ᢉ𐭩 rina 🌼🌻

You scroll some more. 

And after two question prompts, one muscle tee gym photo (which is way more attractive than shirtless, by the way), and one group photo–a girl with short hair and a pretty boy with unruly black hair–, you’ve concluded that this Itadori Yuuji guy is a picture-perfect example of a kind of boy-next-door. 

You say kind of because you learn that his ‘typical sunday’ is waking up at dawn to take his and his bestfriend’s dogs out for a hike. You also say kind of because the most surprising fact about him is that he’s been a stunt double because he knows how to do parkour.

It feels like an illusion, as if someone so down-to-earth and seemingly friendly, living just eight kilometres away from you is being dangled right under your nose. 

He’s way too good to be true.

So when you press ‘like’ to his answer for the prompt ‘typical sunday’ and comment, “Cool! Are these the same dogs as the one in your photo?”, you definitely do not expect to be matched a few minutes later. 

.

To your surprise, you and Yuuji get along swimmingly. 

There’s a reason dating apps are not messaging apps, and you both find out when your chat page begins to lag after a series of 100+ messages in the span of 10 minutes. 

So, you swap numbers. 

And it’s good—way too good. 

It’s unbelievable how easy it is to talk to him, how fun. There’s never an awkward lull and he always replies enthusiastically, never too late and never too early. If others are walls, Yuuji is a trampoline—bouncing off your energy and returning what you throw at him.

You learn that not only is he a kind of boy-next-door, but a golden retriever boy too. And you don’t really know what to do or how to feel about that realization. 

5:47 p.m. 

Itadori Yuuji

> [attachment] 

> cheat meal today!! 

The attachment opens to a photo of him using french fries as a moustache, along with a giant burger set on a plate in front of him. Despite the very obvious distraction of his biceps flexing while his arms cross in front of his chest, you chuckle and roll your eyes.

It’s an inside joke—kind of. You mentioned once that you only found out when you were 13 that french fries did not in fact come from the French. 

5:48 p.m. 

< ha ha ha 🙄

You straighten up in your chair, stretching your back until you hear it crack.

< late lunch or early dinner? 

5:49 p.m. 

Itadori Yuuji 

> late lunch!

> had the whole team in a while ago then got a workout in right after!

5:50 p.m. 

< good reward? 

5:50 p.m. 

Itadori Yuuji 

> good enough

> would be better with some company though!

Herein lies the problem. 

You stare at your screen, biting your bottom lip as you watch the little bubble move as he types. 

5:51 p.m. 

Itadori Yuuji 

> only if you aren’t busy or anything!!

This is the second time Yuuji has tried to ask you out in the month and a half of you both talking; the first time was just completely wrong timing, but this one—you have nowhere else to be and you actually can go to him.

5:54 p.m. 

Itadori Yuuji 

> no pressure!! 

And yet—

Your fingers move faster than you can think. 

5:55 p.m. 

< still caught up at work, sorry 😞

< next time!! 

You can’t even explain why you feel so hesitant to meet him. 

5:56 p.m.

< eat enough for the both of us for now 😌

—you groan, dropping your forehead down on your desk. 

To be honest, you aren’t sure what to call the fuzzy feeling in your stomach. Is it butterflies? Nerves kicking in? Fear? 

5:57 p.m. 

Itadori Yuuji 

> that’s okay!! i ordered a milkshake too

> i’ll drink it in your spirit 🫡

It’s confusing, because he’d confessed that he’s never done dating apps before, isn’t so sure how it goes; that his friend was solely responsible for the creation of his account because why not? 

He’d admitted that he wasn’t too keen on it because he wasn’t really looking, but he’s glad he agreed because otherwise, he wouldn’t have met you. 

And you think, for someone who ‘isn’t so sure how it goes’, he’s actually pretty smooth. 

So, maybe you have trust issues.

And maybe, he’s just so sweet—about this, about everything, that you can’t figure out if he’s just really nice or if he’s flirting. 

