You nearly choke on your beverage.

He’s completely unbothered, that easy confidence radiating from him. “A few, I think. Two or three at least. Maybe four.” He glances up, and there’s that warm gleam in his eyes. “What do you think?”

“Varka—”

“I’d be a good father.” Just certainty. “And you’d be incredible. I’ve seen how you are with the younger knights. Patient. Kind.” His smile widens. “Beautiful.”

“Are you trying to charm me into this?”

“Is it working?”

(It is.)

Or he’d bring it up in public, completely shameless:

“We should start trying for children soon,” he says conversationally as you pass the fountain.

Several people turn to stare.

You flush. “Varka—”

“What? I’m being practical.” But there’s mischief in his expression now, the way he leans down to murmur in your ear: “Unless you’d prefer I convince you in private?”

Your face burns hotter, and you smack his arm.

He catches your wrist, grinning. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

His laugh rumbles through you, warm and delighted. “Tonight, then.”

━━━━━

Showing His Desire

When you’re intimate, Varka makes his intentions very clear.

His hands map every inch of you, like he’s already imagining the changes to come. When he pulls you against him—your back to his chest, his arms wrapped around your waist—he buries his face in your neck and breathes.

“You’d be so beautiful,” he murmurs against your skin, hands sliding down to your hips. “Carrying our child.”

His thumbs trace slow circles there, possessive and worshipful at once.

His lips trace your shoulder, your neck, the shell of your ear. Each kiss deliberate.

“I think about it all the time.” His voice drops lower, rougher. “You, round with my child. Knowing I put them there.”

His hands tighten on your waist as he turns you to face him, eyes dark and intense.

“Let me,” he breathes, already backing you toward the bed. “Let me give you everything.”

And when his hands slide under your clothes, when his mouth claims yours with desperate certainty, when he touches you like you’re the most precious thing in the world—

You understand exactly how wild the idea drives him.

━━━━━

When You Tell Him

When you tell him you’re pregnant, Varka is thrilled.

You barely get the words out before he’s lifting you off your feet—hands secure at your waist, spinning you once with a whoop of joy—before setting you down with sudden carefulness. Already protective.

“Really?” His hands frame your face, eyes searching yours. When you nod, his grin could light all of Mondstadt.

━━━━━

During the Pregnancy

He tells everyone.

The knights get daily updates. “The baby kicked today.” “She’s craving grapes lately.” “Did you know babies can hear voices in the womb? I’ve been reading to them.”

Jean looks exhausted by week three.

But Varka doesn’t care. He’s proud. His family is growing, and the world should know.

Grape cravings become his personal mission. He brings baskets from Dawn Winery. You find them waiting on the table, the counter, once even on your pillow with a note: For you and little one.

He feeds them to you sometimes. Sitting together in the evening, his hand gentle as he brings one to your lips. You bite down, and his thumb brushes your mouth, lingering.

“Sweet,” he murmurs, eyes warm.

Then he leans in and kisses you.

“Very sweet,” Varka says against your mouth, and you feel his smile.

He watches you constantly. Making sure you’re comfortable, that you’re eating enough, that you’re not overexerting yourself. His protectiveness cranks up tenfold, but it’s never smothering.

When you catch him staring, he never looks away.

“Can’t help it,” he says simply. His hand settles on your growing belly. Protective. “You’re beautiful like this.”

Whenever he gets the chance, he cups your face and kisses you. “You’re both perfect.”

━━━━━

The First Child

When your daughter arrives, Varka looks at her like she’s made of starlight.

“Hello, little one,” he murmurs, this mountain of a man cradling this tiny person with infinite gentleness. “I’m your father.”

She wraps her tiny hand around his finger, and something in his expression just melts.

From that moment, he’s gone.

Mornings become his favorite. You wake to find him already awake, your daughter cradled against his bare chest as he talks to her softly.

“Your mother is the strongest person I know,” he’s saying, voice low and warm. “You’ll see. She’s brilliant and kind and far too good for me, but somehow she chose me anyway.”

He glances over, catches you watching. He smiles.

“Morning, love.” He shifts carefully, making room for you against his side. “She was fussing. I didn’t want to wake you.”

You settle against him, and he wraps his free arm around you, pulling you close.

Evenings are for sharing everything:

“She smiled at me today,” Varka announces as you’re preparing for bed. “A real smile. I’m certain of it.”

You laugh softly. “You said that yesterday.”

“This time was different.” He’s already pulling you into bed, arranging you against him with easy familiarity. “She definitely recognized me. And she made this little sound—”

He demonstrates, some soft coo that makes you muffle your laughter in his chest.

“Laugh all you want,” he says, grinning. “I’m right. Our daughter is brilliant.”

Varka carries your daughter everywhere on his shoulders. This enormous knight with this tiny girl perched above the world, her hands tangled in his hair as she shrieks with delight.

He makes her flower crowns (surprisingly deft fingers weaving cecilias and windwheel asters). She wears them like a princess, and he looks at her like she is one.

“Grand Master,” one of the knights says carefully, “there’s a meeting—”

“She wanted to see the ducks,” Varka interrupts cheerfully, not even slowing down. “The meeting can wait.”

(The meeting waits.)

Somehow, having a family makes Varka better at his job.

He’s more focused, more efficient. He delegates more easily, trusts his knights more completely. Not because he cares less about Mondstadt—but because he has even more reason to protect it now.

“Happy at home means clear-headed at work,” he explains when Jean asks how he’s managing everything. “My family gives me purpose. Makes everything else easier.”

━━━━━

The Second Child

When your daughter is about two, Varka brings it up again.

You’re settling into bed when his arms wrap around you from behind, pulling you against him. His lips find your neck, that familiar warmth spreading through you.

“You’re incredible, you know that?” he murmurs between kisses. “Watching you with her… you’re such a wonderful mother.”

His hands slide over your waist, your hips, reverently possessive.

“And you look so beautiful. Every day.” His voice drops. “I keep thinking we could do this again.”

You turn in his arms, finding his eyes dark and intent.

“Let’s have another one,” he says simply. Seriously. “Yeah?”

And when you smile, when you pull him down for a kiss—

His joy is palpable.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Two Daughters

Your daughters are different in temperament but equally adored.

Varka indulges them in everything. You find him crammed into a chair far too small for him, pinky raised as he pretends to sip from a tiny cup.

“More tea, Papa?”

“Please,” he rumbles, holding out the cup. “Can’t say no to tea this good.”

He participates fully. Genuine enjoyment. When they want to play knights, he’s the dragon. When they want to braid his hair, he sits perfectly still for an hour.

When they start dancing—spinning in circles, giggling, completely off-rhythm—he joins them without hesitation. Big, clumsy twirls that make them shriek with laughter. He doesn’t care how ridiculous he looks. He’s having fun.

Then he spots you watching from the doorway.

“Oh no you don’t,” he says, grinning as he reaches for you. “You’re dancing too.”

Before you can protest, you’re pulled into the chaos. One daughter clinging to your hand, the other to his, all of you spinning in a messy circle while they laugh so hard they can barely stand.

Varka’s eyes meet yours over their heads, warm and bright and full of joy.

This, his expression says. This is everything.

When they fight over the same toy, he sits down between them with infinite patience.

“You both want the wooden horse?” He looks between them seriously. “Then you’ll have to share. Take turns. That’s what family does. We look out for each other.”

He shows them how, guiding their little hands, praising when they manage it.

━━━━━

At the Knights of Favonius Headquarters

Varka brings your children to work sometimes, unable to help himself. They’re endlessly curious, asking questions about everything.

“Papa, why do you have a sword?”

“To protect people,” he explains, kneeling down to their level. “When someone’s in trouble, we help them. That’s what knights do.”

“Can we have swords?”

His laugh booms. “Wooden ones, for now.”

And then they have wooden swords, and they’re “fighting” him with all their might while he pretends to be gravely wounded, falling dramatically to the ground.

You watch from the doorway, shaking your head fondly.

He catches your eye, and that grin tells you everything: I love this. I love them. I love you.

Then he’s on his feet, crossing to you in three long strides. His kiss is firm and sure and entirely unapologetic, even with the knights watching, even with your daughters giggling and running circles around you both.

“Mama! Papa is kissing again!”

“That’s because I love your mother,” he announces proudly, arm still around your waist. He looks at you then, and the heat in his gaze makes your breath catch even surrounded by giggling children and watching knights.

“Very, very much,” he adds, quieter, just for you.

━━━━━

The Third Child

When the third arrives—a boy this time—Varka is just as besotted.

