#pure evil

Just a man trying to pretend that he didn’t carry ghosts on his back.

And somehow, you loved him anyway.

Your relationship had been the slow kind of burn that built itself over late-night dinners, mutual respect and the subtle gravity of simply choosing each other every day. Eventually, love turned into marriage, and marriage turned into shared spaces, routines, inside jokes.

Safety.

Until Gojo asked him to return.

“You don’t have to do this,” you said that night, your voice trembling in the kitchen, eyes ringed with worry. “You got out. You made it out, Kento.”

He had looked at you then, his hands tight around a ceramic cup.

“I can’t leave them to die.”

And maybe that was when something started to splinter.

He went back.

And you followed.

Not because you wanted to.

Not because you were strong enough to.

But because he had always been alone in that world, and you couldn't bear to let him go back to it without someone who still saw him as Kento.

Not Nanami, the sorcerer.

Just your husband. Just a man.

But it changed him.

The nights grew longer. The touches became fewer. His eyes, once full of tired affection, began to look past you.

You started eating dinner alone.

He stopped texting back.

And you told yourself, again and again, that this was just the toll it took. That maybe it was okay to be lonely beside the man you loved if it meant he lived.

But you had never felt so cold.

“You’re not sleeping,” you murmured one night, lying next to him, eyes open to the ceiling.

Nanami exhaled slowly. “Neither are you.”

“I miss you.”

A long pause.

“I’m right here.”

But he wasn’t. Not really.

Not anymore.

*-*

The day it happened, the sky was grey.

It was always grey when tragedy decided to take. As if the world itself braced for the grief it would soon bear witness to.

They were on a mission with Itadori. Mahito. Again.

Motherfcuker just couldn't stop.

And you shouldn’t have been there. Everyone knew that.

You were good—skilled, precise—but you weren't him. Not even close.

But you'd insisted.

Because if something happened to him, you wouldn’t survive it. Not after everything.

“Stay behind me,” Nanami said, his voice the sharp, commanding tone he only used on the field.

You nodded, even as you held your side, blood seeping through the gauze wrapped hastily around your ribs. Mahito laughed in that unhinged, high-pitched-evil-little-shit way that made your skin crawl.

“So sweet,” he said. “You still think you can protect each other.”

You saw the curse’s hand move before Nanami did.

Instinct. Love. Fear.

You moved.

You didn’t scream.

But he did.

Your body collided with his, pushing him back just enough.

Just enough for the curse to drive its transfigured hand through your chest instead of his.

Nanami's eyes widened. A sound escaped his throat, animal and broken.

Time fractured.

Your body fell.

And you smiled.

Smiled.

“Kento,” you breathed, blood bubbling at your lips, fingers twitching as they reached for him.

He caught you.

Cradled you like something sacred. Like on your wedding night, like the first time he held your hand.

“Why…”

“Because I love you,” you said.

And then you were gone.

*-*

He sat beside your grave for hours.

Didn’t speak.

Didn’t cry.

He just stared.

The others didn’t know how to approach him. Not even Gojo, who stood silently behind a tree, sunglasses in hand, eyes uncharacteristically red.

Nanami pressed a hand to the cold stone.

“You should have let me die.”

The wind carried no answer.

He went home that night.

Not their home.

Just a house now.

Every room held her scent, her smile, her voice. The humming from the kitchen, the laugh that used to echo when he surprised her with pastries, the quiet sound of her slippers on wood floors.

Gone.

His world was full of ghosts.

And he had no one to blame but himself.

Because he had ignored her. Because he had chosen duty over the woman who had chosen him again and again.

Because in the end, she had still loved him more than he deserved.

He opened the drawer in their nightstand.

A note.

Written in her handwriting.

He recognized the curling loops of every letter.

If something happens to me, please forgive yourself. I love you. I always have.

Nanami folded in on himself.

The silence pressed in.

And for the first time in years, Nanami Kento prayed for a world where forever was real.

Because he didn’t want to live another ten years without you.

Not when the ten they had were already not enough.

Toji had always said they’d go out together.

Back when you were stupid, young, and starless—just two shadows running through Shibuya’s back alleys, guns tucked into jackets and laughter bleeding out between stolen kisses. Back when the world was simpler.

Blood was blood, love was love, and death was theirs to choose.

"If we die, we die together," you'd whispered into his neck once, after a job gone wrong and a getaway that left you half-soaked and breathless on a rooftop, the sirens screaming like banshees below.

He'd laughed, brushing your hair behind your ear, eyes like stormclouds. "Deal."

You'd even picked out the bullet.

