Suguru wants to make it official but he worries that his love might not be enough to keep you safe.
Continuation of Loves weight in gold.
The night air had turned crisp, carrying the quiet, melancholy chill that always seemed to follow the end of summer.
Suguru Geto sat on the worn leather couch in the Jujutsu High common room, his long legs stretched out in front of him, fingers laced loosely over his stomach. On the outside, he was the picture of composure—calm, collected, possessing that easy, deliberate grace that usually commanded every room he walked into.
In reality, his mind was an absolute tempest.
He had spent the entire day with you. Every single hour, every quiet lull in conversation, every shared glance had been dominated by a singular, suffocating focus: you. It wasn't that Suguru ever truly stopped thinking-his mind was a perpetual engine of dark, heavy calculations; but today, all of that background noise had been utterly drowned out by your presence.
Could you handle all of him? Could you bear the crushing weight of his world, a world steeped in curses, violence, and the rotting stench of human ugliness? Above all, would you be safe? That was the question that kept clawing at his chest, raw and relentless. How greedy was he allowed to be with you? How much of your warmth could he consume before his darkness inevitably stained you?
Throughout the afternoon, he had played his part flawlessly. He had walked beside you like normal, talked like normal, teased you with that smooth, gentle smirk that never failed to draw a flush to your cheeks. But underneath the facade, his brain was on a maddening, relentless loop.
He replayed the exact feeling of kissing you.
The soft, electric yield of your lips beneath his. The quiet, breathless sound of your laughter a sound that made his heart pound against his ribs with a violence that frightened him. The way your eyes looked when you turned your gaze onto him, so full of pure, unfiltered warmth that it felt like his frozen interior was literally melting away.
Then, you had left. You had walked out the door to head back home, leaving behind a silence that felt heavier than lead.
Suguru spent the entire walk back to the common room trying to convince himself of a lie. He tried to force himself to believe that your safety was infinitely more important than his selfish love. If he truly loved, you if he possessed even a shred of genuine nobility he would step back. He would be the guardian in the shadows, keeping his distance to preserve your purity.
With a heavy, dragged-out sigh, Suguru leaned his head back against the cushion of the couch, staring blankly up at the cracked plaster ceiling.
From her seat at the round wooden table across the room, Shoko Ieiri flicked the top of her lighter closed with a crisp snap. A thin curl of cigarette smoke drifted up toward the light fixture. She had been watching him in quiet amusement for the past twenty minutes.
"So," Shoko asked, her voice dry and laced with her usual nonchalance. "Is it official?"
Suguru didn't move his head. His eyes remained fixed on the ceiling. "No, it's not..." He paused, his throat tightening slightly. "She'd be safer if she wasn't involved with me."
Shoko raised an eyebrow, pausing with her cigarette halfway to her mouth. She stared at him for a beat, letting the silence stretch before letting out a soft, incredulous snort.
"That's bullshit," she said plainly. "She'd be safer with you. Besides, she was my friend first, long before she became your little romantic obsession. What's going to change when she dates you? Has she been unsafe with me for the last four years?"
Before Suguru could formulate a counterargument, Shoko lazily flicked the plastic ballpoint pen she was holding straight at his head.
It struck him squarely on the arm. Suguru didn't even flinch. He didn't blink. He just let out another long, defeated sigh, reluctantly letting his head roll to the side to look at her.
"Point taken..." he muttered, his tone flat, entirely unbothered by the projectile. He reached down and picked the pen off the cushion beside him, rolling it between his long, calloused fingers. "She's just... so... soft."
He hated the way the word sounded the second it left his mouth. It felt reductive, inadequate. "Soft" didn't begin to capture what you were.
In Suguru's mind, you were like a priceless piece of art, painted by a master artist who poured every vivid, radiant color onto the canvas just to remind the cold world that love and joy still existed. You were light, and balance, and undeniable warmth.
And him? Suguru was an artwork too, but one painted in washed-out blacks, muddy grays, and bruised purples. He was a canvas stained with harbored sadness, quiet bitterness, and a growing, dangerous hate for the world around him. How could something crafted from such bleak tones touch something so vibrant without ruining it?
Shoko leaned back in her chair, blowing a plume of grey smoke toward the open window. "You're selling her short, Suguru."
Suguru narrowed his eyes slightly, but Shoko continued, her tone uncharacteristically firm.
"She's not the kind of person to walk away when you're at your worst," Shoko said, pointing the tip of her lit cigarette in his direction for emphasis. "She’s strong. She’s independent. And above all, she loves stubbornly. She might be as sweet as sugar, but don't you dare think for a second that she can't handle a little bit of the weight and pressure you stupidly insist on keeping on your own shoulders."
