#tbah

It’s something you can barely control when your legs give out and you’re lowering yourself, sitting on the sand as you fixate your gaze towards the sky. It’s beautiful, you think, a sense of peace taking over you. You feel his eyes on you and for a second, he lingers. Hovering over you as if calculating his next move. You don’t seem to be paying him much mind and Jungkook is almost grateful for this. He believes your eyes on his could break him in more ways than one and so the semi-privacy you give him as he collects his thoughts is one he doesn’t take for granted. He stays very still, taking your words in even after you’ve gone quiet. He waits for his head to spin, his fight or flight to kick in, a wave of overthinking to take over him but none of this happens. And when it doesn’t, he simply follows your actions, coming down to sit next to you. He’s awfully close, it’s what you perceive at first. The warmth his body gives out, the one you’ve grown heartachingly familiar to, gives this away. His eyes aren’t on you anymore and before you can think this through, you’re looking at him. You watch him as he watches the sea and the sky perform for the two of you. The sight alone feels like a consolation from God, but you can’t help it when your eyes remain glued to him. On the way his gaze grows softer, dark hair swept slightly by the wind, his strong arms wrapped around his knees, making him look small. His nose, his lips. His face. The face you love, despite it all. 

Despite his silence. 

And so, ever so softly, you plead.

“You don’t owe me anything. You don’t have to feel what I feel but please don’t give me silence.”

Something inside of you tells you this is what you should’ve said long ago, but you reach for no harshness in the way things have turned out for the two of you. You can only be grateful that these words are finding you now. 

He looks at you, eyes meeting yours that never left him. His voice is a barely there whisper, but still all you can hear. 

“I’m sorry.”

You smile. “What for?”

Is he sorry for his silence? For the silence he now knows he’s kept for weeks. For the silence he now knows is the cause of very many things that now make sense to him. Is he sorry for not loving you back? Is he sorry for you? For the way your eyes give the sadness away, even when almost tricked by your smile. Is he sorry for not being able to give himself this thing. This one good thing that’s his and only his. For your eyes, that seem to take him in like nothing else matters. Not the sky, not the sea, not the way your heart sinks with every passing second that it takes for him to speak next. 

“You don’t deserve my silence. You don’t deserve any of this.”

“I know,” you say, but your voice remains soft. Kind. “I choose my battles, though.”

He smiles at you, but it doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “I heard you that first time.”

“Yeah… I figured that much.”

“I didn’t think–” he stops himself.

“That I meant it?”

“Yeah,” you nod at this and he continues, “at first I didn’t want to say anything just in case you hadn’t realized what you said but then you… acknowledged it and I– I froze, __. I should’ve said something, anything, I know that now. In that moment, though, I just… pushed it to the back of my mind because my brain told me a million reasons as to why maybe you didn’t mean it.”

You turn your gaze away from his, fixing your eyes back into the ocean so as to hide the way his words make you feel. Something about your words being pushed to the back of his mind makes your heart ache. In this moment you realize that the pain you’ve been feeling has little to do with love unreciprocated and much to do with love dismissed. You know his words hold no ill-intent but you can’t help but picture your feelings as this physical thing – small and fragile at the palm of his hands, being crumpled like paper and tossed to the side. 

Nonetheless, you push the feeling aside for the sole reason that you know him. You know Jungkook isn’t a bad person, you know his actions are but a reaction of something heavier he carries. 

“I understand. I was hurt, I won’t lie to you and I say I wasn’t but… I understand.” Jungkook nods once, facing the ocean, trying to grasp for words but when he fails, you continue. “This silence makes me feel like we’re strangers. Like a person I know– a person I love, is a stranger to me. And I’m at fault for that, too. I should’ve come to you sooner. I should’ve told you how I was feeling.”

“I don’t–,” Jungkook sighs, and the act alone loosens up the tension that he’d been holding onto. “I don’t blame you for not coming to me. I don’t think my actions were welcoming and that probably… that probably really fucking sucked for you, __. I’m sorry.”

“Do you still love her?” Your own question takes you aback, but you can’t take it back now. This is a good thing, you reckon. Now’s a good time as any. “Ira, I mean. Do you still love her?”

It takes him a beat too long to answer. “No. Ira and I had been on a steady decline for a while… longer than you’d probably think.”

“I don’t think of it, Jungkook. I know nothing about it.”

He looks at you now. “You’re right.”

“And I’m not asking you to… tell me all of it. I know it was hard. I know it still is hard so I would never demand to know but… I think I’d like to know that much.”

“I don’t love her. I thought I did, when she first left I thought that on top of everything, I’d have to deal with being in love with her still but… how could I love someone that did that to the person I love the most?”

“Soori,” you state, matter of factly.

“Yeah. And I get that… I’m a person. With human reactions. That I can resent her for what she did to her as a father but still hold on to what she gave me as a man but the moment she walked away… I’m not saying she took all the love I’ve ever felt for her with her, but she made things very clear for me. That wasn’t the person I’d fallen in love with. The person I’d fallen in love with would’ve never done that. And so that was that, I guess.”

You shift your body to face him better and the expression he holds breaks something inside of you. 

“But it still hurts.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it still hurts. I think of the day when I’ll have to tell Soori about it. And when I’m not thinking about it, I’m having nightmares about it.”

“I get that but… I also meant,” now it’s your turn to sigh, deflating slightly before your next words leave you. “It hurts you as a… person. Not a father.”

He smiles, half-heartedly. “It does. I’m just now realizing that it does.”

“Because you can’t love me.”

Jungkook hates the finality your words hold. The way you say it matter-of-factly. The way your voice loses all the hope it usually carries. The way you sound resigned – like you’ve just given up. On this. On him. But he can’t blame you for any of it. All he can do now is give you honesty. You and himself. All he can do now is try. 

“I don’t know what I’m allowed to feel or not feel. I don’t know what I feel. All I know is that most days, I don’t even trust myself. That it takes me about ten minutes every morning to get out of fight or flight mode. I second guess my very own thoughts and when I think of the me that fell in love with Ira, or the me that opened up to anyone in the past for that matter, it feels so incredulous. Like an out of body experience. I don’t feel like me anymore. I haven’t in a while. I don’t know who I am outside of being Soori’s dad. And every piece of myself I’ve regained it’s been by observing the muscle memory my friends have around me.”

“I understand.” It’s all you can say, afraid that anything else would fracture you further. 

“Yeah, you do. Surprisingly you do.”

He looks at you now and you allow yourself to stare into his eyes. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that it’s always felt like you understood, even when you didn’t know. You never asked questions yet you never tiptoed around it. Around me.”

“I think the cure for most things is giving ourselves the permission to feel them. I like to extend that to those who I think might need it.”

He laughs, in disbelief. Not because he doesn’t believe you, but because the wisest part of him does. “Yeah, that’s the thing, __.”

You frown. His tone picks up a bit, making you feel slightly defensive yourself. “What is?”

“When I met you I… I almost resented you. Sometimes I ask myself how it is I ended up giving you the job–”

“I ask myself the same thing. But I never thought you resented me.”

“I didn’t. I didn’t resent you. Maybe I wanted to. But I never got to. I’d be in a shitty mood going down the stairs, feeling ready to be out the door and get to the office so I could shut everything out and not have to deal with anyone. Then I’d go inside the kitchen and you’d smile at me. So bright I mistook it for pity for a while until I realized that it wasn’t that. You just… understood. I still don’t know what that means but all I know is that it changed me.” His gaze falters for a while before facing down. “I wanted to go back to my normal life. I wanted my problems to go away, as much as I knew that was impossible, it’s still all I wanted. And then you came in and gave me the total opposite of that.”

He looks up, eyes on yours and it hurts. It hurts because he’s making total sense, yet you’re confused. You find yourself in the middle of a battle between your heart and your brain, and they seem to be hearing whatever appeases them the most. 

Jungkook smiles, more to himself than at you, as if lost in a memory. “You felt new – not because you were new in my life, but because you’re nothing like I’ve ever known before. I tried to push you away because welcoming you into my life meant more changes, but that never worked out, did it?”

“I don’t know,” you answer sincerely. Wherever this conversation’s going, you don’t know, but all you can do is listen. 

“__, you’re–” his words come to a halt, breath hitching in your throat as you wait. “You’re warm and bright. You’re so beautiful, the way you think and the way you speak don’t stand behind – not a single part of you fails to be beautiful. And I was the complete opposite when I met you. You pulled me out of it, against my will even.”

“Jungkook, why are you telling me this?”

“Because I don’t know what else to say. I don’t know how to tell you how I feel, but this much I know it’s true.”

Your eyes hide from his gaze, the burn of the feeling in the form of tears catches up to you and now you’re the one that vows silence. 

“I’m scared,” Jungkook says. “It sounds so fucking stupid when I say it. And all I seem to do is try and push away the feeling but it just comes back stronger the next time. I’m not scared of what I feel for you, I’m not scared of you, __. But I am scared of what that entails.”

“Why,” you ask, the word barely there.

Jungkook’s body turns to face you, his hand coming up to your face gently before he’s bringing your eyes to his. He tries to let his heart speak but it doesn’t quite meet his tongue. 

“I don’t know.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t deserve… this.”

“I don’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry because you can’t be with me?”

“No. I’m sorry because I’m about to ask you to be with me.”

Your eyes widen, confusion lacing your features yet the glimmer in your eyes is evident and Jungkook doesn’t miss it. The way you look at him right now makes him want to be better, and perhaps that’s what’s been getting him through these months all along. You. 

“I– why would you be sorry for that?”

“Because I’m not gonna be perfect at it, but I want to be good at trying.”

“That’s all I need, Jungkook.”

“We haven’t… given ourselves the opportunity to try. To really try. I guess that’s on me, so I apologize. But I want us to try. I want us to talk and I want to try and explain to you why I feel the way I do. I want to understand it myself I–”

You hold his cheek in your hand, stopping his words. “That’s all I need.”

“No–”

“Yes. For now, it’s enough. We don’t have to live in a hypothetical future. I know it’s hard not to sometimes but, we can go day by day. We can give ourselves the next twenty four hours and then go from there. It’s all we have control over, isn’t it?”

“You’re wise. I was not this wise at twenty three. Still am not.”

You chuckle, shaking your head at his words. “I’m not wise. I’m–,” in love, you want to say, but you know that if a moment ever demanded for time and patience, it was this. “I care for you. I care for this. I care for us. I can’t begin to imagine what it felt like… when she left. And I understand that pain doesn’t go away in a day, but I just want to be by your side, I guess.”

“You are. You have been since the beginning.”

“So, let me.”

“Okay.”

He wants to kiss you and God, there’s nothing you want more right now but there’s no way of guaranteeing privacy and you’d like to keep this moment to yourself. Jungkook calls your name, making you face him once again. The sky’s about to end its show and you think that perhaps it wasn’t all consolation from God but another, bigger thing. Hope. A sign. Pleading in screaming colors. 

“Yeah?”

“I haven’t done this in a while.”

“What exactly?”

He ignores your question. “I mean, years. I was probably your age the last time I did this and I don’t know if much has changed but,” your face still hints at confusion but there’s a little smile that forms in your lips that he doesn’t miss. It makes him feel shy but he breaks through it, needing you to hear him loud and clear and for nothing in his demeanor to translate into anything but what it is he wants. 

“Will you be my girlfriend?”

You smile. “I’ve never been asked that in my life.”

“Oh, I– maybe it’s weird–”

“Yes.” Jungkook frowns. “Yes, I’ll be your girlfriend, I mean.”

He smiles. Heartachingly so and God, it hurts so good. 

“I probably should’ve asked when I could kiss you.”

“Meet me in the hallway at midnight, we can kiss then.”

“Deal.”

“Oh, and Jungkook?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“I like knowing that you’re the first person to have asked me that.”

“I want many firsts with you, __.”

A soaring feeling takes over you. You feel like running in the direction of the wind, so fast it’d almost feel like flying. 

“We’re off to a good start, then.”

“Yeah. Yeah we are.”

~

The rest of the night breezes you by. A calm taking over you that you hadn’t felt in weeks. A calm that’s only overshadowed by the longing you feel for him. You long to hold him, to kiss him, to brand the new title you now hold. 

Girlfriend. 

You’re his girlfriend. 

Lucy corners you as soon as you two make your way back, sporting casual faces as you both separate into opposite sides of the big garden so as to not draw attention to your absence. He goes back to the grill, an oblivious Mingyu and an all-too-knowing Taehyung waiting for him. You go back to Mai and Kenny, taking Soori in your arms and heading to the kitchen to make her bottle. Lucy follows you then, concern and curiosity all over her face until she sees the smile on your face. You barely get the words out before Jimin’s making his way inside the kitchen, too, cutting your conversation short. Nonetheless, she smiles. Pleased enough with what she knows, but not entirely surprised. She’d been rooting for you all along. 

By the time Soori begins to fuss about, you don’t waste a second to put her to bed. Jungkook approaches you and his proximity feels like fire, igniting all sorts of things inside of you. He offers to help and put her to bed but you encourage him to finish up at the grill and spend time with his friends – it’s your last night here after all and the weekend had been full of ups and downs. He deserves this moment of steady ups, to calmly go about his night and enjoy the company that surrounds him. By the time Soori’s tucked into bed, dinner’s ready. You steal glances and knowing smiles from the opposite end of the table, enjoying the relaxed nature he sports and how beautiful it looks on him. Your boyfriend. 

Yeah, of course, a part of you wants to scream it at the top of your lungs. You want to wrap your arms around him and not waste a single second. But you’d be lying if you said the anticipation wasn’t building so sweetly – the thought alone of the night coming to an end as you two come together filling you up with something that feels new. Security. It’s comforting, you think, not having to doubt it for a second. 

With very many helping hands, the dinner table is clear and all that’s left to do is relax by the fire. Soft music playing in the speakers, old tales between old friends being exchanged, accompanied by laughs and smiles. It’s the perfect night, and you think of the irony that it holds. Your morning started with uncertainty, the kind that pangs at your chest and leaves you restless. Now, looking at him, the light coming from the fire dancing across his features, you couldn’t feel more different. Your chest feels airy and for the first time in a while, you’re confident the sleep that will find you tonight will be peaceful. 

After much deliberation, Mai being the voice of reason, it’s decided that it’ll be an early night. There’s packing to do and an early morning that awaits to drive back to the city. You feign a sad face when Lucy reaches for your hand to help you get up from the couch and Jungkook smiles because he knows all too well. You’re a shit liar and in a moment of self-indulgence, he likes holding that knowledge. He likes knowing you. He likes that there’s something in this room that only you and him know, that’s yours to keep. Another part of him wishes to break the distance – cant stand it, even. He wants to sit next to you, to pull you into his lap and feel you against his chest. He wants to whisper things in your ear when the conversation around him grows boring and to feel secluded from the world, even if in a room full of people, because he has you. 

You check on Soori, who’s sound asleep, before you head back to your room. You breeze through the process of packing, too, yet taking your time. It’s thirty minutes to midnight and the anticipation builds inside of you like smoke. When you’re all packed you decide to jump in the shower, letting the warm water wash away the day and make room for a new beginning. You’ve always believed in the healing properties a good shower can hold but this one in particular secures the notion for you. You brush your hair and do your skincare, a smile plastered on your face the whole time, so much so that you barely recognize the reflection in the mirror. You’re about to get into your favorite oversized t-shirt, your tried and true choice of sleepwear but you think again, reaching in the very depths of your suitcase and retrieving a white, cotton slip dress with lace embroidering. It’d been a gift from Lucy, who had gotten tired of your old 90s t-shirt of a golden retriever that was missing an eye from wear and tear. 

You notice the house has grown quiet around you and at exactly 11:59, you stand in front of the door, turning the lights off inside your room and taking a deep breath. You smile, shaking your head as the romantic in you (which could be said is all of you) thinks of the fact that the last time you kissed Jungkook today in the wine cellar, you didn’t imagine your next kiss would be as his girlfriend. 

The universe romances you back, because at exactly midnight you open your door, a gasp leaving your mouth as you’re met directly with Jungkook. You have about enough time to register the smile on his face before he’s grabbing you by the waist and pulling you in, lips on yours before you can even speak. You melt into the kiss, hear the way he sighs against your mouth, making you smile. You wrap your arms around him, fingers carding through his hair as you pull him impossibly closer to you. He pulls away, eager to see your face, but not before your lips meet his again in a single whisper of a kiss, like he can’t fully pull away. 

“Well, hello,” you say.

“You make me a weak man, I’m sorry.”

This makes you laugh, bringing your lips back to his. “Mm, I beg to differ. All the waiting we had to do today required a lot of willpower.”

With his lips still on yours, he mumbles, “yeah, I hated every second of that.”

You push him away, mock shock lacing your features. “Hey, I thought it was quite romantic.”

“I think getting to kiss my girlfriend is even more romantic.” 

He doesn’t give you a second to process the words that leave him, and all you’re left with is his lips on yours and an army of butterflies taking over every inch of your body, leaving you weak at the knees and at his very mercy. Eventually, though, you compose yourself (if only a little).

“Yeah, it kinda sucked not being able to kiss my boyfriend.”

He pulls away, tight grip at your waist still as he cocks an eyebrow at you. “You got a boyfriend, huh?”

“Yeah, sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I was too caught up in the kissing.”

“Who is this little punk anyways?”

You laugh, throwing your head back. “You know, just some guy I found.”

He pulls you in once again. “Lucky bastard.”

“No, I’m the lucky one.”

“I beg to differ.”

“Let’s agree to disagree.”

“Nah, I say we work it out.”

When he pulls you closer, it’s slower this time. Head leaning to the side, a chaste kiss to the corner of your mouth before he kisses you. He takes his time, taking the lead as you melt into him, letting him guide your tongue with his. You get lost in him, so much so you lose track of time, too focused on the way he claims your mouth, on the way his hands feel as they skim down your body. You almost don’t hear the way you moan against his mouth, fully reacting to him. 

When you remove your mouth from his, his lips land on your neck as he peppers open mouthed kisses over your skin. 

“We probably shouldn’t be doing this here,” you tell him, closing your eyes at the sensation before drawing your head back involuntarily, granting him more access. “Someone could– come out and see.”

“I don’t care.”

It takes you a minute to register his words and also the certainty of his tone when he says them. “You don’t?”

This makes him stop. “Do you?”

“I– I don’t know. Do you not?”

“I don’t, no.”

“But-”

“You’re my girlfriend. This should’ve not been a secret for a while now.”

“Oh.”

“But we can take as much time as you need,” he says, calmly scanning your eyes to try and read your thoughts. 

“No, no. I– I just want you to feel ready.”

“I’m ready.”

“Are you sure? We have… all the time in the world.”

“Yeah, so why waste it?”

You smile at his words. “How would we go about it?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess I could just… bring it up? Namjoon’s gonna freak out.”

You both laugh. “Lucy already knows.”

“Oof. Jiminie’s gonna be mad he didn’t find out before her.”

“Our best friends are dating.” You widen your eyes, making Jungkook chuckle at your sweetness.

“Yeah, and so are we. That’s kinda cool, isn’t it?”

“Does that mean we get to…,” you feel shy all of a sudden, hiding your face slightly so you don’t face him, “go on double dates and stuff?”

“Yes, angel. We get to go on all kinds of dates.”

“I’m excited about that. I’m excited, Jungkook.”

“Me too, baby.” He pecks your lips once before he pulls away, leaving you pouting and needy for more. “I’m gonna have to get a new nanny.”

His words make you pull away slightly, shock evident all over your face. “What? Why? What do you mean?”

“No, baby,” he laughs. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant… well, I want us to go places together, just us two.”

“Lucy can babysit. She’s good with kids, plus Jimin’s used to babysitting her and she’s very comfortable around her and–”

His hands cup your cheeks, bringing your forehead to his. He can’t quite put into words, the way it makes him feel when you talk about Soori like this. With an overprotectiveness he’s only ever seen in, well, himself. 

“Okay, baby.”

“Okay.”

He smiles, thumb caressing your cheek and he can’t help but chuckle. Your own laughter is soft, rolling your eyes a bit at his teasing. The next kiss he presses against your lips is tender, and you melt into him, sinking into the feeling and surrendering to his touch. Your body’s used to him, lips familiar with his own but your heart can’t help but feel like this moment is full of firsts. The hand that holds your waist grips tighter, his chest now flushed to yours. You can feel his breathing, taste his lips, touch his skin as it gets warmer with the heat of your kiss. Words of need are about to escape your mouth but before they can, Soori’s baby monitor is going off on Jungkook’s phone. He sighs, giving a little out of breath chuckle before he’s reaching for his pocket and retrieving his phone. 

“Is she okay,” you ask, peeking into the screen to see her on the baby cam. 

“Yep, just awake. Maybe it’s just taking her a while to adjust to the new sleeping environment.”

“Yeah, that sounds about it.”

“I’m gonna go check on her.”

“I can come with,” you tell him, fingers coming to his face to push a strand of hair behind his ear. 

“No, baby, it’s okay. Go to my room and wait for me there, I’ll only be a minute.”

“Alright.”

You smile as he leans in, lips capturing yours in a quick peck that doesn’t fail to steal your breath away nonetheless. He makes his way to Soori’s nursery and you cross the hallway, heading to his room. His bed looks inviting and it’s only when your head touches the pillow that the weight of the day seems to fall upon you. You feel like you’ve lived a variety of realities today. From hopeful, to hopeless to… this. Now. Waiting for him in his bed, his scent that still lingers on the pillows sending a troop of butterflies to your stomach as you take him in. Your body yearns for him, wants him, and perhaps not all sexually. Just holding him, breathing him in, could be enough you reckon. 

You miss the way your eyes grow heavy, body nuzzling into the sheets, and it’s only when Jungkook walks through the door that you notice you’d fallen asleep. 

“Hi,” you say, the grogginess in your voice making him smile. 

“Sorry for waking you up,” he says, getting into bed with you and pulling you closer in one swift movement until his arm is wrapped around your waist and your foreheads are nearly touching. 

“It’s okay. How long were you gone for?” 

“Like twenty minutes. She was a bit fussy.” Your eyes widen in surprise, it’d felt like no time had passed at all. “You tired, baby?”

“I don’t know.”

He laughs. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

“My body is but my mind is not. I’m too… happy.”

“I’m happy, too.” He kisses you, pulling away too quickly for your taste but when the back of his hand gently caresses your cheek you rejoice in the pleasure of the simple act. “Thank you.”

Opening your eyes, you look confused. “What for?”

“Everything. Understanding, being with me… not just now but, in general. It makes me feel… like everything’s going to be okay.”

“Everything is going to be okay. The angels just told me.”

He laughs, loud and so very beautiful. “They did?”

“Yeah. What are you laughing for?”

“Nothing, nothing. You’re right. Bet they talk to you, considering that, you know, you’re part of the gang.”

“The gang?”

“Of angels.”

“I know what you mean I just can’t believe you called them a gang.”

“Fine. The troop.”

“That’s almost worse.”

“You’re not unpleased often but when you are… oof.”

You smile, with your eyes first before it meets your lips and for some reason Jungkook finds the act so seductive. Some reason is cutting him slack, actually. He knows the reason. He knows all of the reasons. 

“Please me then.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Yeah? You’re not too tired?”

You shake your head. “No, baby.”

He kisses you, words a murmur against your lips when he says, “we can go slow.”

“Mm, yeah. I like that.”

“Yeah?”

You nod your head, a lazy smile on your lips when he pulls away and that’s all the confirmation he needs. The mere notion of having you soon sends his body into overdrive in sheer anticipation. Your skin is soft as he runs his hand down your arm, reaching your leg before it’s making its way back up under your nightgown. You sigh, eyes on his before they’re closing at the feeling of his touch on your bare skin. You’re receptive to him, tonight more than ever and you don’t miss the way he adorns your skin with goosebumps everywhere he touches. His hand closes around your ass cheek before he squeezes. He groans, making you smile. When you open your eyes, his are impossibly dark and fixated on you. You kiss him, nimble fingers making a descend down his torso, stopping under his navel before you touch the soft skin of his abdomen under his shirt. He hisses against your lips when your hand finds his cock over his sweatpants, hard. You close your palm around him, thumb moving against the head and the friction alone has him groaning against your mouth. 

“Fuck,” he says, voice deep in a whisper.

“Feel good?”

“Yeah, so good.”

You hum against his lips, hand coming inside his pants and wrapping around his cock. He feels hot and heavy in your hold already and he sounds even prettier now than he did before. So supple for you, so needy. It makes you want to give him the world and then some. You jerk him for longer than either of you can register, too distracted by the way your lips meet sloppy and lazily in a kiss that seems to have no end. Jungkook gets carried away, a sweet sinking feeling in his lower stomach making him regain consciousness as he brings his hand to yours to halt your movements. 

“Shit– I was so close,” he pants, grip tightening on your hand. 

“Why not? I want it. Please.”

He shakes his head. “Wanna fuck you.”

And you want that too, yet something about the way you two were kissing, his little moans and groans against your mouth as you felt his cock throb in your hand has you making a mental note to come back to this at some point. Easy, simple, like you have all the time in the world. 

And you do. 

“How do you want me, Kook?”

He looks into your eyes for a beat too long, as if contemplating the endless possibilities. 

“Fuck, come here, baby.”

He kisses you deep, towering a bit over you as he presses you against the mattress before he’s holding your waist and swiftly turning you to the side until your back is flushed against his front. You feel his cock against your ass, backing up a little to feel him better and he whines, forehead falling on your shoulder. He takes your panties off in a second, your hazy mind barely noticing until the warmth of his fingers finds the place you want him in the most. 

“You’re so wet, baby.”

“Want you so bad, Jungkook.”

You turn your head to face him better, give him a fucked out smile that has his cock jumping for attention between your bodies.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says, lips so close to being on yours. Your cheeks grow a new shade of crimson and he smiles, kissing you finally. 