And that was that.

*-*

Years passed. Megumi came. You stayed. The jobs grew fewer, the world heavier. You made a strange family out of the wreckage, the three of you. You were more mother than Megumi ever had, more a partner than Toji had ever known.

You were good. For a while.

But good things decay in silence.

And Toji started coming home late.

No explanations. No kisses. No promises.

Just tired feet, blood on his collar, and muttered apologies that didn’t reach his eyes. The warmth that once swelled between you—like a cigarette shared at midnight, like hands clasped beneath table tops, like understanding without words—began to vanish.

He left Megumi with you more often. Yu didn’t mind. Megumi was sharp, like his father, but soft with you. Still, you felt the shift. The way Toji started looking through you like you were glass.

Invisible.

You'd started feeling tired, more than usual. Dizzy spells, breathlessness, a cough that wouldn’t go away. But who were you to complain? He was working. He was tired. You could carry this. You always had.

It wasn’t until the diagnosis hit that you realized you didn’t have time to wait for him to notice you again.

Terminal.

You'd laughed in the doctor's office. Not because it was funny—but because there was nothing else to do. It was a lonely kind of laugh. A bitter one. Like the kind Toji used to give when the world spat on you and you'd spat back.

You came home with the envelope in your coat. Hid it in the drawer. Sat at the kitchen table while Megumi did homework, and watched the clock tick until the door opened past midnight.

He didn’t notice the shadows under your eyes. Didn’t ask why your hands shook pouring tea.

*-*

It went on like that for days. A week even.

You tried to tell him. Once. Twice. But the words fell off your tongue like glass—sharp and wrong and too fragile to hand over.

Until one night, the liquor made you brave.

Toji came in smelling like smoke and rain, jacket slung over his shoulder, phone still in hand.

You were curled on the couch, eyes glassy, diagnosis paper spread out like a confession on the coffee table.

He paused mid-step, brows furrowing.

"What the hell is this?"

You looked at him. Long. Hollow. Like you'd been waiting for him for a lifetime. And maybe you had.

"I’m dying."

Silence.

Just the quiet tick of the clock and the soft rustle of Megumi’s breathing down the hall.

Toji’s throat worked, but no words came.

You smiled. It cracked at the corners. "I didn’t know how to tell you. You’re never really here anymore."

He stepped forward. "What do you mean you’re dying?"

"Exactly that," you said. "I’ve got a few months, if that. Maybe a year."

The paper trembled in his hands. Terminal. Stage four. Inoperable. Metastasized.

You reached for the half-empty bottle beside you, took another sip. Your voice came quiet:

"Do you remember what we promised each other? That night on the roof?"

His eyes snapped to yours.

"Don’t," he said.

"We said we’d go out together. If it ever came to that."

His hands clenched.

You leaned your head back, eyes watery, smile bleeding sorrow.

"I don’t want to die in a bed, Toji. I don’t want to rot away while you’re out cleaning blood off your hands and forgetting I’m here. I want—"

Your voice broke. You wiped your face with the sleeve of his old shirt you wore.

"I just wanted you to see me. Before I go."

Toji sank to his knees in front of you.

"I see you," he said. Like it hurt to say. Like it was a truth he’d buried under guilt and time and the ugliness of what you'd become. "I’m sorry. I should’ve—I should’ve seen you."

Your fingers found his. Cold. Shaking.

"You were the only good thing I ever had. You and Megumi. And I wanted—I wanted more time."

He pressed his forehead to your knees. Silent. Broken. Wet. He stayed there a long time.

*-*

He didn’t kill you.

Not then.

But he stayed.

Every day.

He carried you to bed when you were too weak to walk. He fed you soup with trembling hands. He let you cry into his chest at 2 a.m. when the pain became too much. He read to you. Sat with you. Talked about the old days—stupid things. He took Megumi out for fresh air, brought him back with sun-warmed cheeks and quiet smiles. But his eyes were red.

And when the time came—when your breaths turned shallow and your skin turned to paper—he held your hand.

He kissed your knuckles like he used to, like they weren’t turning blue.

"Still want me to pull the trigger?" he asked, voice cracked and barely a whisper.

You gave him a ghost of a grin. "Too late for that."

He laughed. God, it hurt.

"You remember that rooftop?"

You nodded. Your knuckles were wet.

"You were wearing that stupid leather jacket."

"You said it made me look like a badass."

"You were."

Your eyes fluttered. Your grip on his fingers slackened.

"Toji..."

"I’m here."

You breathed out.

And didn’t breathe in again.

*-*

The house was too quiet without her.