“Three,” he marvels, holding his son with practiced ease. “We have three.”

He looks at you with such devotion it makes your chest tight.

“You’ve given me everything.”

━━━━━

Teaching Equality

As they grow, Varka treats all three the same. Fighting lessons for all. Chores for all. Expectations for all.

“Doesn’t matter if you’re a boy or a girl,” he says, steady and sure. “What matters is you’re kind. You help people who need it. And you look out for each other.”

He teaches them to fight with equal rigor. His son doesn’t get special treatment, his daughters don’t get coddled.

“You’re all strong,” he says. “And I’ll teach you to protect yourselves. And anyone who needs your help.”

━━━━━

Bedtime with Three

Getting three children to bed should be chaos.

Somehow, with Varka, it’s not.

He’s got your son tucked in the crook of one arm, already drowsy. Your middle daughter is wrapped around his leg, refusing to let go. Your eldest is perched on his shoulders, playing with his hair.

“Alright,” he announces. “Story time. Everyone to bed.”

“But Papa—”

“No buts.” His tone is firm but warm. “You all need sleep. Growing takes energy.”

He settles onto the floor of the nursery, and they immediately pile onto him. Your son curled against his chest, your daughters tucked under each arm.

You lean against the doorframe, watching.

His voice rumbles through the quiet room as he tells them a story. Something about a knight and a dragon and three brave children. His hands stroke their hair, patient as they interrupt with questions, indulgent when they argue about plot details.

One by one, they drift off.

He waits until all three are deeply asleep before carefully, carefully extracting himself. He tucks each one in, pressing kisses to their foreheads.

When he finally makes it to the door, he finds you watching with undisguised affection.

“What?” he asks softly, pulling you against him.

“You’re really good at this.”

His smile is tired but content. “Got a lot of practice.” He pauses. “And a lot of motivation.”

He kisses you. Slow and thorough and full of promise.

“Come to bed,” he murmurs against your lips. “Before they wake up.”

“Impatient?”

“Absolutely.” He’s grinning. “They get you all day. I want you all night.”

━━━━━

Taking Care of You

“Alright,” Varka announces one morning, herding all three children toward the door. “Your mother has been taking care of everyone all week. Today, we’re taking care of her.”

“Where are we going?” your son asks.

“Wherever she wants.” Varka glances at you with that warm smile. “Within reason.”

You laugh. “I want to sit. And eat something I didn’t have to cook.”

“Done.” He’s already moving, children in tow. “Good Hunter it is. Then the meadows. Then home for quiet time while Mama rests.”

He orchestrates the whole day, keeping the children entertained, fed, and happy while making sure you don’t lift a finger.

That night, after they’re all asleep, he finds you in bed.

“You didn’t have to do all that,” you say softly.

“‘Course I did.” His arm comes around you immediately, pulling you into his chest as he kisses your temple. “You give everything to them. To me. Let me give back.”

His hands are already working the tension from your shoulders, and you melt into him.

“I love you,” he says. “More every day.”

━━━━━

Understanding Their Differences

But he’s also fascinated by their individual perspectives.

He’ll sit with his daughters as they play, asking questions. “Why does the doll need a sword?” “What are you building?” Really listening to their answers.

With his son, same curiosity. “What’s your favorite story?” “Why did you choose that color?”

He wants to understand each of them completely. To know how they think, what they love, what they fear.

“They’re all so different,” Varka tells you one night, wonder in his voice. “Three people we made. Three entire people with their own minds and hearts.”

His arm tightens around you.

“Thank you,” he whispers. “For all of this.”

⋆ ✦ ⋆

A/N: Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it. :) More Varka to follow soon.

pre-train worker!megumi admitted that despite his gift in the field of science and maths, he chose not to pursue it, his reason similar to your decision of not pursuing literature and philosophy: you both didn't want to get paid for your passions. 

and you understood him. 

so while you continued your bachelor studies to become a typical corporate slave public accountant, he too learned railroad work in vocational school. after two years of on-site, hands-on learning, he graduated—teasing you for still having to attend your lectures whereas he’s already working.

train worker!megumi whose career began as a station staff. his routine was comprised of assisting commuters, collecting tickets, and ensuring their safety when boarding the ride.

“—and get this: some boy with long, light blue hair kept running around the platform.” megumi rants with you listening through the other end of the phone call.

“aren’t there a lot of circumstances like that in your job?”

“oh, yes. but this specific child was really pissing me off. that little shit would come up to a stranger and ask them whether they think the soul or the body came first. if they answered ‘body,’ that fucker would challenge them into a philosophical debate.”

your mouth was slightly agape as you thought of how to respond. “at least it was only today..?”

“i dealt with that for about about an hour and a half before he was escorted out.” he replied in monotone, but you knew better, sensing how tired he was today.

“that’s rough. if you were here, maybe i could listen better.”

megumi’s voice shifted to be just a little softer. “you miss me?” his microphone picked that up clearly, like he brought the phone closer to his lips.

“a lot. i miss seeing your face, i miss us hugging…” you pause, holding in a chuckle. “and i miss you helping me with my statistics report.”

you could practically hear your boyfriend clicking his tongue with a cuss. 

“oh, fuck off.” 

by the time you’ve graduated college, station staff!megumi got promoted to train conductor. you wonder, how did he manage to do that in just two years of service? but then again, it’s him. you’ve seen how he handled his responsibilities when you both were still in high school. ah, so it’s work ethics.

it was train conductor!megumi’s pre-recorded announcements that would play over the PA system.

“the next station is: shibuya.” 

at times train conductor!megumi collects fares, eyes of other ladies would swarm him. well, could you really blame them when your partner was that eye-catching? the way his tailored uniform looked on his tall, lean figure; how the short brim of his hat—which he complains about since it limits his field vision on the vertical scale—accentuates his serious expression at the right angle?

you were once dying because of ms excel for like, who knows what?

but then you heard the customized notification sound from your phone.

you opened it, and voila! a picture of megumi trying on his conductor uniform.

you suddenly felt motivated to finish your task after that.

…

seven years later in their shared apartment, at 28-years-old, train driver!megumi proposes to certified public accountant!reader in their shared apartment. 

you were by the window, staring at the night’s light-polluted sky.

megumi quietly approaches you from behind, his arms encircling you for a few moments until he mutters out your name

“hm?”

he spun you around so you could face him, you feel the weight of his eyes admiring yours.

he didn’t drop down to one knee immediately, no. that would feel too rushed, too dangerous for a man who always followed safety protocols. instead, he keeps his hands on your waist, thumb tracing the soft cotton blend of your shirt—a great contrast from his calloused hands from years of gripping the master controller.

“our schedule for next quarter came in.”

you hum in response, the side of your pressing against his shoulder. “are you finally getting weekends off?”

“no, sadly.” a subtle smile appears on his face. “but that got me realizing... my mind always runs on starts and stops. thirty seconds here, one minute there. just making sure people arrive on time.”

he lifts your head up, ushering you away for a second as he grabs something for his pocket. the room was dim, save for the warm lamp on the nightstand. 

“but i want a permanent station,” his hand brings up the velvet box in front of you. “i want to come home to the same person regardless of what shift i’m on.” 

he flips the box open. inside was a ring—an elegant one that wasn’t flashy but would be immediately noticed the moment it wraps around your finger. 

“[name], will you marry me?”

and a thousand times you’ll be each other’s permanent station.

“yes.”

he comes back late. the smell of blood clings to him in a way soap doesn’t fix. his uniform is clean enough to pass as clean, because he’s meticulous like that, but you can still sense it. like sorrow has a texture and it’s woven into the fabric. he takes his shoes off at the entryway. he washes his hands too long. he doesn’t look at you at first—not because he doesn’t want you, but because looking would mean admitting he came back with something inside him that won’t settle.

you make space. he moves like he’s trying not to startle himself. he sets his phone down facedown, like he can’t bear the idea of it buzzing with another call. he shrugs off his jacket and hangs it carefully, the kind of careful that reads like control—like if he can keep one thing from falling apart, maybe the rest won’t follow.

when he finally sits, it’s on the edge of the couch at first. elbows on his knees. hands clasped. head angled down. he looks like he’s bracing for impact, except the impact already happened and he’s still waiting for his body to understand that.

you sit beside him, but not pressed into him yet. you know him. he flinches from fussing, not from closeness. there’s a difference. your hand finds his wrist—not grabbing, not restraining, just warm contact. a small anchor. he swallows. his throat bobs. for a second he looks like he’s going to speak, and then his jaw tightens, and he doesn’t. that’s when you shift. slow. unhurried. like nothing about him is a problem to solve.

