♡₊˚ 🦢 Uranus girl ・₊✧🩶.

Noticing Choso's side of the bed is empty, you panic for a moment before remembering he mentioned being the household cook. So there’s a safe bet Choso is probably responsible for at least some of the noise downstairs.

You sigh. Well girl, time to get ready to meet your new temporary family.

Wanting to put your best foot forward, you came prepared — your outfit's been picked out since yesterday—an angora sweater, tweed skirt, tights and a cute pearl choker along with a matching tweed headband. The kind of unassumingly polished, chic maximalism you learned à la Blair Waldorf and Gossip Girl marathons. 

Perfect for when you really needed to turn up the charm.

Dressed, you crack the bedroom door and peek into the hallway. The coast is clear—and you dart to the bathroom, lock the door and get to work. You do the full glam of hair and face, the kind of beat that looks effortless but takes you forty-five minutes.

Armor on, you follow the racket downstairs and into the kitchen.

You’re barely across the threshold before five faces turn toward you at once. Everything goes silent except the sizzling pop of breakfast on the stove."

Instantly you’re reminded of the elimination round of that dating show you were on once— except nobody's holding a rose and nobody on the dating show looked like they had the aptitude to kill you.

"There she is." 

The shirtless mountain from the couch is awake now, eyepatch settled into place, one tattooed forearm slung over the back of his chair and a coffee mug that looks comically child-sized in his massive grip.

“Sleeping beauty herself.” He tips his chin at you, a cruel grin on his face. "We were takin' bets on whether you'd use the stairs or just bolt out the window."

"Sukuna." Choso throws a disapproving glare over his shoulder, still at the stove making breakfast.

"Don't worry, Bunny dear, we weren't." A lean man at the table turns to face you from behind a laptop—three empty coffee cups fanned around it, a cursor blinking on a page that's mostly white space. He's got the family's pink hair, glasses, and the specific thousand-yard stare of a man who has been losing a fight with a sentence since 4 a.m. "We knew you'd take the stairs either way."

“Dad!” Choso sighs and  Jin grins apologetically.

“Sorry, son, couldn’t resist.”

Choso rolls his eyes, biting his tongue. He’d tell Jin to save that wit for his empty page but it’s not worth the fallout of everyone being roped into another impromptu brainstorming session—which is really just everyone arguing.

“Alright, you’re right. She just woke up in a house full of strangers, she doesn't need an interrogation before she's had coffee." Jin offers you a tired, yet soft, smile. "I'm Jin. Choso's dad. Well, step-father-ish. It's—a complicated tree, don't worry about the branches." 

He waves at the landfill that is his laptop, notes and coffee. "Also please excuse the mess. I'm on a deadline. I'm always on a deadline.” Jin sighs. “The deadline and I have a very toxic relationship."

“Not as toxic as the one with Kaori was.” Sukuna snarks with a snort.

“Enough!” Choso actually turns around, spatula in hand, ready to use it like a weapon if necessary.

"What?" Sukuna raises his hands, all wounded innocence, a gesture that would be more convincing on a man with fewer visible scars and certainly one not wearing an evil smirk. "I'm only makin' conversation. Bonding, yeah? She's family now, right? She should know where the bones are buried." His one good eye drags over you—head to slippers, then back up, taking his time cataloguing you. 

You try not to shiver but you'd definitely jump if he said boo.

"Tsk, just a little thing—foreign n’ pretty." He says the last word like an accusation, then swings his gaze to the back of Choso's head. "How'd a burnout who smells like fry oil pull a baddie, huh? Escape from the grippy sock farm? Hit her head? "

"Immigration hit me, actually," you say  before Choso can defend you. Folding your arms you do your best to look tough and hold your ground, "but it's nothing I hear compared to your hit record, oh fearsome King of Curses."

The nickname was one of those high-school rumors—Sukuna's reputation as a hitman preceding him by a mile making him well known. You didn't even remember it until it fell out of your mouth just now without a second thought, shit, did you go too far?

There's a pause long enough for you to mentally map the distance to the front door, thinking you’d gone too far—before Sukuna barks with laughter, sharp and surprised, pointing at you with his mug. "Ha. She talks back."

He leans toward Choso, "I like her. Keep this one, runt."

"I'm trying to," Choso mutters under his breath. You don’t catch it though, distracted by Jin’s questioning.

“And when exactly is this wedding?" 

"Three weeks," Choso says. “Just submitted paperwork for processing and Bunny’s got a planner handling the ceremony.” 

“Three?” Sukuna whistles. "Shotgun wedding speed. Classy. Ya sure she ain’t knocked up?"

You nearly choke.

"Christ, Sukuna, she's about to get deported." Choso snaps, a plate rattling a little harder on the counter than he meant it to. “She doesn’t have longer than that.”

"Sure." Sukuna rolls his eyes, “And in nine months we won’t be turning  Jin’s office into a nursery filled with ‘little bunnies’.”

Your eyes go wide as saucers but you don't get to marinate on that, because a small body suddenly detonates against your legs, tired of being ignored and wanting your attention.

"Are you the phone lady?!"

You look down to meet enormous brown eyes and a cowlick of pink hair defying several laws of physics. The face says barely five but the grip on your knee is giving ten-year-old. 

"I'm Yuji! I'm five!” Yuji adorably holds up three fingers.  “I got a Gundam that's this big—" he throws his arms wide, nearly clipping the table, "—and I know you 'cause Cho-nii looks at you on his phone—"

"O—kayyyy! Yuji sit down, it's rude to—" Choso starts but Yuji ends up finishing proudly, because five-year-olds recognize no authority and have zero tact.

"—when he thinks nobody's looking! But I'm always looking 'cause I'm sneaky!!" 

Yuji beams up at you, gap-toothed and thrilled. "You're way bigger. On the phone you're so small. Are you gonna live here forever? Can I braid your hair? Only Cho-nii let’s me!  Kuna-ji won't let me braid his, Chichi's is too short and Jii-chan doesn't have any—"

"Yuji." An old man at the far end of the table lowers his paper. ”Come and say that to my face ya lil—”

“Eeeeeee!” Yuji runs behind your legs, giggling. “Save me nee-chan!”

You laugh and the old man sighs, his cutting gaze landing on you next. He looks at you over the top of the sports section for a long, appraising moment. 

Then he grunts. 

And goes right back to the paper.

"That's Wasuke," Choso says, setting a plate of grilled saury on the table. "My grandfather. Not great with strangers but that grunt was a good one."

"How can you tell?"

"There's a bad one. You'll know it when you get it." Choso nods towards a chair. "Sit. Before Sukuna eats yours."

"I would," Sukuna agrees, already eyeing your fish.

You sit. Slowly,  because most of the table is still watching you with varying degrees of open interest. In front of you is a full breakfast—grilled fish and rice and miso and three kinds of pickled veggies, arranged with a care that’s far beyond the breakfast smoothie you usually make for yourself.

Nobody in this house stands on ceremony when food's involved though. By the time you pick up your chopsticks, everyone but Choso has already dug in. Instead, he watches for your reaction as you carefully take the first bite.

It's real good. 

"...This is great, Cho, thank you." 

Choso nods before turning to his own plate. But the tips of his ears go faintly red, and across the table, Jin's eyes flick to him, then to you, then back—and the author files something away without saying a word.

Once it’s clear everyone is finished, it’s Jin who sends Yuji upstairs on an errand before steering the conversation back to the elephant in the room.

"So." He closes the laptop, which you get the sense is a rare event. "The marriage. Choso gave us the shape of it a few nights ago, but—" he laces his ink-stained fingers together, "—walk us through it. For the people who were still incarcerated at the time."

Jin casts a pointed glance at Sukuna.

"I prefer 'extended vacation.'" Sukuna sips his coffee. "The food was shit but the schedule was great. ‘Sides, what’s there to explain? We’re no strangers to a little fraud."

You wince, but Sukuna isn’t wrong. 

“All we have to do is keep up appearances.” Choso says plainly. 

"Appearances." Sukuna speaks the word like he's tasting it. "You hear that, Pops? We gotta look respectable." 

Sukuna gestures to Wasuke who ignores him and the conversation entirely. 

"I wouldn't have offered if this all hinged on you looking respectable, Sukuna." Choso cuts in.

"Character growth takes time." Sukuna leans back, arms crossing, ink shifting over muscle. He's gaining much more amusement bantering with you, so he lets Choso's jab slide. 

"Point is, sweetheart, you married into a household that's got a very colorful resume. Pops did his stretch, I did mine—" he jerks a thumb at Wasuke, then himself, "—Jin's the black sheep. Never killed anybody in his life. We don't like to talk about it."

"It's my one true shame," Jin sighs dryly, not looking up from his laptop.

"Even emo boy here's caught a few bodies." Sukuna thumbs at Choso as your eyes widen.

"Don't scare the girl, Kuna!" Jin smiles sympathetically. "Choso was in and out of that life fairly quickly, thankfully, Bunny. Nothing to worry about—just some petty theft and vandalism."

“Yeah, that they could nail him for.” Sukuna adds. “Learned from the best how not to leave any tracks.”

“I’ll put you in the ground so deep they wouldn’t find you even if there were tracks.” Choso growls through his teeth, fork in hand, readied like a weapon.

Sukuna's head snaps toward him, not about to let an open threat slide. "Yeah, s’that right runt? Try me and I’ll personally deport your ass to hell."

If there wasn't real love buried under all this, they'd have killed each other decades ago. That thought is what tips you into laughter—soft, spilling out from behind your hand before you can stop it.

Choso's shoulders drop as he withdraws, remembering himself in front of you.

Jin smiles. Happy you aren’t put off by the family’s loving dysfunction. "See? You'll fit right in!"

"Yeah jokes," Choso says, shaking his head. "Mostly, but it's not nothing Bunny. I get this is far from your world so if you want out, door’s open. No hard feelings."

Down at the end of the table, Wasuke grunts as he snaps the crease straight in his paper, turning the page like you've already disappointed him.

"...That was a bad one, wasn't it?" you whisper across the table to Choso.

"Yeah," Choso confirms, shaking his head. "Gramps is a skeptic though. Pay it no mind."

Then Yuji, oblivious to all of it, bursts back into the kitchen. "Bunny! Bunny! When can I show you my Gundam?!"

You smile warmly at him, and whatever lingering doubts you felt dissolve in the face of this tiny, vibrating person. They can’t be so bad if they’ve been raising such a happy kid.

"Wanna go right now, Yuji?" 

"Let’s goooo!" Yuji throws both fists up.

"Well, the kid likes you so that's legally binding." Sukuna points at you and Choso in turn. "Congratulations. You're stuck with us. Try not to get anybody arrested." 

Sukuna stands, all six-six plus feet of tattooed menace and ruffles Yuji's hair on his way out. "Only thing you’ll need to worry about is the brat keeping his mouth shut.” 

"Hey! I'm good at secrets!" Yuji stomps his foot, a cute frown on his little face.

Sukuna snorts. "You brought my old ankle monitor to daycare for show and tell."

