kayla

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna grilling everyone on campus—from RAs to terrified freshmen—until he finds out your major and what classes you like, typing every detail into the Notes app like a total stalker.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna digging up your socials in one night, scouring your TikTok likes to see what kind of guys you’re into. When he finds a video of some guy who is his total opposite, he lets out a pathetic, guttural groan and buries his face in his pillow.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna liking every single one of your posts, praying you’ll notice his pathetic efforts and follow him back. When you don't, he just ends up getting blackout drunk with Toji again.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna trying a new approach by kissing up to your friends to get any scrap of info on you. He grumbles under his breath—mentally sulking like a kicked puppy—when you spot his desperate attempts and shoo him away. He drops his head and slinks off, feeling like a beaten dog.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna refusing to give up, finally changing his entire class schedule just so he can sit next to you. Now, he gets to stare at you every single day.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna haunting you twelve hours a day. He’s in the library, the dining hall, outside your dorm. He notices your eye twitching, the way you keep looking over your shoulder, growing more and more paranoid. But he can’t stop. He’s fucking obsessed.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna sitting in his room at night, jerking off to your photos. His hand tightens around his cock to the rhythm of his ragged breathing, his lips silently forming your name, terrified to actually say it out loud.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna overhauling his wardrobe to match the aesthetic of the guys you post on TikTok, desperate for a shred of your attention.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna refusing to quit. At the next party, he approaches you again, fully expecting to get shut down. He cracks a stupid, nervous joke, and then—you smile. His heart skips a beat, and he breaks into an idiotic, lovesick grin.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna feeling his jeans grow painfully tight when you casually take a drag of his cigarette, your lips brushing against his fingers.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna blushing to the tips of his ears when you’re wasted and press into him for warmth by the bonfire. He’s too scared to even put an arm around you, so he just stands there, stiff as a board, inhaling the scent of your hair and praying this moment lasts forever.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna trying to play the gentleman while walking you to your dorm. He keeps his hand on your waist, but his fingers are burning with the urge to slip lower, to the panties he’s dying to pull off. He holds back because you’re drunk, and he wants you to remember him as something more than just another horny prick.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna falling asleep with a massive, dopey smile on his face after seeing that you finally followed him back on everything.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna getting off to your simple text, "You were sweet," his cock throbbing in his hand as he texts back, "Did you like it?" When you send a drunk voice note whining about how much you love it when he acts like a pathetic simp for you, he cums so hard his body jerks off the bed.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna stalking you across campus the next day. When you finally reach out and touch his shoulder, he craves nothing more than for you to never let go.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna becoming your personal pack mule, carrying your books, waiting outside every single one of your classes to walk you home. You smile at him, and his entire world starts and ends with you.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna barely holding it together when you send him spicy photos. His hand goes straight to his pants, but he forces himself to reply with something witty, even though his skin is crawling with the need to rip your clothes off and pin you to the wall.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna sending you a video of him jerking off and whining for you when you ask for proof. When you reply with a photo of your dripping pussy, he drowns his phone screen in his own cum.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna refusing to leave your side at the next frat party. His eyes are practically begging you to stay when you mention wanting to talk to your friends. (His bros roast him for it. He couldn't care less.)

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna feeling his heart soar when you lean into his ear and whisper that you want to fuck. His breath hitches and his hands shake with pure anticipation as he drags you to his room, already picturing you beneath him.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna waiting for your permission, hovering over you, tugging at the hem of your shirt. He’s breathing hard, inhaling your scent, terrified of messing up. The second you nod, he’s tearing your clothes off.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna worshipping your pussy, licking you with pure, feral reverence. His cock is so hard he’s ready to blow his load just from the sound of your first moan.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna damn near coming the second he slides inside you. His eyes roll back, his hips moving on instinct. He hears your scream, and it drives him faster, deeper, his nails digging into your back.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna begging you to let him go faster, his voice cracking as you scratch his back in time with his rough thrusts. He’s pounding into you so hard the bed frame is practically screaming against the wall.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna bending you over, lips pressed against your ear as he whines about how long he’s wanted you, how he’s obsessed over you every single night. His voice trembles as he asks if he’s doing it right, if you like the way he’s fucking you, scared to death that you’ll tell him to stop.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna letting out a quiet, wrecked moan when you squeeze his cock too tight, his hips bucking into your hands, desperate for release.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna finishing with a loud, guttural groan, spilling himself deep inside you. He watches you, broken and satisfied, before collapsing on top of you, gasping for air.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna holding you tight afterward, arms wrapped around you so you can’t leave. He pretends to be asleep, terrified that if he opens his eyes, you’ll have disappeared.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna grinning like the biggest simp on earth when you kiss him in the morning, leaving your panties on his pillow with a promise that you’ll do it again. He grabs your hips, begging you not to go, his eyes shining with pure, unadulterated hope.

Pathetic frat-boy!Sukuna, who is obviously going to ask you on a date tomorrow and spend the entire time begging you to let him bury his face back between your thighs and lick your dripping pussy until you’re coming all over his face.

He proposed to you the day he got back from his last mission. Maybe he should make it a tradition and marry you the day he returned this time. 

Skip the whole big wedding he talked you into the past few months in favor of a courthouse ceremony. Maybe drag Suguru back after the landing to be the witness. 

You made a face, nose scrunching up and lips parting like there was something you wanted to say, but you stopped yourself. 

“This is my last mission,” he reminded you, a weak attempt at reassurance as his thick cock rubbed against your clit. Your breath hitched, getting caught in your throat as he dragged it over the sensitive bud. 

“You said that about the last one,” you reminded him, and he didn’t have an argument to counter it. 

“Well, I mean it this time,” he muttered softly. He wasn’t particularly good at being soothing. Spectacularly bad, sometimes, actually. But you still stayed. 

Still smiled at him when he sucked at being what you needed. 

The moon hung heavy outside the window, a thick crack running across the glass pane as the night sky filtered through it and bathed the room in soft light. The apartment you shared wasn’t much, pretty shitty honestly, but it was just a stepping stone. A way to save money for when you’d really need it. 

Soon, you’d have the best. 

“Besides, I can’t leave again once you start having my babies,” he teased, moving a hand down to your stomach, feeling your soft skin. Dreaming of a future where you’d be waddling around his kitchen pregnant, trying to decide if he’d prefer a boy or a girl – only to land on wanting both. 

“So you’ll be here for them and not for me?” You huffed. 

“I just want to make sure I make a good life for all of you,” he replied, struggling to sound confident when you were looking at him with a faint hint of hurt shining in your eyes. 

You wanted to believe him. 

“Uh-huh,” you exhaled. 

He supposed he’d just have to remind you another way that you had his heart. That even if he left the planet for a few months, he’d always have to return back to you. 

His home. 

Your thighs opened up for him, letting him shut up all those awful thoughts with a kiss as he pushed the first few inches inside your pretty pussy. Felt you sucking him in, losing himself in your warmth as he pushed past that first ring of resistance. Filling you up until you were stuffed full, your head tilting back, lips parting in his favorite moan — his name falling from them in broken little gasps.

“Satoru,” you whined, wiggling under his weight as he leaned down to start trailing kisses across your jaw. Down the delicate skin of your throat, sucking greedily just to see what other sounds he could draw from you. 

“Mhm, sweetheart?” He hummed, pausing to drag his tongue over all the sore spots he’d left, tempted to sink his teeth back over them, to leave little bruises just so you’d have to keep thinking about him even when he was planets away.

“I don’t want you to go,” you huffed, forcing the words out between little whimpers, your body shivering as his cock slowly thrusted in and out, deliberately taking his time to stretch you out. He hesitated mid-pump, lips still pressed just above your collarbone as he tried to come up with something that would make it better.

“I don’t want to either,” Gojo softly admitted, kissing you again as if it would cure the ache in his heart or the one in yours. 

There was a moment of silence, seconds slipping by with tension that wouldn’t dissolve, and he wasn’t sure if he should keep thrusting or pull out.

But then your hips shifted, and his cock twitched, and he was already readjusting, palms moving to push your soft thighs against your chest with his cock still keeping you plugged up. 

And really, you couldn’t blame him for how pretty you looked in a mating press. 

Fucking you faster, the wooden bed frame creaking and bumping into the wall with every rough thrust, each harsh snap of his hips against your skin as he plunged his cock in and out, in and out.

Watching your face screw up in pleasure, lashes fluttering and nails scrambling for purchase in the sheets as his thumbs dug into your thighs. Holding onto you, keeping you firmly pinned between him and the bed, like he could imprint every ridge and vein inside you, supposing he’d just have to be satisfied with leaving the shape of both of you on the mattress. 

“I love you so goddamn much,” he murmured, chest constricting, heart racing as the pressure built and mounted in the pit of his stomach. Some invisible thread being pulled tighter, or maybe it was just himself, wrapped around your finger without you even realizing it. 

Ready to break just thinking about not getting to hear your voice every day, not getting to touch your skin, like he wasn’t still buried inside you.

“I love you too,” you whispered back, your voice quivering as you looked up at him with glossy eyes. 

He kissed you hard, teeth nearly bumping into each other as his tongue slipped past your lips. Tracing over your canines, tasting the hint of toothpaste on your tongue. The remnants of the candy-flavored lip gloss you’d been wearing earlier too. 

You were returning his fervor, squeezing down on his cock like you were trying to suck him dry like he wasn’t already struggling not to cum. 

He had to hurry to shift his hand, fingers rushing to find your clit, rubbing rough circles over it just to swallow every cute moan of yours that tried to escape. Cock twitching and aching for relief that he refused to give it, keeping an iron grip on his restraint as he waited for that familiar tremble, for you to really clamp down on him as shudders wracked through your body. 

Until you were crying his name in his mouth, whimpers muffled as he soothed you through your climax, rolling that sensitive bud between his thick fingers, only breaking the kiss to purr in your ears that it was all going to be okay. 

“That’s it, baby. Just cum for me, okay? It’s gonna be fine,” he promised, his voice cracking on the final word as he came with you. Finishing with warm spurts of cum filling you up, each thrust pumping more into you as he groaned your name, head collapsing into the crook of your collarbone. 

Sweat making your skin stick to his, your breathing mixing together as you both came back down to earth from your high. 

“Fuck,” you murmured, trying to shift underneath him, roll out from his heavy body. 

But he refused to budge, burying his face deeper into your neck just to smell your soap and shampoo, nuzzling his nose against your neck. 

He didn’t want to let go. 

And for a second, part of him considered cancelling. Backing out of the mission, coming up with an excuse or calling out sick. They had back up astronauts. 

They had a few people, perhaps not as qualified as him, but still acceptable, on standby that could take his spot. 

He might get fired. Shoved back to some bottom-tier desk position. 

But he’d get to stay with you. 

Would get to spend the next six months sleeping like this instead of alone in a spaceship compartment. 

“Satoru,” you softly said his name, shifting as he finally released your thighs, letting you lay them back down more comfortably – but still kept you caged in. 

“Can’t I just lay here for a while longer?” He groaned, jaw tightening at the idea that this was the last night he’d get this. You.

Cock still twitching as the last of his cum leaked out, some of it starting to spill down your thighs as he refused to take it out. 

You ran your fingers through his hair, scratching a spot behind his ears, sifting through the silky strands with a long sigh. “Sure.” 

That was just who you were. 

What you’d do. 

You gave him what he wanted. 

Even when you didn’t like what he asked for. 

“I’m sorry,” he muttered.

“Don’t be sorry,” you replied gently. “Just be sure you’re coming home.” 

“The stars can’t keep me from you,” he promised, moving to leave another kiss on the tip of your nose as you rolled your eyes at him. 

But you giggled, and that was good enough.

“Let’s get married when I get back,” he suggested. 

“We already-” 

“Like, the same day, sweetheart,” he insisted, lips curling up in a smile as he snagged your left hand, bringing it to his lips so he could press a kiss to your engagement ring. The big diamond glittering in the moonlight, accented with small gemstones that same shade as his eyes set in a white-gold band. One you picked out with him once upon a time. 

“You’re ridiculous,” you laughed, shaking your head like you weren’t grinning at the idea too. “Didn’t you want, like, the whole huge wedding?” 

“I just want you.” 

Gojo could make it six months if it meant you’d be waiting there for him when he got back.  

He just didn’t think everything would go to fucking shit in sixteen weeks.

Clinging to the same dream of you, the same memory his brain had chosen for comfort as he opened his eyes for another difficult day in a long line of them. 

Waking up to a window that only overlooked the cold, dark expanse of space instead of the familiar city. Missing your warmth in bed – trading it for a sleeping bag and a stiff compartment that they somehow still hadn’t figured out a better alternative for despite how advanced their rocketships had become. 

Sure, they could figure out how to simulate gravity inside the living areas now. But no, getting a good night’s rest was still impossible. 

They were only supposed to be running a supply drop off. Sending equipment to a planet a few other astronauts were previously sent to, one they’d recently started establishing a settlement on. Shoko was planning on staying behind there to be their medic – but he was supposed to return with Suguru.

It wasn’t the only habitable planet that had been discovered. There were a few, all being explored, data being collected and catalogued by various astronauts like themselves, sent back periodically and retrieved by relief missions like the one they were on. 

All just a galaxy away. 

It meant going through a wormhole to get to them, but according to all the calculations and the previous voyages, it was safe. 

Risky, sure, but it’d been done before. 

And to be fair, getting through it hadn’t been the problem. 

The problem was they were just outside the orbit of the wrong fucking planet. 