“come here,” you say, quiet enough that it doesn’t sound like a command. he doesn’t move right away. there’s pride there, sure, but it’s not vanity. it’s habit. the habit of being the one who handles it. the habit of not making it anyone else’s burden. the habit of thinking he’s only allowed to take up space when he’s useful.

you don’t argue with the habit. you simply make room for another habit to form. when he finally leans, it’s minimal at first—his shoulder brushing yours. then more. his forehead tips forward, not into your shoulder but close to it, like he’s negotiating how much to let himself have. his breathing is controlled, almost too controlled, like he’s holding the air hostage.

you don’t stroke his hair. you don’t shush him. you don’t say, “it’s okay.” megumi hates that phrase when it’s used like a blanket over a wound. you shift behind him instead, easing him down with you, until you’re lying together on the couch the way you’ve always loved most: your chest to his back, arms around him like you’re enclosing something precious. you’re careful with the pressure—firm enough that he can feel you, gentle enough that it doesn’t trap him. your chin rests near his shoulder blade. you breathe in sync on purpose, a wordless invitation for his body to copy yours until it remembers how.

he goes still. and then his shoulders hitch once. twice. the first tear doesn’t make a sound. it just happens, slipping out like something finally deciding it’s done being stored. he turns his face slightly into the cushion, as if hiding it from the room, from you, from himself. but you’re behind him. there’s nowhere to perform and nowhere to pretend. only you, holding him steady like gravity.  arms wrapped around him like you hold all the love in the world and you’re enveloping him in it. like maybe, if you hold him tight enough, the pieces won’t shatter all over the place. but if they do, you’ll pick them up and glue them back together. and if he finally whispers something self-blaming, you don’t argue with big speeches—you correct it gently, firmly: “you did what you could. and you did it well.” but you don’t sugarcoat things; megumi wouldn’t be able to stand it if you did. he hates when people do that. when they rave about him and his heroics and say he saved the day, even when people died. even when a mother won’t see her child ever again. what is there to celebrate in that? a successful mission? he doesn’t give a fuck. there is no success in grief and loss. so you don’t do that. you wouldn’t even know how, it’s not in you. you just tell him the truth and know that it’ll have to be enough. part of being a sorcerer is watching people die. innocent people. not being able to save them. you both know that. so while it’s pointless to waste your life away on “what if’s,” people still deserve to be grieved. they deserve tears and sorrow. and you and megumi will allow yourselves at least that. 

a minute passes. maybe two. your arms don’t loosen. you don’t fill the silence with reassurance you can’t prove. you let him have the dignity of his grief. you let him grieve the civilians the way they deserve—without turning it into a lesson, without turning it into a tragedy you can fix.

when he finally whispers, it’s raw with self-blame. the words are small, barely audible, like he hates that they exist at all. "I should’ve been faster.”

you exhale, slow. you don’t snap at him. you don’t launch into a speech. megumi would shut down if you tried to overwhelm his guilt with your own volume. you correct it the way you correct him when he forgets to eat, when he steps outside without a jacket, when he starts carrying the world again like it belongs on his shoulders. gently. firmly. truthfully. “you did what you could,” you say. “and you did it well.” he tenses at “well,” and you feel it immediately, the familiar recoil. praise tastes wrong to him when it’s used to erase loss. so you add the part you both know. “and it still wasn’t enough,” you continue, voice steady. “because sometimes it isn’t. that doesn’t mean it was your fault.”

that’s the key. you don’t sugarcoat it. you don’t call it a successful mission. you don’t ask him to celebrate survival when people died. you don’t try to make grief palatable. you simply tell the truth and let it be heavy, let it sit in the room between you like a stone you are both willing to carry for a while.

megumi’s breathing breaks then, the control finally snapping, and his fingers curl over your forearm like he’s holding on to the only thing that feels steady; his tears come quietly but steadily, soaking into the cushion, and he doesn’t sob loud, doesn’t wail, doesn’t dramatize his grief into something performative—he shakes in small, contained tremors, like his body can only afford sorrow in increments, like it has learned to ration vulnerability the way it rations sleep.

you stay wrapped around him through all of it.

later—much later—when his breathing evens out and the tears stop coming, he doesn’t apologize, not because he isn’t embarrassed but because your relationship has never made room for shame like that, because you have built something between you that can hold the unflattering parts of being human without trying to exile them. he just lies there, heavy and exhausted, letting himself be held, and that is vulnerability for megumi: not words, not confessionals, not grand declarations; simply allowing someone to witness him without retreating, allowing someone to remain close even when he is not fine.

you are stoic too. the two of you are not opposites that balance each other like a neat equation; you are similar weights moving together through the same storm, your difference resting in the small fact that you’ve learned how to name your feelings a little better, not dramatically, not poetically, just enough to keep them from rotting inside you where they would turn bitter. you can say “i miss them” without choking. you can admit “i’m lonely” without treating it like a flaw carved into your character.

it happens early, because you don’t want to build a life on pretending you’re fine, and one night you’re sitting at your table, late and tired, after a phone call that wasn’t really a phone call so much as a reminder of absence, of people you no longer have or never truly had, of how complicated family can be when it is missing pieces, and the loneliness slips out of you without permission, quiet and sharp.

megumi notices the shift before you speak. he always does. he can read a room like it’s a curse he needs to exorcise.

“what is it?” he asks, voice flat in that way that’s meant to be gentle but comes out blunt, because softness wasn’t a language he was taught.

you could brush it off. you could say “nothing.” but with megumi, “nothing” is a lie that creates distance, and neither of you are good at distance, not when you’ve built your love out of understanding rather than performance.

so you say it simply: “I was thinking about my family.”

he goes quiet. his eyes flick to you, then away, like he’s searching for the correct response on a shelf that never existed for him, and he isn’t naturally comforting, isn’t fluent in soothing phrases, doesn’t wrap things in pretty language—but he tries, because with you he is always trying, even when he pretends he isn’t.

he stands and gets you water without asking. he sets it down close enough that it feels like care rather than a task. he sits near you, not crowding, just present, and his knee bumps yours once, a small physical acknowledgment that he’s here, that he’s not leaving. you try to laugh it off and fail. your throat tightens. tears show up like they’ve been waiting for permission.

megumi stiffens for half a second, not because your tears annoy him, but because he hates that you’re hurting and he doesn’t know how to take it away; his hand hovers, indecisive, then settles on your shoulder with tentative pressure, a touch that says more than any sentence could.

“you don’t have to talk,” he says after a moment, and though the words are simple there’s an unspoken promise underneath them—but I'm here if you want to—and it means everything because it is offered without demand.

you lean into his touch. the tears come quietly. you don’t make a scene. you don’t want to be seen that way. you just want to be understood.

megumi’s arm slides around you with clumsy sincerity. he doesn’t pull you into a dramatic hug. he just holds you like he’s learning your shape by memory, his chin hovering above your head, awkward and careful, a boy who was never taught how to do this teaching himself anyway because you matter more than his discomfort. you don’t have to explain every detail. between you, silence isn’t neglect. it’s language. it’s agreement. it’s a way of saying: i understand the kind of hurt you mean, even if i don’t know the exact story.

when you finally wipe your face, embarrassed in that soft human way, he doesn’t tease you. he doesn’t tell you to stop. he doesn’t look away.

he just says, quieter, like it’s the only truth he trusts enough to offer: "I get it.”

and because it’s megumi, because he means it, because he doesn’t say things he can’t stand behind, those two words are more comforting than any speech.

that is the shape of your relationship: two stoic people letting each other be human without turning it into spectacle, without making grief a performance, without making love into something you have to prove. you both know sorrow is part of being alive, part of being a sorcerer, part of witnessing the world and still choosing to stay in it. you can’t afford to drown in what-ifs, but you can afford to mourn, to let the dead be grieved, to let tears exist without apology. you can afford to hold each other through it and call it what it is, plain and heavy and real—love, without sugar, without performance, without shame.

gojo satoru lives a pitiful existence. he is the strongest. the smartest. the most gifted. the one with infinity at his fingertips and the world balanced delicately in his palm. and he is unbearably alone. people orbit him. they admire him. they rely on him. they laugh at his jokes and bask in the safety he provides. but no one stands beside him without flinching at the light. except you.