"That was sooo COOL! But uh,  ‘Gumi says his dad had them on both ankles though so he already seen ‘em."

Sukuna laughs as Jin tries to hide his amusement behind adjusting his glasses.Wasuke turns another page.

Under the table, without looking, Choso's knee bumps yours. 

Thank you, maybe. Or sorry. You don't know and maybe in this case there's not a difference.

You bump it back anyway before getting dragged off by Yuji.

The rest of the day passes in a blur of logistics. You meet Manami—your wedding planner— at a café in Omotesando where she's already assembled a mood board, a vendor shortlist and a timeline that makes your head spin. Three weeks. You have three weeks to make a fake wedding look real enough to fool social media. 

By the time you get back to the house that evening, you're drained but lighter than you expected to be. The morning went better than you'd braced for—nobody threatened you (each other but not you), you weren’t interrogated too hard and Yuji, the five-year-old, declared you his new best friend. 

All in all, not too shabby.

You think.

That night, you can't sleep though.

You're already getting more used to the house—the weird creaks, the way the pipes groan at 2 am, Sukuna's snoring rattling through the floorboards like seismic activity. But it doesn't quite feel like yours yet—and you suppose it's fine all the same since it was never supposed to.

More importantly though, you have the big jk-I'm-not-leaving-I'm-actually-engaged announcement post queued for 7:45 am tomorrow morning—prime first-thing-after-waking-up scrolling time for maximum engagement. Damage control, hopefully, as there's already a few gifs immortalizing your tear-streaked crash-out circulating along with escalating-saxophone edits of your meltdown.

Giving up on sleep, you throw on one of Choso's hoodies—yours now, by squatter's rights—and some yoga pants, wandering downstairs to find a light still on.

Not the house. The izakaya.

Figuring he must be in there, you slip through the adjoining door. 

Bingo.

Choso's at the counter with his reading glasses on, apron cast aside, doing the books by the light of one lamp. Ledger open, pen behind his ear—there's a quiet peacefulness on his face you've never seen before. You can tell he genuinely loves this place.

The izakaya is a different world after hours and for the first time actually sober you take it all in. Stools up, grill cold, no customers—just the hum of the fridge and the scratch of his pen.

"Can't sleep?" He doesn't look up from the ledger but his foot nudges the stool beside him, inviting you to sit.

"New house sounds, I guess." You slide onto the one stool beside him, the only other one down, it’s almost as he expected you. "Your uncle snores like a dying engine."

"You get used to it." Choso makes a note, caps the pen and looks at you finally—studying you a second in the low light, you look restless. You’re also wearing his hoodie and he swallows, quickly moving on from that observation before it can go anywhere. 

Distracting himself from that, Choso does the one thing he knows will help in this situation and hops up to move behind the bar.

"You don't have to—"

"I know."

He's already pulling things down though—a splash of this, a spoon of that, quick and practiced as he whips you up a special bartender’s choice concoction. 

"This isn't on the menu. I only make it for people I like." Choso smirks, setting it in front of you.

"How many people is that?" You tease.

"Currently?" Choso fake-ponders. He produces a straw and tiki umbrella out of seemingly nowhere, garnishing your drink.

"You. Jin.” He lists. “...and Yuji gets a virgin one."

You smile and take a sip. It's good, a little on the sweet side, something citrus underneath and a hint of mint. You wrap both hands around it, savoring the buzz as it's still strong as hell underneath it all.

Satisfied once he’s given you a drink, Choso goes back to the ledger. The vibes are nice, you have to admit. Yet it’s not long before the quiet prompts all your worries to come rushing forward again with a vengeance.

"Can I say something that sounds a bit pathetic," you ask, after a few minutes, circling the rim of your glass with a manicured nail, “Just promise not to make it a thing though, okay?"

Choso looks up, skeptical. "When have I ever made anything, a thing? That's always been you, if memory serves."

Touché.

Yet when you don't even fight him on that, Choso takes off his glasses, giving you his full attention. Whatever this is, it's got you down enough to not swing back and he notices.

"The announcement post goes up tomorrow," you say. Quieter now, staring into the glass. "7:45 am. I've drafted it like fifteen times. And I keep—" you turn the glass, "—I keep thinking, what if they don't buy it? What if someone digs and finds out there's no history past high school? Two million people are going to look at this and decide in three seconds whether it's real, and if it's not—" your throat tightens, "—if even one outlet runs with 'visa fraud’, it’s over.”

You take a breath.

"And then I think—what am I even saving? Like, what am I actually fighting this hard for? A follower count? A lease? I've been so focused on staying that I haven't stopped to ask what I'm staying for." Your nail taps the glass. "I built this whole life here, Cho—career, friends, everything—and sitting in that immigration office, I realized none of it could save me. Not a single piece of it. It's all just... can be gone so easily." Your laugh is hollow. "And I don't even know if what I built was real or just content."

You brace for the fixing. The have you tried, the pep talk, the unsolicited advice.

But it doesn't come. The refill does though—Choso already behind the bar, topping your glass like he never left it.

"That's not pathetic," he says. "That's just true. Different thing." He caps the bottle. "And you don't have to smile here. Nobody's counting."

You exhale something that's not quite a laugh.

"Give yourself some grace, Bun." His mouth twitches. "Can't be all bad, you've gotten comfortable enough to steal my hoodies, wifey. "

You catch his raised brows and that knowing twitch—a callback to the wardrobe he already gave you shit for.

"Don't start."

"Wouldn't dream of it, ‘sides, it looks good on you."

Choso winks and you pout, cheeks growing warm.

And that's it. 

He goes back to the books and lets you sit in the quiet with a drink and a half-pitcher he made just for you to refill.

Choso doesn't ask you to be okay. Doesn't ask you to be anything.

It’s refreshing.

So you stay while longer, neither of you fills the silence, and for once it doesn't need filling.

Honestly, you'd intended to keep him company until he finished. But those three glasses of whatever tropical death sentence he'd whipped up clearly had other plans, and your eyes are losing the war..

"M'gonna head up," you mumble, stifling a yawn. "Night, Cho."

"Nite, Bun." He doesn't look up from the ledger. "Leave the glass, I'll get it."

You slide off the stool but pause in the doorway.

"Cho?"

"Mm."

"...Thanks. For everything."

"Anytime, Bun."

You go upstairs and fall asleep faster than you have in weeks, barely waking up in time for the post to go live. 

The post announcing your engagement goes live at 7:45 am on the dot.

By 7:47, your phone is unusable.

The reaction splits cleanly down the middle at first—half your followers are stunned into all-caps keyboard smashing, the other half convinced it's all a bit. 

SINCE WHEN??? HARPO, WHO IS DIS MAN!? girl there is NO way you had a whole ass boyfriend and said NOTHING. she’s SCAMMING, your honor!

But then the high school photos inevitably do their work.

You'd dug them out of your cloud the night before—grainy, unfiltered, the two of you crammed into that courtyard with the rest of the delinquent crew. You in a uniform skirt rolled too short. Choso with that ridiculous septum ring flipped down, scowling at the camera while you peace-signed beside him. Fifteen and oblivious. The timestamps do the heavy lifting—nobody fakes childhood photos like this.

The tone shifts fast. 

Wait this is REAL real!  childhood friends to lovers pipeline I'm SCREAMINGGG!!!  omg young bunny lore! she's been keeping him a SECRET?? 

And then, inevitably, the thirst.

Because you'd been careful with his face—he didn't tell you, but you knew. No full shots, nothing identifiable enough for someone to find him on the street. Just his hands wrapped around a coffee mug, collared shirt sleeves rolled down covering his ink as a candid from behind—highlighting broad shoulders, dark hair fully down and the suggestion of a jaw. Lastly, a photo of the two of you holding hands from the waist down, him black jeans and boots, that should have been innocent and absolutely was anything but.

PUT HIM IN GREY SWEATS IMMEDIATELY!!  my gawdddd, long 2 di number pon di tape measure!! drop the @ or he’s AI. those HANDS?!?!?  forget the hands, THAT BACK! sis, what are you feeding him?! kami, i've seen what you've done for others…

You scroll through the comments with your coffee, snorting into the mug, silently grateful that Choso is not and will never be the type to read the comment section. Or have any social media at all but the bare minimum. 

You’d die if he checked these.

Especially at the speculations of how spicy your non-existent sex life is.

But in the end no one who’s consequential questions it. Not one outlet, gossip blogger or podcast sniffs at the major fraud of it all.

The high school photos killed every doubt before it could breathe. You look at the numbers climbing—likes, shares, saves—and feel the knot in your chest loosen for the first time in days.

It worked.

Now you just have to keep it working.

Your only annoyance in the moment is the fact that Gojo, seeing the announcement, keeps blowing up your DMs, asking you to spill every single detail and begging for a wedding invite. No one but Shoko and Utahime know the truth and you want to keep it that way, Gojo can't hold water. 

So you really need him to stop blowing up your DMs. 

toru 🤑📈: EXCUSE ME???????? toru 🤑📈: CHOSO???? KAMO CHOSO??? toru 🤑📈: THE EMO KID FROM THE COURTYARD WITH THE HOLES IN HIS FACE?????? toru 🤑📈: SINCE WHEN?? toru  🤑📈: HOW!? toru  🤑📈: AND WHERE IS MY WEDDING INVITE?! toru  🤑📈: SUGURU OWES ME 1,000,000¥ HE SAID YOU'D CRAWL BACK TO HIM FIRST!! toru  🤑📈: I NEED THE TEA IMMEDIATELY!! SPILL!! toru  🤑📈: BUNNY toru 🤑📈: BUNNY!!! toru  🤑📈: BUNBUN~~~!!!! toru 🤑📈: BUNNY ANSWER MEEEEE!!!! :( toru  🤑📈: THAT’S IT! FUCK THIS CONFERENCE AND KEYNOTE  toru  🤑📈: DROP A PIN!! I’M OTW!!! toru  🤑📈: BUNNYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!

You mute the chat. 

He'll survive and you know Suguru will keep the completely unserious CEO at whatever conference to give the speech, thankfully.

The post does its job. The comments flood in, the narrative shifts, and for the first time in weeks you feel like you can breathe.

But surviving the internet is one thing. Surviving this household is another—because an engagement post only holds if the people inside the house are selling it too. And right now barring Yuji, the adults in Choso's family tolerate you the way you'd tolerate a stray cat that wandered in during a storm: fed, sheltered, watched with mild suspicion to see if it scratches the furniture.

You need to learn the hierarchy of the household in order to get in the rest of the family’s good graces.

𖥻

The thing about a house full of men who mostly communicate in grunts and threats is that they have never, not once, owned a functioning set of measuring cups. 

Choso is a great cook, of course, but he's no baker.

You discover this three days in, when Yuji finds you on the couch mid-depressive doomscroll as you still haven’t picked out a dress and Utahime is on your ass about it—and announces that his birthday is in six months and he wants to practice making his cake now so it's "really good by then."

In reality the kid just wants cake and you can’t lie, it’s sounding really good right now and definitely beats your anxiety-inducing interaction monitoring.