Whether one of them had bumped into the navigation system, inputted the wrong thing at the wrong time, or maybe some internal error was to blame, it didn’t matter. 

No, a more pressing issue had presented itself. 

A distress signal was being sent up. 

Someone was below – and begging to be rescued. 

“I have a bad feeling about it,” Suguru murmured, scowling at the screen as if he could make the message go away just by glaring at it. 

“You always have a bad feeling,” Shoko hummed, dark circles under his eyes as she scanned the data on her screen. 

“I think we should just continue to the correct planet. It’ll be a waste of fuel and time,” Suguru scoffed, ignoring her as his fingers flew across the keyboard, inputting either calculations or coordinates.

Satoru reclined back in his seat, fiddling with a pencil as his friend glanced up at him like he was looking for support here.

“Aren’t you supposed to be the one who wants to save people?” He asked, cocking his head to the side just to get a scoff. He’d known Suguru most of his life. Went to school together, graduated from the same program just to end up colleagues too. Between both of them, Suguru was always the altruistic one. The guy who thought of everyone else before himself – even if he was looking down at them from his moral high ground half the time. 

“Not if it means putting our mission at risk,” he argued, lips pressed together in a thin line. “Or us.”

“The last reported conditions there seem fine,” Shoko shrugged as she directed their attention back to what little data had been collected so far. 

Most of the planet was made of water, a massive sea dotted with a handful of islands, some mountain ranges that rivaled the highest peaks back on Earth. Two fellow astronauts were supposed to have been there for the last nine months. 

“Yeah, that’s why they’re sending a distress signal,” Suguru sarcastically grimaced. 

“You really want to just leave them?” Gojo asked, not sure how exactly to feel about it himself. Not wanting to totally throw away Suguru’s hesitation – but reluctant to just leave another astronaut stranded. 

“There are other people counting on us,” Suguru insisted, and Satoru knew he was right. Knew that you were counting on him to come back in one piece. “We can just send a message back to Earth and let them decide.”

Suguru knew as well as he did that doing that would most likely mean death to whoever was sending the distress signal.

It would probably be months before they sent another ship up.

And given that they didn’t have the data to know how fast or slow time passed below. No way to know when the signal they were receiving had started.

There was a heavy pause, all three of them weighing whether or not to take the gamble — and imagining what it’d feel like to be the one stuck on the planet praying for someone to come save them.

“I think we should check it out,” Satoru eventually spoke up, although he wasn’t exactly excited about it. 

He just wasn’t sure he could stomach the alternative. If he could handle coming back home to you and telling you the truth.

Risk you leaving him like they were about to leave the stranded astronauts.

“The extra data they have would be useful,” Shoko pointed out, tilting her head appraisingly. “If we needed to, we could bring them back to the other settlement.” 

“Two minutes,” Suguru begrudgingly gave in, irritation pricking in his voice as he stood up, rubbing his temple. “We shouldn’t spend more than ten on the surface when we don’t know how much time we could lose. Get there, see what’s salvage, get the fuck out.” 

Whether it was data or people, they’d just take what they could and leave. 

There was a chance that the relative time on the planet was off. That even just an hour on the planet could be the equivalent to a year back on Earth. 

“Yeah, agreed,” Satoru waved him off, watching him walk off, probably to start preparations for landing. 

He told himself it was the right thing to do. 

That it was what you would expect from him. 

He stood up too, walking around to one of the communication terminals they set up – where they could send and receive messages. 

You’d sent a couple videos, unofficial ones, of course, something he arranged in advance when he agreed to join the mission – that he’d be able to contact you and you’d be able to do the same. They were short, just a few minutes of you updating him on life back on Earth. How you were doing, how wedding planning was going, murmuring that you missed him in a soft voice before leaning in to kiss the camera. 

But a new one was waiting for him as he popped his headphones in to listen, leg bouncing nervously as it loaded, automatically smiling when your face popped up. 

“Hi, Satoru,” you greeted, but then you awkwardly looked down, fiddling with your fingers out of frame like you were shy all of a sudden. Biting your bottom lip, the skin there already broken like you’d been busy chewing it. 

He wanted to touch the screen. 

Caress your cheek and ask you what was wrong. 

“I, um, was gonna wait until you came back. But, uh, I don’t think I can keep it a secret that long,” you breathed, eyes glancing up at the camera like you were imagining him on the other side of it. 

And then you were picking something up, holding it out in front of you as the camera refocused and- 

Holy shit. 

“Surprise,” you excitedly called out from behind the tiny onesie in your hand. “You’re going to be a father.” 

A baby. 

He was going to be a father.

His brain stopped working. Shock freezing him in place as you peeked out from behind the onesie like you could see his reaction. Pride glimmered in your eyes as you grinned, his entire world sitting in front of him a galaxy away. His future wife and child just waiting for him to return.

“I wanted it to be a surprise, but it’s been so hard holding it in,” you continued, and he craved you even more than he had in the past few months combined. Dying to pick you up and press kiss after kiss to your lips, your cheeks, your stomach.

Aching to wrap his arms around you and start talking about baby names and nurseries, to take you out shopping for baby furniture and be there for your appointments. 

“There’s something else,” you said, reluctance creeping in. Glancing down at your lap again before pulling up a second onesie. 

No. You surely didn’t mean…? 

“I’m having twins,” you announced, a little awkward like you started second guessing how he’d take it. “Are you surprised?” 

It didn’t take his brain long to calculate the fucking odds of that, but his mind had a hard time accepting it, discomfort coiling in and mixing with the exhilaration in his stomach at the idea of you back in bed, carrying his babies, while he was up in fucking space. 

Unable to be there for you. To rub the lotion on your stomach, to sing terrible impressions of lullabies to them, to drive you to the doctor and hold your hand throughout all of it. 

You didn’t seem too bothered, or maybe just too excited to show it, holding up the ultrasounds next, proudly showing him baby A and baby B, talking about how you should find out their genders in just a couple weeks. 

“You better be back before I have these two,” you murmured into the camera, fixing him in a serious stare, your eyes shining in the fading daylight drifting in through your window. “Don’t make me go to the hospital alone.” 

Never. 

He’d fucking be there. 

“I love you, Toru,” you spoke softer, hesitating over actually hitting the button to stop recording. “Please don’t do anything stupid.” 

He’d already done something stupid by saying yes to coming here, hadn’t he? 

Still, he plastered on his best smile, sitting awkwardly in front of his own camera, recording you a message back. Making you a million promises, telling you how proud he was of you, how thrilled he was to be a dad. Selling you dreams of a life he was desperately trying to buy for your future family of four. 

“We’re, uh, about to go down to a planet to check out a distress signal, but, it’ll be fine, baby,” he informed you, hearing how stiff the words came out as he forced his palm to press down on his thigh to stop his leg from bouncing. “It’ll just be a quick pitstop before the supply drop, promise.” 

He paused, having to clear his throat, his tongue suddenly dry as he made himself look directly into the camera. 

“I’ll come back for you.” 

Gojo didn’t want to admit Suguru might be right when he had to sit with the heavy feeling in his stomach after he shut the camera off and sent the message back – knowing it would probably be a couple days before you saw it.

But it would be fine, wouldn’t it?

In a year, he’d be waking up in bed with you, laughing about how worried he’d been while you each held one of your babies. This would just be a memory. 

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there. Staring at the screen long after it shut off, replaying your voice in his head, itching to really hear it, to feel it on his skin, to touch you instead of just clinging to a digital copy of you.

“You ready?” Suguru’s voice called out to him, and he snapped out of his daze. 

Found his mouth opening, about to say no.

Tell him he changed his mind. Say he was wrong and that they should just save their fuel. 

But if you knew, if they knew, that he’d left someone to die just to come home to them sooner, would they look at him the same way? 

Would he be able to look his children in the eyes? 

He swallowed hard as he glanced towards the doorframe Suguru was standing in, slowly nodding instead of saying what he really wanted to. “Yeah.” 

Gojo wanted to believe that between their three-person crew, they’d be able to handle it. 

He just hadn’t realized that only two of them would make it back to the ship. 

𖥔 ݁ ˖

“You should move on.”

It didn’t matter how many people said it. How many times your therapist pleaded with you to put the past behind you.

You couldn’t let go of him.

Six months turned into six years without Satoru.

The one thing you were terrified of had come true.

You lost him.

Didn’t even have the fucking confirmation of his death. Just a gravestone with an empty casket, a plot picked out for you next to it — even if you’d never get to be buried by him. 

Wasn’t that the funny thing about taking risks? 

You always know what could happen. You just never think it will happen to you. 

It’s always someone else. 

Until it’s not. 

Until you’re the one waiting for a phone call you’ll never get or a knock on the door that will never come. 

“It’s not exactly like men are lining up to date me,” you muttered into the phone, tucking it between your ear and shoulder as you frowned at your reflection in the mirror, reaching up to fix a stray hair just for your still-shiny engagement ring to shimmer in the sunlight. Swallowing the lump in your throat before you turned away, nearly tripping on a toy. “With the twins-” 

“Guys like MILFs,” your friend teased in your ear, and you had to stop yourself from rolling your eyes as you bent over to pick up the stuffed bunny and toss it in an overflowing toy basket. 

You doubted they’d like one still in love with their babies’ father. 

Still holding out hope he’d show up with that stupid smile and wrap you in a crushing hug. 

Even if the rest of the world thought he was dead. 

When the government had declared his ship missing and him deceased. Cut you a check for it even though you weren’t technically Satoru’s spouse yet since you had his babies. A little boy that could be his clone and a girl that looked a little too much like you.  

Their check had been enough to get you out of your crummy apartment, to move the three of you in a small house in a quiet neighborhood. 

Suguru’s mother had ended up moving next door, offering to babysit and watch them during the day so you didn’t have to send them to daycare. Helping you raise your children while her child was still out there in space somewhere. 

She didn’t talk about Suguru with you. And you never spoke of Satoru. 

But you knew she understood anyway. Coped with it the same way you did. Skirting around their existence like it would lessen the hurt. 

“I know a guy who-” Your friend started, and your stomach lurched at the thought of being set up with someone who couldn’t come close to the man you were supposed to marry. 

“Look, I’ve, uh, gotta go get the kids. Their teacher wanted to discuss Apollo’s behavior. I guess he bit someone,” you muttered, heels clicking as you slung your purse over your shoulder and snagged your keys. 

She was disappointed, mumbling a goodbye that you tuned out, hitting end and dropping your phone in your bag with a sigh. 

You wondered what Satoru would’ve thought of it. 

If he would’ve laughed at his son picking fights at school or if there was a stern side to him buried somewhere beneath his goofy grins and cheesy jokes. 

You tried to pick out names he’d like. Even if sometimes it stung a little to think about. 

Apollo and Artemis. 

After the space missions. He’d think it was cute. Probably dress them up like little astronauts and kiss their foreheads, promising that he loved them way more than just to the moon and back. Paint stars on their ceiling and hang planets up on strings in their nursery. 

To be fair, you had done it in his place. 

Worn one of his old t-shirts as you bit your lip and bent over your swollen belly to get all the corners, carefully standing on a ladder to hang everything on the ceiling, standing in a nursery full of furniture you built yourself a month after his return date came and went. 

The last thing you heard from him was a video message where he promised he’d come back. If you shut your eyes, you could still see that look on his face, the flicker of nervousness that flashed across it as his mouth curled down into a frown before he admitted that they were about to go check out a distress call. 

And then nothing. 

NASA never told you if they had any additional information on it. But the conclusion they came to was obvious. 

Their mission was a failure. And your husband was forever missing. 

Somewhere you’d never be able to reach. 

You snapped on the twins' first birthday. You hadn’t even managed to bring yourself to throw them a party when Satoru wasn’t there to take the photos, to pick them up and blow out the candles for them. 

Carrying them next door to Suguru’s mom’s place, asking for her to watch them for a few hours just to come back home and rip down every stupid space-themed piece of decor you’d once painstakingly picked out. Throwing them all in a big, black trash bag before running out to the store to grab tarps and more paint. 

You didn’t stop until the entire room was drenched in shades of blue and green, alien toys traded in for sea animals.

At least the ocean was on Earth. 

It wasn’t like they were old enough to understand. 

But you couldn’t fucking stand the idea of losing them too. 

You had kept both their convertible cribs in your room since the day you brought them home from the hospital, unable to sleep without them in the same room. The crippling fear that you’d some intruder would sneak in and snatch them if you weren’t right there to stop it didn’t actually go away until they were big enough to toddle and talk. 

Now they were old enough to be in school, no longer babies, no longer toddlers, big enough to ramble on about what they learned every day, bicker over their toys and pick them back up before they went to bed. 

And Satoru had missed all of it. 

Every first they experienced tainted by the never-ending reminder that he wasn’t fucking here to see a single one. 

And like an idiot, you just kept recording message after message, setting up a camera and trying not to cry as you recorded yourself talking about the twins, showing them off to someone who should’ve been by your side every step of the way. You still had a few contacts with his old colleague, one who promised he’d send them all up anyway. 

Just in case Satoru was still out there in space. Still trying to come home to you.  

There wasn’t a single day that passed yet where you didn’t think about it. 

Him. 

But it appeared your attempts to keep him alive, to teach your kids about their dad, weren’t going so well when you replayed the voicemail you’d been left an hour earlier requesting you come in for a meeting after school was over when you picked up the kids. 

The soft voice on the other end apologetically explaining that Apollo had gotten in an argument with another kid to defend his sister, that no action was being taken, but that he’d still like to speak with you in person over it. 