when he fills silence with laughter and cheap alcohol and that blinding grin, you fill it with consistency. with routine. with warmth that doesn’t burn. you don’t try to outshine him. you don’t worship him. you just exist steadily, like gravity. and he is addicted to that steadiness. the first time he cries in front of you, it isn’t during a battle. it isn’t after an injury. it isn’t even when he’s physically exhausted.

it’s late. quiet. the kind of quiet that creeps in after everyone else has gone home and the performance isn’t required anymore. he’s halfway through a joke when the façade cracks. he’s telling some ridiculous story, something about a mission gone wrong, exaggerating the details to make you laugh. you do laugh. of course you do. he’s actually funny. people forget that because they assume it’s just arrogance dressed up as charm.

but then the joke thins out. his smile lingers a second too long. his eyes don’t quite follow it. you see it. the crack. you don’t interrupt him. you let the joke land. you smile at him because it deserves to be smiled at. and then, gently, you take his hand anyway. he stills. it’s subtle, but you feel it. the invisible hum around him. infinity, always there. always separating. even when he’s sitting inches from you, he’s unreachable if he wants to be.

he starts another joke, softer this time. self-deprecating. a little sharper at the edges. you tilt your head. your thumb brushes his knuckles. “turn your infinity off, sweetheart,” you murmur, like you’re asking him to take off his shoes at the door.

he exhales a small laugh, eyes flicking nervously, like no matter how deeply and wholly he’s consumed with adoration for you, there will always be the fear of being taken advantage of. of being used and abused for the very thing that keeps him on his torturous pedestal.   “what? why? afraid i'll accidentally obliterate the couch?”

you smile. you don’t roll your eyes. you don’t call him out. “for five minutes,” you say calmly, “you don’t have to be the strongest.”

his jaw tightens. “yes, I do.” there it is. not playful. not exaggerated. a statement carved into bone. he can never be anything else but the strongest. that was decided for him long before he understood what it meant. who chose him to be the savior? who looked at a child and thought, yes, that one can carry everything?

you don’t argue the philosophy. you don’t challenge the title. you cannot change centuries old caricatures of bright blue eyes and the weight of the world on weary shoulders. “no,” you say softly. “for five minutes, you can just be mine.” silence.

it’s intoxicating, the way he looks at you then. not amused. not flirtatious. just…stunned. like you’ve said something he didn’t know he was allowed to hear. you don’t pity him. that would insult him. gojo would rather shatter than be pitied. you choose him. there’s a difference. your hands come up, warm and steady, and cup his jaw. you don’t hesitate. you’ve never hesitated with him. the blindfold is already off. he doesn’t wear it around you unless he’s teasing.

his infinity flickers. you feel it when it drops. the air changes. the distance disappears. and then he breaks. it isn’t loud. it isn’t dramatic. it’s a single breath that shudders on the way out, like his lungs have been holding something poisonous for too long.

he misses so much. he misses the childhood he never had. the softness he never received. a mother who should have protected him instead of handing him over to a legacy. he misses the boy he used to be, before power became identity. before responsibility swallowed everything. he misses suguru. that name doesn’t get said out loud often. not by him. not without something splintering.

his best friend. his equal. the love of his life in whatever shape that love took. gone. twisted by his own mind. taken by ideology and tragedy and the cruel poetry of fate. gojo has always had to let things go with claw marks. everything he’s ever loved has left. he leans into your hands like a man starved. his forehead drops to your shoulder. his fingers clutch at your shirt, not desperate, just firm—like he’s checking to make sure you’re real. and when the tears fall, they’re hot and furious and quiet.

you don’t shush him. you press your lips to his temple and whisper, “it’ll be alright.” it sounds corny. you know it does. but with you, words become gospel. because you don’t lie to him. ever. if you say it’ll be alright, then somehow it will be. maybe not easy. maybe not painless. but survivable. and that’s enough.

he breathes you in like oxygen. like salvation. like the universe finally decided to apologize. you are the gift he was given after everything else was taken, after every single thing he’d ever felt a pull towards was yanked from him by some cosmic form of ruthless punishment. 

and when he lifts his head again, eyes red but clearer, there’s something steadier in him. not because he stopped grieving. but because he didn’t have to grieve alone. with you, he is still the strongest. but not for the world. for you. he would burn the sky down before letting it hurt you.

and that’s where the danger lies. because gojo has never loved gently. he has never had something he didn’t keep with violent devotion. everything he’s ever truly had left his possession with scratch marks carved into it. he does not give up easily. he will not give you up.

so when it’s your turn—when the world dares to bruise you even a fraction of the way it bruised him—he feels it like a personal insult. 

maybe you try to hide it. you’re strong in your own way. you don’t crumble easily. but you’re human. and sometimes the loneliness creeps in. sometimes old wounds ache. sometimes someone says something cruel and it lodges under your skin.

he notices immediately. he teases at first. of course he does. “what’s this?” he murmurs, scooping you up effortlessly. “my crybaby?” you swat at him weakly, embarrassed. but your eyes are glossy. his grin softens.

he hates that something hurt you. despises it. his jaw sets in that same tight line from earlier. the strongest sorcerer alive, and yet he cannot prevent every small cruelty of the world. so he does what he can. he shields. he wraps you in his arms, in his infinity if he must. he kisses your hair, your forehead, the corner of your eye where tears threaten to fall. “who was it?” he asks lightly. you know the tone. playful on the surface. lethal underneath.

you shake your head. “it’s not like that.” he exhales, forcing himself to stay present instead of hunting down the problem and erasing it.

because you don’t need a god right now. you need him. so he lowers his infinity without you asking this time. lets you press into him fully. lets you cry into his chest without a single barrier between you. and for once, he doesn’t fill the silence with jokes. he just holds you. with you, he maintains the title of the strongest. but not because the world demands it. not because he was born into it. because he chooses it.

for you, he will be unbreakable. but with you, he can afford to crack. and that—more than any technique, any domain, any limitless power—is the rarest thing he possesses.

ino has always been the optimistic one. the go-lucky guy. the dependable kouhai. the one who nods eagerly, who tries harder, who believes in things maybe a little too openly. he laughs easily. he trusts easily. he admires people without shame. he did not think someone like you would ever look at him twice. when he met you, he genuinely thought he was hallucinating. some divine trick. some karmic accident. because men like him—nervous, still figuring themselves out, working twice as hard to stand half as tall—don’t win the jackpot. but he did. and it terrifies him.

when he met you, there was a strange, almost dizzying moment where his brain simply refused to accept the input, as if you were an illusion produced by exhaustion, a divine trick slipped into his peripheral vision, a karmic accident that would evaporate the second he blinked too hard, because men like him—nervous, still figuring themselves out, living with the constant sense that they are half a step behind, working twice as hard to stand half as tall—do not win the jackpot, do not stumble into the kind of love that people write about and then dismiss as fantasy.

but he did. and it terrifies him, not because you frighten him, but because you feel like something too good to be allowed, like something the world will inevitably reclaim once it realizes it made a mistake, and he has spent so much of his life watching good things get taken away that he does not know how to stand in front of a miracle without bracing for the sound of it shattering.

takuma has always struggled with inadequacy, long before you, long before sorcery, long before nanami’s quiet approval became his north star, long before he learned to measure himself against men whose shadows are long and sharp; he has always felt slightly behind, slightly less polished, slightly less extraordinary than the people around him, and even when he smiles he carries this faint, persistent ache beneath the grin, a fear that if he stops moving—if he stops proving—everything he has will slip through his fingers.

and then you chose him. you, who are steady and sure and bright in a way that doesn’t demand attention but commands it anyway. he feels like he should have had to bleed for that.

the first time he cries in front of you, it is not because of any overwhelming sadness. no, it’s because you love him too easily. which is maybe overwhelmingly sad, in its own right.  he’s pacing when it happens. hands running through his hair, talking too fast, laughing in the wrong places.