Megumi didn’t cry much. Toji did.

When no one was looking.

He kept her jacket. Hung it by the door. Never touched the couch again. The bullet he never fired stayed on his desk, cold and waiting.

He never made another promise he couldn’t keep.

And he never forgot the ten years that he loved her the most.

You'd been together since they were kids—high school sweethearts woven into the fabric of tragedy, forged in fire and stitched together with trembling hands.

You had been Gojo Satoru's anchor when Suguru left, when Nanami died, when the weight of godhood settled upon his shoulders. You held him when the silence grew too loud. He kissed you when the screams in his head were too much. You stayed.

But something changed.

It started small, as it always does. Missed dinners. Silent nights. An almost imperceptible pull away from you. His words, once honey-slicked with affection, grew clipped. Cold. Detached. His touches became rare—phantom impressions rather than the grounding force they had once been.

You never blamed him.

He carried the weight of a dying world on his back. You, a mortal girl in love with a god, simply did what you always had—waited. Waited for him to see her again.

To remember. To choose you.

But he didn’t.

Not until it was too late.

*-*

You sat alone in your apartment, the white noise of an unfinished life humming in her ears. The results lay open on the table. Stage IV. Aggressive. Terminal.

You stared at the page for a long while, then folded it shut. Your fingers trembled.

When Gojo finally walked through the door that night, late and smelling of blood and cursed energy, he barely looked at you.

"You're home late," you murmured.

He didn’t respond. Just walked past you, peeled off his jacket, and vanished into the bedroom.

You followed him. The words sat heavy on your tongue, a leaden truth begging to be freed.

"Satoru... I need to tell you something."

His back was turned to you. The faint blue glow of his Six Eyes flickered in the dark.

"What?" Flat. Impatient.

"I'm dying."

Silence.

Then, a low laugh. Bitter. Disbelieving.

"Don’t joke. It’s not funny."

You stepped closer. "I’m not joking. I have a few months, maybe. Less if—"

The air shifted. A crackle of cursed energy surged and died just as quickly.

He turned, slowly. His eyes weren’t just blue—they were ice. Shards of a frozen heart.

"No."

"Satoru—"

"No. You’re not. I can fix this. I’ll take you to Shoko. I’ll—"

You reached for his hand. He flinched.

"You can’t fix everything. Not this."

He shattered.

*-*

From that day on, he never left your side. He wrapped you in layers of affection, guilt woven tightly into every gesture. He cooked, he cleaned, he kissed your fevered skin, he held you as you shook and cried.

But something darker stirred beneath the surface.

He began studying late into the night. Scouring ancient texts, forbidden jujutsu techniques. Speaking in half-whispers to people no one should talk to.

You didn't know. Couldn’t know.

Gojo Satoru had decided.

If you must leave this world, he would not let you go far. He would not let you vanish.

He would curse you.

Beautifully. Elegantly. Permanently.

*-*

The day you died, the sky fractured.

Gojo held you in their bed, your body frail and too light in his arms. Your eyes, once bright, now dimmed with pain and resignation.

"I’m scared," you whispered.

He kissed your temple. "I’m here."

You smiled. It was soft. Forgiving. Just for him.

"Thank you... for loving me. Even when it hurt."

He didn’t speak. He couldn’t. Not through the knot in his throat. Not through the howl building in his chest.

Then—silence.

Yourhand fell limp.

He didn’t scream.

He broke.

The jujutsu world held its breath.

The strongest sorcerer had lost the one person who kept him human.

And he did it.

He kept his promise.

You returned three days later—silent, spectral, a ghost bound in talismans and sealed under Gojo’s control. Your eyes were glassy. Your skin, translucent. Your cursed form shimmered with residual pain and lingering love.

You did not speak. You could not.

But you watched him.

Every battle, every mission, you hovered near, called forth like a divine punishment. A reminder. A regret.

The higher-ups called emergency meetings. Debated containment, assassination, exile. But who would move against Gojo Satoru? Who would dare?

He stood in silence as they discussed, your cursed form floating quietly beside him.

They let him be.

The world turned.

But Gojo never healed.

He visits the old apartment sometimes. Leaves your favorite tea on the counter. Talks into the silence.

"You remember that café in Kyoto? The one with the terrible coffee but those stupid fluffy pancakes? You loved those. Said they tasted like clouds. I still go. Order for two."

No response. Just the quiet hum of your cursed presence nearby.

"I miss your voice the most. It’s weird. I can see you, but... you’re not you. I thought... I thought I could live with this. But I think I was wrong."

The curse flickers. As if understanding. As if mourning, too.

