Otonymous

And then, Gojo’s voice continues off-camera, saying: “Hey, no hiding under the pillows!”

“I look like a mess! And why do you need to watch a video of me if I’m not planning on going anywhere?”

“Is that a promise, Mrs Gojo?”

A fresh burst of your laughter, as Gojo’s hand moves into the frame: long, lean fingers sneaking in to pull back the duvet, slowly revealing your bared leg all the way to the lace trim of your black satin panties. The same hand then begins to tip-toe up your ankle…then calf…upper thigh…before stopping at the gentle swell of your hip, where his fingertips draw lazy circles that result in you laughing even harder.

“Oh my god, that tickles! Stop! Yes, yes, it’s a promise, Mr Gojo! I promised you on our wedding day when you got piss drunk from three sips of sake like a total lightweight! Ahahaha! Stop! No more tickling!—“

“You DARE to reveal my secrets on camera?! C’mere you!-”

Your laughter devolved into a high-pitched squeal as Gojo’s body entered the frame completely, dressed only in a pair of silk pyjama trousers slung low on his narrow hips in a way that automatically drew one’s line of sight to his six-pack abs, the strength of his broad shoulders and muscular arms readily apparently even with the view suddenly tilting, barely catching the moment when he straddled you on the king-sized bed, the phone with which he’d been filming you tossed carelessly onto the bed just in time to capture the moment of tenderness that followed:

Gojo Satoru, face bare without his usual blindfold or sunglasses, staring down at you with those glowing blue eyes, the intensity of his gaze palpable even through the screen. Closer and closer he moved, until strands of his white hair merged with your own, his long frame completely bent over your body when his lips sealed over your mouth in a kiss…

Soft, like the gentle morning sun that filtered in through shaded windowpanes.

Slow, like the two of you had all the time in the world.

Gojo sets his phone down and runs a hand over his face, blindfold loose around his neck and fingers rubbing into his eyes before he blinks them open once more, watery gaze training onto the exposed wooden beam in the ceiling of the home he’d once shared with you.

He can still hear your voice filtering through the speaker of his phone; the video he’d been watching on repeat for the past two hours continuing to play. He knows it like the back of his hand by now, would be able to describe in complete detail exactly what he’d find on-screen if he were to look at this moment, based on the sound of your breath alone:

You, the remnants of laughter dying on your lips to transform into a smile instead, soft and infinitely seductive to Gojo in ways he cannot explain other than the fact that it is yours. You, reaching up slowly to loop both arms around the back of his neck, fingers making a gradual procession into the strands of his white hair where they’d weave and curl while he nestled himself in the space between your legs, widening to accept him into the place where he belonged.

“Ahh…”

On-screen, Gojo moans, voice low and breathy as he lowered himself, laying kisses along the column of your neck as he carefully guided himself into you, driving deeper and deeper into your core with each rhythmic sway of his hips, the sudden sound of your gasps making the hairs on the back of his neck rise even now…

…three years later.

“I love you, Satoru.”

Three years.

“I love you more…” he hears his own voice — discombobulated now, from another time.

1,095 days.

“…you are my life.”

Innumerable hours, minutes, seconds, since a curse ripped you away from him and left a gaping, empty hole where you — his heart — used to be.

And he has since lost count of the times he has sat in the dark by himself in the home where you’d begun life together as husband and wife after tying the knot five years prior, watching and rewatching old videos of you and him in happier times together. Staring at your face staring back at him through the cruel indifference of a smartphone screen, his gaze tracing the shape of your eyes, nose and lips and wondering how different things might’ve been had he been the one to be struck by that curse instead of you…

…if he had been the one to lose all memory of the one person he loved most in this world.

To not be the one left behind, for once.

But it was not to be.

And now, Gojo Satoru is haunted by nightmares of that day when he couldn’t reach you while you were on a mission, no matter how many times he called; his heart constantly reliving the sensation of it sinking far down into his chest like it had when he heard Yaga’s voice on the other end of the line, saying:

“Come to the infirmary, Gojo. NOW.”

Shoko didn’t look up when he had entered. Kept her eyes trained on you, unconscious but stable on the hospital bed. And nobody protested when she pulled the mask from her face to light up a cigarette, the smoke curling in tendrils to partially obscure the digital display of your vitals from the machine beeping at the side of the bed.

“She doesn’t remember you, Satoru,” Shoko finally said after what felt like hours. “I tried to reassure her when she was first brought in. Told her you were on your way. She said,” and she took a deep breath here, “…’Why is Gojo coming? He’s not my family.’ ”

Those words. Like someone had injected ice water into his veins.

“What the fuck are you saying?” Gojo’s voice had begun to shake.

Ino Takuma, sitting beside you and looking worse for wear, flinched from the sudden pressure of cursed energy flaring in the room. And for the life of him, Gojo couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t been able to keep it perfectly controlled, having honed it to the point of it being automatic by now.

“I’m so sorry!” The younger man prostrated himself on the ground before Gojo in a formal bow of apology, Ino’s black mask bunched up around his forehead like a toque. “She pushed me out of the way and got hit by the curse instead. I-I didn’t see it coming and she was trying to protect me!”

A curse.

Born of a courtesan and the poor clerk of a kimono shop who had fallen in love with each other centuries ago. Star-crossed and unable to be together in their lifetime, they had decided to commit shinju, double suicide, by binding their wrists together and jumping in the Edo river. Except the towel they had used to fasten themselves had loosened in the process, and the young male clerk had washed up, barely breathing but still alive, only to learn that that his lover had perished without him.

Heartbreak had been their lot in life. And now, the curse had set out to inflict the same upon its victims.

You will lose all memory of the one you love most in this world.

And so, you had forgotten Gojo Satoru.

Your husband. Your lover. Your soulmate. Your best friend.

And after Shoko had cleared everyone out, lowering the lights and drawing a curtain around the hospital bed to give the pair of you privacy, your husband had whispered into your ear:

“I’m not letting you go. Ever. I’ll make you remember me. And if that proves impossible, I’ll make you fall in love with me all over again. So wait for me…wait for your Satoru…please.”

Still, you had slept, blissfully unaware of the heart breaking just beside you.

Gojo had tried every method he could think of.

When it became obvious that whenever someone, no matter who, tried to speak the truth of who Gojo Satoru really was to you, the words would simply become incomprehensible in your mind, like it hadn’t even occurred to you that someone had been speaking.

Photographs would appear blank. Videos would refuse to play.

Any and all evidence surrounding Gojo in your life prior to being afflicted with this curse simply wouldn’t register.

Shoko, poring over every obscure text she could access, was unable to find a way to reverse the effects.

For once in his life, the Six Eyes were at a loss.

And no matter who Gojo — with all his power and money and connections — sought out in the jujutsu world at large, even going so far as to seek aid from the abbot of an ascetic mountain monastery and a modern-day onmyoji descended from Abe no Seimei himself, it was all to no avail:

Gojo Satoru just did not exist in your life in any capacity other than the one everyone else was already well acquainted with: the strongest sorcerer alive.

By the time Shoko had cleared you for discharge from the infirmary, Gojo had already moved your things back to the room in the dormitory that had been yours prior to your marriage, watching as you settled in like you had never left the space he’d reconstructed solely from memories of loving you over and over again in the cramped confines of that single bed.

And Gojo…

…Gojo returned to a home filled with the ghost of you, a place where echoes of your laughter chased after his footsteps down empty hallways and rooms left chilled without the warmth of your presence.

The sudden sound of a text notification interrupts the video. Picking up his phone from beside him on the couch, Gojo reads the message from Nanami:

Got your message. Still on to meet at the izakaya tonight? I can be there in 20.

Closing his eyes, he heaved a heavy sigh before typing out his reply:

Of course. I’ll grab the corner table.

Flipping back to the Photos app, he stares at your face for a moment longer, trying to emulate the smile that was spread across your lips in an attempt to hype himself up for a conversation he really did not want to have.

Awesome cloud divider by @ pxrce-lain!

⭐️ Part 3 coming soon! ⭐️

To his credit, Gojo didn’t laugh or joke. Only sat down beside you on the asphalt of Jujutsu High’s parking lot, leaning back against the rear bumper of Nanami’s champagne-coloured Audi.

“You’re gonna get your jacket dirty,” you said.

“No I won’t. Nanamin cleans his car more often than some people do their laundry.”

True.

“Your pants then.”

“That’s what dry cleaning and Ijichi is for!” Gojo replied with a smooth smile, and you were grateful for the courtesy he extended you by keeping his blindfolded-gaze aimed forwards instead of at your face.

You sniffled, swiped again at your nose. “You don’t have to stay with me. I’ll be fine, honestly.”

“When people say ‘honestly,’ it usually means they’re lying. If not to others, then to themselves.”

Shaking your head, you felt the gradual onslaught of a massive headache, the ones that usually followed a prolonged crying session or dealing with Gojo and his inability to accept ‘no’ as an answer.

“C’mon, tell me what happened,” he pressed in a voice that was softer than his usual register. “Who do I need to beat up?” A chuckle.

“You always laugh at your own jokes?”

“Only in front of a select few.”

The corners of your lips lifted a smidgen against your will. Mindlessly kicking at a pebble with the toe of your shoe, you sent it skidding a few feet away, thinking all the while of how you had made a point of arriving early to work that morning with two coffees in hand, feigning coincidence when you fell into step with Nanami the moment you spotted him making his way down the corridor leading to the staff lounge. Then, after ensuring that no one else was around to witness what was about to happen, you handed him his usual order of hot bean water and…

…confessed.

You sighed. Gojo was bound to find out one way or another.

“Nanami said no when I asked if he wanted to go for dinner. Not as colleagues but…as something that might potentially lead to something else further down the line. I don’t know, I wasn’t particularly eloquent when I asked. Nerves and all.”

Silence.

Amidst a symphonic backdrop of chirping cicadas, your words seemed to evaporate beneath the summer sun, beating down upon both your heads as you sat hidden amongst vehicles in the car park to which you’d retreated when the waterworks began. At least you had held your tears in until you’d walked far enough away from Nanami to unleash them. You still had your pride after all, tattered though it was.

You hadn’t chosen to break down in front of Nanami’s car specifically; it was just the awful coincidence of the universe that your legs had come dangerously close to giving out at that exact spot where he’d parked perfectly. And so, there you had hid, wiping furiously at your face with bare hands because you had neglected to bring tissues, hoping and wishing and praying that no one would find you there, sitting on the ground and pathetic, all before 9 am.

