This time, he leaned in first.

He still missed the angle a little. Your teeth clicked softly, and he pulled back just enough to mutter something under his breath before trying again.

His lips pressed to the corner of your mouth and then found yours fully.

You forgot what to do with your hands.

Then your fingers slid to the back of his neck, and he exhaled against your lips, shaky and warm. His mouth opened carefully. When your tongue touched his, he froze, then made a low sound and chased it like he’d decided embarrassment could be tolerated.

It was messy. Both of you learning where to put the hunger.

Your mind stopped—

Just the wet press of his mouth, the quick scrape of his breath, your fingers tightening at his neck, and the dizzy little drop in your stomach every time he came back for more.

When he pulled away, he looked wrecked by it—cheeks flushed, lips damp, eyes too bright.

And then, annoyingly, a little smug, having done it right.

You leaned in again, but he caught the strap of your bag before you could.

“You’ll miss your train.”

You froze, then looked at your wristwatch.

“Oh no, no, no, no.”

Fushiguro reached down, fixed the sliding-down bag strap, and let his knuckles brush your skin before he stepped back.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll walk you to the platform.”

---

The next afternoon, you were carrying a tray of replacement joystick modules from the station to the repair shop, your day job, when you saw him at the end of the Jujutsu Tech road.

He was with three first-years and one second-year, all in training uniforms half-zipped. A pink-haired boy was talking with his hands. Kugisaki was threatening to hit him with her shopping bag. Another girl, whom you knew as Zenin, walked a few steps ahead of the group with her bottle of water tucked under one arm.

Fushiguro saw you.

You lifted your chin and smiled. “Looking good, Fushiguro.”

His ears went red before his face did.

The others turned as one.

You kept walking because that was the point of doing it while moving. Hit and run. Save yourself from standing there long enough to look foolish.

Behind you, the pink-haired boy laughed. Kugisaki asked, “Who was that?”

Fushiguro had a tea can half-raised to his mouth.

“Some annoying girl from the store.”

The crossing light changed.

You walked.

The tray dug into your palms all the way back to the repair shop. One of the joystick modules slid loose in its slot every few steps. You kept your fingers tight around the handles until the back room door shut behind you and the smell of solder, dust, and overheated plastic swallowed you whole.

Your phone buzzed as soon as you put the tray down.

PHARMACY BALANCE REMINDER

Another one of your grandmother's treatment bills.

You dismissed it with your thumb, then stared at the cracked corner of your screen until the letters blurred.

Fushiguro had never asked why you worked two jobs, why your old school charm was still hanging from your phone when you hadn’t been in uniform for months, or why you folded receipts so fast when he came too close to the register.

You knew he had money around him. Parents' or benefactors' money that lets a boy move through life with expensive medicine and ugly bills treated as background noise.

You had never wanted any of it from him. Had never even hinted.

All you had done was tape his hand every time he’d let you, save him sandwiches, answer his stupid late-night questions, and let yourself believe for those nights that being the person he came back to meant something.

Some annoying girl from the store.

You pushed the tray too hard—a module jumped out and skittered under the workbench, and that was what finally made the tears come stupidly and silently, with both hands braced on the table because you still had a shift after this and crying properly would take too much time.

A/N: Any theories or reactions?

Ch 2 | Epilogue

The problem started—according to Ryomen Sukuna—on a Tuesday. Which was already unfortunate, since his Tuesdays were tight: 10 AM seminar on Mesopotamian script, 12 PM library shift, and a break in the afternoon to hate humanity.

He liked that last part.

Scheduled hatred made him efficient.

What he did not like was you, the biker girl who parked illegally across from the anthropology building and stared at him like you were deciding whether to marry him or mug him.

Sometimes both.

At first, he assumed it was coincidence. A few glances, maybe even his haircut—he was handsome, sure.

But then it escalated.

---

The next time he saw you, you were parked diagonally across two motorbike spots, kicking the mud off your boots like you had somewhere to be and didn’t give a shit what anyone thought of your arrival. Helmet slung on your hip. Jacket with too many zips. Glitter eyeshadow. Mouth curled in what he would later describe to Uraume as a "stupid little smirk with no literary merit."

He didn’t say anything.

You did. “You the guy who writes marginalia like he’s bleeding out?”

He blinked at you. “…Excuse me?”

“You dropped The Birth of Tragedy last week. I read it. You need help.”

“I—what?” He frowned. “Wait, you read my annotations?”

“Yeah.” You shrugged. “Thought you were unhinged. Was right.”

Then you popped your gum and walked off.

It should’ve ended there.

It didn’t.

---

The next time, you were waiting outside his building with a popsicle the next day. Eating it sideways.

"Don't mind me," you had said, not making any effort to move as he tried to pass. "Just here for a friend. Not stalking you or anything."

"I don’t know you," he said flatly.

"Yet," you winked, and he had the horrifying sensation that the day had only just begun.

---

Then you started following him.

Because ofcourse you did.

Not like “restraining order” followed.

More like a cat that smelled weakness. Or blood.

Wherever Sukuna went—cafeteria, bookstore, bathroom hallway after his 9 AM metaphysics seminar—you were either already leaning against the wall or pulling up beside him on your Yamaha, always pretending not to notice him until he inevitably reacted.

You never called him by name. Always “Library Man,” “Footnote Freak,” or, when he looked particularly pissed off, “Ryomen the Ruiner.”

“I don’t ruin things,” he once snapped, tired after a three-hour seminar on Bataille.

You tilted your sunglasses down. “Your haircut says otherwise.”

---

At first, he assumed it was some deranged social experiment. You didn’t even go to his college—you took night classes at a nearby art school, specializing in something vague and threatening like experimental sculpture. You hung out with graffiti kids and women who rolled their own cigarettes. You weren’t in his world.

Which made it all the more infuriating when you infiltrated it anyway.

Sukuna was used to being left alone. He was smart enough to be intimidating, arrogant enough to be unapproachable, and permanently half-annoyed at the world. The kind of guy who wore rings on both hands and never took them off, even in seminars. Who drank his coffee black and didn’t believe in horoscopes.

You?

You bought pink iced lattes just to piss him off. Then asked him if he wanted a sip.

(He never accepted. He did glare at your straw like it had personally offended his family tree.)

---

It escalated further when you started showing up in the library.

“Why are you here?” He said flatly one afternoon, not looking up from his stack of books on death and meaninglessness.

You shrugged, dropping into the chair across from him and resting your booted feet on the edge of the table. “Air conditioning. And you.”

He narrowed his eyes.

You smiled like a woman on trial who already knew she’d walk free. “I want to see what would happen if I licked the side of your neck while you were mid-paper.”

Sukuna choked on his espresso. “Jesus—what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Is that a yes?”

“Absolutely not.”

You reached forward, plucked a loose page from his notes, and squinted. “‘Ruin is erotic because it resists narrative closure.’ Bro, what are you.”

He snatched it back. “You have the brain of a poorly designed video game NPC.”

You winked. “And yet you’re here, reciting poetry at me like you want me to misinterpret it on purpose.”

He stood up and left without another word.

You followed him out two minutes later on your bike.

---

It wasn’t flirting. Not really.

It was more like… hobby-level psychological warfare.

You knew what made him tick. You learned his routes. You knew he always got a red bean bun after his Wednesday lectures and that he hated loud motorcycles, which is why you revved yours outside the Humanities Building at exactly 4:59 PM every week.

You once bought a sticker of Nietzsche’s face and slapped it on your gas tank.

He looked like he wanted to light your bike on fire.

“Do you even know what he said about women?” he growled one day.

“Nope,” you said sweetly. “But I like the moustache.”

Sukuna groaned so hard his soul tried to leave his body.

---

Sukuna was not an approachable man.

Sharp jaw, sharper words, quiet laugh that made you feel like it was about you even when it wasn’t. He had the personality of an abandoned cathedral—gorgeous, haunted, and structurally unsafe.