He sighs.

"I don’t know how to let go."

There is no happy ending. Only this: a man who loved too much, too late. A girl who died with grace, and a curse that lingers in her stead.

He was the strongest.

But without her, he was just a man—trapped in a memory he refused to release.

And so she stays.

Not because she wants to.

But because he needs her.

Forever.

Even in death.

The first time Suguru Geto ignored you, you thought it was a mistake.

He was busy. Always busy.

The cult had grown monstrous in size over the last year, their reach stretching past the shadows and into the light. People worshipped him. Followed him. Feared him. And you—you were his left hand, the quiet presence at his side who pulled the strings behind the curtain. There was no Geto without you.

So, when he walked past you one day—your voice soft, calling his name, asking a simple question about their next move—and he didn’t even glance at you, you simply blinked, exhaled, and told herself he hadn’t heard.

But it happened again. And again.

Not outright cruelty, no. Geto didn’t scream at you. He didn’t curse your name or raise a hand. No, he just... forgot.

Forgot to eat with you. Forgot to check in. Forgot to ask why your hands trembled when she held a pen. Why your footsteps were softer now, like you were trying to walk without bothering the earth. Forgot to ask about the blood you coughed into the sink.

You stopped bringing it up.

The diagnosis had come quietly. A doctor, too afraid to speak above a whisper. A file folder sealed with trembling fingers. Five months, maybe six. The poison was ancient—slow, rotting, made to mimic sickness. It had been in the tea. The tea meant for Geto. The tea you drank because he’d forgotten it on his desk, as always, and you hated waste.

You hadn't told him right away.

Not because you didn’t want to, but because he didn’t want to hear you. He barely looked at you those days.

Only when they were in front of others, when he needed your image beside his to project power. You smiled through it all. Smiled until your ribs ached from pretending.

Finally, it had taken you collapsing in the corridor for him to even glance at you long enough to scowl.

“What?” he snapped, as if your shaking hand on his sleeve was an inconvenience. “I’m in the middle of something.”

You had looked up at him, breath rattling, chest sunken in, and said quietly, “Suguru, I’m dying.”

That got his attention.

Silence fell like a blade. He didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink. Just stared.

And in your heart, which was already struggling to beat in rhythm, you swore you heard a crack.

You explained it all. The tea. The symptoms. The diagnosis. The timeline.

By the time you were done, it was Geto’s hands were shaking.

“No,” he whispered. “No, that’s not—it can’t be.”

But it was.

He changed overnight.

Every room you entered was warmed. Blankets, cushions, your favorite tea brewed by his own hands (he never let anyone touch it again).

He carried you when you were too tired to walk. He laid with you at night again, arms around your waist, murmuring apologies into the curve of your spine until you fell asleep.

“I’m sorry,” he’d whisper, again and again. “I should’ve seen. I should’ve known. You were right in front of me.”

And you would smile, fingers tracing the scars on his knuckles, and whisper, “I was always yours, Suguru. Even when you forgot.”

Your decline was steady. Predictable. The poison ate at you like a quiet fire, consuming muscle, bone, will.

Still, he fought.

He summoned healers. Threatened gods. Offered pieces of himself for your health. But it was a death sentence written in blood and old magic. There was no cure. Only time. Only waiting.

And when the final day came—

The compound was silent. The cult held its breath.

You lay on silk sheets, window open, sunlight catching the edges of your hollow cheeks. Geto sat beside you, his fingers laced with yours.

“Do you remember,” you whispered, voice almost gone, “when we first dreamed this place into being?”

He nodded, tears slipping down. “I remember everything.”

“I wanted to build something that would last.”

“You did.”

“I wanted to die with you holding my hand.”

“You are.”

Her last breath was a sigh, soft and grateful, as her lips parted in the shape of his name.

And then she was gone.

Geto didn’t move for hours.

They burned her body with the incense she loved. Candles lit for seven nights. And on the eighth day, Geto walked into battle.

He didn’t return.

Gojo found him, his oldest friend, and ended it.

They said Geto died smiling, whispering her name.

Two weeks later, the cult disbanded. Her room was locked. Her picture placed in a shrine.

But in the world beyond, where souls waited and grief unraveled, she opened her eyes to find him there.

Arms open. Smile broken. Heart healed only by her touch.

“I’m sorry I was late,” he said.

And she laughed, tears streaming down, as she reached for him.

“You were right on time.”

They held each other then. In the quiet. In the always.

At last.

The temple was colder than usual.