“Thank you. I think you are.” You can barely finish your sentence, words getting caught in a little gasp as his middle and ring finger circle your entrance. He coats them in your slick before they find your clit, running lazy circles against it and making you jolt slightly in his hold at the sensation. “That feels so nice.”

“Can’t wait to have my cock in here,” he presses his fingers into your opening, ever so slowly, making you whine as you back into them. “Stay still, __. Be patient.”

“Please,” you beg, looking into his eyes before they grow heavy in pleasure as he begins to move his fingers inside of you. 

“You’re so fucking tight it drives me insane, baby.”

“Y-yeah?” your voice is a whimper. 

“Yeah. ‘S all mine, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, Jungkook.” You moan his name, can feel the way he smiles against your cheek before he’s pressing a kiss against it, slowly moving towards your ear, his breath on the sensitive spot making you shiver. 

“Say it.”

“It’s your pussy, Jungkook. Only yours. I’m only yours.”

“Yeah, baby. You are. All fucking mine.”

He fucks his fingers into you one last time before he’s abruptly pulling out, making you gasp and close your legs at the loss of friction. He wastes little time, bringing your ass to him before he’s spitting into hand and bringing it down to his cock, coating it over his head and down his shaft. He grips at the base, aligning himself against your opening and slowly pushing inside. You both sigh, turning back to meet his face before your laughter combined fills the room. It’s sweet, the way you share this moment with him, his lips on yours not long after, the kiss deepening with each thrust. 

“That feels so good, Kook,” you say, bringing your forehead to rest on his. 

“Yeah. Love fucking you, baby.”

“Fuck me forever,” you look into his eyes as you say this, playful sure, but words filled with intention. 

“Fuck, I’m trying,” he chuckles, “so far, so good.”

He holds onto your hips, fucks you deeper and hits that spot, making your back arch and your eyes roll. “So good.”

His hand travels up, sneaking under your nightgown as he finds your breasts, palm closing around it before he pinches your nipples, pulling sweet little sounds out of you. He fucks you slow but deep, paying close attention to the way your body reacts to him. To the way your moans turn into whines when he goes deeper, the way your hand closes around his under the soft fabric, the way your pussy clenches around his big cock. You begin to unravel in his arms, feeling the way his hand travels down, missing his touch already. He lays his hand on your lower stomach before he’s pressing into the soft flesh, the whine that leaves your lips high pitched at the feeling. 

“Do it again,” you plead, “and fuck me harder.”

He complies, pace growing a tad bit faster and deeper until he can feel what he’s doing to you on the palm of his hand. You press your face into the pillow, fingers gripping the sheets tightly as your breathing grows erratic, teeth closing around your bottom lip.

“Gonna cum for me, angel?”

“Yes. Fuck, yes, Jungkook.”

“Let go, baby. Wanna feel you cum all over my cock.”

His words against your neck are all it takes for you to let go, growing very still for a second before you’re cumming in short little spasms and God, it feels so good. He coaxes you through it, words of praise leaving his lips as he places pillowy kisses all over your skin, making you shiver. The bliss takes over your body as you come down, turning to him and locking his lips on yours. 

“That was so good,” you tell him, voice soft and sweet and it drives him insane. 

“You feel so good.” He sounds a bit delirious, mind fixated on the way your pussy throbs around his cock. 

“Want you to cum, baby. Want your cum, please.”

His dick jumps inside of you, he’s sure you can feel it. “Fuck, don’t talk like that.”

You giggle. “Why?”

“I’ll cum like this.”

You blame your boldness on your post-orgasmic bliss. “Why not?”

He smirks, eyes closing as if taken aback by your words. He shakes his head, “you know we can’t.”

“Yeah, I know,” you give, but something in your voice lets him know you’re only rearing up. “But it feels good to think about it. It feels so good. Do you think about it, Jungkook?”

It takes him a minute to register your words, hips starting to move as he thrusts into you slowly. “Y-yeah, I think about it.”

“Does it feel good when you do?”

“Fuck- it does, baby.”

“Sometimes it’s all I can think about," you confess, "you filling me up…”

He lets you sit with your words for a second before he’s pulling out of you. Partly to compose himself, and partly to push you back against the mattress and hover over you, his body finding a spot between your legs. When he looks at you his gaze has darkened, eyes no longer playful. 

“Enjoying yourself?”

“Yeah. Are you?” You tempt him, words pushing his new demeanor further. 

“You’re a little greedy, aren’t you?” His hand closes around your neck, applying just the right amount of pressure, all the pleasure going to your head as the sensation makes you a little dizzy. 

“Yeah, just for you, Jungkook.”

He wants to bite back, to keep the act up but the truth is that your words dismantle him, cock throbbing in painful pleasure and he needs to cum. He crashes his lips into yours, bringing his hips down and gripping at his base until he’s pushing inside you again. It doesn’t take long for him to get back to where he was, so fucking close, mind in a haze as he still takes in your words from earlier. It takes all his willpower not to bust inside of you right now, the way you moan against his lips only edging him further. 

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum.”

He pulls out, pumping himself a couple of times before he’s cumming all over your tummy, painting the tan of your skin. His face contorts in pleasure, wet strands of black hair falling against his forehead as he bites his lip. It takes him a couple of seconds to recover, holding onto your waist as he takes in the sight before him. He thinks the image of you coated in his cum could make him hard again, and if he wasn’t sure enough then, he is now. His eyes follow your every move as you bring a finger down to your stomach, running it over a white stripe before you’re bringing it to your lips, sucking on it for emphasis before you’re swallowing. 

“I guess that’s an upside to no creampies. I get to taste it,” you smile, finger between your lips still. 

His eyes are wide, mouth slightly agape and when he can’t form words, cock jumping at your filthy actions, he says,

“Holy fuck, give me a second.”

You laugh, bringing his face to yours, kissing him deep and slow, tongue playing with his and he just lets you. 

Your next words are a whisper,

“We got all the time in the world, remember?”

~

Your side of the bed is empty.

It takes Jungkook a while to notice, his body struggling to fully wake up and mind begging him to turn off the irritating sound of his alarm. His arm reaches out but it’s only met with the soft fabric of his sheets. He frowns, a bit more awake now, opening his eyes slowly to make sure his sense of touch isn’t betraying him. He looks around the room, the door to his bathroom closed, everything oddly quiet with the exception of his alarm. He quietens it down, sitting up and running a hand through his messy locks. He reaches for his phone, checking up on Soori through the baby cam. The frown that dents his forehead from not waking up next to you softens the minute he takes the sight before him in. You’re in her nursery, sitting on the floor and she sits in front of you. You get her attention when you show her two dresses to pick from. She goes for a cute pink one with frills and bows at the shoulders. He scrunches his nose in endearment, leaning back into the pillows to enjoy the show a little longer. He gives himself the luxury of just looking at the two of you. The way she hands you one of her plushies and you pause on the task of getting her dressed just so you can play with her. You put on a british accent, pulling faces as you make the toy frog speak. Soori giggles, imitating you with babbles and cute faces. It feels like she does something new every day and seeing the two of you interact leaves no doubt in his mind that he’s got you to thank for it. 

He feels peace as he enters the bathroom, washing his face and brushing his teeth – phone propped up on the counter, giggling when Soori’s happy shrieks come alive through the speakers. And yeah, it’s not the first time he’s thought it, but in this moment Jungkook thinks that he could get used to this. He could really get used to this. 

The house is quiet around him when he steps outside of his bedroom and into the hallway. 7:15 – still early for everyone except his daughter, and you apparently. He makes his way to her nursery, sneakily peeking through the door, but the moment he steps a foot inside the room he’s got two pair of bambi eyes looking up at him. 

“Look who’s up, Soo Soo,” you say, pointing at Jungkook and making Soori shriek in excitement at the sight of her dad. 

Jungkook smiles as he walks to you, leaning down to place a kiss on your lips as he says, “good morning, baby.” You bring Soori up, raising her towards him and she giggles when he places a kiss on her forehead and says, “good morning, princess.”

“Say good morning, daddy,” you look at her, kissing her on the cheek and laughing when all she does is babble a string of dada’s. “That’s good enough.”

Jungkook sits in front of you, Soori in the middle and deep in debate on whose attention to get first. Jungkook wins and she crawls over to him, abruptly landing on his lap. He laughs, picking her up and peppering kisses on her plump cheeks. “Was she up really early?”

“Kinda. I was gonna let her sleep a bit more but she was fussy.”

“Could be sleep regression.”

“I love it when you talk dad to me.”

“Ha. Good, plenty more where that came from.”

You smile. “Hey, come here, missy. I still need to do your hair.”

Jungkook passes her over to you, but not before taking her back in his arms right before you’re about to catch her, her sweet laughter filling the room. “Okay, okay. Go with Nana.”

She crawls towards you, looking at her dad one last time before she’s nuzzling herself in the middle of your crossed legs, hands busy with her toys as you work on her pigtails. You have an assortment of bows in front of you, indecisive still on which ones to use. Jungkook just observes you – doesn’t miss how gentle you are with her, how she finds her spot between your legs and just stays there. He can’t remember the last time she stayed still while he did her hair. 

He thinks you’re magic. 

“All done,” you say, opening your hands at her side for her to take them. “Show daddy, Soo.”

She looks up at Jungkook, smiling at him and he melts at her sweet actions. “You look so stinkin’ cute, princess.” You went with the white bows, a little too big for the thin strings of hair that comes out of her pigtails but it only makes her look ten times cuter. You stand her up and she holds onto your thumbs for support, bouncing in place as Jungkook opens his hands towards her. 

“Wanna go to daddy?” You’re about to hold onto her little hands to encourage her but she takes the first step all by herself. You and Jungkook look at eachother, freezing for a second and trying not to move or make any noise so as to not jinx the moment. 

“Oh my God,” he whispers, and just like that, you’re letting go of her hands gently and his daughter is taking her first steps. She’s a bit confused at first but the moment she takes her second, slightly wobbly, step towards him she smiles. She’s in his arms in no time and he brings her closer, hand on her head as he kisses her face. “Good job, baby. I’m so proud of you, Soo Soo. You’re so cool, wow.”

Your hands are still over your mouth, shocked and excited all at once and you can see the way Jungkook’s eyes tear up. It’s only when you blink and it stings that you realize tears had pooled in yours, too. “Wow,” is all you can muster. 

He dries his tears with the back back of his thumb, laughing and shaking his head. “Holy shit. Shit- sorry,” he says to Soori, “don’t repeat that.”

“I can’t believe that just happened.”

He looks at you, that beautiful smile you love plastered all over his face, so big it meets his eyes. “We’re both crying.”

“I know,” you laugh, and he follows, giddy and airy and you can’t seem to stop. “That was so cool.”

“I know right?” He looks at her, placing another kiss on her cheek before he’s placing her back on her feet. “Wanna go to Nana?” 

“Nana!” Soori says, igniting a new set of tears to swell up at your eyes. 

“Come here, baby.” 

And she does, her little legs going faster than she can master yet and falling on the very last step but you catch her, an immediate smile on your face that lets her know she’s safe and she claps when Jungkook does, looking back at him and then back at you, stars in her eyes and surrounded by so much love. 

“Polaroid time!” Jungkook exclaims, sitting up. 

“You brought it?”

“Yeah. I was kinda hoping it would happen this weekend, but I’d lost hope, not gonna lie.”

“Daddy’s always prepared, isn’t he, Soo Soo?”

She claps again, crying for him a second after when she sees him leave the room. You keep her distracted for the minute it takes Jungkook to fetch the camera and come back into the room, another clap from her when she sees him again. You get her, that’s pretty much how you feel too. He sits back down in front of you and you reach for the camera, letting Soori go to him with her newly found walk. She’s still getting the hang of it but she’s so good at it already. You might be biased but you truly do believe she is the smartest baby ever, and moments like these simply prove your point. 

You point the camera at them, Jungkook holding onto Soori as she stands up and they both smile. “Say, Soori walks now!”

“Soori walks noooooow!” It’s picture perfect. They both are. Jungkook reaches for the camera and says, “now one of the two of you.” She walks to you when you beckon her over, falling into your lap and making you both laugh as she stares confusedly at you. Jungkook hides behind the camera and says, “say, Soori’s a velcro baby!” and with that, your smile is turned into laughter, Soori following suit as she looks up at you and the flash goes off. Jungkook smiles, confident on the fact that he’s probably just taken the best picture ever. 

“Let’s take one of the three of us,” you say, scooting closer to him and placing Soori between the two of you. Jungkook extends the camera in front of you and in an instant, the memory is etched in a photograph forever.

 This happens a lot as a parent – a milestone becoming your favorite memory – and it only makes him look forward to the future, and that, for reasons only he understands, takes him by surprise. He looks at the pictures that you arrange in a neat line in front of you, smiling and pointing as you show Soori, who has developed a newly found interest of looking at herself in photos. Jungkook thinks about how once upon a time, he imagined having to do this all by himself. It made him dread the milestones, the excitement, because he always felt like the notion of something missing would haunt him. But so far, the milestones have been nothing but sweet. This one the sweetest thus far and it’s that word – thus far – that stirs something inside of him.

Without giving it much thought he says,

“I want to stay.”

You look at him, smiling. “Ugh, I know. I could easily live by the beach.”

“No, I mean it. I want to stay.”

“Oh–”

“You have three weeks off from book club, right?”

“Uh, yeah…”

“Then let’s stay. Just the three of us. I can take time off, too. And we could just… stay.”

“I mean– I,” you don’t know what to say, “could we?”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t bring enough clothes for three weeks.” It’s a shit excuse and the moment it leaves your mouth you both laugh.

“We can go to the nearby town and get whatever we need. I think you’ll really like it, actually. It’s very picturesque.”

“Well, I can’t say no to the beach and picturesque nearby towns…”

“Hm, I know how to get you to stay forever then.” He kisses you, long and deep and you smile against his lips when his words start to sink in. Soori taps Jungkook’s chest and whines, demanding his attention. “What’s up, baby?” She looks back at you, as if claiming you. “Ah, well, you had to learn this at some point. Today we’re gonna learn how to share-”

“Jungkook!” you shove him playfully, taking Soori into your arms and kissing her cheek. “You don’t have to share me, bubby. It’s okay.”

“Hey, I’m teaching her valuable life lessons!”

“How about you share?” you glare at him, pulling Soori closer to you. 

“Tsk. No can do,” he steals another kiss, chuckles meeting your lips and you join him, his happiness contagious. Or maybe it’s your happiness that’s contagious. 

It doesn’t matter, you think. Your happiness and his combined, Soori at the center of your little universe… it’s warmth. It’s pure warmth. 

~

By the time ten a.m. rolls around, the house starts filling up with noise – little kids running around, Jimin and Taehyung bickering in the hallways over who the best superhero is, and everyone wheeling their suitcases out and about, wondering whether they’re forgetting anything and estimated time of arrivals. 

Jungkook and Soori lay in the bed of the guest room you’ve been staying at, lazily playing with Soori’s toy fruit basket as Jungkook makes her plushies sit around in a circle circle and Soori feeds them. You do your makeup, get ready for the day, steal a couple of glances their way as you try and still your heart at the sight alone. You do and undo your hair a couple of times, shifting between a ponytail and letting it down. You opt for letting it down, roll your eyes when you realize you subconsciously (or very consciously) do it because it’s how Jungkook likes it best. And hey, you’re all for feminism, but can’t you just enjoy being his silly, little girlfriend for a moment? Surely you get a hall pass for being in the honeymoon stage alone. 

“‘Kay, I’m all done,” you say, stepping back into the room and blushing the moment his eyes are on yours and he smirks. You’re wearing a white sundress, so very you, and he can smell the sweet scent of your perfume from where he stands. He makes a slow circle with his index finger and you roll your eyes, attitude easily dismantled the moment he says, “please” and so you give in, spinning around once as he whistles. 

“Gorgeous,” he says, emphasis on the s.

“Thank you,” you sound collected, which is a partial truth. “Shall we head downstairs?”

“Let’s go, I’m starving,” he leaves the bed, taking Soori in his arms and laughing when she makes grabby hands at the floor. “I see how it is…”

“We must encourage her,” you say, taking her from him and placing her on the floor. She looks up at you, then at Jungkook, and just like that she’s sitting on the floor, a pout forming on her lips before she’s letting out a cry. “No, no, baby! We’re here!”

“Yeah, princess, look!” and she does, sniffling some as she makes grabby hands at Jungkook. He looks at you, guilt settling all over his face and fighting the urge to not pick her up. Said urge is about to win, but you’re faster than the temptation. 

“Kook, she won’t want to walk… you can’t pick her up now.”

“But—,” he says, but deep down knows you’re right, “fine.”

“It’s okay, Soo. Look, we’ll hold your hands and we can all walk! Isn’t walking so much fun?”

He doesn’t know how you do it, because in an instant she’s back on her feet, one hand holding onto him and the other onto you, and the three of you are making your way down the hallway. Going down the stairs is fun, her laughter filling the air as she bounces on each step and you both swing her gently. 

She doesn’t fail to get everyone’s attention and the second you three enter the living room she’s got all eyes on her, excitedly waiting for her appearance. Jungkook looks up at his friends, doesn’t miss the way they all hold their breaths as they see their niece hitting a milestone – one of many they have and will be around for. 

“Good morning, everyone. Look what Soori can do,” he says, letting go of her hand and you follow. She stands there for a second, wobbly legs threatening to give out but she stands her ground, smiling at the people she loves the most in the world, all gathered in a room and gawking at her with stars in their eyes. Taehyung kneels down, clapping once and opening his arms for her, making Soori shriek in excitement and waddle towards him before falling into his arms. He’s crying, holding onto her and showering praises against her cheek in-between kisses. They all join him, gathering around her and taking turns loving on her. 

“Well, I think that’s all the encouragement she needs,” you say, laughing and taking in the sweet sight before you. 

Hobi picks her up, taking her into his arms and kissing her temple. “Bad day for you to be cooped up inside a car for two hours huh, baby?”

“We’re gonna stay.”

Kenny looks up at him, taking Soori from Hoseok. “Huh?”

“Yeah. The three of us are, actually.”

Everyone’s eyes are on the two of you, so naturally they don’t miss the way Jungkook’s hand wraps around yours the moment the word “us”  leaves his mouth. A silence falls around the room, so dense that you’re convinced everyone can hear how loud your heart is beating, your hand gripping Jungkook’s in an attempt to ground yourself. Not that you didn’t see this moment coming, because you did, but you can’t help but admit it’s a bit nerve racking, to be perceived by all of them at once. Your eyes look for Lucy, not surprised when you see a cheeky smile plastered across her face, Jimin looking up at her in confusion. 

Yoongi’s the first one to break the ice, always one to bring balance into any situation. “Well, that’s a well deserved vacation, Jungkookie. I’m happy for you.” He looks at you when he says that last sentence, offering a warm smile you don’t fail to return. 

“Yeah!” Namjoon yells out, startling you. “It was about time— for your vacation, I mean.”

“Joon,” Iseul says, shoving his arm discreetly.

 That’s all it takes for all of you to break into laughter, Jungkook looking at you for a second before he’s looking back at his friends. Taehyung looks at him, muttering a silent, “fucking finally,” his way and raising his hands to the sky in prayer. Jungkook rolls his eyes at him but deep down, he’s thankful for his friend and for his words of advice from the beginning. 

“Well then, let’s have one last family breakfast before we have to hit the road,” Hobi says, bouncing Soori on his lap before he looks at you, “how do you take your coffee, __?”

“Um, iced americano.”

“Easy! I’ll get on it— oh, like Kookie! So, two?” Kenny asks, smiling at you, something in her eyes that you understand. A bond, perhaps, or simply more happiness combined. 

“Yep. Thank you, Ken.” Jungkook smiles at her, squeezing your hand one more time before walking the two of you to the garden alongside everyone else. He leans over, whispering so only you can hear, “that went well.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it did.”

“Sorry for being blunt I just— I don’t know. I wanted them to know.”

“It was perfect,” you look at him, a sweet smile on your face and God, he wants to kiss you so bad. But as much as he wants to, he doesn’t know where you stand when it comes to PDA — so much to figure out and it feels sweet to him, the beginning stages of a relationship. Of your relationship.

You sit down next to Jimin, looking up at Jungkook who tells you he’s gonna help in the kitchen. You nod and smile when he leans down and places a tender kiss on the side of your head, blushing and feeling shy all of a sudden but the moment doesn’t linger for long.

“We can go on double dates now!” Jimin says, face nuzzled between his hands as he sighs.

You laugh. “You know, I had the same thought.”

He grows serious all of sudden, making you feel slightly anxious. “I’m happy for you guys, __. Really happy.”

You smile. “Thank you, Jimin. I’m really happy, too.”

He returns the smile for a second before it falls, leaving you confused. “Can’t believe you told Lucy first. I thought we had a real friendship going on, __!”

And while you try to reassure Jimin that you two do indeed have a real friendship going on, Mai intercepts Jungkook on his way to the kitchen, holding onto his shoulders and startling him. 

“Jesus Christ, Mai.”

She stares at him for a second too long before the biggest smile forms on her face. “Eeeeeek!” she shakes him a bit, jumping up and hugging him. Jungkook laughs, wrapping his arms around her middle. “I’m so happy! Oh, you so owe me one,” she says, “but I’ll settle for a thank you. For now.”

“Thank you, Mai.”

“You’re so welcome!” she hugs him again. “I’m a really good cupid.”

“So this was your plan all along?”

“Well, no. My plan was really to find you a nanny. The fact that she was pretty, charming and sweet were all add ons with loads of potential. And I see potential where potential is due,” she winks at him, chuckling when she sees the way he blushes at her words, being taken back to very many years ago and to an eighteen year old Jungkook. She never thought she’d see it again, but boy is she glad she gets to. 

“Yeah, well, thank you. I mean it. She’s… special, isn’t she?” He says, looking out the window, his eyes finding you. You can’t see him but you’re smiling, laughing as you attempt to keep up with Jimin and Jin who seem to be talking your ears off. 

“Oh, no,” she says, making his head turn back towards her. “She’s more than that, Kook. She’s magic.”

And he smiles because he knows. 

He really, truly knows. 

~

In the course of five hours, Soori has not only learned how to walk, no. Soori’s a runner now. Perhaps runner is an exaggeration, yes. A fast walker a more accurate way to describe her, but you can’t help the hyperbole when she quite literally runs away from you as you attempt to get her pink converse on her left foot. The right foot was a success, distracted enough by the sunglasses she’d snatched from your head. The left one is bare and aids her into running away from what she probably deemed a boring activity. Arms up and giggles filling the air, she’s promptly stopped by Jungkook’s arms that catch her in the act. 

“Are you gonna turn me into a kid’s-leash-parent, Soori Blue?” 

Jungkook partly blames Jin for this, and recalls how just a couple of hours ago he took to play-pretend chasing her all over the garden, claiming “this is how my dad taught me how to walk!” and yes, perhaps he’d helped develop her confidence but now he’s made her a runaway and that’s… pretty fucking funny, if he’s honest. 

Soori snatches Jungkook’s own sunglasses from over his head, confidently stating, “Nana!”

“No, baby, these are daddy’s. Let’s get your shoes on.”

“She’s a runner,” you say, passing him the cute pink converse you’d held onto since the betrayal. 

“Do we need a leash? Be honest with me right now.”

You laugh. “No… Yes? I don’t know. I don’t think so. Those look so barbaric!”

“She doesn’t even have that long of legs, how is she so fast?”

“It’s the inertia,” you say, bringing your arms up and imitating her prior movements. 

Jungkook ties her shoe, braving through the way she ruffles his hair, a couple of strands getting caught in his now messy locks and pulling some. He winces — she’s also become ten times more mobile in the past five hours, or so it seems. You argue that she’s simply full of adrenaline now, helping get her chubby hands away from the strands and smoothing Jungkook’s hair out in the process. 

“All done and ready to go,” he says, smiling at you and then looking back at Soori, “you ready to go in the stroller? Yayyyyy, the stroller!” his saccharine voice and smile makes her clap and both of you let out a sigh of relief. 

Her desire to be running out and about does make the process of getting everything — and everyone — packed into the car a bit more difficult, and she fusses a little when he straps her to her carseat, but for the most part you consider the task successful, your hands meeting in a celebratory high-five as soon as Jungkook steps inside the driver’s seat. 

“Wanna play music,” he asks, handing you his phone.

You take it, smiling when you see his wallpaper — a cute picture of Soori, probably taken a couple of months back. She smiles into the camera, and it’s all you can see, half of her face covered in one of Jungkook’s beanies, a couple sizes too big for her. “I’m in a Fleetwood Mac kick lately.”

“Of course you are,” he says, backing into the driveway and stealing a glance your way, a smirk plastered on his face. 

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re an old soul, baby. Like God made a bit of a mistake making you Gen Z.”

You gasp, and then contemplate it a bit and realize that, fair enough, he’s got a point. “You’re kinda right. I am quite old school.”

“Mhm,” he mumbles, hand coming to rest on your thigh comfortably, “but I’m glad you came into this timeline because I get to have you and your Fleetwood Mac kicks.”

You laugh, the soft chords of Silver Springs’ intro filling the enclosed space around you. “We would’ve met in another timeline, too, I think. We would’ve been so cool. We would’ve been listening to this live!”

“Yeah, and doing shrooms in a field somewhere whilst Dreams played in the background and you would’ve probably had bangs.”

“I would’ve 100% been a hippie, and you would’ve been a yuppie and so very dapper. Enemies to lovers.”

Now it’s his turn to laugh. “I wonder how that would’ve worked out.”

You feign deep contemplation for a second. “In missionary so we could keep arguing.”

“Oof. Take me back then.”

“Jeon Jungkook?”

He chuckles, squeezing the inside of your thigh. “Ah, baby, don’t worry. I’ll argue with you in missionary in all of our timelines.”

“I’m relieved,” you say, rolling your eyes dramatically but the smile that forms at your lips is one that’s too big to hide, succeeding at being flustered by your boyfriend. 