But Gojo Satoru had.

You heaved another sigh. “He was kind about it though. Put me down gently.”

“Let me guess: ‘It would be highly irresponsible of me to begin a relationship while I’m still on active duty.’ “ Gojo’s impression of the blond-haired sorcerer was surprisingly on point. You shot him a look that was far from amused. “What? You’re not the first woman he’s given that talk to, and you certainly won’t be the last.”

The comment hit harder than you would’ve liked to admit. Perhaps it was because of your particular history with Nanami, having been partnered with him on the regular over the past three years you’d worked as a sorcerer at Tokyo Jujutsu High. All those missions and long hours spent together on trains, planes and automobiles made you think that maybe — maybe — you were different from the others who also noticed him the way you did. And those “others” were numerous: Nanami Kento attracted amorous attention the way honey attracted flies. And the way he seemed to be completely impervious to the effect he had on others made it even worse.

You could get why he’d be weary of the women and men who tried to slip him their numbers on the street, complete strangers who knew nothing of curses and jujutsu and saw only a handsome chiseled face in a well-tailored suit. But you…you were someone who lived and had come to terms with the possibility of dying in that world. Who else was better positioned to understand him than the partner who walked that same line with him between life and death?

“Don’t take it personally,” Gojo adds when he sees your face fall. “Nanamin has…seen firsthand what happens when you care too much about people in this line of work. He may not look it, but beneath all that muscle and beige, he’s a real softie.”

“Now you’re just embellishing his good points. How is this making me feel better?”

“My bad, you’re right!” he laughs, the sound loud and bright, and even you are surprised by the way it seems to lift the weight on your chest by a sliver of a fraction. “C’mon, let’s get out of here. No point sitting here melting into a blob on the asphalt. What do you say to a little retail therapy?”

“What? What are you talking about? I have a Grade One curse in Sendai to deal with in two hours—“

“Cleared it. Kusakabe’s gonna be going in your place. He owes me,” Gojo says in an exaggerated whisper, wiggling his fingers in your face as if he were a fairy godparent intent on transforming your misery into goods and services.

You stared at him. “What am I gonna do with a day off all of a sudden?”

“You mean what are WE going to do on OUR day off—“

“Don’t you have students to teach?”

“I saddled Nanamin with them today! Very last minute! Only appropriate though, given…well, everything!”

Trailing off, he jumped to his feet, the movement altogether too smooth and effortless for a man of his height. And as he led you away by the hand, already excitedly making plans in a stream-of-consciousness babble, a tiny part of you — swept away on the tidal wave that is Gojo Satoru —

is grateful to have him near.

It was an uncomfortable amount of wealth. Obscene, really.

The kind that would’ve made anyone’s head spin who didn’t also belong in the upper echelons of society. The ones who think absolutely nothing of buying article after article of clothing in boutiques composed of such minimalist colours and spaces that you had to second guess whether you hadn’t accidentally stumbled into an art gallery instead. Places where prices were only made available upon request. Places that didn’t even boast signage on their storefronts. Places that never felt any need to announce themselves because the clientele they catered to kept their names close like a jealously guarded secret.

“I can’t afford this!” you hissed in his ear, slightly annoyed that he still had to crouch down to your level though you were already straining on tiptoes.

“Who said you’re paying?!” he hissed back in a low, cheery tone, his preternaturally blue eyes shining behind the Matsuda sunglasses he’d switched out his blindfold for, before gesturing to the sales assistant to wrap everything up: the kimono wrap dress with the blush pink peonies hand-painted onto silk, the cashmere camel coat that draped like second skin and felt just as soft, a lace-trimmed sequinned mesh gown that shone in the dressing room’s expanse of full-length mirrors like it had captured starlight solely for the sake of dazzling whomever laid eyes upon it.

“What was wrong with the silk pyjamas?” he asked you upon leaving the shop, the staff lined up at the entrance to see the pair of you off with a polite bow, honestly perplexed when you told him that your raggedy oversized t-shirt that had been more than sufficient for years would continue to be so for the foreseeable future.

“It’s just a waste of your money,” you murmured, sheepish and shellshocked all at once as you watched him load your shopping bags into the front trunk of his sleek black Lamborghini Aventador. You’d been about to lean against the car but held back at the last moment, mindful of leaving fingerprints on its polished exterior. “I don’t even have anywhere nice to wear these things to.”

He pointed a finger at you. “See, that’s your problem right there. You’re assuming that you need an excuse to wear beautiful things. Why can’t the reason be because it’s Monday, or that the sun is shining? Or maybe because a beautiful woman should be surrounded by beautiful things?”

Beautiful.

Your breath hitched at the word.

Turning, you hoped Gojo missed the awkward expression that had fallen over your features, and discreetly studied your reflection in the passenger side window as he pulled out into traffic. Your face stared back at you, wide-eyed and reeling still from the way Gojo spent money like people drank water. Devoid of makeup now given how hard you’d been crying only hours earlier, you zeroed in on the bags under your eyes. Perhaps you should’ve reapplied some concealer, but then again, it wasn’t like Gojo had even given you much time to think before he’d whisked you away on this impromptu shopping trip. It was fine, your face. Perfectly normal, perfectly average. But beautiful?

Sneaking a glance at the rearview mirror, you caught the angles of Gojo’s face: jaw, cheeks, the straight line of his nose, perfectly proportioned and uncannily symmetric like the rest of him. The Six Eyes that shone like sunlight glancing off the deep blue waters of the Pacific, luminous in a way that hinted at a youthfulness that could never be extinguished.

Gojo Satoru. Now he was beautiful.

“What?” His eyes caught yours in the rearview.

“Nothing!” you jumped, suddenly on edge. Face growing warm, you shifted in your seat, pretending you were still getting adjusted to how low the car sat to the ground.

“You hungry? Because I know a place not too far from here that does a great kaiseki lunch—“

“Actually, I have somewhere in mind,” you said.

Eyes still locked on yours in the rearview, Gojo raised his brows and smiled. “Okay then, lead the way!”

“Here?! This is where you want to go?” Gojo said, pointing a long finger at what looked like a literal hole in the wall. The restaurant could barely fit a handful of plastic folding tables and plastic stools to match, its tiled walls slightly grimy from the vaporous remnants of soup broths that spoke directly to the soulful gut of humanity.

“Yeah,” you replied. “I felt like having phở. Have you tried it before?”

“Of course! It’s just that this place looks like it’s about to be shut down by the health inspector at any moment now. Actually, there’s another Vietnamese restaurant — newly renovated and very clean! — a few blocks over and apparently it’s got great reviews—“

You peeked at Gojo’s phone as he scrolled over the pins on Google maps, scanning the comments. “Yeah, from tourists! That doesn’t count. Listen, I know what it looks like, but the atmosphere is part of the experience! You’ll love it, I swear. Now c’mon, Strongest!”

“The Strongest is not immune to food poisoning, you know,” Gojo said, smiling despite himself.

“Good! Think of it as practice for fighting a new type of foe, then.”

He narrowed his eyes but gave in anyway to the sheer force of your enthusiasm. The owner — an old, balding man with the shiniest head you’d ever seen and a smile to match — absolutely lit up when he saw you, flashing a knowing smile when he caught sight of Gojo at your side, the point of his chin tilting up as he took in the entirety of his height.

“Is this the lucky guy? The one from work that you’ve been telling us about?” He extended a weathered hand towards Gojo, who — bless his heart — shook it without missing a beat. “She talks a lot about you, you know! Always saying how handsome you are, how strong and capable. But she never told us you were so tall!”

Your heart stopped, mortification roiling in the pit of your stomach that made you want to crawl inside yourself and cease to exist. After the elderly man had taken your orders and disappeared into the kitchen, humming like he’d just met his future son-in-law, you snuck a glance at Gojo seated on the stool beside you, his legs comically long as they jutted out to the sides in a near squat.

“I like him already! You’re right, this is a great place!” His grin was nearly incandescent with amusement.

“Sorry about that. Mr Tien means well, but he talks a lot. Clearly.”

“It’s fine. There are worse people to be mistaken for than Nanami. By the way, do you always discuss your personal matters with random restaurant owners?”

“Mr Tien is not a random restauranteur, okay? I’ve been eating here ever since I started at Jujutsu High. Plus, he really listens. Also, it’s not like I can talk about Nanami to anyone else at work.”

“You could talk to me.”

You stopped in the middle of wiping down a pair of plastic chopsticks with your napkin. “You’re kidding, right? Weren’t you the one who spread rumours about Ijichi having hemorrhoids?” Shaking your head, you handed the polished pair to Gojo, who stilled for a fraction of a second before recovering to pour tea from the pot on the table, first into your cup, and then his own.

“Excuse me, it’s not a rumour if it’s true. Besides, let’s not forget that I was the one who bought him the donut cushion for the car seat. See, it always pays off for the ones who come to me with their problems.”

All talk immediately halted the moment Mr Tien brought out two steaming bowls of phở. The smell of the beef broth mixing with fresh green onions and cilantro alone was almost enough to make you forget about the horrible early morning hour you had spent having your heart dashed to pieces. And now, here you were, sitting shoulder to shoulder with the strongest jujutsu sorcerer to have existed in generations, eating beef noodle soup together like you’d been doing it for ages, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Damn, you’re right. This is really good.” Gojo dug into his bowl, chopsticks in one hand and soup spoon in the other, eyes rolling back into his head as a thin slice of beef disappeared into his mouth.

“Never underestimate a place with plastic stools, I’m telling you.”

“Clearly.” Then, after a few moments of silent eating, Gojo spoke again. “What did you see in Nanami anyway?”

You halted in between bites, staring at him. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Humour me.”

Sighing, you took a sip of your tea. “Well, besides the obvious things like his blatant intelligence, how physically attractive he is…”

Gojo grunted into his food.

“…Nanami really cares.”

Beside you, Gojo’s chopsticks stilled. You continued.

“One time, him and I were on a mission exorcising a few Grade Two curses in a remote village in Niigata, and amongst the locals, there was this little boy who was just absolutely obsessed with his sunglasses. Nanami just gave them to him, just like that. Said, ‘I’ll get another pair,’ like it was nothing. I think that was the first time I saw him in a different light, as someone other than the no-nonsense, hyper-competent Nanami Kento.

“The thing about him is…no one sees it. The ways in which he shows his kindness. He’s not flashy about it, doing it for applause or recognition and thinking that it’ll come back to him in some way, karmic or otherwise. He really is just quietly, sincerely kind. And that’s rare these days.”