Not in the sense that the wind howled louder through the crumbling pillars or that the air bit harder against the skin. It was a deeper cold—an absence, a stillness that slithered down the spine and settled deep in the marrow of his bones.

Ryomen Sukuna sat high upon his throne of ruin, half-draped in shadows, half-illuminated by the reluctant kiss of the setting sun bleeding through the cracks in the stone.

He was bored. Monstrously, painfully, violently bored.

The world offered no thrill. No challenge. No song of battle that stirred his blood like it once had.

And you—his girl, his little flame—you had dulled.

He remembered when your soul had first brushed against his. Bright. Brazen. It didn’t tremble. Didn’t cower. It dared to exist beside his. And Sukuna, cruel god that he was, had been enchanted. He hadn’t slain you, hadn’t devoured you, hadn’t shattered your spirit.

He’d kept you.

Owned you.

Not in the delicate way of men with soft hands and softer hearts. No, he possessed you the way fire owns the forest it razes. The way the sea takes and takes and takes.

And you let him.

Years had passed. Centuries, maybe. Time had blurred.

But now, something had shifted. You no longer came to him with defiant fire. You no longer filled his halls with your honeyed voice, laughter laced with thorns.

Your steps were softer. Slower. Your scent faded like the final embers of a dying hearth.

And Sukuna noticed.

Not at first.

Not when he was too consumed by restlessness, by his own endless hunger. But when your presence began to flicker, like a candle devoured by wind, something inside him began to snarl.

One evening, he summoned you.

You came. Of course, you came. She always came.

But you looked like moonlight stretched too thin. Pale. Hollow.

He narrowed four crimson eyes at you, the air around you crackling with an unspoken storm.

"You're fading."

Your lips curled. Not into a smile. Not quite. Just something sad and secret and resigned.

"Yes," you said simply.

Sukuna's claws dug into the stone armrest. "Why."

You stepped closer, robes trailing like sorrow. You didn’t flinch when he stood, towering, monstrous.

You had never flinched. Not even now.

"I do not know. I’m simply dying."

The silence that followed wasn’t silence at all. It was the wail of the cosmos breaking apart. It was the roar of ancient gods cursing the stars.

"No, you are not."

You tilted your head. The sunset caught your lashes. "I am. It’s been eating at me for a while. I didn’t tell you. I thought... maybe I’d burn brightly one last time. That maybe you’d see me again. But..."

"You thought I wouldn’t care."

You didn’t answer.

Sukuna stepped forward, his aura a storm. “What is it? What dare touch what is mine?”

You sighed. “Something even you can’t kill, Ryomen. Something small and silent and slow. It doesn’t roar. It whispers.”

His hands reached for you without thinking, fingers curling around your arms as if by holding you tighter, he could strangle death itself.

"I will find it," he hissed. "I will gut it."

"You won’t. There’s nothing to kill. It’s in me. In my blood. My bones."

He searched your eyes then, looking for a lie. He’d have forgiven you if you lied. He would’ve forgiven her anything.

But you didn’t lie. You never had.

And the rage in him turned inward. A beast with nowhere to run.

He left that night.

Tore across the realms. Demanded answers. Tortured the gods. Shattered shrines. Crushed priestesses beneath his heel. Ripped healers apart when their trembling fingers offered no cure. He screamed at the sky, ripped open the veil of the living and the dead.

But there was no answer.

Only silence.

Only time, ticking down.

He returned days—weeks?—later. Blood-soaked. Mad-eyed.

You were in his bed. Pale. Quiet. Smiling.

"Come to watch the end?" she whispered.

He fell to his knees beside you.

The throne forgotten. The crown abandoned.

"You do not have permission to leave me."

You laughed. It sounded like bells in the wind. Fading. Beautiful.

"I never needed your permission, Sukuna."

His hands trembled as they brushed your cheek. For all his strength, he could not stop your body from growing colder.

"I’ll wait for you," you murmured, eyes fluttering. "When you’re done raging against the stars. When you’re tired of the blood. I’ll be waiting. Somewhere quieter."

And then—

You stilled.

Your soul slipped from him like mist, no scream, no sound. Only the quiet hum of a thing breaking. Irreparably.

And something inside Ryomen Sukuna died with you.

He didn’t scream.

He didn’t roar.

He simply sat. Held her. For hours. For days. The world passed, and he remained still.

And when he finally rose, the earth wept. The sky cracked.

Ryomen Sukuna, the King of Curses, had lost the last tether to what made him almost human.

And the world would pay the price for taking her from him.

They say he still walks the earth, sometimes.

Silent. Searching.

But the fire in his eyes is colder now.