Which is exactly why you were intrigued.

You showed up again two days later. Helmet under one arm, dressed like you knew the world owed you attention, and maybe a few speeding tickets. Then leaned against your bike like a bad decision in leather.

"You really don't talk to anyone, huh?" You asked, chewing gum, loud and proud.

"No," he said, not even looking up from his dog-eared copy of The Epic of Gilgamesh. "I talk to people who have functional boundaries."

"Gross. That sounds like a trauma response."

He closed the book slowly. "Are you going to keep doing this?"

He meant this little game. This stalking, talking, showing up with energy drinks and weird nicknames, and absolutely zero shame.

You shrugged. "That depends. You got a girlfriend?"

He stared.

You grinned. "I'll take that as a yes, but she's invisible and lives in Canada."

---

He worked in the campus library. A part-time job with minimal human interaction and the blessed silence of books older than God.

So obviously you started showing up there.

"You’re not allowed to talk in here," he said the first time you kicked your boots onto the chair across from him.

You opened your laptop and began typing aggressively. "Not talking."

"I can feel your thoughts. They're loud and irritating."

"You say that like you're not the one reading Sex Rituals of Ancient Cults at 2 PM."

He slammed the book shut.

You didn't flinch. Just leaned forward and whispered, “That’s hot, actually.”

The next day, he changed shifts.

You changed schedules.

You were like caffeine and heartbreak. Addictive and potentially fatal.

---

Midterms brought peace.

You vanished for three days.

Sukuna got actual work done.

He reviewed his Akkadian translations. Reorganized his bibliography. Almost began to consider the possibility of a life without daily emotional terrorism.

Then you returned.

This time, wearing his university hoodie.

He stopped mid-step. "Where the hell did you get that?"

"Thrift store. Paid five hundred for it."

"It has my name stitched into it."

"I know. Cool, right?"

He blinked. "You’re insane."

"You say that like you're not writing a thesis on ancient cannibalism."

The pencil in his hand broke clean in half.

---

On a particularly warm Friday, he left the seminar early.

His professor was an idiot, and someone had replaced his usual coffee with a lavender latte, which he suspected was you, because it was disgusting and flowery and tasted like your entire personality.

And you were waiting outside the building again. Helmet on, straddling your bike like a movie poster from a banned romance flick.

"You looked pissed," you said. "Wanna go scream into a ravine or something?"

He considered it. “I have work.”

You held up a bag. “I brought you iced black coffee, extra shot, no lavender. And a sandwich that doesn’t have sprouts in it.”

He stared at you, truly stared. “...What the hell do you want from me?”

You tilted your head. “What makes you think I want something?”

“Because people like you don’t just hang around people like me.”

You raised an eyebrow. “You mean hot biker girls don’t flirt with emotionally repressed history majors?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“Well, guess what, Romeo? I’m not flirting.”

“You’re not?”

“Nope. I’m seducing. Flirting is for cowards.”

He blinked.

The bag crinkled in your hand like you were offering his hamster ass treats.

He took it.

---

Then came the incident.

The Ride (Not Like That… Yet)

One day he made the mistake of getting on your bike.

You showed up late to campus—raining, obviously, leather dripping—and saw Sukuna crouched under the east stairwell, cigarette in mouth, glasses fogged from the humidity. He looked like someone who’d just lost a fight with a philosophical concept.

You approached cautiously.

“Hey.”

He didn’t look at you. “Don’t you have something better to do? Like emotionally damage a SoundCloud rapper?”

You tilted your head. “You good?”

He blew smoke out the side of his mouth. “Professor torched my paper. Said I was ‘indulgent’ and ‘unreadable.’ Like she wouldn’t suck Sartre’s ghost’s dick if she could.”

You stared at him for a beat. “You want to go key her car?”

It was raining. He was late.

The bus didn’t show.

And there you were, leather jacket, helmet held out like an invitation and a threat. "Hop on, nerd."

He said, “You’ll get us killed.”

You said, “Then die hot.”

He should’ve said no.

But then—barely—he smirked. “Fuck it. Yeah.”

The keying didn’t happen. You just drove him around the city until he stopped sulking.

The campus looked different on your bike. Smaller.

The world bled colors when you sped through intersections with no regard for mortality.

And he had to admit—if only to himself—that your laugh, loud and stupid behind your helmet, made something tighten in his chest.

Not fondness. Not exactly.

More like rage in a different font.

You didn’t talk much. Didn’t flirt either.

You just… drove.

Under overpasses, through rain, neon signs smeared by speed and wet asphalt. Sukuna clung to you like a man not used to being a passenger, hands tight around your waist, jacket soaked.

He didn’t complain once.

You dropped him off by his apartment building’s gate. Helmet off, your hair stuck to your cheek.

He stood there for a long moment, water running down his temples. His eyes were unreadable.

“…Why do you keep bothering me?” he asked.

You smiled. Not your usual menace grin—just a little crooked curve of your mouth. “‘Cause you look like you’d be boring if no one reminded you how alive you are.”

Sukuna didn’t say anything. But he didn’t walk away either.

---

It was past midnight when you found him asleep at a library table. Notes everywhere. Ancient scripts. Head buried in his arms.

You didn’t wake him.

You just sat across from him, quiet for once.

When he finally blinked awake, red-eyed and bleary, you pushed a coffee toward him. “I thought you were joking,” he said hoarsely.

You frowned. “About what?”

“That you weren’t flirting.”

“I’m not. Still seducing.”

He snorted. And for the first time, the smirk on his face wasn’t a blade. It was almost—

Warm?

Unsettling.

He picked up the coffee. “You’re in…sufferable.”

“You’re welcome.”

A pause.

“I’m serious,” he said. “You’re—loud. You don’t shut up. You’re in my space. All the time. You even—"

“—make your boring life fun?” you offered.

“—make me nervous,” he finished.

You frowned, surprised. “Oh...”

He drank the coffee.

You sat back. “So what now? You gonna confess you secretly love me?”

He didn’t answer.

But two days later, he texted you: Library’s quiet tonight. Come distract me.

---

After that, it changed.

He stopped pretending not to see you. Started saving you a seat at the library table. Sometimes he brought you shitty instant coffee and didn’t comment when you put two sugars in it. You still annoyed the hell out of him, but now he smirked about it.

One night, he dropped his helmet into your lap.

You blinked. “Are we going somewhere?”

“You said you’d never read Ulysses,” he muttered, tugging his jacket on. “There’s a Joycean society that meets downtown. I’m dragging you there so you can suffer properly.”

You whistled. “A literary cult date. I’m swooning.”

“Get on the bike, dumbass.”

You did.

He leaned close behind you when you drove. Didn’t complain once.

---

They say opposites attract, but you and Sukuna were more like two bad ideas circling each other in a deathmatch.

You were chaos with wheels. He was a walking dissertation on contempt.

But on Fridays, when you sat on the steps of the Humanities building and watched the sky go orange, he’d sit beside you and silently pass you a drink.

You never thanked him. He never asked you to.

---

One evening, you handed him a folded scrap of paper.

He raised an eyebrow. “What’s this? A restraining order?”

“A poem,” you said. “About you.”

“…This better not be a haiku about my eyebrows.”

It wasn’t. It was just one line: You live like you want to be ruined, and I want to be the reason.

Sukuna stared at it for a long time.

He didn’t speak.

But he folded it and slipped it into his notebook without looking at you.

And for the first time, you didn’t follow him when he walked away.

He turned back anyway.

---

Three weeks later, he kissed you behind the library. No fanfare, no warning.

Just pulled you in mid-argument about Roland Barthes, slammed you back against a column, and kissed you like he wanted to write his next thesis on your mouth.

You bit his lip on purpose.

He bit back.

---

Later, you’d tease him about the first time he kissed you.

He’d say you kissed him. You’d say he leaned.

He’d say you tackled him like a football player with abandonment issues.

You’d agree to that one.

