#projecting here

You’d regretted it the moment it left your lips. What he'd said to you cut you deep, and your mouth opened almost automatically. You saw the way it registered with him—shocking at first, that expression quickly replaced by what you knew to be incredible hurt. He said nothing—just turned from you and walked to the bedroom, gently shutting the door behind him. Leaving you to stand in your shame that ricocheted off the walls, cutting you down over and over again. If he was packing his things in there, who could’ve blamed him? It’d be a long time coming.

You’d been at each other’s throats for weeks. Kento was chronically late getting home and you were irritable and distant and standoffish, and it dawned on you that you don’t know which one came first. You don’t even remember how tonight’s argument started—it didn’t feel like it mattered anymore, with the way it escalated—it was something that had been building for far too long and had come to a head the moment you opened your mouth. You might as well have told him he was worthless, with the way you’d cherry-picked your worst words for him. You knew they would hurt him and you said them anyway, that’s what you did when you were hurt and afraid—you’d lash out like an animal caught in a trap. The weight of the aftermath, this time, was more than you could hold.

“Sweetheart?”

A string of expletives leaves your lips as the knife you’d been holding clatters against the cutting board. You spin around, trying to steady your breathing as you take in the man now standing in front of you. The man who is certainly too close and looking far too vulnerable for the way you just punched a hole through his chest. You could feel yourself tense, bracing for impact. The one you get is almost more devastating than the one you’d been expecting.

“Be sweet,” he murmurs gently, lips brushing over your temple. He reaches his arms around your shoulders, one hand coming up to tangle itself in the hair on the back of your head.

“You first,” you sniffle, and you jab him in the side lightly before you allow your fist to unfurl and curl around his shirt, pulling him to you. It’s not what you wanted to say, but you hope he hears what you meant.

“I love you,” he tells you. There’s a soft smile stretching across his face—tentative, like he knows he’s pushing his luck, but he thinks it’s safe to do so— and it is. You need him like you need air. You want to hear him say it again, but you can’t bear to ask. Can’t bear to put him through anything more tonight.

“I’m sorry,” you croak, and he presses another kiss to your hairline. You bury your face in his chest and squeeze your eyes shut, too proud to let him see you cry again. He knows anyway—of course he does—and you feel his arms tighten around you. He presses kisses to the crown of your head and whispers his love to you again. Your grip on his shirt tightens. Anything to tether you here—the alternative, to be without him, is unbearable.

“I don’t want you to leave,” you confess, and it’s barely audible, but you assume he’s heard by the way his grip on you turns to that of a vice.

“Sweetheart,” his voice is strained, and the guilt squeezes around your gut, “look at me, please.”

You take in a shuddering breath to steel your resolve, and you lift your head up to meet his gaze. All you see is hurt. You think he might actually cry, and it breaks your heart again.

“There is no reality that exists in which I belong anywhere but where you are. Do you know that?”

And you can’t say anything. How could you? You can’t tear yourself from his gaze, because he’s showing you everything. He’s torn himself apart just to let you see inside. He does so, full of fear that you’ll reject what you’ve found. He does it anyway.

“We will let each other down—there will be days where you are certain you can’t bear to look at me again, and there will be days where I feel the same. But we’ll still choose to love each other. We’ll still choose to be here.”

You shake in his arms at his words. You’ve not said a thing since your quiet admission, and it doesn’t thwart him at all. He keeps talking—keeps shredding your insides with the love he lets drip off of him like he has spare to give away. You’re bleeding out in front of him and he holds you tighter. Holds you together.

“Do you still love me?”

You look at him, incredulous. “Of course I do,” and it comes out sharper than you intended. He doesn’t flinch. He exhales, like it’s a relief. You think it should feel like a life sentence.

“Do you know that I love you?”

“Yes,” you breathe, and you feel tears well up in your eyes again—your entire body is screaming to look away, to get away—to leave before his love swallows you whole, but you don’t. He’s rooted you to him. You’re surprised that it doesn’t hurt like you thought it would. Not in the ways that would really be damaging.

“Okay,” he whispers, cradling your head against his chest to tuck you under his chin, holding you tightly to him, “okay.”

You let go of his shirt for the first time and let your arms wrap around him, holding him tightly. You feel the tension in his muscles subside—like he was waiting (hoping) for you to hold him upright. He trembles slightly in your arms and you hold him tighter.

“Ken,” your whisper is soft against the fabric of his T-shirt, and he sucks in a breath at the familiar way you shorten his name, “can we go to bed?”

“Yes,” he says wetly, pressing a kiss to the top of your head, “let’s go to bed, my love.”