.

.

.

“Kugisaki, I think I’m being rejected.” 

“Huh?” Nobara looks up midbite, face scrunching into confusion. Megumi raises his eyebrow from the side. 

“Yeah,” Yuuji shrugs, pouting as he swirls his chopsticks around, “maybe they don’t like me that way. Why else would they be avoiding a meet-up?” 

Nobara clears her throat, setting her chopsticks down as she straightens her back against the booth. Her fingers clasp together on the desk. 

“Itadori.” 

Yuuji looks up as Nobara shoots him a look. 

“No.” 

Megumi slurps on his soup.

“Phone.” Nobara reaches an arm out, palm up as she waits. 

Once she grabs a hold of the device, she taps on his text thread with you, scrolling up and up and up as if to prove a point. For even more evidence, she goes to your socials, reading the exchange of compliments you both have left on each other’s Instagram stories. 

“Maybe they just see me as a friend, you know?” 

“Itadori, I did not curate your profile for someone to tap on it because they ‘see you as a friend’.” 

The table is quiet—even Megumi’s stopped eating, cheek resting on his palm.

“You cannot tell me that someone tapped on your profile after seeing that bait photo of you with your dog and Fushiguro’s dog because they wanted to ‘just be friends’.” 

Yuuji has nothing else to say, eyes wide and mouth completely shut as Nobara goes on to explain (air quotes and all) how his profile is the quintessential design of a boy-next-door who anyone is bound to fall for. 

Only when she’s done, having exposed every single detail about your relationship (friendship?) that Yuuji never even knew she knew, does Megumi speak. 

“I wouldn’t be talking to someone everyday for three months straight if I didn’t like them that way.” 

.

.

.

You’re horrible. 

Yuuji should honestly just stop talking to you at this point. 

You’ve declined a meet-up three times for god’s sake. 

Each time, he’s been so nice about it too, telling you that it’s okay, you don’t need to worry about it. That he’ll definitely treat you to a big meal when you finally do meet—to make up for all the wrong timings. 

He’s not the problem, it’s you. 

Yuuji hasn’t replied to your text since yesterday, and you honestly wouldn’t blame him if he completely stopped because, why bother if his advances have been blocked every single time anyway? 

You’d get it, would completely understand if he ghosted you now. 

But… there’s no denying the way your stomach drops when you think about it. 

You’ve clicked open your phone five times in the past 10 minutes, and every time it vibrates, you rush to check it, hoping it’s him. 

This is the last time, you swear to yourself—the sign. 

If he asks you again one more time, you’ll finally do it. No more excuses, no more chickening out at the last minute. 

(You pray to whatever god is out there that he does.

And just as you’re about to go to bed, a notification pops up)

.

12:03 a.m. 

Itadori Yuuji 

> hey! slr!! someone on the team got injured so we had to rush him in

> it was a whole thing

> but i hope your back’s doing better! are the stretches i sent helping?

12:05 a.m. 

Itadori Yuuji

> also no pressure at all but there’s a game this saturday in our area

> was wondering if you’d like to drop by? 

> no worries if you’re busy though! 

> just let me know so i can get a pass for you 🫡

.

.

.

The cafe you agreed to meet at is busier than you expected, ceramics clinking and the coffee machines working double time as an influx of customers line up by the cashier. 

You’re thankful for the noise, the endless chatter around you drowning out each rapid pulse of your heart beat. 

Do you bow? Shake his hand? Wave?  

You’re so nervous, you might not even get a word in at all. 

It should be any minute now, based on his texts. 

You do your best to distract yourself, looking around the cafe and fiddling with the straps of your bag.

But the doors swing open, and you turn to see who’s come in—

It’s him. Itadori Yuuji in the flesh. 

The guy you’ve spent the past few months talking to, laughing at his jokes and sharing pieces of your day-to-day with. 