Because that’s what it was: messy, reckless, real.

He tasted like too much coffee and repressed emotion.

You tasted like gasoline and unfinished business.

---

People asked what you two were.

You said, “I like bothering him.”

He said, “She’s insufferable.”

You got a matching Nietzsche tattoo on your thigh just to piss him off.

He called you feral.

You called him yours.

And no one ever studied harder than Sukuna did after you started attending every lecture just to sit in the back, chewing gum, staring at him like he was the only thing in the room worth wrecking.

“I can’t believe I’m dating someone who writes papers titled Divine Dismemberment in Proto-Babylonian Rites.”

“And I can’t believe I’m dating a highway threat with no parking ethics.”

You flicked his forehead.

He tackled you just to kiss your temple.

A/N: If Sukuna wrote u a one-line poem & folded it into his notebook, would you—

Frame it, hang it over your bed.

Tattoo it on your thigh.

Eat it like a communion wafer.

Let me know your thoughts, don’t leave me here alone like Sukuna at a frat mixer.

The fluorescent light caught the nick on his chin, the dried blood near his nail, and the dark under his eyes.

“Me?”

You wound gauze around his hand. “Yeah.”

When you reached for the tape, he turned his wrist.

Most people who came in this late filled the silence because they were afraid of it.

Fushiguro never did.

He stood there with barely any small talk and the store equipment humming.

You cut the tape with scissors and smoothed it down.

“That’s your answer?” he asked.

“It is, but you can complain if you want.”

He picked up the tea. “I’ll think about it.”

That was more than he usually gave you.

He paid exactly, no coins left over. At the door he stopped and glanced back once at the paper before he left with the sandwich tucked in his coat pocket.

You finished the shift, counted the till, scrubbed the milk wand, wiped down the hot case, and caught the last train with coffee smell stuck in your sleeves and solder smell still under your nails from the repair shop.

---

The next night, Fushiguro came back for bandages he did not need.

After that, he kept finding reasons—sports drink, instant ramen, replacement batteries, and once even a plastic umbrella on a night without rain.

You stopped asking about the injuries that arrived one day and faded by the next night because he lied without effort, and you were already tired of boys.

He came after ten, usually, when the office workers had gone home and the middle schoolers had stopped buying melon bread, energy jelly, and gossiping outside. He talked more than he seemed to realize during that hour.

You learned things about him—like he hated pickled plums but ate them when nothing else was left, did not trust vending machine coffee, and thought people confused ego with confidence.

He also told you, at length, about breaking a rice cooker after leaving it plugged in, then refusing to let the white-haired man he lived with replace it with some imported one that talked back.

That one made you laugh.

Fushiguro looked at you for a second too long and said, “Don’t laugh.”

“You’re funny sometimes.”

“I’m really not.”

“You are to me.”

His mouth tightened like he was trying not to react as he took the canned coffee you had made for yourself by accident and drank it.

By the end of the week, you knew the barely there sound of his footsteps outside before the bell rang, and you knew better than to name what that did to you.

---

Near midnight, after a slow Thursday and an argument with the supplier over late milk deliveries, you were on a step stool reaching for a carton of filter papers from the top shelf when Fushiguro came in.

He bought nothing at first, just stood by the counter while you climbed down with the box braced against your chest.

“You’re here late again,” he observed.

“I work here.”

“You were here yesterday too.”

“My shift is late.”

He took the box before it slipped and set it on the counter.

You wiped your palms on your apron. “You’ve been talking more to me lately than I’ve seen you talk to others.”

His eyes widened by half a degree. “Have I?”

“You have.”

“That’s bad.”

“It was kind of cute.”

He made a face. “I’m not cute.”

“No.”

“Then I’m leaving.”

“I didn’t call you here.” You shot back.

He didn’t move for a long second and looked at the counter. “You still haven’t finished it?”

“What?”

“That essay.”

You glanced at the loose page hidden under the receipt tray. “Strength?”

He nodded.

You covered the paper. “You tell me.”

His gaze went to your hands—the coffee stain on your thumb, the burn near your wrist from last week’s steam accident, and the shallow cut on your index finger from a day job he didn't know about.

Then he looked at your face. “It’s doing it anyway.”

You let him continue.

His thumb brushed over the taped part of his hand. “You keep doing it tired without gratitude. Keep showing up when it would be easier to let someone else take the hit.”

“That’s your answer?”

His eyes flicked to the essay sheet, then away. “It’s what I’ve seen.”

Suddenly the air in the store felt thin—like being pressed in from every direction. Between the cigarette display and the hot case, two teenagers were standing under fluorescent lights with a sentence neither of them knew how to show.

You broke the silence. “From what I know, you’ve done all that.”

He looked away first. “You give me too much credit.”

“You’re very sweet for someone who acts like this.”

His head turned back. “Sweet?”

“And talkative.”

“Most people think I’m cold.”

“Most people aren’t here at midnight.”

He stared at you as if he could not tell whether you were serious.

You stepped closer before you could talk yourself out of it and pressed your palm to his cheek, slow enough to pretend it was a joke if he moved away.

He didn’t move away.

“There,” you said. “Cute too.”

He caught your wrist—his fingers sat over your pulse for one second too long before he let go. “Don’t do that.”

“You’re blushing.”

His mouth pressed into a hard line. “You make a habit of pushing people?”

“I haven’t done this with anyone else before.”

He stared as you turned away.

The shutter clock clicked over to 12:01. You went to flip the sign, and he followed you to the door.

Outside, the street behind the store sat empty except for the vending machines and one taxi turning the corner too fast. You bent to pull the shutter down. It stuck halfway. Fushiguro caught it one-handed and forced it the rest of the way with a metal grind.

When you locked it, the two of you were standing too close in the narrow strip between the glass and the street.

“You should go home.” He whispered.

“You first.”

“You’ll miss the last train.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve seen you run for it.”

That made your face warm.

“Look at me.”

He was so close that you had to tilt your head back to look at him, already taller than most men and still somehow seeming like he didn’t know what to do with his hands.

You looked down at his taped hand and then back up at his face. “Do you want to kiss me?”

His eyes dropped to your mouth, then bounced back to your eyes. “Y—” He cleared his throat and shifted his weight. “Yeah.”

You rose on your toes first because he was taking too long, and he bent too late, so your mouths bumped once before either of you figured out the angle.

His lips were a little dry from the cold air but warm, movements a little nervous. 

Fushiguro made a small awkward sound against your lips.

You laughed quietly.

“You’re really bad at that,” you whispered.

He looked away, but his fingers caught in the side of your jacket. “Then let me do it properly.”

This time, he leaned in first.

He still missed the angle a little. Your teeth clicked softly, and he pulled back just enough to mutter something under his breath before trying again.

His lips pressed to the corner of your mouth and then found yours fully.

You forgot what to do with your hands.

Then your fingers slid to the back of his neck, and he exhaled against your lips, shaky and warm. His mouth opened carefully. When your tongue touched his, he froze, then made a low sound and chased it like he’d decided embarrassment could be tolerated.

It was messy. Both of you learning where to put the hunger.

Your mind stopped—

Just the wet press of his mouth, the quick scrape of his breath, your fingers tightening at his neck, and the dizzy little drop in your stomach every time he came back for more.

When he pulled away, he looked wrecked by it—cheeks flushed, lips damp, eyes too bright.

And then, annoyingly, a little smug, having done it right.

You leaned in again, but he caught the strap of your bag before you could.

“You’ll miss your train.”

You froze, then looked at your wristwatch.

“Oh no, no, no, no.”

Fushiguro reached down, fixed the sliding-down bag strap, and let his knuckles brush your skin before he stepped back.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll walk you to the platform.”

---

The next afternoon, you were carrying a tray of replacement joystick modules from the station to the repair shop, your day job, when you saw him at the end of the Jujutsu Tech road.