“you know, it’s kinda crazy,” he says, grin strained. “like, this shouldn’t even be happening. you and me? that’s— that’s wild.”

you’re sitting on the edge of the bed, watching him with that patient expression that always makes him feel seen in ways that scare him. god, you must stop looking at him like that if you want him to maintain semblance of practicality…not that he began with much of that. “takuma,” you say gently.

he waves it off. “no, no, I mean it. I just—I've had to work for everything, you know? grades. missions. respect. even nanami-senpai didn’t just hand it to me. I had to earn it.” his voice cracks on the last word. earn. love shouldn’t be this simple. it shouldn’t just…exist. it shouldn’t be handed to him like a gift he didn’t bleed for. his pacing slows. his breathing grows uneven. “what if I mess it up?” he blurts. “what if I'm not—I don’t know. enough?”

there it is. the aching, burning rot at the center of him. not arrogance. not entitlement. just fear that he’s borrowed something too precious and eventually it will be reclaimed. he drops to his knees in front of you before he even realizes he’s done it. not dramatically. not theatrically. just instinct. like he’s apologizing for something he hasn’t done yet. "I swear I'll work harder,” he says, eyes glossy. "I'll be better. I'll get stronger. i’ll—i’ll deserve you.”

tears spill over, sudden and humiliating in his mind. he scrubs at them angrily, embarrassed. he’s done nothing wrong. and yet he looks like he’s confessing to a crime. you don’t let him stay there. you slide off the bed immediately and kneel with him. your hands come up, firm but gentle, gripping his arms and pulling him upright. “takuma,” you say, and there’s no amusement in it. no indulgence. just clarity. you cradle his face between your palms and kiss away one of the stray tears before he can wipe it.

"I'm not with you because you’re an accomplished sorcerer,” you tell him. “not because you’re nanami’s best student. not because you’re strong.” he tries to protest. all of those things matter. they have to matter. because why the fuck else would you stoop to his level? “they are meaningful,” you continue. “but they’re not why.”

his breathing stutters.

"I love you because you’re kind,” you say. “because you’re compassionate. because you’ve never given up on anything. because when things get hard, you don’t run.” his lips tremble. “you don’t have to earn me,” you whisper. “love isn’t a prize you fight for. it’s a gift. and I'm going to keep giving it to you. so you’ll have to get used to it.” you smile. 

full-bodied sobbing into your shoulder as if something in him finally stopped bracing for impact, as if his muscles have been locked in anticipation for years and your steadiness finally gave them permission to unclench. he clings, shaking, and you hold him without rushing, without teasing, without turning his vulnerability into something cute or small; you smooth a hand over his hair and let him feel the steadiness of you, because you are grounding in a way he never learned to be for himself, and you stay there long enough for his tears to slow, long enough for his breathing to return to him, long enough for him to realize, in the quiet aftermath, that you are still here, that you have not recoiled, that love did not vanish the moment he showed you the trembling core of his fear.

it takes time, teaching him that love is not conditional on performance, that he doesn’t have to bleed to deserve softness, that you will not disappear the second he stumbles, that the world does not always take and take and take until there is nothing left; it takes time, and patience, and repeated proof, because takuma has fought for everything else in his life and his body has learned to anticipate the cost of wanting.

He should not have to fight for you.

and then there’s you. you’re composed in a way that calms him. you think before you speak. you don’t spiral easily. you hold your emotions like precious things instead of weapons. when you cry, it’s rarely dramatic. it’s quiet. it’s exhaustion. it’s the world being heavy in small, relentless ways.

the first time it happens, he panics. you’re sitting beside him, shoulders shaking just slightly, tears sliding down your face in that silent way that hurts more than wailing ever could. his brain short-circuits.

“hey— hey, what happened?” he asks immediately, hands hovering awkwardly. “did someone— did I—?” 

you shake your head quickly. “no. it’s just…a lot. everything, all at once.” that’s worse somehow. he can’t punch “a lot.” he can’t exorcise it. he can’t get nanami to write it a strongly worded email in ino’s behalf. 

he kneels in front of you instinctively this time, mirroring the position he once took in his own insecurity. but he doesn’t grovel. he just looks at you like you’re something precious and fragile and terrifyingly important. "I'm not great at this,” he admits, voice small.

you let out a watery laugh. “that’s okay, takuma.” he huffs softly at that, relieved you’re still you. he gathers you into his arms, a little clumsy, a little too tight at first. you adjust against him without complaint, curling instinctively into his chest like your body already knows what your mind sometimes forgets:

ino makes it better. even when the world doesn’t make sense. even when nothing feels okay. his hand rubs circles into your back, uneven but earnest. he presses his cheek to the top of your head. "I don’t always know what to say,” he confesses quietly.

you nod against him. you don’t need poetry. you don’t need eloquence. after a long moment, he says the only thing he fully believes. “everything’s going to be okay in the end.” his voice wavers slightly, but the conviction is there. “so if it’s not okay,” he adds, swallowing hard, “that just means it’s not the end yet.”

you tighten your grip on him because it hurts, the sweetness of that faith, and it comforts you at the same time, because he is not offering you a solution, he is offering you endurance, a promise that he will stay until the moment passes, until the breath returns, until you can stand again.

takuma stumbles over comfort sometimes. he fumbles his words. half the time he isn’t entirely sure what the correct response is. but he never leaves. he never pulls away from your tears the way he once feared you would from his. he stays with an awkward smile and steady arms and warmth pressed against you like a vow, and in the quiet that follows, when you curl into him trusting and instinctive and sure, you can feel something shift inside him, a small rearranging of the old, frightened architecture that once insisted love must be purchased with pain.

maybe love isn’t something he has to earn. maybe it’s just something you’ve decided to give him, for reasons not entirely known to him. 

choso’s problem is that he wants something he doesn’t believe he deserves. normal. not “normal” like small talk and crowded trains and forgetting your keys on the counter—though he wants that too, in this aching, hungry way. normal like guilt-free happiness. normal like waking up and not feeling the weight of a century and a half on his ribs. normal like smiling and believing it means something good instead of something stolen.

he watches humans the way a person watches a language they can almost understand. he watches yuuji’s open heart, the way he forgives too fast and loves too big. he watches gojo’s ridiculous bravado, the way he hides loneliness behind brightness like it’s a trick he’s perfected. choso doesn’t envy their power. he envies their ease. their right to be here. because choso is a contradiction that still hurts to hold. a 150-year-old curse that learned to be human in the worst possible way. a creature made from grief and blood and resentment, now carrying a new, bewildering thing in his chest: tenderness. wanting. shame. hope.

he wants to reconcile the curse side with the human side so badly it makes him sick sometimes. like two truths are fighting for space in the same body. and he is certain he’ll fail. he is certain he will never get to be happy without paying for it. he is certain the world will always look at him and see a monster first. but then you look at him like he is this achingly beautiful thing. your own precious frankenstein. 

you are, infuriatingly, unbearably human. soft and bright in a way that doesn’t feel naive. not fragile—just warm. like love, condensed into a person who knows how to touch the world without bruising it. you say his name like it belongs to him. you look at him like he is not a mistake. 

you aren’t even dating yet when you see him cry for the first time. it happens in a quiet moment—one of those accidental spaces between missions and chaos, where nothing demands his attention except the inside of his own head. you’re in the kitchen, maybe. the room is dim, not romantic, just tired. the kind of hour where everyone’s pretending the world isn’t as cruel as it is.

there’s no shame attached to it. no flinch. no instinct to hide his face or turn away. he doesn’t even seem to understand that he’s “supposed” to swallow it down. the tears come because something inside him swells too quickly and has nowhere else to go.

he hasn’t been trained by some patriarchal system to believe that “big boys don’t cry.”. he hasn’t absorbed those quiet rules about strength meaning silence. emotion, to him, is simply something that happens. it rises. it spills. it passes.

he doesn’t cry over everything. he’s still composed most of the time, still steady in that heavy, grounded way he carries himself. but when it hits him—when guilt or tenderness or confusion spikes too sharply—his body responds without negotiation.

choso is standing very still. too still. he’s been like that all evening: hovering near the walls, hands clasped like he’s keeping them from doing something terrible, eyes fixed on nothing. you try not to crowd him. you’ve learned that choso’s silence isn’t coldness. it’s overwhelm. he is always balancing—one wrong tilt and he thinks he’ll topple back into the person he used to be. “do you want tea?” you ask, casual, like you’re offering something normal on purpose.

he nods. his throat works around the word. “yes.” the way he says it is careful, like he’s practicing.

you make the tea. you do it slowly. you narrate small things sometimes—water boiling, the smell, the steam—because you’ve noticed it helps him. it anchors him. it reminds him he’s here, now, in this moment, not back there with blood on his hands and a master’s voice in his ears.

you set the cup down in front of him, but he doesn’t drink it. his fingers hover over the ceramic, then retract as if the warmth burns. his shoulders rise slightly. his breathing grows uneven. you watch the guilt take shape on his face the way clouds gather before a storm.