You stared at the brick building of the elementary school, readjusting your purse as you swiped away another message from your friend sending you contact details of a man you certainly were not going to contact, steeling yourself for an uncomfortable conversation as you walked through the door and went into the office to get a visitor’s pass before you started navigating through the halls to look for the twins’ class. 

Suguru’s mom handled most of the pick ups for you, kept them at her place until you got back home from work in the evenings. 

Your boss had been annoyed that you’d taken off early, but you had to put them first. You were the only parent they had. 

You heard Artemis first. Her soft giggle twinkling as your steps picked up, her brother’s grumpy voice scolding her as you stopped just outside an open classroom door, pausing as you looked inside and saw sitting cross-legged on the floor with another boy who looked a couple years older, a bunch of toys dumped out between them on a carpet with the alphabet on it. 

“Are you their sister? I thought their mom-” A low voice spoke up, your head snapping over to see a dark-haired man stepping out from behind a desk. Warm brown eyes scanning your face as you stiffly shook your head.   

“I’m their mom,” you interrupted him, swallowing hard as you pushed your sunglasses back up in your hair before holding your hand out to shake. 

His hand was surprisingly soft when he took it, gently shaking it a few seconds too long before awkwardly letting go. 

“I’m Choso, their teacher,” he said, and you forced a small smile.

“I, uh, know,” you muttered, averting your stare back to where they were playing. 

“Yuji’s my little brother,” he added, pointing out the boy playing with yours, plucking out a toy from the pile and handing it over. 

You wondered if it would be awful to just ask him to go ahead and skip all the polite niceties, that you didn’t need them. 

“Sorry for making assumptions,” he awkwardly apologized, his dark eyes dragging over you again. “You just looked like you’re around my age, and I guess I forget sometimes that it’s normal for us to have kids of our own now.”

You blinked at him, trying to decide what to make of his slightly nervous rambling just for his mouth to open again.

“I wasn’t trying to comment on your appearance or anything, I mean, you’re beautiful-” His lips abruptly shut, cheek flushing pink in a painfully familiar way.

Your chest hurt.

Ached at the thought that Satoru was no longer the last person to call you beautiful.

“Um, thanks,” you murmured, looking at your outfit a little self-consciously. Wondering if he was just saying that to make you feel better or if he really meant it. You didn’t think you looked terrible. But without Satoru around, you’d sorta forgotten what it felt like to look in the mirror and see something pretty when you were struggling to survive most days. 

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, glancing down to the ring on your finger. Your throat started to close, palms getting clammy as he ran his fingers through his hair. “I didn’t realize you were married.” 

“I’m not,” you answered, a little too quickly as you folded your arms across your chest. Putting your left hand underneath your other arm as if it would make you stop thinking about it. Him. 

“Oh, um-” 

“I was engaged to the twins’ dad,” you explained, watching them giggle and pretend to eat the plastic food with their new pink-haired friend. “But, uh, he passed before they were born.” 

People usually asked too many questions if you told them the whole story. 

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he apologized, face falling the way everyone else’s always did. Regret etched into the soft lines of his face, nose scrunching up as the tattoo across his nose crinkled. “I had no-”

“It’s fine,” you lied, waving it off like Satoru didn’t still cast shadows across your thoughts. “So, um, what happened with Apollo? Is he in trouble?”

“No, no, one of the other kids tried to take a toy from Artemis, and he stepped in to stop it. I actually wanted to speak to you about him having a hard time making friends outside of her,” Choso spoke softly, obviously trying hard to pick his words carefully. “I was thinking of recommending they get put in different classes next year to help them socialize.” 

You bit the inside of your cheek.

Torn between immediately shutting the idea down and trying to argue against it before second guessing whether or not your parenting was actually just fostering codependence. 

Satoru would know what to do.

But he wasn’t here.

And all the decisions were yours to make.

Artemis was the outgoing one, inherited her father’s personality even if she pretty much got your face. Bright and brilliant, easy charisma that shined even at her small size. Apollo was reserved. Serious.

Scowling if he wasn’t with his sister, grumbling at the world like he already realized how it screwed them over.

“They’re just five,” you muttered, glancing over at where they were still distracted with his brother.

“Well, I guess we can see if there are any changes throughout the rest of the school year. I, uh, coach a boys soccer team on the weekends. He’s welcome to join, if you’re interested,” he said, running his fingers through the ends of his hair. 

You guessed if it meant your twins wouldn’t be split up in school, you’d sit on the sidelines to watch little kids try and fail to kick a ball across a field. 

Not that he was that happy about it when you told him he’d have to spend his Saturday morning in a soccer uniform with kids he barely spoke to before instead of playing with his toys at home. 

Choso grinned when you first showed up, one of those crooked ones that gave away his surprise when he saw you setting up fold-out chairs for you and Artemis. Even jogging over to tell you he was happy you came, squatting down to get on Apollo’s level to ask him if he knew how to play. 

He didn’t.

To be fair, after watching a single game, it was clear none of the other kids did either. 

Still, you left it with a schedule of practices and games stuffed in your purse, a couple of them circled and marked for your days to bring snacks and juice boxes for the team.

You told yourself that you were being an active parent. 

Showing up to every single school event. Refusing to miss a single soccer game even when Apollo spent half of it plucking weeds from the field to give to you afterwards. 

Taking him to play dates with his new soccer friends before taking Artemis to sleepover with her school friends, juggling their new social lives with your own work. 

And somewhere along the way, you supposed you’d made a new friend in their teacher too.

He went out of his way to talk to you at every game, greeting you at their school stuff with a shy smile and considerate questions while he updated you on how they were doing. 

The kids loved him, coming home chattering about what he planned and taught them during the day, complaining whenever he was out sick and they got stuck with a substitute. 

Wasn’t it normal to like someone if they made your children happy? 

Smile back when they spoke to you? 

Find your thoughts lingering a little on their dark-haired teacher when your son excitedly exclaimed that Choso promised to be his soccer coach next year too, your stupid heart stalling for a second when Artemis casually dropped that he helped her make a mother’s day card for you as she stuck it to the fridge with a magnet. 

You definitely didn’t pick them up from school yourself more often, swearing to Suguru’s mother that you were just trying to spend more time with them. 

But eventually, the school year wrapped up. 

You couldn’t really comprehend why some sliver of you was disappointed by that. 

Still, you suspected that it wasn’t just because Satoru wasn’t here to see it. 

A strange flutter in your stomach stirring watching Choso pass out printed graduation certificates to the class, plastering on a bright smile as Artemis proudly bounded over to show you hers. Toothily grinning as you sat and clapped for her in a cramped chair, a paper plate with a tiny slice of pizza in front of you as the other parents tried wrangling their own kids. 

Apollo was half-sitting on your lap, sneakily stealing your pizza after he polished off his own plate, enjoying their classroom party just to start bickering over which mini cupcakes they each wanted, eyeing the boxes Choso hadn’t given out. “Are you excited for next year?” You asked, barely able to stop yourself from rolling your eyes at their arguing. 

“No,” Artemis smiled immediately flipped into a frown as she flopped in her seat, folding her arms across her chest. “We’ll have to get a new teacher.” 

“Don’t be a baby,” Apollo huffed at her. 

“S’not fair, he’s still your coach,” she whined back, right in time for him to show up, holding out a plastic container with cupcakes to let them choose. 

They were quick to snatch them, thank yous muffled when they stuffed their mouths the next second, but to your surprise, he held out the box for you to pick too. 

“I, um, got enough for the parents too,” he awkwardly said, eyes hesitantly flicking up to meet yours as you chewed the inside of your cheek before accepting. 

“Thanks,” you murmured softly, selecting one with purple frosting as he smiled softly at you. 

It was nice of him. 

This was nice, actually. 

A classroom of sugar-fueled kids and hastily strung up party streamers wasn’t exactly where you pictured you’d be spending your afternoon a decade ago. Being a single mom had never been a part of your plans. 

But it wasn’t terrible. 

You loved your children. Loved being their mom. 

Maybe you could learn to love your life too. 

You stayed behind once the party wrapped up to help clean the classroom with a few of the other parents, stuffing greasy and frosting splattered plates into trash bags while the twins excitedly caught up with Yuji after his teacher dropped him off after the bell rang. 

“Hey,” a quiet voice startled you, your head snapping back to see Choso stiffly standing next to you, nervously raking his fingers through his hair. 

“Hi,” you breathed back, just as awkward. “The party was great. I think the twins will miss you next year.” 

You didn’t want to consider if you would. 

“They’re great kids. I know they’re gonna succeed some day,” he earnestly said, your mouth curling up as you nodded. 

You didn’t really mind if they succeeded or not. Wouldn’t hold them to the same standards their dad once held himself to. 

All you really wanted was for them to be happy. 

“Thanks, um, seriously,” you swallowed hard, throat constricting as you thought about how much Apollo had started to come out of his shell thanks to him. 

Choso’s intense stare swept over your face, scanning over your features like he was searching for something there.

His eyes were dark. 

Not blue. They didn’t shimmer, didn’t sparkle when the sun hit them. 

But they were deep. Warm. 

“I’m glad I got to meet you,” he started, speaking slowly like he wasn’t sure if he should even say it. “Getting to know you, um, it’s been great.” 

“Yeah, it has,” you agreed, actually meaning it too. 

He stepped a little closer, taking a deep breath as his gaze settled on your face. “You can like, slap me if I’m out of line here-”

“I’m not going to slap you,” you intercut, biting back a laugh as his brows knitted together seriously. 

“Would it be totally inappropriate to ask you on a date?” 

𖥔 ݁ ˖

Their mission was fucked. 

Suguru was dead. 

Body stuck on a planet of water and waves, left behind with the other astronauts that had died long before they even received their distress call. 

Swept under a fucking tsunami, unable to make it back on the ship on time in an attempt to save a stupid fucking data recorder. 

Now they had neither. 

The ship had been damaged in the process too, fuel wasted and plans derailed as they barely managed to get it off the planet before all three of them ended up as corpses. Water corrupting important systems as Gojo slammed his fists against the hard metal frame of a door, throwing off his helmet as Shoko said something his brain refused to process. 

Grabbing his arm to pull it back before he could fuck up his suit. Telling him to just take it off and cool down before he damned both of them too. 

Like his best friend wasn’t gone. 

He’d never get him back. 

No one would. 

Gojo just had to leave his body there for the tides to take. What the hell was he even going to say to his mom? How was he supposed to tell her that her son wasn’t coming home? 

He barely managed to get his suit off, stripping down and throwing it on the ground without giving a shit about proper protocol, storming off to his private compartment to stop himself from losing it in front of the only other person up here now. Shoko said something about getting everything back on course, but he wasn’t listening as he turned his back from her.

God, he felt like he was going to fucking hurl. 

The edges of his vision kept blurring, going in-and-out of darkness as he forced himself to change clothes, sitting hunched over the edge of his bed and burying his face in his hands, replaying the look on Suguru’s face when he realized he wasn’t going to make it. 

Rewinding and searching for some other way to change the past as he screwed his eyes shut. 

But he couldn’t save him then and there was no way to save him now. 

He wished you were here. 

Wished you’d wrap your arms around him and run your fingers through his hair and promise him that it would still be okay. That Suguru wouldn’t blame him. 

That his best friend was somewhere better. 

Even if everything scientific in his body swore that there was no better place waiting for him. 

Gojo pushed himself back up to his feet, jaw locked tight as he walked back over to the one piece of you he still had access too, tapping away at the controls to see if you sent any videos while he was out there making the worse fucking mistake of his life. 

Foot impatiently tapping against the floor as he reclined his head back against the floor, wishing that he’d never even come on this mission in the first place – if he hadn’t, Suguru wouldn’t have even answered the distress call, would he? 

He’d still be alive, and Gojo would be with-

The computer let out a beep, interrupting his thoughts as the screen came to life, loading everything up as he sighed with relief. 

Seeing your smile, hearing your soft words might not heal him, but it was the only thing he could think of to help the raw wound of loss ripping through his chest. 

Until the automated computer voice made an announcement right as he popped his headphones in.   

Loading messages from the past eleven years. 

No. No no no no no.

It was wrong.

It had to be fucking wrong. 

The computer had to be fried. Some water must have somehow gotten in it and fucked with the wiring and-

Before he could even hit a single button, try to troubleshoot, there you were in front of him, your hand on your swollen stomach, scowling in the camera as you asked where the hell he was. Fear creeping in your pretty voice that no one had heard anything from any of them – reminding him that he promised to come back. 

He did. He would. 

The small lump in his throat getting bigger and bigger as the video auto-played into the next one, where you were obviously about to pop, filming in a space-themed nursery, your anger twisted into worry, telling him that you didn’t want to do this alone. 

Begging him to not make you. 

Gojo froze. 

Shoulders stiff as he saw the tears rolling down your cheeks, stunned as his own brain short-circuited, the guilt swimming in his stomach threatening to drown him as you ended the message. 

Part of him wanted to hit stop. 

Like if he paused it now, he would be able to freeze time and somehow make it back to Earth in time to not miss any more of it. 

But his fingers weren’t fast enough. 

And the next frame came with the audio of a baby crying. 

Two babies. One swaddled in blue and the other in pink. Their names on knitted hats he already knew Suguru’s mom must’ve made, a strangled sob escaping him before he even realized he was crying. 

The twins. His twins. 

Sleepily yawning and opening their eyes just a peek, enough for him to see his son had the misfortune of inheriting his looks while his daughter came out like a miniature you. Someone else was recording you in the hospital bed, but you were talking to the camera like it was him, face soft as you giggled that he would probably bawling harder than the babies when he realized he missed this. 