You stared into your bowl as you spoke, chopsticks sifting through beansprouts and rice noodles as if you were sorting through your own feelings. You still remembered the time Nanami insisted on having Shoko examine an injury that you sustained after being sideswiped by a particularly nasty two-headed curse, the way his lips had pressed into a thin line as he stepped on the accelerator to get you back to Jujutsu High as quickly as possible, even though you’d insisted that it was nothing a bandaid couldn’t fix.

It was true. You hadn’t been exaggerating when you told him the wound was superficial. Even Shoko confirmed it, stealing a glance in Nanami’s direction as she blew out smoke from her cigarette post-examination, a complicated expression on her face.

“You really like him.”

The solemn tone of Gojo’s voice caught you off-guard, and you let out an awkward laugh. “Well, it doesn’t really matter now, does it?”

“Would you wait for him? Until he decides it’s time to retire and finally get on with living the rest of his life?” Gojo's head is turned, looking directly into your eyes now, his sunglasses slipping a fraction down the bridge of his nose to reveal that penetrating blue gaze as he awaited your response.

“I don’t even know how he feels about me. He may just see me as a colleague, nothing more, nothing less. Besides, even if he did like me in that way, there’s no guarantee that he’d feel the same years down the line. People change, that’s a fact. And I don’t know if I’m…brave enough to spend my life waiting for a train that may never come.” You smiled sheepishly, appetite suddenly gone. “Pretty cowardly, right?”

You could feel it again; the horrible onslaught of tingling behind the eyes that heralded the arrival of tears. “I’m sorry. Once I start crying, it takes forever for me to stop. Just ignore me.”

Your voice grew thick as you moved to unfold your wadded up napkin in an attempt to dab at your eyes when Gojo halted you in place by putting his hand atop your own, the size of his fingers and palm eclipsing yours in a way that you’d never paid attention to before. Producing a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his coat, he handed it to you, saying gently: “You’ll wreck your eyes using something so rough.”

The cotton square was soft like silk against your skin, the sheen of the fabric a testament to its fine quality, as with everything else associated with Gojo Satoru. One corner was embellished with an embroidered silver dragonfly. And as you thanked him, wiping at the corners of your eyes, you couldn’t help noticing the faintest scent of hinoki and cedarwood imbued in the fibres. Clean, fresh…

…and smelling just like him.

Something bloomed deep inside your chest. Comfort, perhaps.

“You’re no coward," he said. "Cowards can’t even work up the courage to tell others how they really feel. Give yourself more credit. You’re a highly-skilled sorcerer, incredibly intelligent, very attractive, and too witty for your own good sometimes. If Nanamin doesn’t realize that people like you don’t come around very often, that’s his loss, frankly. I’ve known him for ages so I can respect the reasons behind his decision, but in this case, it honestly feels like he’s losing the forest for the trees.”

You didn’t know what to say to that. In the three years since arriving at Jujutsu High, your interactions with Gojo Satoru had been largely limited to greetings exchanged in the hallways or unplanned meetings in the staff lounge when your busy schedules just happened to overlap. The man always had his hands full either teaching or dealing with missions that only a sorcerer of his calibre could handle. Even still, his reputation preceded him, with Nanami, Shoko and especially Ijichi dropping hints about his personality that hadn’t already been gleaned from the times you’d spent with him in the same room. Brash, flippant, and cocky — that was largely the picture that had been painted of Gojo in your head. But this — this man sitting beside you on a stool much too small for his stature — was a side of Gojo Satoru you hadn’t known existed.

You were used to the jokes, used to the ego, used to the way he’d interfere with everyone else’s business as an amusing way to pass the day.

You hadn’t expected him to lift your spirits. You didn’t think he knew you well enough to even care.

“Do you do this for everyone? Or just me and Ijichi?” Tears already abating, the beginnings of a smile spread across your face. Gojo puffed out his chest, dramatic and beaming.

“The Gojo Satoru service is limited only to hemorrhoid-sufferers and women who cry in parking lots because of men in beige suits. Between me and you, the latter is much more common.”

“Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.” You laughed despite yourself.

“There. Finally managed to make you laugh,” he said, a look of tenderness crossing his face in an expression that you’d been completely unprepared to receive. Clearing your throat, you dropped your gaze back to your bowl of noodles, feeling a warmth that had nothing to do with the steaming broth.

Gojo was right. You did feel lighter.

Awesome cloud divider by @pxrce-lain (thank you so much!)

✨Read Part 2 here! 👈🏼

Thank you so much for reading and hope you enjoyed this piece! Please stay tuned for more writing to come and check out the masterpost! 😊💕

The cover in order to keep a low profile during the mission, in case word got out that professionals had been assigned to deal with something that every local already knew wasn’t in the wheelhouse of the regular authorities: something neither human nor animal, and preying on them at a growing frequency.

Higuruma took a sip of his canned coffee, grateful for the convenience of the vending machine that stood in the lobby of the ryokan, the faint glow of its modern fluorescent lighting clashing with the traditional aesthetic of the building in which it was housed.

Out of place, like the way the proprietress had looked at him.

It had happened before, but Higuruma Hiromi still hadn’t managed to get completely used to it: the looking. The way expressions on faces would warp from something neutral or even welcoming into one of abhorrence or disgust.

“That’s the man who defended that murderer in court! Can you imagine? How do people like that even live with themselves?”

“Anyone can see that he did it! They found the murder weapon in his washing machine, for god’s sake. How much more evidence do you need?”

Higuruma’s last — and final — case, in particular, had been highly publicized: journalists and media outlets swarming outside the courtroom to train their lenses on nearly everyone involved in what had become a piece of sensationalized news across the country, especially him.

It was inevitable. And unescapable.

The way strangers would film him without consent, surreptitiously holding up phones to capture images of him while on the trains, in the streets, even when he waited in line to buy coffee in the mornings — posting scathing captions beneath photos and videos thrown onto social media as if his life’s work was just another means for them to garner likes and attention online.

And it seemed that today was no exception: Higuruma Hiromi’s reputation had preceded him once more.

“Oh,” was all the elderly proprietress had said, but that had been enough. Her gaze had swept over Higuruma’s face the moment he stepped foot into the centuries-old inn, the smile on her lips melting away as they pressed into a disapproving line instead, the change in her expression as sudden and stark as a summer storm.

Of course, he’d thought. She knows who I am.

But then you had slipped an arm through his, smiling in a way that never seemed to falter in how disarmingly bright it was, and smoothly interjected with, “Reservations for Mr and Mrs Nanami, please,” in the jovial tone of newlyweds on a honeymoon.

And the sinking sensation that had quietly highjacked Higuruma’s gut softly settled.

Perhaps it had been the feel of you; the way his arm had risen immediately — automatically — to support the weight of yours like it had been something he’d done for years, the warmth of your body pressed to his as natural as the rhythm of one breath following the last.

Or maybe it had been due to the reaction of the proprietress, blinking at the surname she’d been given before tracing one finger crooked with arthritis down her register before flashing an apologetic smile to atone for the case of ‘mistaken identity,’ which she’d more than made up for by the enthusiasm with which she ushered the two of you to your accommodations:

A single room.

“Absolutely perfect for a husband and wife! We’ve had many happy couples stay here,” she’d exclaimed before setting the tea service on a low table in the room and sliding the shoji door shut behind her retreating footsteps, leaving you and Higuruma alone.

“Mr and Mrs Nanami…” Higuruma began.

“I hope you don’t mind. Ijichi and I discussed it a few days ago. Figured it would be best for the cover, especially since…well, you’re quite the celebrity.”

His shoulders stiffened.

“I’m sorry.” Immediately setting down the overnight bag you’d been carrying, you crossed the room until you stood before him, steps muted on the tatami mats. “That was insensitive. I didn’t mean it that way, truly.”

Higuruma shook his head. “It’s fine. I’m used to it by now.”

The silence that descended thereafter was thick and awkward. You were still — quiet for so long that Higuruma thought for one awful moment that he had somehow offended you with something he’d said or done. But then your lips parted and you spoke in a voice so soft that he found himself leaning in closer, straining to hear it:

“It’s funny, isn’t it? The little injustices we get used to, simply because they happen often enough.”

Higuruma froze.

It’s always gone against my nature to leave things alone when I feel like they’re wrong.

He’d said that once, hadn’t he? Sitting on a park bench and having a conversation with an old colleague and friend that was altogether too solemn for the sunny weather that day; an admission made once upon a time before Higuruma’s life tore apart at the seams. And the recollection of his own words now hit him with a force he took great care not to show, feigning an expression of calm though he felt anything but…

…because here you were now, talking about those little injustices and reminding him of exactly why he’d devoted his life to fighting them in the first place.

Because he wasn’t the type of man who could easily look away, not when each one was an insidious grain of sand that had the collective power to compound into mountains. And mountains, once formed, were infinitely hard to move.

Higuruma took a deep breath, felt shift deep inside him, like a joint that had been dislocated suddenly slipping back into place.

Corrected.

And when he spoke next, voice clear and unwavering and entirely reminiscent of how he used to deliver his closing statements in court, Higuruma was momentarily taken aback, having nearly forgotten that he was ever capable of producing such a sound:

“You’re right. There are some things we should never get used to.”

The smile that bloomed on your face then, faint but certain, was a sight Higuruma knew he would remember for the rest of his life. And he could do nothing but hold his breath when you reached out — movement slow enough for him to telegraph and stop, if he so desired — to lay your hand over his chest, the heat of your skin seeping past the fibres of his dress shirt to warm the heart that had begun to race beneath your palm.

“You’re a good man, Higuruma-san,”

Your voice was soft, gentle like your touch…

“no matter what you think of yourself.”

…and completely real.

---------------------------------------

Crush!

Higuruma hurriedly loosened his grip around the coffee can before he could misshapen it any further, the metallic sound jarring enough in the silence of the room to pull him from his reverie of the day’s earlier events.

Inhaling deeply through his nose, he reminded himself that a cool head was needed if he was going to navigate the rest of this mission with professionalism — a goal which was proving to be more and more difficult given the near superhuman strength of will it had taken him not to clasp his hand tightly over yours when you had touched his chest just hours earlier, telling him the words he hadn’t known he needed so desperately to hear:

You’re a good man.

He swallowed.

Wondered if you wouldn’t change your mind if you knew all the ways he’d already had you in his mind; all the incriminating little details of him coming undone in the private spaces of bathrooms, gripping his cock as he imagined your pussy pulsing in tight flutters around him, your name leaving his lips in a voice sunk low from lust that had no outlet other than the slippery squeeze of his own soapy hand.