Because the one soul that never trembled had slipped through his fingers like sand.

And all the blood in the world could never fill the hollow she left behind.

You had known Choso for years—since the days when you were both nothing more than two survivors in a world that refused to be kind.

There was something beautiful in the way he loved you, at least at first: quiet, unwavering, like the stillness of a lake after rain. His love had always been silent but solid, a presence you never questioned. Until you did.

It started small.

Choso stopped saying goodnight.

You thought it was just exhaustion. Missions were piling up. Curses getting stronger. He would come home with blood on his hands and shadows beneath his eyes, and you would still wrap your arms around him like he hadn’t changed. Like he wasn’t drifting.

"You're tired, I know," you whispered one night, pressing your cheek to his back. He didn’t reply. Didn’t even flinch.

The silence between you grew like rot.

At first, it was easy to lie to yourself. That he was still your Choso. That he hadn’t stopped brushing your hair behind your ear, or whispering soft confessions in the middle of the night. But weeks turned to months, and he barely looked at you anymore. The warmth of his gaze had cooled, as if you had turned into someone he couldn’t bear to look at.

"Do you love me?" you asked once, voice trembling in the low light of the apartment.

He didn’t answer. Just turned his back and walked into the bathroom. You heard the water run. The door shut.

You didn’t cry.

Because you already were.

The pain was subtle at first. A slow ache in your bones, a tremble in your fingers. The doctors gave you looks they shouldn’t have. You saw it in the way the nurse gripped your wrist just a second too long, the way the oncologist said your name like a eulogy.

"Stage Four," they said. "There’s not much we can do."

You nodded. Smiled. You didn’t tell Choso.

What was the point?

He hadn’t looked you in the eyes in nearly three months.

Your days blurred together. You spent them wrapped in blankets on the balcony, watching the clouds, talking to yourself in your head because no one else was listening. You wrote letters. You never addressed them. Sometimes you left them in drawers. Other times, you burned them.

There was one you kept. Folded and tucked inside a photo album. It simply read:

"I was still here, even when you stopped seeing me."

*-*

Choso started coming home later. Sometimes he didn’t come back at all. When he did, his eyes were red—not from tears, but from the kind of tired that eats away at your soul. You wondered if he had someone else.

It didn’t matter.

Because you were dying, and he didn’t know.

And maybe, a part of you wanted him to regret it.

The day your body gave up wasn’t dramatic. You were in bed. The same bed you once curled into his chest in. The same bed you once laughed in. The same bed you had bled in, quietly, when you first collapsed in the bathroom weeks ago and told no one.

You knew it was the end.

Your breath rattled like a secret trying to get out.

You looked around the room. Photographs on the wall. Your favorite sweater draped over the chair. The book you never finished. Your fingers curled around the sheet, and you whispered into the silence:

"I forgive you."

And then, you were gone.

He came home an hour later.

He called your name once. Twice.

"Y/N?"

His voice held irritation, like you were a nuisance. Like you were a ghost before you even died.

The first sign that something was wrong was the smell.

Hospitals and salt.

Then he saw you.

You looked asleep.

He reached for you. Your skin was cold. Not just cold. Gone. Empty. Hollow in the way that only death could be.

"No."

His hands shook.

"No, no, no, no. Y/N."

He collapsed at your side, gripping your body like he could pull your soul back in. Like he had a right to grieve. Like he hadn’t ignored you into silence.

And then he saw the letter. The one in the photo album. The photo of the two of you at the beach, sun in your hair, his arms around you.

He opened the letter with trembling fingers.

Read the words.

"I was still here, even when you stopped seeing me."

He broke.

Not a cry. Not a scream. Something deeper. Something animalistic. A sound wrenched from his ribs as he fell forward and pressed his forehead to yours, shaking, begging, choking on a grief he had earned.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t..."

But you weren’t there to hear it.

Choso didn’t leave the apartment for days.

Then he found the doctor’s letters. The reports. Tucked in your drawer, under the sweaters you wore when you were trying to feel warm again. The truth was everywhere, and he had simply refused to see it.

He didn’t attend your funeral. Couldn’t. He stood outside the gates, fingers clenched, as if he could turn back time with enough rage.

He stayed up all night rereading your journals. Watching videos of you laughing. Staring at old voicemails just to hear your voice.

He tried to remember the last time he said he loved you.

He couldn’t.

And that’s when it hit him.

He would live a hundred more years and never stop paying for it.

Because you had loved him until the end.

And he had stopped looking long before that.

Your death was not loud.

But the silence you left behind screamed in his ears every day for the rest of his life.