Suguru’s mom laughed behind the camera. 

He was. 

Tears falling freely as the videos just kept playing. One after another. 

His children were growing up without him. 

From tiny and fragile bundles to bumbling toddlers to fuck, full-sized little kids. 

In what? Fifty minutes? 

Five entire years of their life, condensed down to a handful of clips. The first steps he missed, the birthdays and holidays and father’s day he’d never get back. 

They didn’t even look at the camera half the time. Too busy playing and giggling and laughing while you did your best not to cry in front of them. They didn’t know him. 

Their father was barely more than a fucking video camera being pointed at them. 

And you, god, his pretty, perfect you. 

Still sending him these even when you had to think he was fucking dead. 

Dark circles under your eyes and a hollowness to your face that only got worse over the years. Exhaustion in your expressions as you spoke to him like you didn’t think he was listening. 

You mostly updated them on the kids' life. Skimmed over the details of a job you obviously didn’t like. Told him how Suguru’s mom had basically become their grandma. Sometimes Artemis would be on your lap, squinting at a book or playing with a toy while you talked. 

His girls a wormhole away. 

Gojo wanted to scream. Shout at the world to stop fucking spinning for a while so he could make it back to you. 

But five years turned into six, and six turned into seven, and he watched in horror as it started to set in that he was losing you too.

What if it was too late? 

What if you moved on? What if your life had no room left in it for him by the time he made it back to Earth? 

The twins were already in school and playing sports and clearly didn’t miss the man they’d never met. 

Would you stop missing him too? 

He didn’t know how many videos he watched. Guessing the time jump between each one based on how much the twins had grown in the background. 

You looked more mature now too. More put together, hair styled differently, no longer bare-faced when you turned the camera on, in a different room that obviously belonged to a house that wasn’t his home. 

Toys weren’t scattered around everywhere in the background anymore. But sometimes the twins would run through with one of their friends, some pink-haired kid that seemed to come over often judging by the way you barely blinked when they passed behind you. 

Gojo felt like a stranger. 

Some creep looking in the window of a happy family and thinking it should be his. 

“Mom,” Apollo whined, trying to tug on your sleeve as his shaggy white hair hung around his shoulders, attempting to drag you away while you were in mid-sentence. “Me and Cho made a cake. Come try it.” 

“Sure, honey,” you softly said, cringing a little before glancing back at the camera apologetically before signing off. 

Was Cho one of his friends? One of yours? 

He didn’t actually want an answer. 

But the next video seemed to clue him in on one anyway. 

You were wearing a shirt that was too big for you. The collar of it stretched out, your hair mused and down as you softly spoke, like you were trying not to wake someone up. 

It wasn’t Gojo’s shirt. 

An awful feeling settled in his bones. One that etched deeper with every little off detail he noticed. 

A pair of men’s shoes in the background. A watch left on your desk, barely in frame. The Cho the twins occasionally chattered about affectionately. 

Who apparently was taking them to soccer games and science museums like he should be doing right now if he heard them correctly.

Gojo didn’t want to believe that you were dating again. Even if he knew that it would be the normal thing to do. 

Completely reasonable for you to move on after not hearing a word from him in nearly a decade. 

But the idea of you loving another man, letting him into your life, letting him take his space-

He puked. 

Head between his knees as he got sick on the floor, throwing up a mixture of salt water he swallowed earlier and the freeze dried breakfast he had this morning. Funny, wasn’t it? He’d lost over ten years with you and his best friends in just a day.

An hour on that horrible planet had cost him a decade. 

Body wracking with shudders as he coughed and spit, wiping the back of his mouth just in time to look up at you while those pretty lips of yours pressed in a thin line. Sadness shining in your eyes, frustration and disappointment you rarely let show evident in your trembling frame. 

“It’s hard to keep hoping for you,” you admitted, reaching out to shut off the camera, and he desperately wanted to scream for you to not give up, to just fucking wait. 

But then the computer chimed in that there was one video left the second the screen went black after you ended it. 

His hand reached out, desperate to touch you, desperate to stop you, but your world was spinning faster than his was. 

And your face was back on screen, something inside him wilting and withering at the realization that another year had probably passed for you, maybe even two, more that he would never be able to get back. 

A few more faint lines were etched by your eyes, subtle creases left as a sign of all the time he missed with you. But you looked healthier. Happier. 

His beautiful girl sitting there and smiling at him instead of screaming like you should’ve been. Cursing his name for not coming home sooner, scolding him for being a piece of shit that should’ve stayed on Earth.  

“Hi, Satoru,” you spoke softly, fiddling with your hands. “Been a while since I’ve made one of these.” 

He was terrified to know how long.

“The twins are good. They’re gonna be ten next month,” you continued, not looking directly at the camera as you talked. “They’re both smart, like you. Apollo’s been more into soccer than school these days though.” 

He wanted to see him. See both of them. 

Hold them too, know his children outside of the information you would tell some distant relative, even if that was all he felt like right now. 

“Artemis wants to be a scientist when she grows up. She sits on the sidelines of his games with her nose buried in books,” you told him, a little smile reflexively curling up on your lips just from talking about them. “I wish you could see them. Wish you were here.” 

His chest hurt. 

Gojo didn’t know he stopped breathing until his body forced him to suck in a breath, lungs screaming for air as he stared at the woman he was supposed to marry. 

This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. 

The mission should’ve been routine. Simple. 

Suguru should be setting up the navigation. He should be begrudgingly agreeing to being his best man and coming to the courthouse to witness the rushed ceremony. 

“Sometimes,” you started, swallowing hard as your gorgeous eyes welled up with tears that threatened to spill out. “I dream of you. Us. Back in our old apartment in the creaky bed and the broken window. I wake up thinking I’m still there.” 

The hard lump lodged in his throat was threatening to choke him entirely, the taste of bile still on his tongue as his nails digging crescent moons into his palms as he watched your mouth quiver. 

“The government declared you dead a few years ago. One of your old colleagues came by one day, said that no one really knew for sure what happened, just that you missed the supply drop. Used a bunch of big words like I was too stupid to understand that the bottom line was that you weren’t coming home. Tried to make me feel better about it too,” you bitterly scoffed at the memory, resting your chin on your knees as you exhaled. On the brink of crumbling just recalling it, “Told me that you might’ve settled on a colony on a different planet or got stuck in some fucked-up time dilation. That you might still be alive out there somewhere.” 

If his throat wasn’t already raw, he would’ve screamed at the screen that he was. 

Wanted to beg you not to fucking believe whatever bullshit everyone else was feeding you and believe in him. 

“You don’t feel dead,” you added. Sniffling a little, using the back of your hand to rub underneath your eyes. “Maybe it’d be easier to move on if you did.”

Even his relief was tainted by guilt, ruined with his own worry that he was ruining your future by wishing you’d be stuck on him forever. 

“My therapist thinks I’m wasting my life waiting on someone who’s never coming back,” you murmured, speaking to him more like you were talking to your diary than truly believing he was going to hear any of it. “But how am I supposed to tell her I’m scared that some day you will, and I won’t be here?” 

Everything hurt.

His body, his heart, his soul. 

Aching for everything he’d lost. Everything you lost because of him. His own kids growing up without a fucking father because he was an idiot who put a career before his family. 

The life he’d spent years carefully building towards lost because he miscalculated. 

“I know it’s not fair, but fuck, thinking about you moving on with another girl, or fucking starting some colony up in space and having kids with someone else, makes me wanna throw up,” you admitted, clueless that he had just puked at the idea of someone else being the stepfather to his twins. 

You hadn’t even confirmed-

“I’m being a hypocrite,” you muttered, burying your face in your hands to hide the fact you were crying — and that’s when it hit him.

The engagement ring on your finger wasn’t his.

Smaller. More subtle. A different cut and style. 

No. You couldn’t-

“I’ve, um, been dating a guy for a few years. He’s sweet. Everyone loves to tell me how much you would’ve liked him,” you admitted, twisting the ring around your finger anxiously like you were confessing a sin. He didn’t like him. Already hated whatever bastard had snuck in and swept you off your feet. “They keep saying that you’d want me to move on.” 

What a load of fucking shit.

The last goddamn thing he wanted was for you to move on. The idea of you marrying another man was enough for him to gag again, bile rising from his stomach as he struggled to stop it. 

“I still love you,” you shrugged a little, guilt of your own etched in your face as his eyes stung with more tears. “I just love him too.”

Gojo would take getting stabbed over hearing those words from your lips again.

“Choso said maybe it’d make me feel better to make another video for you, y’know, get everything off my chest,” you exhaled. “I’m just so tired, Satoru.” 

Okay, well, that kind of felt like being stabbed. 

Knowing that this was all his fault and you were the one bearing so much of the burden. 

“I know you’re probably never going to see this, but you’d want me to be happy, wouldn’t you?” You asked, eyes big and wavering as you struggled not to sob, reaching up to play with the silver chain of your necklace tucked under your shirt. “Would you hate me for choosing someone who cares about me and our kids?” 

He could never hate you.

Even if you married ten other men while he was gone.

He would just always hate the man who got to call you their wife. Jealous of whichever one got to take family photos with you and take you on vacation and sleep next to you every night. 

Gojo wanted to be that guy. Wanted to get down on his knees next to you now and dry your cheeks, kiss your mouth and murmur anything you wanted to hear just to make you feel better.

“I’m getting married in four months,” you murmured, wiping the tears away from underneath your eyes, mascara smearing on the back of your hand as you sniffled. “At that chapel we picked out. The one with the pretty hydrangeas out front.”

No no no. 

He could still make it. 

Couldn’t he? 

If they skipped the supply drop entirely and went straight back through the wormhole? 

Hadn’t he lost enough? 

Gojo refused to let you slip through his fingers a second time. No matter how fast the hourglass was running out of sand. 

You stood up, walking out of frame for a few seconds as he heard the sound of something unzipping. And then you came back, holding out something white and-

A wedding dress. 

“You never got to see me in one, so I thought-” You didn’t finish your sentence, just swallowing hard as you draped it back down on furniture just out of sight. 

The camera barely focused on your body as you peeled your clothes off, his breath hitching at the intimate sight of you slipping the dress on, struggling to zip the back by yourself before walking closer. 

You looked like an angel.

And Gojo sorta wished he was dead. 

Stuck in the stunned shell of his body as he watched the way the dress clung to your chest and flowed to the ground, his heart thrumming loud enough he was sure it was about to break through his ribcage. 

And then a noise in the background startled you. 

The thud of a door shutting. The excited clamoring of children, a girl giggling as a man said something he couldn’t quite make out. 

Your face scrunched up, a million different emotions flashing across it as you both heard it at the same time. “We’re back, baby.” 

Another man was calling you baby. 

Footsteps echoing down a hallway he’d never gotten to walk down, your own body rushing over to block the door before it could open. 

“I’m trying my wedding dress on, Cho,” you called out, lips pressing together in a pretty pout. “It’s bad luck if you see.” 

“Yeah? We brought back your favorite takeout, want me to put it in the fridge or-” he started asking, his voice deep, gravelly. 

“You can leave it out,” you replied, your voice softening as you spoke to him. “I’ll be out in a minute.” 

You glanced back at the camera, guilt returning the second your stare hovered over at it. 

And before Gojo could even really appreciate what a beautiful bride you made, you were rushing to get out of it, biting your lips before stuffing it back into a garment bag, putting your clothes back and returning to your seat. 

“I’m sorry,” you said, fingers trembling as your hand reflexively reached for your necklace again. “I wish things were different.” 

It could be.

It would be. 

Even if a little voice in the back of his head suggested that you might not leave your current fiancé for him if he made it back in time. 

That you might choose the man that had actually been there for you all this time. 

Behind you, there was a knock on the door. 

“Can I come in now?” 

No. 

This was supposed to be private, a one-sided conversation that was for his ears only, but you were glancing back over your shoulder. 

“Yeah,” you quietly answered. 

Gojo almost wished your fiancé was ugly. That it would make it easy for you to pick him instead.

But of course, he had to be annoyingly attractive, dark hair hanging around his shoulders and bangs that reminded him of the best friend he just damned as he casually walked over to you, concern etched into his sharp face as he leaned in to press a kiss on the top of your forehead. 

“Everything okay?” He asked, but then his eyes shifted and he noticed what you were filming. “Oh, baby.” 

The sound of someone who knew you were hurting. Who cared. 

“I’m okay, really, I’m just saying goodbye,” you murmured, like they both couldn’t tell how close you were to breaking down. 

“I’ll give you a few minutes,” he spoke gently, his touch lingering on your skin like it really was his now. “Apollo and Yuji want to go spend the night with one of their friends.” 

Gojo wanted to strangle him. 

Fly through the space and stars just to give him a black eye for just how casually he spoke about his son. 

Although some sliver of him was well fucking aware that Choso had probably been more of a dad to Apollo than he’d ever gotten to be. 

“That’s fine,” you shrugged, nodding a little as your body relaxed, tension lifting from your shoulders the longer you looked at him. 

Gojo hated that he could see that you really did love him in your eyes. 

See that familiar glimmer shining in them as you looked up at a stranger instead of him. 

Choso left the room, but his presence didn’t. 

You stared at the door for a few moments after it shut, but you didn’t say whatever you were thinking. Kept it bottled up before you eventually looked back at Satoru. 

Not that you could even see him. 

You thought you were talking to a ghost. 

That’s all he’d become to you. To his children. A phantom haunting rooms he’d never entered. Lingering in empty spaces he should’ve been. A spectre living in the shadows of your heads. 