The rest of the ride looks pretty much like that — Fleetwood Mac, your fingers intwined in his over your leg, and more of the flirty back and forth that seems to pull new shades of red on your cheeks every time. You make a mental prayer for the ride to last just a little bit longer, but can’t say you’re disappointed once you finally make it into the picturesque nearby town Jungkook had told you about. It is, indeed, picturesque, almost like something from another time. Restaurants lining the streets, tables lining the terraces and beautiful people adorning the very scene. Everything seems to be a paler shade of white, green and yellow, brickstone shaping most of the facades and you begin to recognize the name brands rather quickly. Gucci, Prada, Dior and the like, as well as some boutiques you haven’t heard of before that look just as expensive. But hey, you do see a Domino’s Pizza. That’s a win in your book. 

You’re so enthralled by the surroundings that you don’t realize Jungkook has parked the car and is about to make his exit. A bit dumbstruck still you follow in his steps, eyes widening when you realize that this place even smells expensive. It also smells a bit like lemon sorbet and that seems to be even more shocking than the latter. 

“Do they have, like, an H&M around here?”

Jungkook turns to you as he unbuckles Soori’s belt, “a what?”

“An H&M. You don’t know H&M?” Your voice a mix between indignation and shock.

“The store?”

“Yes!”

“Ah,” he nods his head, “no.”

“You don’t?”

“I mean, I do. I don’t know that I’ve seen one around here, though. Why?”

You take Soori from him as he walks to the trunk to pull out her stroller. “These are all really fancy stores… I—”

He unfolds the stroller in one swift moment, looking up at you from under his sunglasses, a black lock coming loose over his forehead. “Don’t worry about that, baby. It’s my treat, okay?”

“I can’t let you do that.” You don’t meet his eyes, sitting Soori inside the cushiony seat of her stroller and buckling her in.

“Why,” he asks, nonchalantly. 

“Because. You don't have to do that. I can just wash the clothes I brought, it’s no big deal.”

“Hm,” he walks over to you, pulling you closer by the waist and placing a kiss against your cheek. “I know I don’t have to. I want to. So let me? Please?”

“Jungkook—”

“Please.”

He hits you with the puppy eyes, and you can’t believe you’re actually having this conversation with him right now. What’s worse, you can't believe you’re about to agree, unable to deal with confrontation, even if it’s this silly. “Okay but… moderation.”

He laughs. “Are you policing my expenses now?”

“No. Well, yes. Don’t I get a say?” You cross your arms, hip jutting slightly and he smirks at the attitude. 

“No.” and with that, he begins to walk, pushing the stroller and turning his head to look at you and say, “you coming?”

You roll your eyes, catching up to him and circling your arm around his. “I’m not used to… gifts.”

“I know, baby. Didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable, I’m sorry.”

“No, no. It’s not uncomfortable just… weird. But not necessarily in a bad way.”

“Yeah, I get it. I do wanna treat you, though. For no other reason than just wanting to. So just enjoy it, yeah? For me?” You nod your head once, looking down at the floor but smiling. “Thank you,” he says, finding your temple and leaning his forehead against it.

“So, what first?”

He looks around, considering his options. “Miu Miu? You look like a Miu Miu girl.”

“I do?” you ponder, more to yourself than to him and this makes him chuckle.

“Yeah, let’s check it out, come on.”

And Jungkook is a very wise man because, yes. You are a Miu Miu girl. A Dior girl, too. Hell, you even dabble in some Gucci if you do say so yourself. Jungkook, in your very humble opinion, is a Prada boy, but you can’t deny your favorite is Jungkook the Calvin Klein boy. You swear you’ve never seen anyone fit into a pair of jeans so perfectly, and for this you envy him a little. A little a lot. You spend the afternoon exploring the very many options the world of high fashion has to offer. Dresses, shoes (they make expensive flip flops, to your surprise), shirts and pants and at some point, you take Jungkook’s advice and stop looking at the price tag. Advice isn’t quite the word, it’s more of a demand. You’re not suddenly unaware of the hefty splurging taking place, no, but you must admit that it makes the experience ten times better. The two of you laugh at the extravagant, odd pieces some brands sell, try on unflattering sunglasses and make a runway out of the dressing rooms. Jungkook makes you show him every single thing you try and by the third time he does it, you stop pretending to be annoyed at his boyish reactions. Your boyfriend is the biggest hypeman, making you twirl and spin and showering you in praises, making the choosing part a little harder than it’d usually be. 

You don’t fall too far off, though, and quickly enough watching Jungkook try on clothes becomes your new favorite thing. Can you be blamed? He looks good in everything, can pretty much rock every style and you get to see him take off his shirt an innumerable amount of times. You have to compose yourself and make a mental effort not to gawk at him. If luck was ever in your favor, it’d be today. 

Soori also reaps off the benefits of Jungkook’s little (big) shopping spree, and soon enough you find out that nothing brings him as much pleasure as shopping for her. He picks the coolest pieces, a perfect mix between girly and the tomboyish style you secretly know is his favorite. Comfy and cute in her oversized t-shirts and Carhartt baby clothes. She also gets a new pair of sneakers for her newly found hobby and tests them out by running around the store, making every sales associate swoon over her. So much so they actually whine when you three walk out the door, waving their goodbyes. 

“I get it now,” you blurt out, getting Jungkook’s attention. “The whole shop ‘til you drop thing, I get it now. It’s real.”

He chuckles, throwing an arm around your shoulders and pulling you closer. “Did you enjoy it?”

“I did. Could watch you take off your shirt, like, eleven thousand more times.”

He tries to hide how flustered he is by smiling, lowering his voice when he says, “we don’t have to go shopping to do that.”

“You’re right, what a lucky girl I am.”

“Lucky? Lucky me. I should buy you eleven thousand more dresses just so I can experience this more often.”

He makes you blush, but what’s new? 

“Let’s not be greedy now.”

“Oh, but you want me shirtless forever?”

“Yeah, exactly. It’s what I deserve!”

And he can’t deny you. Matter of fact, he’s about to let you know that much but something catches his eye. He stops in his tracks and makes you pause, too, confused for a second as you follow his line of vision. 

Agent Provocateur.

It’s pink, fun, sexy, and indeed provocative, and that’s just going by the window display alone. This one you are slightly familiar with, having taken a couple of trips with Lucy in the past just to admire the overpriced lingerie and gasp in shock when you discovered the wonders of the ouvert panty. You sure do learn something new everyday.

“We forgot to get you underwear,” he says, a shit excuse for nonchalance lacing his tone. 

“Ah, but I’m a girl. I packed underwear for, like, a month.”

“That so,” he asks, eyes still on the shop’s window. 

“Yep.”

“I mean, you could never have too much underwear.”

You laugh. “I really don’t need it, Kook. It’s okay.”

“I do,” he states, looking at you with a smirk.

“Hm. Why don’t you go in and pick something out for me then? I’ll take Soori on a little walk, I think she could use it.”

“You’re giving me free will to get you anything I want inside a lingerie store?”

“Yep.”

“This is the best day of my life.”

“Go to town, baby. The world is your oyster!”

Jungkook’s off, not before laying a kiss on your lips and another on Soori’s forehead, excitedly walking towards the store and then gaining back some of his composure the moment he’s about to step inside. He’s out of sight in a matter of seconds and you laugh in disbelief. What is your life? 

“Soori, you should be so glad you won’t remember this when you’re older,” you say, kneeling down in front of her and smoothing out her hair. 

“Nanananana.”

“Let’s go get ice cream and walk around, yeah?”

Your suggestion is met with excited clapping from her part and just like that, you’re off on an adventure of your own. It doesn’t take you long to locate the most delectable ice cream you’ve ever laid eyes on, in the cutest shop. Everything is pastel and old school and it fits the vibe of the town so well you wonder if every single shop in this town got the memo. Domino’s pizza being the hard exception, of course. You go for the strawberry sorbet and a bit of hazelnut for balance, as recommended by the ice cream expert behind the counter. On a cone, of course. Soori’s a simple girl — chocolate and vanilla on a little cup. You find a bench, sitting the two of you down as you multitask feeding her and feeding yourself, but soon enough it all becomes pretty democratic as she takes licks from your cone and you steal spoonfuls of ice cream from her cup. Ha, and Jungkook thought she couldn’t share! 

With that thought alone you invoke him, jumping a bit when he appears seemingly out of nowhere. Your facial expressions take turns, to say the least. From fright, to surprise, to happiness, to shock, to fright again. He smiles— no. He smirks. He smirks, knowingly, deviously, even as he leans down and takes a bite out of the chocolate ice cream you’d scooped up for Soori. Your eyes fixate on him, eyes narrowing before they land on the multiple pink shopping bags he holds in one hand. 

“Did you buy underwear for a whole village?”

He throws his head back in laughter. “You’d hate that, actually.”

“Correct,” you pause for emphasis, “Jungkook, what the heck?”

“What? They had a good sale going on.”

“Really?”

“Nope.”

“Oh, God.”

“Jeez, can’t I just treat my girl to sexy lingerie?”

You raise a menacing eyebrow at him. “Just me?”

“It’s a win-win, baby. It’s a win-win.”

You smile, unable to deny him as much as he’s unable to deny you. “Can I see?”

He brings the bags closer to his chest and gasps, feigning shock. “These are for my eyes only.”

“Fair enough.”

“You’ll like them, though,” he winks. “I’m starving.”

“I have an idea!”

“Do tell.”

“Let’s go home, I’ll buy us Domino’s Pizza and we can watch a movie, my treat.”

“You’re spoiling me now.”

“Ah, what can I say,” you say, standing up and taking Soori into your arms, her chocolate covered cheeks forming a smile on her face. “I like to share my riches.”

“I’m rich,” he walks closer to you, hand wrapping around your waist, pulling you closer.

You huff, “trust me, we know.”

“Not like that,” he looks at you, arm tightening around you until your feet are hovering above the floor a bit, pulling smiles out of you like it’s easy and that’s the thing, it is easy because it’s him. “Like this,” he says, emphasizing his point with a kiss to your lips, letting you know that he means it.

No doubt in the world that he does.

~

When you first fell in love with writing, it wasn’t much for the idea of storytelling. Instead, that very first spark that turned an interest into a passion came from the purpose of safe keeping memories. If you could keep a moment safe by the immortality of your words, you thought, the inevitability of time could be avoided. Or well, it would make it all worth it, at least, like you lived for a reason. Everything you experienced — whether it was pain, happiness, worry, surprise — it would all come to an end eventually, but your words would remain, etched in time for the sole purpose of proving that it happened. That you were there, alive and feeling and that it was all worth it because your words could now live forever.

You sit on the couch, the living room lights dim, perfectly complementing the atmosphere as the rain falls in incessant showers outside the tall windows. The sound is comforting, a candle burning and the notion of the ocean at such close proximity easing you all over. You can still smell it, you think, mixed with the rain and him.

Him, him, him. 

You smell him on your skin, your hair. You smell him on the hoodie you’d stolen from his closet, the one he’d worn today and discarded before getting in the shower. The scent triggers the muscle memory in your heart and you think of him, a smile escaping you before you can fully make up his face in your mind. The warmth takes up every inch of you and it reminds you of his touch, his arms around you, the sun and the fire and the love you have for him. 

You stop writing, too distracted to string words together now that the thought of him has turned so physical, affecting your ability to do much more than simply think about him. You place your pen in the middle of your journal’s spine, marking the page as you feather through your previous entries. Five days. You’ve been together for five days, four spent in the peace of your little universe. You, him and Soori. And to your luck, and the luck of immortalized moments, you’ve used your words to make sure this memory never leaves you. 

You skim through the pages, smiling when a sentence catches your eye, struggling a bit to understand your own handwriting. 

“It’s early — way too early, and I’m struggling to stay awake. I wish I could go back to sleep, but then again he’s next to me and I can see him, really truly see him when nothing gets in the way of his beauty, when he’s so still I have no choice but to stare, to take him in, to let his face sink into my memory until all I can feel is love. Until his face is stripped of features, no eyes, no nose, no mouth, just love. My love. He’s the sun rising and I’m the need to stop and stare.” 

The weight of your words is overwhelming, a blush creeping up your cheeks and you can feel the way your heart feels warm. You turn a page, laughing at the universal balance of your feelings when you read,

“Jungkook grilled today and I ate three burgers. We made milkshakes for dinner when Soori was asleep because neither of us has the heart to not share with her but Jungkook’s scared of sugar rushes.”

But, oh, what a privilege it is to live an ordinary life with extraordinary people. What a feeling, to experience it all. 

“I sit by the sun, can feel the sand through the towel under me and my body’s still salty and wet from swimming. I hear the sound of the ocean and Jungkook turning the page of a book. I hear how still he is while reading my copy of The Great Gatsby. Soori naps in-between us and I can hear her soft breathing. I write this because I don’t want to forget it.” 

A wave of nostalgia takes over you, like you’re already missing it though it hasn’t fully gone away yet. Your next words ignite a different feeling in you, flushing your chest and sending that original warmth that’d settled on a steady route someplace else. 

“I feel his fingers long after they’ve been on me. My body is exhausted but my mind alert, the stars on my skin he’s left are now mine to safekeep and the way the memory lingers keeps me awake. I’ve never made love before, it feels foreign to me. Are we making love? How would I know? I can’t think of the formalities of much when he fucks me. I can’t put a name to it, only his and whatever his eyes on me makes me feel in that moment. I’m yet to decipher it, though, his eyes on me. More so, what I feel. It makes me want to live inside myself, though I don’t think that makes much sense. It makes me wish I had more control over my body, my thoughts, my feelings, so I could focus on multiple things at once and figure me out. Me when he’s on me, me when he owns me like this, and perhaps his eyes perceive this better. Perhaps I could find it in seeing what he sees when he looks down at me, like that. Like him.”

“Why aren’t you in bed, baby?”

His voice startles you, takes you a while to register it fully, your first instinct to close your journal a bit too abruptly for what it entails. You look up at him, smile when you take him in, your hands itching to touch him, to hold him. His hair’s still wet from the shower, a bit messy, and longer now than when you first met him. You like it like that, you think. In a soft white shirt and gray pants, he looks so soft as he walks inside the living room, hovering by the wall for a second before leaning into it. 

“I was writing, the rain looks nice from the tall windows.” 

He smiles. “We’ll open the blinds upstairs, come on. Wanna watch a movie?”

You nod, uncrossing your legs and holding onto your journal before making your way to him. “What did you have in mind?”

“Lord Of The Rings,” he gives you a toothy grin, pulling you to him as soon as you’re close enough to and you can’t help but bring your lips to his. 

“Never took you for a nerd. I like it.”

“To be honest, I never know what’s going on, I’m just drawn in by the landscapes.”

“Lucy and I watched it once,” you say, pinching your thumb and index finger, pretending to smoke, “under the influence.”

The picture alone makes him chuckle. “Never took you for much of a stoner.”

“Oh, God, I’m not. I ate a subway and a bag of hot cheetos and passed out fifteen minutes into the movie.”

“Damn, baby, that’s weak. Even for you.”

You gasp. “As my boss, you should be delighted by this information.”

“Mm,” he kisses you, “not your boss right now. Actually, not your boss ever. Soori’s your boss.”

“She’s so demanding.”

“I know, right? Will only eat fruit if it’s star shaped now. Wonder whose fault that is…”

“When I get my hands on her…,” you narrow your eyes, shake your head.

“Hey. Easy on my girlfriend right there.”

“That still sounds a bit surreal.”

“What? Me calling you my girlfriend?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, get used to it.”

“Never. It’s funner this way.”

He doesn’t refute your point, secretly agrees with it, still a bit in awe of the word itself. The title. What it entails, what it means, what he gets in exchange of it. Not in an opportunistic way, but simply in letting himself enjoy this new role, surprised at how comfortable he feels in it, how at ease. 

The two of you make your way upstairs, checking on Soori one last time before heading to the bedroom. The bed looks inviting, fluffy duvet begging for you to be inside of it on this rainy night. Lights dim and soft linen smells, the sound of the rain hitting the window as Jungkook opens the blinds and you get in bed, making yourself comfortable and letting your body melt into the mountain of pillows he insists on keeping. He joins you soon after, sighing as he sinks into them, too, remote control in one hand as he extends his other in invitation. You fall into him, letting him wrap his arm around you as you rest your head on his chest, legs finding his under the covers until your body is laced in his. He makes quick work of finding the movie, falling deeper into the comfort of the bed and bringing you closer to him as the beginning credits roll in, landscapes following and he’s right, it’s captivating enough. 

“Wanna go there someday,” you say softly, voicing your thoughts.

“You remember the deal we closed a couple of weeks ago?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“It’s basically land… vast, immense land that looks just like this. I’m building a hotel there.”

You look up at him, “really?”

“Yeah. I’m excited about it. It’s kinda different from the locations we often go for… it feels new, I think it’s gonna work, though.”

“I have no doubts whatsoever,” you tell him, face nuzzling in the soft fabric of his t-shirt before you say, “I’m proud of you.”

He rests a soft kiss on your head, hand gently running down your arm as he murmurs a quiet, “thank you,” against your hair. Soon enough you’re both completely enraptured by the movie, and to your surprise, by the plot, too. Once in a while you steal small glances of him, endeared by his big, shiny eyes in full focus, pink lips slightly agape. Your hands run lazy circles around his chest, and you do it enough so as to lose conscience of it, affection turning into reflex. 

Your touch soothes him, so much so he stops acknowledging it and it simply runs a wave of relaxation down his body, shoulders dropping a bit, body sinking further into the pillows, head falling to the side. You’re warm against his body and he likes it, he likes being able to feel every inch of you on him like this. The movie has most of his attention, but said attention begins to shift focus, unbeknownst to him, like his body has a mind of its own. He thinks it’s an innocent little pull at first, inevitable, if you will. He tries to go back to the movie, eyes fixated on the screen, his brain’s full function on the scenes, but it’s to no avail. He’s now (well too) aware of the way your fingers trace patterns on his chest, the way your leg rests on top of his. The way you smell, the way your tits press into his side as you shift a bit. You exist, next to him, and his reaction is but the collateral damage. 

He begins to shift in place, hand running through his hair as he makes more of a mental effort to quiet down his body and the effect you, very innocently, have on him. He does this for long enough so as to make you notice, frowning against his chest when he sighs. 

“Are you okay,” you ask, looking up at him, “are you uncomfortable? I can move-”

“No, no, no,” he says, voice a bit frenzied, taking you aback even more. “It’s not that, baby, come back.”

You rest against him once again. “Is something bothering you, though? You feel tense,” and when you say this, you run your hand down his arm, nails scraping a bit, and Jungkook lets out a long breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“No, none of that, don’t worry.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” he says, feeling shy all of a sudden, color creeping into his cheeks, “it’s just…”

“What?”

He grows quiet for a second, hand holding onto yours before he starts to guide it down his torso, and you’re almost confused for a second until it gets lost inside the warmth of the duvet. Jungkook rests your hand on top of his cock, over his sweatpants, and you can feel how hard he is. He whimpers softly over your head when you reflexively close your hand around him, feeling the whole weight of his arousal. You look up at him, half-lidded eyes and parted lips, his head leaning back against the pillows as you bring your lips to his neck, kissing once before you whisper a little, “oh,” into his skin. 

“Couldn’t help it,” he says coyly, and you can hear the smile in his voice. 

“Why would you try to help it?” your lips still pepper open-mouthed kisses all over his warm flesh. 

“Dunno,” he shrugs, a whimper that ends in a moan following and he sounds so sweet. 

So sweet, you think. Something about him, about his demeanor right now, docile in your hands, soft-spoken words and little noises as your lips on his skin begin to have an effect on him. You can feel it in the palm of your hand, in the way his hips buck a little with each suckle, silently begging for more but not in any particular rush. 

“Want me to touch you?” you look up at him, at the way his eyes open, still half-lidded and hazy as he nods. Your hand squeezes his length, “here?”

“Yeah, I’d like that— please.”

That word feels like a silent agreement. A nod in the direction he knows you’re eager to take and you waste no time in rewarding him for letting you, for allowing you to take the reigns, for letting you give him pleasure as you please. 

Your hands travel under his sweatpants, lips forming a smile when you realize he’d forgone underwear, cock warm against your small hand as you wrap around it. Jungkook hisses, a whine getting caught in his throat as your thumb circles around his crown, collecting the precum and easing him into the feeling. Your pace is slow, eyes fixated on his cock — on the way his slit leaks when your finger grazes over it, the way he jumps a bit in your hand, so overstimulated already. The noises he makes, sometimes muffled as his face presses against your hair, failed attempts at keeping composure. He tries his best not to fuck his cock into your hand, you can tell by the way his tummy sinks every now and then, hands gripping at the sheets. And when he can’t take the torturous pace you set, so determined on giving the most sensitive part of his cock what begins to feel like an overwhelming amount of pleasure, his hand gently closes around yours, stalling your movements. 

“Please, __— fuck,” his words are a bit frantic, a moan getting caught between them. 

 “What’s wrong, Kook?” you feign ignorance, but he’s in no position to give you a hard time for it. 

“Stroke it, baby, please.”

He sounds so fucked out already, shaky fingers closing around your hand once again and you know he’s fighting internal battles not to guide your movements, to take you where he wants you — how he wants you. 

“It felt like you were so close, though…” 

“Not like this,” his words find him faster than you’d expect, given his state, “don’t wanna cum like this.”

You kiss his cheek, smiling when his face moves closer to yours until you’re kissing the corner of his mouth and his eyes are closing as you finally move your hand, slowly stroking his cock, touch so gentle it makes him sigh. He’s so perfect the need to tell him so becomes too painful to bear. 

“You’re doing so good, Kook. My perfect boy.”

Under any other circumstance Jungkook would pause at your words — not necessarily to second guess them, no, but to process them. To see what they do to him, to what extent they deliver pleasure, all things considered, things being the fact that, well, he’s not a sub. He’s not usually the one melting into praise and dominance so, yeah, under any other circumstance Jungkook would pause. Right now, though, all he can focus on is the way your hand feels so warm and tight around his cock, how it glides so seamlessly because he’s so turned on he’s basically lubricated himself, and how you’re enjoying his reaction to you so much you think he’s perfect. 

Perhaps under no circumstance would he need to pause to know that he enjoys it. More than he ever thought he would. 

“I feel so good right now,” he tempts, head sinking into the pillows as you up your pace a bit. 

“It feels good… to make you feel good,” your wrist twists around him, giving him all the attention he craves, from base to tip and then tighter at the upturn. “To see you be this good,” he whimpers softly at your praise, “you sound so beautiful.”

Jungkook’s chest tightens, your words resounding in places he didn’t know could echo words, sounds — the sound of your breathing, your own moans. Your pace picks up and you rejoice in the way he reacts to your touch. His brows knit together, eyelashes kissing his cheeks and all he can think of is you, almost as if he had you far away and had to rely on memory. Opening his eyes, heavy lids looking down at you as he leans his head to the side, his breathing picking up as he pants. 

Your hand leaves him for only a second but it’s enough to make him hold his breath, eyes following your every move as you bring it up to your face and lick a thick stripe down the palm of your hand. His cock throbs when it wraps around it again and he sighs, so close to the edge he can only hope you’ll play fair. 

Your free hand sneaks under him a bit awkwardly, tapping on his leg to silently let him know what you want. His hips raise as he helps you move his sweatpants down, the waistband now hugging his ass as you free him completely. His cock is red and angry, still leaking for you as your hand begins to move faster, thumb and index finger playing with his head at the end of each push and pull. 

“I’m so close, __,” words soft, a staccato whisper that’s for you only and your name on his lips sounds sugary, like it drips off his tongue. 

You think, a bit selfishly, about playing with him for just a little longer. Putty in your hands and so very yours that you almost don’t want to let him go — to let him let go, but you can’t deny him. Not when he’s been so good. Not when you have all the time in the world to explore, to play. 

“Yeah? Tell me, baby, what else do you want?”

“Play with my balls,” voice still a plead, no demand in it, a bit of a tilt at the end. 

You comply, hand traveling south before you gently roll his balls in your hand, tugging slightly and making him wince, a loud, throaty moan finding him soon after. You look into his face again, a sight to behold, so lost in his own pleasure you think he doesn’t fully hear you when you tell him to kiss you. He proves you wrong, though, lips crashing onto yours as you swallow his pleasure, tongue on his as both your breaths grow heady. 

“God— fuck.” his hand finds yours again, not hesitating before he’s wrapping it back around his cock, stroking once, twice, and setting the pace for you before his own is coming up to your face, fingers gently grabbing your chin and making you look at him. “I’m gonna cum.”

“Cum for me, Jungkook. Please.”

He nods, brows knitted in a frown as he gets so very close, eyes on yours and fighting to keep them open. You feel the way his cock kicks in your hand as you jerk him fast, bottom lip getting caught between your teeth. He grows quiet, a little tense under you and when his lips part in a silent moan, eyes shutting close, he cums, hard —  thick hot shots landing on his tummy and coating your hand as you bring him down. 

He chuckles a little, feeling a bit delirious as your fingers play with the mess you’d both left on his stomach, cock jumping at the mere sensation of your touch on his taut skin, making him hiss and look down. It turns him on a little more than his body can take right now and he opts for closing his eyes, sighing as he sinks his head back into the pillows. 

“That was so good,” he says, voice soft and full of bliss. 

“Mhm.” 

You kiss his cheek once more before your warmth is leaving him, making him frown as he’s about to ask where you’re going. He opens his eyes, sees you reaching for the night table and when you turn around you’re holding onto a handful of tissues. 

You clean him up, and he lets you, his soft gaze following your movements. It feels intimate, the way you do it in silence, your face expressionless but something in your eyes that’s easy for him to read. You tuck him back in his pants, laughing a little when the feeling of the fabric against his sensitive skin makes him gasp, muttering a little, “sorry” his way. When you kneel on the mattress to leave his side, he pulls you by the arm, whining a little. 