“choso,” you say, gently. not a question. just his name.

his eyes flick to you, then away. he looks like a man trying to swallow something sharp. “I…” he starts. stops. starts again. "I don’t know how to…be.” it hits you in the chest, that sentence. because it’s so simple. and so devastating. he doesn’t just mean “be” like exist. he means be like a person. be like someone who can sit in a room without thinking about the people he’s hurt. be like someone who can accept kindness without wondering what it costs. "I have done…” his voice frays. “too much.”

you don’t correct him immediately. you don’t rush to soothe. you let him speak because he needs it. he needs the truth in the air. "I was with him,” he continues, and you both know he means kenjaku. the name itself makes the room colder. "I believed things. I followed. I hurt people.” his hands curl into fists at his sides. his jaw tightens. his eyes shine, suddenly, and he looks almost startled by it—as if he didn’t expect his body to betray him like that.

"I cannot forgive myself,” he whispers. and then the tears come. not like a performance. not like an apology. just a physical overflow of emotion that he hasn’t learned how to dam yet. choso’s crying is big. heavy. honest. his face barely changes—still serious, still stern in that natural way of his—but the tears keep falling, slipping down his cheeks as if gravity has decided to be cruel. he blinks hard, embarrassed. his shoulders hunch as if he can make himself smaller. you don’t let him.

you stand and cross the room without hesitation, even though he’s triple your size and built like something that shouldn’t fit inside ordinary doorways. you don’t think about danger. you don’t think about what he used to be. you think about what he is right now: a man overwhelmed by the idea that he might be irredeemable. you gather him into your arms like it’s the most natural thing in the world. choso stiffens at first, startled. he’s still learning what touch means when it isn’t violence. still learning that being held isn’t being restrained.

you tuck his head under your chin, adjust your stance so you can actually keep him there, and begin to rock him side to side. small. steady. rhythmic. like you’ve done it a hundred times for people you loved. because you have.

and you feel awful for him, so genuinely, so deeply, that any romantic hesitation disappears. this isn’t about “what are we?” this is about “you are hurting and I won’t let you do it alone.”

his hands hover, awkward, unsure where to go. then, slowly, they come up and clutch the back of your shirt like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he doesn’t hold on. his breathing shakes. "I am evil,” he says into your shoulder, muffled.

you pull back just enough to look at him. your hands come up to his cheeks. you wipe the tears away with your thumbs like it’s normal, like there’s no disgust in you, no fear, no distance.

“no,” you say, firm. “that’s not how this works, choso. you made mistakes.”

his brows knit, miserable. “how can you know?” because you see him. that’s the answer. because he cries for what he’s done. because he wants to be good so badly it hurts him. because monsters don’t ask for normal. they don’t ache for kindness. they don’t grieve. but you don’t give him a lecture. choso doesn’t need a speech. he needs something simpler and stronger.

you kiss his forehead. he freezes at the contact, eyes wide, like he can’t compute tenderness being offered so freely. you smile at his frown, softening it with nothing but warmth. “you are trying,” you tell him. “every day. I see it.” he trembles, and the tears return, new ones replacing the ones you just wiped away. his face presses back into the curve of your neck like he’s seeking shelter.

and the miraculous part—the part that will always undo him—is how easily you dismantle his self-doubt with simple movements. no dramatic declarations. no grand forgiveness ceremony. just touch. just presence. just quiet truth repeated until it starts to stick. eventually his crying slows. his breathing evens out. his grip loosens, but he doesn’t let go completely. you keep rocking him anyway. because with you, he isn’t curse or human. with you, he is just choso. just yours. and that “yours” doesn’t mean possession. it means belonging. it means he can exist in a space where he doesn’t have to choose between halves of himself, because you aren’t asking him to be pure. you’re asking him to be honest.

that night changes something between you, even if neither of you names it. because when you hold someone through their worst self-perception, it’s intimate. it’s a kind of closeness that bypasses romance and lands somewhere deeper: trust.

when you cry, it looks different.

choso gravitates toward someone emotionally stronger than him for a reason. he feels things fast and hard, and he’s still learning where to put them. if you were both emotional wrecks all the time, the relationship would tip into chaos. so you’re steadier. you hold things back. you’ve been conditioned—by family, by society, by survival—to think emotion is embarrassing. that tears are messy. that vulnerability makes you a burden.

choso hasn’t reached that kind of “humanity” yet, the part where the world teaches you to be ashamed of your own heart.

to him, emotion is normal. inconvenient, maybe. overwhelming, sometimes. but normal. so when your eyes gloss over and you try to blink it away, he notices immediately, as if your sadness is a sound only he can hear.

he tries to mimic you at first—smiling, kind, calm—because he thinks that’s what you want. he thinks you want steadiness the way you give it to him. but he’s clumsy with it. his hand hovers, uncertain. his brows draw together. he’s not quite like you. you just always seem to know the exact right thing to say, and right now, his mouth is dry and he’s looking nervously around the room, searching for the correct words and finding but none. 

so he doesn’t force them. instead, he listens. choso’s listening is intense. devotional. he sits perfectly still, wide eyes fixed on your face like every word you say matters because it comes from you. he doesn’t check his phone. he doesn’t interrupt. he doesn’t rush you. he lets silence exist between your sentences without trying to fill it.

and you, in his presence, can’t perform the way you do for everyone else. your crying is slow, hiccuping weeping—one tear at a time. quiet and stubborn and meaningful. the kind of crying that happens when you’ve held things in for too long and your body finally insists on release.

choso doesn’t tease. he is so sincere it almost hurts. he reaches for you carefully, like he’s learned how precious you are, like he’s afraid of touching wrong. his palm settles on your cheek, thumb brushing away a tear with reverence. “it is alright,” he says, and he means it in the simplest way: you are allowed to feel this. he pulls you into his chest. it’s warm there. safe. his heartbeat is steady, grounding. he holds you like he’s memorizing the weight of you.

and you don’t like crying in front of him—not because he reacts badly, but because you want to shield him from the evil of the world. you want to keep the ugliness out of his reach. you want him to stay soft. to stay hopeful. to not learn the kind of bitterness you’ve had to learn. so you hide things. that might be the flaw in your relationship: you tuck the sharp edges away. you swallow the bad news. you downplay the cruelty. because you think you’re protecting him.

but choso, for all his emotional openness, isn’t stupid. he can feel when you’re holding something back. he can sense it in the way your smile doesn’t quite reach your eyes, in the way your shoulders stay tense even when you say you’re fine.

and one day—gently, sincerely—he will ask you to let him hold you the way you hold him. because he wants you to be real. because if you can look at him—curse-made-flesh, blood-stained history, guilt in his bones—and still gather him into your arms without hesitation…then surely you can let him do the same for you. and that’s the reconciliation he’s been searching for all along. “human versus curse,” or “good versus evil,” doesn’t matter in the slightest when it’s still “him versus you.” so he’ll do what he can to get you two on the same team. 

nanami is a gentle man living inside a brutal structure, which has taught him very little, but if it has taught him anything, it is that gentleness won’t get him very far. there is a version of him—somewhere, in some kinder universe—where his professionalism and his warmth exist without conflict. where he can come home at a reasonable hour. where he is not calculating risk percentages in the back of his mind while pouring a drink. where teenagers are not sent into combat by men who sit safely behind polished desks.

but not here. here, he chooses the hard exterior most days. the suit. the glasses. the clipped tone. the efficient movements. he does not have the luxury of being soft in a system that eats the soft first. he eats. he sleeps. he breathes. he works. he is so tired.

when he comes home that night, you can tell before he says anything. there’s something heavier in the way he sets his briefcase down. the knot of his tie is tighter than usual. his shoulders sit high, like they’ve been bracing for hours and forgot how to lower.

you don’t ask him what happened. you never ask like that. he loosens his tie slowly. removes his glasses. rubs the bridge of his nose. his composure is intact. it always is. but there are fractures in it.

he sits at the edge of the couch, elbows on his knees. hands clasped. staring at nothing. the room is quiet except for the faint hum of the refrigerator. you move toward him without ceremony. sit beside him. close enough to touch, but not touching yet. he inhales. “nanamin,” you say gently.

his jaw tightens at the sound of his name. you rarely use it when you’re concerned. it lands differently. "I am fine,” he replies automatically. you don’t argue. you don’t call him out. you just reach over and place your hand on the back of his neck. he freezes. the contact is simple. warm. familiar. but it cracks something. his breathing shifts. just slightly.