He was with three first-years and one second-year, all in training uniforms half-zipped. A pink-haired boy was talking with his hands. Kugisaki was threatening to hit him with her shopping bag. Another girl, whom you knew as Zenin, walked a few steps ahead of the group with her bottle of water tucked under one arm.

Fushiguro saw you.

You lifted your chin and smiled. “Looking good, Fushiguro.”

His ears went red before his face did.

The others turned as one.

You kept walking because that was the point of doing it while moving. Hit and run. Save yourself from standing there long enough to look foolish.

Behind you, the pink-haired boy laughed. Kugisaki asked, “Who was that?”

Fushiguro had a tea can half-raised to his mouth.

“Some annoying girl from the store.”

The crossing light changed.

You walked.

The tray dug into your palms all the way back to the repair shop. One of the joystick modules slid loose in its slot every few steps. You kept your fingers tight around the handles until the back room door shut behind you and the smell of solder, dust, and overheated plastic swallowed you whole.

Your phone buzzed as soon as you put the tray down.

PHARMACY BALANCE REMINDER

Another one of your grandmother's treatment bills.

You dismissed it with your thumb, then stared at the cracked corner of your screen until the letters blurred.

Fushiguro had never asked why you worked two jobs, why your old school charm was still hanging from your phone when you hadn’t been in uniform for months, or why you folded receipts so fast when he came too close to the register.

You knew he had money around him. Parents' or benefactors' money that lets a boy move through life with expensive medicine and ugly bills treated as background noise.

You had never wanted any of it from him. Had never even hinted.

All you had done was tape his hand every time he’d let you, save him sandwiches, answer his stupid late-night questions, and let yourself believe for those nights that being the person he came back to meant something.

Some annoying girl from the store.

You pushed the tray too hard—a module jumped out and skittered under the workbench, and that was what finally made the tears come stupidly and silently, with both hands braced on the table because you still had a shift after this and crying properly would take too much time.

A/N: Any theories or reactions?

Ch 2 | Epilogue

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

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

The article is still open below the search bar.

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

Your hand moves to scroll.

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

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

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

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

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

He looks at your face. “What happened?”

You shake your head.

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

“No.”

“Cramping?”

“No, Megumi.”

“Dizzy?”

“No.”

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

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

He stares at you.

You sniff.

His mouth flattens. “That’s creepy.”

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

He stares at you confused.

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

The baby shifts, a slow roll under your ribs.

Megumi feels it.

Neither of you speaks.

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

Megumi lowers his forehead against your belly.

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

The baby kicks him.

You laugh again.

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

“She gets that from her father.”

“I’m a respected attorney.”

“You fell asleep researching.”

His face changes. It’s not noticeable.

But you know him.

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

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

“Water,” he says.

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

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

He comes out of the bedroom holding a scarf.

“No, I look editorial.”

“You look cold.”

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

“You’ll be warm.”

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

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

Your chest does that dangerous thing again.

He glances up.

Then winks.

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

“No one will believe you.”

You smack his shoulder with your glove.

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

Later, the train is warm.

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

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

The baby kicks after the train starts moving.

Megumi looks down.

“She likes it,” you say.

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

You lean your head against his arm.

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

You take one sip.

Perfect.

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

“Megumi.”

“You said your back hurt.”

“A moose is judging us.”

“The moose can mind his business.”

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

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

Then you take one and hold another toward him.

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

You chew faster than he does.

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

Another for you.

Another shoved toward his mouth.

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

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

You finish yours first again.

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

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

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

Then you stare at him again.

“What?” he says finally.

“You’ll survive in captivity.”

He frowns. “What does that mean?”

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

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

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

“What?” he asks, quieter this time.

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

His hand tightens on the wheel.

For a second, he says nothing.

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

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

Megumi looks down at your joined hands.

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

Your mouth trembles before you can stop it.

His thumb moves once over your knuckles.

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

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

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

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

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

“Hey,” he whispers. “Don’t do that.”

“It’s the pregnancy."

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

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

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

His expression shifts into something small and full of hope.

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

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

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

Megumi stares at you.

You stare back with grave composure.

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

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

“That’s the worst part.”

You press your lips together.

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

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

You look back at him.

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

Your hand finds his over the curve of your coat.

The baby shifts under both of your palms.

Megumi breathes out slowly, as if she answered him.

“You got it right,” you say.

He nods, eyes still too soft.

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

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

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

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

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

“Stay there,” he says when he parks.

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

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

Masterlist

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

The fluorescent light caught the nick on his chin, the dried blood near his nail, and the dark under his eyes.

“Me?”

You wound gauze around his hand. “Yeah.”

When you reached for the tape, he turned his wrist.

Most people who came in this late filled the silence because they were afraid of it.

Fushiguro never did.

He stood there with barely any small talk and the store equipment humming.

You cut the tape with scissors and smoothed it down.

“That’s your answer?” he asked.

“It is, but you can complain if you want.”

He picked up the tea. “I’ll think about it.”

That was more than he usually gave you.

He paid exactly, no coins left over. At the door he stopped and glanced back once at the paper before he left with the sandwich tucked in his coat pocket.

You finished the shift, counted the till, scrubbed the milk wand, wiped down the hot case, and caught the last train with coffee smell stuck in your sleeves and solder smell still under your nails from the repair shop.

---

The next night, Fushiguro came back for bandages he did not need.

After that, he kept finding reasons—sports drink, instant ramen, replacement batteries, and once even a plastic umbrella on a night without rain.

You stopped asking about the injuries that arrived one day and faded by the next night because he lied without effort, and you were already tired of boys.

He came after ten, usually, when the office workers had gone home and the middle schoolers had stopped buying melon bread, energy jelly, and gossiping outside. He talked more than he seemed to realize during that hour.

You learned things about him—like he hated pickled plums but ate them when nothing else was left, did not trust vending machine coffee, and thought people confused ego with confidence.

He also told you, at length, about breaking a rice cooker after leaving it plugged in, then refusing to let the white-haired man he lived with replace it with some imported one that talked back.

That one made you laugh.

Fushiguro looked at you for a second too long and said, “Don’t laugh.”

“You’re funny sometimes.”

“I’m really not.”

“You are to me.”

His mouth tightened like he was trying not to react as he took the canned coffee you had made for yourself by accident and drank it.

By the end of the week, you knew the barely there sound of his footsteps outside before the bell rang, and you knew better than to name what that did to you.

---

Near midnight, after a slow Thursday and an argument with the supplier over late milk deliveries, you were on a step stool reaching for a carton of filter papers from the top shelf when Fushiguro came in.

He bought nothing at first, just stood by the counter while you climbed down with the box braced against your chest.

“You’re here late again,” he observed.

“I work here.”

“You were here yesterday too.”

“My shift is late.”

He took the box before it slipped and set it on the counter.

You wiped your palms on your apron. “You’ve been talking more to me lately than I’ve seen you talk to others.”

His eyes widened by half a degree. “Have I?”

“You have.”

“That’s bad.”

“It was kind of cute.”

He made a face. “I’m not cute.”

“No.”

“Then I’m leaving.”

“I didn’t call you here.” You shot back.

He didn’t move for a long second and looked at the counter. “You still haven’t finished it?”

“What?”

“That essay.”

You glanced at the loose page hidden under the receipt tray. “Strength?”

He nodded.

You covered the paper. “You tell me.”

His gaze went to your hands—the coffee stain on your thumb, the burn near your wrist from last week’s steam accident, and the shallow cut on your index finger from a day job he didn't know about.

Then he looked at your face. “It’s doing it anyway.”

You let him continue.

His thumb brushed over the taped part of his hand. “You keep doing it tired without gratitude. Keep showing up when it would be easier to let someone else take the hit.”

“That’s your answer?”

His eyes flicked to the essay sheet, then away. “It’s what I’ve seen.”

Suddenly the air in the store felt thin—like being pressed in from every direction. Between the cigarette display and the hot case, two teenagers were standing under fluorescent lights with a sentence neither of them knew how to show.