Which is how you end up elbow-deep in a mixing bowl at 2 pm, flour on every surface including the ceiling—you still don't know how it got up there—with a five-year-old sous chef who believes more is always better.

"More sprinkles."

"Yuji, they're not even in the batter yet—"

"More sprinkles!!"

Of course, you give the kid his sprinkles. It's easier than the alternative. 

By this point, Yuji’s got a smear of chocolate across one cheek, the fierce concentration of a surgeon and the strength of a wrecking ball—cracking an egg against the bowl with his whole fist and then looking up at you, devastated, when the shell and yolk go everywhere.

"It's okay." You coo as you fish out the pieces. 

"Happens to everybody. Watch this—one hand, gentle, like you're booping it on the head just a little. Not a full bonk."

Predictably Yuji bonks the next egg like he's declaring war on it.

"...a little less bonk Yu-chan. It’s an egg, not Uncle Sukuna’s forehead."

There’s a rough growl from somewhere in the house and both you and Yuji giggle.

You never thought you'd be good with kids. 

Maybe it's just Yuji—the kid is adorable and activates a maternal instinct you didn't know you had. You want to protect him at all costs and you're starting to understand why Choso is so ride or die for him. A bundle of energy, a little jester—you haven't laughed like this in weeks. Not genuinely, at least. For the first time since this whole mess started you're not thinking about any of it.

"Cho-nii!" Yuji shrieks the second you both hear the sound of the front door opening. "We're making my birthday cake!"

"It's September." Choso's voice calls, from the genkan.

"'For practice!' you call back, booping Yuji on the nose as he beams up at you.

Choso appears moments later, taking in the disaster. The ceiling flour. Both you and Yuji are covered in batter. You, mid-laugh, sprinkle container in hand, looking nothing like the wrecked girl who cried into his bar a week ago.

"Cho-nii, why's your face all weird?" Yuji asks, head tilted.

"It's not weird." Choso clears his throat. "Ah, er, you've got flour on the ceiling and more batter on you than the pan Yu."

“I suppose we did go a little overboard, huh?” You giggle, wiping yourself off with a paper towel, not realizing you missed a spot. 

"You've got—" He crosses the kitchen, wets his thumb, and drags it across the streak of flour on your cheekbone—like he's done with his younger brother Yuji a hundred times over.

Except you’re not Yuji. 

You’re his fiance, well, fake fiance but real for all intents and purposes.

The realization hits you both at the same moment—his thumb still on your skin, the rough pad of it warm against your plush skin and the kitchen shrinking to the space between his hand and your face. You can smell him under the bar-and-leather—cleaner, closer to the scent you've been falling asleep to for the last three nights without realizing you've memorized it until now.

“Woah.” Yuji’s eyes mimic saucers. 

"—flour." Choso's hand drops, ears going red, wiping the residue on his pants. 

"THUMB KISS!!" Yuji bellows, delighted by something he doesn't even fully understand.

"It was flour—" Choso throws from over his shoulder, the dishes suddenly interesting as hell.

"Cho-nii and nee-chan, sittin' in a—"

"Finish your batter, Yuji." 

Yuji does too, gleefully at that, still singing the sitting-in-a-tree song at full volume with half the words wrong while you and Choso actively pretend the last thirty seconds didn't happen. 

You busy yourself wiping down the counter, while he busies himself with the dishes next to the sink that were already clean.

Suddenly, your phone buzzes on the flour-dusted counter. You pick it up gingerly — the screen's already a mess.You glance at it expecting Manami or Utahime—but it's an Unknown number, which immediately puts you on alert. 

As an influencer you keep your real number to a very select group of people.

You open it and then immediately wish you hadn’t.

Unknown: new phone who dis? Unknown: jk it's me I got a burner. Unknown: me as in toru :) Unknown: and you thought muting would stop me?? Unknown: HAH! imma COCKROACH baby I SURVIVE!!! Unknown: bunny! Unknown: bunbun c’mon! Unknown: at least tell choso I said congrats :( Unknown: oh and if you don’t unmute me I'm telling him you used to call me daddy~~~!

You nearly drop the phone into the batter.

You panic-delete the daddy text so fast you almost crack your gel extension tips on the screen, quickly glancing over your shoulder to make sure Choso didn't see it. He's still at the sink, oblivious—bless.

Your phone lights up again—a second text, from Suguru this time:

Suguru 🐍: Satoru bought a prepaid phone at 7-Eleven specifically to text you. Suguru 🐍: I want you to understand the level of unhinged I'm dealing with right now. Suguru 🐍: Congratulations on the engagement, btw. But please call him. Suguru 🐍: He's currently working with the Marketing VP to change the messaging on the company’s Shibuya billboard to ‘UNMUTE ME BUNNY’ Suguru 🐍: I won’t be able to gather the board quickly enough to stop him either.

Goddamit toru! 

Urgh, Suguru needs to get his little albino fairy boy under control—you are already in the trenches with this fake marriage stuff!

You🐰💖: thank u sugu 🥹 You🐰💖: but im kinda dealing with a lot rn. You🐰💖: can’t you just crush a xan in his kikufuku again? You🐰💖: cause istg if he even sends a ‘hi’ to choso i’ll put money on his head. You🐰💖: i have connections now. You🐰💖: ALSO You🐰💖: for the record You🐰💖: i NEVER called him that and he KNOWS it!!!!!!

It's not long before you get a response.

Suguru 🐍: Good call. I have some on hand actually. Suguru 🐍: And I know you didn’t, Bun. Suguru 🐍: Because that’s what you both used to call me. Suguru 🐍: But I'll pass along the threat. 

You shove the phone face-down and go back to the batter, sweating bullets, hoping Choso hadn’t turned around for any of that.

"Hey, hey, Nee-chan! Are you sick? You look reallyyyy shiny!" Yuji announces as unhelpfully as an overly helpful child can be.

"It's the oven, Yuji—just finish your batter, kiddo." 

Winning over Yuji was easy. The five-year-old loved you before you even walked in. 

His grandfather is a different beast entirely.

As the patriarch, Wasuke is a fixed point in the house and the go board by the window in the living room is his entire kingdom. Glasses down his nose, playing game after game against an opponent who is always, pointedly, no one. Nobody in the house plays him. You swiftly surmise this is less about interest and more about self-preservation.

"He's brutal," Jin warns you in passing, catching you lingering on the periphery of the living room. "Made a man cry once. A yakuza lieutenant, I believe. Wept like a widow."

So naturally, you have to see for yourself.

It isn’t long before you sit down across from him, your pink Pilates wrap and leggings making you look more Barbie doll than competitor.

Not that Wasuke's surprised. He'd sensed your hovering long before you made a move. He knew it was only a matter of time. 

"You know how to play?”

"More or less? Capture the stones, right?"

"Then no." The wily old man turns a black stone over in his fingers. "I don't play for fun."

"What do you play for then?" 

That gets his eyes up. "Five thousand yen a game."

You blink your prettiest, dumbest blink. "That's like—fifty bucks? To play a board game?!"

"To lose a board game. Which you will." 

Wasuke is already reaching for the bowl of stones. Sharks can't help themselves. The thing about old habits and old hustlers—neither knows when to quit.

"White's yours. Black goes first." 

Considering the fact you’re still seated as confirmation of the terms of play, Wasuke places his first stone with a decisive clack—upper right star point, claiming the corner like he's planting a flag.

How chivalrous, you think sourly, already at a disadvantage.

You lose the first game in twenty-two moves. 

Wasuke opens with a double star-point formation—aggressive and territorial, just daring you to invade. You try a shoulder hit on his corner enclosure and he punishes it immediately, cutting off your stones before you can connect, swallowing territory like a man who's been eating amateurs alive for decades. 

You pay up, pouting, all ugh, I almost had it. 

You lose the second even worse—he builds a massive framework across the whole right side of the board, a moyo so dominant it's practically a wall and every attempt you make to reduce it just feeds him more of your pieces as prisoners. 

You sigh, digging through your wallet like it hurts.

“Okay, okay, you’re really good, Jii-chan! One more though? All in, double or nothing?” You pout batting your eyes. “I think I’m getting the hang of this now.”

Wasuke just stares at you smugly, thumb stroking the edge of a black stone—his tell, the one you've clocked across four games' worth of watching him play nobody. He always does it before an aggressive move, always reaches for the lower-left, always overcommits to territory he's claimed because he can't stand to lose what he considers his. 

You wonder if he ran his former organization under the same ruthless dogma? 

Regardless, it’s obvious Wasuke believes he's found an easy mark in you.

Although Wasuke is sure Choso won't be too happy about him hustling money from his bride-to-be—the prissy little thing who'd done nothing so far but look pretty, steal his favorite spot at the kotetsu and trash the kitchen baking with Yuji.

Yet what better initiation into an ex-yakuza family than losing your shirt at the go board?  

He'd go easy on you—relatively. He’d let you keep your shirt.

"Double or nothing," he agrees, magnanimous as a man about to take candy from a baby.

Unfortunately for Wasuke, this is where you stopped pretending.

You've played since you were Yuji’s age—all thanks to your godfather who you'd visit in Japan in the countryside during the summers and he didn't own a TV. 

This time you let Wasuke build the position he loves. You play passive—a fuseki that looks aimless, stones scattered like you're still learning the board, letting him take the lower-left corner with that aggressive shimari he can't resist. 

He reads it as incompetence. It isn't.

And you prove it too. Twenty moves in, you strike. 

A cutting stone placed right between two groups he assumed were connected—a single move that severs his formation, and suddenly his sixteen stones in the lower-left are gasping for air with no eyes to make life. He tries a ko fight to save them. You ignore the threat entirely, because you've already read three moves past it—sacrifice a small group on the upper board and use the sente to seal his stones' fate.

Sixteen stones captured. 

Dead on the board in one sequence he never saw coming because he was too busy underestimating the girl in pink.

The room goes dead silent.

Wasuke stares at the board. Then at you. 

The dumb bimbo blink is gone off your face and you let him see the coy smirk that replaced it.

"You hustled me." Wasuke grumbles, narrowing his eyes.

"What, you think just because I look like Barbie I can’t play?" You stack his money neat, standing to slide it into your pocket, "Whose fault is that?"

Wasuke just grunts—low, long, with a hum buried in it that nobody in this house has heard before—and Sukuna nearly drops his beer as he passes by, clocking the fallout.

"Pops. Did she just—"

"Sit down. Now." 

You're not sure if he means you or Sukuna, but you both sit down anyway—the authoritative tone is enough to tell you he meant business.

Wasuke's already resetting the board, flicking dead stones back into their bowls, and it's the highest honor this man is structurally capable of granting. 

"I was going easy. We’re playing again, real stakes this time."

The games that follow are a different animal entirely. No hustling, no sandbagging—just two people who actually know what they're doing, trading territory, reading three moves ahead, grinding each other down stone by stone. Wasuke plays like a man who learned strategy in rooms where losing meant more than money. You play like the kid who spent every summer getting destroyed by her godfather until the day she didn't.