“I miss you,” you murmured, reaching for the button one last time to shut it off. “I don’t think that will change. But I can’t keep believing you’re coming home.” 

No. Please no. 

He was.

“I love you, Satoru,” you half-whispered, choking the words out. “Goodbye.” 

The screen went dark. 

His reflection staring back at him. Cheeks wet with tears that wouldn’t stop, breaking down as he fell apart, nausea swirling as he forced himself to stand and step around where he’d thrown up, pacing the floor as his brain struggled to work through a problem he didn’t know how to solve. 

He went back to the console, frowning when he tried to start recording to send a message back out to you, to beg you to just give him a little more time, but nothing happened. 

Body and brain barely working together to frantically tap buttons, staring at what data was available to see if he could find when the transmission was received. 

A faint flicker of hope stirring when he realized it had only been two days ago. 

You weren’t married yet. 

Maybe there was time.

And even if there wasn’t, he’d do his damndest to get there and wreck your marriage if it meant winning you back. 

He was a wreck, stumbling out of the room to rush to find Shoko, nearly tripping on his own feet as he found her by the controls, her neat brunette brows scrunching together in disgust when she saw the state he was in. 

“What the hell-” 

Gojo wasn’t sure he was even speaking in full sentences when he started rambling about time dilation, about how they already missed a goddamn decade, her mouth curling down into a tight frown as he got into the details of how they needed to go home now. 

“We don’t have the fuel,” she deadpanned, drawing his attention to the data on screen. “We can make it to our supply drop, but unless they have some there, we’ll probably be stuck on their settlement until another crew comes along.” 

That wasn’t a fucking option. 

They had to make it.

But even when he spent the next forty-eight hours crunching the numbers and calculating different ways to return, he still came to the same conclusion – Shoko was right. 

And still said ‘I told you so’ when he said fine to going to the planet for the supply drop, figuring that at least if the load was lighter, he might be able to make what they had left stretch. 

He was barely showering. 

Barely eating. 

Manic energy getting him through the long days and longer nights to avoid the dreams that would only mock him for all his failures. 

They were just filled with your face, with Suguru’s, of children that called another man dad. 

Filling his notebooks with different calculations he was desperate to get right this time. 

Skin crawling with the fear that he’d fuck this up and lose you forever. 

He didn’t get to mourn Suguru. Couldn’t mourn the years he missed. 

Not if he didn’t want to miss the rest of them. 

By the time they made it to the next planet, he was a wreck. Practically shoved in the shower by Shoko to get cleaned up before they landed, feeling ill when he was forced to get his suit back on, praying to whatever higher power might be out there to let there be fuel. Let him go home to his family. 

This planet wasn’t full of water. Wasn’t one big ocean. 

Landing in a lush green field, not far from real buildings, actual structures erected, fellow scientists rushing out to greet them as Shoko worked fast to unload the supplies with their help.

Gojo knew he probably sounded like a lunatic rushing to get his request for fuel out as soon as possible, counting the seconds in his head as he hoped that they weren’t months passing for you back home. 

“I need to get back to my fiancée, my kids, please," he begged, pleading without caring how pathetic it came out when everyone here had given up their lives on Earth in the name of science and research. 

“I’m sorry,” their de facto leader apologized, an astronaut he once grew up looking up to frowning at him as he glanced around at their simple setup to search for anything that could help him. “We don’t have any. There’s going to be another supply drop in a month, more people coming to live here. You could probably go back with them if-” 

“No,” he accidentally interrupted, the word ripped from the back of his chest as he recoiled. 

It couldn’t end like this. 

He’d be too late if he stayed.

“Satoru,” Shoko hissed, pulling him back as his breathing got ragged, on the verge of a panic attack. 

“Shoko, they don’t-” 

“I know,” she cut him off, swallowing hard as she fixed him with her steady stare. “Look, I’ll stay here. You take the lander back. Without me and all this stuff, the fuel should last.” 

“You want me to leave you?” He asked, automatically shaking his head no at the absurd suggestion. 

“I don’t have anyone waiting for me back on Earth anyway,” she shrugged.

He didn’t have the seconds to debate it. 

“Are you sure?” He asked, his chest already aching at the idea of being alone on the ship. 

“Go get your wife back,” she huffed. “Name one of your next kids after me.” 

“Deal,” he breathed, throwing her arms around her in a rushed hug before he had to sprint back to the lander. 

Both his best friends left behind on planets he knew he’d never get back to. 

And still, he wasn’t sure if he’d even be able to make it back to the one they came from. 

He wasn’t even meant to be the navigator. 

Wasn’t supposed to be the one frantically typing in coordinates and rushing through checklists to get back home. 

Struggling and squinting at the consoles, breathing heavy when everything was inputted, running the numbers again and again.

He should make it.

Although, his current path put him at landing in some random field in the middle of nowhere, NASA would probably be rushing to get there once they realized it was one of their landers. 

If only he could send out a fucking transmission. 

He tried to figure out why it wouldn’t work, fiddling with it almost every day in failed attempts to fix it and rewatching your videos when his energy threatened to run out. 

Gojo hadn’t cut his hair in months. That was something Suguru usually helped him with. It was nearly touching his shoulders, looking like a stranger in his reflection in the fogged-up mirror on the occasions he’d make himself shower and scrub his skin until it was practically red.

But maybe you liked men with longer hair now. Wouldn’t mind the fact that he changed too. 

When he slept, he made it to the chapel just in time, rushing through the double doors right when the officiant asked if anyone objected. 

He would whisk you away, dip you down and kiss you, fingers sinking into the silk of your wedding dress as he begged you to still be his. 

Some part of him felt like it was all light years away. 

Up until Earth was outside his window, his heart thrumming at the thought of you down there, sharing a bed with someone else while he was fighting so hard to come back to you. Did he fuck you as good?

Make sure you finished every single time? Dot your face with kisses and carry you into the bathroom? Make all your favorite foods and worship the ground you walked on every day? 

Gojo didn’t know if he’d be able to handle knowing.

But fuck, if it meant he’d still get to have you, he’d share you with that asshole. 

Gojo still couldn’t send a transmission, had no way of actually notifying anyone when he got in the lander, flipping switches and changing settings as he got behind the controls. 

Shutting his eyes for a few seconds as he set the coordinates, palms sweating as he clutched the controls. If his math was right, today would be the day you were supposed to be standing at the altar. 

He could do this. 

Failing wasn’t an option.

Not after everything that had brought him here. 

“I’m coming home, sweetheart,” he murmured, a little aware that he had probably lost it if he was talking to himself up here. 

But he hoped you could feel him. 

That even if you were wearing your wedding dress right now, you would be able to sense him somehow. Clinging to the hope that yours hadn’t completely faded yet. 

The landing fucking sucked. 

Hitting the ground too hard, his head snapping forward fast enough he was pretty sure he had a concussion or whiplash, body bracing for the impact as it skidded to a stop in a corn field an hour from that chapel he just toured with you last year. Even if it’d been more like twelve to you. 

It still didn’t stop him from rushing to get out, nearly kissing the ground as he stumbled out. Sucking in the fresh air as he glanced around, his legs trembling as he forced himself to keep moving, well aware he definitely looked like shit even if he tried to clean himself up before his, ah, crash landing. 

“Are you okay? What the fuck is-” 

Gojo grimaced as he glanced up to find someone who pulled over on the side of the road, a stranger squinting at him and the wrecked lander in disbelief. 

“Uh, could you give me a ride?” 

Maybe the universe had decided to cut him some slack. Give him a helping hand as he sat in the passenger seat of a beat-up truck, rubbing the exhaustion from his eyes as he noticed the new phone in the cupholder. 

“Do, uh, you mind if I make a couple calls?” He asked, the distant sound of sirens echoing as they put mile after mile away from the lander – and inched closer and closer to you. 

“Sure,” his new friend shrugged, using his face to unlock his phone at the next stoplight and passing it over. 

Gojo still had your number memorized. 

Even if you didn’t pick up the phone for him. 

No voicemail box set up either, just the generic ‘please leave a message at the beep’ he didn’t have it in him to oblige. He hurried to dial one of his old contacts from NASA he remembered, not sure if Ijichi would pick up either. 

But they did. 

“Hello?” Ijichi croaked, almost sounding like he just woke up, or maybe was sick. 

“Hey, it’s, uh, me,” he said, tapping his fingers on the side of the window. “I sorta crash landed. You guys are gonna want to send someone out to take care of clean up.” 

“Satoru?” 

“Yeah, it’s, um, been a bit, hasn’t it?” He awkwardly chuckled, rambling off the coordinates twice, sure that Ijichi was scrambling to get them down before he exhaled. “Look, I’ve got a wedding to crash. I’ll check in later.” 

Gojo hung up before he could get caught up in any more stupid space bullshit. 

He was finished. 

Ready to spend the rest of his years devoted solely to you and his twins. 

Would you be happy to see him? 

Let him pick you up and press kiss after kiss to your mouth and promise that you missed him? 

He’d spent so long daydreaming about it that he didn’t really know what to do when the truck pulled into the very much empty parking lot of the chapel. 

Was he too early? 

Too late? 

Walking up to the double doors and pulling them open to find barren pews illuminated by stained glass windows. He walked around like an idiot, something pricking at the back of his brain that he wouldn’t listen to as he looked outside at the cemetery next to it. 

He didn’t have a real reason for going back out there. 

Just some invisible string tugging him there as he held his breath, searching for proof in the last place he wanted to find it. 

And there it was. 

Sitting underneath a willow tree waiting for him. 

He stared at the gravestone. Your name etched into the stone – with another man’s last name attached to it. 

His knees gave out. Collapsed underneath him as a broken sob racked through his body, hitting the hard ground as his body surrendered to the pain. Fat tears rolling down his cheeks, sucking in shallow breaths as he cried for the life you had. 

The one he hadn’t been there to give you. 

You couldn’t be- 

Someone tapped on his back. 

He turned fast, shaking as his eyes landed on your face. His pretty girl, probably a good twenty years older than him, aged like a fine wine as your mouth fell open in a surprised gasp. He reached out, fingers trembling as he nearly touched your cheek from his position on the ground, but you froze.

“Dad?” 

It wasn’t you. 

Artemis tried helping him up, tears springing up in her eyes as she immediately hugged him, his brain fractured as he realized that his daughter was here. His daughter was older than him. How much time had passed? How fucking off was he? 

“Oh my god, it’s actually you, when I got the call, I didn’t think-” 

“Artemis?” He breathed her name, wishing he’d gotten the opportunity to say it to her a million more times. “You’re-” 

“Holy shit, I have to call everyone,” she grinned, her smile hurting his chest when it looked so much like yours. “Apollo isn’t gonna believe it. You know, you’re already, like, a great grandpa thanks to him, by the way.” 

Every word was a fresh punch to the gut. 

A great grandfather. 

He never even got to be a father. 

Missed his kids growing up, getting married, having kids of their own, and even them having kids. 

“How long has it been?” He asked, his voice raw, broken chords of disbelief as Artemis' face twisted up, looking behind him as it struck her that he hadn’t known any of it.  

“Since you left?” She awkwardly spoke, tilting her head as she scratched the back of her neck. There was a wedding band on her finger. Did your husband walk her down the aisle? “Um, about fifty years?” 

Four months had been forty years. 

Gojo couldn’t stop himself from crying again, wiping away his cheeks faster, ashamed of what he’d done. 

A fool masquerading as a man. 

Artemis awkwardly wrapped an arm around him, trying to soothe him as she used her free hand to send texts like he couldn’t see through the tears. Sobs wracking through him as the dam inside him broke, reduced to rubble as he fell apart. Painfully aware that he was only inches away from you, and still no closer at all. 

He’d never hold you again. Never touch you again. 

Wouldn’t get to see your smile or hear your laugh, feel the warmth of your affection. 

His children wouldn’t need him. 

For a while, his daughter just sat there with him. Let him cry until he managed to halfway collect himself, his eyes swollen and sore as he struggled to breathe, body aching and stomach starving despite how sick he felt every time he looked up and saw your grave. 

“She passed away last year,” Artemis muttered. “She’d been sick for a while.” 

God, he felt like he was going to die right now. 

Figured it would hurt less than hearing about everything he missed. 

“She talked about you a lot. Made you out to be a big hero,” his daughter smiled softly, obviously trying to make him feel better. You should’ve turned him into the bad guy. “I actually work at NASA. God, she was pretty pissed at me when she found out I even applied, but I promised that I wouldn’t go to space so, uh-” 

It seemed like she inherited his ability to shove his foot in his mouth, her lips clamping shut as she realized that maybe this wasn’t the time. 

“Apollo’s a teacher now,” she abruptly changed the subject, and he didn’t know what to say.

Just staring at her in shock, unable to form proper sentences when he thought he was coming home to a preteen – not a fully grown woman who looked so much like you it hurt to breathe. “Oh, there he is.” 

He looked over to see his son was walking down the path with an old man, talking between each other with furrowed expressions. 

Watched the shock register on their faces when they saw Gojo there. 

He didn’t know what to say when they finally approached, the thick silence and tension simmering in the air as he stared at Apollo. 

Strands of silver in his white hair, blue eyes burning with emotions he didn’t blame him for. Resentment. Reproach. 

“You’re-” 

“I’m sorry it took me so long,” he heard himself say, voice cracking painfully. 

“Yeah,” his son huffed, arms folding across his broad chest. “Us too.”

“Apollo,” the older man next to him scolded, giving him a fatherly look that seemed so natural on his face before throwing Gojo a look that was almost like ‘kids, right?’ “It’s nice to finally meet you. I’m Choso.” 