You broke the silence. “From what I know, you’ve done all that.”

He looked away first. “You give me too much credit.”

“You’re very sweet for someone who acts like this.”

His head turned back. “Sweet?”

“And talkative.”

“Most people think I’m cold.”

“Most people aren’t here at midnight.”

He stared at you as if he could not tell whether you were serious.

You stepped closer before you could talk yourself out of it and pressed your palm to his cheek, slow enough to pretend it was a joke if he moved away.

He didn’t move away.

“There,” you said. “Cute too.”

He caught your wrist—his fingers sat over your pulse for one second too long before he let go. “Don’t do that.”

“You’re blushing.”

His mouth pressed into a hard line. “You make a habit of pushing people?”

“I haven’t done this with anyone else before.”

He stared as you turned away.

The shutter clock clicked over to 12:01. You went to flip the sign, and he followed you to the door.

Outside, the street behind the store sat empty except for the vending machines and one taxi turning the corner too fast. You bent to pull the shutter down. It stuck halfway. Fushiguro caught it one-handed and forced it the rest of the way with a metal grind.

When you locked it, the two of you were standing too close in the narrow strip between the glass and the street.

“You should go home.” He whispered.

“You first.”

“You’ll miss the last train.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve seen you run for it.”

That made your face warm.

“Look at me.”

He was so close that you had to tilt your head back to look at him, already taller than most men and still somehow seeming like he didn’t know what to do with his hands.

You looked down at his taped hand and then back up at his face. “Do you want to kiss me?”

His eyes dropped to your mouth, then bounced back to your eyes. “Y—” He cleared his throat and shifted his weight. “Yeah.”

You rose on your toes first because he was taking too long, and he bent too late, so your mouths bumped once before either of you figured out the angle.

His lips were a little dry from the cold air but warm, movements a little nervous. 

Fushiguro made a small awkward sound against your lips.

You laughed quietly.

“You’re really bad at that,” you whispered.

He looked away, but his fingers caught in the side of your jacket. “Then let me do it properly.”

This time, he leaned in first.

He still missed the angle a little. Your teeth clicked softly, and he pulled back just enough to mutter something under his breath before trying again.

His lips pressed to the corner of your mouth and then found yours fully.

You forgot what to do with your hands.

Then your fingers slid to the back of his neck, and he exhaled against your lips, shaky and warm. His mouth opened carefully. When your tongue touched his, he froze, then made a low sound and chased it like he’d decided embarrassment could be tolerated.

It was messy. Both of you learning where to put the hunger.

Your mind stopped—

Just the wet press of his mouth, the quick scrape of his breath, your fingers tightening at his neck, and the dizzy little drop in your stomach every time he came back for more.

When he pulled away, he looked wrecked by it—cheeks flushed, lips damp, eyes too bright.

And then, annoyingly, a little smug, having done it right.

You leaned in again, but he caught the strap of your bag before you could.

“You’ll miss your train.”

You froze, then looked at your wristwatch.

“Oh no, no, no, no.”

Fushiguro reached down, fixed the sliding-down bag strap, and let his knuckles brush your skin before he stepped back.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll walk you to the platform.”

---

The next afternoon, you were carrying a tray of replacement joystick modules from the station to the repair shop, your day job, when you saw him at the end of the Jujutsu Tech road.

He was with three first-years and one second-year, all in training uniforms half-zipped. A pink-haired boy was talking with his hands. Kugisaki was threatening to hit him with her shopping bag. Another girl, whom you knew as Zenin, walked a few steps ahead of the group with her bottle of water tucked under one arm.

Fushiguro saw you.

You lifted your chin and smiled. “Looking good, Fushiguro.”

His ears went red before his face did.

The others turned as one.

You kept walking because that was the point of doing it while moving. Hit and run. Save yourself from standing there long enough to look foolish.

Behind you, the pink-haired boy laughed. Kugisaki asked, “Who was that?”

Fushiguro had a tea can half-raised to his mouth.

“Some annoying girl from the store.”

The crossing light changed.

You walked.

The tray dug into your palms all the way back to the repair shop. One of the joystick modules slid loose in its slot every few steps. You kept your fingers tight around the handles until the back room door shut behind you and the smell of solder, dust, and overheated plastic swallowed you whole.

Your phone buzzed as soon as you put the tray down.

PHARMACY BALANCE REMINDER

Another one of your grandmother's treatment bills.

You dismissed it with your thumb, then stared at the cracked corner of your screen until the letters blurred.

Fushiguro had never asked why you worked two jobs, why your old school charm was still hanging from your phone when you hadn’t been in uniform for months, or why you folded receipts so fast when he came too close to the register.

You knew he had money around him. Parents' or benefactors' money that lets a boy move through life with expensive medicine and ugly bills treated as background noise.

You had never wanted any of it from him. Had never even hinted.

All you had done was tape his hand every time he’d let you, save him sandwiches, answer his stupid late-night questions, and let yourself believe for those nights that being the person he came back to meant something.

Some annoying girl from the store.

You pushed the tray too hard—a module jumped out and skittered under the workbench, and that was what finally made the tears come stupidly and silently, with both hands braced on the table because you still had a shift after this and crying properly would take too much time.

A/N: Any theories or reactions?

Ch 2 | Epilogue

The fluorescent light caught the nick on his chin, the dried blood near his nail, and the dark under his eyes.

“Me?”

You wound gauze around his hand. “Yeah.”

When you reached for the tape, he turned his wrist.

Most people who came in this late filled the silence because they were afraid of it.

Fushiguro never did.

He stood there with barely any small talk and the store equipment humming.

You cut the tape with scissors and smoothed it down.

“That’s your answer?” he asked.

“It is, but you can complain if you want.”

He picked up the tea. “I’ll think about it.”

That was more than he usually gave you.

He paid exactly, no coins left over. At the door he stopped and glanced back once at the paper before he left with the sandwich tucked in his coat pocket.

You finished the shift, counted the till, scrubbed the milk wand, wiped down the hot case, and caught the last train with coffee smell stuck in your sleeves and solder smell still under your nails from the repair shop.

---

The next night, Fushiguro came back for bandages he did not need.

After that, he kept finding reasons—sports drink, instant ramen, replacement batteries, and once even a plastic umbrella on a night without rain.

You stopped asking about the injuries that arrived one day and faded by the next night because he lied without effort, and you were already tired of boys.

He came after ten, usually, when the office workers had gone home and the middle schoolers had stopped buying melon bread, energy jelly, and gossiping outside. He talked more than he seemed to realize during that hour.

You learned things about him—like he hated pickled plums but ate them when nothing else was left, did not trust vending machine coffee, and thought people confused ego with confidence.

He also told you, at length, about breaking a rice cooker after leaving it plugged in, then refusing to let the white-haired man he lived with replace it with some imported one that talked back.

That one made you laugh.

Fushiguro looked at you for a second too long and said, “Don’t laugh.”

“You’re funny sometimes.”

“I’m really not.”

“You are to me.”

His mouth tightened like he was trying not to react as he took the canned coffee you had made for yourself by accident and drank it.

By the end of the week, you knew the barely there sound of his footsteps outside before the bell rang, and you knew better than to name what that did to you.

---

Near midnight, after a slow Thursday and an argument with the supplier over late milk deliveries, you were on a step stool reaching for a carton of filter papers from the top shelf when Fushiguro came in.

He bought nothing at first, just stood by the counter while you climbed down with the box braced against your chest.

“You’re here late again,” he observed.

“I work here.”

“You were here yesterday too.”

“My shift is late.”

He took the box before it slipped and set it on the counter.

You wiped your palms on your apron. “You’ve been talking more to me lately than I’ve seen you talk to others.”

His eyes widened by half a degree. “Have I?”

“You have.”

“That’s bad.”

“It was kind of cute.”

He made a face. “I’m not cute.”

“No.”

“Then I’m leaving.”