“I’ll just go throw these in the trash,” you say. 

“Okay. Thank you, baby.”

You take a minute — makes Jungkook a little antsy for reasons he can’t understand. He hears the faucet go off, hears you wander about the bathroom, giving him enough time to sit with his thoughts. It’s not anxiety —well, it is. It’s not bad, though. It’s more so unfamiliar, to let someone take care of him like this, so lovingly for no other reason than the desire that pulls you to want to love him. To dote on him. It makes his heart contract inside his chest, missing a couple of beats that recover a bit too quickly when he sees you make your way to him. 

He’d been lost in thought, making you smile. 

“Whatcha thinking about?”

“That we haven’t kissed in a while.”

You roll your eyes, but it’s playful and shy, one of his favorite things about you. Your knee hits the bed, crawling towards him and he smiles, growing giddy in anticipation. You find a home over him, knees straddling both sides of his body as you rest on his tummy, careful not to touch any further down as you know he’s still sensitive. 

“Wanna kiss me?”

It’s back, he thinks. That tone you held before, when you were in control of him and his pleasure. No time to pause now either. He nods. 

“Yeah, wanna kiss you so bad, baby.”

He welcomes your lips on his, slow and tender, giving him time to savor the pillowy softness of them. The way you taste, the way you sound — a little worked up, tiny whimpers leaving you — has him convincing himself that he could never get too much of this. Never get too much of you. The way your tongue moves on his has him sighing against your lips, mind elsewhere and all he can take in right now is you. You and how you kiss him. You and how much he wants you already. How much he needs you. 

He moans against your lips, hands coming up to hold onto your hips as he pushes them further away until your cunt sits perfectly on top of his dick. You both sigh.

“You’re hard,” you point out, not fully breaking the kiss. 

“Yeah. Been hard since you straddled me,” he laughs. 

“Thought you’d be spent, you came so hard just now.”

He shakes his head, looking up at you, “want you, baby.”

You grind your hips against his, moaning when the head of his cock grazes your clothed clit. “I want it like this.”

“Yeah— okay,” he gives, kissing you again as he guides your hips the way he knows feels good, aided by the noises his mouth swallows as you moan into his lips. 

You don’t stop when you come up, fully sitting on his cock and making him wish there was less layers between you two. When he looks down he sees the wet patch over the gray fabric of his sweatpants, unsure whether it’d been you or him but turned on by it none the less. He moans at the sight, at the feeling, at the way you look so pretty with your cheeks flushed and your eyes closed, lips parting to moan his name. 

Your hair falls to one side, pretty neck glistening with sweat and he wants to kiss it so bad. He holds his breath as your fingers toy with the hem of the sweatshirt you’d stolen before, promptly pulling it off your body. His eyes widen, lips slightly parted before they’re forming a smirk when you reveal what’s underneath — the result of his little shopping spree a couple of days back. Tonight you’d opted for a lacy, red babydoll and matching panties. The fabric so sheer it barely covered anything, making Jungkook consider himself a very lucky man right that second. 

His hand travels up, palm cupping your breast and thumb caressing your nipple, making you whimper at the feel of his finger through the fabric, a new sensation. Your hips move quicker, hand coming to rest on top of his to encourage his touch, the added stimulation landing right on your lower tummy, making your pussy clench around nothing, clit throbbing with every push and pull of your hips. 

“I’m so close, Kook,” you pant, back arching as you find the perfect pace. 

“Use me, __. Use me to cum,” he gives, lips getting caught between his teeth so hard he’s afraid he’s gonna draw blood. “Fuck, you look so hot, baby.”

You like the two tones his voice takes at his command and praise, the way he’s still perfect in that pliant way but also gives you what your body secretly loves the most. When you cum, it almost feels painful, in that sweet way that finds you when you’re so overwhelmed by the feeling. Your hands crash on his chest, hair falling at the sides of your face before he’s gently pushing it away so he can watch you. 

The air around you shifts just as fast as the switch inside Jungkook turns. 

You’re still catching your breath, so receptive to his every touch that you moan when you feel his cock throb between your legs. He holds onto your face, making you look at him. 

“You did so good, __. Came so good and pretty for me.”

There’s a voice inside your head that tells you to take back control, to bite back and tell him that he was the one being good for you. But your body’s both too spent and too needy for your mind to get cocky right now and deprive it from what it needs the most. 

You nod your head, a little dumbly, at him. He thinks it’s cute. 

He’s pushing his sweatpants back down, legs fully pulling them off his body before his finger hooks down the side of your panties, slowly moving south until his knuckle is grazing over your clit. 

“So wet. So messy.” the pads of his index and middle finger circle your clit, making you whimper as you rock your hips and follow his movements. He pulls his touch away abruptly, pushing your panties to the side before his hand leaves you completely and comes to rest behind his head. “Ride me, __.”

You’re wet enough to brave it, coming up on shaky knees and lining yourself over him. He grabs the base with his free hand, helping you a little and releasing the moment you start sinking into him. He doesn’t miss the way you whimper, eyes closing at the feeling of him stretching you. It burns a bit but you’ve come to find pleasure in the pain, bottoming out as you both moan when he’s fully sheathed inside of you. 

“So big, Koo,” you cry out, and his heart beats particularly soft at your use of the pet name. It almost makes him lose focus, almost makes him fall back into the prior dynamic, a little too worked up from it still. He reckons it’s probably what’s powering his demeanor right now. 

“Yeah,” he sounds, and you don’t miss the way his voice takes on a cocky tilt. “Move, then. Wanna see you bounce on this big cock.”

“Yeah— okay, fuck,” because it feels so good. It feels so good as you jump on him, as he fills you up to the brim and hits your sweetest spots when you bury him all the way inside of you. It feels so good when it all gets to be too much and you have to slow down your pace, grinding against his hips, making him say your name as he hits every inch of you like this. 

You resume your pace, tits moving with each motion against his hips and he can’t take his eyes off of them – off of you. So fucking beautiful as you move over him, giving him what he wants. 

“Good fucking girl,” he praises, voice a bit rough from the way the pleasure consumes him.

“That feels so good. Wanna fuck you– wanna fuck you forever, Jungkook.”

Your words are strangled and he can see how much effort it takes to actually string them together, so very affected by him and the way it feels when he starts moving his hips against yours, fucking you back. 

“You can fuck me forever, baby.”

“Oh my God, I’m so— so close.”

The cry you let out when his hands grab at your hips, pausing your movements, surprises the both of you. You look down at him, glaring when your orgasm goes away, the pleasure taking on a painful nature as your pussy throbs around his cock. 

“Fuck. Why—”

“Want to play with you a bit more, baby. You can take it. You can be patient, can you not?” It’s in your best interest to agree so you nod, frantic eyes looking into his. “Good. Now lose the attitude. I’m gonna make you cum so good, promise, yeah?”

“Y-yeah.”

He holds onto your waist, manhandling you so swiftly you barely register just how he managed to get you on your back in a matter of seconds. He hovers above you, thighs between your legs as he runs a hand through his damp locks and scans his eyes over your figure. 

Jungkook can’t figure out if he wants you fully naked, looking up at him or face down, pressed against the mattress. He doesn’t know if he wants to fuck you hard or take more time with you. He doesn’t know if he wants to tease you or have you coming undone again —and if it’s the latter, does he want it on his tongue or around his cock? 

Decisions, decisions… 

He wraps a hand around his cock, sighing at the much needed attention, smiling when you raise your hips a bit involuntarily in his direction. You make his decision for him, huffing a bit when you see the way he takes one step back away from you. He takes his shirt off before running his hands down your legs, his touch soft but his eyes dark, like he’s plotting. 

“Kookie,” you say, dreamily, ulterior motives lacing your voice, “fuck me, please.”

“Not yet, wanna taste you first.”

He raises your legs, keeping them straight before him as he rolls your panties down your thighs and off your feet, throwing them to the side. You bend them once they’re off, resting them against his shoulder. 

“I’m too sensitive,” you tell him, and something in your voice tells him you’re faking it.

“That so, baby?”

“Mhm.”

“I’ll be gentle.”

“But I want you to fuck me— now.”

Jungkook holds onto your legs, one hand on each calf before he’s bringing them down, resting them against the mattress a bit abruptly and making them fall open for him. 

“Quit being a brat or I won’t fuck you at all.” 

He doesn’t let you answer — not like you’d try, you’ve got too much to lose — finding his place between your legs as he lays down on his tummy. Your pussy’s swollen and red, hole leaking for him and clenching around nothing. He coos, which you’d tease him for if the reaction wasn’t sending a jolt of pleasure down your body, something filthy about it lacing the act. 

“Love your little pussy, baby,” he observes, more to him than to you, marking emphasis in his words by running a finger from your opening all the way to your clit. 

“Please.”

And he can’t deny you. Not when your cunt looks so enticing, when you react to him and he can see it, feel it around his fingers as he pushes his middle one inside of you. You arch your back at the intrusion, a moan passing your lips when his own close around your clit, sucking hard on it in rhythmic little pulses. It doesn’t take him long enough to send you right back to where he’d taken you from just a couple of moments ago, tummy tensing at the threat of your pleasure reaching its peak. 

“I’m gonna— I’m gonna cum if you keep doing that,” you warn him, so obedient it nearly makes him swoon.

He removes his mouth from you, replacing it with his thumb as it draws tight circles against your clit, a bit slower so as to save him time. 

“Yeah, baby, you can cum. What do you want me to do? Tell me.”

“Can you— please, lick my clit.”

His index and middle finger form a V, opening your folds up to him before his tongue comes out to lap at your clit — quick kitten licks that have your hands reaching down to him, fingers holding onto his hair so as to ground yourself but it’s to no avail. 

“Fuck— like that. God, I’m gonna cum.”

It’s blinding, almost. The way it feels, the way your body shakes as you come undone on his tongue. The way he sucks on your clit, prolonging your orgasm, moaning against it when you pull on his hair. The sound his mouth makes when he cleans every drop, chin glistening with your orgasm — it all adds to the sensation, effectively fucked out. 

You pull him up, with little force, until he’s falling back on top of you. You kiss him, a bit deliriously, tasting yourself on his tongue and moaning at the remnants of your high. You push your legs further apart, helping him fall into you, feet on his ass as you bring him closer to you. He sinks his cock into your pussy, moaning at how tight and warm you feel, still pulsing from your last orgasm. 

You’re both a bit more quiet this time around, throaty breaths and pants passing your lips as you find endless places to kiss. Down his neck, on your shoulder and the palm of his hand when he cups your cheek. You sigh when you finally find his lips. They only part when he throbs inside of you, pussy so sensitive you can feel just how close he is. You lose him for a second and when you open your eyes, you see his own fixated on the TV, fighting to stay open.

“In missionary so he can keep watching Lord of the Rings,” you tease.

He looks back down at you, strangling out a laugh that shortly gets caught in a little whine of pleasure. 

“Shut up,” he breathes out, kissing you once again. “Fuck— I’m so close, baby.”

“I can feel it.”

“Yeah?”

You hum, bringing his face closer to you, kissing him and egging him on with sweet, little praises. 

He stills on top of you, pink lips parting in a silent moan before he says, “I’m gonna fucking cum,” pulling out just in time to paint your lower tummy in white, cum dripping down your pussy a little too recklessly to what he’d normally agree to but fuck, he feels drunk right now and the sight is heavenly. 

You laugh. 

“Reconsidering?”

“Yeah,” he answers honestly, with half a brain for anything let alone to lie. 

“Oh, wow,” you say, “love being your girlfriend already.”

He laughs, shaking his head before he’s pressing a kiss against your lips. 

“Me too, baby. Me too.”

~

___

[ cause i built a home, for you, for me ]

Maybe it was just the beautiful stretch of summer into early fall, but the days had seemed lighter.  As though the sun’s rays lasted a little longer each day, as though the great bright star couldn’t bear to part with the day too soon.

Or maybe (y/n) was just so sickeningly happy all the time that she finally noticed the sunny days when they came around, and learned to properly appreciate them.  If the sun was shining, she was dragging the two kids out of the apartment and anywhere else- as long as they were outside.

Summer vacation was mostly spent at the park, or at the public market, when Megumi was in a good enough mood to go, anyways.  Tsumiki loved going to the market with (y/n), especially since she’d get to pick out all of her favorite fruits and veggies for the upcoming week.  Megumi mostly clung like a shadow behind (y/n), hating the busy space and strangers who were too friendly.  There was the rare occasion that he’d want to look at the stalls of old books, and (y/n) found that with the promise of looking for a new book, he would relax a little more in the high traffic area.  Was it bribery? Maybe.  But didn’t all parents have to bribe their kids at some point? 

Most nights were spent relaxing, a luxury that (y/n) wouldn’t give up for all the treasures of the world.  

Gathering in the living room to watch a movie with snacks covering the coffee table had become a weekly ritual.  They took turns picking out a movie, and the rule was always that if they could compromise when it’s a movie one of them isn’t interested in, then snacks were on her.  Of course a certain Six Eyes user tended to drop by not-so-at-random with a backpack full of sweets and long limbs that took up most of the couch.  Megumi would bring a pile of blankets to the floor when Satoru joined them for movie nights, claiming that he and (y/n) would hog all the cushions.  It was mostly Satoru, as (y/n) would try to cling to one side of the sofa, but her attempts were to no avail.  Satoru always found a way to crowd her until she was practically curled up under his arm.  Megumi would stick his tongue out in Tsumiki’s direction, disgusted by the abundance of physical affection that Satoru demanded to give to (y/n).  Tsumiki, however, always found it sweet.

Other nights they’d spend in comfortable silence, the three of them in their favorite cozy spots as they read to themselves.  (y/n) often sprawled across the living room sofa with whatever she was reading.  Tsumiki liked to read in a little nook she’d made in the corner of her room, complete with a string of twinkly lights and a big bean bag chair.  Megumi would join (y/n) in the living room, sitting in the oversized chair that matched the living room set.  He was so small in the large cushions he could lay any which way he pleased, but he most often sat crisscrossed with his new favorite book in his lap.  Sometimes (y/n) would convince him to read to her, even when he was halfway through a story she hadn’t been familiar with.  She enjoyed the peaceful quality time, even if it was spent in hours of silence.

And then there was her favorite way for the kids to spend their evenings- coloring.  It was a simple activity, one that she’d indulged in as a child often enough, but hadn’t thought much about until she’d randomly picked up a big pack of crayons on a grocery trip.  It must’ve been a good choice, because Megumi and Tsumiki got right to work on their imaginations.  Now their rooms, and the refrigerator, were covered in their artwork.  Tsumiki liked to draw flowers, sometimes full meadows complete with a sunny sky and rainbows, and sometimes she’d practice different petals with different colors, always trying to learn new things.  Megumi liked to draw his shikigami, giving each one that manifests it’s own name.  He also liked to draw characters from his favorite books.  (y/n) helped him to carefully tape them up on his bookshelf to display properly.  However she had hand-picked a few of their drawings to go on the fridge- which held the same honor as a knight being sworn into duty.  There were a few of Tsumiki’s flowers, and a few of Megumi’s favorite scenes from his books- even the darker ones that held a touch of blood and gore (y/n) would have to talk to him about before he went back to school- but there was one in particular that outshined them all.

It was a drawing they’d done together, on a larger piece of cardstock, of all of them.  There was a carefully drawn out scribble that resembled her, in her signature uniform- black collared jacket and matching black pants- her hair was meticulously thought out, the crayon color carefully chosen, and the strokes of length determined while the pair of kids studied her closely, making sure that their drawing resembled her true form perfectly.  On either side of her stick figure self was one of them, Megumi identified by the sea urchin he’d drawn on top of his head, and Tsumiki by the smile that took up her whole face and the big pink bow in her hair that she wore religiously since (y/n) had gotten it for her.  Lastly, and maybe (y/n’s) favorite part, was that Megumi had chosen to add his dogs to the family portrait.  Sitting right beside each other with little squiggles around their tails to show they were happily wagging, and complete with the red markings on their heads.

As soon as they’d presented this drawing to (y/n), she’d almost burst into tears at how sweet it was.  They laughed at her teary eyes while she smiled and gazed fondly at the picture, taking in every little detail and committing it to memory.  She deemed it the greatest gift she’d ever received, and marched it right to the fridge, clipping it up with magnets.  It took up most of the freezer door, but it would stay there until it was time for it to be moved to a new fridge.

When back to school season rolled around, (y/n) dragged them off to the mall, proudly displaying her earnings from the assignments she’d picked up over the summer.  Now that she wasn’t a student anymore, getting paid to exorcize demons had become a great source of income.  Of course in the midst of Megumi and Tsumiki ogling all the new backpacks with bright colors and anime characters, their favorite special grade sorcerer showed up with a black card that seemed to hold boundless funds, as he paid for every little thing either one of the children picked up.

“They’re going to grow up with a bad understanding of how money works, Satoru” (y/n) had scolded him while Megumi and Tsumiki watched a cashier ring up hundreds of dollars worth of supplies they ‘needed’.

“Nah, I’ll buy them the best tutor in Japan so they don’t” He’d replied, sticking his tongue out at her.

(y/n) rolled her eyes, but as she turned her head away to ignore him, she couldn’t help the small smile that graced her face.  She’d been making enough money to support this small makeshift family, but having Satoru around to help was still appreciated.  Of course, she could never tell him that.  His ego was big enough for the both of them.

Once school was back in session, a decent routine was established.  (y/n) picked up as many assignments during the days as she could, so that her nights could be spent helping them with homework, making dinner, getting chores done, and all the other little things that eat away at your free time when you’re an adult.  Not that she could complain, she adored every minute of the new life she worked to maintain.  However there was the occasion where an assignment too good to pass up would be on her radar in the evenings.  It only took one mention of this to Satoru for him to enlist himself as a babysitter.

It wasn’t often that she’d be gone in the evenings.  She liked to be present at all times when Megumi and Tsumiki were home.  They’d spent too much of their lives being alone, and while they proved to be self-sufficient, it made (y/n’s) heart sink at the thought of purposefully leaving them home alone.  So when Satoru showed up on the evening she’d been offered a well-paid assignment to hunt down a Grade Two cursed object, she let him stay to watch the kids.  Not before giving Tsumiki all of the emergency numbers she could think of, and reminding Megumi of the pendant she’d given him, also in the case of an emergency.

“It’s like you don’t trust me, sweetheart!” Satoru had laughed when she spent too long saying her goodbyes at the door.  He hastily began pushing her out, making sure her weapons were secure in their holsters on her back.  “Go! Go! Have fun! We’ll be fine here!” 

“Okay, just don’t forget they go to bed at-” 

“Nine o’clock, I’ve got it” 

“And they need to brush their teeth-” 

“I’m capable!” He barked at her, all but closing the door in her face while he wore a massive grin.

Long story short, Satoru had given the Fushiguro kids twenty bucks if they promised not to tell her that they’d been up long past their bedtime watching an anime with him that was probably less than appropriate for their age.  But they’d just loved it so much he’d insisted they binge half the series.  It was the closest thing to quality time with Megumi that he was going to get, as the kid begrudgingly sat on the couch next to him with his eyes glued to the screen.  Satoru did his best to cover their eyes when an unsavory scene played, which Tsumiki appreciated, but Megumi always pawed the man’s hand away so he could see what was happening.

“If you get nightmares, (y/n’s) going to kill me” He scolded, clamping his palm over the kid’s whole face to ensure he wasn’t going to catch sight of any true horror.

“I don’t get nightmares!” Megumi argued, trying to claw the hand off his face, but his efforts led nowhere, and he only found himself more annoyed as the man-child laughed at the attempt.

It was nearing the middle of the night when Satoru finally turned off the television and sent them off to brush their teeth.  Worried (y/n) would return soon and catch them in the act of disobeying her few rules, he rushed them with hurried claps and chanting to get them into their pajamas and under the covers.  It was Megumi who’d attempted blackmailing him, reminding him that (y/n) was going to know they were up late.  With an amused grin he’d given the boy a fiver.

“Five dollars?” Megumi gave him a bored look, remembering that shopping day with the magic black credit card that paid for his and Tsumiki’s back-to-school haul.  (And a few things for (y/n) too, no matter how much she protested)

Grimacing, Satoru smacked a twenty on his nightstand with the warning that any more, and he’d tell (y/n) he acted up all night and should be punished.  Megumi stuck his tongue out at the man as he flipped off the lights and shut the door for the night.

Joke’s on him, the boy thought bitterly as he settled into his blankets.  (y/n) would believe me over that grown child any day of the week, he thinks with certainty.  He wasn’t wrong.  If it was Satoru’s word against Megumi’s, the liar was evident in his charming smile and flashing eyes.

Satoru had just come back to the living room to clean up the small mess of blankets they’d made when the doorknob rattled with the familiar sound of a key unlocking it.  (y/n) dragged her feet as she made her way inside, a bit surprised to see Satoru awake and alert, her collection of throw blankets draped over his arms and shoulders.

“How’d the assignment go?” He asked as she kicked off her boots, flinging them towards the door with lazy movements.

“I completed it, let’s leave it at that,” She says, and he’d take concern in her words if they weren’t followed by a chuckle, and a small smile sent his way.  “Thank you for watching the kids, Satoru, I really appreciate it” 

He thinks back to this night often, as it was the beginning of (y/n) putting some trust in him as a caretaker.  

Every few weeks now he’d show up in the evening to put the kids to bed while she was out exorcizing curses.  Babysitting slowly morphed into him inviting himself over for movie nights, or even for no reason at all.  The kids- yes, Megumi too- grew used to the man showing up unannounced, before school while (y/n) made breakfast, or during pickup time right by her side, seemingly just as excited to greet them as she was.  He just seemed to be around, sometimes.  Tsumiki loved it, as it usually meant spoiling with toys and ice cream and whatever else (y/n) would let him get away with.  Megumi… tolerated it.  But at least he didn’t despise it anymore.

There was a morning (y/n) had gotten a call from Jujutsu Tech just as she was prepping their lunches for that day, and to her luck Satoru was there and happy to make their lunches for them so that she didn’t have to ignore what could potentially be an important call.

“Okay, just, do you mind making them a little drawing or note, too?” She’d rummaged through a messy cabinet drawer to produce a pack of post-it notes and a pink marker.  “I always leave them a message, or a doodle, or something” 

With her phone pressed between her shoulder and ear as she intently listened to whoever was on the other end, Satoru grinned as he accepted this mission, and got to work.

It wasn’t until she picked them up from school that (y/n) realized her mistake.  Megumi was clutching his stomach as he hobbled towards her in the courtyard, while Tsumiki was skipping along beside her brother, happier than ever.

“What’s wrong? Tummy hurt?” (y/n) knelt down before the boy, her hand resting over her forehead to see if it was a fever.  He groaned and practically fell against her.

“Carry me” 

It wasn’t like him, so she had to laugh as she slung his little backpack over her arm before lifting him up, hearing him groan and moan as all the sweets in his stomach sloshed around like poison.

“Gojo gave us candy! And cookies!” 

(y/n’s) head swiveled down to where Tsumiki was walking- well, still skipping- at her side. 

“What did you say?” 

“Gojo gave us sweets for lunch,” Megumi grumbled as his head slumped into her shoulder, his eyes squeezing shut as a particularly painful knot wound itself up in his stomach.  “And money” 

“What!?” (y/n) snapped, louder than she should have, as the other parents at pick-up gave her a mix of shocked and dirty looks.  Not that she cared.  Her kid was sick and it was because that idiot didn’t know what a vegetable looked like!

“I got fifty dollars!” Tsumiki cheered.

“I got a hundred” Megumi whined.

(y/n) gave the boy a few children’s tums as soon as they got back to the apartment, before tucking him into bed so he could hopefully sleep off the tummyache.

“You just rest, don’t worry about your homework, I’ll call the school if you can’t get to it tonight, okay?” 

Megumi only grumbled and groaned in his gratitude as he curled in on himself.  (y/n) frowned.  The poor kid was squirming around in discomfort and there wasn’t much else she could do about it.

Well, there was one thing…

“Hey sweetheart,” Satoru’s grin could be heard even through the phone.  “To what do I owe the pleasure of this call~?”

“Gojo Satoru, you get your ass to this apartment right now!” 

From her spot at the kitchen table where she’d been studiously doing her homework, Tsumiki perked right up at (y/n’s) hollering from the living room.  Her eyes went wide as she grinned with excitement.  She’d never seen (y/n) mad before, not like this anyways.

Just as she’d summoned him, the man himself stood before her in the living room, grinning as though he hadn’t just been screamed at.

“Pretty early in the day for a bootycall-” 

“Satoru!” (y/n) barked at him, her arms flying out as she placed her hands on her hips.  “Did you give the kids sweets and money for their lunch!?”

“Yeah, they loved it, right?” He looked proud, and she swore she could strangle him.

If she had a nickel for every time she didn’t strangle him…

Tsumiki couldn’t even pretend to do her homework while (y/n) went on a long rant about how much of an idiot was, followed by something about not knowing how to make a sandwich, and then the grand finale of her grabbing him by the wrist and yanking him down the hallway so he could see the effects of his unhealthy meal for Megumi.  Even as (y/n’s) scolding took on hushed whispers so as not to wake the sleeping boy, Tsumiki could still hear the harsh tone from down the hall.

When she was dragging him back towards the kitchen again, the young girl quickly picked up her pencil and kept her eyes on her paper.  She wasn’t fast enough, as Satoru noticed and stuck his tongue out at her.

‘Tattletale’ he mouthed at her.

She grinned back at him unapologetically.

(y/n) spent the next fifteen minutes giving Satoru a full tour of the kitchen, pointing out each and every item each of the kids loved, and then she dragged him through it all again to show him what they each disliked.  Tsumiki worked on her studies the whole time, and not once did she see the white haired man complain.  He certainly didn’t look pleased about spending his afternoon being scolded like a misbehaving pet, but he didn’t make a peep about it.