As he looks around for you, you take a few minutes to soak in this moment. Still too good to be true: black polo shirt hugging the expanse of his chest, his pink hair styled boyishly; there’s a natural brightness to him that draws you in, almost like his personality shines outward, charming you the more you look at him. 

—and when your gazes meet, he smiles, eyes crinkling, lighting up at the sight of you as he raises his hand and finally, waves. 

.

You don’t know what took you so long to finally say yes, but thank god you did. 

Because aside from all the qualities that make him a kind of boy-next-door and a golden retriever boy all packed in one, you’re becoming well aware that Itadori Yuuji’s biggest asset is the way his ass looks tight, hugged snuggly by his pants as you watch from the stands.

a/n: coming up with this idea was so much fun that there's a bunch of lore i wasn't able to include! like: 1) megumi hates yuuji's music and definitely told him to never mention it out of fear that he’ll be rejected even more, 2) yuuji has received messages asking 'who's your friend?' 'is he single?' on the group photo with nobara and megumi, 3) he definitely stunt doubled for sukuna

thank you notes: to @augustinewrites for literally feeding me inspiration for this entire plot omfg this is lowkey her brainchild too & for helping me with dating app research along with @ufo-ikawa 🥺 ily both + @mysugu @soumies for of course listening to me ramble abt this, as you both do with everything else i talk about 😭

His hands cradle your calves, fingers gentle but firm as he lifts and adjusts your legs to rest higher on his shoulders. He takes his time. Always does. Like your body is a thing to be honored, not used. His touch isn’t hurried—it’s curious. Caring. He maps the shape of your thighs like he’s sculpting something from memory. Like he’s saying I want to remember you like this. Every time.

And all the while, his cock throbs inside you. Heavy. Warm. Deep.

He hasn’t moved. Not really. Just sank into your body, slow and deep, until he was fully sheathed, until your walls fluttered around him and he felt you clench with a little gasp. And now he stays there—rooted. Still. As if moving too soon might break the spell.

One of his hands lifts to your face, thumb brushing along your cheekbone. His other arm wraps behind your knee, supporting your weight. His voice is low when he speaks, and it rumbles against your skin.

“You feel so good,” he murmurs, like it aches to say it. “So good like this... fuck, baby. You always do.”

He kisses your jaw. Then your cheek. Then your mouth—sweet and slow, like he’s tasting honey straight from the comb. He doesn’t rush. Never does. That’s the thing about Yuji. He feels everything. He lets himself feel everything.

And you feel it too. The way he stretches you, fills you, fits inside you like the answer to a question your body didn’t know it was asking.

Your Yuji is gentle. He always has been. He always will be.

But gentleness doesn’t mean fragility. No—Yuji is strength worn soft. He is terra-cotta warmth, body forged in clay and blood. Iron veined with gold, cracked open and still choosing mercy. He is the spring storm, the green thing that breaks the soil. He is pomegranate, bursting red and bittersweet.

You call him gentle, but he is made of soil and tendon and everything that fights to bloom. 

He's leaning over you, cheeks flushed, holding you like you’re something he dreamt into being. Like you’re a miracle.

(If only he could believe he is the miracle. In your eyes, Yuji is beauty itself.)

Your breath hitches when he finally moves.

It starts small. A faint rock of his hips—an inch forward, then back—just enough for you to feel the shift, the drag of him against your walls, the promise of rhythm. And it’s like the ocean again: push and pull, crest and crash. Your moan slips out, soft and shaky, and he smiles.

Smiles like he heard it. Like he lives for it.

He leans in, pressing your knees back so your ankles hook around his neck, and with the new angle, he inches in deeper. You can feel every vein, every pulse. You clutch at his biceps—thick, warm, solid—and he supports you easily with one elbow braced beside your head. The other hand returns to your face, cupping your jaw as he noses yours.

And then, a kiss.

Tender. Breathless. Sticky-sweet from your mingled exhales.