He tried not to ruminate on the way his name sounded in your mouth, Higuruma-san. Told himself to stop wondering whether he’d ever hear you call him Hiromi. Just Hiromi. Maybe whimpered against the shell of his ear as he worked to bring you to the brink of pleasure with every forceful bounce of your body in his lap, Higuruma’s hips snapping up again and again just to feel you tremble in his arms.

He sighs, uncomfortably aware of just how hard he’d grown in his trousers.

Then you had stepped out from the bathroom dressed in your sleek navy uniform, katana nestled safely in a cloth bag slung over one shoulder, and Higuruma grew harder still at the thought of seeing you in action once again.

Clearing his throat, he readjusted his stance as he reached for the unopened can of coffee set on the table beside him, offering it to you. “Hope you’re okay with black coffee. It was either this or a bottle of milk tea for caffeinated options. Figured we’d need it seeing as the Hour of the Ox technically extends from 1 to 3 am.”

Smiling, you accepted the can, fingers grazing the tips of his to send electricity running through his veins when you say, “Thanks, partner. Now, shall we go fuck shit up?”

“Anytime,” he replies.

As long as it’s with you.

Tuesday, March 23rd, 20XX. 1:26 am. Hakone.

“Earlier,” Higuruma starts, hands firm on the steering wheel as the headlights of the rental car illuminated bright swathes of road in a darkness that bordered on pitch black, “you mentioned expecting the unexpected. What exactly did you mean by that?”

You stopped tapping a finger against your can of coffee and leaned forward in the passenger seat, turning the radio all the way down to cut off the high-pitched sounds of a manufactured J-pop group boasting 54 members. “The mission briefing mentioned, what, several Grade One curses?”

“Three. Potentially four.”

“I’m thinking Special Grade. One or two.”

Higuruma’s grip tightens on the wheel. “Evidence?”

“Intuition,” you replied, before quickly amending the statement when he turned his attention from the road ahead to look you in the eye for a few loaded seconds: “Wait, just hear me out. Something about the details of the mission didn’t sit right with me from the start. The number of disappearances, the timing of it all…it’s just too uncanny. There’s been no recorded cursed activity in the area for decades and then — boom — suddenly a bunch of people go missing with no obvious precipitating factor: no recent sources of manmade violence, no landslides, flooding or other natural disasters that might’ve resulted in a massive loss of life.

“And then, when we actually stepped foot in that forest, something on that trail felt…ancient. Old enough to feel almost sacred. Nothing like any Grade One curse I’ve ever encountered. It all seems rather…rather…”

You gesticulated with your free hand, struggling to find the right word.

“Ritualistic?” Higuruma offered, remembering all too well how his own body had reacted as he stood before that torii gate — senses sharpening and on edge as if anticipating the arrival of a massive storm.

“Yes!” you snapped your fingers. “Exactly that. Like the missing had been offerings made to appease an angry god. Or curse, in this case.”

“Hitobashira,” Higuruma exhaled, reducing his speed as he made a gradual turn to the left, the tires rumbling for a moment as they transitioned from paved asphalt onto a road of packed dirt.

“Precisely. The practice of burying people alive as sacrifices to the gods. Way back when, it was believed that large scale construction would only come to a smooth completion if vengeful kami that were slighted in some way by the project were appeased in this manner.”

Higuruma recalled a documentary he’d watched once while in law school, a random program that had popped up on TV when he’d taken a break from studying late at night. It had featured a Sengoku era castle in Sakai, where archaeologists had unearthed the remains of an intact skeleton from amongst the massive stones comprising the base of the fortress. The revelation that it had corroborated an old folk tale about a woman who had willingly sacrificed herself in order for the castle’s foundations to hold in return for her sons being made samurai retainers of its lord had sent chills down Higuruma’s spine, the story no less harrowing for having taken place centuries prior.

“But that practice is now a thing of the past, thankfully,” he said.

Tap, tap, tap.

Your index finger beat a tinny rhythm against the lid of the can. Higuruma glanced over to find you deep in thought, and when you finally speak, the words are deliberate, like a house being carefully constructed, brick by brick.

“So far as we know. Which might be why whatever is on that mountain has developed either a ravenous appetite or an inflated ego, or both. It was used to the obeisance, to being fed for years. And now that it has been starved for ages and largely relegated to the realm of old wives’ tales, maybe it has finally decided to take what it considers to be its due. It’s grown tired of waiting. Or that’s what it feels like, at least. Like I said, gut feeling.”

Higuruma shifts in the driver’s seat. “So, a Special Grade curse then.”

“That’s my take. Especially if it grows stronger with every life it consumes.”

A solemn silence fell between you, interrupted only by the occasional hint of static issuing from the radio.

“Six missing—“

“—in the last three months,” you finish Higuruma’s thought. “And more, if you and I fail tonight. Which is not an option for us — at least, not until we figure out why the higher-ups have deliberately fed us faulty intel.”

Lips pressing into a thin line, Higuruma finally spotted the clearing where he’d parked earlier that day.

The possibility of you dying wasn’t something he would ever be willing to entertain.

Not if he had any say in it.

Tuesday, March 23rd, 20XX. ?? am. A forest trail in Hakone.

You were right.

Higuruma noted this with a strange sort of pride-infused satisfaction.

The two of you weren’t dealing with anything remotely close to a Grade One curse. That much had become clear when the shape of it finally became salient under the cool illumination of moonlight, casting a frosted glow around its massive and hulking shape — broad like the span of a seafaring ship and rivalling even the tallest cedars in height.

Mountainous.

The forest trail from earlier that day had been completely transformed, moss growing thick and slippery on the steps leading up towards the torii gate whose beams now bore splatters of blood, running thickly down the massive wooden columns to gather in crimson pools. Whether these were real or merely illusions, Higuruma didn’t have the leisure to distinguish.

“What will Judgeman make of it, I wonder?” you whispered from beside him as you bent onto one knee at the side of the clearing, slinging the bag from your shoulder to deftly unfold layers of fine indigo cloth until your weapon was revealed.

And Higuruma, whose mind was already working through Penal Codes he knew like the back of his hand, was on the verge of mentioning something about forced confinement and kidnapping when he stopped short at the sight of the blade in your hand.

“That’s not the same katana you used last time,” he said, wholly unable to contain the awe that had begun to seep into his voice. “Is…is that…a Muramasa?!”

Because there, mere inches away from him, was the so-called demonic sword of legend: a Muramasa blade.

They were said to have been cursed, demanding that blood be spilt whenever it was drawn, regardless of the cost to the victim or the wielder. And though they were once greatly favoured by Tokugawa Ieyasu and the samurai of Mikawa for their exquisite sharpness, rumour had it that they eventually came to shun these katanas for having personally taken the lives of so many of their own.

Higuruma had first heard of its lore as a child, standing before a glass case and staring intently at a weapon that could surely slice even a strand of hair in two lengthwise, if it were its misfortune to fall upon the edge of the blade. His grandfather, a sword aficionado himself, had brought him to an exhibit at a museum, and a young Higuruma had spent nearly an hour admiring the high peaks and low valleys of its hamon…

…nearly identical to the one he saw now, reflecting beams of moonlight in a deadly glow — impossible to miss the moment you unsheathed it from its black-lacquered scabbard, the katana held in your hand like it was a perfectly natural extension of your own body.

“A beauty, isn’t it?!” you whispered, voice taking on the excited cadence of a fangirl discussing her favourite obsession. “On loan from the Gojo clan, of course. Gakuganji had me testing it a million different ways for days last week.”

Somewhere in the back of his mind, the absurdity of the situation isn’t lost on Higuruma. Neither of you were behaving as if particularly concerned with the presence of the enormously large, very likely Special Grade curse looming just a stone’s throw away. At least, not while important historical artefacts were being discussed, clearly.

And Higuruma is once again reminded of all the inconvenient ways in which you manage to knock him off-kilter.

The look on your face right now, for example, was particularly distracting: the smile that imparted a special glow to your expression doing things to his body that he knows he will continue to examine for days to come, lengthy sessions of introspection where he will hold his cock within the grip of fingers and palm, eyes shut as his imagination worked overtime to fool himself into believing that you were there with him, chasing the same pinnacle of pleasure.

But—

“You ready, partner?” you winked.

—all that had to wait.

Because you were already biting your lip and adjusting the grip on your katana, and the mountain of a curse had begun to turn its head in the direction of where the two of you had stepped out into the centre of the trail, you and Higuruma framed by the torii gate like subjects of an eerie photograph, ready to cross the threshold past the point of no return.

Higuruma locked eyes with yours and nodded, a humming excitement pulsing through his veins when he said in a voice low and resounding with power:

“Domain Expansion: Deadly Sentencing.”

Tuesday, March 23rd, 20XX. 3:45 am. A forest trail in Hakone.

Hah, hah, hah…

Laboured breaths mixing together in the night, Higuruma could no longer distinguish between those of his own and the ones that came from you, laid on the ground beside him.

He swallowed between inhalations and coughed at the friction tickling his parched throat. He was on his back, the ground beneath him cold like ice despite the heat that continued to roil through his body in waves. The collar of his dress shirt was soaked through with sweat and stuck uncomfortably to the back of his neck. His badly disheveled suit had begun to feel constricting. It made him feel like crawling out of his own skin.

And yet, we’re alive.

Because even though Higuruma Hiromi had survived not just the Culling Games but also Sukuna, never did he ever think he’d have to exorcise a—

“Gashadokuro…what the HELL was a Gashadokuro doing here?!” you moaned, barely able to form words after having to face the equivalent of an army’s worth of cursed skeletons.

Because it had become clear, unfortunately belatedly, that what you and Higuruma were dealing with was not a single entity per se, but a massive skeleton of a curse, composed entirely of the bones of all its prior victims collected over centuries past, each of which had the ability to become separated from the main body to act as autonomous fighters: spectral soldiers that formed and reformed at will unless their bones were effectively dismantled past the point of resurrection.

“Thank god for your gavel, Higuruma,” you said when you finally managed to catch your breath.

Higuruma, for one, could still sense vibrations coursing like fine tremors through his hands and arms, both limbs feeling very much like they were on the verge of falling off. It seemed like he had spent an eternity wielding his gavel at its most enormous, most exaggerated size, sweeping away broad swathes of skeletons when he wasn’t pounding them into the ground like a game of high stakes whack-a-mole.