“I didn’t call you here.” You shot back.

He didn’t move for a long second and looked at the counter. “You still haven’t finished it?”

“What?”

“That essay.”

You glanced at the loose page hidden under the receipt tray. “Strength?”

He nodded.

You covered the paper. “You tell me.”

His gaze went to your hands—the coffee stain on your thumb, the burn near your wrist from last week’s steam accident, and the shallow cut on your index finger from a day job he didn't know about.

Then he looked at your face. “It’s doing it anyway.”

You let him continue.

His thumb brushed over the taped part of his hand. “You keep doing it tired without gratitude. Keep showing up when it would be easier to let someone else take the hit.”

“That’s your answer?”

His eyes flicked to the essay sheet, then away. “It’s what I’ve seen.”

Suddenly the air in the store felt thin—like being pressed in from every direction. Between the cigarette display and the hot case, two teenagers were standing under fluorescent lights with a sentence neither of them knew how to show.

You broke the silence. “From what I know, you’ve done all that.”

He looked away first. “You give me too much credit.”

“You’re very sweet for someone who acts like this.”

His head turned back. “Sweet?”

“And talkative.”

“Most people think I’m cold.”

“Most people aren’t here at midnight.”

He stared at you as if he could not tell whether you were serious.

You stepped closer before you could talk yourself out of it and pressed your palm to his cheek, slow enough to pretend it was a joke if he moved away.

He didn’t move away.

“There,” you said. “Cute too.”

He caught your wrist—his fingers sat over your pulse for one second too long before he let go. “Don’t do that.”

“You’re blushing.”

His mouth pressed into a hard line. “You make a habit of pushing people?”

“I haven’t done this with anyone else before.”

He stared as you turned away.

The shutter clock clicked over to 12:01. You went to flip the sign, and he followed you to the door.

Outside, the street behind the store sat empty except for the vending machines and one taxi turning the corner too fast. You bent to pull the shutter down. It stuck halfway. Fushiguro caught it one-handed and forced it the rest of the way with a metal grind.

When you locked it, the two of you were standing too close in the narrow strip between the glass and the street.

“You should go home.” He whispered.

“You first.”

“You’ll miss the last train.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve seen you run for it.”

That made your face warm.

“Look at me.”

He was so close that you had to tilt your head back to look at him, already taller than most men and still somehow seeming like he didn’t know what to do with his hands.

You looked down at his taped hand and then back up at his face. “Do you want to kiss me?”

His eyes dropped to your mouth, then bounced back to your eyes. “Y—” He cleared his throat and shifted his weight. “Yeah.”

You rose on your toes first because he was taking too long, and he bent too late, so your mouths bumped once before either of you figured out the angle.

His lips were a little dry from the cold air but warm, movements a little nervous. 

Fushiguro made a small awkward sound against your lips.

You laughed quietly.

“You’re really bad at that,” you whispered.

He looked away, but his fingers caught in the side of your jacket. “Then let me do it properly.”

This time, he leaned in first.

He still missed the angle a little. Your teeth clicked softly, and he pulled back just enough to mutter something under his breath before trying again.

His lips pressed to the corner of your mouth and then found yours fully.

You forgot what to do with your hands.

Then your fingers slid to the back of his neck, and he exhaled against your lips, shaky and warm. His mouth opened carefully. When your tongue touched his, he froze, then made a low sound and chased it like he’d decided embarrassment could be tolerated.

It was messy. Both of you learning where to put the hunger.

Your mind stopped—

Just the wet press of his mouth, the quick scrape of his breath, your fingers tightening at his neck, and the dizzy little drop in your stomach every time he came back for more.

When he pulled away, he looked wrecked by it—cheeks flushed, lips damp, eyes too bright.

And then, annoyingly, a little smug, having done it right.

You leaned in again, but he caught the strap of your bag before you could.

“You’ll miss your train.”

You froze, then looked at your wristwatch.

“Oh no, no, no, no.”

Fushiguro reached down, fixed the sliding-down bag strap, and let his knuckles brush your skin before he stepped back.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll walk you to the platform.”

---

The next afternoon, you were carrying a tray of replacement joystick modules from the station to the repair shop, your day job, when you saw him at the end of the Jujutsu Tech road.

He was with three first-years and one second-year, all in training uniforms half-zipped. A pink-haired boy was talking with his hands. Kugisaki was threatening to hit him with her shopping bag. Another girl, whom you knew as Zenin, walked a few steps ahead of the group with her bottle of water tucked under one arm.

Fushiguro saw you.

You lifted your chin and smiled. “Looking good, Fushiguro.”

His ears went red before his face did.

The others turned as one.

You kept walking because that was the point of doing it while moving. Hit and run. Save yourself from standing there long enough to look foolish.

Behind you, the pink-haired boy laughed. Kugisaki asked, “Who was that?”

Fushiguro had a tea can half-raised to his mouth.

“Some annoying girl from the store.”

The crossing light changed.

You walked.

The tray dug into your palms all the way back to the repair shop. One of the joystick modules slid loose in its slot every few steps. You kept your fingers tight around the handles until the back room door shut behind you and the smell of solder, dust, and overheated plastic swallowed you whole.

Your phone buzzed as soon as you put the tray down.

PHARMACY BALANCE REMINDER

Another one of your grandmother's treatment bills.

You dismissed it with your thumb, then stared at the cracked corner of your screen until the letters blurred.

Fushiguro had never asked why you worked two jobs, why your old school charm was still hanging from your phone when you hadn’t been in uniform for months, or why you folded receipts so fast when he came too close to the register.

You knew he had money around him. Parents' or benefactors' money that lets a boy move through life with expensive medicine and ugly bills treated as background noise.

You had never wanted any of it from him. Had never even hinted.

All you had done was tape his hand every time he’d let you, save him sandwiches, answer his stupid late-night questions, and let yourself believe for those nights that being the person he came back to meant something.

Some annoying girl from the store.

You pushed the tray too hard—a module jumped out and skittered under the workbench, and that was what finally made the tears come stupidly and silently, with both hands braced on the table because you still had a shift after this and crying properly would take too much time.

A/N: Any theories or reactions?

Ch 2 | Epilogue

The fluorescent light caught the nick on his chin, the dried blood near his nail, and the dark under his eyes.

“Me?”

You wound gauze around his hand. “Yeah.”

When you reached for the tape, he turned his wrist.

Most people who came in this late filled the silence because they were afraid of it.

Fushiguro never did.

He stood there with barely any small talk and the store equipment humming.

You cut the tape with scissors and smoothed it down.

“That’s your answer?” he asked.

“It is, but you can complain if you want.”

He picked up the tea. “I’ll think about it.”

That was more than he usually gave you.

He paid exactly, no coins left over. At the door he stopped and glanced back once at the paper before he left with the sandwich tucked in his coat pocket.

You finished the shift, counted the till, scrubbed the milk wand, wiped down the hot case, and caught the last train with coffee smell stuck in your sleeves and solder smell still under your nails from the repair shop.

---

The next night, Fushiguro came back for bandages he did not need.

After that, he kept finding reasons—sports drink, instant ramen, replacement batteries, and once even a plastic umbrella on a night without rain.

You stopped asking about the injuries that arrived one day and faded by the next night because he lied without effort, and you were already tired of boys.

He came after ten, usually, when the office workers had gone home and the middle schoolers had stopped buying melon bread, energy jelly, and gossiping outside. He talked more than he seemed to realize during that hour.

You learned things about him—like he hated pickled plums but ate them when nothing else was left, did not trust vending machine coffee, and thought people confused ego with confidence.

He also told you, at length, about breaking a rice cooker after leaving it plugged in, then refusing to let the white-haired man he lived with replace it with some imported one that talked back.

That one made you laugh.

Fushiguro looked at you for a second too long and said, “Don’t laugh.”

“You’re funny sometimes.”

“I’m really not.”

“You are to me.”