“God,” he groans, lips brushing yours. “You’re always so sweet when I fuck you like this. So warm and wet. I—I can’t get enough.”

His voice breaks a little on the last word. He always sounds like that—just a little overwhelmed. Just a little desperate. Not because he’s greedy, but because he can hardly believe this is real. That you want him this way. That he gets to have you like this.

He fucks you slow.

Deliberate.

Not lazy—just patient. Like he’s savoring each stroke. Like he wants to memorize the way your body reacts. The little tremble in your thighs. The flutter of your lashes. The way your hands trace his chest, slow and easy, like you’re reading scripture written in flesh.

And you are.

Because his body is a prayer. Every line of it a psalm. Muscle and scar and warmth and breath. You read him slowly. As one reads sacred text. With trembling hands.

He presses kisses into your neck. Brushes your hair from your face. Mutters soft things you can barely hear over the blood in your ears.

“You take me so good,” he whispers. “You always do.”

And you believe it. Because when Yuji touches you like this—it’s not just sex. It’s not even just love.

It’s recognition.

Like he’s saying you belong to me, and I belong to you, and this is where we begin and end and begin again.

In his arms, under the weight of his tenderness, you finally let go. You let yourself drift. Float. Bloom.

Because Yuji isn’t just fire or flesh. He is what comes after ruin. He is what flowers even in the aftermath. He is warmth, and home, and something worth surviving for.

Your cheek turns into the cradle of his hand like a flower bending toward the sun.

You press a kiss to his palm. Your breath trembles into it, like you’re trying to give it back to him, as if you could breathe for him when his own breath is already breaking. And when he feels your lips there, his hips jerk—not cruel, not rough, just more. A little deeper. A little faster. A little more like a man undone.

Your moans tumble out easier now. Loosened. The sounds drip from your throat without shape or shame, unformed and raw—because it’s too much, all of it. Too much of him. Of the way he makes you feel like you’re being opened from the inside out, not just by the thick, perfect push of his cock, but by his presence, his attention, the way he sees you.

He holds you like you’re the most precious flower in a garden of weeds. There is soil beneath his nails. Red clay and old blood. Proof that even what breaks the earth can still make it bloom. His hand is warm and worn, roughened by fights and kindness alike. His fingers curl over your cheek, thumb brushing the swell under your eye. A sweet touch with dirt under his nails. The crack in the dam and the flower that grows from it.

His cock throbs with every thrust, each movement a silent vow that pulses through you. You can feel it in the way your legs tremble, in the way your stomach tightens, in the way your body welcomes him now—clinging, wet, soft, needy. You breathe him in like prayer. You arch like offering. You take him.

His mouth doesn’t stop moving.

Not just his hips. Not just the way his body rocks into yours, deeper now, harder. But his mouth. It’s on your neck. On your cheek. Whispering at your lips. And when it’s not pressed to your skin, it’s whispering into the air—your name, your praises, the breathless stammer of someone trying to memorize the shape of love.

His mouth learns you the way one learns a holy verse. Slowly. Carefully. Repeating each word until it lives on the tongue. Until it becomes a part of him.

“You’re perfect,” he breathes, like it hurts. “You’re so perfect. So good—fuck, you feel so good—”

You swear you can feel his heartbeat in his cock, in his chest, in his mouth when he kisses you again. It’s all the same pulse. All of him beating against you. Inside you.

And he is not a wildfire.

Yuji is ember. The kind that stays warm long after the flame dies. He is molten iron, shaped again and again—burned but not broken. He is bone-deep warmth, the kind that thaws you from the inside, slow and irrevocable. You feel like ice turning to water, like something reborn under the weight of him.

He loves like heat rising from scorched ground—steady. Unrelenting. Impossible to escape.

There is sweat between you. It beads and slips and shimmers. It clings to your stomach, your breasts, your thighs. His body trembles above you like a vow he never learned how to break. Not because he’s weak—but because he is all in. Because when Yuji loves, it consumes him. Because when he fucks you, it’s not just with cock and breath—it’s with everything. The hands. The words. The weight of his heart.