The words echoed in his head, striking a resonant, aching chord deep within his chest. He closed his eyes, the memory of your face flashing brightly against the dark behind his eyelids. You were stubborn. You had stood up to him before. You had looked straight into his dark eyes when he was at his most exhausted, his most jaded, and you hadn't flinched. You had reached out and held his hand instead.
"Go to bed, Suguru," Shoko muttered, turning back to her medical documents on the table. "You look like a ghost, and your brooding is ruining my break."
Suguru didn't go to sleep.
Instead, he retreated to the silence of his room, closing the heavy wooden door behind him. He didn't turn on the lights. He simply walked over to his bed, sitting down on the edge in the darkness, the faint moonlight filtering through the high windows and casting long, sharp shadows across the floorboards.
His room was minimalist, almost sterile. There were no bright colors here, no personal trinkets, nothing that betrayed the inner workings of his mind. Just a bed, a desk, and the suffocating weight of his own thoughts.
He buried his face in his hands, pressing his palms into his eyes until he saw spots.
Shoko's words refused to leave him. She's as sweet as sugar, but don't think she can't handle some of the weight...
Was he selling you short? Or was he just terrified?
Suguru forced himself to confront the truth that he had been burying under the guise of "protection." It was easy to hide behind the martyr complex. It was easy to tell himself that he was keeping you at arm's length because he was a curse user, because his soul was decaying, because the cursed spirits he swallowed every day left a foul, ash-like residue on his spirit. It made him feel noble to suffer in silence.
But it was a lie. The fear wasn't just that you would get hurt.
The fear was that if he let you in—if he let you see the darkest, ugliest, most unsavory corners of his mind—you would realize that he wasn't worthy of the light you shone on him. You would look at the mud and shadow of his soul and turn away.
Suguru dropped his hands from his face, leaning back against his pillows and staring up at the shadow-draped ceiling.
What if he stepped away? What if he did the "right thing" and kept his distance? What if he reduced himself to just a friend, a distant protector who watched from afar while you lived a normal, peaceful life?
The moment the thought fully formed in his mind, his stomach twisted into a violent, sickening knot.
A future without you as his.
Suguru closed his eyes, and a nightmare scenario unspooled in his mind with terrifying clarity. He imagined years passing. He imagined you realizing that he was never going to take that final, crucial step. He imagined you growing tired of waiting, tired of the subtle boundaries he kept erecting between your hearts.
He imagined you meeting someone else.
Someone normal. Someone who didn't carry the stench of cursed spirits on his breath. Someone who could give you a bright, uncomplicated life in the sun. He imagined another man standing beside you, another man hearing that breathless, golden laugh that belonged to him. He imagined another man's hands holding yours, another man resting his forehead against yours, another man pulling you close in the dark and kissing you until you were breathless.
A violent, visceral wave of possessiveness crashed through Suguru's chest, so intense that he physically sat straight up in bed, his breath catching in his throat. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the edge of the mattress.
The mere possibility of you belonging to anyone else felt like an absolute, intolerable agony. It burned worse than the taste of any curse he had ever swallowed. It made his blood run hot and dark with a fierce, possessive fury that terrified him in its sheer intensity.
He realized then how foolish he had been. He had been trying to play the tragic hero, convincing himself he could let you go for your own good. But Suguru Geto was not a hero. He was a man—a flawed, selfish, desperately lonely man who had found his holy grail in a world full of ash and blood.
He couldn't be noble about this. He refused to be noble.
If you were the brilliant, vivid artwork and he was the dark, washed-out shadows, then so be it. Shadows existed to frame the light. He would build a fortress out of his own dark power to protect you. He would lay his curse-stained hands at your feet and give you every ounce of power, devotion, and affection he possessed. If you were willing to love him—stubbornly, fiercely, as Shoko had said—then he would be a fool, a coward, to deny them both this joy.
He wasn't going to let anyone else touch you. He wasn't going to let the world take you. You were his anchor, his peace, his absolute selfish choice.
Suguru looked at the clock on his nightstand.
The faint, pale blue light of dawn was just beginning to bleed through the edge of the horizon. He couldn't wait. He couldn't sit in this dark room for another hour letting his mind construct horrific futures that he had the power to prevent.
Suguru stood up. He washed his face, smoothed down his dark hair, tying it neatly into his signature half-bun, and put on a clean, sharp dark shirt. His hands, usually so steady, carried a subtle, nervous tremble as he adjusted his collar.