By game three of the rematch, Jin's abandoned his laptop to come watch. 

By game five, Yuji—drawn back downstairs by the commotion—is asleep against your side, and Sukuna's calling plays over your shoulder like a bookie, shouting “cut, cut, CUT there, you idiot!” at moves he only half understands. 

Eventually, the commotion pulls Choso from the Izakaya, who stands in the doorway with a dish towel forgotten in his hands, watching you battle his grandfather stone by stone while the whole family crowds into one room.

By the end, you owe Wasuke a thousand yen. About ten bucks—but a far cry from the thirty thousand he thought he'd be pocketing from the double or nothing wager. 

The old man won more games in the rematch, barely, but you gave him hell for every single one.

When you do try to pay him, Wasuke refuses. He just grumbles about needing to buy more cigarettes and goes to take a walk.

"Congrats, Bun," Choso grins as you watch the old man shuffle out. "He definitely likes you now."

"I feel more like he might be plotting a hit."

"Yeah, but he only does that to people on his good side."

You laugh, and don't think much more of it. But Choso does, noting the whole family in one room, peacefully, for the first time in longer than he can remember.

All because of you.

“Come on champ, I’ll make you a victory lunch.” Choso says heading back to the Izakaya.

You nearly correct Choso that technically Wasuke won the games overall, but then you consider the win of his approval to be the much bigger victory as you skip behind Choso— with Yuji right on your heels the second you announce you want tempura for lunch.

You settle into a rhythm after that. Wasuke tolerates you, Yuji adores you, Sukuna heckles you. The only one you haven't quite figured out yet is Jin. 

Jin is the quiet one, which in this house means he's merely eccentric instead of a walking felony.

Where Sukuna fills a room and Wasuke rules his corner of it, Jin drifts through—head in a manuscript that isn't going anywhere, glasses perpetually lost on top of his own head, receipts and unpaid parking tickets used interchangeably as bookmarks. He forgets to eat. He forgets what day it is. Once, in a particularly sleep-deprived state, he called you by three different wrong names in a single conversation, apologized to a houseplant he mistook for you and then wandered off mid-sentence because a better sentence for his book had occurred to him. 

Jin is, in the words of his older brother Sukuna, "a genius and a disaster—and the genius part is up for serious debate."

So when Jin lowers himself into the chair across from you at the kitchen table—legal pad, pen, and the fond squint of a man surfacing from another reality entirely—you already know you're in for something.

"Can I ask you a few things, Bunny?" Jin’s uncapping the pen before you answer. "For research, of course."

"The book?" You smile, looking up from your phone.

"The book." He sighs. "My editor wants a romance subplot this go-around. To think, for twenty years I've written pure crime and thriller—bodies, betrayal, the yakuza stuff I actually know—and now she wants love." 

He says the word like it tastes different than it used to for him. "I've forgotten how it goes. The falling in it part. Been a long time since I—”, Jin pauses, the ghost of a wife long gone moving through his memory,"—well. It's been a long time and I'm a bit jaded. So help an old man out."

"Jin, come on. You’re hardly old and besides, I’d be getting deported for staying single, I don't think I'm your expe—"

"When you fall for someone." Jin’s not listening though, he's already decided. Author-locked-on you with a pen poised for notating. "Is it all at once? A poetic lightning strike? Or does it creep in slowly, disguised as something ordinary, until one day you look up and it's just there. Which one's the real one?"

You actually stop and think about it, and unsurprisingly, come up empty. "Honestly? I, um, I don't know. My track record's a graveyard. I haven’t been one for lasting relationships. I'm probably the last person who should be answering this."

Jin hums, unbothered, and tries another door.

"Alright, alright, different angle then, let’s try to map the male lead here." Jin leans back, pen tapping his chin, eyes going distant the way they do when he's building a character out of air. 

"Say there's a man. Quiet type. Not flashy—the kind people walk past, ignoring or avoiding. Doesn't say much, doesn’t chase anything. Hmm, oh, and runs some little place that’s always in a deficit as he’d rather help the community than turn a profit." 

Jin pauses to make sure you’re still following and nods seeing you are.

"He’s also steady. The type you don't notice until you lean on it and it actually holds. Loyal to a fault. Been carrying a torch for years and never said a word, because saying it might cost him the small piece of her he already has." He turns the pen toward you, putting you on the spot. "A man like that. How does he fall? What does it look like, from the inside?"

Oh! hypotheticals? Those are easy, you think.

"Oh, that guy?" You warm up, elbows on the table, chin perched on your hands. "That guy's easy. He doesn't fall—he's already down bad. Probably has been for years and just... lives in it. You know? Like it's not even a choice anymore, it's just natural, like the weather." You wave a hand, building. "He's not the lightning-strike type."

You shift, getting into it now because this is actually kind of fun as a thought exercise.

"And he'd never say anything. Obviously, God no, he'd just—be there. Show up or whatever, without being asked. He’d be so easy to be around that one day she looks up and realizes she can't picture life without him and by then it's like—" you snap your fingers, "—too late. She's already in it. She just didn't—"

You stop.

Something in your own sentence snags on a feeling.

 It's there and gone before you can name it.

"Yes?" Jin says, eyes closed and all smiles as he beckons you to continue.

"...anyway," you finish, weaker. "Um... that guy. He'd be a good one. In your book, I mean."

Opening his eyes, Jin peers at you over his glasses.

He's still smiling, small and knowing and so gentle it should tip you off—like he’s watching someone describe a building they're standing inside of and calling it a nice place they wished they could visit someday. 

"Yep," Jin says decisively. "I think he would be."

That's when Choso walks in from the Izakaya, apron on, the groceries for dinner in his arms and clocks the scene in a single frame—you, his father, the legal pad, that particular cheesy grin on Jin's face. 

"...What are you two talking about?" Choso is already wary of the answer—his entire family seemingly on a mission to send him to an early death by mortification. 

"Love," Jin says, delighted, all innocence.

He knew it.

"Dad..."

"Your wife-to-be," Jin says, capping his pen with enormous satisfaction, "was helping me with a character."

"Uh-huh," Choso is fearful of the damage control he’d need to do this time.

"A man." Jin's practically glowing now, brimming with barely contained glee. "Quiet, the steady type—runs a little bar that's never more than half full at best. Pining, hopelessly, for years, too much of a coward to say a word—"

“You’re joking—”

"—purely fictional, of course, son!" Jin turns back to you. "Bunny here had wonderful insight. Said he's probably already fallen and just living in it. Can't remember deciding not to love her." 

Jin sighs happily. "Absolutely devastating—and I'm putting it all in!"

Choso's looking at Jin like he's deciding which yakuza favor to call in.

"You made her—" He starts.

"It’s research." Jin quips.

"You're impossible."

"I'm prolific," Jin corrects, "for the first time in six months, thanks to your—"

The doorbell rings. 

Thank god, Choso thinks. Saved by the bell.

Jin is out of the chair before it finishes, legal pad clutched to his chest. "That's either my Beard Papa cream puffs or my editor!" he calls, already disappearing down the hall toward his room. "If it's the puffs, put them on the table! If it's my editor—tell her I died! Peacefully! Mid-masterpiece!"

You hear the door to his office slam down the hall.

Choso exhales and goes to answer it. Opening the door to a delivery person with a box of creme, matcha and chocolate-filled pastry puffs. 

Crisis averted. More than one too.

Setting the box on the counter, it's barely been there ten seconds before Jin materializes—silently, like a man who has developed a sixth sense exclusively for cream puffs—plucks one from the box without breaking stride, and drifts back out humming something that sounds suspiciously like a wedding march.

"...He's fun," you offer, filling the silence.

"He's a menace." Choso finally moves, unpacking groceries with more force than any vegetable deserves.

You watch him for a second—the set of his jaw, the way he handles an onion like it personally wronged him—and almost ask what Jin said to make him so tense. 

But the cream puffs are right there, you're starving and the moment passes with you wondering if it's worth going to disturb Jin to ask if you can have one.

Yet, Choso hasn’t moved on so easily, the frustration settling in his shoulders. He doesn't know if he should be hopeful or fearful. 

He knows you aren't marrying him because any of this is real. You don't need to know what it is to him—what it's always been, even before he had the word for it. He didn't even know himself until after high school, when seeing you wasn't a near-everyday occurrence and the absence made the shape of it unmistakable.

Even then, his time in the yakuza lifestyle dulled it—buried it under enough noise and violence and purpose that he could almost pretend it wasn't there. Until one day he saw your face on TV and everything he'd buried clawed its way back to the surface.

He's always had a thing for you. 

Still does.

When he thinks you're not watching, Choso gives you a sidelong glance, checking whether any of it stuck. 

It didn't—figures. 

You're already back to scrolling, humming some catchy  tune, your attention flickering between your social feed and the cream puffs you are too hesitant to just take.

Getting a plate, Choso slides it across the table. "Go on, dig in."

Choso considers you, before you even ask—attuned to your needs better than some actual husbands.

You don't notice you never have to ask though.

That's the whole thing.

You just never notice. Not in the way that matters.

But you do notice other things. 

Like how the house starts to feel less foreign with each passing day—Yuji's laugh becoming background music, the smell of Choso's cooking replacing your alarm clock, the way you've started leaving your shoes in the genkan without thinking about it. You're settling in. 

You just don't realize how deep.

A few days later, you're in the living room teaching Yuji a TikTok dance and the kid is, against all odds, not half bad at it.

You've got the phone propped, running through the choreography clean—hips loose, grinning at the lens, that easy on-camera brightness switching on. It's the influencer gloss, the thing you do a hundred times a day. But there's no gloss under it this time. You're actually happy and it reads on your face in a way the performed version never quite manages.

“C’mon lil J-Hope, one more take!” Yuji scrambles in beside you. You catch his little hands, walk him through it slow, and he finally—finally—lands the jump on the beat, shrieks like he's won the Olympics. You scoop him up spinning and you're both laughing—

—and across the room, on a stool, Choso has a sketchbook open on his knee. 

Pencil paused mid-stroke. He's been drawing without deciding to, the way he does, and doesn't realize he's staring until Sukuna leans over his shoulder and lets out a low whistle.

"Huh." Sukuna says dryly, delighted at an opportunity to poke the bear. "That her?"

Choso snaps the book shut. "No. It's nothing."

"Heh." Sukuna's grinning now, settling back, cracking a beer. "Nothing is Jin's novel. This looks like a whole lotta something. You got the little—" he gestures at his own face, "—nose wrinkle thing she does too.”

Across the room you glance over, the tension palpable even from where you are. "What're you two whispering about?"

"ChoCho's art," Sukuna says, wickedly.

"Ooh—ChoCho, lemme see! I've been asking you to sh—"

"It's not finished…" Choso’s already tucking the book against his side, standing to escape. 

"Later. Maybe. Just, uh, keep—" his eyes dart to the camera setup, "—doing that. Gotta go open the shop."

Sukuna watches Choso flee to the izakaya, then turns back to see you're already dancing with the lil brat again, completely oblivious. 