Turning his head, he sought out the profile of your face in the receding moonlight. “Your domain…it saved us. You were magnificent back there. Truly formidable.”

It wasn’t hyperbole and he was much too exhausted to care about how he sounded in the moment, whether his words gave the secret interiority of his feelings away. Because when he had witnessed you activating your domain for the first time while shielding himself within a Simple Domain he had mastered previously under Kusakabe’s guidance, he had seen something in you that carried none of the lightness you’d shown him before.

The Graveyard of Souls.

Your domain.

A desolate landscape unfurling upon your command, spanning an acreage of forest as large as an actual battlefield might’ve been. Smoking trees and cracked earth extended all around as far as the eye could see, punctuated throughout by the most striking feature of all: a sea of katanas, littered like spikes impaled in the ground and reeking of death and despair.

Katana, the soul of a samurai, Higuruma had thought, adjusting his stance to withhold his domain against the overwhelming strength of yours.

But before he could consider this any further, the sight of you sinking your teeth into the tip of your finger arrested all thought. He watched as your eyes took on an almost otherworldly quality when you drew blood, hand squeezing into a fist so tight blood began to flow readily from the self-inflicted wound until it ran down the length of your sword. At the first taste of your blood, the Muramasa began to glow with a sickly green light which pulsated like a heartbeat as it greedily soaked up the hot taste of iron.

And when you fixed the point of your blade toward the looming figure of the Gashadokuro, no less intimidating despite its stripped-down size, every katana in your domain followed suit, unsheathing themselves from their burrows of packed earth as if drawn by warriors of an invisible army, their sharp edges honing in on whichever skeletal soldier broken off from the main body that they could find.

Sheltered within his domain, Higuruma barely caught it: the smallest movement of your lips, inaudible to anyone but yourself. And then, the sudden emergence of cursed energy coloured sky blue surging through your hands to travel through the tips of your fingers until it intertwined like thread with the green glow of the Muramasa like a kumihimo cord. Then, in a matter of seconds, you moved like lightning — facing the massive curse at one moment, then standing just behind it at the next, having barrelled through the Gashadokuro’s torso in one swift motion.

By the time you’d sheathed your katana with a click, the creature fell apart, its massive body cleanly cut into thirds. The remains of the skeleton army had met the same fate, collapsing to the ground having been made undone by the same three thrusts of a katana into their bodies in a way that mirrored your own swordplay, bones dissolving into grey powder that dissipated like incense smoke in the night air when you finally dismissed your domain. A thin trail of blood had begun trickling down your nostrils when you, yourself, crumpled to the forest floor.

Higuruma had run then.

Felt the gavel in his grip disappear without conscious decision as he released his simple domain, pumping both arms and willing his legs to move faster and faster despite the protest of his muscles, each stride taking him to your side as fast as was humanly possible.

Your name was already a mantra on his lips by the time he reached you, anxiety thick in his voice. Scanning his gaze over your body, he checked for injuries and found nothing too concerning aside from bruising and a few superficial cuts. The trickle of your nosebleed was growing thinner, and the self-inflicted wound on your finger had clotted over. He had already decided to ask about the latter at a more appropriate time, maybe during a conversation in which he could fit in the observation in a way that didn’t seem accusatory.

But all that would have to wait.

Because at that moment, with your uniform sullied and torn and the Muramasa lying completely forgotten by your side, Higuruma needed to hold you in his arms. Kneeling down, he gently cradled your head in both his hands and brought his face to within an inch of yours, until he could feel your breath — faint but present — on the skin of his lips like a proof of life.

Then, and only then, did he breathe again in relief.

And when you slowly blinked your eyes open and muttered,

“Ancient things are SUCH a bitch to kill,”

Higuruma Hiromi…

…laughed.

It was a low, deep, booming sound that echoed through the forest at night; a sound that, if any of the locals happened to hear while tucked into the cozy warmth of their futons, would immediately spark talk that the rumours of yokai revelling in the woods during a full moon were true after all.

And after your initial shock at Higuruma’s sudden outpouring of emotion, you, too, joined in the laughter until tears began to gather at the corners of your eyes, sharing in this moment of absolute absurdity until you clutched at your midsection and laughed so hard that you rolled out of Higuruma’s embrace completely.

Higuruma felt…light. Despite everything that had happened that night, the adrenaline from the clash of battle had begun to dissipate, shaken loose by laughter that still coursed through him to loosen the knots in his gut and ease the tension from his body in a way that was nothing short of miraculous. He lay on the ground beside you, staring at the stars above as the two of you continued to pant from both the exertion of battle and the remnants of uncontrollable laughter.

Higuruma couldn’t remember the last time he laughed.

He couldn’t remember the last time he felt happy.

But tonight, after a near brush with death at the hands of a giant cursed skeleton, he had accomplished both.

Because you were by his side.

Tuesday, March 23rd, 20XX. 4:30 am. Hakone.

The drive back to the ryokan had been relatively quiet, both of you bone tired and slowly digesting the events of the night. And as Higuruma offered to take the wheel again, he couldn’t help but ruminate, examining how his domain had been overwhelmed by the sheer number of souls that had been incorporated into the Gashadokuro. As it stood, Judgeman could only proclaim a verdict on an individual basis, which had made his shikigami inefficient when it came to the sheer number of targets present. He knew that, had it not been for you, the night might’ve ended very differently.

“You were remarkable out there,” he reaffirmed, glancing over and surreptitiously assessing you for any signs of pain or discomfort though you had already assured him you were fine.

“Thanks, but I’m sorry you had to see that embarrassing nose bleed. That was the second time I’ve ever been able to deploy my domain, and not nearly at this level of intensity. Those damn skeletons just kept on coming…” you chuckled faintly, pulling Higuruma’s suit jacket closer around you for warmth before slipping your hands into the pockets, resting your head against the passenger seat window. Higuruma had slipped it from his shoulders and offered it to you wordlessly once he’d helped you off the ground and you had accepted, having lost an entire sleeve from your uniform.

And as Higuruma continued to navigate the road ahead, blinking a few times to clear the fatigue from his eyes, he wondered how it was possible that you were even more alluring now, with your hair disheveled and dirt on your face, the steady rhythm of your breath seeming to cast a spell with the way his heart had begun to race. Clearing his throat, he forced himself to focus on the soft hum of the motor and might’ve actually been successful had not a dull thud of something hit the rubber mat at your feet when you suddenly extended both arms before you in a yawning stretch.

You reached down, groping around for whatever had accidentally been pulled out of Higuruma’s jacket pocket by the quick extraction of your hand. And then—

“Oh my god, I LOVE THESE!”

Higuruma looked over and saw them in your palm:

Caramels.

The roll of hard candies that he had purchased weeks ago after Ino Takuma casually mentioned that you had a sweet tooth.

The ones he’d been carrying around in his pocket for just as long, hoping he’d find a way to offer them to you because…because…

…because you said his name reminded you of sunflowers.

It was apt, really, given the way he couldn’t help but orient in your direction like flowers seeking sunlight. And the way you smiled at him, glowing as if lit from within by your own star, was precisely why he’d been unable to stop thinking about you ever since he first met you on that fated Thursday.

“You can have one. All of them, actually. I, um…I got them for you,” he heard himself say, uncharacteristically tripping over his own words and feeling his face grow warm in the process.

You were quiet for a moment, so still that Higuruma chanced a glance in your direction just to ensure that you weren’t repulsed by his admission. But then he caught sight of your eyes widening a fraction before they began to crinkle beautifully at their corners, the shy smile that spread across your lips so arresting that he was thankful for the fact that he was already seated.

And Higuruma Hiromi knew, right then and there, with the force of indisputable fact, that he had fallen completely in love with you.

You thanked him with quiet sincerity but couldn’t quite hide the mounting excitement that had begun to colour your voice, so thrilled to be receiving something so simple that the word ‘cute’ automatically popped into Higuruma’s head. And when you held out a piece to him, saying, “Good things should be shared,” he stilled at those familiar words and discovered that he couldn’t find it in him not to accept.

He was right. The caramel was sweet.

And it matched the smile on your face completely.

Tuesday, March 23rd, 20XX. 9:05 am. Hakone.

Higuruma Hiromi woke up hard.

Cock throbbing — long, thick and heavy and straining against the thin cotton of his sleep pants, his sizeable tent made obvious by the morning light that already brightened the room through the shoji screen windows.

He was immediately thankful for having the foresight to forego the yukata provided by the ryokan, opting instead for his pyjamas in case he inadvertently exposed himself rolling around in his sleep, having made the decision in a near unconscious state before collapsing into his futon shortly after the quick shower he’d taken post-mission. The last thing he wanted to do was subject you to his very obvious feelings for you after the night you’d both had, feelings that had found an outlet regardless in dreams that resulted in him, ironically, finding himself in very dire need of release this morning.

Because he had dreamt of you.

In the forest. Beyond the red columns of the torii gate.

Standing barefoot in a clearing amongst a graveyard of broken bones, their smoking remains carried up on the night wind towards the sky like spiralling incense. The full moon cast a pale spotlight upon your body, and held his gaze captive as it illuminated your skin like mother-of-pearl, luminosity shifting in layers and impossible to pin down…

…much like yourself.

Because there was something about you that was untouchable; some quality that Higuruma’s logical mind struggled to wrap itself around. It imparted to you a sense of something sacred, and part of him — human, with all his failings and shortcomings and general unworthiness — wanted to touch…

…to defile.

To tear fabric from your body and sully your skin with his hands, to imprint every single lustful thought and fantasy he has ever spun of you in his mind and make them real, to make you completely, entirely, his.

He drifted toward you in this ethereal realm, each step taking him closer and closer until he could make out the faint splatters of blood across your face, the smell and stench of it thick like molasses in the air. And as he took in the sight of you — and you, the sight of him — bloody and battered, the desire, the want for one another, grew to a fever pitch.

Bloodlust.

Higuruma had heard about its purported existence before. Felt something that certainly would’ve fallen into that definition himself the very first time he used the Executioner’s Sword. It had been during the Culling Games, against the second person who challenged him; an awful reincarnated sorcerer who had strung remains of his victims from his belt like gory trophies, clamouring endlessly about how he’d love to do something similar to parts of Higuruma’s face. The rage that had infiltrated Higuruma’s usually cool head continued to burn hot even after the sword had done its work — the feeling so strong he had to make his way to an abandoned theatre, sitting onstage in the dark until his pulse had calmed enough for the urge of violence, startling in its extremity, had passed. He had made the theatre his refuge thereafter. That is, until Itadori Yuji found him there.