His mouth tightened like he was trying not to react as he took the canned coffee you had made for yourself by accident and drank it.

By the end of the week, you knew the barely there sound of his footsteps outside before the bell rang, and you knew better than to name what that did to you.

---

Near midnight, after a slow Thursday and an argument with the supplier over late milk deliveries, you were on a step stool reaching for a carton of filter papers from the top shelf when Fushiguro came in.

He bought nothing at first, just stood by the counter while you climbed down with the box braced against your chest.

“You’re here late again,” he observed.

“I work here.”

“You were here yesterday too.”

“My shift is late.”

He took the box before it slipped and set it on the counter.

You wiped your palms on your apron. “You’ve been talking more to me lately than I’ve seen you talk to others.”

His eyes widened by half a degree. “Have I?”

“You have.”

“That’s bad.”

“It was kind of cute.”

He made a face. “I’m not cute.”

“No.”

“Then I’m leaving.”

“I didn’t call you here.” You shot back.

He didn’t move for a long second and looked at the counter. “You still haven’t finished it?”

“What?”

“That essay.”

You glanced at the loose page hidden under the receipt tray. “Strength?”

He nodded.

You covered the paper. “You tell me.”

His gaze went to your hands—the coffee stain on your thumb, the burn near your wrist from last week’s steam accident, and the shallow cut on your index finger from a day job he didn't know about.

Then he looked at your face. “It’s doing it anyway.”

You let him continue.

His thumb brushed over the taped part of his hand. “You keep doing it tired without gratitude. Keep showing up when it would be easier to let someone else take the hit.”

“That’s your answer?”

His eyes flicked to the essay sheet, then away. “It’s what I’ve seen.”

Suddenly the air in the store felt thin—like being pressed in from every direction. Between the cigarette display and the hot case, two teenagers were standing under fluorescent lights with a sentence neither of them knew how to show.

You broke the silence. “From what I know, you’ve done all that.”

He looked away first. “You give me too much credit.”

“You’re very sweet for someone who acts like this.”

His head turned back. “Sweet?”

“And talkative.”

“Most people think I’m cold.”

“Most people aren’t here at midnight.”

He stared at you as if he could not tell whether you were serious.

You stepped closer before you could talk yourself out of it and pressed your palm to his cheek, slow enough to pretend it was a joke if he moved away.

He didn’t move away.

“There,” you said. “Cute too.”

He caught your wrist—his fingers sat over your pulse for one second too long before he let go. “Don’t do that.”

“You’re blushing.”

His mouth pressed into a hard line. “You make a habit of pushing people?”

“I haven’t done this with anyone else before.”

He stared as you turned away.

The shutter clock clicked over to 12:01. You went to flip the sign, and he followed you to the door.

Outside, the street behind the store sat empty except for the vending machines and one taxi turning the corner too fast. You bent to pull the shutter down. It stuck halfway. Fushiguro caught it one-handed and forced it the rest of the way with a metal grind.

When you locked it, the two of you were standing too close in the narrow strip between the glass and the street.

“You should go home.” He whispered.

“You first.”

“You’ll miss the last train.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve seen you run for it.”

That made your face warm.

“Look at me.”

He was so close that you had to tilt your head back to look at him, already taller than most men and still somehow seeming like he didn’t know what to do with his hands.

You looked down at his taped hand and then back up at his face. “Do you want to kiss me?”

His eyes dropped to your mouth, then bounced back to your eyes. “Y—” He cleared his throat and shifted his weight. “Yeah.”

You rose on your toes first because he was taking too long, and he bent too late, so your mouths bumped once before either of you figured out the angle.

His lips were a little dry from the cold air but warm, movements a little nervous. 

Fushiguro made a small awkward sound against your lips.

You laughed quietly.

“You’re really bad at that,” you whispered.

He looked away, but his fingers caught in the side of your jacket. “Then let me do it properly.”

This time, he leaned in first.

He still missed the angle a little. Your teeth clicked softly, and he pulled back just enough to mutter something under his breath before trying again.

His lips pressed to the corner of your mouth and then found yours fully.

You forgot what to do with your hands.

Then your fingers slid to the back of his neck, and he exhaled against your lips, shaky and warm. His mouth opened carefully. When your tongue touched his, he froze, then made a low sound and chased it like he’d decided embarrassment could be tolerated.

It was messy. Both of you learning where to put the hunger.

Your mind stopped—

Just the wet press of his mouth, the quick scrape of his breath, your fingers tightening at his neck, and the dizzy little drop in your stomach every time he came back for more.

When he pulled away, he looked wrecked by it—cheeks flushed, lips damp, eyes too bright.

And then, annoyingly, a little smug, having done it right.

You leaned in again, but he caught the strap of your bag before you could.

“You’ll miss your train.”

You froze, then looked at your wristwatch.

“Oh no, no, no, no.”

Fushiguro reached down, fixed the sliding-down bag strap, and let his knuckles brush your skin before he stepped back.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll walk you to the platform.”

---

The next afternoon, you were carrying a tray of replacement joystick modules from the station to the repair shop, your day job, when you saw him at the end of the Jujutsu Tech road.

He was with three first-years and one second-year, all in training uniforms half-zipped. A pink-haired boy was talking with his hands. Kugisaki was threatening to hit him with her shopping bag. Another girl, whom you knew as Zenin, walked a few steps ahead of the group with her bottle of water tucked under one arm.

Fushiguro saw you.

You lifted your chin and smiled. “Looking good, Fushiguro.”

His ears went red before his face did.

The others turned as one.

You kept walking because that was the point of doing it while moving. Hit and run. Save yourself from standing there long enough to look foolish.

Behind you, the pink-haired boy laughed. Kugisaki asked, “Who was that?”

Fushiguro had a tea can half-raised to his mouth.

“Some annoying girl from the store.”

The crossing light changed.

You walked.

The tray dug into your palms all the way back to the repair shop. One of the joystick modules slid loose in its slot every few steps. You kept your fingers tight around the handles until the back room door shut behind you and the smell of solder, dust, and overheated plastic swallowed you whole.

Your phone buzzed as soon as you put the tray down.

PHARMACY BALANCE REMINDER

Another one of your grandmother's treatment bills.

You dismissed it with your thumb, then stared at the cracked corner of your screen until the letters blurred.

Fushiguro had never asked why you worked two jobs, why your old school charm was still hanging from your phone when you hadn’t been in uniform for months, or why you folded receipts so fast when he came too close to the register.

You knew he had money around him. Parents' or benefactors' money that lets a boy move through life with expensive medicine and ugly bills treated as background noise.

You had never wanted any of it from him. Had never even hinted.

All you had done was tape his hand every time he’d let you, save him sandwiches, answer his stupid late-night questions, and let yourself believe for those nights that being the person he came back to meant something.

Some annoying girl from the store.

You pushed the tray too hard—a module jumped out and skittered under the workbench, and that was what finally made the tears come stupidly and silently, with both hands braced on the table because you still had a shift after this and crying properly would take too much time.

A/N: Any theories or reactions?

Ch 2 | Epilogue

The fluorescent light caught the nick on his chin, the dried blood near his nail, and the dark under his eyes.

“Me?”

You wound gauze around his hand. “Yeah.”

When you reached for the tape, he turned his wrist.

Most people who came in this late filled the silence because they were afraid of it.

Fushiguro never did.

He stood there with barely any small talk and the store equipment humming.

You cut the tape with scissors and smoothed it down.

“That’s your answer?” he asked.

“It is, but you can complain if you want.”

He picked up the tea. “I’ll think about it.”

That was more than he usually gave you.

He paid exactly, no coins left over. At the door he stopped and glanced back once at the paper before he left with the sandwich tucked in his coat pocket.

You finished the shift, counted the till, scrubbed the milk wand, wiped down the hot case, and caught the last train with coffee smell stuck in your sleeves and solder smell still under your nails from the repair shop.

---

The next night, Fushiguro came back for bandages he did not need.