He takes a slow pull of his beer, shaking his head. He cannot believe he lives among this much unspoken pining like some cheesy fucking romance novel.

"Idiots," Sukuna mutters, heading off to see if Wasuke wants to take bets on when his nephew will finally crack. "Both of 'em."

𖥻 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚜 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚟𝚎𝚍. 𝚋𝚕𝚔𝚔𝚒𝚣𝚣𝚊𝚝 © 𝟸𝟶𝟸𝟹-𝟸𝟶𝟸𝟼. 𝚍𝚘 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚏𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚢 𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚊𝚒.

𖥻𝓪𝓷. I hope you liked it! This was a super cute and fuzzy chapter but it heats up next chapter with some major jealousy/drama and we get a cameo from a certain lnds/lads man too ;P Thinking of releasing Aug 7th!

𝓬𝓸𝓶𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓽 lmk how you liked it! tag requests on series m.list ONLY or join 𝐠𝐞𝐧. 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 for priority tags and never miss a story.

ref from here !

Half of them are sympathetic, heart emojis and dozens of ‘NOOOO QUEEN’s and the other half are already tagging immigration lawyers, beefing with your haters and starting petitions you didn't ask for cause you knew it wouldn’t do any good. 

If you'd had a clear head in the moment, you might've considered that going live right after wasn't your most graceful exit—your ugly-cry face is viral now—but life as you know it is practically over, so your makeup being in shambles is the least of your concerns.

More concerning now is your 2m follower milestone that’s now being trashed. They follow you for being Tokyo’s pretty little gaijin darling—not so you can go back to where-the-fuck-ever and film absolute oblivion. 

Feelings too raw to go home—you need a distraction badly.

So in the spirit of your streak of irrational spontaneity you end your ride early to wander aimlessly through a nearby area brimming with bars and restaurants, looking for somewhere discreet to drink your sorrows away. 

Although you don’t consider just how non-discreet you are at dusk wearing giant ass sunglasses that drown your face. 

Scoping a tucked away street, what you stumble upon is a rundown establishment you'd normally deem "sketch" and walk straight past on any other given day. The izakaya in question is wedged between an old laundromat and a shuttered pachinko parlor, no English menu in the window, the noren over the door so faded the kanji's barely legible—which, as a non-native speaker, pretty much means it's illegible to you.

But you're not shadowing its doorway because it's trendy.

You're here because a quick scan confirms hardly anyone else is—and the current patrons look sixty-and-over and clearly don't check social media.

You'd be safe. 

For now.

Inside, it's far cozier than the rundown exterior promised. Low-lit and close, a single row of stools along a worn wooden counter rubbed smooth and dark by decades of elbows. The lamps overhead cast that soft amber that makes everything look kinder. A haze of old smoke and grilled things soaked into the walls, a shelf of bottles with handwritten labels curling at the corners, a lucky cat frozen mid-wave under a coat of dust. A calendar two months behind. A cracked stool cushion someone's mended with tape.

The perfect place to go incognito.

The bartender’s back is to you as you slink onto an empty stool and plop your completely out of place pink Goyard bag on the counter.

“Be right with you.”

You hear it but you don’t acknowledge it.

The constant vibration of your phone reminds you of all the endless notifs you’re trying to ignore. Distraught, you turn off your phone completely, place it facedown on the wooden bar and press both palms over your eyes, applying enough pressure to see stars.

"Rough night?"

The bartender’s voice is deep, but calm, the kind that tells you he's seen a lot worse than you, which in the moment doesn’t do much to make you feel better.

“You have no idea.”

Sighing, your breath shudders from a silent sob as you try to pull it together enough to order something. Your hands come back to rest on the bar with your chin, you haven’t looked up yet as your eyes adjust to the light.

“Can I get a—wait, no, what's your strongest highball? Actually, no. A shot. Two shots. Make them burn! And then a highball!"

Wordlessly, a small glass appears on the bartop. Then another. No garnish, no ceremony.

You can smell the potent sting of homebrew doburoku sake before he sets it down. The cloudy liquid looks much gentler than you know it is and as expected it’s like acid traveling down your throat as you knock it back with a hiss. 

But it’s exactly the kind of pain-numbing medicine you need as you can already feel it dulling the edges of your despair. Not even letting it settle for a minute, you put down the second before finally opening your eyes enough to look at the person sliding over your highball.

You blink. 

The bartender’s face is familiar. 

Not in the way celebrities are familiar, nor in the algorithmic kind of way where everyone starts to blur together. Familiar like a song you haven't heard in years that you still know every word to.

His brown, shaggy hair drawn up in two pig tails, eyeliner or dark circles you aren’t quite sure but his septum piercing catches the light, drawing your eyes to the tatted bar anchored over the bridge of his nose.

His tired eyes are resting on you—waiting for you to catch up to what he’d figured out since the moment you walked in.

"It's Choso," he says after it's clear your brain hit a hard reset. It's not an introduction, it’s a confirmation.

Your mouth opens. Closes. Opens again as through your grief it finally dawns on you just who you are looking at.

"Choso? Choso! Kamo Choso?! What the—oh my god!" 

Halfway off the barstool, both your hands slam down on the counter as you peer over the bar to get a better look at him—completely oblivious to the fact that your boobs are about two seconds from popping out of your top, pink lace bra and all. Choso, already struggling to keep his eyes where they should be, barely catches the highball before your tits can knock it off the edge.

“What the fuck, you own a bar?! Since when!" 

“Aye, you’re disturbing the customers, Bunny,” Choso lightly chides, as a few drunks and old men stir in the back. Although there’s no real admonishment in his voice as he’s pleased by your reaction.

"And it’s an Izakaya."

"Same thing." You roll your eyes.

"It's not, actually." Choso corrects, topping off your drink.

You wave him off though, slumping back into the stool, no energy to fight him on it—but you two always used to bicker like this and something in your chest loosens for the first time all night. He's a piece of history before everything in your life got complicated with followers, brand deals and the visa denial currently ruining your life.

"I can't believe it!"  

You’re still in awe as you drag your drink closer, long pink nails rapping on the glass, "Last time I saw you, you got in a fight with that Yaga-sensei over your combat boots at graduation—"

"I won that fight, too." Choso winks.

"You got chewed out." You shake your head with a smile. 

"Still walked in 'em, so I count that as a win." He wipes down the bar in slow, unbothered passes, sleeves shoved to the elbow, and you clock the ink you somehow missed—black, red and gold inkwork encasement of traditional Japanese symbolism, taking over his entire forearm before disappearing under fabric. 

"You fell off the face of the earth after graduation, ya know! I know you got into Todai like the rest of us."

Your eyes land on his tattoos as you take a sip of your highball. They're hard to miss this close—the ink disappearing under his sleeve.

"Or were the rumors of you joining your family's organization true, huh Cho Cho?"

There's a flirty lilt to your voice as you use the cutesy nickname you used to call him. You're teasing—half-curious, half-testing, as you poke the bear to see what you’d get out of him.

Choso doesn't answer right away. Just keeps working the corkscrew into a bottle, slow, unhurried. Then:

“Hm.” 

And his next movement is so abrupt it catches you off guard.

One second he's twisting the corkscrew, the next the tool flips in his grip, the point jutting out between his knuckles, resettled along his forearm ready to strike.

It's the type of muscle memory that says he’s reached for things far sharper than barware before—and reached for it quick. Choso turns it over once, appraising, like he's calculating all the ways he could utilize it as a weapon before his gaze cuts up to yours and holds there. 

The comforting sleepiness in his eyes is gone. What's behind them now—something smoldering and still—lifts the hair on your arms for reasons that aren't exactly fear.

Yet the tension dissipates as fast as it came on, replaced by an easy chuckle falling from his lips as the corkscrew spins back into the bottle.

"For a time," he says, finally working the cork to a new bottle of sake free with a soft pop. "Then we got out. Then Zenin took over, n’ now I'm here."

You pout, heat dusting your cheeks. 

There's more to that story, you know there is, but you don't push. 

Not tonight. 

You don't want to sour the mood, so you switch gears with a simper.

"And that little move, that bit right there—" you flick at him with your long pink gel extensions, "—that's what you do to impress the ladies?"

Choso grins wide, his tongue piercing catching light as it pokes out through his teeth. 

It’s goofy, entirely at odds with the man who held that corkscrew a moment ago—and you get an instant flashback to high school.

It’s the same look Choso would wear every time he got away with something he shouldn't have.

"I mean—you're still here, aren't ya, Bun?"

You both hold each other's eyes a beat, then simultaneously crack up. 

The laughter cuts the tension as the conversation flows on from there—silly, light, easy, because Choso was always easy to banter with and a decade hadn't changed that one bit.

So deep into catching up, the time slips away—you barely notice the last two salarymen settling their tabs and shuffling out into the night, one of them bowing sloppily at Choso on the way, until it's after closing and you and Choso are the only ones left.

He’s started drinking now too, but the shot he took with you and the glass of aged whiskey he’s nursing has nothing on the four highballs and three shots you’ve already put away. 

"I didn't disappear, I—" You wave a hand, sloshing your drink, your buzz clearly turning into drunkenness as you express your indignation at his questioning once he brings it around to what you’ve been up to. "Modeling. A bit of reality TV. Then the whole—" you gesture vaguely at yourself, at the general concept of your online existence, "—this."

"I know." Choso says it plainly, taking another sip, not looking you in the eye. "I follow you."

You blink. "Cho…y–you—you follow me?"

"Everyone follows you."

Choso pauses, choosing his next words carefully. "You're hard to miss."

“I suppose.” You knock back more of the highball. You don’t know why the thought of him following you all this time had you a bit flustered considering your follower count surpassed the entire population of some small countries, but it did.

“I…I didn't even know you had social media.”

Honestly though—Choso wasn't really the type to have social media, even back then. He barely had Line. You wonder if it's just a blank page or if he actually posts.

"Okay, w-well." 

Your voice wobbles.

The sorrow you spent all night burying won't stay down forever.

"Enjoy the content while it lasts, because in—" you go to grab your phone but realize it's off and then start guesstimating in drunk girl math"—less than thirty-nineteen days I'm getting shipped off like a Shein package."

Choso stops mid-sip. When he lowers the glass he's staring at you with an intensity that doesn't match the moment.

"My visa got flagged," you admit, like a sin, not being able to meet his eye.

"I was just—condo shopping, I’ve only lived with roommates since my godparents passed. I just submitted my first home owner application for a condo, ya know, the normal thing and it kicked something back in the system. Some cross-check." Your laugh is hollow. 

"Turns out my visa was never processed right. Like over a decade ago. There was some error at the start and nobody caught it, and it's been quietly wrong this whole time, and now that they've found it—" your throat closes, "—they're not fixing it. They're revoking it entirely."

You press your face into your hands, trying not to cry again and your voice comes out muffled behind them.

"I did everything right. I have a car, I’ve had multiple jobs here! I have a dentist, I-I—" you sob, "—I have a whole life, and it turns out it was all built on a typo somebody made when I was fifteen and they just get to—take it all. Because they screwed up. And I'm the one who has to..."