And he fucks you like he wants to be forgiven.

Like your body is the only place he can put down the burden he carries—of death, of power, of blood that stains too easily and never washes away.

You hear it in the ragged shake of his breath as he thrusts again, deeper now, his hands gripping your hips with trembling restraint. You feel it in the way his head dips low, curls damp and brushing your collarbone, lips dragging over your skin like he’s trying to brand himself into you.

Yuji moves as holy and slow as desert night, all heat and hush, each sound pulled from your mouth like a secret meant only for him.

You give him everything. The moans, the soft cries, the way your fingers lace at the back of his neck and pull him down—closer, always closer.

Because this is what it means to be his.

To let him split you open—not just with cock and sweat and sound—but with grace. With love. With need so raw it almost doesn’t have a name.

To love him is to kneel at the edge of ruin and find flowers growing there: red-petaled, heavy with sweetness and fragile; not because they’re weak—but because they dared to grow there at all.

That’s what loving Yuji and being loved by him feels like. Like your body becomes the thing that blooms where it shouldn’t. Like he touches you with the kind of admiration that says, I can’t believe something still lives here. I can’t believe it’s you.

And when you tilt your head and kiss him—really kiss him—it changes everything.

It’s deeper than any kiss you’ve given him today. Tongues meeting, breath mingling, lips crushed too hard, too soft, too desperate. You kiss like you’re clinging to him. Like you’re pressing every prayer you’ve ever whispered and every sin you’ve ever carried into his mouth, and asking him to hold them for you.

He takes them all.

There’s a faint metallic tang when your tongue brushes his—blood. Maybe from his lip. Maybe from yours. But there’s kindness in his hands, big and warm and trembling a little as they cup your face. And somehow, both the blood and the kindness belong to him.

Because that’s who Yuji is.

A man who carries contradictions in his chest like extra ribs. A body built for destruction, but a heart carved out of mercy.

The way you kiss him makes something in him break. He gasps into your mouth like the wind’s been knocked out of him, and then he fucks you harder.

Faster.

He fucks you like he’s apologizing—for everything. For the lives he’s taken, the ones he couldn’t save, for the nights he wakes up gasping, afraid he’s become the thing he fights. He fucks like he’s begging you to believe he’s still human. That he can still be good. That this—you—can still be his salvation.

Your walls flutter around him and he feels it, chokes on it.

“Fuck—” he hisses, voice raw.

He breaks away from your mouth, panting, forehead damp and flushed, and turns his face into your leg. He bites down on your calf—not cruel, just sharp enough to feel, like he needs something to anchor him, something real, something grounding.

You gasp, and your toes curl against the shell of his ears, nails digging into his biceps hard enough to leave crescent moons in his skin.

But he wants that. Needs it. Wants your mark. Wants the evidence of this—of you—pressed into him.

He is body and burden. A vessel. A cage that tries to sing, even when it’s built to contain something that snarls.

He is heat and restraint. A storm held behind ribs, trembling with every thrust, finally, finally able to let go—bit by bit, breath by breath, inch by inch.

And you take it all.

(You give him somewhere to fall.)

His teeth release your calf only to be replaced by his mouth again—kisses now. Tender. Sincere. He murmurs something into your skin, maybe your name, maybe a thank you, and his hand slides up to your jaw, cupping it, holding it. Not hard. Just firm. Intent.

He wants you to look at him.

So you do.

You could never look away from him, either way. 

Because his eyes are wide and shining, the gold of them burning through the haze. There’s sweat on his temple, a vein in his throat that pulses with every thrust, and a look on his face like he’s seeing the divine.

“Look at me—just like that,” he pants, voice shaking. “Yeah… baby… just like that.”