He even stuck around the rest of the afternoon to help out with any other chores (y/n) needed done, and he helped make dinner, too.  Well, (y/n) was the one instructing him on what to do, but Tsumiki found the meal to be edible, and actually semi-okay!

(y/n) let him get off easy, as long as he apologized to Megumi when he woke up.  Which he did, and which Megumi begrudgingly accepted.

He’s given the chance to completely redeem himself a few weeks later on a morning (y/n) made pancakes for breakfast.  He made the Fushiguro kids the perfect lunches as he’d called them, and he insisted only a heaping scoop of chocolate chips in his pancakes, not theirs.  (Though he did sneak a handful into Tsumiki’s grabby hands when she caught him dumping the entire bag into the batter).  He even added his own notes in their lunch bags, even though (y/n) had already put her own doodles in them.

Have a good day! Don’t forget to participate a lot so the teacher favors you and gives you good grades! He’d written for Tsumiki.

Make sure to tell (y/n/n) that this lunch was made extra special for you so i get some brownie points <3 Was Megumi’s note.

He rolled his eyes as he crumpled it up and threw it back into his lunch bag without a second thought.  When he’d brought it home that day and put it back in it’s spot in the cupboard he’d completely forgotten it.  So it sat there until the next morning when (y/n) was preparing their lunches again.

When she unzipped the bag to see the small piece of trash, she’d almost made the mistake of scolding Megumi for not throwing it away.  But for some reason curiosity got the best of her as she smoothed out the creases of the pink post-it, only to be gifted with a nervous swell of her heart.  She couldn’t explain why, but she tucked it away in her pocket and went about the rest of the morning with a smile on her face.  Megumi and Tsumiki were just glad to see her in a good mood, and didn’t question it too much.

The subject of the note didn’t come up again until the night of (y/n’s) twentieth birthday.

With it being such a big milestone, Shoko insisted on taking her out for the night.  She’d been twenty for a few months longer, and had been biting at the bit to have her best friend share nights with her on the dancefloor at the bar she’d been frequenting mostly alone.  Satoru would go with her sometimes as well, since he was of age too, but Shoko claimed it was no fun when he wouldn’t drink.  (y/n’s) birthday was a big deal.

So naturally and per Shoko’s demand, Satoru was set to babysit- as much as the Fushiguro kids hated the word- while Shoko took (y/n) out for the night.  And it went…

“Would you take the damn shoes off already? You’re going to break an ankle” Satoru’s arm shot out to stabilize the giggling, wasted girl stumbling beside him as he tried to guide her through her building’s lobby.

“No,” (y/n) shook her head defiantly before swatting his hand at her waist with the same attitude.  He didn’t move it, and she didn’t try to push off his help again.  “I loooove these shoes!” 

In an eager display she kicked her foot outwards, showing off the strappy heel that was already starting to untie at her ankle and droop a bit off of her foot.  To Satoru’s surprise, she actually kept her balance perfectly fine on one foot.

“Keep your feet on the ground,” He reprimands anyways, just as she goes back to walking normally.  “Don’t make me teleport you up there” 

“Don’t you dare!” She shouts back at him, and he has to fight off a laugh as he shushes her.

He’d seen (y/n) drink before, on the occasion Shoko or Suguru had managed to get their hands on anything, but he’d never seen her like this.  Although he’d been slightly annoyed when he’d been called to play designated teleporter and bring both girls home from their celebration at a club he’d never heard of.  The annoyance only increased tenfold when after the initial trip, (y/n) had warned him she was bound to be sick if he did it again.  Which led them here, with Satoru trying to corral her into the elevator at two in the morning.

He’d rought Shoko straight to the spare room, where she’d passed out on top of the covers without so much as a goodnight.  She’d wake up feeling like she’d been struck by a bus for sure, but at least she had no issue with the effects of teleporting.

She continued to grumble about her offense to his threat.  Satoru chuckled as he all but pulled her into the elevator.

“I’m not, I’m not,” He assured her, making sure she was steady leaning back against the wall before pressing the button for her floor.  “You’re not gonna get sick in here, are you?” 

She shakes her head, but her eyes are closed as she cranes her neck all the way back, grinning at who-knows-what.  Nothing amusing had happened- besides her own drunken antics- but Satoru finds himself infected by her, and he’s smiling as well.

“It was sooo m’ch fun,” She answered his unspoken curiosity.  “Shoko’s a realllyy good dancer, I had n’ idea” 

“I’m glad it was fun,” He tells her, and he means it.  Even when he has to guide her off the elevator and to her door like it was her first time there.  “You’ll have to take me dancing with you next time, I could show you some moves” 

Normally she rolls her eyes at his flirting, or hits his shoulder in that silent motion she always does to remind him that they were friends and she’d drawn a thick line in the sand just to prove it.  Tonight, she giggles like she couldn’t have kept her humor and joy contained if she tried.  Her teeth flash as she grins from ear to ear, her eyes crinkle and they smudge some of her mascara against her skin as they do but she doesn’t seem to care.  She doesn’t seem to notice.  She just smiles and laughs at him.

His heart warms, so much he worries it might melt completely if he leaves it there in the palms of her hands, but he lets it remain in it’s place anyway as he pauses at the door of her apartment, lingering in the hall for just a moment longer so he could admire her like this.

Happy.  Happy with him.

Satoru might be delusional, but her head tilts to the side, almost dropping to her shoulder from how heavy it feels, and he thinks from the look in her eye, that maybe she could be admiring him, too.

Reality is cruel and reminds him that even if she was, she wasn’t in the right state of mind, and she very well could have been lost in her thoughts.  So he pushes his sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose before unlocking the door and making sure she walked in okay.

“You’re home!” 

The excited cheer from Tsumiki is quickly drowned out by Satoru’s scolding.

“What are you both doing up?” He asked, uncharacteristically irritated with them.

“You left,” Tsumiki shrugged innocently.

Megumi, who sat beside her on the sofa, seemed to have fallen asleep against the armrest, his arms wrapped around his head for a better cushion as he continued to slumber, even through his sister’s loud shriek.

“And we wanted to give (y/n) her birthday present” The girl finished sweetly.

“It’s two in the morning, it’s not even her birthday anym-” 

“Awww!” (y/n) cooed as she clasped her hands over her mouth in shock.  “Tsu that’s so sweet of you! I can’t wait to see it!” 

It took some arguing, but Satoru eventually convinced (y/n) to get her ridiculous heels off while he put the kids back to bed.  Megumi didn’t fuss once when he picked him up off the couch.  He didn’t even bat an eye.  Tsumiki was a bit more upset with the trip back to bed.

“But she wants her present!” 

“You can give it to her in the morning,” Satoru told her.  “It’s late.  She’s going to crash.  Trust me, she’ll be far more excited about it tomorrow” 

Tsumiki pouted as she begrudgingly climbed into bed, but didn’t argue again after Satoru tucked her in and shut her door for the night.  She even gave him a small goodnight.

“Sweet dreams, kiddo” 

“Is (y/n) going to be okay?” She asked before he could shut the door all the way.  He laughed to himself, nodding his head.

“Nothing to worry about, she might just have a tummy ache.  She’ll sleep it off,” He assured her.  Tsumiki nodded back at him as she settled back into her feathery pillow, overwhelmed by her sleepiness rather quickly.  “Just get some sleep, I’ll take care of her” 

Tsumiki seems satisfied with this answer, as she nods and starts to drift off to sleep.  What Megumi lacked in faith in Satoru, Tsumiki made up for tenfold.  For starters, she seemed to actually like him.  She was always happy to have him as company, always trying to climb up to his shoulders and demanding he piggy back her anywhere they went.  Megumi tended to cling to (y/n’s) side, knowing she’d protect him from Satoru’s physical affections.  But secondly, Tsumiki could pick up on the sweet little things that her younger brother didn’t.  She noticed the way that Satoru listened when (y/n) was talking.  The way his eyes never lost focus when they were on her, the way his teasing picked up, as did the pet names.  Honestly, Tsumiki wasn’t sure if Megumi didn’t notice, or if he was completely ignoring it, because it was hard to miss.  

Satoru was very sweet on (y/n).

So when he said he’d take care of her for the night, Tsumiki believed him.

Before Satoru can make his way back to the living room where he’d left the plastered birthday girl, he could hear her across the hall, a soft voice through the open door opposite of Tsumiki’s.

He peeks his head through the crack in the door, about to chastise her for waking up the sleeping eight year old, but the scold dies in his throat as he catches sight of them.

She’s perched on the side of his bed, one leg tucked under herself as she hums a gentle, melodic tune.  One hand is combing through the mess of Megumi’s hair that’s grown tangled from his tossing and turning, and he doesn’t seem to stir or be bothered at all from the action like he usually is when someone touches his hair.  But even more out of character than that, when (y/n) reaches her free hand to grab the one that Megumi had hanging off his mattress, he lets her hold onto it for a lingering minute after she carefully sets it on a more comfortable place over his covers.  A few lyrics slip past her lips in a murmur of a lullaby amidst her humming.  She gives his hand a squeeze, just a gentle little affirmation to remind him that she was there.

Even from the doorway, Satoru can see the boy’s small fingers wrap around her hand, squeezing back, and then keeping his hold on her.  His initial surprise melts away into something softer.  A warm feeling washing over his chest from knowing that Megumi found a comfort in the woman’s presence, and while he was often too reserved to tell her outright, like his sister would, it was still known that (y/n’s) care for these kids was mutual, returned by the both of them greatly.

With a small smile, (y/n) glances over to Satoru in the hallway, as though to silently ask if he’d seen the small action.  He nodded back at her, before beckoning her to leave the room and let the boy sleep.

“Sleep tight, ‘gumi,” She mumbles softly, giving his head an affectionate scratch before pulling her hand from his hair.  “Love you” 

It was small, but undeniably heard when the half-conscious child mumbles back, “Love you too” 

(y/n) pauses as she’s standing from his bed, her eyes widening with soft surprise at the whispered words.  It hits her then that in the few times she’d casually bestowed them upon the kids it was never quite returned.  Megumi had drifted off to sleep just as her weight had shifted off his mattress, but still, she stood over him with a look on her face as if she expected an explanation.

Not that she needed one- the words spoke for themselves.  Her lips curled into a smile and the alcohol in her system wasn’t the only thing making her chest feel warm.  She gave his hand another squeeze before carefully letting go, making sure it stayed in a place where it wouldn’t hang off the bed again.

On the tips of her toes she leaves the room to join Satoru in the hall.  He makes sure the door is silent as he closes it behind her.

Her small smile breaks into a grin as she gazes up at him, unable to contain her excitement from hearing those silly little words.

“Did you hear that?” She murmurs as her hands grab the front of his shirt.  The quick motion almost has him stumbling as she bounces eagerly.  “He’s never said that to me before!” Her whispered squealing has Satoru mirroring her grin.

“I heard.  I’m happy for you sweetheart,” He tells her, trying to guide her to her room so she could finally crash for the night.  She stumbles along much more pliantly than she had before.  “Not that you needed him to tell you, of course the kid loves you.  They both do” 

A bashful shade of pink dusts her face as they enter her bedroom.  She falls back onto her bed with a content sigh, despite Satoru trying to get her to change into something more comfortable than the fitted little thing she’d called a dress that she’d gone out dancing in.

“I guess I knew that, but, still, it’s nice to hear,” She murmurs up at the ceiling as she stretches her arms across the length of her bed.  She’s bent over it, her toes barely touching the floor as her legs dangle off the side, but in her stupor she seems comfortable enough.  “Makes me feel like I’m doing something right, yaknow?” 

She pats the spot beside her with her hand, and Satoru drags his feet a bit as he wanders over and sits next to her.

“You don’t need to be told that either,” He muses.  

He rests his palms behind him as he lets himself get comfortable in her space.  When they still lived in dorms, he spent just as much time in her room as he did his own.  Now that he thinks about it, he was probably in hers much more than anyone else’s.  It hadn’t seemed weird back then, but now, it feels personal.  Intimate.  He wonders if she feels that way, or if the invitation into her most private space had been extended without a second thought.  Satoru pulls the shades off his face and tosses them to the side, between the two of them.

“They know you love them, too.  Always have,” He reassures her.  “You’ve done right by them.  You gotta know that” 

(y/n) tilts her head back against the covers, peering up at him from under heavy eyelids as he gazes down at her fondly.  Her room is only lit by the hallway light that’s peeking in through the crack in her not-quite-closed door, and the soft yellow hue paints over his face in a way that somehow makes him more alluring.  Her lowered defenses had her eyes wandering his features longer than she would have had her sober mind worked correctly and reminded her to shut down that curiosity.

That is, she stares at him until the heat in her face and the rapid beating of her heart overstimulates her and she makes herself look away before she says or does something she might regret.

When she does break her long stare, her eyes land on the familiar round shades that happen to be in arm’s reach, and she grabs them and pulls them over her face without a second thought.

Without permission, her mind wanders off to wonder what would’ve happened between them had they gone on that date all those months ago before they graduated.

It’s harder to make out her face with his oversized sunglasses covering her eyes, but Satoru can see her lips tug into a frown.  He’s about to ask her what’s on her mind when she speaks first.

“Would you stay the night?” 

Her fingers are wound into the soft fabric of her covers, fisting it tightly as though it kept her anchored.

“Shoko’s in your spare room already,” He chuckles as he reminds her.  “And she’s hogging the whole bed.  I think if I wake her up she’ll mur-” 

“You can stay in here,” She’s mumbling, half incoherently, but he hears her just fine.  “Like… before” She adds as an afterthought.

He can’t deny the way his heart lurches in his chest at the offer, and the reminder.  The nights he spent sneaking into her dorm to coax her into at least a few hours of sleep, until she’d learned again how to sleep through a night on her own, he’d hold onto forever.  He’d sworn to commit them to memory.  The way she’d melt into his arms, as though she’d only know comfort and solace when embraced by them.  The way she felt against him, against his chest, with her legs wrapped around his, with her face in the crook of his neck, with her hands gripping onto his shirt for dear life, with her heart beating against his.  Satoru had overindulged himself back then, he’d gotten too much of a taste of what domesticity with her could feel like.  Now he craved it, he desperately yearned for it.

The last time they’d even slept in the same room had been the night before their meeting with the Zen’in Clan.  And she’d been far from him, curled up on the floor with that damned letter in her hands.  Satoru wondered now if she still had it.  He wondered if she still slept clutching onto something.  He wondered if she was able to sleep soundly without him now.

He’s sure that he shouldn’t dip even a finger back into this addiction.  He doesn’t think he’ll be able to stand it when she inevitably tells him this is the last time, and pushes him away, again.  

Just like she had done when he’d tried to make them something more.

It’s just one assignment, sweetheart, he’d told her over the phone, knowing fully well that she was all done up on the other end, waiting for him to pick her up at their agreed upon time.  We’ll rain check, promise.

She’d taken in a shaky breath, he could hear it even through the phone, even with the downpour of rain in Yokohama.  He always wondered if she’d cried that day, over him, over the failed attempt at a date, over his failure at showing up for her.

I don’t think it’s a good idea, ‘toru, she’d spoken as evenly as she could, even though it made her voice quieter.

How ‘bout tomorrow, hm? You can pick the place this time, anywhere you want, s’on me- He’d tried to convince her before she could put an end to this thing before it’d even started- hell, they’d barely even had a chance, hadn’t they? 

But her mind had already been made up.  And with a breaking heart, she’d shut him down.

I don’t just mean tonight, she’d said.  I don’t think this is a good idea.

God, he should’ve just stood his ground to the higher ups like he usually did and made someone else take on this stupid assignment.  He wanted to blame them for ruining his one perfect chance with this girl, but at the end of the day, he’d let her decide.  He let her be the one to end it before it really began.

I just… I just need to think about the kids right now, she’d sighed through her words.  As far as excuses go, it wasn’t necessarily a bad one.  They need to come first to me and… and your future should come first to you, too.

He should’ve called bullshit.  He knows that now.  He shouldn't have sat there and agreed with her because he didn’t want them to fight.  Fuck.  He should’ve argued, even if it had meant fighting with her.  As long as it also meant he could’ve seen what she’d chosen to wear for their date, how she’d done her hair, her makeup, then it would’ve been worth it.

I know you’re favored far more over me, but we’ll both always have assignments, she’d explained it like he didn’t already know what this chapter of their lives would look like.  Then again, he’d sat there in silence and let her pour out reason after reason as to why they couldn’t do this.  

Satoru still wasn’t sure if it was him she was trying to convince that day.

And I… and I wouldn’t forgive myself if things didn’t… work… you know? She’d finished shakily, nervously.  For the kids’ sake, Satoru, she’d told him.  For your sake.  For my sake.

He’d agreed.  He’d stupidly agreed.  They never talked about it again after that phone call.  For the most part, nothing had changed.

Except that first time he’d seen her afterwards.  She had a hard time looking at him, and shifted her weight between her feet when he stood too close.  But over time they got back into the groove of their friendship.  He remained abundantly affectionate, and she remained oblivious to the less-than obvious advances.

It was a surprise to him now that she was blurring the lines between them- the lines she’d drawn.  Would it be reckless of him to indulge once more? Would it be painful in the morning when she shooed him away before anyone could know he stayed here, with her? 

Probably.

But what he says is, “Yeah, if you’re sure” 

He does manage to convince her into changing into the comfiest pair of pajamas she could find, so that when she woke it was one less discomfort added to the long list of grievances her hangover would have in store.  Somehow, he gets her to put on a change of clothes and brush her teeth before she’s crawling into her bed with a lazy smile.  It’s almost three in the morning at this point, but worrying about the time is far from Satoru’s mind as she settles into his side like it was still second nature.

Long after she’d dozed off tucked under his arm, he laid there awake, wondering how different things could have been, had he plucked up the courage to say no.  To say this will work, because we want it to work, because I want it to work, because I’ve wanted nothing but to be yours.

But tonight, the only one in this apartment with any guts is Megumi.  Only Megumi was strong enough to articulate how he felt with those special little words that were too heavy for Satoru’s tongue.

With bags under his eyes and sluggish muscles Satoru gets out of bed as soon as he awakes to make breakfast for the full house.  Megumi and Tsumiki are up first, eager for the breakfast buffet Satoru had managed to give them without the smoke alarm going off.  Shoko drags herself out to the kitchen not too long after, downing a full cup of water before bidding them good morning and snagging some of the potatoes before Tsumiki could dump them all on her plate.

Satoru and Shoko tell unflattering stories about (y/n) with great excitement for gossip to the kids while their missing caretaker slept in as late as possible.  Satoru had made sure to bring a cold face mask to her every fifteen minutes or so to keep her headache at bay and hopefully let her sleep as long as she could.  Once she awoke she was in for a world of hurt.  Each time Satoru left the kitchen to do this for her, Shoko turned to the kids with a knowing look and a snicker.

“They were in love in school you know,” She indulged in a more interesting piece of gossip during one of these times.

Tsumiki’s eyes widened as she grinned.  Megumi’s brows furrowed as he pressed his lips together tightly.

“He’d follow her around like a lost puppy, it was hilarious” Shoko shoved a forkful of carbs into her mouth with a fond smile at the memories of lovesick Satoru.

“He still does that” Megumi mumbles, staring down at the remainder of food on his plate.

Shoko beamed with her cheeks full, not at all surprised by the behavior, but endeared to know it hadn’t worn off in time.  Satoru had changed a lot in the last six months, although some might have a hard time noticing, those close to him could see the heaviness he carried on his shoulders with little mannerisms and micro expressions that even he might be convinced aren’t there.  To Shoko and (y/n), who knew the boy like the back of their hand, it was clear.

However she should’ve known that the feelings he’d held for (y/n) since they were fifteen weren’t the kind of feelings that could be worn away.

Satoru’s back in the kitchen attempting to make pancakes in the fun shapes that (y/n) does, desperate to impress everyone- mostly Megumi- but they come out a little more lumpy than hers do.  He complains about it the whole time.  Megumi and Shoko are indifferent.  Tsumiki reassures him that they’re delicious, like the sweetheart she was.

(y/n) joins them for a brief minute, dragging her feet, and a blanket, into the kitchen on a journey to get a big cup of ice water.  The plastic face mask that Satoru had just brought her was velcroed around her head, although loosely, as half of it stayed on her forehead and the other half slipped over one of her eyes.  She made no efforts to fix it.

Shoko’s giggling with great amusement at the state of her lightweight friend.  The blanket cape, the messy hair, the smeared mascara on her exposed eye, it was all too humorous.  She started to pull her phone out to take a picture, but knowing what she was up to, Satoru snatched the device and pocketed it discreetly.  He gave her a sour look, to which she rolled her eyes and went back to breakfast.

He’d fussed over her right away, asking what she was doing up, that he could’ve brought her anything she needed and that she should’ve just hollered.  The three at the table watch as he adjusts her mask for her, reattaching the velcro to fit her snugly, keeping the cool parts of the gel-filled plastic against her throbbing forehead.

Shoko cackles not-so-discreetly behind her hand when he asks her if she was alright for a fourth time.  After a solid minute of insisting that he’d get everything for her, she shuffles back to the comfort of her dark room.

Satoru is quick to fill a cup to the brim with ice and then water, and rather than walk the ten feet to her door, he teleports it to her.  Shoko rolls her eyes and shares a smile with Tsumiki.

“Yeah, nothing’s changed”

It takes a few hours for (y/n) to feel rejuvenated enough to take a shower and join the group lazing around the living room.  Shoko had stayed for the day, so Satoru insisted they take turns picking movies.  (y/n) appears like a woman brought back to life halfway through the second film.  Satoru and Shoko cheer for her revival as she plops on the couch between Tsumiki and Satoru.

“Can we give you your present now?” Tsumiki asks, to which (y/n) eagerly accepts, so she and her brother rush out of the room to retrieve it.

With the kids gone, Shoko can finally give her friends the interrogation she’d been dying to all morning.

“So, you still sleep together, huh?” She raises a curious eyebrow.

(y/n) sighs, dropping her head back against the couch cushion, still feeling too light headed for this conversation.  Satoru doesn’t say anything either, though (y/n) can’t tell if he’s avoiding the conversation, or just didn’t know how to explain himself.  It doesn’t matter, Shoko doesn’t have any more questions, and shortly after, the Fushiguro kids are running into the room again.

They each have a hand on the brightly colored gift bag as they hand it to her.  (y/n) beams at their excitement as she eyes all of the tissue paper they’d stuffed into the bag.

“You help with this?” She muses to Satoru, who shakes his head, looking just as curious as she was.

“We did it all ourselves!” Tsumiki said with a proud grin.

(y/n) pulls out wad after wad of tissue, placing them all on the coffee table as she digs for her gift.  When she finally does get to the bottom of the bag, her lips morph into an ‘o’ as she lifts the piece of art out from the bag.

Shoko’s eyes widen, and Satoru begins to laugh while (y/n) carefully holds the small clay sculpture in her hands.  It couldn’t have been bigger than her hand, but the details were made of delicate pieces of clay, and she worried that if she didn’t handle it with care, it could crumble at her touch.

It was two blades, intersecting to make a perfect X.  The handles sculpted and painted to look quite familiar.

“It’s your swords!” Tsumiki cheered, holding her hands to her face to contain her excitement.

“Wow, this is amazing,” (y/n) admired the sculpture further, taking note of every detail, from blade to hilt, it was a damn good replica.  “You both made this?” 

Tsumiki and Megumi each nodded.

“Tsumiki did the clay, I painted it” Megumi explained.

“We got extra credit in our art classes for it too!” 

Satoru’s laughter grew louder, and (y/n’s) eyes widened with realization as she looked back at the kids.

“You… you made this in school?” She asked, trying not to wince.  “Did you… get in trouble?” 

Sure, the piece was perfect, and their collaboration did deserve some bonus points, but had no administrator gotten upset that an eight and ten year old made a weapon for their art project? 

“I told our art teacher it was from an anime character” Megumi said sheepishly.  (y/n’s) posture relaxed with her relief.

“Smart call,” She chuckles, before setting it down and reaching out to them both to pull them into a hug.  “Thank you.  I love it.  I love that you made it together” 

She sets it on a shelf in the living room with a few other pieces of art and picture frames, making sure to have it be front and center.  Throughout the rest of the movie watching day, her eyes keep wandering to it, wanting to admire the thoughtful craft a little longer. _

Over the next few months, Megumi had been pouting a lot more often.

(y/n) wasn’t sure what it was.  She and Satoru would make his favorite meal for dinner, and he would eat it with a bored expression.  Even with a trip to the library, more practice with his Divine Dogs, extending his bed time for reading purposes only, the boy just seemed to be in a bitter rut.

At first she was worried for him, but Tsumiki had confirmed that nothing was happening at school, he wasn’t being picked on, and his grades, as always, were exceptional.  (y/n) didn’t know what that could possibly leave.

“I just don’t get it,” She huffed as she slumped down into the couch beside Satoru, who had been spending most of his free time at the apartment now.  Some nights he even stayed over, but he always took the guest room.

The night of (y/n’s) birthday had proven to be too much for him.  So when she offered him to stay the night, he made a beeline for the spare bed.  (y/n) never pushed him on it.  But sometimes when they parted ways in the hall, she’d stare at the back of his head, and wonder if he could tell that she’d rather he stayed with her.

Satoru is also caved into the couch cushions, legs spread out wide before him and his arms crossed over his chest.  He looked tired.  He’d spent the whole evening giving Megumi tips and tricks to summoning and befriending his shikigami, hoping to lift the boy’s mood, and maybe score some brownie points, but to no avail.  The boy seemed to have more of an attitude with him than usual, and Satoru wasn’t the best with kids, so he’d given up, and pushed the responsibility back onto (y/n).  Megumi had less of an attitude with her, but his annoyance was still noticeable.

“Do you think we did something?” She mumbles, turning to Satoru with wide, worried eyes, and pinched brows.  Then, she scoots closer to him, until they’re sharing one of the cushions.  He doesn’t flinch at her closeness, unless you count the small hitch in his breath.  “Do you think I did something?” She rephrases her question in an even more haunted whisper.

