*ੈ✩‧₊˚ Tσʝι'ʂ Bιɾƚԋԃαყ… αɳԃ ƚԋҽ Nҽɯ Yҽαr!
Summary: it's your man's birthday--and the new year! What better to reign in the new year by celebrating both? And at a festival no less!
Ft: Toji Zen'in/Fushiguro
CW: mentions of child abuse (pertaining to Toji)
Note: two fics in the span of a week?! How amazing is that! Also I can't believe 2025 is already gonna be this week!!! Happy birthday to my #1 man everybody ☺️ Also this isn't proofread since I wanted to get it out before I'd be too busy to finish it in time, so there might be grammatical errors!!
To be quite honest, the New Year was yet another one of those holidays that Toji didn't give a shit about. Christmas, New Year's, Golden Week... none of those were anything memorable to Toji growing up. Why would he care when he had more important things to care about, like getting out of his shitty family and his shitty living situation? Why buy presents for people when he had nobody to buy said presents for and could just spend the money on horse racing instead? It was a no brainer for him, obviously. Just get through the week, swallow all those stupid "Happy New Year!"s from the stupid drunkards passing him by, and get on with his day.
And what was so special about the new year? The earth passed around the sun for another year--so fucking what? Everybody dies in the end anyway. People should loathe there being another year, because it means one year closer to death. January was also a shitty month on its own, so there was that.
There was also the fact that it was his birthday.
The painful reminder that he was put on this earth 20-something years ago, that his parents were stupid enough to not wear a condom or pull out that resulted in him being born into this equally stupid world. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid--all of this was so stupid. His birthday, the new year... he really couldn't give a shit.
But that didn't mean you couldn't care about both things!
The way you saw it, it was another year on this earth where the sun didn't explode and there wasn't a nuclear war that destroyed everything; and Toji's birthday meant that he had another year to look forward to being alive. That was just the kind of person you were: uplifting, vibrant, and always seeing the good in everybody and everything, especially your boyfriend.
(You didn't actually see the good in everyone; that was just a figure of speech. Plus, your boyfriend had a lot of good to see!)
This means that, for the past 2 years you've been together, you've gone all out for both holidays, dragging him to holiday festivals and making a day out of his special day, buying him presents when he didn't feel worthy of receiving such thoughtful items.
He's never even had a present from someone who wasn't his handler, and that's because he was contracted to him. All he's received is beatings and hateful words from his family, who made sure to make a nightmare out of what was supposed to be his special day. So, it didn't strike you as surprising when he cried his eyes out when he got his first present, but all of that was another story for another day.
So, here you were, putting on Toji's special black haori that you bought for him on one special day. It went perfectly with the dark green kimono that went perfectly with his dark green eyes. "Don't you look handsome, handsome," you mused, smoothing out the dark fabric.
He rolled his eyes and tried to play the compliment off. "Yeah, yeah, I'm not much of a fan of this kinda stuff anyway. 'Much prefer the sweats and tee I always got on."
"The ones you end up ripping while out on your job?" You teased, poking his chest with a long, manicured nail. "I can't have my boyfriend running around in rags. What kind of girlfriend would I be if I did, hmm?"
Toji snorted in response. "Hey, sweets, I'm the boyfriend here. Aren't I supposed to be the responsible one, spoiling you instead?"
"I guess I'm a fan of both," you shrugged earnestly. You stepped back after his haori was put on, and you went to look at yourself in the mirror with a big, confident smile on your face. The pink flowers on your red kimono went perfectly with all the little hairpins on your head, and the geta sandals you wore almost made you tall enough to not be dwarfed by the hulk of a man that your boyfriend was.
While admiring yourself in the mirror, Toji approached behind you and wrapped his massive arms around your waist, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. "'N I'm a fan of you, sugar," he grinned with earnestness. "This color, especially. And all those cute little flowers you got in that hair of 'yers."
"Don't mess up my hair, Toji," you chastised him when he tried to play with the little pins. "One wrong move, and your 'sugar' won't be so sweet anymore."
He chuckled, shook his head, and walked away from you. "Right, right. Wouldn't want that happenin' anytime soon." He grabbed your purse and handed it to you, then wrapped the fur collar you had laid out around your neck. "And I wouldn't want you to catch a cold, either."
"Why, thank you, handsome," you giggled softly. "You ready to go?"
"Always if it involves you." He took your hand in his much larger one, pressed a kiss to the back of it, and led you out of the closet and the house.
Said festival that you dragged him to was just as amazing as always. The minute you got there, you dragged him to the first stand that you saw and played a game of ball toss (which he let you win, obviously; you didn't stand a chance at beating his assassin aim, and he'd much rather see you win than him), ate some takoyaki, and ran around doing whatever you two wanted to do.
"Let's go play that game next!" Was what you always said after every last game, dragging him around by the wrist with an unseen strength.
"Make sure my hand doesn't get yanked off first, doll," he chuckled simply.
At the dart toss, he decided to show off for you a little bit. What was the fun in simply rolling over belly-up when he can A. flex his biceps and B. show off his aim? He'd trained it for so long, so why not show off a bit? Each dart hit the bullseye, and he won you a giant New Year's special Hello Kitty plushie.
Which he ended up holding for you. You weren't lifting a finger, not while he was around.