And now, in dreams, Higuruma felt that familiar sensation again as he wiped the blood from your face with a careful hand: his heart pounding at a breakneck pace, beating savagely against the cage of his chest like it wanted out at all costs. And yet, the quality of it was somehow different. Transformed. The need for unabated aggression recast into another mold that demanded expression through the thrust of him between your legs…

…the brutal desire to feel you from the inside out.

Higuruma’s few hours of sleep had not been restful in the least, not with him writhing around on his futon, completely unaware of the way he was acting out the sordid details of his dream like a sleepwalker. Not when his dreamscape felt far too real to belong solely to that twilight realm.

Because when you had nuzzled into his touch, he felt the warmth of your skin in the cradle of his palm. And when you looked at him with those eyes — heated and certain — it sparked in him something like a forgotten memory; wispy fragments sunken down in the depths of his subconscious that were only now resurfacing at the behest of your parted lips, drawn up and out of dark waters by the touch of your tongue to his fingertips, the feel of your mouth gently sucking around each of his digits to tell him that he wasn’t the only one to feel something.

That you wanted him as much as he wanted you.

And that is what breaks Higuruma Hiromi.

His hands had clutched the duvet until his knuckles blanched white while in dreams, he’d torn the front of your uniform wide open, sending buttons ricocheting off shapes in the darkness because whatever had sunken teeth into him could only be soothed by the weight of your breasts in his mouth, by the feel of their tips hardening beneath the ministrations of his tongue. Higuruma panted into his pillow, moans catching to emerge as whimpers that were promptly suffocated into silence.

A single thrust of his hips bound you completely to him in the dream, Higuruma shuddering to feel himself buried in the tight, wet heat of your body. And as his hips bucked into the futon, hard cock fighting to find some semblance of release in his somnolent state, he could’ve sworn afterwards that the sensation of your nails digging into the clenched muscles of his biceps and shoulders was real, that he’d been nearly overwhelmed by the feel of you twitching around him, begging him to go harder, go faster.

You had called him by name, “Hiromi!” torn from your lips and growing in pitch every time he filled you up to bursting before pulling back to leave you empty and the maddening cycle began all over again. He drank in every iteration of that sound, his own breath devolving into shuddering gasps between kisses planted on your forehead and cheeks when he wasn’t greedily tasting your mouth, his hunger for you unable to be sated.

The two of you embraced on that cold packed earth, clothing in complete disarray and removed only insofar as it exposed solely what was needed to join your bodies together and allow for enough range of motion for Higuruma to fuck you like an animal and you to respond in kind. It was primal; the smell of dirt and dust and blood and sex combining in a heady perfume that spurred Higuruma on to a state of ecstasy that bordered on violence. It did not shock nor scare him. In fact…

…it excited him even more.

And when the chirping birdsong beyond the windows merged with growing daylight, Higuruma awoke with a start to find his duvet crumpled near the foot of his futon and his hand palming his sizeable erection through his navy pyjama pants.

Quickly releasing his grip, he rolled onto his side and readjusted himself as discreetly as possible, the movement of fabric seeming unbearably loud in the hush of morning. Pricking up his ears, he listened for the low, rhythmic sound of your breath in sleep, and upon finding none, finally turned to see that your futon had already been put away, the pink of your bedding peeking out at him from the sliding closet door which had been left slightly ajar.

Exhaling, he ran a hand over his face before he noticed something on the low table at the side of the room: a written note weighed down by an unopened can of black coffee that definitely hadn’t been there the night before:

Couldn’t sleep so I’m going for a walk. Hope you get a chance to sleep in, at least — I put the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign outside the door. Will be back in time for breakfast, but here’s a coffee for you in case I’m late! — Your Partner. P.S. How did you know those caramels are my favourite?

Higuruma Hiromi wasn’t used to this:

Smiling.

Especially not first thing in the morning, running on the fumes of barely two hours’ worth of rest, though even that was debatable given that he’d apparently been fucking his bedding into oblivion for most of the time.

But he was undoubtedly grinning now, stupid and lovesick as he brought the hastily scribbled note to the tip of his nose, inhaling like he could somehow catch the scent of your skin through transference, his finger unconsciously tapping on the can of coffee in the same way you’d done the night before, riding shotgun in the car.

He slid the windows open, admired the view outside. The skies were clear and bright, Mount Fuji’s snow-capped peak looming far off like a distant sentinel. And then—

Squeak, squeak, squeak!

—he looked down at the sound, jarring in the morning calm, and saw you waving at him while balancing on a bicycle that looked like it was made more of rust than metal. And there, barely contained in the wicker basket strung up at the front…

…was a giant sunflower. 🌻

To be continued in Part 4...coming soon!

Thank you so much for reading and hope you enjoyed this piece! More reads are available on my masterpost! 😊💕

“Midnight Sun Part 3: Until the Dawn” is copyright 2026 Kintsukoi, all rights reserved. Please do not repost/modify/translate/plagiarize in any manner or on any platform.

Mental curiosity is a big trigger for him. Nanami thinks you're at your sexiest when you get excited about an interest or hobby of yours, when you speak passionately about something without a shred of self-consciousness (it doesn't even matter what it's about; you could be rambling on and on about history, economics, psychology, the new anime you're currently obsessed with, etc.)

If you can banter with him and have meaningful discussions about a variety of topics (life, love, work and everything in-between), that is everything to him

Debate him and win? He's shifting carefully in his seat, trying not to be completely obvious for having pitched the biggest tent known to mankind

Basically, if you can hook his mind, you've got him for life

Here's the thing about Nanami Kento that nobody knows about and that no one would ever guess based on the way he shows up in his every day life: he is a MASTER at dirty talking.

Gojo would shit himself if he ever found out about half the stuff Nanami says and does

He's not going to text you anything overtly sexual - he's much too careful for that (he also knows that Gojo wouldn't think twice about snatching your phone away to scroll through your messages)

Instead, he would pass you in the halls at work and lean in just close enough to whisper absolute filth in your ear

Or perhaps he would wait until the two of you find yourselves alone in an elevator, innocently facing the steel doors and watching the floors count down on the digital display before he tells you something like how he deliberately neglected to wash his hands after finger-fucking you that morning, just so he could keep your scent on him for as long as possible

He appreciates this quality in you too, when you feel free enough to be completely uncensored around him because you trust him so fully (this level of trust is the ultimate aphrodisiac to him)

He goes wild for the sound of your voice in general and especially in bed. Tell him exactly what you want and he won't ever be shy about asking for what he wants in return (it's all about fair communication and give-and-take)

The more detailed and explicit your language is, the hotter he gets, and this man aims to please

If you tell him to pull your hair, he'll make a show of slowly winding the strands around his knuckles, pulling until you're forced to look back at him, Nanami instructing you to maintain eye contact as he thrusts into you from behind, the man bending over to swallow each moan and cry torn from you with greedy, open-mouthed kisses

If you admit that you want him to fuck your face, he will kiss you deeply before allowing you the privilege of taking him into your mouth, telling you in that low baritone voice of his to let him see your tongue before he taps the head of his cock once or twice on its flattened, pink surface, his hips gently pushing forward to slide inch after inch into your hot wet mouth. His large hands would softly caress the top of your head as he begins to thrust in earnest, Nanami running long fingers through your hair as he whispers encouragingly about how well you're doing, how devastatingly beautiful you look as you strive to do the impossible: taking in the entirety of his length and girth (sore jaws, anyone?!)

This man also takes the time to ask about what you need and desire:

"Tell me what you want."

"Where do you want my hands/fingers/lips/tongue/cock?"

"How do you want to feel?"

There is no hint of insecurity here; no shyness or bumbling along -> Nanamin seeks your consent and proceeds to deliver, every single time.

Nanami Kento, as we already know, does not play when it comes to anything in life, least of all when it comes to the one he loves. Sex, fucking, love making, whatever you want to call it, the act is like communion for him, a way to communicate exactly how the two of you feel for each other when words are, ironically in this case, just insufficient

That being said, he is naturally quite passionate in the bedroom (he is guilty of having once demolished your bed frame and has since bought you a replacement that is much sturdier and capable of withstanding the considerable force of his thrusts). He wants to show you exactly how much be burns for you. 🔥 These emotions run deep, and when they hit, they hit like a brick wall (but, of course, you already knew this about your lover)

The thing about Nanami Kento is that he is a connoisseur. If it's not real, he doesn't bother with it. Which is why he doesn't do casual sex or fwb because he is seeking quality, not quantity. Fucking just for the sake of nutting is NOT this man's M.O. Superficiality is not the name of the game here, and Nanami cannot bring himself to be physical with someone he does not respect because there's just no point.

The man is tired. He already deals with Gojo on the regular and would rather not invite anymore drama into his life if he can help it. He would much rather go home, cook a nice meal, read a book and jerk off in the shower if he was so inclined

Folks who are not serious about building a relationship with him need not apply. And he can tell too: his BS meter can suss out people who are down for one thing and one thing alone

Nanami has a big thing for eye contact, and he wants to maintain this with you for as much and as long as possible during intimacy: when you're riding him, when he's got you pressed and folded beneath the weight of his muscular frame, when you're on your knees and pleasing him with your mouth, when his fingers are interlaced with yours and his face is between your thighs - lips and tongue working you over until you're literally shaking from head to toe

100000% Nanami has fucked you in his car before 🚗 I know - surprise, surprise! No one would ever believe you if you were to tell them because his straight-laced image has been so carefully cultivated over the years.

The man has pulled off to the side of a quiet road when he (or you) just couldn't wait any longer

There have been countless times when he has managed to reach over with those long arms and finger you while waiting for the traffic light to change, keeping his eyes locked straight ahead through the windshield (SEE EDGING KING BELOW). He will then proceed to slowly taste his fingers one by one before he's putting his hand back on the steering wheel again, like nothing ever happened...

You've started wearing skirts and dresses more and more, often "conveniently" forgetting to put on panties

Not to worry though; this man is so tactically minded that you'll never get found out (or fined). It's the thrill of knowing you could theoretically get caught that does it for both of you

Nanamin is also BIG on erotica, well-written but definitely filthy as hell

Imagine: Nanami reading to you, his large hands - roughed in places by callouses earned in battle with his fists and blunt blade - drifting over your skin, his touch featherlight over the places of your body where he knows lingering circles will elicit the most breathless gasps from your lips

Think: the curve where your neck meets your shoulder, the line of your collarbones, the flesh of your lower lip, the soft skin of your cleavage and the sensitive tips of your breasts, the dip of your navel and the swell of your hips

He also loves insisting that you continue reading aloud while he's working his long, strong fingers between your legs, your thighs already trembling while you're sat on his lap, feeling every twitch of his muscles beneath you, his breath growing more heated and strained against the back of your neck as he struggles to keep himself contained even while saying things like:

"Keep your voice even. Could you do that for me?"