You don't finish. 

Lowering your hands to drink so you can stop talking, you find your glass is empty again. 

Great.

Thankfully, like a patron saint of the drunk and devastated, Choso is already making you another. He slides it over without a word.

No judgement. No lecture about slowing down. No I think you've had enough.

Just the drink, appearing like he knew you'd need it before you did.

"Thanks." you sniffle.

Choso leans back against the shelf of bottles, arms crossing over his chest as he appraises you without distraction for the first time tonight.

You were pretty then. But damn—you've really grown into yourself. 

Despite your apparent misery your aura still glows like it always did. 

Of course he's seen you on TV, online, read the occasional gossip article—only when they'd mention you, though. Choso thought you'd forever just be someone famous he could say he once knew.

He couldn't fathom you'd ever come back into his life. 

That you'd be here, in front of him, now.

Yet here you are, despite the odds. And now you're being forced to leave.

Although he supposes if not for your unfortunate turn of circumstances you'd never have dragged yourself into his bar in the first place. He sucks his teeth at that.

"So," Choso says, measured. "What's the plan?"

"Plan?" You ugly-laugh through your falling tears. "The plan is to get drunk enough to forget I need one. If I had one I wouldn't have bawled my eyes out for the entire internet and knocked a good ten years off my liver's lifespan tonight."

Choso's lips twitch as he suppresses a chuckle.

"Y-You know what my problem is?" You're gesturing with the drink now, ice clicking as you grow sloppier by the minute. 

"I'm too picky. I could've solved this whole thing years ago. Rich n’ famous husband. Boom. Permanent residency. You know how many idols and B-celebs proposed to me!? Even a few CEOs! And you know those relationships never last and would have been a good PR boost!"

"Mm." Choso says unimpressed, his mirth gone, but you're too far gone to catch the temperature change.

"Or like—okay. Gojo. Gojo would marry me as a bit." You're warming up, ticking names off on your fingers. "He'd think it was hilarious. He'd make it the most expensive wedding in history just to post it and then forget he did it." You snort. "Or Geto. Geto would do it out of, like, principle, make it into some big movement that would actually stick—he's in politics now, you know."

"You were in high school when you dated them." Choso reminds you.

"And in college… at the same time too. We still keep in contact, you know! But that doesn’t count anyway," You roll your eyes. "Everybody dated everybody. It was a whole—" 

You trail off, losing the thread and finding it again, "—point is...um, the point is I’ve racked my brain and the only way I can stay now is with a native Japanese husband. The clock is ticking and my best options are two men that are obviously gay for each other, clearly fucking but still in denial—we’d never pull it off." 

You drop your forehead to the cool bartop with a soft thunk. "I'm so screwed.”

"I can help with that." Choso quips but you are too deep into your spiral of self-pity to notice.

“Gawwwd, m’gonna have to actually propose to some random or OMG—one of my followers, can you imagine?! 'Hi, you’ve liked more of my photos in a 30 day period than anyone else, congrats, please legally bind yourself to me so I don't get deported. But like also, don’t be creepy about this, kay?'"

You're laughing into the damp countertop now. 

It's not really that funny, but hell, it keeps you from crying.

“Bunny.” Choso says, more forceful this time and waits until he has your attention.

"Marry me." 

"Right? That's exactly the energy, that's—"

You lift your head.

Choso looks dead serious.

Glass in one hand, towel in the other, leaning against the back shelf with that same unbothered energy you’ve known him for. But now he's looking at you straight-on, and there's not a flicker of a joke anywhere on his face.

"Um...What?"

"Marry me." 

Choso sets the glass down. 

"You need a husband. I'm Japanese, born and raised. I'm right here."

"C-Choso…" 

You blink up at him, slowly, trying to sober yourself through sheer force of will—and failing miserably. "T-That's—y-youuu can't jusss—"

"Why not?" Choso’s brow quirks.

And you open your mouth to list the reasons, all the obvious reasons, and every single one of them evaporates, because your head's swimming, the bar's warm—so is his ghost of a smile—and he's saying it like it is the most obvious solution in the world.

"I'm… “ You burp-hiccup as you slump over on the bartop. “...m’reallyyyyy drunk, r-right now, C-Chooo." 

It’s the most honest response you can manage at the moment.

"I know."  He says it softly, brushing a stray strand of hair out of your face. "Sleep on it, yeah, Bun? But first let’s get you home."

𖥻

Your head drops back onto the bar as Choso does his closing duties. When it’s time to lock up, he does it one-handed, keys between his teeth, the other arm hooked over yours, supporting most of your weight as he sets the locks because your legs have filed a formal complaint against you. 

Outside, the night air hits you like a slap—that specific late-autumn Tokyo cold, wet concrete and someone's cigarette two doors down. The worst of it, thankfully, is cut by the heavy leather jacket he drapes across your shoulders. 

"You're heavier than you look, ya know" Choso jests, pulling the oversized jacket tighter around you.

"Ruuude." Your smile is just as slurred as your words though as you kick your feet up. "S'the boots—balenciagas."

Nuzzling deeper into his jacket, you smell the tell-tale scents of yuzu, char and something decidedly masculine that warms you even more than the worn leather. It’s so comfortingly familiar that it tips you sideways into a memory you haven't touched in years.

First year. 

There was a courtyard nobody used, behind the science wing, where you’d go to hide when being ‘The New Gaijin Girl’ got to be too much of a performance.

Choso was already there, well, more like always there. Sketchbook balanced on his knee, that ridiculous septum ring he’d flip back up into his nose to hide during classes and an aura around him like a giant DO NOT ENTER sign the whole school honored.

They'd warned you about him. The Itadori-Kamo kid. 

Don't get too involved. His family's—well… you know. And then whoever was talking would draw a thumb across their throat, or more often than not just let the sentence die, because everyone already knew what it meant.

You plopped right down next to him all the same, because ...well, because you were fifteen and lonely, orphaned six months prior and shipped to godparents in a country you only knew from visiting summers.

Choso was the only person at that school who didn't treat you like a novelty.

Plus he spoke surprisingly good English. 

"Your nail polish is chipping," you'd said. You didn’t bother with intros. You knew you both knew who the other was, each infamous for completely different reasons.

He'd glanced up, "So?"

"Sooooo…you should switch to gel, standard lacquer is so ten years ago!" You dug the three-in-one gel polish combo out of your bag and set the bottle on the concrete beside him— "black came with my set and I never wear it anyway"—already getting up, dusting off your skirt.

"See ya around, Cho-kun!" 

You skipped off before he could stop you, tossing a last quip over your shoulder that he should use the UV light in the lab room to cure it.

That was the first time you spoke to him.

From then on you'd smile and wave in the halls or occasionally slip away to sit with him at lunch. People, including Choso initially, wrote you off as the crazy gaijin who didn't understand—you didn't care. 

Then you started dating Suguru and he'd join you, which pulled in Gojo, then Nanami, Shoko and Utahime, until all of you were crammed back there with Choso like a pack of delinquents. 

Which, naturally, then made it cool because Gojo and Geto were there. 

You giggle to yourself, remembering Choso's face as his quiet sanctuary turned into the it lunch spot. People who used to cross the hall to avoid him were suddenly less wary of talking to him once Gojo and Geto absorbed him into their group.

When the present seeps back in, your cheek is against his side and the last few blocks are gone. Streetlights smear past in a nausea-inducing blur. His arm is a bar of iron across your back, adjusting every time your feet stumble.

"Y-You still draw, Cho?" you ask, closing your eyes and just letting him guide you sight-unseen.

Choso's stride doesn't break but he's more focused on the street signs against the drunken, half-assed directions you gave him.

"Eh, sometimes."

"Y-You were reallyyy g-good. Y-you—oop!" A hiccup interrupts your train of thought. 

"S-Sugu couldn't draw. T-Toru was even worse—he'd scribble a sorry excuse for a stick figure, n’ then sign it like it was a Jackson Pollock."

That sends you into a fit of giggles.

"You're comparing me to them again?" Choso shakes scarcasm bleeding through. "How devastating."

"Oh, s-stop—you beat 'em n’ it's not even close, Cho!“ You reach up to drunkenly poke his cheek. “Y-You were the only one with any real talent for it and you knew that, s-show offff.”

He huffs—the closest you’d get to an admission out of him—as he steers you around a curb you'd have eaten pavement over otherwise.

“Besides, m’comparing everyone and everything—'s been a night."

You settle back into his side when he doesn't respond.

After a few more blocks, Choso points up. “Here?” 

Craning your head all the way back, you almost topple backwards before he grabs your arm. 

He’s right, you are home.

But there’s a pit of anxiety bubbling in you, not wanting to be alone with your sorrows and you’ve felt so good since you happened upon Choso’s izakaya.

When he stops at the entrance you don't let go—if anything you burrow deeper, both arms wrapping fully around his torso, pressing your whole front into him, chin on his chest gazing up at him.

"Chooooo-kun."

"Mm?" 

"How come I never dated you?" You grin up at him.

Choso’s whole body goes still, expecting more drunken rambles out of you.

Not this. 

"Like—" you hiccup, swaying, your hands coming up his back to grip his shoulder blades, "— we hung out all the time. You were cute. You were nice. Y-You had the whole mysterious thing going on."

You squint up at him, genuinely puzzled, like this is a real brain-teaser and not a question with an obvious answer written across every year of high school. 

"I feel like we would've been so good, Cho. D-Don't you—hicc—t-think?” You giggle at your own musings “Like—could've been a whole thing, maybe I wouldn’t even have this problem now.”

The reason you were never a thing, of course, is that you were busy dating the two most popular boys in school while he was a nobody. That during summers you were modeling and he was the kid with eyeliner, black nails and piercings, people crossed the street to avoid. You were in two different worlds. 

But you're too drunk now to hear how that sounds.

Or understand how he feels when you're tossing this out like a fun hypothetical while pressing against him like it's easy—because for you it always has been. 

“You know…” You weigh, your train of thought derails as your bleary eyes land on his mouth. Specifically, the glint of metal when his lips part. “...I’ve always kind of wanted a tongue piercing.” You flick out your tongue. “My publicist would lose it though. What do you think, Cho?”

Choso freezes. Whatever he was going to say to that gets caught somewhere between his brain and his mouth and doesn't survive the trip.

"C'mon." You hiccup, tugging at his shirt as you sway toward the door. "C-Come upstairs. My roommates aren’t home. We can watch something.” One hand still pulling Choso along as you dig in your purse for your building key with the other. “I have that shōjo anime you used to pretend to hate but I always caught you watching over my shoul—"

Shit.

"No, no, no, fuck—my keys, Cho, I left them—I went to the bathroom and I—" The panic cuts through the drunk for exactly three seconds before your face crumbles. "T-They're back at the izakayaaaa."

"Yeah." Choso exhales slowly, still reeling from the last few minutes. "Yeah, I figured."

"Chooooo," you whine, a sniffle starting and he's already steering you back toward the street because it figures your roommates would be out of town and that was your spare you left behind as you explained to him.

"We'll go back."