And despite the fact he had to be in his seventies now, Gojo still sort of wanted to hit him.

Rip the golden band off his finger and start a fight over the fact he’d gotten to spend decades with the love of his life. 

“Was she happy?” He asked instead, hollowed out, no strength left in him to stand. 

“She was,” Artemis softly confirmed, patting his shoulder like he was a child. And he wondered if she had kids too, or if even his son’s children were older than him now. 

“She missed you,” Choso added, more mature than Gojo suspected he would ever be.

Because right now, he was filled with hate.

Anger and rage boiling and burning under the surface at the injustice of all of it. At everything he missed. Everything that should’ve been his that ended up in the hands of someone else because he was too stupid to hold onto you tight enough.

He hated Choso. Hated space. Hated the universe. 

Mostly though, he hated himself.

“We should go get some food,” Artemis artfully pivoted away, trying to tug him upright. “You’re probably starving, right?”

Gojo thought he nodded, not that he was totally in tune with his body, dazed as he tried to sort through the thousand thoughts flooding through his mind.

Numbness creeping in now that he knew it had all been for nothing.

“Before I forget,” she murmured, taking off a necklace he hadn’t noticed her wearing. The thin silver chain weighed down by two rings dangling at the end. The engagement ring he once gave you – and a plain band of white-gold. “Mom always wore it. She told me she bought the band for you before you were supposed to come back and could never bring herself to put either of them away.” 

She dropped it in his palm, his pulse pounding in his ears at the proof you never fully gave up on him. One last thread of you in his hands as he automatically unlocked the clasp and put it on himself, the weight of it sitting over his chest and tethering him back to reality.

To the two children he made with you standing in front of him now he was still lucky enough to meet. 

Artemis interlocked her arm with her brother, laughing at something he said before immediately beginning to bicker about where to eat at, who to call next.

Giggling about their sister, his throat closing at the confirmation you had another baby after him. That you lived a full life he’d only get to see second-hand. Through photos and stories instead of in person. 

Apollo grumbled something under his breath, throwing a glare back at Gojo, still protective over you after you passed. Artemis just elbowed her brother though, tossing the hair back over her other shoulder that reminded him of you.

And some depressing part of him wondered if that’s what you and him would’ve looked like together one day if he stayed. 

He would never get to know. 

His eyes drifted back to your grave. And then the one next to it. 

His name etched next to yours. A plot you must have purchased for him back when you thought you’d never get his body back. 

A loving fiancé and father. 

Gojo was grateful he would at least get to be buried next to you one day. 

You spent your life missing and mourning him.

He supposed it was just his turn. 

“i know,” pressing a lazy kiss to your jaw. his fingers didn’t stop, curling just right, and you shuddered. “i know you like it baby.”

the certainty in his voice sent a jolt through you, your thighs clamping around his wrist without thinking.

your hands fisted in the sheets, caught between pushing him away and pulling him closer. “god, you’re—” his fingers pressed deeper, cutting you off with a choked sound. satoru hummed, pleased, his breath hot against your ear. “say it again,” he coaxed, voice rough. “call me disgusting.”

you whimpered, hips jerking, the quiet room making every sound feel louder. the tension in your stomach tightened, relentless, and you hated how good it felt. “stop,” you tried again, but it came out uneven, your nails digging into his forearm.

the word dissolved into a gasp as his fingers shifted, hitting that perfect angle. your vision blurred slightly at the edges. Satoru’s lips dragged down your throat, teeth grazing your pulse just enough to sting before his tongue soothed it. “liar,” he murmured, the vibration sending a shiver through you. his free hand slid under your shirt, warm and familiar. “you don’t want me to stop.”

you hated how right he was. hated how your body kept responding, arching into him, trembling, every small movement pulling you closer. “you’re—” you choked, voice thin as his thumb pressed harder. “disgusting,” you managed, and your body betrayed you immediately, clenching around his fingers.

satoru let out a quiet, satisfied sound. “there it is,” he muttered, voice thick with amusement. "fuck, you’re so pretty like this" his fingers sped up, the wet sound of them moving in you obscenely loud.

“look at you,” he said, watching your face. “you gonna come like this baby?” his fingers curled again, and your thighs shook. “yeah, you are.”

the orgasm hit hard—your body going rigid for a second before everything unraveled. your breath broke, thighs trembling, hands grabbing at him instinctively.

he didn’t stop right away, dragging it out just enough to make you squirm. “too much,” you gasped, pushing weakly at his wrist, and he finally slowed.

"you’re such a fucking liar," he murmured, pulling his fingers free with a slick sound that made your face burn. he brought them to his mouth without hesitation, licking them clean with a hum that was equal parts satisfaction and provocation. your stomach flipped, both mortified and impossibly, stupidly turned on.

"see?" he leaned in, his breath warm against your ear. "you liked it."

you let out a shaky breath, your limbs still loose as you turned to rest your head against his chest. you gave his shoulder a half-hearted shove. “i didn’t say that.”

satoru huffed out a quiet laugh, brushing his thumb over your lower lip. “you didn’t have to.”

he kissed you then, slower this time, less teasing but just as sure. when he pulled back, he shifted closer, arm sliding under you, fingers tracing lazy patterns along your back like nothing had happened.

You have to admit, you keep getting fonder of them, it could be Suguru’s way of making sure you have your favorite white claw in the fridge, or Choso making sure he got that sativa strain for you. It could be that they’re gorgeous and they smell too damn good, or it could be you’re just ovulating and all sensitive tonight.

But fuck you want them, would it be so terrible to ask them to join? But at the same time, you don’t want them looking a certain way at what you do. They seem super chill but you get a little nervous any time they ask, unable to fully answer them, just sort of giggling and brushing it off.

Suguru’s cooking before they go, his long hair is thrown half up in a bun, the rest flowing down his bare skin, just a thin black wife beater with some band he loves and blood splatter designed trip pants. Choso’s got a baggier shirt, stark white over long black sleeves, his jeans littered with chains, pockets stuffed endlessly full of his growing collection of lighters.

For some reason he stole one from every party he went to – which was a lot.

Suguru’s got a pan of garlic butter shrimp sizzling on the stove, making your tummy growl, since Choso’s grinding some new, ridiculously loud strain he just got in, and he let you test it out – fuck it’s made you hungry, your eyes are so damn red you have to slop drops in. You’re sitting right on the island, crossing your legs and giggling as Suguru has to work around you.

“Always in my way and shit,” he teases, pinching your thigh, you yelp a bit and he tugs you down, hovering a little too close, your phone notifs rolling in nonstop, he faintly notices with a flick of his gaze, hands lingering on your waist.

“Sugu you got a date tonight? You always shave when you do,” you tease him right back, fingers brushing his chin – smooth from where he’d just shaved, you can smell that aftershave this close.

“No I don’t have a date,” he snatches your hand and looks curiously at your phone again, when the timer goes off. “Distracting me, I’ll burn it.”

“My apologies, chef,” Suguru rolls his eyes, you go sit over next to Choso at the little table, his eyes dart across the little robe you have tied around your waist – this pretty pink silk that hits mid thigh and hardly covers shit.

“Wanna try this edible?” You laugh and shake your head.

“No way, yours are too dangerous!”

“This is so yummy, just take a nibble,” he opens the little squares of chocolate, leaning closer and holding it toward your lips, black nailed fingers delicate as they swirl it around temptingly. “Ya know ya wanna.”

“I better not hallucinate or something,” he snorts and shakes his head, but falters when you open your mouth, tongue brushing his fingers as you bite the milky chocolate laced with thc, moaning and shutting your eyes.

Suguru and Choso both just fucking stare at you, as you swipe some of your thumb and suck on it, moaning.

“So yummy!” You look at the silent men curiously, Suguru’s timer goes off and it sort of breaks the spell, but not before both men have to go to their rooms and jerk it to you.

It was sort of a ritual, jerk it to their roommate, act like they didn’t – know they each did – and get jealous when you gave either of them the smallest bit more attention. A cycle of wanting to fuck their pretty roomate who dresses slutty, but never wanting to take it too far, leaving them hopeless and jerking it raw.

They could fuck other girls, but how could they really when you live here all fucking cute and ruining them?

“Shit that’s good stuff,” you’re giggling when they’re getting ready to leave for that party, each have slung a faded jean jacket on, smeared a little liner on their eyes, you’ll use it as gooning material for your cam session tonight.

“Alright, we’re heading out,” Suguru lets you hug him and kiss his cheek, trying to ignore the face he leaks pre from hugs now. “If you need something call us.”

“No, go have fun!”

“Lock up please?” Choso kisses your head, you smile and nod.

The front door clicks shut behind them, and you exhale just a bit – your own routine is to wait a good ten minutes, just to be safe, before you get ready, undoing your robe so just your very slutty lingerie clings to your body. You get into the mood to talk to all these men on your laptop, sorting your blanket and the endless plushes and pillows into a cute arrangement.

You spritz yourself with body spray but that really never made sense – not like the guys smell you, but you still love champagne toast, right along with that little matching candle you light. You have your leds on this pretty pink color, putting on your slutty playlist – yep, you have it titled ‘slutty playlist’ right on your spotify.

Camming was easy in a way, but it was also a bit of a mindset to tap into. Setting up the ringlight, touching up your makeup, all before positioning yourself on your bed just so, making sure the angle looks casual. Your laptop was open, the soft glow of the ring light illuminating your almost bare skin as the viewer count starts to climb.

The problem is, this time? You forget to fully shut your door – you figure they’ll be gone for hours anyway.

“Hey everyone,” they start throwing those tips on stream just to see a hint of your titties. “Aw, did you all miss me?”

*****

"Shit I forgot all my prerolls," Suguru rolls his eyes as he drives toward the party, Choso is checking his pockets that are just full of papers, lighters and empty baggies. "I had them all ready to be bought."

"You're a mess," Suguru yawns and turns the car around, Choso's grinning. "You're lucky we aren't that far."

"What do you think she does for a living, besides being hot?"

Suguru snorts, putting the car into gear and easing up on the clutch. "I figure she's some like, sugar baby? She's gorgeous and chronically online."

"Nah no way, I think she's like in crypto - maybe she's some secret scammer? Like... a hacker or some shit!"

Suguru rolls his pretty amethyst eyes as they near the apartment. "Yeah I doubt it. Fuck I think I did forget my fave guitar pik... I'll come up too."

The two of them try to be just a bit quiet in case you're asleep, you kinda went to your room decently early every night and played your favorite music. Nothing too loud - just enough that if you were right by your room you could hear, the same music is a little louder when they walk in, your door cracked.

"Mmm, where'd I leave em?" Choso tugs at his ponytails that are falling just so, looking around until he pauses, peeking right in your room like a fucking pervert.

You're fucking your pretty cunt with a glass dildo, and the thing is all glittery and pink - like your entire room. All arched on that plush rug, ass facing this bright heart shaped ring light, moaning softly as your cunt is so loud he hears her sucking it up.

Choso almost busts.

"Bro," Suguru scowls as he sees his friend, clearly invading their cute roomie's privacy, but he pauses right fucking behind Choso, his jaw dropped on the damn floor.

"Mnh! Hah I'm not squirting for just a hundred, gonna need way more than that," you tease, pulling the dildo out and turning, lapping your tongue along the ridged glass, tasting your own fucking cunt.

Suguru almost busts.

"Hehe," you're all giggly from the weed, tits out of that robe, just a little garter around your waist and some ripped stockings the only thing covering you. "Mmm, I do taste g-"

You look and see both your roommates staring at you, cocks visibly hard in their jeans, you gasp and slam your laptop shut, stumbling up and dropping the damn dildo, it rolls loudly on the hardwood floor.

"Fuck, shit, fuck," you curse now, waving your hands around and just making your tits bounce more. "I'm so sorry! I thought you all were like gone and... fuck I should've locked the door, please like... I'll find somewhere else to go, okay I-"

"Hey," Suguru barely manages to speak, clearing his throat and picking the dildo up in his hands, coated in your slick, he sets it on the dresser and walks toward you, where you're panicking. "You don't have to go somewhere, fuck, okay?"

"Y-you're sure?" You realize your tits are out then, your puffy pussy showing too, but it seems stupid to close your robe now, instead feeling their gaze drift. "I didn't mean to be... Choso, are you okay?"

"Mnh," Choso cums right in his jeans, cursing as the white liquid spurts all over, so much it leaks dark through the denim. "Fucking cumming, sh-shit..."

"Oh! Oh? Oh..." You blush now, as if you weren't just fucking yourself on cam, Suguru sighs and runs a hand down his face. "That's hot."

"What?" Both men ask that, you giggle now.

"It's sexy you came from just looking at me," you fiddle with your robe a bit, swallowing nervously. "I could clean it up."

"Wha-!?" Choso damn near runs to you, blitzed off his ass now, cupping your face with his big tattooed hands. "Fuck I'd do anything to feel your throat wrapping me."

"That's hot too," you giggle more when he moans and kisses you, Suguru staring in utter confusion, when you pull back and look right at him. "You both should join me, if you all want. We can keep your faces out of it?"

"Oh you wanna..." Suguru drifts off, clearing his throat and walking to you, turning you away from Choso who's needy as he ruts against the curve of your ass, Suguru's hands drifting down your pretty tits, thumbs brushing over your nipples.

"Mnh," you cry out, lashes fluttering. "I've had to fuck myself like every day since I moved here."