"Think you can manage another chapter? No? Another page or paragraph, then," as he slips a third finger into your cunt, opening you up for him as your head falls back against his broad shoulder

Especially loves it when you read while soaking in the tub together, your back against the impressive musculature of his abs and chest, feeling his heart beating in time with yours. The man would soap you down, gathering handfuls of bubbles in his palms so he can watch them spill down your chest and hug the curves of your breasts, all while saying in a low voice by your ear: "Continue. Don't let me stop you."

Have I mentioned that King Kento is also the KING OF EDGING? 👑

He will hold you down with one strong arm looped around your waist while he works the fingers of his other hand deeply into you, rhythm alternating between sensually slow and brutally fast depending on how quickly he wants you to cum (or not), pulling out at intervals to draw slick circles at the borders of your clit, teasing the hood back just enough to make you shudder against him at the sheer intensity of sensation

This man will make you squirt every single time he plays with you (kinda hard not to with how badly he's been edging you, building up to these mind-blowing orgasms). Afterwards, he will quietly remove his hand after gently caressing the folds of your pussy through the aftershocks of your massive orgasm, holding it up before both of your faces just so you can watch your juices drip down from his fingers all the way onto his muscular forearms

Best believe King Kento will be licking off every last drop, not just from his hands but also from between your legs, tongue flattening to draw broad strokes up and down your slit

Of course, he will be looking up at you while he does this, eyes heated and panting slightly from barely contained lust, his lips slick and shiny from your arousal to have you completely undone from the sight of it alone

Another thing that Nanami Kento loves? Love letters (he's a bit old-fashioned when it comes to various aspects of love and relationships and he considers love letters to be something of a lost art)

He loves writing to you, and especially loves receiving them from you (all the more so if you two are apart for work)

It can be impractical, given how slowly snail mail can take to arrive, but as with so many things with Nanami, it's more about the time, thought and effort that went into the act

Nanami is a tactile man and considers quality stationery to be one of the finer things in life. Collecting fountain pens and inks is a hobby of his and it shows: every one of his letters to you is always written in impeccable penmanship on gorgeous tomoe river paper that handles ink without bleed-throughs or feathering

These letters are...something else. Very little preamble and practically nothing of the run-of-the-mill, quotidian details that letters can have.

Instead, he is writing about how the sight of a particular bouquet at the florist's in his neighbourhood reminded him of the time he traced the curves of your body with the petals of a long-stemmed rose, or that the tulips recalled the folds of your pussy, spreading under the patient ministrations of his fingers

He is also writing to tell you how much your presence in his life has changed the shape of his days and nights, and that he never once thought a love like this was something he'd ever be privileged enough to have, especially as a jujutsu sorcerer

He's telling you that he was never one to believe in such concepts as fate and destiny, but ever since meeting you, he can't be sure anymore

He really is a romantic through and through 💕

Kento also loves, loves, loves it when you wear lingerie for him

it's always such a pleasant surprise when he undresses you to find what's waiting beneath, like a sultry little secret that's meant for his eyes only

choose anything you want, he's not picky about it. It's the thought that counts for him, really - knowing that you've been wearing silk and satin and lace right next to your skin the entire day, like the thought of him fucking you was sitting just beneath your consciousness while you went about your work

The man also loves gifting you lingerie: something tasteful, classic and well-made, occasionally very strappy but pieces that always make you feel sexy and confident

Nanami does not need you to be domestic for him. While it can be nice, this man is more than capable of taking care of himself and you

If anything, he is more adept in the kitchen than you are (seeing as cooking is a canon hobby of his)

Seeing you eat and enjoy his food actually brings him immense joy. It's one of his little great pleasures in life.

You can be sure that he would do his fair share of the chores (the man folds laundry like no other, using the KonMari method. When asked, he simply said: "It frees up a lot of closet space.")

Thanks so much for reading and please stay tuned for more writing to come! (Check out the masterpost! 😊💕)

For volunteering to fight Sukuna.

It would’ve been deserved, Higuruma had thought then, to die in that fight. Still thinks, though that line of thinking is very gradually declining in frequency. Higuruma Hiromi had killed. Taken the lives of others, mostly other sorcerers in the name of self-defence during the culling games, but the judge and prosecutor who had borne the brunt of his violence when his cursed powers first awoken took up a majority of his guilt.

The tension pulled too taunt when the string finally snapped somewhere in his soul.

When Higuruma’s hands found the gavel in that courtroom on that fated day, something dark and sinister and enormous compelling him to slam it down over and over again on the sounding block until all the accumulated discontent slid out from deep inside him to blot out the light, like a theatre when a movie is about to start.

Showtime.

Because wasn’t that all that the courtroom was? A piece of theatre? Everyone in it a prop or actor reciting lines in a story that had already been written before anyone had even stepped foot in the room to hear the case?

Japan’s criminal justice system has a conviction rate of 99.9%.

“It’s always gone against my nature to leave things alone when I feel like they’re wrong.”

“I just never managed to fix this habit.”

Wrong.

Higuruma was wrong.

He felt this deep within him with all the conviction he had channeled whenever he sought to defend people he truly believed innocent of the crimes they’d been charged with. He, a lawyer possessing knowledge of the laws that were meant to uphold society, had blood on his hands, because what was the point when the law never actually protected the people they were put in place to protect?

The system, in which he had placed so much faith when he was younger and much more naïve, had failed. Failed his clients. Failed him.

He had killed the judge and prosecutor in the case where his client, who had previously been found innocent of murder charges, was convicted during a retrial in which no new evidence had been brought forth.

Higuruma was a murderer. And, he would argue still, they had deserved it. His specific brand of guilt was not rooted in the deaths of two supposed innocents. Rather, it stemmed from the fact that, as someone who had very blatantly committed a crime, he would not be held accountable for it.

So now he was a man lost.

He knew the top brass had put in a pardon for him, had chosen not to prosecute him for his misdeeds. Higuruma was too valuable now to them as a jujutsu sorcerer, someone with the intelligence and innate talent to rival even Gojo Satoru himself. An asset who had essentially become untouchable.

Above the law.

It was laughable. The greatest irony of all.

So he had plucked the sunflower pin from his lapel, the one that had taken him years to earn the right to wear as an attorney, and placed it in the palm of his former colleague after she had declared her intent to continue prosecuting him on behalf of his victims’ families.

“Return this for me. And I hope you make a better attorney than I did.”

“Higuruma? Like sunflowers? What a great name!”

Tuesday, March 3, 20XX. 9:13 am.

The first time Higuruma Hiromi met you.

Briefing room with Ijichi sitting to your left and Ino on your right.

He has never seen a smile that bright before.

Bright enough to be incongruous with the world of jujutsu; with the world itself, as Higuruma knew it.

There was something in it that reminded him of Itadori Yuji, and he felt one corner of his lips lift a fraction in response — the feeling like the return of something so faraway it had almost been forgotten.

He had caught the rise of Ijichi’s brows before the man quickly schooled his features into one of stoic professionalism, handing out printouts from the folder that lay open on the table before him, coordinating details of the mission Higuruma had been assigned along with the other two sorcerers in the room.

Ino he had worked with a few times before, found the young man easy enough to get along with. He was always enthusiastic, often talking about Nanami Kento, a senpai he had looked up to and still held in great regard even after the man had been killed in action.

“You know, you kinda remind me of him sometimes, Higuruma-san. I think the two of you would’ve gotten along really well.”

Understanding the enormity of that comment, Higuruma had responded with a solemn nod.

But you…

You were a new factor. A different variable.

Someone who, like him, had found yourself with newly-awakened powers during the culling games. A woman who had inadvertently stumbled upon Hakari Kinji and willingly offered up a portion of your points when you learned what it was they were trying to achieve. In return, the remaining members of Jujutsu High had sought you out after the dust of Sukuna had settled and strongly encouraged you to continue on as a jujutsu sorcerer.

“I couldn’t really say no to Panda. I mean, have you seen him? He’s just too cute! I guess that’s why they brought him along when they asked me. Devious move.” You tapped a finger to your temple as you sat in the backseat with Higuruma, Ino riding shotgun beside Ijichi as the bespectacled man chauffeured the three of you to the mission site. “What about you, Higuruma-san? What they’d bribe you with to stay in this crazy jujutsu world?”

He had paused then, suddenly conscious of his words in a way that wasn’t entirely tied to the reasons for self-flagellation he’d been committing for months now.

He thought back to when the culling games first started, the country suddenly thrown into violent and bloody disarray; a veritable Battle Royale of kill or be killed. He should’ve been horrified. Any normal human being would’ve been.

But Higuruma Hiromi had long since stopped being normal.

Because finally, finally, here was a system that worked. A system that was honest in a way that the scaffolding meant to uphold the law wasn’t. A system truly impartial to anything but objective evidence: that the strongest survive.

“Have you ever killed someone who ticked you off?” he had asked Yuji back when the boy first barged into the theatre, requesting that Higuruma relinquish his points to him. “It feels much better than I expected.”

He thought about this then, sitting in the backseat of the moving car, sensing the patience radiating from you as well as something more shadowed lying in wait beneath the brightness of your words.

“I didn’t really have a choice,” Higuruma finally replied, gaze finding his hands on his lap.

The pardon from the top brass. Their intention on recouping whatever loss they’d incurred by his actions in the courtroom that day by working him to the bone as a jujutsu sorcerer.

Then he looked up, just in time for your eyes to lock with his for a moment longer than necessary. You nodded and didn’t say anything more, which he appreciated, given the audience in the close confines of the car. But then your smile grew into something warmer, sympathetic — private in the way that a secret passes between two people who understand exactly what wasn’t being said because both had lived through their own versions of darkness.

He discovered that he envied you then. The way you could still smile. The humanity that still clung to your aura like warmth nestled in the fibres of a wool coat.

And before he could think any further on it,

“We’re here!”

Ino’s announcement — completely unnecessary given that Ijichi was clearly in the process of parking the black sedan — sliced through the moment. Higuruma quietly spooled back the thread of thought, tucking it away to be re-examined at a more convenient time and place.