After that, he kept finding reasons—sports drink, instant ramen, replacement batteries, and once even a plastic umbrella on a night without rain.

You stopped asking about the injuries that arrived one day and faded by the next night because he lied without effort, and you were already tired of boys.

He came after ten, usually, when the office workers had gone home and the middle schoolers had stopped buying melon bread, energy jelly, and gossiping outside. He talked more than he seemed to realize during that hour.

You learned things about him—like he hated pickled plums but ate them when nothing else was left, did not trust vending machine coffee, and thought people confused ego with confidence.

He also told you, at length, about breaking a rice cooker after leaving it plugged in, then refusing to let the white-haired man he lived with replace it with some imported one that talked back.

That one made you laugh.

Fushiguro looked at you for a second too long and said, “Don’t laugh.”

“You’re funny sometimes.”

“I’m really not.”

“You are to me.”

His mouth tightened like he was trying not to react as he took the canned coffee you had made for yourself by accident and drank it.

By the end of the week, you knew the barely there sound of his footsteps outside before the bell rang, and you knew better than to name what that did to you.

---

Near midnight, after a slow Thursday and an argument with the supplier over late milk deliveries, you were on a step stool reaching for a carton of filter papers from the top shelf when Fushiguro came in.

He bought nothing at first, just stood by the counter while you climbed down with the box braced against your chest.

“You’re here late again,” he observed.

“I work here.”

“You were here yesterday too.”

“My shift is late.”

He took the box before it slipped and set it on the counter.

You wiped your palms on your apron. “You’ve been talking more to me lately than I’ve seen you talk to others.”

His eyes widened by half a degree. “Have I?”

“You have.”

“That’s bad.”

“It was kind of cute.”

He made a face. “I’m not cute.”

“No.”

“Then I’m leaving.”

“I didn’t call you here.” You shot back.

He didn’t move for a long second and looked at the counter. “You still haven’t finished it?”

“What?”

“That essay.”

You glanced at the loose page hidden under the receipt tray. “Strength?”

He nodded.

You covered the paper. “You tell me.”

His gaze went to your hands—the coffee stain on your thumb, the burn near your wrist from last week’s steam accident, and the shallow cut on your index finger from a day job he didn't know about.

Then he looked at your face. “It’s doing it anyway.”

You let him continue.

His thumb brushed over the taped part of his hand. “You keep doing it tired without gratitude. Keep showing up when it would be easier to let someone else take the hit.”

“That’s your answer?”

His eyes flicked to the essay sheet, then away. “It’s what I’ve seen.”

Suddenly the air in the store felt thin—like being pressed in from every direction. Between the cigarette display and the hot case, two teenagers were standing under fluorescent lights with a sentence neither of them knew how to show.

You broke the silence. “From what I know, you’ve done all that.”

He looked away first. “You give me too much credit.”

“You’re very sweet for someone who acts like this.”

His head turned back. “Sweet?”

“And talkative.”

“Most people think I’m cold.”

“Most people aren’t here at midnight.”

He stared at you as if he could not tell whether you were serious.

You stepped closer before you could talk yourself out of it and pressed your palm to his cheek, slow enough to pretend it was a joke if he moved away.

He didn’t move away.

“There,” you said. “Cute too.”

He caught your wrist—his fingers sat over your pulse for one second too long before he let go. “Don’t do that.”

“You’re blushing.”

His mouth pressed into a hard line. “You make a habit of pushing people?”

“I haven’t done this with anyone else before.”

He stared as you turned away.

The shutter clock clicked over to 12:01. You went to flip the sign, and he followed you to the door.

Outside, the street behind the store sat empty except for the vending machines and one taxi turning the corner too fast. You bent to pull the shutter down. It stuck halfway. Fushiguro caught it one-handed and forced it the rest of the way with a metal grind.

When you locked it, the two of you were standing too close in the narrow strip between the glass and the street.

“You should go home.” He whispered.

“You first.”

“You’ll miss the last train.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve seen you run for it.”

That made your face warm.

“Look at me.”

He was so close that you had to tilt your head back to look at him, already taller than most men and still somehow seeming like he didn’t know what to do with his hands.

You looked down at his taped hand and then back up at his face. “Do you want to kiss me?”

His eyes dropped to your mouth, then bounced back to your eyes. “Y—” He cleared his throat and shifted his weight. “Yeah.”

You rose on your toes first because he was taking too long, and he bent too late, so your mouths bumped once before either of you figured out the angle.

His lips were a little dry from the cold air but warm, movements a little nervous. 

Fushiguro made a small awkward sound against your lips.

You laughed quietly.

“You’re really bad at that,” you whispered.

He looked away, but his fingers caught in the side of your jacket. “Then let me do it properly.”

This time, he leaned in first.

He still missed the angle a little. Your teeth clicked softly, and he pulled back just enough to mutter something under his breath before trying again.

His lips pressed to the corner of your mouth and then found yours fully.

You forgot what to do with your hands.

Then your fingers slid to the back of his neck, and he exhaled against your lips, shaky and warm. His mouth opened carefully. When your tongue touched his, he froze, then made a low sound and chased it like he’d decided embarrassment could be tolerated.

It was messy. Both of you learning where to put the hunger.

Your mind stopped—

Just the wet press of his mouth, the quick scrape of his breath, your fingers tightening at his neck, and the dizzy little drop in your stomach every time he came back for more.

When he pulled away, he looked wrecked by it—cheeks flushed, lips damp, eyes too bright.

And then, annoyingly, a little smug, having done it right.

You leaned in again, but he caught the strap of your bag before you could.

“You’ll miss your train.”

You froze, then looked at your wristwatch.

“Oh no, no, no, no.”

Fushiguro reached down, fixed the sliding-down bag strap, and let his knuckles brush your skin before he stepped back.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll walk you to the platform.”

---

The next afternoon, you were carrying a tray of replacement joystick modules from the station to the repair shop, your day job, when you saw him at the end of the Jujutsu Tech road.

He was with three first-years and one second-year, all in training uniforms half-zipped. A pink-haired boy was talking with his hands. Kugisaki was threatening to hit him with her shopping bag. Another girl, whom you knew as Zenin, walked a few steps ahead of the group with her bottle of water tucked under one arm.

Fushiguro saw you.

You lifted your chin and smiled. “Looking good, Fushiguro.”

His ears went red before his face did.

The others turned as one.

You kept walking because that was the point of doing it while moving. Hit and run. Save yourself from standing there long enough to look foolish.

Behind you, the pink-haired boy laughed. Kugisaki asked, “Who was that?”

Fushiguro had a tea can half-raised to his mouth.

“Some annoying girl from the store.”

The crossing light changed.

You walked.

The tray dug into your palms all the way back to the repair shop. One of the joystick modules slid loose in its slot every few steps. You kept your fingers tight around the handles until the back room door shut behind you and the smell of solder, dust, and overheated plastic swallowed you whole.

Your phone buzzed as soon as you put the tray down.

PHARMACY BALANCE REMINDER

Another one of your grandmother's treatment bills.

You dismissed it with your thumb, then stared at the cracked corner of your screen until the letters blurred.

Fushiguro had never asked why you worked two jobs, why your old school charm was still hanging from your phone when you hadn’t been in uniform for months, or why you folded receipts so fast when he came too close to the register.

You knew he had money around him. Parents' or benefactors' money that lets a boy move through life with expensive medicine and ugly bills treated as background noise.

You had never wanted any of it from him. Had never even hinted.

All you had done was tape his hand every time he’d let you, save him sandwiches, answer his stupid late-night questions, and let yourself believe for those nights that being the person he came back to meant something.

Some annoying girl from the store.

You pushed the tray too hard—a module jumped out and skittered under the workbench, and that was what finally made the tears come stupidly and silently, with both hands braced on the table because you still had a shift after this and crying properly would take too much time.

A/N: Any theories or reactions?

Ch 2 | Epilogue