“No, no of course not,” He shakes his head at her, pushing his sunglasses to the top of his head.  “He’s a kid.  Kids are just jerks sometimes” 

“He is not a jerk,” (y/n) says with narrowed eyes.  Satoru shrugs back at her, tilting his lips into a smirk.  “But… he is a kid.  I guess he could just be… acting out” 

“I acted out all the time when I was his age” Satoru nods as he starts to understand some of Megumi’s behavior.

(y/n) rolled her eyes at him.

“You still act out,” She says, and he wants to act offended when he turns to her again, but it’s too cute when she’s pretending to be annoyed with him, so he finds himself smiling at her, almost proudly.  “You’re the jerk, you know” 

“Me?” He holds a hand over his chest, and she giggles quietly to herself at the act.  “You break my heart, Little Hex” 

Again she rolls her eyes as she leans her head back into the couch cushion, letting out her frustration and exhaustion from the day in a quiet sigh.  It had been a while since Satoru had called her that, a nickname he’d coined back in high school.  She could still remember the first time he called her that, with that saccharine smile and shining eyes, like he was waiting for a reaction.  Boy, did he get one.  Somehow with his predictable flirtations, he still managed to make her blush and fluster.  Even now, she felt her face warm at the fond nickname.

“You’ll get over it, Gojo,” She muses in response, letting her eyes fall shut.  “Hey…” She starts to speak again, but trails off, and her eyes are still closed when he looks over at her to give her his attention.

“Hm?” 

“Do you think… he misses his dad?” 

The question hangs between them for a minute.  (y/n) gnaws on her cheek as her eyes glaze over, getting lost in her messy trains of thoughts that were all beginning to collide.  It was no secret that Megumi held a resentment towards his father, more so than his sister, but (y/n) couldn’t help but wonder if a part of him, the part that was growing up, was starting to feel hurt by the space Fushiguro Toji had left behind.

“He might,” Satoru answers honestly, quietly.  (y/n’s) brows fall as her lips tug into a frown.  Of all the things she could fix, all the questions she could answer, that was one thing she had no control over.  “It’s probably complicated.  He might not think he does, you know?”

(y/n) nods absentmindedly, her teeth digging into her bottom lip now as she worries for the young boy.  

What was she supposed to do? All the love and support in the world wouldn’t make up for the man that was supposed to look out for them walking out.  His mother was one thing, he couldn’t even remember her.  But he had a face to his father’s name.  He had memories.  Maybe even love that he’d buried.  The thought makes her stomach twist with guilt.

“I barely remember my parents,” She whispers, and despite the fact that she’s staring at the ceiling with a hardened, fixed gaze, Satoru turns to her when she says this.  “They’re not gone… but they may as well be.  After I was enrolled at Jujutsu Tech…” 

She didn’t need to explain any further.  Satoru already knew the heartbreak she’d gone through as a young child, having non-sorcerers for parents that looked down upon jujutsu society.  She’d shared her story with him once, when they were no older than fifteen, and Satoru was certain he’d never shake a single detail out of his memory.  She held the same look in her eye now that she did back then as she recalled how she’d been shunned for not following a more ‘honorable’ path.

It wasn’t often she thought of her family- she hardly considered those people family anyways- but now they cross her mind as she empathizes with Megumi.

“It’s not the same, I know,” She sighs, shaking her head as though to erase their faces like an etch-a-sketch.  Even after all these years, she hasn’t quite forgotten them.  “But… losing family at a young age sticks with you,” 

Finally, she turns her head to one side, meeting his watchful stare.

“Whether you want it to or not” 

Satoru frowned.

“Missing people is hard like that,” He sighs.

Neither one of them have the strength to talk about him though, so he glides over the topic and brings their focus back to Megumi.

“But he’s still a little kid.  You give him a lot of credit for being so mature, it’s spooky, but he’s going to process things like a little kid,” He reminds her.  “You’re not doing anything wrong.  Neither is he.  He’s just…” 

“Processing” (y/n) mumbles softly.

He nods back at her, bringing his elbow to the top of the couch so he could prop his head in his hand.

“Have you ever…” Satoru trails off, deciding mid sentence if it was a good idea to ask her this question.  She waits patiently for him to continue, in need of any kind of advice on the situation.  “Have you ever thought about opening up to him? You know like… relating to him?”

She blinks, but the rest of her expression doesn’t change.  Not a single movement.  Satoru thinks he might have suggested the wrong thing, but before he can take it back, she gives him a small smile.

“You know, that’s actually not a bad idea,” She hums, and she can see he’s shocked that she thought so.  “You’re almost getting decent at this parenting thing” 

He chuckles, dropping his hand from his head to stretch his arm across the length of the couch, beckoning her to come closer.  She huffs in defiance, but doesn’t have any further protest as she slides closer to him, until their legs are pressed together and her head leans into his shoulder.

“I’m learning from the best” He chuckles like it’s a tease, but his words couldn’t have been more genuine.

It took some time for (y/n) to approach the subject with the boy.

But it was one night while they were walking home late together that just felt like the right time.  It was just the two of them, (y/n) had brought him to a secluded place in the woods they found where it was safe for him to practice summoning his shikigami, while Satoru stayed at the apartment with Tsumiki.

It was late, the sun had gone down an hour ago, and the streets had cleared enough to give them a bit of privacy as they made their way back to the apartment.

So she figured, here goes nothing.

“Has something been bothering you, Megumi?” 

At first he drops his head, staring down at the sidewalk as he mulled over the question.  If (y/n) focused enough, she could see the gears in his head turning, weighing his options, the pros and cons, thinking through the possibilities of where this conversation could go.  Had she not been worried about him, she might have giggled at how cutely the eight year old processed any question asked of him.

“You don’t need me to remind you that you can tell me anything,” She tells him honestly, glancing up at the stars beginning to shine through the night sky.  “You’re allowed to be upset about things, you know” 

“I know” He finally mumbles out, kicking a stray pebble in his path. 

On uneven edges, it rolls awkwardly onto (y/n’s) side of the path.  She gently kicks it back to his side.  They play this little game in silence for a few minutes, until Megumi kicks it with too much enthusiasm and it’s sent into the storm drain.  Teasingly, (y/n) tells him she’s won.

“I feel bad for being upset” 

She looks down at him upon this confession, tilting her head curiously, wondering what it could be that he’s been carrying that’s making him feel so lost.

“That happens sometimes,” She treads lightly.  “As long as you know that you shouldn’t.  You can’t help what you feel, you know” 

Megumi sighs, his shoulders slumping forward with a restlessness he was far too young to feel.

“I guess,” He replies, because he knows she’s right.  Still, it was hard to be comforted when there was a loom of guilt hanging over his head like a storm cloud.  “I don’t think I like love” 

(y/n) hums as she takes in the statement.  It was heavier than he’d realized, and it took her a minute to really think about it, about what he must be feeling.  She had a sneaking suspicion that this was about his father, after all.

“Love is complicated, isn’t it,” She sighs, and it’s not a question, moreso a statement of fact.  Megumi doesn’t say anything.  “The world will tell you it’s unconditional.  When in fact… people don’t work like that, do they?” 

He looks up at her, his eyes round with shock, like she’d told him a great secret that he shouldn’t have been allowed to hear.  Santa isn’t real, or this is all a simulation.

“Individual people are so different, and they’re meant to be, aren’t they?” This time she waits for his response, but Megumi can only muster up a nod.  She takes it.  “Everyone has their standards, their conditions.  Even you, right?” 

“I don’t like it when people are mean for no reason” Megumi comments, and (y/n) smiles as she nods at him, affirming that he understood what she was saying.

“Exactly,” She muses.  “It’s just… some people’s conditions… well, they’re unreachable.  Impossible.  Sometimes they’re outright dumb” 

Honestly, Megumi’s not sure where this little rant is coming from, but he finds himself hanging onto her every word anyways.  It intrigued him, the way she described love.  He’d never heard someone speak about it with such… distaste.

Usually adults tried to tell him that love is the ultimate happiness.  Romantic love, familial love, platonic love, whatever it may be.  He was always reminded that love was powerful, beautiful, transcendent.  To hear (y/n) speak of it now like it was a trick to be wary of was confusing to him, but he was intent on learning more.

“I’ve never talked to you about my family, have I?” She asks, and again, it’s less of a question, and more of a prompt, a catch for him to realize that no, she’d never mentioned anything about a family.  She only ever spoke of her classmates and colleagues at Jujutsu Tech.

Megumi shakes his head, feeling his guilt hovering over his head again as he realizes he’d never even thought to ask about the subject.

“Well, there’s a reason,” (y/n) says, easing some of his anxiety.  “They had conditions to their love.  Ones that I couldn’t meet.  Or, refused to, is more like it” 

“Really?” Megumi’s eyes widened with surprise.

“Yep,” She affirmed.  “They didn’t want me to be a jujutsu sorcerer” 

Now he looked like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.  His mouth dropped open and his eyes grew impossibly bigger.

“Why?” 

“They weren’t gifted like you and me,” She explains.  “They were non-sorcerers, had never even heard of jujutsu society.  So you can imagine their surprise when their kid started teleporting all around the house.  I was a handful, you know,” 

Megumi lets out a little giggle at the idea, and (y/n) smiles warmly that he’s starting to break down the walls he’d been building up around him in his seclusion.  

“I was no older than you when my cursed technique manifested,” She tells him.  “And it wasn’t long until someone from the school found me” 

“Just like you came to us?” Megumi asked.

(y/n) tilted her head from side to side.

“It was a bit different,” She admitted.  “They wanted to enroll me at the school, train me to properly hone my technique, teach me about the real world of jujutsu, it was a big ask.  A big change” 

“But your parents didn’t want you to go?” Megumi’s brows furrowed.

(y/n) nodded down at him.

“They forbid it” 

The boy shook his head, trying to understand, but he was struggling, too puzzled by this story.

“But, why?” He asked.  “Jujutsu sorcerers are good! You have cool powers- that- that can help people,” He looked up at her with his face contorted by his confusion.  “Why didn’t they understand?” 

(y/n) gives him a sad smile.  She’d asked herself that same question for years after she’d left her home in pursuit of something greater than it, greater than her.

She looks forward as they continue their walk, not too far from the apartment building now.

“They were so worried about losing their kid, that they didn’t think about the damage they’d do by keeping them from following their passion,” She told him the truth, as harsh as it sounded.  “And they ended up losing me anyways” 

It’s quiet for a few beats, until Megumi let out a soft, “Oh” 

“Megumi,” (y/n) calls, reaching down for his hand.  

He lets her grasp onto it.  They stop in their tracks, and he turns to face her.  She still has that small, sad smile on her face.  He recognizes this smile.  She wears it when she’s trying to make him feel better, when she’s trying to convince someone, or herself, that things are alright.  He’s seen this smile so many times now that he wishes she would just frown, but he knows she won’t.  He knows that until the day she leaves this earth she’s going to be the strong one, the one that protects them, no matter the cost.  He’d learned this shortly after meeting her, but he didn’t come to really understand it until the day he was almost taken away from her, and from his sister.

Megumi is a child.  And while (y/n) had grown older in age, and quite a bit in maturity, she really wasn’t that much older than him, in the grand scheme of things.  She’d given up more than just a summer vacation after graduating in order to take in him and his sister.  She’d never talk about it, but Megumi has picked up on the fact that if she wasn’t so busy playing caretaker, then she would have been able to pursue more of her real passion, exorcizing curses.  Sure, she still took plenty of assignments, but it was hard to take the big ones overseas, or the higher grade curses, because she couldn’t leave the two of them alone for too long.

(y/n) crouches before him now, his hand still in hers, and that melancholic smile still present on her lips.

“I believe that your dad loved you, so, so much,” 

His brows furrowed together.  My dad? He thought to himself, as if the words didn’t translate to his language, as if he couldn’t quite remember what they meant, or who they referred to.

“I believe that he did the things he did because he wanted to do what he could for you.  I know it doesn’t make sense now… and honestly it might never make sense.  But I think he was trying to do right by you both he just…” 

She trails off, and for a split second, that false smile falters, and falls into a sad expression that he’d rarely gotten to see on her.  Something snags in Megumi’s chest, an uneven beat of his heart, a pain in his ribs he wasn’t familiar with.

“He just didn’t know how,” She finishes softly, and just as quickly she’s crafting her face to be gentle and comforting again.  “But I’m sorry that he’s not here” 

Megumi tilts his head at her curiously, trying to speculate on what it was to make her say these things to him.

“That’s okay,” He says in a tone that has (y/n) feeling a bit confused too.  Her hand loosens around his, and he pulls away, about to continue their walk.  She quickly stands to walk beside him.  “I don’t really think about him anyways” 

“You don’t?” She asks.  Megumi shakes his head.

“No, he doesn’t really matter, does he?” 

Wow, (y/n) thinks.  What an emotionally mature child.  But if it wasn’t his absent-now-dead father bugging him, what had been on his mind?

“Hey (y/n),” Megumi calls before she can ask him her question, and she gives him her attention.  “What are your conditions?” 

“My conditions?” She repeats, although she knows what he means.

“Yeah” Megumi replies in a small voice.

“Silly kid,” She giggles and ruffles his hair, much to his annoyance, but he doesn’t swat her hand away, just glares at her as he fixes the messy raven locks.  “I’m the exception to the rule of course.  I have no conditions when it comes to loving you two” 

“Corny,” He mutters with fake malice.  “But what about Gojo, then?”

With a raised brow, (y/n) looks down at the boy, waiting for him to complete the question.  Megumi just stared up at her expectantly, his head cocked towards one shoulder.

“What about Gojo?” She repeats with a tilted inflection, wondering what he was getting at.

Megumi huffs with more annoyance than she could’ve thought his little body was capable of holding.

“Well, don’t you love each other?” He asks, exasperated, like he’d been holding onto this fact for too long, like it was heavy, and he was tired of lugging it around.  “Isn’t that why he’s around all the time? Isn’t that why he never leaves anymore?” 

(y/n’s) lips part in surprise, ready to say something, anything to deflect, or excuse, but she can’t think of a decent enough argument, and she finds herself remaining in silence as they approach their building.

“He’s so obnoxious,” Megumi continues, and (y/n) watches him with a strange curiosity as he goes on to speak.  “He’s loud.  And annoying.  And too touchy,” 

She chuckles fondly to herself, as she couldn’t help but agree with all of Megumi’s grievances with the man.  Of course these were all traits she’d found some way to appreciate.  

He was loud, but he spoke up for others, and had he not done so on her behalf, she might not be here with Megumi now.  He was annoying, but he made it known that he enjoyed spending time around her, and he’d remember all of the things she said she liked or disliked.  He was touchy, but it was just the way he showed affection, every touch, whether it be to hug her goodbye, to pull her to sit closer to him, to comb her hair with his fingers so she could fall asleep peacefully, it all just meant that he cared.

Thinking about it now, her face began to heat up, and her heart began to beat erratically in her chest.  Had Megumi figured it out for her? Had she really grown to love all of those things?

“He doesn’t ever stop talking about you,” Megumi goes on, drawing her out of her thoughts and back to his rant.  “Especially when you’re not around.  He just goes on and on.  About high school, about how cool you are, how pretty you are, how strong you are,” 

Despite his irritation, Megumi’s cheeks begin to burn too, a little embarrassed to be passing this information on.

“And when he makes my lunches, even his notes are about you.  And they’re stupid.  But he’s stupid,” He rolls his eyes between complaints.

(y/n) thinks back to the little post-it she’d snagged from his lunch box a few months ago.  There had been others? She was curious now about what they said.  Did he do it every time he made their lunch?

“And Shoko said you were in love once,” 

Her attention returns to the boy again, eyes round and lips still parted, still waiting to say something that wasn’t coming to mind.  Shoko said that? 

“Are you not anymore?” 

He looks up at her just as they approach the front doors to their building.  (y/n) swallows the lump in her throat as she pushes it open, letting him inside first.  The warm air in the lobby is welcoming, and she pops open the buttons to the light jacket she’d worn to help keep warm during the chilly fall night.

Megumi was still staring at her as they made their way through the lobby to wait for the elevator.  She knows he was expecting an answer, a real one, but truth be told, (y/n) wasn’t sure what the answer even was.

“We were young,” She sighs out eventually, shaking her head as she struggles to come up with the rest.  “Did we have feelings for each other? Maybe, but I don’t know about love.  We were close friends.  Still are” 

She thinks this is a good answer.  It’s the truth, and it’s enough of an explanation to quell Megumi’s curiosities.  She thought wrong.

“Well, what about now?” He asks, stuffing his hands into his coat pockets.

“You’re nosey tonight,” (y/n) chuckles, trying to nonchalantly brush him off and leave their conversation at that.  But Megumi continues to stare at her with furrowed brows.  “What?” She laughs nervously at him, raising her hands in mock defense.  “What more is there to say?”

“Shoko said you were in love,” He deadpans, and (y/n) makes a mental note to cuss out her friend for gossiping with literal children about her love life- or more accurately, lack thereof.  “So what was the condition that you don’t anymore?” 

“I never said I didn’t-” 

“So you do?”

They stare at each other in silence.

There’s a ding! And the elevator doors before them slide open.

(y/n) ushers Megumi in without a word, and he excitedly pushes the button for their floor.  (y/n) crosses her arms as the doors close again.  Her foot taps anxiously on the floor.

“Is this why you’ve been upset lately?” She finally speaks as the elevator begins to move.  Megumi looks up at her, but her eyes remain focused on the changing numbers on the panel as they pass each floor.  “Satoru’s been around more and you don’t like him?” 

“I didn’t say I didn’t like him,” Megumi mutters, annoyed at having to admit such a thing.  (y/n) lets out a small chuckle.  “He’s just annoying.  I don’t know why you do,” He explains.  “You’re cooler than him” He adds in a smaller, more bashful voice.

“Can’t argue there,” (y/n) hums in amusement, smiling down at him fondly.  “But you don’t have anything to worry about, ‘gumi,” She says, and seeing as he’s trapped in the small space, when she reaches down and snatches him up with the excitement of finding a stray toad on her path- he can’t do anything but squeal and thrash his arms in protest.  “You’re the only one for me, Fushiguro Megumi!” She cheers in a loud, lovesick manner.

The elevator doors open, allowing anyone on their floor to hear the boy’s screams of torture and giggles of delight when (y/n) tosses him over her shoulder to tickle him relentlessly.

“(y/n)!” He screams her name in choked up pleas of mercy.  “Stoooop!” 

His hollers fell on deaf ears as (y/n) cackled the whole way to the door.  She didn’t let up until she had to fish for the keys in her pocket.  Megumi huffed, hanging limply over her back, panting as he caught his breath, his laughter finally dying down.

“You’re a jerk” He muttered in defeat.

(y/n) cackled as she got the door open, and Megumi’s body was practically swinging behind her back as she hauled him inside.

Much to the delight of Satoru and Tsumiki, who had been sitting at the kitchen table, having a little spa day.

So while they were laughing at Megumi’s distress, (y/n) was laughing at the sight of Satoru with a big fluffy pink headband, the one Tsumiki used for the couple of times that (y/n) would let her do face masks with her.

His hair stuck out in every direction under the big bow on top, and there was a green substance smeared all over his face that (y/n) could only hope was from the rejuvenating face mask tube that she kept with her things in the bathroom.  And better than that- Tsumiki was halfway through painting his names.  He had one hand flat on the table, the polish still drying, while the ten year old held his other hand to carefully apply the color.

“Oh my god,” (y/n) couldn’t help the string of giggles that escaped her, and she finally set Megumi back on the ground so that he could also appreaciate the entertainment.  “You girls have a nice day to yourselves?” 

“Yeah!” Tsumiki cheered.  “We watched a romance anime and Gojo’s letting me paint his nails and we were talking about boys and we’re doing face masks!” 

(y/n’s) still laughing as she kicks off her shoes, before neatly setting them on the small rack by the door with the other smaller pairs of shoes.  She shrugs off her coat and drapes it over the couch before making her way further into the room so she could see what color Tsumiki had chosen for Satoru’s manicure.

“She said we were doing facemasks,” Satoru deadpans as (y/n) peers over the girl’s shoulder.  “But she chickened out” 

“Did not!” Tsumiki argued.  “I just only have one headband.  I didn’t want to get any in my hair” 

(y/n) continues to giggle when she finally gets a look at Satoru’s hands.  Tsumiki had all of her polishes on the table, so each finger was a different color.  Mostly variations of pink and purple, but there was one green and one blue in there too.  When she meets his gaze, he’s silently pleading with her, but her mouth twists into a grin that tells him she was not here to bring him to a merciful end.

“Very good job you’ve done here, Tsumiki,” She praises the girl instead.  “Satoru has never looked prettier!” 

He should’ve rolled his eyes and quipped back some sarcastic remark, but Tsumiki was finally painting his last fingernail and it would all be over soon.  So instead he grins from ear to ear, taking her half-insult as a compliment.

“Why thank you, (y/n/n).  Finally, I’m appreciated for my beauty” 

(y/n’s) the one who rolls her eyes.

Once Tsumiki applies the last stroke of glittery pink polish on Satoru’s pinky nail, (y/n) tasks her with cleaning up the mess on the table.  It appears she’d been ready to give the man a full makeover, looking at all the makeup, nail polish, and hair supplies littered over the surface.

“Come on pretty girl, I’ll get the mask cleaned off your face,” (y/n) beckons for Satoru to follow her towards the bathroom.  “We can’t have you ruining your pretty manicure” She snickers as the pair disappear down the hall.

Megumi helped his sister gather her things back into the boxes she kept them neatly organized in.

“How did it go with your dogs?” She asked curiously.

“Good,” He answers.  “(y/n) is in love with Gojo” 

His sister stares back at him with wide eyes, and a slow grin creeping over her face.

Meanwhile, (y/n) is sitting Satoru down on the lid of the toilet while the sink water runs until it’s warm enough that it won’t be a shock to his skin.  Once it’s ready, she wets a corner of a washcloth and carefully begins to wipe off the creamy face mask.

“I can’t believe you let her do this” She murmurs, bringing the rag back under the running water to rinse away the excess paste.

“(y/n), as a dear friend, I need you to be honest with me,” He says, and her eyes lock on his, her hand stalling in it’s ministrations, holding the rag to his brow as she gives him her undivided attention.  His expression looks grave.  “Is this going to absolutely fuck up my pores?” 

His eyes are wide like he’s never been more afraid of anything in his life, and (y/n) can’t help but burst into laughter as she goes back to cleaning away the cream on his forehead.

“Well, it shouldn’t,” She says, and Satoru visibly relaxes.  “But I don’t know what she was thinking putting so much on your face” 

“Maybe she just wanted to be close because I’m so devilishly handsome” He smirks up at her, and she lets out another laugh, turning back to the sink again to rinse the rag.

“I think she just wanted to play dress up with you” (y/n) mused.

“I think she just wanted to have girl talk,” Satoru replied.  “Which apparently I’m quite good at.  If you’re ever interested” 

Another giggle escapes her as she gets to work cleaning away the cream on his cheek, being careful as she drags the rag slowly under his eye.  She’s focused on her work, but Satoru can’t draw his attention away from her.  He couldn’t remember the last time she stood so close to him, and right now her face hovered just a few inches away from his.

It was hard to keep his hands firmly planted on his knees, and not hold her by the waist and draw her into the space between them.  But then he’d ruin his manicure.

“I didn’t realize she was getting so interested in boys,” She hums thoughtfully.  “Any juicy details?” 

“Not really,” Satoru shrugs.  “I told her to start playing hard to get if she really wants to get someone’s attention.  She said she didn’t want their attention.  She just likes making friends with the cute boys in her class” 

(y/n) laughs softly and shakes her head, but she can’t help but smile proudly to herself.

“That’s my girl,” She praises, even though Tsumiki wasn’t present.  “She doesn’t need boys right now.  She’s doing great in her classes” 

Satoru shrugs a shoulder.

“You enjoy girl talk, hm?” She asks.

Admittedly, she could have cleaned his face of all this face mask cream by now, but she couldn’t help her slow movements.  The longer she dragged this on, the longer she could stand right in front of him and stare at his pretty features.  Her conversation with Megumi was still on the front of her mind, and while she’d brushed off the boy’s questions about her feelings minutes ago, standing before Satoru now, she wasn’t so sure she could deny them.

She’d known for a long time that she harbored strong feelings for him.  While at first she’d squashed them down because she refused to admit she’d fallen for an arrogant fool like him, over time, she’d come to understand him better, and soon he’d become one of the greatest people she’s ever known, and she wasn’t so sure she’d ever meet anyone like him again.

But things got messy. She got involved with the Fushiguro’s, [redacted] defected, and now that they’ve graduated and are trying to lead their own lives, it just got too complicated.

It didn’t help that when he’d tried to take things to a more than platonic level, she’d shot it down as soon as things got tricky.  As soon as he got called into an assignment the night they were going to go out, she’d closed herself back up, rebuilt the wall around her, and told him it was never going to work, so they may as well never try.

She’d done the right thing, right? 

Trying not to stare too long at him now, she wasn’t so sure.

“Oh, I quite love girl talk,” Satoru grinned.  “No wonder you and Shoko always snuck off.  Hey, you ever talk about me?” His grin turns into a smirk as his bright eyes try to catch hers.  She pretends to be too focused on clearing the green goop off his nose.

“Only when I needed to complain,” She muses affectionately.  “I’m sorry to say most of our gossip involved Ijichi” 

“That kid that’s a manager?” He asked with a furrowed brow.  “That’s your type?” 

He sounded annoyed, and confused.  (y/n) chuckled, turning back towards the sink for another rinse.

“No,” She shakes her head, and Satoru readjusts his posture, sitting up a little straighter with his confidence returned.  “But he was always smitten with Shoko.  I think eventually he was so into her she couldn’t help but take an interest in him, too,” 

Satoru nods, pursing his lips as he thinks back on it.  There were a few times that she’d blown off plans to twirl her hair at the younger boy.  He’d always thought she was just messing with him, now he wonders if anything ever came of it.