Each game, each food stand, each little thing the both of you did only made the night more & more fun. He could definitely get used to celebrating his birthday and the New Year by playing silly little games and eating little delicacies here and there.
"Here, try this one!" You held up a bit of squid for him to try, and you fed it to him with your chopsticks. "Aren't you just the cutest little thing with your mouth stuffed, hmm?"
He narrowed his eyes at you with the food in his mouth and tried to say "shut yer trap" but instead sounded like he was muttering gibberish, resulting in you simply laughing and hugging him quickly.
Around you, the snow began to fall a bit more amidst the glow of the New Years lanterns, and all the little kids started to cheer for the specks of white snowflakes. Now, Toji wasn't a man who was hung up on the idea of starting a family, but it felt like a glimpse into the future that the two of you were going to build.
He didn't even feel worthy of having kids or a happy life in the first place. All those years of trauma, of being hit like a hurt dog & called a shit-stain on this earth had taken root in his brain, and digging them out felt like a job for an expert gardener (of which he was nothing of the sort), but with you, the light of his life, the angel of his salvation...
You snapped him out of his little thought tangent and smiled at him. "Come, I wanna give you a present."
He grinned cheekily and let you lead him to a secluded area. "Oh? You finally gonna gimme that kiss you've been dangling over my head for so long?"
"Get your mind out of the gutter, handsome," you chided with a little giggle. "It's something much more special than a simple kiss. Besides, haven't I given you enough kisses for the day?"
"Have some sympathy for the birthday boy, dollie," he said while clutching his chest dramatically.
You turned to the side, taking something out of the purse you'd brought with you. "I made this just for you, Toji." You handed him a little book and waited with an expectant smile on your face.
"Y'know I don't read much, sweets- ow!" He didn't anticipate the little flick of the forehead he received for that comment.
"Just open it already," you pouted impatiently.
It was a small book with a thick cover & back--more cover than book if anything, so this was definitely not an ordinary book. Turning the book open, his eyes lit up when he saw the little pop-up that came out of the pages.
In the little pop-up book, there were photos of you together ordered by date and event. There was the first time you met, your first official date, the milestones you'd completed as a couple...
In the back of the book was a small note that contained your elegant handwriting and read:
"Dear Toji, dear my future husband, dear the best thing that's ever happened to me! I'm not very good with words, but to put it simply: I am so incredibly grateful to be your sweetheart. To think that we're already celebrating your birthday again (and yet another new year!) is mind-boggling, to say the least. Time really does flow by when you're with the people you love. Your strength, your resilience, your self-confidence and willingness to grow and change despite all that's happened to you is an inspiration, and I find myself growing and changing along with you. Happy birthday, and happy new year!! Love, your sweetheart."
He didn't even notice the tears that were streaming down his face until the paper got noticeably wetter. He put his hand over his mouth to stop himself from sobbing, and he shakily closed the book. "Dollie, this is..."
"Hey, hey, big guy," you comforted him carefully, knowing how emotional he got sometimes. "It's okay to cry, y'know. It's okay to cry around me."
You encircled your arms around him and let him crush you in turn with his much larger ones, and you let him cry into your hair.
"This is... the b-best gift I've ever gotten," he admitted, muffled by the strands of your hair. "Thank you... thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you so fuckin' much, I don't know what to do with myself sometimes."
"It's alright, you don't need to know what to do all the time," you reassured him, looking up at him when he pulled away from your hair. "You just need to know that it's okay to let others take the wheel, yeah?"
He nodded, wiping his tears with the back of his sleeve. "Got me cryin' like a little bitch here," he said, chuckling chokingly.
"And you're not a little bitch," you reminded him by flicking his forehead. "You're Toji, my Toji. No amount of tears will ever change that."
"Aye aye, dollie," he joked, even saluting you.
You simply raised an eyebrow and snorted. "C'mon, let's go write our wish for the New Year before the clock strikes twelve, 'kay?"
At the shrine in the center of the festival, the two of you took two things of paper and went to the shrine. You both turned from each other to keep things a secret, although it's not much of a secret when you both wrote "a happy life with my future wife/husband" on your papers.
Once written, you both hung them up and walked away from the shrine. "So, what'dya write, dollie?" He asked, wrapping his arm around your waist.
"It defeats the purpose if I tell you what I wrote, genius," you retorted (with another sassy look from your end).
"Guess you're right," he shrugged. He pulled back his kimono sleeve to eye the time, and he realized it was already 11:52 and the new year was about to arrive sooner than he'd expected. "Shit, guess it's gonna be 2025 real soon, ain't that right?"
"Time flies when you're having fun with your man," you giggled cheekily.
He reached around and smacked your ass real quick after you said that. "And ain't that right as well," he replied with an equally cheeky grin.
As the minutes ticked by, you thought about how incredibly blessed you were to have each other in your life. You'd started and were about to end the year with each other, at the same festival that you'd attended last year. He used to hate sameness and repetition, always searching for something to spice things up...
But he didn't need to search for anything when he had you.
Turns out, the only thing he needed to spice up his life was someone who could give him the stability he so desperately craved and needed to survive.
He was so used to turbulence, to not getting a day nor night's rest, that he'd forgotten to stop and smell the roses.
"Five, four, three, two, one!" Those numbers caught him off guard, but he didn't have to worry when you kissed him right as the new year rang in.
© nellielsss on tumblr - get your own shit bitches | ca. 12/31/2024