he thinks of himself as a teenager sometimes. of the boy who still believed the system could be reformed from within. of haibara’s grin. of blood soaking into pavement that should never have seen it. he thinks of how young he was when he was handed responsibility that should have belonged to grown men. he thinks of the young ones now. he thinks of those disgusting pigs who hide behind quartz walls and send optimistic 16 year old children to bear the weight of jujutsu society on their prepubescent shoulders, meaning sending them off to slaughter. he sees it clearly. but clarity does not equal freedom. 

a single tear slips down his face. he does not sob. he does not crumble. it is controlled, contained, precise. one tear, then another. and immediately—immediately—he turns his head away from you. "I apologize,” he murmurs, voice low. “this is—unbecoming.”

your hand tightens at his neck. “no,” you say.

he tries again. “you should not have to—”

"I will do a lot of things for you, nanamin,” you interrupt softly, but there is steel under it. "I will listen to you hurt. I will listen to you cry. I will let you be burdened by grief in front of me.” he goes still. “but I will not listen to you apologize. do you understand me?”

your gaze doesn’t waver. it is honest and disarming and steady in a way that leaves him nowhere to hide. he swallows. he wants to apologize anyway. for being heavy. for being exhausted. for not being brighter. for not being the version of himself that exists in kinder worlds. he nods instead.

nanami is not emotionally stunted. he knows exactly what he feels. he just resents that he feels it. resents that grief still grips him years later. resents that haibara’s face hasn’t blurred with time. you slide closer and press your forehead gently to his temple. he exhales. it’s shaky.

he hasn’t allowed himself to mourn properly in years. there was always another mission. another responsibility. another report to file. grief became something folded and tucked away like an old letter he didn’t have time to read. you can’t force that open. you don’t try. you just stay.

your hand moves from his neck to his jaw. your thumb catches another tear before it falls. he closes his eyes. "I am just…tired,” he admits quietly. it’s the most honest thing he’s said all day. 

"I know,” you whisper. he leans into you then, just slightly. not collapsing. not surrendering entirely. but allowing.

you don’t talk about fixing the system. you don’t talk about quitting. you don’t talk about “one day it’ll be different.” you offer him something smaller and more immediate. rest. he lets a few more tears fall. no dramatics. no shaking sobs. just controlled, dignified grief.

you hold it like it belongs there. you don’t expect him to unpack decades of restraint tonight. you don’t expect him to bare his soul in some cinematic confession. that’s not who he is. you expect him to let you help. and he does.

nanami is, in this one particular way, a hypocrite of the most human variety, because although your tears carve something raw and immediate through the center of his chest—although they ignite in him a sharp, almost violent protectiveness that makes his jaw tighten and his shoulders square as if the world itself has committed an offense against something sacred—there is, beneath that ache, something else, something far less noble and far more intimate: he loves when you cry.

he would never phrase it that way. he would bristle at the accusation. he would call it concern, instinct, responsibility. and those things are true. but there is another truth coiled underneath them, quiet and undeniable.

there are few things more intoxicating than being wanted.

and only one more intoxicating than that: being needed. nanami needs to be needed by you.

it settles into him like a slow-burning liquor, rich and golden and dangerous in its warmth. the moment your composure fractures and your eyes gloss over and your voice—usually so measured, so careful—softens into that small, trembling murmur of “nami,” something inside him gives way with a force that almost embarrasses him in its intensity.

he crumbles. not outwardly, not in the way he does when he finally allows himself to weep in the privacy of dim rooms and tightly drawn curtains. his crumbling is inward, a swift and total surrender to the gravity of you. instantly he is moving, crossing the space between you with the kind of decisive urgency he brings to battlefields, except this time there is no calculation, no assessment of cursed energy or terrain—only you, and the fragile shine of tears caught in your lashes.

he gathers you without hesitation, one arm firm around your shoulders, the other settling at the small of your back, drawing you into him as though the world might attempt to steal you if he does not anchor you close enough. his body curves around yours instinctively, shielding, enclosing, creating a perimeter of warmth and steadiness that no cruelty is permitted to breach.

his hands, despite their strength, are reverent.

he wipes your tears with the pads of his thumbs, slow and deliberate, as though each one matters, as though none of them are trivial or excessive or embarrassing. his voice lowers when he speaks to you, a timbre reserved for this and only this, threaded with praise that is never hollow.

“you’re alright,” he murmurs. “you’ve carried more than anyone should. let me handle this.”

he knows precisely how you need to be comforted. it is almost unfair. he senses when you require gentleness and when you require firmness, when you need to be reminded of your resilience and when you need permission to lay it down. he tells you not to be ashamed of crying, not to hide your face, not to apologize for taking up emotional space. he smooths your hair back from your forehead, presses a kiss there with such unguarded tenderness that it borders on devotion.

there is something faintly indulgent in the way he soothes you, something that edges toward babying, toward a careful diminishment of the harshness around you so that you can exist, for a moment, smaller and softer and unburdened. the line between protection and possession blurs, thin and shifting, and perhaps if you examined it too closely you might find it troubling.

but you do not examine it. because he is so very good at this. he is meticulous even in comfort, attentive in a way that feels studied and sacred. he watches your breathing until it evens out, adjusts his hold when your shoulders shake, murmurs reassurances that settle into your bones. you do not feel belittled. you feel cherished. guarded. chosen. and it is here, in this quiet cocoon of his making, that the hypocrisy reveals itself in its full, aching shape. he encourages you not to be embarrassed by your tears, to let him hold the weight, to allow yourself to be handled and steadied and sheltered without guilt.

yet he will not grant himself the same grace. he will not lean into your chest and whisper that he is tired. he will not let his voice fracture the way yours does. he will wipe his own tears away before they fall and call it composure. there is something almost tragic in that.

he does not see it as denial. he sees it as duty. as structure. as the proper order of things. he was built—by culture, by expectation, by the ruthless politics of jujutsu—to be the wall, not the one who leans against it. he has been told, implicitly and explicitly, that strength is silent, that protection flows in one direction. and so he pours himself into you without reservation while hoarding his own grief behind closed doors.

but he is trying. you can feel it in the slight hesitation before he withdraws from your embrace, as if part of him wants to remain there longer. you see it in the way his fingers linger at your waist after you have stopped crying, as though he is memorizing the permission of that closeness. you hear it in the breath he releases against your hair, heavy and almost unsteady, betraying the fact that comforting you does not drain him—it fills him, steadies him, gives him something pure and uncomplicated in a world otherwise mired in moral compromise.

being needed anchors him.

yuuji itadori is sweet sixteen in a way that feels almost anachronistic in a world that eats innocence like it’s bored of chewing, and when people look at him they see the brightness first—the easy grin, the loud laugh, the reckless generosity of a boy who will give you his last bite of food and then insist he isn’t hungry anyway—but you, because you are the one closest to him, because you have watched him when the hallway lights are off and the bravado has nothing to feed on, you know how deliberate that brightness can be, how often it is chosen on purpose, how much willpower it takes to keep his face soft when his head is full of funerals.

he is emotionally healthy, in a rare, almost miraculous way. he names what he feels more easily than most grown men. he apologizes without pride. he forgives without keeping score. he looks at the people he loves as if they are an answer to a question he never stops asking. he cries at movies. he laughs too hard at dumb jokes. he says "I missed you” like it’s a normal, ordinary thing to admit, and he means it every time. he is tuned to his own heart with a kind of tender precision.

and he has also seen death so closely that it has kissed his cheek. he has felt the heat of curses, the way they twist the air around them, the way a person can be alive one second and gone the next, reduced to aftermath and silence and the sickening knowledge that the world does not pause to mourn. he knows what a curse can do to someone’s body. he knows what it can do to a mind. he knows what it can do to a future. he carries that knowledge behind his teeth, smiling through it, swallowing it back down when it rises, because there is always another day and another mission and another person who needs him to be steady.

he does it well, too. he makes the best of things with an almost painful sincerity. he teases megumi until megumi looks like he’s trying not to smile. he charms nobara into laughter even when she’s furious. he drives gojo insane in that affectionate, unkillable way only yuuji seems capable of. he is a puppy-dog boyfriend with soft hands and starry eyes, the kind who remembers what you like without announcing that he remembered, the kind who gives you the first sip of his drink and watches your face while you taste it, the kind who says your name like it’s his favorite word.

he is happy, too—he really is, as happy as he can be—because happiness for him isn’t a grand promise, it’s a stubborn act of rebellion, it’s a small bright flame cupped between his palms while the wind screams to put it out. he has a death sentence looming larger and larger over his head with every one of sukuna’s fingers he swallows, with every step he takes deeper into a world that was never meant to be survivable, and he still laughs, still reaches for you, still says, with earnest conviction that makes you want to weep, “we’ll be okay.”