He was going to make it official. Today. Right now.
The morning sun was just beginning to cast a warm, golden glow over the city streets when Suguru arrived at your apartment building. The air was cool and crisp, carrying the scent of morning dew and distant coffee shops beginning their daily routines.
He walked up the stairs with purpose, his long strides eager, his mind entirely made up. When he reached your door, he paused for a brief second, taking a single deep breath to steady the rapid, irregular thumping of his heart.
A few moments passed. He heard the faint sound of footsteps shuffling inside, followed by the soft click of the deadbolt unlocking.
The door creaked open, and there you were.
You looked soft, sleepy, and utterly breathtaking. Your hair was slightly ruffled from sleep, a oversized sweater hanging loosely off one of your shoulders, and your eyes were blinking up at him in sheer, bewildered surprise.
"Suguru...?" you mumbled, your voice raspy from sleep, rubbing one of your eyes with the back of your hand. "What... what are you doing here? It's six in the morning. Is something wrong?"
Looking down at you, surrounded by the warm, golden light of the morning sun streaming through her hallway window, Suguru felt every remaining doubt in his mind shatter into dust.
He didn't answer right away. Instead, he simply stepped across the threshold, closing the door behind him with a soft, decisive click, shutting out the rest of the world.
Before you could ask another question, Suguru reached out. His long, slender fingers gently cupped the side of your face, his thumb tracing the smooth curve of your cheekbone. The touch was so tender, so full of reverent devotion, that it instantly melted the lingering grogginess from your mind.
"Suguru?" you whispered, your heart beginning to flutter against your ribs as you looked up into his deep, dark eyes.
"I spent the entire night trying to convince myself that I should stay away from you," Suguru said, his voice low, velvety, and thick with emotion. He leaned down, pressing his forehead against yours, his breath warm against your lips. "I told myself you’d be safer. I told myself I was too dark, too ruined, to give you the life you deserve."
You opened your mouth to speak, to protest, but he smoothed his thumb over your bottom lip, gently silencing you.
"Shoko called me an idiot," he continued, a faint, breathless smile touching the corners of his lips, though his eyes remained fiercely intense. "And she was right. I was being a coward. I was so terrified of dragging you into my darkness that I almost convinced myself to let you go."
His grip on your face tightened just a fraction, pulling you a tiny bit closer, until there was no space left between you.
"But I can't," Suguru confessed, his voice dropping to a raw, desperate murmur. "I sat in my room and realized the thought of you belonging to anyone else... the thought of another man kissing you, holding you, hearing your laugh... it almost drove me mad. I am too greedy for you. I want your light, your warmth, your stubborn, beautiful heart. I want all of it."
Your breath caught in your throat. You reached up, placing your hands over his, feeling the steady, frantic pulse beneath his skin. "Suguru..."
"I can't promise you a world without shadows," he murmured, his dark eyes searching yours with an unbearable intensity. "I can't promise you that my life will ever be simple or easy. But I can promise you that I will protect you with everything I have. I will love you with every broken piece of me. If you'll have me..."
He paused, his chest heaving slightly as he laid his entire soul bare before you.
"Be mine," Suguru whispered, the request floating softly in the quiet apartment. "Officially. Completely. Let me be the one who gets to hold you like this."
A slow, brilliant smile broke across your face, illuminating the room far brighter than the morning sun ever could. You didn't answer with words at first; instead, you stood on your tiptoes, wrapping your arms securely around his neck, and pulled his head down to kiss him.
The kiss was sweet, deep, and intoxicating. Suguru let out a soft, shuddering breath against your lips, his hands moving from your face down to your waist, pulling you flush against his chest as if he intended to anchor you to him forever. All the lingering tension, all the heavy dark brooding that had consumed him for days, dissolved instantly in the warmth of your embrace.
When he finally pulled back just enough to look at you, his eyes were bright, filled with a peaceful, quiet joy that was so rare for him.
"You really talk too much when you're overthinking, Geto," you teased softly, resting your hands against his broad chest, feeling the wild, rapid pounding of his heart beneath your palms. "I was never going anywhere. I told you I could handle you."
Suguru chuckled, a rich, genuine sound that resonated deep in his chest. He leaned down, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to your forehead, then to the tip of your nose, and finally back to your sweet, waiting lips.
"I know," he murmured, his arms tightening around you as he buried his face into the crook of your neck, inhaling the intoxicating scent of you. "I know now. And I'm never letting you go."
Tag-list: @oksukuna, @megssleepygirl, @malaccah, @nooshie11037