“I think they hooked up a couple times,” (y/n) indulged in a quieter voice, her eyes meeting his with a curious excitement he hadn’t seen in a while.  “She never admitted it.  But I’ve seen the hickeys.  That’s all I’m saying” 

Satoru laughed with delight.  He really did enjoy girl talk.  He also enjoyed seeing (y/n) this happy.

“Well geez.  I guess I’ll have to hit her up on that.  What’s she got on you, huh?” 

Her brows pinched together as a scoff of a laugh escapes her, her lips stretching into an awkward smile.  Her eyes meet his and they’re prodding, eager to hear more of this juicy content.

(y/n) shakes her head as more nervous laughter bubbles up.

“Afraid you’ll be rather bored, ‘toru” She hummed, going back to scrubbing the cream off of his other cheek.

“What, no time for boys?” He leans forward, making her stall in her movements, and bringing her gaze back to his.  Her eyes flicker between his for a moment, trying to figure out why he was asking this of her now.  He knows the answer to this question.  Why was he even asking it?  

Her head tilts at him in a small movement as she thinks through her answer, her eyes never leaving his.

“That’s private” She murmurs, just to gauge his reaction.

It was a pleasant one indeed.  Only because she got an up close look was she able to see the twitch in his brow, the slow locking of his jaw before quickly relaxing it.  So the notion that she did have something to tell bothered him.  Interesting.

“So you have a little time for boys, then?” He asks, and the grin that stretches on his lips is anything but eager.  It’s counterfeit.  And almost poisonous.

“Why the sudden interest?” She hums, straightening her posture and going back to cleaning his face.

“Why the sudden need for privacy?” He asks, leaning forward again, seeing as she’d tried to put a few inches of distance between them.  Her eyes briefly catch his, but she’s quick to return her focus.  “I thought we said no more secrets” 

A humorless laugh escapes her throat as she shakes her head at him.

“Satoru, how many times are you going to assume I’m hooking up with someone when I’m not?” She asks, only half-teasing.

“Hey, that’s not all on me, you were the one sneaking around in the middle of the night! A bootycall was the only logical answer” 

“Except it wasn’t, and it isn’t” (y/n) reminds him.

“I’m still not totally convinced” He grumbles, rolling his eyes away from hers as he mulled over the scraps of evidence in his head.

“I can’t tell if you’re being nosey or completely jealous” She muses.

“Can’t a guy be more than one thing?” His eyes are on hers again in an instant as he grins up at her, this time with his usual charm that he tried to pull.

“Sure you can,” She grins back at him.  “And you’re predictable” 

His grin falls, but not completely.  His lips are still curled into a soft smile as he stares up at her.  It’s quiet for a moment, and there’s still some green mask left on his chin, but it’s momentarily forgotten as she gets lost in his stare.

She supposes she’d get jealous, too, if he started talking about seeing someone else.  Someone else, she thinks to herself, a small crease forming between her brows.  And that wasn’t fair of her to think, was it? He wasn’t hers, she’d made sure of that herself.  But fuck, if the idea didn’t make something nasty twist in her gut.

“I’m not seeing anyone,” She blurts out, as if it wasn’t already clear to him that this was the case.  “If that’s what you’re getting at.  I don’t know why, you know I-” 

She stops herself before something she doesn’t want to say out loud.  He tilts his chin at her, curious to hear the rest of what she was going to say, but judging by the way she presses her lips together in a small smile, he gets the feeling that she’s swallowed her words.

Silently, she wipes the last patch of green cream off of his chin, and turns around to rinse the wash cloth thoroughly.  After working out all of the mask from the cloth, she rings it out and drapes it over one of the towel bars to properly dry.  When she turns back to Satoru, he’s raising his hands to pull the headband off.

“Wait,” Her voice is soft but it still stops him as she reaches out towards him.  “I’ll get it,” She tells him as she loops her fingers through the fluffy band.  “I was serious about not messing up your nails” 

A small giggle escapes her as she slides the headband off, letting his hair fall around his ears and over his forehead.

“I appreciate that you care about my manicure” He half-teases.

Absent-mindedly, she brings her fingers bag to his hair, sweeping a few loose strands away from his eyes.  She doesn’t even realize what she’s done until her eyes meet his, and suddenly she’s retracting her hand and staring back at him with wide eyes.

“I- sorry-” 

“Don’t be,” Satoru smiles at her as he stands from the seat, stretching his tired limbs after sitting there for the last fifteen or so minutes.  “You want help making dinner tonight?” 

Just like that he’s strolling out of the bathroom with her in tow, telling her all of the ideas of things he wants to learn to cook.  A lot of his list is baked sweets, but she listens to him ramble on anyways.  It’s a good distraction for her to calm her racing heart. _

It’s a horrendously chilly day in december when paths cross that (y/n) would have never expected.

She, Satoru, Shoko, and the Fushiguro kids had been out for the day.  It had started with a breakfast that they’d tried to make happen weekly, but had quickly turned into strolling around the shops in Tokyo so the kids could make their christmas wish lists.  This of course was more or less a grocery list of things that Satoru was bound to buy as soon as he received this list, but it was fun for everyone nonetheless.

They’d just walked out of a pet shop, despite (y/n) making it clear that there would be no pets for christmas, claiming Megumi’s dogs were enough.  She was reminding Tsumiki- and Satoru- of that fact as they walked out.

“What do you need a hamster for? Isn’t Megumi feisty enough?” She’d laughed as she’d pulled her hat over her head to keep her ears safe from the nippy cold breeze.  Megumi gives his sister a wide grin, maybe out of pride, even.

“Because they’re so small and cute and fluffy-” 

“Not helping, Satoru,” She swatted at his arm to stop him from getting Tsumiki’s hopes up, before turning her attention to the girl.  “We’re not getting a hamster” 

Just as Tsumiki’s pouty face was almost starting to work, (y/n) catches sight of an old familiar face, and her attention is quickly ripped away from the present as a beam stretches over her mouth.

“Nanami!” 

He’s across the street, so she has to jog to get to him and catch his attention, leaving everyone else without much more of an explanation.

“Been awhile since I’ve seen Nanamin,” Shoko’s the first to speak, as the rest of them are staring at (y/n) as she catches up with the blonde man.  Megumi and Tsumiki watch on with surprise, and a little confusion.  While Satoru’s eyes narrow into a glare behind his shades.  “He looks… good” 

This turned his glare towards the woman, who pursed her lips and shrugged a shoulder.  “What?” She asked innocently.  “The haircut suits him” 

When Nanami Kento finally hears his name and sees (y/n) making her way to him, he lights up.  Recognition turns to delight as she approaches him, and when her arms open wide, he steps closer so that she can throw them around his neck and hug him like he was an old friend, and not just a past acquaintance that had shared trauma.

“Don’t remember them being so close” Satoru huffs, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his coat so that no one could see the way they ball into tight fists.

Hearing the odd seriousness in the usually overly-cheery man’s tone had Megumi looking up at Satoru out of curiosity.  He wore a grimace, even with the shades covering his face, it was perfectly clear.  When the boy glanced back towards where (y/n) was animatedly talking with the man he sort of recognized, an idea brewed in his head.

Tugging on the puffy sleeve of Tsumiki’s coat, Megumi gave her a look, making her follow his line of sight from Satoru’s evil eye, to where (y/n) and her supposed friend from high school were reconnecting.  Tsumiki looked back and forth a few more times, noting how Gojo’s brow furrowed particularly harder as (y/n) grabbed the man’s arm and began to lead him back towards them.

As Nanami and (y/n) grow nearer, Satoru does his best to relax his features, but with the way she’s talking to him so enthusiastically, smiling and gesturing with her hands, he can’t help but have some intrigue.

Questions like when the hell did they get so buddy-buddy? And since when did Nanamin know how to smile? Flooded his mind.  He was dying to know what it was that you were talking about that had you both looking so… engaged.

“Your jealousy’s showing,” Shoko snickered, knocking her elbow into Satoru’s.  He sent her a half-playful scowl, which only made her grin in amusement.  “And here I thought you grew out of that?” She teased.

Meanwhile, and as oblivious as ever, (y/n) had been filling Nanami in on all of the excitement she’d endured since graduating.  He congratulated her, and asked all of the appropriate questions about the kids and the beginning of her career as a jujutsu sorcerer.

“You have to come properly meet the kids,” She’d told him, gesturing back to where the oddball looking group stood outside of the pet shop.  

Nanami glanced over, briefly catching Gojo’s nasty gaze before he smoothed it out into something more friendly.  It didn’t look remotely authentic, but it didn’t help that Shoko was cackling and knocking her arm against his, as though calling him out for his behavior.  He supposed some things would never change.

(y/n) was linking her arm through his and walking with him back towards everyone before Nanami could find a way to politely decline the offer.  It was nothing against the Fushiguro kids, (y/n) made them out to be pleasant little angels, but he had a feeling that Gojo wouldn’t be too keen on her inviting him over.  Especially not arm in arm.

“So you and Six Eyes finally made it work, huh?” The blonde asked, semi bitterly, semi curiously.

(y/n) ducked her head to hide the blush dusting over her cheeks.  Although she supposed it was cold enough outside she could play it off as a chill, she had a feeling Nanami would see through the lie.

“Uh, not exactly.  I mean- not like you mean, anyways.  He helps with the kids a lot” She stammers over her explanation, not knowing the proper way to define their relationship.  Friend seemed too informal and broad to describe what they shared.  Partner was… well, there was a certain connotation there, wasn’t there? Rather than try to find a label for it, she decides instead to shut her mouth.  

Nanami chuckled.

Some things really would never change.

“Still got him to settle down though, hm?” Nanami hums, watching as Gojo ruffles up the hair of the little boy, who then proceeds to turn around and growl at him, smacking at his hand.

This was (y/n’s) little angel? Nanami wondered as the two began to bicker like they were both children.  He couldn’t hear what they were arguing about, but from what he could see, he had a feeling the boy was in the right.

“So he’s… good with the kids?” Nanami asks, and the pair watch as Satoru’s solution to end the bickering was to lift up the kid by his ankle, dangling him in the air.

(y/n’s) eyes momentarily widen, and she jolts as if she’s going to run at the two- probably to scold Satoru and cradle Megumi in her arms like he was younger than he was- but she just as quickly relaxes as Satoru plops the boy on his shoulders.  Megumi is still scowling, but appears to relax and let's Satoru hold him by the ankles while he sits.  (y/n) makes a mental note to take a picture of them later when they’re not paying attention.

“Sometimes,” She finally answers Nanami’s question.  “Tsumiki loves him.  Megumi won’t admit it… but I know he likes him more than he lets on” 

“So you’ll raise kids together, but you won’t put a label on things?” Nanami chuckles.

She looks over at him with a half smile and a raised brow.

“You sure care a lot about my love life, Nanamin~” She points out.  “So what is it? You got a special someone that’s got love on your mind?” 

He laughs again, not because she’s right, but because it was so like her to deflect like her life depended on it.  She had gotten better at it since the last time he’d seen her, too.

When they do approach the rest of her group, Satoru’s line of sight is firmly set on the place where (y/n’s) elbow is hooked around Nanami’s, and it stays there while she introduces the kids to him.  He doesn’t look up, or even force a polite smile, until Shoko is stepping forward and making them split up as she hugs Nanami.

Then, and only once (y/n) stepped closer to Satoru, putting some distance between her and the ex-sorcerer, does he relax.  Megumi groans and kicks his feet out of Satoru’s hold, annoyed by the way he’d gripped his legs.  During the pleasant small talk (y/n) and Shoko makes with the man, Satoru remains silent.  Behind his shades his eyes are piercing and although Nanami can’t quite see it, he certainly feels it.  It’s a bit unsettling, but just like in high school, it was more irritating than anything else.  

Despite barely speaking to him, before the blonde man goes to part ways, Satoru scribbles something down on a receipt he’d found in his pocket, and passes it off to him.  Nanami’s surprised to see it’s a phone number.

“For if you ever want to get back out there,” Satoru said with a nod.  Nanami blinks as he stares at the Six Eyes user, and then back at the receipt.  “I’d get ya back on the field in a jiffy, no questions asked” He continued with a grin, before making a point to sling an arm over (y/n’s) shoulders.  She stumbles as he pulls her against his side, caught off guard by the sudden affection, but she relaxes just as quickly, and doesn’t appear upset by the action at all.

“Thanks” Nanami settles with a small nod of his head.  He doesn’t think he’d ever go back into the world of jujutsu sorcery, but the proposal was still a thoughtful one.  Especially so when he thought he’d been on the man’s shit list for merely talking to (y/n).

They say their goodbyes and part ways with a weak promise of brunch sometime.

Shoko is dragging Tsumiki into the next boutique, saying something about hair accessories that should be on her wish list.  Leaving (y/n) and Satoru to follow behind, with Megumi still perched on Satoru’s shoulders.

(y/n) tucks her hands into the pockets of her coat, stepping out from under his arm, but still walking closely by his side.

“You really think he’ll come back?” She asks after a beat passes, too curious about his thoughts to wait until another time to bring it up.

“I don’t know,” He answers honestly, shrugging his shoulders, although the movement is stiff and awkward with Megumi resting on them.  He giggles a bit at the movement.  “But he looked… bored, didn’t he?” 

When he looks down at her to gauge her reaction, she gives him a small nod.

“Figured a change of pace would be good for him” Satoru finished.

“Maybe you can train him again (y/n),” Megumi pipes up.  He leans over Satoru’s head, resting his arms across the white locks before setting his chin against the puffy sleeves of his coat to rest.  “Like me” 

She smiles up at him sweetly, and nods her head again.  Truthfully, Nanami’s abilities nearly surpassed hers back in the day, but she had no problem with letting Megumi believe she was stronger than she was.

“Maybe then I’ll get good at teaching,” She said, eyes flickering down to Satoru, who beamed at the idea.  “Jujutsu Tech always needs more teachers” She shrugs a shoulder at the thought.

But for now, she tables the idea, putting her focus back into entertaining the kids for the day.  As long as they had a good holiday season, full of the spoiling and love they so deserved, she’d be content.

___

On the third day of February, Gojo Satoru shows up at the (y/l/n)-Fushiguro apartment like a madman that evening.  He appears out of thin air in the living room, and his worried state only escalates when he finds the room empty.  It’s late enough that without the lights, the room is dark, but early enough in the evening that there should have been some form of life in the apartment.

He’s quick to scour through the hallways.  He finds Tsumiki asleep in her bed, and carefully closes the door behind him.  When he turns to Megumi’s room, the boy is still awake, happily reading with the clip-on light on the cover of his book- a gift he’d gotten from (y/n) this past holiday.  When the man practically barges into the room, he’s not as alarmed as he should be.  Satoru appearing out of nowhere had become such a regular occurrence that it would be silly if he still flinched at his sudden presence.

“Sorry, kid, shoulda knocked,” Satoru apologizes sheepishly.  “(y/n/n) here? She didn’t go on a mission, did she?” 

It wouldn’t be like her to take on an assignment and leave the kids alone at the apartment.  Then again, it wasn’t like her to ignore his texts and calls all day.  Eight texts, three phone calls, to be exact.

She’d ignored Shoko’s, too.  Hence is panic and instantaneous arrival at her residence.

Megumi shakes his head, tucking his bookmark into the page he’d been on before setting it down.  He climbs out of bed wordlessly, and walks out of the room, leaving Satoru to follow after him.

He’s a little embarrassed when Megumi takes him towards (y/n’s) room, where her door has been left ajar.  He points through the crack, before looking up at Satoru with a small frown.

“She’s been out there all night,” He says softly.

Satoru furrows his brows, before pushing open the door a little more so he could see for himself what Megumi meant.  Sure enough, her bedroom was unlit, and the window on the furthest wall was slid open.  The curtains surrounding it blow gently with the breeze that creeps into the room.  He can just barely make out (y/n) sitting on the small patch of roof just outside of the window.

“Is she okay?” Megumi asks, his voice even smaller.

He’d never seen her the way she’d acted today.  There had been a ghostly pale look on her face this morning, and then again when she’d picked up him and his sister from school.  Most of the afternoon was spent focused on chores, and then preparing dinner.  Any attempts made by him or his sister to get her to open up, or even smile, had failed.  

And then, once dinner was finished and the dishes were done, she’d excused herself to her room.  After two hours, Megumi and Tsumiki had peeked in to see if she was alright, only to find her sitting on the roof outside her window, alone.

Satoru lets out a sigh, his heart sinking as it finally clicks for him why she’d been so dodgy.  He should’ve figured it out sooner, he realizes that now.

“She’ll be alright,” He answers Megumi, pulling the door shut to give her her privacy again, even though she didn’t seem to notice the onlooking presence behind her.  “Come on, you should get to bed” 

Megumi hesitates, wanting to know more, out of worry for his caretaker that worked so hard to make sure he was content and happy every day of his life.  Now she was struggling and he felt helpless.  But he was just a kid, what was he supposed to do?

“You’ll make sure?” He asks.  It was the closest to asking the man for help that he’d ever gotten, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Satoru smiles, patting the kid on the head before pushing him gently back towards his room.

“Course I will,” He says, and it seems genuine, so Megumi complies and begins walking back to his door.  “Sweet dreams ‘gumi” 

“Goodnight” Megumi calls, rather than roll his eyes like he wants to.  Well, at least he waits until he’s in his closed room to do so.

Once he’s out of sight and presumably settling back into bed, Satoru opens the door he’s lingered by and slips into the room quickly.  Even as he climbs out of the window- which was a great struggle because it was a small opening and he was all limbs- (y/n’s) attention remains on the sky.

She has her knees pulled to her chest, and now he’s close enough that he can smell the cigarette held between her fingers.

“Thought you quit” He hums as she crawls awkwardly to where she’s sitting.

(y/n) doesn’t flinch at his presence.  He wonders how long she’d realized he was there.  She doesn’t look at him, either, much to his dismay.  She’s still focused on the stars, as though they’d been in the midst of an important conversation.

“Yeah, well,” Her voice is a murmur as she brings the cig to her lips, taking a short drag.  After filling her lungs she exhales, sighing for longer than she had smoke to disseminate.  “Guess I couldn’t help it today” 

Satoru nods in understanding, his attention catching on a small plate beside her.  The tiniest of smiles quirks on the corner of his lips as he sees a lone cupcake sitting on it.  It looks positively delicious, thick vanilla cake wrapped in a colorful paper, topped with a generous amount of frosting, curled over itself in a perfect mountain, and then covered in rainbow sprinkles.

If this was any other cupcake, on any other day, he’d be pushing her off this roof right now just to steal a bite of it.

But this cupcake wasn’t meant for him.

“I know you’re going to worry,” (y/n’s) speaking again, and his eyes drift away from the ominous treat and back to her, even though she’s still refusing to look at him.  “But you don’t need to.  You can go, if you want…” She trails off for a moment, taking in a shaky breath before finishing her thought.  “If you need to grieve… in your own way” 

Amidst the solemn memories that are flooding his mind of this day in past years, Satoru thinks it’s one of the kindest things she’s ever offered to him.  Pushing him away so that he can process this day however he needs, rather than sit here and comfort her while she processes her way.

And it’s not that it’s easy for him, because it isn’t.  He’d woken up today knowing exactly what day it was.  And not just Friday.  Today the weight of the world felt heavier on his shoulders than usual.  His coffee, pumped full of cream and sugar, tasted bitter.  The sun seemed to disappear behind a patch of clouds every time he stepped outside.  The day dragged and dragged, and given the fact that (y/n) had ghosted him for the day hadn’t helped.

But he couldn’t exactly blame her.  Because even he was a reminder to her.  A reminder that their group of three had once been four.  That when he’d met her all those years ago, he’d come as a matching set.  His heart sank for her, knowing there was nothing he could do to ease her mind of pleasant memories now covered in a haze of darkness.  

Guilt.  Regret.  Longing.  

“No, sweetheart,” He murmurs to her, sliding himself over the shingles to be closer to her.  Her hair is down, and it covers her side profile, so it’s still hard for him to see her, but for once he’s patient.  “No, ‘m not goin’ anywhere” 

It’s quiet for quite some time.  (y/n) continues puffing on the cigarette until the taste turns sour in her mouth, and then she’s stumping it out on the shingles, only half smoked.  Satoru hopes this means she really has quit the nasty habit, and tonight wasn’t a backslide on an old addiction, but instead a small escape towards nostalgia.  While she fiddles with the dead cig in her fingers, he notes it was the brand that Shoko always picked up.  The very brand that back in high school, she’d made smoke buddies out of (y/n), and Suguru too, smoking those exact cigarettes.

“D’you think he’s celebrating?” 

Her voice catches in her throat, but she swallows the lump as soon as she voices her question.

No, Satoru thinks.

“Maybe,” He hums in response.  “Probably not as hard as you did” He adds, trying to lighten the mood with the memory of her own twentieth birthday.  (y/n) lets out a small sound that was meant to be a hum, but it sounds choked, like someone has a hand around her throat, strangling her pipes until she had no more voice left.

She stares at the cigarette in her fingers, her eyes hard, desperate to stay dry, but this leaves them without emotion.

“I didn’t think today would be this hard,” She admits.  “I thought I…” 

Satoru watches her carefully, his eyes darting from her hidden face to the cigarette that was trembling in her delicate hold.  As if the day alone wasn’t hard enough, his heart breaks over her further.  Being the strongest didn’t mean shit at this moment.  There wasn’t a damn thing he could do to ease this pain for her, but fuck, if he could take it all away, and carry it for her himself, he would.  

“I thought I’d already cried as much as I could over him,” Her words wobble, thanks to her burning throat and quivering lips.  “But I… I just…” 

She shakes her head, a humorless laugh escaping her throat in one harsh sob.  It sounds exactly how she feels.  Angry, forlorn, exasperated.

“Satoru,” 

She turns to him, finally.  The stumpy little cigarette falls from her shaking hands as she moves quickly.  As if his heart wasn’t hurting enough, now he sees the tears streaming down her face.

How long had she been out here crying? He worries.  How long had she been carrying this alone?

Before she can continue he’s surging forward.  Both hands raising to her face in order to make quick work at drying her tears.  It’s no use, they won’t stop flooding and he knows it too, but still, he wipes them away with diligent, loving thumbs.

“I can’t bear this,” She mumbles, watery eyes flickering between his.  

It’s a damn vulnerable thing to admit, and maybe tomorrow she’ll regret this moment of fragile exposure, but right now all she feels is a weight on her chest, pressing harder and harder until it’s left a gaping wound, and she’s so desperate for relief from this pain that she brings her walls down.  Even if it means she takes them down completely.

“It hurts too much,” She continues in a strained whimper.  “I don’t want to miss him anymore, I don’t want to think about him anymore,” 

Satoru’s brows fall to furrow together as she makes her pained confession, and if it wasn’t for the way she spoke, he could see it on her.  In the way her body shook as she cried, her hurt seeped out of every orifice, until she was made nearly unrecognizable.

Since Geto Suguru’s defection, she’d done a bang up job keeping her feelings on the matter to herself.  Minus the day he left them, she’d barely even spoken a word about it, and in fact, she hadn’t talked about him at all.  Until this very moment.  It appeared that she’d kept it packed up so deep inside that today was the last straw, the final blow to her unprocessed grief.  Denial was a wonderful thing, but it could only do the trick for so long.

Satoru cradles her face with the gentleness of feathers on her skin.  He doesn’t say a word, there’s not enough words in the world to bring an ounce of comfort to her now.  Nothing could fix the situation, believe him, he’s tried to find the miracle cure.  But this disease that was their shared trauma, their haunted past, was terminal.

So instead he sits quietly with her.  He brushes away her tears with the pads of his thumbs, over and over again, and he’s bound to this very spot to continue to do so until it’s enough.  Until he’s enough to carry all of her sorrow, all of her strife, and anything else.

Satoru’s throat begins to burn the longer he watches her fall apart at the seams before him.  This wasn’t the first time he’s seen her at her lowest, he’d been there once or twice before to try to pick up her pieces, and hold her gently together until she feels whole again.  But it doesn’t matter if he’d done this a thousand times before, it always feels unfamiliar, and it always wounds him.

He tries his hardest to push down the feeling, to be present as the strength that she needs of him.  But tonight is different than the other times he’s calmed and comforted her.

A shaky exhale escapes him, and the movements of his thumbs on her cheeks grow rushed, and erratic.

“Oh sweetheart,” Satoru means to speak in a murmur, but his voice wavers as much as his breath.  It’s littered with an emotion that makes (y/n’s) stomach churn and knot.  “You know I hate seeing you cry” 

His eyes follow the constant flow of tears as he prods carefully to wipe them away.  His heart weighs heavy in his chest, sinking all the way to his stomach.

Slowly, (y/n) inches forward, her eyes flickering between his for a moment, before her hands rest on his shoulders and she leans in to embrace him.  It’s stiff at first, as if they were unfamiliar with hugging one another.  But she sinks into him after adjusting, and wraps her arms around his neck completely while holding on tight.

His own arms encircle her waist, before resting cheek atop her head.

“I wish I could just hate him,” She mumbles into his shoulder, the fabric of his tee shirt growing wet with her tears pooling into it.  “It would make it easier” 

Satoru nods.  One of his hands pressed flat against her back as he started to move it in soothing circles.

They sit quietly for a few minutes, until her crying has calmed enough that she’s not shaking anymore, and his eyes have fallen shut with fatigue whilst he’s holding her close and rubbing her back.

“D’you want to go inside?” Satoru hums, tilting his head to press her lips into her hair.  “Get some rest?” 

She doesn’t answer him right away.  Not in words, at least.  Her arms tighten around him in the slightest, tensing up as she makes sure her hold on him is firm.