And every time he closed his eyes, all he saw was your smile, fading, and the words:

"I was still here."

You always knew what kind of man Shiu Kong was.

Even in the early days—when the nights were still sweet, the sheets still warm with affection, when his hands trembled a little each time they touched you like he couldn't believe you were real—you knew.

He wasn't gentle. Not really. Not in the way that counts. His love was never loud, never adorned with poetry or grand gestures. It was in the way he locked his door every night, the way he slid his pistol under his pillow like a lullaby.

Love, for him, was survival. Quiet, constant vigilance.

And you? You weren't a saint either. You were stubborn. You liked your silence sharp. You met his cruelty with your own—biting sarcasm, a temper that cracked through your ribs like lightning in a dry storm. You both learned early how to dance with fire, and neither of you ever stepped back.

But there had been love. There had been years of love.

The quiet mornings where he'd press coffee into your hand without a word. The way he'd rest his hand on the small of your back in public, always claiming you in the smallest of ways. The way he would come home smelling of blood, but shower before he touched you. Small mercies. His kind of affection.

And then, the silence began.

You can't pinpoint when it started. Maybe a year ago. Maybe more. One day, he just... stopped looking at you. The cigarette between his fingers became more interesting than your voice. You'd talk, and he wouldn't answer. You'd reach for him at night, and he'd turn over. Cold. Distant. Cruel in his absence.

At first, you thought it was work.

"Rough day?" you'd ask. No reply.

"Shiu, you're bleeding. Come here, let me—"

He'd shove your hand away. "Don't fuss."

You tried. God, you tried. You made dinner. You wore the lingerie he used to love. You let him yell. You let him ignore. You stopped talking about your pain. The coughing fits that lasted too long. The blood in the sink. The fatigue that wrapped around your bones like a noose. You didn't want to burden him.

He already had one foot out the door.

The doctor had said it so plainly.

"Stage four. It’s aggressive. I’m sorry."

You laughed, soft and breathless. "Of course it is."

You didn’t cry. Not then. You didn’t scream or sob. You sat in that white room with your hands folded in your lap and thought about the way Shiu hadn't said "I love you" in six months.

He didn’t notice you coming home later and later. He didn’t ask where you were going. You had treatments alone. Sat in waiting rooms with couples holding hands across IV poles and thought: I used to have that.

And you never told him.

Because what was the point?

What did it matter, if the man you loved more than anyone else had already buried you in his heart?

The days bled into each other. You grew thinner. Weaker. Your clothes hung off you. The color drained from your face. You slept more. Cried quietly in the bathroom with the fan on. He never asked why you stopped eating. He never asked why you winced when you walked.

One night, you collapsed in the kitchen. Your body just... gave up. You remember the cold tile on your cheek, the flickering light above, the iron taste in your mouth. And him, finally, finally, kneeling beside you with wide, terrified eyes.

"Hey," he whispered, voice cracking. "What the fuck... What happened?"

You smiled. Blood stained your teeth. "Guess I should've said something sooner."

He carried you to the hospital. Hands trembling. Eyes wide, almost boyish in their fear. He barked orders at the nurses like they were soldiers. Threatened a doctor. Broke down when they told him the truth.

"She’s dying."

"No. No, you don’t fucking get it. She can’t be. I didn’t—I didn’t know."

The doctor looked tired. "She knew. She’s known for a while."

And then he was alone in the hallway.

He sat there, in that sterile silence, for hours.

It was the first time he had cried since his father died.

You woke up two days later. Tubes. Beeping. Pain. And him, sitting there like a ghost of himself. Disheveled. Dead-eyed.

"You knew," he said.

You nodded.

"Why didn’t you tell me?"

You looked at him. Really looked at him. Took in the unshaven face, the crumpled clothes, the way his fingers were bruised from punching a wall or a man or maybe both.

"Would you have cared?"

He flinched like you shot him. But he didn’t deny it.

"I didn’t want you to stay out of guilt," you whispered. "I wanted you to love me."

"I do love you."

You closed your eyes.

"Then why did you stop?"

He had no answer. Just tears.

The end was slow. And fast. Painful. Quiet.

He never left your side after that. Sat by your bed, holding your hand. Read to you. Fed you when you couldn't lift your arms. Kissed your forehead. Sang to you when you couldn’t sleep.

One night, you opened your eyes and said, "It hurts."

He whispered, "I know, baby. I know. I’m so fucking sorry."

You looked at him, eyes hollow. "It doesn't hurt as much as you forgetting me."

He broke. Wept into your chest. Told you he loved you, again and again, until your breathing slowed.