He soothes the skin of your leg with his lips again. Kisses trailing down the bite mark. Something so sweet. So innocent. A stark contrast to the way his hips move now—hard and deliberate. The wet, obscene slap of his balls against your ass as he thrusts into the deepest part of you over and over, like he’s searching for the part of you that’s carved just for him.

And god, it hurts in the best way. The drag of his cock. The stretch. The heat.

The way he bullies into the most vulnerable part of you, over and over, slow enough to make it last, hard enough to make your breath catch. Your body arches, your hands shake, and still, he holds your jaw, keeps your eyes on him. Keeps you with him.

“So good,” he rasps. “So, so, so good—fuck, baby…”

Your name slips from his lips like a broken benediction.

It sounds different when he says it.

Lower. Rougher. Almost afraid, like it’s something he’s not allowed to lose. Like it’s the only word in the world he doesn’t want to forget.

And under him, with your body stretched and trembling and his eyes locked onto yours—you bloom. Slow. Inevitable. A flower growing where something terrible once tried to end.

Because this is what he does. What he is.

He breaks and he builds. He bleeds and he loves; he loves you like he doesn’t know how to stop.

And you love him.

You love him with something that doesn’t have a name. You love him with your hands, your breath, your body stretched and shaking beneath his. You adore him with your soul, that quiet place inside you where words fail and only feeling remains. You will always love him.

It doesn’t matter what he’s done—what he had to do. Doesn’t matter what he carries in the dark. To you, Yuji is everything. He is the beginning and the becoming. He has carved himself into the deepest part of you, and you wear that hollowness like devotion.

(If he is fire—then you are the wood that feeds him. You crack and glow for him. If he is fruit—then you are the rain that makes him grow. You pour yourself into his roots, and he drinks you like he’s starving.)

He looks at you then, and you feel everything.

His eyes are the color of coffee kissed by the sun, flecked with burnished gold, like something forged in morning light. They burn when they look at you. They make you feel golden—not just loved, but treasured. Like the aching warmth between your thighs, like the pressure building low in your belly, curling and climbing with each thrust of his hips.

Yuji leans closer again. His breath is hot and shallow. His body curls over yours like a wave collapsing into sand, forearms braced on either side of your head. You feel completely held. Completely his.

“You’re close, right?” he murmurs, breathless, voice thick with heat. “I know you are—I-I can feel it. The way you’re squeezing me...”

His forehead presses against yours and his nose nudges yours gently. There’s sweat on his brow, on your skin, between your bodies. And yet you’ve never felt more clear, more connected, more here.

Then he folds you.

Not cruelly—carefully. Intimately. Like he wants you deeper. Like he needs to be closer. He shifts your legs, pushes them toward your chest, folding your body in half with a groan at how your walls clamp down around him from the new angle.

And something changes.

It’s not faster. Not wild. It’s freer. Like he’s caught the wind inside him. Like you’ve given him permission to let go.

Yuji begins to move with power now. Not speed—but depth. Force. Pressure. Every thrust is slow and solid, his cock burying itself so deep that you swear you can feel him in your stomach, pushing against something tender, something sacred.

The bed shakes.

The air trembles.

Each time his hips meet yours, you feel it in your bones. The moans torn from your throat are helpless now—raw, high, and broken, and you don’t even care how loud you are. It’s him. It’s Yuji. He always pulls the truth from you.

Your hands scramble to hold onto something—his shoulders, his back, the curve of his ass. His skin is so hot, muscles bunching and flexing as he fucks you deeper, harder, every part of him dedicated to giving. To making you feel good. To making you feel loved.

(And he does. He makes you feel like worship.)

His body presses you into the mattress, grounding you while he lifts you into something higher. Your vision blurs. Your thighs begin to tremble, muscles tightening from the strain of your orgasm looming close.

“Yuji—please—”

It slips out before you even mean to say it. Your voice breaks on the word, thick with need, your eyes fluttering as the sensation becomes overwhelming. His name has never sounded more like a prayer.