"Yuh-hiccup-ay!" You cheer, snuggling deeper into him, crisis forgotten instantly.

However, the question is not forgotten. Not by him.

How come I never dated you?

You said it like a fun thought experiment. Yet when it came down to it, you were the experiment's only variable.

Now nearing complete incapacitation, the way back proves to be an even bigger struggle, walking becoming no longer a viable option for you. After a quick rest stop for a not-so-low-key puke into a nearby bush, Choso decides it will be faster just to put you on his back.  

By the time you both reach the izakaya again, it's late and you are deadweight—passed out and drooling down his shoulder.

Choso checks his watch. 3AM. Even he's starting to feel it.

You don't remember much else, just fragments—bemoaning the loss of warmth when he sets you down, a couch underneath you, the shape of him crouched at eye level, dark and unhurried, tucking a blanket near your chin. A water bottle and a small waste basket placed on the floor by your head, because he thinks of things like that.

"Sleep."

Thankfully for him, you comply easily and without a word.

Choso settles into a nearby chair that's almost too small for him, phone light on his face. He could've put you in his bed—he thought about it—but you'd wake up confused enough on a couch, let alone in the sheets of a man you haven’t seen in years.

He honestly doubts you’d even remember propositioning him. And, more practically, he really didn't want to clean puke out of his bed. 

He was already counting his blessings you'd managed not to get it on yourself—he'd have had to clean you then, and that was a level of reunion neither of you were truly ready for.

When you finally do wake up, it’s well into the morning.

And hell, everything is wrong. 

Your back hurts, your neck hurts, your stomach hurts—and this isn't your ceiling. 

Huh? Wait!

Choso!

This must be his place. 

You look down and are still dressed in the same clothes as yesterday. Sitting up to grab your phone buzzing by your feet, your splitting headache hits full force, only rivaled in intensity by the full-body dread of a phone you're afraid to check.

With a deep breath you check it anyway and are bombarded with an endless stream of notifications along with one priority notification. It’s an all caps text message from Utahime that reads: GIRL. CALL ME.

Urgh, you plop back down, cushion over your face.

You need a minute.

"Pills are next to you. Keys too. You left ‘em in the bar."

When you lift the pillow over your face, true to his word, there are two painkillers set out next to your keys. Choso leans in a doorway across the room, black tank with two full sleeves of tats on display around coiled muscle, hair loose and brushing his shoulders.

He's holding a mug like he's been awake for hours. 

"Did I, um… did I say anything insane last night?" You ask sheepishly, after sitting up and swiftly downing the pills. “I seriously don’t remember anything after leaving the bar.”

Choso quiets, taking a sip of coffee.

But it’s long enough for you to start mentally drafting an apology, a prayer, and a will depending on the severity. His jaw works once, like he's turning something over.

“Izakaya.” Choso corrects before addressing your question “But nah…nothing you didn’t mean.”

A timer goes off and Choso turns to disappear down the hall before you can chase a better answer out of him. 

Urgh, Mr. Mysterious is clearly in a mood.

Fully awake now, the house comes into focus around you—old, big in the traditional way, wood floors worn smooth and a genkan cluttered with too many pairs of shoes in too many sizes.

A wall of paperback spines.

A go board mid-game on the floor by the window.

A kid's drawing taped to the wall. 

This isn't a bachelor pad. 

It's a home, generations deep, and it holds more people than you accounted for—other voices come from somewhere down the hall, a sliding door, the clatter and grumble of a household already awake.

You’re tempted to chase Choso down, headache be damned, but then your phone buzzes with a number you recognize—your immigration attorney.

The next twenty minutes gut you and confirmed what you already knew—nothing could be done about your visa from his end, which also meant when your lease ended next week you'd be homeless before your deportation.

"Heard most of that." 

Choso reappears, with a TV table. He sets mini sausages, over-easy eggs and furikake rice in front of you with a side of miso soup. 

"You can stay here."

"Choso—" You start as his offer from last night floods back into your mind.

"Not forever, of course."

Choso sits in a chair across from you, unhurried, elbows on his knees. "You need an address. This house has one of those, you know." 

You sigh. An address was the least of your worries in the grand scheme of things.

"It's not charity. We're getting married, remember?" He says before rubbing the back of his neck, “Or… uh, I guess you haven’t exactly given me an answer on that yet.”

You gawk at him—because he's actually deadass, like last night wasn't a drunken joke he could've walked back on.

Your mouth opens but the yes and the no are wrestling each other into a stalemate. You couldn’t, could you? Was this just crazy enough to work?

"Mmm… and there's room for me to stay here for a bit?"

Is what comes out instead. Not exactly a yes or a no. 

Urgh, you can’t answer him now about marriage. You want to say yes. You don’t want to leave Japan. But the guilt of dumping your entire life crisis onto a man you just reconnected with twelve hours ago is sitting heavy on your chest. 

"Spare room's full of junk right now. I'll handle it." He slides the plate an inch closer, like that settles it. "Eat."

Yeah, you make it exactly nowhere near that plate. 

You aren’t the least bit hungry. 

It's too much. The painkillers. The food. The offer to stay. You can't sit in this kind of warmth right now—it'll crack you open and you had to hold it together today.

You hop up.

"Sit," he says, nodding back at the plate. "There's fish too, if you’d rather have that and—"

"I have to—" You cut him off, already scanning for your sweater. "There's stuff. Visa stuff—and calls. I have to make calls!"

"You haven't eaten."

"I'll eat! I'll eat later, I just—I'll call you. I’ll let you know my decision—about everything. I, uh, I just need to handle some things first."

You swap numbers in the genkan—him reading his off while you fumble it into your phone one-handed, boot half on.

Choso watches as you attempt to flee. Doesn't stop you—that's not his way, as you're already remembering.

But you're still wrestling with the old door knob on the front door when you hear a cupboard open behind you. Something sails past your ear.

You catch it on reflex. Melon pan.

A Yakult follows and you fumble that one against your chest.

"So you don't pass out on the train," Choso says with a smirk. “I’d be liable as the one who got you that drunk, ya know Bun.”

You blink at the little bottle in your hands. It's the kind of thing you keep around for someone—a stash for a kid who's always hungry, a brother who forgets to eat while he's working. Not the kind of thing a man buys for himself.

"...Thanks, Choso." You say as you finally get the door open, voice so small it’s nearly a whisper.

Then you're gone, throwing a goodbye over your shoulder that's more flight than farewell as he watches you hurry down the alley and back into the main street. 

𖥻

You spend the day in damage-control mode after your crashout. The comment section has turned your life into a spectator sport.

Utahime keeps you on the phone for 2 hours, talking you off three separate ledges,and lands on the one point you can't argue with—you could do a lot worse than having to marry Choso Kamo.

She's not wrong and not a bad option either.

He'd filled out since high school—tattoos, more piercings and definitely more muscles. The kind of muscles that belong in a j-drama—and from the way he'd listened last night, poured without judging, carried you home without complaint—he'd probably make a decent husband by anyone's metric.

You try not to think about that part too hard, even though your followers definitely would buy it.

Relying on men was never your thing though.

You were a flirt, sure—a slut even, in some circles. But you made your own way regardless. PR relationships never spoke to you.

You know this is different though. This is survival. 

By the time you call Choso, it's past midnight.

You've been staring at your phone for twenty minutes. In the end you just hit call before you could talk yourself out of it.

"Hey."

You purse your lips, twisting them, before the words finally unstick.

"Hi, Cho. I, uh thought about it." You take a big breath. "And I'd really appreciate it if you'd be willing to house me…and marry me, Choso—at least until the visa stuff is sorted and I can get my own place." You rush through it like ripping off a bandage. "If you'll have me."

Before he can answer, you barrel on.

"But, um—why?" Your voice gets smaller. "Why would you do all this for me? And don't say it's nothing, Choso, because it's not nothing."

You know you shouldn't interrogate an offer this generous—but you need something to hold onto. Some reason that makes sense.

Your anxiety spirals as you are met with silence on the line. Just the clink of glasses, the low hum of a fridge—he's closing up, you can picture it in that quiet, unhurried rhythm of his.

"I owe you one, Bunny."

Huh? 

"...What?! Choso, you don't owe me any—"

"Yeah, I do." He declares it firmly.  "You were good to me back then when you didn't have to be. That's not something I was raised to forget."

"Sure, Cho, but not something like this—"

"Interest over thirteen years would be a whole lot more in my clan’s old line of work."

You shake your head but you can't help but smile, pressing your forehead against your phone. He’s always been like this: impossible.

Giving in, you laugh a little. "So...um, when are we doing this?"

"Sooner the better. Your visa's got less than thirty days. I talked to a guy who knows the process—if we file the paperwork this week we can have the ceremony in three, maybe four weeks."

"Three WEEKS?! That’s not enough time, I need a dress, my hair—"

"It's a signing, Bunny, not a royal wedding."

"I—okay, yeah, no, you're right. It's just—" you exhale, "—hearing a number makes it real, you know?"

"Yeah," Choso says, quieter. "It does."

You both sit in that for a second—the weight of a number, a date, a deadline that just went from abstract to concrete.

"...Thanks, Cho."

Choso just chuckles, lightening the mood.

"Ay, Don't thank me yet Bunny. You haven't met my, heh—I mean your new family."

You both decide you’d move-in that weekend—gives you enough time to sort out what's left of your lease, pack up what matters, and say a few quiet goodbyes to your roommates, who still think you are leaving at the end of the month and they still have a going away party to plan. 

You don’t know how to tell them to make it an engagement party to the cute emo yakuza kid you made all your friends in high school eat lunch with every day.

That friday night, after closing, Choso pulls up in a blacked out van that smells like the bar and has a suspicious number of rugs and construction tools in the back. You have two suitcases, a few boxes and a garment rack of clothes that's worth more than everything else combined. 

Choso loads it in, methodical, unbothered, like he's done this before.

"That's everything?" He eyes the surprisingly small amount of stuff you brought thinking he’d have to make at least three trips to get it all.

“Of course not!” You roll your eyes. “The rest is in storage. My shoes alone would need their own room, silly.” 

Choso chuckles. Although looking at the clothes on the rack, you look more ready for heat of summer than the crisp fall season approaching.

“And you’ll be warm in this?” He says skeptically.

"Hey! Don't judge my wardrobe."

"Wasn't gonna." Choso lies. He absolutely will give you shit for it later when you’d inevitably start stealing his clothes.

Choso drives one-handed, the other arm resting on the window sill. His window is down, the night air blowing in, and you try not to shiver on principle. Neither of you talks much—but it's the comfortable kind of quiet, the kind that doesn't need filling.

"Family knows the situation, by the way," Choso says at a red light, casual, eyes on the road. "They're cool with it."

You glance at him picking up on what was unsaid. "For the most part, you mean?"

"For the most part." Choso confirms. The light changes and he doesn't elaborate further.

When you both pull up to the house, it's dark. Bigger than you noticed before—part of the upstairs sits on top of the izakaya but it's wholly its own two-story structure connected to the back of the restaurant.

Choso kills the engine. "Ready?"