Until it stopped.

He didn’t speak for weeks after you died.

Didn’t go to work. Didn’t smoke. Didn’t fight.

He kept your mug in the sink. Your toothbrush next to his. The last book you read stayed on the nightstand. He listened to your voicemails on loop. Fell asleep to the sound of your laughter. Prayed to a god he didn’t believe in.

And sometimes, at night, he talked to you.

Told you how he hated himself.

Told you how he wished he'd listened.

Told you how the silence in the apartment screamed louder than your death ever could.

He sat where your hospital bed used to be, knees pulled to his chest.

"Come back. Please. I’ll do better. I swear. Just come back."

But you didn’t.

And he lived the rest of his life with your ghost in every shadow.

You had always known what kind of man Shiu Kong was.

And now, so did he.

The days had been getting colder.

Not the kind of cold that settles in your skin, but the kind that curls its long, brittle fingers around your bones. The kind that whispers in your ear while you sleep, that turns your breath into a silent plea you don’t even recognize anymore.

You used to wake up with Hiromi’s arms around you. He used to kiss your forehead like it was the most sacred part of your body. There was a time he remembered the little things: your favorite tea, how your hands trembled in the mornings, how silence could be a comfort when shared.

But now, you woke up alone. Sometimes he was already gone, sometimes he lay beside you like a statue, cold and turned away, like the warmth between you had been a dream you misremembered.

You tried to understand it.

Maybe work had been hard. Maybe he was unraveling in his own way, the justice of the world too heavy on his back. Maybe he didn’t mean it when he snapped, when he looked through you like you were the window instead of the home.

But it never stopped hurting.

"Hiromi?" your voice cracked one evening, small and frail in the doorway where he sat on the couch, his eyes glued to his phone.

He didn't look up. "What?"

"I made dinner. It's your favorite."

A pause.

"Not hungry."

Your fingers clutched the fabric of your sweater, the one he bought you three years ago for your anniversary. You still wore it like it meant something. "You haven’t eaten all day."

He sighed, the kind that wasn’t tired, but annoyed. "I said I’m not hungry, alright? Stop nagging."

You flinched. Not because of the words, but because you saw it in his eyes – the way they didn't soften anymore when they met yours. The way love had been replaced by something distant. Indifferent.

You didn’t tell him your nose had started bleeding again that morning.

Didn’t tell him the headaches now came with ringing in your ears, so loud you sometimes cried in the bathroom with a towel over your face so he wouldn’t hear.

Because what was the point?

He didn’t ask anymore. Didn’t touch you like you were something worth holding.

It wasn't always like this.

You met him in court, young and so full of fire. He was justice, and you were something soft he never thought he needed until he had you. You moved in together after a year, built a life out of shared toothbrushes and late-night ramen.

He used to read to you.

Now, he didn’t even notice when you stopped reading altogether, your vision too blurry, your hands too unsteady to hold a book.

Your doctor called it aggressive.

Stage four. Terminal.

You were dying. And he didn’t know.

Not because you didn’t want to tell him. But because he didn’t ask. Because you stopped being a person to him and started becoming background noise, a ghost that lived in his house.

The day you collapsed, he wasn’t home.

You were reaching for a glass of water, but the world tilted. The floor met you like a lover. Your lungs stopped playing along. It was quiet when your head hit the ground.

When he came back, hours later, the house was dark.

And you were cold.

The hospital room smelled like bleach and stale breath.

He sat by your side, eyes rimmed red, and for the first time in months, he held your hand. It was too late.

"Why didn’t you tell me?" his voice was hoarse.

Your eyes fluttered open, and you saw it: the man you fell in love with, buried under layers of guilt and grief.

You smiled, barely.

"You stopped listening."

And that broke him more than anything ever could.

The machines beeped in protest when your heart slowed. He begged. Cried. Called your name like it was a prayer.

But God was never in this house.

You died at 2:37 AM.

He didn’t go to work for weeks. The apartment stayed untouched. Your toothbrush was still in the holder. Your sweater still draped over the chair.

He read your journal.

Every page was agony. You had written about the pain, about the loneliness, about him. About how much you loved him, even as he pushed you further away. You wrote, *"I hope he remembers me as someone worth loving. Even if he forgot how to."

He screamed when he finished the last page.

And he never stopped hearing your voice in the silence.

Even now, when he lies in bed and stares at the ceiling.

He imagines you there.

Smiling, forgiving, dying all over again.

And him, still too late.

Always too late.

A/N: cried writing this, i'm not even kidding, this fucking sucked, no offense annon, but wtf

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