Wednesday, March 4, 20XX. 10:25 pm.

“Ahh.”

Higuruma let out a quiet sound of content as he stepped into the tub. He’d deliberately drawn a warmer bath that night, and as he sank into the water, steam rose up in a cloud of humidity to temporarily obscure his view of the tiled walls. As the heat began to penetrate his stiff muscles, he closed his eyes and tried to quiet his mind, but to no avail.

He thought about the mission, about meeting you for the first time the day prior. Recalled how composed you had been throughout it all, coordinating seamlessly with both Ino and himself to exorcise a slew of curses in the abandoned hospital in Sendai. Remembered how his mouth had fallen open a fraction to witness your cursed technique in action; the sheer power and devastating precision of it all, which had undoubtedly given you a massive advantage during the culling games.

Higuruma finds it somewhat problematic, the way his thoughts keep tracking to you. And if he were a less honest man, he would tell himself that it was due to sheer novelty; the fact that you had only just entered his professional orbit. Because this was what it was, after all, wasn’t it? He had been impressed with your skill, your efficiency. With the way you had delivered your report during the debriefing at Jujutsu High, words polished and intelligence glaringly obvious even at 7:30 in the morning.

Cupping his hands, he scoops up warm water and splashes it over his face, as if the act could bring clarity.

Because at the end of the day, Higuruma was an honest man. And right now, he found himself honestly curious about what your life had been like prior to the culling games: what you had done for a living, what you had studied in school. Whether you’d had a boyfriend or a husband, or maybe even a family of your own. He honestly tried to reconcile how someone so clearly capable of destruction as yourself could also be so…

…so beautiful.

It was ridiculous, he knew. One could never judge hearts by appearances alone. He himself was the perfect example of this. And yet, Higuruma found that far from being put off by your lethality, he was drawn to it — the image of your smiling face overlapping with the gruesome way you’d dispatched the curses doing something to Higuruma that he hadn’t felt in so long, it took him a while to name it:

Attraction.

Higuruma Hiromi was attracted to you.

How long had it been since he had last had a woman? He couldn’t remember. His days as a defense attorney had been filled with never-ending work: gathering evidence, building cases, courtrooms and disappointment. He’d barely had any time for himself, let alone a girlfriend. Love, and even sex, required a certain mindset that Higuruma just couldn’t muster up, not when his mind was constantly weighed down by the faces of the people he’d been unable to help.

The ones he couldn’t save.

But now, soaking in a tub with the ends of his hair curling from the damp heat, Higuruma says your name aloud — testing the shape of it in his mouth, teeth and tongue working each syllable and finding it pleasantly malleable, the sound of it echoing off the tiled walls to soothe his ears in a way he hadn’t quite anticipated.

And he wonders what it would feel like to have you join him — here, in this bath. Wonders about the shape of you, bared and hot and slick under water, the weight of your body above him, skin to skin and nothing in between. In his mind’s eye, he is drawing you with the same meticulous care that he brought to his legal work, Higuruma’s considerable skills of observation automatic and working overtime even as he fought alongside you on the mission, subconscious filing away the curves that were only partially hinted at beneath your dark navy uniform.

He thinks about wrapping his arms around you, this spectre of his imagination. Thinks about where he would touch first: the rounded joints of your shoulders, the hollows just above the collarbone where hot water would pool. Or perhaps the gentle swell of your breasts, pliant as he kneads from their soft sides towards the middle, just so he could watch them heave beneath his fingers — pinching and teasing at your nipples to test how hard they would grow at his touch.

Hard, like the way Higuruma currently finds himself beneath the water.

“Hmm.”

Sighing, he sets about traversing your body in his head, large hand reaching down until those long, tapered fingers are curling around his considerable girth to languidly stroke once, twice — mouth falling open wider as he inhales deeply at the contact, at the sensation of his palm reacquainting itself with his cock. And as he begins to build up to the pocket of a rhythm that makes him grow longer and thicker and harder, he wonders what you would do to him if you’d have him, whether that ruthlessness you’d displayed in the field would translate into something just as violent and necessary to completely unravel him behind closed doors.

Or not.

Because Higuruma Hiromi was not beyond taking you wherever and whenever you’d tell him to. And he knows this. Knows without a doubt that if you’d directed him to lay you out on the hood of a car and sink his face between your legs in broad daylight, he would do it, no hesitation. Even if Ino were there and Ijichi had still been buckled in the front seat, helpless behind the wheel.

“Shit—"

His breath catches as his hand picks up the pace, water sloshing over the sides of the tub when his body suddenly jerks upwards, undone by the mental image. He wonders what you would say to witness how quickly he’d kneel, perhaps chiding how careless he was to tear his dress pants on the sharp dig of the gravel beneath his knees. He would take it all in stride, anything to continue tasting you on his tongue, burying his face, his nose, deeper and deeper into your pussy just to drink you in, drunk on your juices.

And he would smile to feel the forceful pull of your fingers in his hair, driving him further into your body as if intent on swallowing him whole between the clench of your thighs. Would pant out how far gone he was for your flavour in between each deep dive — lips and tongue making a veritable mess of his face and your cunt, spit and arousal shiny on flesh that trembled in just the right way to make him your prisoner, Higuruma unable to do much else but press kiss after kiss to your slit, until you’re boneless and begging him to fuck you.

And god, how he wanted to fuck you.

To see you try to smile with all sincerity even with his cock in your mouth, the pink corners of your lips straining to contain him when he was hard and full, throbbing over the slippery surface of your wet tongue. He wondered if you’d look up at him with that same sweetness in your gaze as when you’d made that offbeat comment about his name and sunflowers, how you’d react when that voice in his head would inevitably grow louder, urging him to thrust farther and faster towards the back of your throat — how much more beautiful your eyes would appear when they began watering with the effort of taking him in.

Head falling back on the lip of the tub, Higuruma picks up his pace on instinct, squeezing hard around his cock, vaguely aware of the increasing intensity of the throbbing that pulses in the veins that snake along his length, ensuring that each pass of his hand teased at the sensitive spot just beneath the swell of his swollen head until the effect was enough to make his jaw clench, pressure building through his abdomen.

He thought of the way Ino had looked at you during the mission — the man’s expression filled with an awe that Higuruma was sure had mirrored his own when they saw you fight. Ino’s cheeks had been visibly pink when he finally lifted his face mask at the mission’s end, sidling up beside Higuruma to whisper, “Incredible, isn’t she?” as if Higuruma didn’t have eyes of his own.

Yes, you were incredible. Are incredible. And Higuruma Hiromi wanted you all to himself.

He could admit this now to himself in the privacy of this moment with nothing but water and steam around, stepping back to examine his feelings with all the rigour he usually reserved for court cases. It was ridiculous, he knew, to be jealous of Ino; to have been silently irked whenever you laughed at a joke the younger man made on the ride back to headquarters. Even more outlandish to have felt that tightness in his chest to see Ijichi smile when you had thanked him for taking care of the post-mission documentation.

Have I always been this jealous?

Higuruma could count the number of girlfriends he had had on one hand. And with each, he had, unfailingly, treated them with decency and respect, as should be expected. He had never been the type to feel the sting of insecurity whenever he witnessed them smiling or laughing in the presence of other men. Didn’t get angry, didn’t feel annoyed. He was self-possessed in a way that his friends and colleagues didn’t understand, slapping him on the back with a chuckle as they made some comment about how they wished they could do the same.

People couldn’t be owned. And to desire this was, in his mind, no different from wanting a puppet or a toy.

And yet.

Higuruma had known you for less than 48 hours. There was simply no rhyme or reason for him to feel so…so…

…possessive.

In nearly every other aspect of his life, Higuruma Hiromi had always been a measured man…

…until he’d gone off the rails after hitting his mid-thirties.

And perhaps it is the remnants of this breakdown that is the source of these thoughts, the ones that are spurring his cock to jump and twitch within his grip, precum spilling from his tip to immediately dissipate into the bathwater. Because Higuruma knows that he would relish the chance to fuck you before an audience, to drive the full, hard, hot length of him into you over and over again until his name is being torn from your throat in a clear reminder to all of exactly who was capable of reducing you to this debauchery, that a woman like you would only choose a man like him.

Yes, he would make it known.

Would throw your legs high over his shoulders just so he could bend over and fold you close, lips sealing tight upon yours to steal every breathless whimper that escapes every time his hips snap against your backside, the particular geometry of your body sheathing his cock like your pussy never meant to let it go. The pursuit of pleasure would be shameless; every tensed muscle, every wet sound, amplified in the lewd knowledge that they could watch but never touch.

Not you.

Not the way he could.

And when you come apart around him — wet heat squeezing in tight pulses, hands clinging to Higuruma like he is the only solid ground in a tilting world — he would follow suit, stilling the blistering rhythm of his lovemaking just for a fraction of a moment before he, too, arrives, spilling deep into your greedy body, your cunt begging for every last drop as each subsequent spasm milks him of all he had.

He would give it to you gladly, every last drop—

“Fuck—!”

The word escapes in a hiss, barely formed when he finally comes, the cloudy haze of cum spilling from him in spurts that dilute in the bath water as if it were never there at all.

Like you were never here with him.

Inhaling on a trembling breath, Higuruma strokes himself a few more times, pressure precisely applied to ease the rest of his cum out. And as he does so, he allows himself one final image: his seed slowly leaking from between your folds, delicately swollen from the attention he’d lavished upon you with fingers, lips, tongue; the rhythm of him moving inside you to draw forth something that bordered on overwhelming — the specific alchemy of his body in the crucible of yours.

Higuruma sat for a few moments longer, water now lukewarm. He unplugged the drain. Washed himself again and let the water from the shower head beat upon his face.

Clarity, he thinks. Clarity is what he needs most when he sees you next.

So he could look you in the eye as a colleague, as a professional.

Not the man who had brought himself to ecstasy on thoughts of you after having spent just a handful of hours in your presence.

So that the next time you say his name and “sunflowers” in the same breath, smiling like you were made of light, he could tell you,

Yes.

The seeds are being planted.

The garden is being tended to.

One flower at a time.

I’m learning. Rebuilding.

And when the flowers finally bloom, when he’s finally done the work and earned the right, Higuruma will hand you a bouquet of sunflowers and say,

“I was wrong. But every day feels a little more right.”

“So please, smile like that for me again.”

👉🏼 Read Part II Here

Thank you so much for reading and hope you enjoyed this piece! Please stay tuned for more writing to come and check out the masterpost! 😊💕