sometimes you believe him. sometimes you don’t. and then there are nights when the dam breaks.

it isn’t cinematic. it isn’t poetic. it’s the sudden, brutal collapse of a boy who has been holding too much for too long because he is strong in the way that breaks you slowly, because he is kind in a way that leaves him exposed, because he has carried grief like a backpack filled with stones and never once asked anyone to take a strap.

he comes to you like he always does, smiling, talking too fast, trying to keep the mood light—something about how gojo said something ridiculous, how megumi’s face did that thing it always does when he’s annoyed, how maybe you should try that ramen place again because last time you didn’t get enough toppings—and you listen, you smile, you let him bring the warmth into the room because you love him, because his joy is contagious, because you have learned to accept the good moments when they arrive.

but you see it, the slight tremor underneath his cheer, the way his eyes don’t quite match the grin, the way his hands fidget once he thinks you aren’t watching, the way his shoulders are braced as if he expects the floor to drop out. “yuuji,” you say softly.

he pauses. “what?” he answers, still smiling, still trying.

you don’t push. you don’t demand. you just step closer and reach for his wrist, your fingers closing around it with that gentle certainty that always makes him stop pretending, because you don’t grab him like he’s running away, you hold him like you’re giving him permission to land.

he swallows, hard. his throat works around something sharp, and then it all comes at once. the tears don’t spill. they rupture.

his face crumples with a force that makes your chest constrict. he doesn’t ease into it. he breaks into your arms like his body has finally decided it cannot carry this alone, like the grief has been clawing at his ribs for months and found a weak seam. he folds forward, hands clutching at your shirt, and the sob that tears out of him is so deep it sounds like it was dragged up from the bottom of his lungs, from a place where he has been keeping all the things he refuses to say out loud.

it isn’t soft. it isn’t pretty. it’s raw, full-bodied, broken sobs that shake him so hard you can feel it in your bones, like he is being wrung out by the sheer unfairness of being alive and also already halfway dead.

you hold him as tightly as you can, arms locked around his shoulders, one hand pressed to the back of his head, fingers threading through his hair like you can anchor him by touch alone. your mouth finds his temple. your cheek presses to his. your heartbeat is the only steady rhythm in the room, and you offer it to him like a rope.

“you’re alright,” you murmur, over and over, because language is useless in the face of this kind of grief and repetition is sometimes the only spell that works. “you’re alright. you’re alright. I've got you. I've got you.”

he makes a sound like he’s trying to speak and failing. “my grandpa,” he chokes, and it’s not even a full sentence, just the name of the wound, the shape of the first loss, the first person who told him to help people and then left him alone with the instruction like it was a gift and a curse at the same time.

his hands tighten, desperate. “I'm— I'm going to—” he can’t finish it. his breathing collapses. "I'm going to die.” the words hit the air like a gunshot. you don’t correct him. you don’t tell him not to say that. you don’t lie. you can’t afford lies with yuuji; he tastes dishonesty like bitterness.

so you simply hold him through the truth of it, through the terror of it, through the cruelty of it, and you keep murmuring the only thing that seems to cut through the fog he’s trapped in. “you’re here,” you whisper. “you’re here with me. breathe. breathe, baby. come back. come back.”

his sobbing spikes when you say “baby,” as if the softness of it hurts, as if being loved like this is both salvation and torture, because sometimes your love feels like the only clean thing left in a godforsaken existence that keeps demanding blood from children and calling it necessary. he cries harder, clinging to you as if you are the last good thing on earth, and you feel yourself splinter a little more with each sound, because you love him so much it frightens you, because you can’t bear the idea of a world without him in it, because you are powerless in ways that make you furious.

you croon into his hair until his breathing begins to slow, until the sobs lose their jagged edge and soften into shaky inhales, until the shaking eases just enough that he can lift his head and look at you with red-rimmed eyes and a face so open it is almost unbearable to witness.

there’s no shame in him. not with you. only exhaustion, and love, and the quiet devastation of a boy who has been brave too long. he lets you wipe his tears. he lets you hold his face. he leans into your hands like he belongs there.

and when he finally calms, when he finally drifts back from that ledge and sinks into your arms with a weight that feels like trust, he breathes out a whisper that barely reaches your ear. “thank you.” it breaks you again, softly, from the inside, the way gratitude from someone like him always does.

you kiss his forehead and hold him until he sleeps, until his lashes rest against his cheeks, still damp, until his fingers relax their grip on your shirt as if his body has decided, for now, that it is safe to stop fighting. sometimes, even after he’s asleep, you keep holding him anyway, because letting go feels like tempting fate. because loving yuuji means learning how to cradle joy and grief in the same hands.

because loving yuuji means smiling through tears and crying through laughter and never quite knowing which one will arrive first. and then there’s you. you are his world in a way that frightens him.

he tells himself it’s fine, that it’s normal, that people love their girlfriends and worry about them and want them safe. he repeats it like a mantra because the alternative is admitting how feral it makes him feel when you’re hurt, how quickly something dark and sharp rises in his chest when the light in your eyes dims, because he understands curses and cruelty too well, because he knows how easily the world bruises soft things.

he doesn’t want you in the jujutsu world. he wants you far away from it, untouched by the machinery of it, unclaimed by its politics and blood and stupid hierarchies. he tells you what’s happening anyway—he can’t keep secrets from you, not really—so you’re informed, always, but he draws a line around you like a boundary made of his own body.

he wants you to have nothing to do with it. he wants your hands clean. he wants your life ordinary. he wants you safe in a way that is almost a religion to him, the way he worships your safety.

so when you cry, he reacts like a boy who has learned that safety is fragile and time is a thief. he doesn’t ask twenty questions. he doesn’t demand explanations the moment your face breaks open. he comes to you quickly and quietly, and his gentleness is so deliberate it feels like he’s handling something priceless.

“hey,” he says, voice low. “come here.” he takes you by the hand and guides you toward his dorm like it’s the most natural thing in the world, like safety is a destination he can lead you to if he just keeps walking. his palm is warm around yours. his steps are careful, purposeful. he glances around the hallway as if looking for threats, even though the threats in your life are not curses and claws but words and loneliness and the thousand small hurts that come with being human.

he doesn’t like other people seeing you vulnerable. it feels possessive in a way he doesn’t have language for yet. it’s his job, his responsibility, his sacred duty to be the one you fall apart with, because he cannot stand the thought of the world taking pieces of you while he watches helplessly.

once the door is closed, once you’re inside that small room that smells faintly like detergent and cheap snacks and yuuji’s constant presence, he softens completely. he sits you down, not ordering, just guiding. he crouches in front of you so he can see your face, so he can be eye-level, so he doesn’t loom, so you don’t feel swallowed.

he doesn’t make you talk. he knows that part is hard. he knows words can snag in your throat and make everything worse. so he offers you the simplest comfort first: his attention, his warmth, his steady presence that says you are not alone in this, not for one second.

he wipes your tears with his sleeve in a clumsy, affectionate motion that makes you laugh even as your face is wet, and he smiles at you like he’s relieved to see any piece of you return. “okay,” he whispers, as if speaking to both of you. “okay. we’ve got time. just…stay with me.”

if you do speak, he listens like every word matters. if you don’t, he still stays. he gathers you into his arms, tucks your head under his chin, and holds you with the same fierce tenderness he brings to everything he loves, like he is trying to shield you from emotional damage the way he would shield you from teeth and claws.

sometimes his hands shake a little when you cry. he hates that he can’t fix it. he hates that he can’t punch sadness the way he punches curses. he hates that life hurts you and he can’t intercept every blow. so he does what he can. he holds you. he keeps you close. he brings you into the safest space he can offer and makes himself the walls around it, soft on the inside, sturdy on the outside.

and if you lean into him, if you let your face press into his shoulder, if you whisper his name in that small, broken voice, he closes his eyes like he’s memorizing the feeling, like he’s imprinting on you the way a puppy does, like love is the only thing he has that feels bigger than the fear.

he is sweet. he is loving. he is trying so hard. he is happy when he can be. and sometimes, in the quiet after the crying, when your breathing steadies and his hands stop trembling, he rests his cheek against your hair and smiles faintly, not because everything is okay, not because the death sentence has disappeared, not because the world has suddenly become kind, but because you are here.

because he is here. because for this moment, in this small room, in his arms, the apocalypse is held back by nothing more than devotion, and somehow, against all odds, that devotion is enough to let both of you breathe.