He groans—low and guttural. His lips find your jaw, your neck, trailing kisses, praise, heat.

“You’re doing so good,” he whispers against your pulse, hips still driving into you with that same heavy rhythm. “I got you. You’re so close, I can feel it, just let go for me—c’mon, baby, please, wanna feel you come for me.”

He says it like he needs it. Like it’ll save him.

And the pressure coils, tighter and tighter; so close you can taste it, like sugar on your tongue, like lightning in your spine. Every thrust is a wave crashing inside you, and you’re the shoreline trembling under his weight.

And then—

You come undone.

Like the wave finally crosses the shoreline. Like it’s been building for miles—swelling and surging—and now it crashes, spilling everything it held. You gasp as it hits, like you've been pulled beneath the water and now, finally, finally, you've broken the surface.

You shake. You tremble. You cry out his name.

It isn't a neat orgasm. It’s heavenly. It wracks through you like a tremor in the earth—leaves your toes curling and your hands fisting the sheets, his arms, everything you can reach; it leaves your voice raw and open. Your moans pour out in soft, jagged pieces, and each sound is a secret meant only for him.

Yuji watches you like he’s never seen anything more beautiful.

His mouth is parted, his chest heaving, his brows drawn together like he’s overwhelmed. Like it’s too much to see you like this—so soft and ruined, so bare and undone because of him.

“Shit,” he moans, eyes fluttering. “Fuck, baby, I—”

He doesn’t even finish the sentence. His hips stutter.

And then he follows you over the edge.

You feel it first—the deep, shaking inhale he takes, the tremble in his thighs, the way his cock throbs violently inside you. Then he shudders, moans—a low, desperate sound that vibrates through his whole body—and spills into you.

Warm. Deep. Endless.

Yuji comes like it breaks him a little. Like he’s letting go of something he’s carried for too long. His head falls back, mouth slack, eyes closed tight as he fucks you through it—slow now, indulgent, pushing his cum deeper into you with each lazy thrust.

His hips are still moving when his hands return to your body, tracing your skin like he's grounding himself. One hand curls behind your ankle, still pressed against your neck, while the other glides up your side to cradle your ribs.

He looks like an angel.

Not the kind from storybooks—not winged and pure—but the kind that falls to Earth burning, scarred from the sky, made of body and breath and devotion. To himself, Yuji is blood and tragedy, a vessel too full, a body used for things he never wanted. But to you?

To you, he is life.

He is gentle and warm. Kindness in the shape of a someone who never wanted to hurt, only to save. To you, Yuji is the closest thing to love you've ever touched.

When it’s over, neither of you moves at first.

He stays pressed to you, chest heavy against yours, breath fanning warm over your collarbone. He’s still inside you, still pulsing soft and slow, the mess of your orgasms sticky between your thighs.

He nearly collapses into you.

As if leaving your body might mean forgetting how to live. As if being inside you, part of you, is the only thing tethering him to the world right now.

He mouths at your shoulder. Soft, damp kisses. No words. Just breath and lips and the gentle scrape of his teeth as he drags them over your skin. He stays there, like he’s scared of what waits for him outside of you. Like this—your skin, your body, your warmth—is the only thing that keeps the dark at bay.

This is what survival tastes like: skin and breath and warmth. Your name being whispered into the hollow of your throat; the sound of staying.

And you hold him.

You always hold him.

You cup his jaw, thumb brushing across the stubble on his cheek. Your other hand runs along his shoulders—broad and trembling—until your arms loop around his neck and pull him closer, deeper, like you could somehow swallow his pain if you held him tight enough.

Yuji lets out a sound then. Not a word. Just a breath. Just the quietest whimper. He presses his face to your neck, nose nuzzling the curve of it, and melts into you.

And for a moment, time stops.

There’s only this: your breath slowing in sync, your bodies tangled. His weight on top of you like gravity, like comfort. 

(Like belonging.)