You look at the house that is full of people you haven't met. The house you're about to lie your way into.

"...No."

"Good." Choso opens the back to grab your stuff. "Neither am I."

And somehow that's the most reassuring thing anyone's said to you all week.

The house is dark when you enter except for the blue flicker of a TV.

A UFC match plays to no one. Beer bottles crowd the low table—five, six, you can’t count them all. There’s a man sprawled across the entire couch, one arm flung off the edge. 

He's massive, shirtless and covered shoulder to wrist in ink so dense it reads black in the low light, an eyepatch shoved up crooked over one brow, and a scar cutting through the other. He's drunk, snoring like a train and dead asleep.

How he still manages to look like an imminent threat in that state is beyond you.

In the armchair across from him, an old man dozes upright, chin to chest, glasses fogged.

Choso exhales through his nose, cursing below his breath. 

"My uncle's back," he mutters, toeing a fallen bottle upright. "Out on parole early. Apparently, no one thought to tell me."

Uncle. 

The same ex-con uncle who managed to kill an entire room of people with his bare hands?! The rumors—the ones you'd waved off as high-school mythology for years—reassemble themselves in real time.

You simply nod, both amazed and alarmed—however you still make a mental note of the exit routes.

"This means he’ll get the spare room—I mean technically it is his." Choso says, already doing the math you haven't caught up to yet. He glances at the passed-out mountain of his uncle, then down the hall, then at you. "He's not sleeping on the couch. Trust me. Nobody wants that."

"Okay." You're much too tired from all the packing today, to see the cliff you're walking toward. "So where do I—"

"My room."

The words sit in the dark hallway between you.

"Your room," you repeat.

"This way." Choso informs you, gesturing his head down the hall, arms full of your things. 

You trail behind him,  past sliding doors, a bathroom and a wall of family photos as you head upstairs before finally reaching his room. “There’s a futon I can roll out. I'll—"

Choso opens the door and is interrupted by you sliding in front of him, eager to get a look.

"—sleep there. It’s more ideal." Choso finishes, putting your things in a corner of his room to sort out later.

It's a nice room, actually. Clean in the sparse way of someone who doesn't own much—which is great because you own a lot—a low shelf of sketchbooks, a few vinyls, Visual Kei posters, a window with the curtain half-drawn. A wooden box sits on the top shelf, tucked behind a stack of books, the kind of thing you'd never notice if you weren't so nosy.

And one bed. 

A big one, sure. But only the one.

"C’mon Cho, this whole situation is less than ideal—but we aren’t five years old. I don’t have cooties, ya know. You're not sleeping on the floor." 

"It's fine, I don't mind."

"You're like six feet of solid—no way!" You don't finish that thought, your exhaustion making your mouth a bit reckless. "It's a huge bed. We're both adults. We're getting fake married, for Christ's sake, I think we can survive a mattress together."

A muscle in his jaw ticks, fighting an internal war. "Alright," he concedes with a grin. "But I steal blankets."

"I'll steal 'em right back!" You counter with a laugh.

Twenty minutes later, you're lying flat on your back on the far edge of a king bed, staring at a ceiling that's now, oddly enough, yours.

Getting here had been its own ordeal—making Choso turn around while you dove under the sheets in silk tank and short lingerie combo you'd packed for a private room, not a shared bed. Swapping his sad flat pillow for your own. Negotiating blanket territory. All the awkward choreography of two people performing casual and fooling nobody.

Now the lights are off and the rigid line of nothing running down the middle of this bed is doing very little to make you forget he's there.

Because you can feel him. The dip of the mattress pulling toward his side, the heat radiating off him in the dark, the way the bed frame creaks once when he shifts and then goes too still—the kind of still that says he's aware of every inch between your body and his.

Somewhere downstairs, Sukuna snores like a dying lawn mower. A pipe ticks in the wall. The house settles around you—old bones, old wood, sounds you'll learn to sleep through eventually but tonight make everything feel unfamiliar and close.

"Cho?"

"Mm?"

You don't know what you were going to say. The whole bed smells like him—that same musky warmth from his jacket, except now it's everywhere, in the sheets, the air between you—and whatever half-formed thought you had dissolves in it.

"...Nothing," you whisper. "g'nite."

The mattress shifts as he turns his head—you feel his gaze land on the side of your face in the dark and hold there longer than your nothing warrants.

"Night. Get some sleep," he says, low, voice rougher than it was ten minutes ago. "You'll need it in the morning."

"...Why?"

But he doesn't answer—or if he does, it's lost in the dark, in a foot of space amongst the shuffling of blankets as he adjusts.

You lie there a long time, staring at the ceiling, stomach in knots.

Tomorrow morning is going to be a problem.

𖥻 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚜 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚟𝚎𝚍. 𝚋𝚕𝚔𝚔𝚒𝚣𝚣𝚊𝚝 © 𝟸𝟶𝟸𝟹-𝟸𝟶𝟸𝟼

𖥻 𝓬𝓸𝓶𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓽 let me know if you want to be tagged here only, lmk actually cause otherwise ill assume its just a comment about the story lol. taglist 0/100 cap. once the capped out only tagging those on gen 𝐠𝐞𝐧. 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 (𝐭𝐨 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬 𝐚 𝐟𝐢𝐜)

How's that? Much more to come! Sorry in advance, reader will be annoying in this at times (but not as annoying as plug choso's reader lmfaoo) but next chapter is a bit of redemption for her! I But i will post Ch 2 in a few days Aug 1-2! for anyone wanting a sneak peak of p2 the preview was from p2!

“tell me what you want, brat.”

he tries to sound cruel. controlled. but his voice betrays him. desire bleeds into every word, runs through his veins and guides his fingers.

for a moment, you think about refusing to beg. but you know he’ll keep you from coming if you do. now, your body is nothing but a mess of desire for sukuna, incapable of resisting him.

“i want you to fuck me. please, ryo, i need this,” you say, lifting yourself up as his fingers pull away, and the sound that fills the room is a soft but deliberate slap against your cunt.

sending butterflies through your stomach and making you clench around nothing. you love when he fucks you like this, like you’re nothing but his dirty little thing. sukuna was good at that — at devouring you like you were the last and most delicious meal right in front of him.

in the blink of an eye, he turns you over, your chest now pressed against the bed. one strong hand pulls at your stomach as he places a pillow beneath your hips, making you arch your hips into the air. in response, you give him the view he wants, spreading your legs and pressing your chest further into the mattress, your pussy completely exposed.

sukuna positions himself between your legs, rubbing his hard cock against your folds, still dripping from your first orgasm. the heat makes you moan instinctively seeking more of him, caught between pure ecstasy and anticipation.

“kuna… hah, inside, please,” you whimper.

but he doesn’t even listen, because his cock is already pushing into you. at first, it’s slow. he stretches you patiently, even after spending so much time touching you.

then, when he’s buried inside you completely, you could swear you hear him growl. you squeeze around him involuntarily, and sukuna leans over your back, brushing a few strands of hair away from your face before speaking into your ear.

“barely have me and you’re already squeezing me like that. you’re so needy aren’t you?”

then he starts moving. obscene sounds fill the room while your only instinct is to drool and become a mess of moans. you can feel him pulsing, the thick vein along his cock throbbing as he moves against your hot, trembling walls.

the angle makes your vision go white, and you can’t seem to breathe past him. but even so, it feels good — making you feel close to heaven, even while being fucked by something so close to the devil.

“ahhh—s-sukuna… please, more. i’m cumming. fuck… i’m cumming!” you scream.

your sounds are a mess now, and even you can’t understand them anymore. his size is overwhelming, consuming you completely, but there isn’t a trace of pain. he had spent the entire night preparing you to take him.

your walls tighten, and for a moment, your vision goes dark. it’s brief, barely half a second. your thighs begin to tremble, and the sounds of sukuna moving against you grow even wetter with your release dripping down his length.

“so pretty. so pretty for me.” his voice sounds thick with pleasure. “fuck, i want another one.”

“r-ryo! it’s too much… i can’t. it’s too much.” you frown.

you both know you can.

sukuna’s fingers leave your waist, where he had been holding you tightly to keep you in place. he keeps moving against you, but now he pulls you by your hair instead.

his hand is firm enough, yet still gentle to the touch. you feel a tug at your scalp and find yourself enjoying the sting of it, completely drunk on the man above you.

he then lifts you up onto your knees, moving against you harder and harder. he doesn’t pull you close enough for you to press against his chest, but just enough to make you arch. the new angle sends every sensation deeper, where he fills you completely.

from this angle, a small bulge appears in your stomach. it’s slight, barely noticeable, but it’s there. he catches sight of it in the mirror in front of you, and his free hand slides down to your abdomen, right where his cock presses deliciously against your inner walls.

“your cunt feels so good. so small and tight around me. look at you — you can barely fit all of me. you were made for me.” his voice drops lower, rougher now. “i’m going to fill you up. fill you with my cum. ohh, you’ll be so full of me you’ll come back begging for more. this greedy little pussy of yours is going to beg for me, and until i get you pregnant, i’ll keep fucking my children into you.”

you turn your head toward him, crimson eyes dark as spilled blood.

“yes, please, sukuna. fill me up! i want all of your cum—nghhh.” your voice breaks when sukuna drives into you even more eagerly. he releases his grip on your hair, forcing you to brace yourself against the bed once more. your breasts press into the mattress, and the room seems to shrink around you when those same fingers find your clit once again.

god, how could he be so good at this?

“but you still haven’t come again. and if you don’t come, i’m not filling you up, princess.” he lingers on the last word. the new nickname sends uneven tremors through you.

no, it wasn’t the nickname. you’re coming again.

this time, your release spills over him, soaking his cock completely. sukuna laughs, and the sound is so deep you feel it in your bones.

“good girl.”

oh, how he loves ruining you for anyone but himself.

a few more thrusts, and he comes too. his cock pulses as he fills you, warmth spilling deep inside you and coating every inch of you.

sukuna is loud when he comes, and you like that. even after he’s finished, he keeps moving against you, pushing every last drop deeper.

“you’re going to take it all.” that’s what he says.

and you do, because you were made for this. sukuna knows it too.

your legs finally give out beneath you, and you sink onto the bed. one last moan slips from your lips when he pulls out, only to turn you over and capture your mouth with his.

you feel his cock twitch against your thigh, but it doesn’t surprise you. that man seemed endless. insatiable when it came to having you and filling you.

even so, sukuna kisses you for a long moment before lying down beside you. he pulls you into his arms and runs his fingers through your hair.

you’re a mess, sticky and spent, but you don’t complain. later, his tongue will take care of that before he ends up devouring you all over again.

god knows you can handle everything he has — and more — to give you

first work posted here! i’m a little nervous, and i should warn you that i haven’t had the chance to properly revise this draft yet. but i’ve been obsessed with sukuna lately, and ever since i saw that fanmade gif of him on twitter, i’ve been feeling a little insane. jokes aside, i hope you enjoy it! ♡

© arkhiver — 2026. do not copy, translate, repost, or feed my works to ai.