“No,” She whispers, followed by another squeeze, and this time he feels the pads of her fingertips pressing into the material of his shirt, against his skin.  “I want to stay here a little longer,” She admits while she pushes her face into the crook of his neck.  “If that’s okay?” She asks in a smaller voice.

“Of course that’s okay,” Satoru agrees, his free hand reaching up to cup the back of her head.  He gently pets her hair as she settles back into him again.  Best case scenario, she’ll fall asleep, and he can tuck her into bed and hope that the rest brings her more comfort than he’s capable of.  “Whatever you want, sweetheart,” His lips graze over her head as he murmurs, “Just let me know.  I’ll do whatever you need.  I’ll get you whatever you need.  Just tell me” 

Again, her hold stiffens on him, and she’s got him so snug in her arms now that breaking away would prove to be difficult.  Strongest be damned.  No hold on Gojo Satoru has ever been more binding.

And then she’s pulling away.  Her arms loosen and slide away, only for her hands to find purchase at his forearms, tethering herself to him with a gentle grip.  Even still, this has him locked to her, chained, bound.  

He lifts his head to look at her properly, meeting her wide, panicked eyes.  There’s a few tears left, clinging where they could.  They hide in plain sight at the corners of her eyes and on her cheeks.  Satoru has the thought to clear them away, but her hands begin to shake as she clings to his arms, and he doesn’t have the heart to pull himself from her grip.

No hold on Gojo Satoru has ever been more binding.

“Then I need you to promise me something,” She speaks with urgency, although he could already see the fright in her eyes.  He doesn’t get a chance to nod in agreement before she’s speaking again.  “You can’t ever go” 

Satoru blinks, taken aback by the request.  He’s quick to reassure her with a small chuckle, not out of humor, but from the irony that she feels the need to ask such a thing.

“Of course I won’t-” 

“I’m serious,” She speaks over him, eyes unblinking as she moves her hands to clutch onto his shoulders.  Her hold is softer now, but it carries the same weight.  “Please, promise me,” She whispers.  “Promise you won’t go anywhere,” 

She sucks in a breath as she fights more tears from pooling in her eyes.

“Promise me I won’t ever lose you, too,” 

Satoru’s brows pinch together as he nods back at her in a small motion.  With his arms free, he cups her face in his hands again, tilting her head forward so he could seal his promise with his lips pressed against the crown of her head.

He lingers there for a second, before kissing her in the middle of her forehead once more and leaning away so he could look at her.

“I just can’t-” She tries to speak but her tears are choking her up again.  “I can’t lose you, okay?”

He’s nodding at her, his expression gravely serious as he agrees to her terms.

“I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart,” Satoru tucks a loose strand of hair carefully behind her ear before continuing.  “You’ll never lose me,” He gives her a sweet, comforting smile before he’s cupping her face again, fingers splayed across her cheeks, catching the last of her tears and drying them off.  “I need ya too much, yaknow?” 

A faint smile quirks at the corners of her lips, her eyes filling with relief, and something bashful.  He can feel it in the warmth of her face.

Softly, she murmurs, “I need you, too,” 

It’s a difficult thing to say out loud, there’s more weight to those words than she thought there would be, but it’s the truth, and she needs him to know it.  She needs him to know that while there’s still things she can’t bring herself to admit, at the end of the day he had her complete trust.  And right now, that seems more important.

“I…” Her voice gets caught in her throat, but this time it’s not because of the burn of tears.  She swallows hard anyways, and musters up the courage to continue.  “I don’t know what I’d do without you, ‘toru” 

His smile grows warm and syrupy.  It might not have been the confession he was holding out for, but it still made something fluttery and ticklish dance around his inside.  His heart swells.  His eyelashes grow heavy.

“Miss me, hopefully” He murmurs, gently pinching her cheek between his thumb and index finger, then smoothing over the skin with the pad of his thumb.

Her mood is significantly lifted by his familiar and affectionate teasing.  Her pain still lurks around the corner, but right now her back is turned, and all she can see are his bright eyes and tender smile.  All she knows is that his hands are warm against her face, and it turns her to putty having him this close.

Her head tilts to the side, cheek pressing further into the comforting warmth of his hand.  He regards her with a fondness so intense it almost makes her nervous.  Sometimes she had to re-learn how to get used to this look.

“Then…” Her voice is merely a breath.  “Stay” 

He’s smiling again, even though he knows she’s not asking him to spend the night in the spare room- which he’d already done five days out of this week without being invited, he didn’t need an invitation to crash there, he just did- but asking him to stay here, with her.  He shouldn’t be smiling, he shouldn’t feel that skip in his heart beat as he preens with pride and adoration.  Because the last time he’d stayed with her, it had been too hard.

It was too domestic.  Too intimate.  And all too difficult to pretend that it was normal, or casual.  The feelings that she plants in him blossom like uncontrollable wildflowers, and Satoru had realized he was far too weak to ever put himself through it again.  He cared about her too deeply to jeopardize it all over a shared bed.  Maybe it was childish of him, but he’d sworn he wouldn’t do it again.  When she’d made it so clear where they stood with one another, it wasn’t fair to her to gaze at her long after she'd fallen asleep in his arms and ache for more.

But Satoru is a fool.

He’s carefully helping her back through the window while she holds the cupcake in one hand and his in the other.  Before he heads to the spare room- where he has left quite a few drawers worth of extra clothes- he gives her hand a squeeze.  A silent promise that he’ll be quick.  She leaves the cupcake on her bedside table while she sits at the edge of her mattress and waits.  He is very quick, back in her room after barely two minutes have gone by.  When he closes the door, he does so as silently as possible.  When he sits beside her, his movements are slow, almost calculated with how carefully he moves.

“We should eat this cupcake,” She tells him, her eyes focused on the treat with an unreadable emotion behind them.  “It would be a shame… if it went to waste” 

He lets out a chuckle, which has her attention shifting to him.

“I couldn’t agree more” He says with a wide grin.

Her brow furrows.

“Were you just waiting for me to-” 

“Yes, yeah I was, hand it over”

He’s already reaching across her to snatch the plate off of the table.  There’s a plastic knife residing beside the cupcake, and after carefully peeling off the paper wrapper, Satoru cuts the cake down the middle as evenly as he could.  (y/n) almost laughs at his eagerness to eat the treat.  She supposes she could have let him have the whole thing if he was so eager for it, but he’s already handing her a half, and it does look delicious.

When she’d wandered into the bakery earlier that afternoon, before the Fushiguro kids were out of school, she hadn’t really planned on picking out a dessert to celebrate the birthday of someone she was trying to forget.  She wasn’t really sure what had wound her up in there, she hadn’t held a particular craving for any of the sugary sweets on display.  Then she’d seen that cupcake in the glass case, and as soon as her eyes had landed on it, she found herself getting in line to order it.  All the while telling herself this was silly, that he didn’t even have a sweet tooth, and this wasn’t at all what she would have gotten to celebrate his day had he been here.

But he wasn’t here.  And (y/n) was taking the small box home to sit on her counter where it could taunt her for the rest of the day, until she;d given in and plated the damn thing.

Now she stares at her half of it, held carefully in her fingertips.  The frosting felt heavy atop the small piece of cake, and she’s reminded that she actually doesn’t really care for cupcakes.  They were awkward, especially ones like these, where it was impossible to take a bite without getting cream smeared on your face.

She really shouldn’t have bought this.

“Well, that was the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten” 

Satoru snaps her out of her thoughts, her head snapping towards him in a jerky movement, as if she’d forgotten he was sitting beside her.  He’s got the pad of his middle finger between pursed lips, happily sucking off the last of the sugary sweetness.  He grins at her surprise.  (y/n) looks back at her own piece, and finally, carefully takes a bite.

It’s all vanilla and sugar.  From the cake to the frosting and sprinkles, the tiny dessert is packed with sweetness.  Even after one bite she’s certain that half of the cupcake was plenty, and she never would have eaten the whole thing on her own.  Although she’s sure Satoru would have finished the whole thing without a complaint.

Just as she’d thought, when she finishes her piece, she can feel the remnants of frosting clinging to her lip.  With a crinkled nose she wipes at it with her thumb, before turning to Satoru.

“Did I get it all?” She asks.  He chuckles as he shakes his head, amused by the smear of white over her cupid’s bow.  However before she can blindly rub it away some more, he’s leaning forward.  His fingers hook under her chin while his thumb craftily swipes over her upper lip, making sure to get the last of the offending frosting.

It’s not much, and really had she rubbed her mouth again she would have easily cleared away the rest of it, but he couldn’t resist, and he was acting without thinking.

“There ya go” He hums, his voice quieter than he meant it to be, before he’s sticking his thumb in his mouth to enjoy the last of her vanilla frosting as well.

(y/n) blinks, her eyes wide but the rest of her expression blank.  She figures she should thank him, maybe even make a joke to play off the strangely intimate act that has her heart doing somersaults in her chest, but she can’t bring herself to say anything.

Without a word, she stands from the bed, placing the plate with the wrapper and plasticware back on her nightstand.  Satoru takes his time getting settled under her covers, against her pillows.  When she climbs in after him, she’s still quiet.  She tucks the blanket up close to her chin, and then glances up to him, finding his eyes already on her.

They’re not touching, but he’s close enough that she can feel his heat under the shared blankets.  He’s close enough that she’s glad it’s dark in the room, because her face feels warm with the familiar sensation of a blush.

Four years of knowing him, and his close proximity still garnered the same reaction out of her.  She wondered if he knew she was blushing anyways, if his Six Eyes were always able to see right through her.

“Can I ask you something?” She murmurs, although her eyes are feeling too heavy to start a conversation right now.

He gives her a small smirk and a raised brow, intrigued by the age old anxiety-inducing question.

“Shoot” He muses back.

“How do you do it?” (y/n’s) hand slides under her pillow, raising her head just enough to get a proper look at him.  He looks puzzled, like he doesn’t understand the question, so she clarifies.  “You know, have the answer for everything,” She says.  “I feel like I… I feel like I bombard you with problem after problem and you just…” 

She trails off, and if she was being honest it’s because she’s getting lost in his eyes and forgetting momentarily what she was even talking about.  There were times when she looked at him that while he looked back, she got the overwhelming sense of his complete attention.  And sometimes, it made her heart stutter.  Occasionally her voice would deceive her, too.  She wants to move in closer, until she’s so impossibly too close, but she snaps back to reality just as her mind had started to drift off.

“You just always know what to do.  Or say” She finishes her thought in a hushed whisper.  Maybe it was her train of thought turning hazy from the adoration seeping in, but she suddenly feels like it was a confidential thing to say, too full of emotion to put out in the open so brazenly.

Satoru chuckles, and it relieves some of the tension that’s curling up in her chest.

“It’s cute that you think that,” He replies.  “That’s just what we do, though, isn’t it?” 

Now it’s her turn to furrow her eyebrows, not understanding what he’s trying to say.

Satoru gives her a small shrug.

“We look out for each other,” He states.  “Right?” 

“I ‘spose” (y/n) mumbles back, feeling severely gutted by the realization that he looked out for her more than she did for him.  How do you have the back of someone who’s already the strongest in the world? How could she possibly be as good to him as he was to her? 

It dawns on her then that she can’t, that she could never be a semblance of a person he deserved to have in his life.  Not just due to his strength and status, but because of who Gojo Satoru was as a human.  He was far too good, too kind and caring and patient for the likes of her to be involved with him.  She was messy, at times reckless, and most of all she lived too much in her own head.  Overthinking every situation, and every word, most days it felt like it took her ages just to find the right way to respond, to find the right words, make the right face.

Like right now.

“You don’t think so?” Satoru asks, readjusting his pillow so he too could get a better look at her.  Her lips twitch into an awkward smile, nervous that he was able to read her so easily.  “What’re you thinkin’ about?”

But how was she supposed to tell him? While she lays here and feels regret and guilt flood through her bloodstream like poison, how does she explain to him that she finally understood why she’d pushed him away all those months ago when he’d tried to make something more of the two of them? Just the thought has her skin crawling with goosebumps, and her heart thumping hard in her chest with adrenaline.

“C’mon, tell me” He prods again, this time giving her a smile, too curious to know what was knotting up her pretty features with an upset expression.  Something clearly bothered her about his statement- or at least, it was clear to him.

Her mouth opens, but even still she struggles to find the right thing to say.  No set of words in her language seemed like a good enough explanation.  Or maybe she just didn’t want to admit what had been on her mind.  Because admitting it would prove to him that it had been on her mind.

“I…” Her throat feels dry.  The fingers under her pillow curl into the sheets tightly.  “I don’t think it’s fair of me to ask you to stay,” She confesses in a small voice.  Satoru’s face falls.  “I don’t think it’s fair of me to make you promise,” 

He lifts his head from the pillow, bracing himself up on his arm as he looks down at her with an expression that was somewhere between concern and peculiarity.

Holding onto her last scrap of courage, (y/n) continues.

“You’re destined for such magnificent things,” She murmurs, a ghost of a smile on her face.  “And you’re the strongest but- but it’s not just because of that.  You were always going to be destined for great things, because… because you’re you,” 

She pauses, taking in a small breath and fighting the urge to look away from him, to spare herself from the eyes that were piercing into hers with ardent focus.

“And I… I’m just…” Her lip gets dragged between her teeth as she shakes her head in a slow movement.  “You were born deserving so, so much more than…” In a lazy gesture, her free hand waves above her, fingers twitching in small motions.  She doesn’t say me, but he knows it’s what she’s trying to convey.

“Don’t say that” He mumbles, offended that she could even think such an untrue, vulgar thing about herself, about the person he cares so much more about than she gave him credit for.

“It’s true,” She says back.  “You could be doing so much more amazing things with your life, you could have anything in the world if you wanted it, but instead you’re- you’re here,” Her voice grows smaller as she speaks, the dread of what she needed to say next weighing heavy on her tongue.  “And I… I know I shouldn’t be making you promise to stay.  I should be making you go,” 

She swallows hard, trying to get the lump in her throat to smooth away, but it lingers there, and makes her breath hitch as she closes her eyes before continuing.

“But I just can’t bring myself to do it” 

She can’t see him, but Satoru’s shaking his head at her, refusing to accept any of the nonsense she’s telling him right now.

“Then don’t,” He says, his words rushed, desperate to make himself clear before actually thinking through what the right thing to say was.  “You don’t have to.  I don’t want you to,” 

She’s refusing to look at him, so with his free hand, he cups her face, and he waits until she does.  Her eyes are glossy, but she’s fighting the need to cry again.

“You understand me, sweetheart?” He murmurs, his voice softening as he gazes down at her.  The snow-white tips of his hair almost touch her forehead with how close he’s leaning.  “I don’t want to go anywhere, I don’t want to be anywhere else, with anyone else, even right now, okay?” 

She presses her lips together in an attempt to hide her wince.

“Tell me you understand,” He whispers, eyes flickering between hers.  “I need to know that you understand” 

A small sniffle, and then a nod.

“I understand,” Her voice cracks even in her whisper.  “I just-” 

“No more of that,” He murmurs, his gentle thumb tracing her cheekbone in slow, lazy movements.  “No more of that, I can’t stand it.  You can’t push me away.  Not again.  Not ever again” He’s shaking his head to punctuate every word.

A single tear drips from her eye as she blinks, and he’s quick to wipe it away, just as he had earlier, desperate to make all of her tears disappear in any way he can, anyway she needs.

This wasn’t the first time she’d done this, but it gutted him all the same, recalling the last time she’d tried to force him away.  She’d nearly gone and gotten herself killed by the hands of the Zen’in Clan.  And before that was their fight, in the halls of Jujutsu Tech, when she’d told him that she didn’t need him.  He nearly shudders at the memory.  Of course he knew now that she hadn’t meant it, that it was her desperate attempt to keep him from prying into her life where she’d thought he was going to wind up hurt.

Now it was different.  Now it was real.  It was raw ache and fear before him.

“I promised you I’m not going anywhere,” He tells her.  His eyes trailing down to her lips on their own accord.  “I need you to promise me the same,” 

There’s a pause as his words hang between them, and then she gives him a shaky nod.  Her wide eyes don’t leave his, they remain searching, needing to be sure that he means it.  There’s not a bone in her body that tells her otherwise, but she’s so terrified of the fear of losing him that she just needs to be absolutely sure.

“I’m the one being unfair,” Satoru murmurs, his eyes following the movement of his thumb over her cheek.  “I know that, I know that you don’t want more and I overstep anyways because… because I can’t help it” 

There’s a shift in the mood, she can feel it, how it lightens the pressure on her chest before slamming it right back down.

He leans closer, and her breath hitches in her throat at the prospect of him closing every last inch of distance between them.  She should stop him, she should put her hands on his shoulders and push him away until he’s at a safe distance from her again.  But she doesn’t.

She pulls her hand out from under her pillow, and it blindly slides over the sheets until it finds his.  Her movements are slow, almost frightfully so as her fingers slot between his.  She tries to calm her breathing but it’s hard to focus on it and him so she settles for keeping her focus on him.

With her fingers fully tangled with his he squeezes her hand, maybe tighter than he should have, but having her so close is intoxicating, and he just wants to savor it for as long as he can.

(y/n) takes in a deep breath.

“I never said I didn’t want more,” She whispers, peering up at him from beneath heavy lashes.

His heart is beating so quickly he’s certain she can hear it.  It pounds heavily in his ears, almost louder than her hushed whispers.  Was he understanding her right? 

“I was just… afraid” She admits it softly.

Satoru furrows his brow, but his lips curl into a smirk that had her regretting saying anything because she knows he’s about to tease her now.

“Afraid?” He repeats with a small laugh.  “You think I’d ever do anything to hurt you?” 

He’s teasing, but the thought makes him want to throw up.

“Course not,” She shakes her head, before gently pressing her face further into the warmth of his hand.  She hopes it’s an unnoticed movement, but from the way he also applies more pressure in his touch, she thinks otherwise.  “More like I’m afraid of hurting you” 

Satoru laughs louder this time, his face splitting into a delighted smile.  He’s completely amused by the idea, and (y/n) frowns at him.

“You can’t hurt me sweetheart,” He practically purrs, and then he’s leaning closer.  His chest hovers over her close enough that she feels almost caged in by him.  He’s close enough now that the tip of his nose nearly bumps into hers.  “I’m completely untouchable” 

She squeezes his hand with an affectionate roll of her eyes.

“I think you have to actually activate infinity if you want it to work” She murmurs.

It’s quiet again, the two of them smiling at each other fondly, foolishly, both taken away by a deep infatuation that had been repressed for far too long.  It seeps out of them now like an overflow, pouring out in the cracks that were their adoring eyes.

Her free hand reaches up towards his face, fingertips ghosting over the soft ends of his hair that hangs down over her eyes.  She combs her fingers through the silky strands of white before trailing downwards, her touch light and gentle as she traces his forehead, followed by his nose, then cheekbone, down towards his jaw.  Her sleepy gaze observes every drag of her fingers, as though committing it all to memory.

Satoru’s frozen above her, allowing her to explore every inch of his face if she so pleased.  It was a face she’d known for years, but she touches him now like she’s only recently been bestowed the gift of sight.  He’s not sure the last time he’s been touched so gently.  There’s a distant memory of his mother’s hand caressing his cheek, but even in a fond memory the touch is fleeting.

Being touched like this- softly, sweetly, carefully, lovingly- by her, it’s as though she has all the time in the world.

Her fingers fall still over his chin as her eyes flit back up to his.

They meet for a brief moment before his eyes are falling shut and he’s closing the space between them.  As soon as his lips touch hers she’s sliding her hand under his jaw, keeping him perfectly in place as she kisses him back.

His mouth is warm, and still sweet from the cupcake they’d shared, which seems like forever ago.  In fact everything seems to fade away.  The only thing she can feel is his soft lips, his soft hand splayed over her cheek, the soft swipe of his thumb over hers where their hands are still interlocked.

The kiss is experimentally slow at first.  They’re both holding their breath, each half expecting the other to pull away prematurely with remorseful eyes.  Neither do.

They part for a second, only because oxygen becomes a necessity once more.  Satoru smiles down at her when he sees her eyes are still shut, and he can’t help but to lean in and plant one more quick kiss on her lips.  He’s waited this long to get his chance, he might as well steal as many as he could get.

As he lays back on his side of the bed, he moves his hand from her cheek to her waist, gently coaxing her to lay closer, until she’s curled up into his side, one of her legs thrown between his, her head resting in the soft place below his collarbone.  Their conjoined hands rest over his stomach.  He’s still stroking his thumb over hers.  She’s drawn to sleep by nothing but comfort.

“G’night, ‘toru” Her words are mumbled, and a little slurred.

He plants his lips at the crown of her head sweetly.  She drifts to sleep with a faint smile.

“Goodnight, sweetheart” 

___

The next morning she’s lured out of sleep by the smell of bacon.

It smells like a lot of other delicious things, too, but the bacon is what has her peeking open an eye to check the time.  Sure enough, her bed is empty, and it’s mid-morning.

This time when she slips out of the covers to go check out the buffet of breakfast foods Satoru had been whipping up- effectively making an absolute mess of her kitchen- she’s not hungover.  Her head isn’t killing her with such a brutal headache that she couldn’t open her eyes.  As she walks quietly into the kitchen, she’s able to watch as Tsumiki pours pancake batter out of a ladle, carefully making shapes on the griddle.  She leans into the fridge while she watches Satoru talk through his bacon frying process while Megumi sits on his shoulders, leaned over the top of his head, and apparently actually listening to him.

Tsumiki flips a pancake with perfect precision and they all cheer.  Satoru reminds her to add chocolate chips to the bowl of pancake batter once she’s made enough for herself, Megumi, and (y/n).  Because I refuse to eat pancakes without them, he reminds her, even though she doesn’t need it.  He’s spent enough breakfasts with them now for the kids to realize how debilitating his sweet tooth was.

It’s Megumi who first notices (y/n’s) secretly joined them.  With a boyish grin he tugs at Satoru’s hair, who cries out and almost stumbles at the sudden and sharp pain.

The pain is eased when he sees what Megumi was trying to catch his attention for.  (y/n’s) trying to stifle her laughter from behind her hand, but she’s failing.

“Awe, the surprise is ruined now” Satoru frowns.

She drops her hand and shakes her head as she wanders further into the kitchen to see what else this mess had created.  Megumi reaches towards her in a silent ask to be let off of Satoru’s shoulders.  She lifts him up with ease and sets him on the ground.

“It’s not ruined at all,” She says with a smile.  “But if you want to do it all again tomorrow, I’ll pretend I didn’t know” She adds in a tease.

“Yeah! Can we?” Tsumiki asks excitedly.  “I want to make omelets!” 

“No! French toast!” Megumi declares.

The pair break into a fit of bickering, which is quickly silenced by Satoru.

“Hey! You two are ruining this perfect morning!” He barks.  “Stop fighting and we can have both!” 

He doesn’t know how to make omelets, hell, he struggled with the bacon, so he’s hoping he can find a youtube tutorial decent enough to teach a helpless cook like him how to make some.  But his promise does the trick and Megumi and Tsumiki work together to make more pancakes.

“Do you even know how-?” (y/n) begins to question his ability as she eyes the crispy bacon in the pan he’s no longer paying attention to because she’s there now and she somehow looks so pretty first thing in the morning.  Her hair a complete mess, and donning a fluffy robe with bunnies all over it, he thinks it’s the cutest thing ever.

“Sh sh sh,” He hushes with a shake of his head, his hand wrapping around her hip as he pulls her into his side before finally looking back at the bacon.  “Oh, shit” He mutters as he darts to turn off the stove while (y/n) picks up the tongs and plucks the strips off the pan before they start to completely burn.

“Yeah, maybe tomorrow I cook,” She muses, nose wrinkling at the overcooked bacon.  But when she looks up at him again, she smiles happily.  “You and Megumi will be on french toast duty,” She says decidedly.  “I’ll teach Tsumiki how to make omelets” 

His lips curl into a smirk at the simple instruction.

“Little Hex, are you inviting me to stay the night?” 

“Ew!” Megumi grimaces, sticking his tongue out at the obvious flirt.

Tsumiki’s giggling, and starts to make a heart shaped pancake on the griddle, complete with Satoru’s chocolate chips.

(y/n) rolls her eyes, but her cheeks are undeniably warm, pink blossoming across her face.

“Only if Megumi says it’s okay” She replies, tilting her chin up at him teasingly.

Satoru turns the other way to look down at the kid that had a sinister smile on his face.  Jeez, sometimes this kid creeped him out.  How come (y/n’s) golden boy had to be such a goddamn menace?

Apparently she just had a soft spot for menaces.

Satoru meets Megumi’s ruthless stare with narrowed eyes.

“I’ll give you three hundred dollars”

“Satoru!” (y/n) picks up a kitchen towel off the counter to smack his arm with it.  “No bribing the kids!” 

“Fine,” He grumbles, catching the soft weapon mid swing before she could hit him again.  Then he peeks back towards Megumi, and in a slightly quieter voice says, “Four hundred?” 

(y/n) gasps at his blatant disregard for her rules, but before she can scold him again, Megumi gives a firm nod of agreement, and looks over to her.

“He can stay,” He says decidedly, but mutters to himself as he goes back to helping his sister with the pancakes.  “He stays over every other freakin’ night anyways” 

Tsumiki’s giggling as she whispers her own little rumors, much to the boy’s dismay, but he listens anyway.

“I think he’s warmin’ up to me” Satoru grins at (y/n).  She presses her lips together so as not to laugh too hard at the statement.

“You’ve done right by them,” She tells him, something that he’d told her not too long ago.  From the way his grin turns into a soft smile, she has a feeling he remembers.  “And besides, everyone warms up to you eventually” 

“You think you ever will?” He asks, only teasing.

She shrugs a shoulder, humming as though thinking it over.

“Maybe,” She muses, plucking a chocolate chip from the open bag on the counter.  He furrows his brow at the sudden playfulness rather than a real answer.  “We’ll see” 

[ this is a place where i don’t feel alone / this is a place where i feel at home ]

___