"I fuck my toy too," Choso murmurs against your neck, you look back and giggle again, before gasping out when Suguru's fingers find your messy cunt, swirling in your slick.

"If I do your video, I get to eat your pretty cunt out, and I get to cum inside it," you look up at him, all fucked up now.

"And I get to eat his cum out."

"Choso you slut," you whisper, but it's a needy little one - biting down on your lip and nodding then. "I'm down, I'll split the money too."

"We don't need that," Suguru sinks two fingers inside, moaning and curving them up. "Choso thought you were a hacker."

"Hah, what!?"

"He thought you were a sugar baby!"

"Well... sort of. Let me set this back up and..." You work on the stream, the two men's cocks flush and at attention as you kneel on your bed, Suguru behind you, Choso in front of you - and that's when you suck Choso's cum right off his pretty, veiny cock, lapping at that pink tip.

"Mnh," Choso's whimpering as you bob up and down him, while Suguru's on his knees with his face buried in your cunt. His tongue ring catches that soft spot in your gummy walls, before he's lapping at your clit in mean little flicks, spitting right on your hole.

"Arch," he murmurs, you do just that, moaning around Choso's already hard cock as you lap up the very last remnants of his messy white ropes - Suguru is fucking you with his fingers, curving them up over and over until you feel too much pressure.

The boys utterly forget you're on cam, and so do you. Choso, already sensitive from cumming once, he's just whimpering, needy mess, his hands tangled in your hair as you deepthroat him, fucking your throat till it's sore and raw, murmuring sweet apologies.

"S-sorry, jus' feel s'good b-baby," he's fucking harder with firm ruts of his cock, when Suguru leans up from making you squirt on his fingers, slipping them in Choso's mouth. His dark lips wrap Suguru's thick fingers, moaning, cheeks hollowing. "Oh f-fuck, you taste so sweet."

"Mmph," you can't talk, the edible making your body feel even more sensitive, when Suguru's cock slaps heavy against your ass, and his pierced tip drags right along your slit. You jolt and your eyes roll back in your skull when he sinks inside.

"This tight? Oh fuck, that toy didn't stretch you out, huh?" Suguru - usually so sweet - is mean with it, pinning your arms behind your back, throwing you off balance, while Choso holds you up by cupping your face, ramming his cock past your uvula.

"We'll stretch you out baby," Choso murmurs, his lips parted, eyes gone black with how fucked up he already is, how needy when those filthy sounds of your cunt getting fucked and your throat getting rammed fill your room.

You make a filthy amount that night, but you don't check until much later, not when Suguru is pounding your cunt and making you cum around his cock, barbell dragging right in your quivering little hole. When Choso's whispering good girl and Suguru's murmuring that you're a perfect fuck toy.

Suguru has you cumming so much you collapse, lips pulling off Choso with a messy pop, Choso spits right in your mouth - not the sweet little Cho you thought he was, not when he's smacking your cheek and pulling your hair into his fist.

Your thighs are trembling when Suguru busts his load inside you, bent over you from where he's fucked you down into your matress, your mascara making a mess of your pillows as your tears of overstim fall, gasping and drooling. At some point your ring light just fucking falls, and the laptop gets shut by Suguru.

"My turn," Choso murmurs when he spreads your thighs, laying you on your back and shoving them against you, just to scoop all Suguru's milky release on his tongue. Suguru's kissing you all messy and mean, rutting his cock on the mattress, watching his best friend drink him out of your hole. "Fuck you took so much cum, can you take more?"

"Mhm," you're nodding all cute, letting Choso put another load inside you, until so much is pouring from your abused hole you're sticky, they both play in it, fingering it back inside until you're squirting all down their knuckles.

Later - much later - you three are smoking weed in your bed, they've cleaned you all up with their tongues, both having their own roll lit up, the three of you dizzy and high.

"So, you two wanna cam now?" You tease, inhaling the blunt from Choso's fingers as Suguru brushes your hair back, damp from the little shower they took with you.

"You think we should?" Choso asks, you pull up your phone, coughing out smoke and showing him the number. "Oh fuck..."

Choso's kissing up your neck when you peer at Suguru. "What do you think, hmm Sugu?"

your thighs squeeze. your eyes are teary when you look in the mirror, face flushed, tits heaving. "i have nice breasts."

"mmh," toji slides a palm up your side. he lets his thumb brush against your aching nipple, before twisting and stretching the pebbled peak between his fingers. you arch into him on instinct. "so nice, dollface. and what else? look at this pussy in the mirror, baby. tell me all about it."

his thumb presses into your clit. but then he slides it away.

you moan, loud, slick dripping down your thighs. toji’s cock twitches against your ass, but clearly he’s got the self control of a god.

your lashes are tear rimmed. “i have—i have a pretty pussy!”

“so pretty,” he murmurs, tugging your clit before pressing his thumb against it, rubbing slow circles over the bud. “prettiest pussy i’ve ever fucking seen. so wet and noisy for me. tell me more, sweetheart.”

“my pussy is so tight,” you rasp, breathless and hips twitching as toji rubs his thumb against the sensitive bud. “hnngh—so tight and wet for you, toji.”

"yeah?" he murmurs against your ear. his cock nudges your slick folds, pulsing and throbbing at the entrance. "love this fucking pussy, you know that?"

you can only whimper in response.

"love how puffy it is," he continues, dragging his swollen cockhead up your slit, only to drag it down again. "love how it tries to swallow me. see that, baby? see how it slobbers all over my cock?” he pushes his swollen head in as your cunt flutters around him. “fucking perfect.”

“toji—“ you gasp, “please—“

“please what?” he growls, pushing his hips into you. his thick cock swells between your folds, pulsing and stretching your puffy cunt. “want me to play with this pussy, baby? fuck you so hard your tits bounce in the mirror?”

“mhm—“

“words, sweetheart.”

“want you to fuck me,” you gasp out, hips bucking back to chase his cockhead and push him deeper into your folds. “want you to play with my pussy and fuck me till i’m dripping—“

“fuck,” toji groans, slamming into you, hard. “thaaaat’s my fucking girl. see how easy it is to please me?”

mirror s*x, end.

you shivered, letting your legs splay out just a little wider, smaller hand wrapping around his wrist.

“keep going..." you mumbled, trying to keep your voice, gaze nervously flicking up to the rearview mirror, only to find the driver's eyes locked onto the road.

so he continued, fingers hooking into your underwear, pushing aside the fabric before immediately sinking two thick fingers into you—other hand tilting your face towards him, close enough that your breath mingled with his, your eyes fluttering shut with each press of his fingers.

“we should stop.” but then he twisted his hand so his heel could rub up against the small bundle of nerves, words being a clear contraction of his actions, your hand tightening around his wrist at his hesitance, nails digging into the skin a little.

"don’t you dare fucking stop.” you muttered, not missing the way his jaw ticked at your tone—fingers curling up, pressing against your walls with a sloppiness unique only to three drink nanami, searching over the tight muscle to find…this.

and he knew he was in the right spot because you did that thing, the thing you always do whenever he hit your sweetspot, face going lax whilst your body went stiff—lazy smile drawing his lips tight, pressing over the same place again and again and again.

his eyes looked over your head. “we’re almost home.”

“fuck, m’close—"

“you think you can finish before we get back?”

“y-yes. just keep doing t-that. and talking. keep talking.”

he let his head drop down a little further, voice dropping down to a whisper in your ear.

“wanted to do this all night. from the moment you put that dress on.”

you bit his shirt sleeve to stop yourself from drawing more attention to yourselves than you already had, saliva wetting the stiff fabric, thin cotton letting you feel the taut skin tense under your canines, breath uneven as you felt warmth pool low in your belly.

“love getting you like this," he continued, pressing a kiss just under your ear. "couldn’t wait till we got back. i'm sorry.”

“d-don’t be sorry,” you spoke, muffled into his bicep, eyes fluttering shut when you finally reached your peak, legs clamping tight around his hand as a tear ran down your cheek.

the car lurched to a stop, your husband’s other hand moving to fish out a couple notes… wait, no, that’s actually all the money in his wallet he was now giving to the driver, a knowing glance flitting over you as he wished the two of you a good evening.

yeah. five drink nanami was fun.

...and wildly irresponsible with money.

you turn. he’s still in the doorway, but his eyes have that look—the one he gets when he’s been thinking too hard about something and finally decided what to do about it. you cross the room slowly. he meets you halfway, his hands finding your waist, pulling you in until your chest is pressed to his.

“you’ve been doing everything today,” he murmurs, his lips brushing your temple. “tying your shoes. making breakfast. carrying your own bag. i didn’t stop you. but i need to know why.”

you rest your forehead against his collarbone. “i don’t know. i just wanted to feel like i could handle things. without you doing everything for me.”

he’s quiet for a moment. then his hands slide down to your ass, gripping you firmly, lifting you until your legs wrap around his waist. he carries you to the bed like you weigh nothing, laying you down on your stomach, his body already covering yours.

“you can handle things,” he says against the back of your neck, his voice low and rough. “i know that. but you don’t have to.” his hands are already working your jeans down your hips, yanking your panties with them. “you don’t have to do anything when i’m here. that’s the point.”

you feel him shift behind you, hear the sound of his zipper, feel the blunt head of his cock pressing against your entrance. he doesn’t wait. doesn’t tease. just pushes inside in one slow, deliberate thrust that has you gasping into the mattress.

“choso—”

“shut up,” he snaps, his hand pressing between your shoulder blades, pinning you harder. “you wanna act like you don’t need me? fine. but you’re gonna take this cock like its the only thing you need.”

his hips snap forward, burying him deeper, and you moan, your fingers fisting the sheets. “you were so fucking stubborn this morning. tying your own shoes like i wasn’t right there. making that shitty cereal like i didn’t already have something ready for you. what the fuck was that?”

you whimper, your body rocking with every thrust. “i just—i wanted—”

“you wanted to be difficult,” he growls, his hand sliding around to your clit, rubbing tight circles that make your thighs shake. “you wanted to prove something. but look at you now. face down, ass up, dripping all over my cock because you can’t even pretend you don’t need me.” his pace is brutal, each thrust punching a moan out of you. “say it. tell me how badly you need me.”

“i- i need you,” you gasp. “cho, please—”

“that’s right,” he pants, his voice dark and mean. “you need me. you need me to fuck you like this because you can't make yourself cum as good as i can. but you’re still my good girl, aren’t you? my perfect little princess who just needed to be reminded who she belongs to.” his fingers work faster, his cock hitting that spot inside you with every thrust, and you’re so close you can barely think. “cum for me. cum on this cock like the needy slut you are. show me how much you need it.”

you cum with a broken moan, your walls clenching around him, your body shaking. he fucks you through it, his pace relentless, his hand still working your clit until you’re sobbing into the pillow. only then does he let himself go, his hips stuttering, his cock pulsing as he fills you.

he collapses on top of you, his weight pressing you into the mattress, his breath hot against your neck. for a long moment, neither of you moves. then he rolls off you, pulling you into his arms, his hand stroking your hair.

“now,” he murmurs, his voice already thick with sleep. “are you gonna be good and let me take care of you?”

you press a kiss to his chest, your body still humming. “okay.”

he kisses the top of your head. “atta girl.”

wife : @sadisticslut666

toji’s head snaps up so fast he almost drops the box of freezies.

it’s you—oh god, it’s you, and you’re looking down at him with those pretty lashes & short skirt & your hands holding a basket behind your back. you’re in those cute kitten heels you had on the first time he saw you—did you get your nails done? so pretty. you’re so pretty, you’re always so pretty, and toji’s mouth dries.

he doesn’t say anything because he can’t, because your perfume smells like honey & has his lungs sticking to his throat—but he slowly stands up anyway. you’re humming to yourself as you pad closer, getting in his way, heel clicking against the tile as he traps you in the aisle.

he reaches up to the glass bottle, and he can see your lashes fluttering up at him. your chest presses against his, and his lip ticks upward.

“you want this, princess?” he mumbles.

you playfully swat his chest, but your palm doesn’t slide off. you’re caressing his pecs now, teasing. “toji, give it to me. i have a pasta to make tonight. i’m busy.”

toji chuckles, slipping the bottle into your basket and letting his palm sneak over your waist instead. your hands are still on his pecs, lightly squeezing as you laugh when he tugs you closer. he nuzzles your jaw, murmuring, “only if i get an invite, sweetheart.”

“we’ll see,” you tease as his tongue licks your earlobe. you’re running a thumb over the silver tag on his chest: TOJI. “if you’re good, maybe i’ll let you wash the dishes.”

he kisses your neck. “m’always good for you, baby.”

you’re giggling now, shoving him away with flushed cheeks & a laugh too bright. toji catches your hands, tugging you back with a smile on his face before squeezing your hips. your lips are so glossy. is that the new gloss you bought last week? can he kiss it off?

he’ll never know, because he’s holding your hips while you tug at his collar and whisper something he doesn’t care about in his ear. his manager calls his name.

fuck.

toji gives your hips one last squeeze. “go pay, princess. i’ll bag your stuff.”

“you better.” you huff, spoiled & sweet, and toji can only watch the sway of your hips as you make your way to the register.

you’re a pretty girl with a posh life who will never know lack. toji’s a 24-year-old who’s still in college, working odd jobs with a son waiting at home.

in the third aisle of the local loblaws, toji zenin has his hands on his hips and his eyes on the ground. toji zenin will never say it out loud, but he knows he will never, ever, get the girl.

ⵌ AT THE FRATHOUSE !

“you can’t pull someone like y/n, no offense.”

toji wishes suguru wouldn’t spell it out. he already knows, for christ’s sake.

in sigma chi’s living room, toji zenin is sprawled out on the center rug while suguru and sato eat on the floor beside him. sato is between geto’s legs with his back against geto’s chest & his toe tickling toji’s jaw through his socks. suguru is tilting his shawarma for sato to bite from before taking a bite of his own.

sato’s about to dish out an insult of his own when the door swings open. in comes ryomen sukuna, standing in the doorway with bags in his hands and his limbs stretched out like some sort of clown. he bellows, “therapy fucking sucked today. i still don’t think i need therapy, by the way. watching porn and jerking off is completely normal—fuck you, suguru.”

“maybe it is,” suguru’s lips are sticky with shawarma sauce, “but having your dick out in the same room as other people is not.”

“a young man can’t be an exhibitionist? suck my dick, man.”

“oh, i’m not hungry..”

sukuna trudges over toji’s legs, then plops on the ground opposite sato and suguru. sato throws him the middle finger with a grin. sukuna throws it back. “i brought drinks. toji, why’re you on the floor? ya need therapy too?”

sato snickers. “toji’s fallen for a rich girl.”

sukuna snorts, “don’t even joke, lad.” but suguru and toji aren’t laughing. his brows scrunch. “wait—“ he turns to toji, “you’re serious?”

toji eyes him. “mind your own business.”

sukuna doesn’t believe in complex schools of thought like ‘minding your business.’ so instead of picking a shawarma for himself and eating in silence, he joins sato and nudges his foot against toji’s cheek. “does she know you’re poor?”

“hey, hey,” geto bites his cheek, “not too much on him.”

but sukuna continues. “what about the kid? does she know you have a son?”

toji’s jaw only tightens.

sukuna looks at toji in disbelief. then at sato, then suguru—then shakes his head, laughing. “jesus christ of jollof rice,” he cracks open a beer, “you’re fucking cooked, bro.”

toji drags his hands over his face. his eyes are hot, for some reason.

suguru sighs, resting his chin on sato’s head as sato munches happily underneath him. “i hate to suggest this, but there’s a way you can get her to give you a chance.”

sukuna and toji both perk up.

“if she doesn’t know about meg—or your, uh, economics,” suguru clears his throat, “then you keep it that way. she thinks you’re some hot older uni student who works at loblaws for beer money. lean into it.”

sato frowns. “this sounds like something i’d suggest. so not good, i think.”

suguru pokes his cheek, making sato’s pout grow deeper. “i’m just spit-balling here. it’s obvious you really like her, toji. and megumi needs a mommy.”

“i don’t like her because i want her to play housewife.”

“we know,” suguru’s smile is affectionate. “that’s why we’ll help you.”

sukuna grunts in agreement. “sounds scummy but it makes sense. if she finds out you’re a baby daddy with no money, she’ll just run back to her range rover.” he takes another swig of his beer. “we’ll help you hide your true identity. you just get her hooked enough that when she eventually does find out, she won’t leave.”

sato nods. “we’ll babysit. lend you money. heck—you can drive my porsche to your dates.”

on the floor, toji zenin is staring towards the ceiling. it’s a stupid plan, his frat brothers are even stupider, and there is no way in hell whoever is up there will actually let things work out in his favor.

but toji’s desperate. he has been for a long time. so before he can let himself think about it, his lips part to respond.

“alright,” he grunts. “let’s fucking do it.”

SIGMA CHI’S REMARK : DON’T WORRY BRO, WE GOTCHU !

BROKE BOY TACTICS #2: WHO’S YOUR DADDY ?

taught by: sato, sukuna, suguru

“babysitting a five year old brat. how hard could that be?”

ΣΧ

megumi zenin is tufts of black hair, sleepy blue eyes & a tiny fist in a jar full of gummy worms. he’s slumped against his dad’s thick leg, shoving fistfuls of gummies in his mouth with candy-smeared cheeks & a bored expression on his face.

sato, sukuna and suguru are side-by-side on a straight line.

hands tucked behind their backs & chests puffed out like soldiers. toji clears his throat. “listen up. i’m going to be gone for exactly two hours. if i come back and the kid has a single scratch on him, i’m throwing all of you into a pond.“

suguru shakes his head, stepping forward to crouch down to megumi’s height. he wipes megumi’s cheeks with a smile. “don't worry, toji. we've got him. right, little man?”

“hi, uncle sugu,” megumi’s voice is flat but he leans into geto’s palm on his cheek. “are we going to draw today?”

“of course, kiddo. i bought some new crayons just for you.”

toji scoops his son up in his arms, ignoring the way his tiny body writhes towards the gummy worms abandoned on the floor. suguru lifts the jar back to megumi with a smile. sukuna, however, is frowning. “why is his face like that.”

“sukuna, do not fight my kid.”

megumi points towards him. “my daddy calls you a pervert.”

sato bursts out in laughter. suguru’s snickering too, though he’s doing a better job of hiding it. toji drops his son to the ground and crouches to his height. megumi offers him a soggy, wet gummy worm. toji eats it off his palm & pokes his belly.

he rises to his feet. “suguru is in charge. rest of you, keep your hands off him. i’m leaving.”

megumi waves a sticky hand. “bye, daddy. bring me a cookie.”

“will do, brat.” and the door shuts with a thud.

——

“we should go to wonderland. you like amusement parks, ‘gumi?”

megumi zenin has a crayon in his hands, scribbling furiously with a focused expression on his face. he’s seated in geto’s lap, occasionally having suguru hand him a crayon as he perfects his artistic masterpiece. to his right, sato gojo is leaning over the table and talking a mile-a-minute.

megumi answers, scribbling a drawing of what looks like him and his father—DADDY AND ME. “i’ve never been to an amusement park.”

“what?” sato slams his palm on the table, distraught. “what kind of kid has never been to an amusement park?!”

“my father is poor.”

“oh,” sato shrinks. “fairs.”

suguru lets out a fond huff, burying his nose in megumi’s hair to hide the fact that he’s shaking from laughter. sato looks crushed by guilt. “i can’t take this anymore, suguru.” he clutches his chest. “we’re going to the apple store and getting him an ipad pro right now.”

suguru raises a brow. “toji said no screens. and either way, i won’t let you turn him into an ipad kid.”

megumi slumps against geto’s chest. “i want a blue gatorade.”

“i’ll get it for you, buddy,” suguru smiles before kissing his cheek, easing him off his lap. “don’t let sato teach you about investment and stocks while i’m gone, okay?”

sato has his chin on the table, defeated. and just as suguru’s back turns into the kitchen, sukuna saunters in, steps heavy, palm curled around a blue bottle of—is that the last gatorade?!

sukuna cracks the plastic seal, taking a slow, heavy swig of the drink while staring right at the five year old. megumi’s tiny brows furrow. “that’s mine. uncle sugu said i could have it.”

“well,” sukuna licks his lips, slow. “uncle sugu’s not the king of this house.” he takes another gulp, throwing his head back with a refreshed ahhhhhh. megumi frowns, lips tight.

and then he screams.

“uncle sugu! mister pervert’s being mean again!”

sukuna chokes on his gatorade. “who the hell are you calling mister pervert, you little brat—“

sato jumps over the table to hold back sukuna before he can strangle the five-year-old. suguru runs out of the kitchen in alarm, quickly scrambling to hold back sukuna’s wrath alongside sato.

megumi only blinks at the display. three grown men bickering and shoving over gatorade. hell, he’s not so sure he even wants it anymore.

he sighs, reaching across the table to pick up sato’s iphone. he dials his dad’s number, palm smushed into his cheek as he watches suguru smack sukuna for his bad behavior.

ⵌ AT THE DATE !

in the local coffee shop, your lashes are fluttering & the sunlight kisses your skin as you stare out the window.

toji zenin has his heart in his throat. his hands are in his pockets but his ribs are cracked against his chest, and the sight of you pouting out the window has his mouth drying with want. he strolls over regardless, posture lazy, steps cool, because toji zenin is a man who can only have pride when he pretends.

“hi, princess,” he slides into the booth seat—next to you, not across, because he’s been thinking about the feel of your waist in his hands since last thursday—and his ankle hooks around yours on autopilot.

“hi,” you smile, leaning into his side as he kisses your hair. toji takes your palm in his. your fingers are so dainty. fuck.

“you look nice today,” you hum. “who are you trying to impress?”

your lashes are batting up at him, but toji manages to keep his cool. his smirk is lazy & gorgeous. “you, obviously.”

toji wonders how you can let him touch you so casually. even now he’s nibbling your ear as you talk about something from class—a lazy professor or something else, it’s hard to listen when your thumb brushes his jaw while you speak—and toji’s mind wanders. he’s kissing your neck now, thumbs rubbing circles on your thighs as your breath hitches between words, and toji wonders why you haven’t yet flinched in disgust.

he doesn’t dwell on it too long, though. he knows the topic will only get him down.

so he kisses your neck as you laugh and swat him away, telling him he’s distracting you from your story. you never push him off, though, and your thigh’s on his lap now.

but all good things must come to an end.

toji’s phone buzzes.

loud & obnoxious. SATO, his screen reads. he quickly swipes it away. “sorry…just spam.”

“spam?” you poke his bicep, grinning. “or is your little side piece getting impatient?”

“don’t have a side piece, baby,” he murmurs into your cheek. “only want you.”

1 NEW FACETIME AUDIO CALL : SATO 🤡

his phone has been buzzing for ages now. you sigh, crossing your arms & clearly annoyed. “toji, just answer it. what if it’s an emergency?”

you’re right, he should answer it, because if anything happened to megumi, he’d fucking flip. he bites his lip, “one second, princess.”

he presses his phone to his ear, but megumi’s voice greets him instead.

“daddy! uncle kuna’s trying to kill me because of blue gatorade!”

toji’s eyes widen. from the corner of his eye, he can see you inching closer, brows furrowed in concentration as you try to listen in.

in the background of the call he can hear sato shrieking. “suguru—! use the spatula! use the spatula! sukuna stop—“

you’re blinking at him, inching closer to his bicep on the table. “daddy? who’s calling you daddy?”

toji’s soul leaves his body.

“daddy, are you coming home soon? uncle sugu’s spanking him now. it’s very loud—“

he ends the call before you can hear any more.

“do you have a son?”

toji’s breathing stutters. you’ve inched away from him now, lips bent in a frown, brows furrowed, expression curious—or cautious, toji can’t really tell. and it pains him to lie to you, but what else can he say when you’ve already shifted your thigh off his lap?

“nah,” he answers too fast. “it’s my nephew.”

toji reaches out to thumb your cheek, but you don’t relax into his palm. “think he meant to call my brother, not me.”

he tugs your bottom lip as you speak. “i didn’t know you had a brother…”

“there’s a lot you don’t know about me, princess,” he leans in to kiss the corner of your lips, because he knows he doesn’t deserve any more than that. your pout deepens.

“we can change that though,” he lies, smiling. “wanna get dessert?”

SATO’S REMARK : NICE SAVE, TOJI ! AND MY BAD—HAHA !

BROKE BOY TACTICS #3: BLEACH !

taught by: geto suguru, toru gojo

“inviting her over already? we’ve gotta scrub this place clean, then.“

ΣΧ

toji zenin has one hour to make it seem like megumi doesn’t exist.

geto suguru is scrubbing the bathrooms. toru gojo has somehow been roped into this predicament and is scrubbing away in the kitchen. in the living room, toji zenin is picking up cheerios from the rug, phone in his ear with sukuna on the line.

“hi daddy,”megumi’s voice is flat through the speaker. “uncle kuna’s being nice to me today.”

“that’s great, kiddo. can you put him back on the phone?”

“yo,” sukuna’s voice crackles through.

“if anything happens to my son, i will spread your ass cheeks and sprinkle paprika in the hole.”

“oh.”

“yeah,” toji shifts the phone in his neck. “make sure he has a good time at that amusement park. and don’t let sato spoil him too much.”

“heyyy toji!” sato’s voice crackles through the speaker. toji sighs before grunting back a hello. “keep megumi safe, got it?”

“yes, sir!” / “we got it, boss.” / “bye, daddy!”

toji says his goodbyes. just as he clicks the end button, toru gojo pads into the living room, glasses tilting off his face & slipping rubber gloves off his hands. “all done in the kitchen. remind me why we’re deceiving this poor lady again?”

toji picks up a gummy worm tucked under the rug and cringes. “because she wouldn’t look twice at a broke guy with a kid.”

toru softens, adjusting his glasses. “you don’t know that. have you tried telling her?”

“no.”

“why not?”

"because,” he picks up another gummy worm hidden under the couch, glaring at it before throwing it away. "because every time someone finds out about megumi, they look at me different. like i'm a burden. like he's a burden."

toru purses his lip. he’s watching as toji ducks under the couch, picking out stray bits of cereal and snacks and other things that make toji’s nose scrunch up in disgust.

toru shakes his head, taking off his glasses to set them on the counter. “but you don’t know if she’s like that.”

“i know i can’t lose her before i even have her.”

toru purses his lip. toji’s voice came out too tight.

ⵌ SHOW TIME !

when toji opens his front door, you’re in a too-short dress and there’s moët & chandon in your hands.

god, you’re gorgeous. and toji really needs to stop thinking that. needs to stop saying it in his head before he slips up and says it out loud with a tone he can’t take back.

“hi,” you tilt your head, batting your lashes in that way that makes him stupid. “you gonna keep standing there? or are you gonna take this bottle off my hands?”

ah, right. toji reaches for the bottle but you pull it back. he raises a brow.

“say ‘please pretty girl, may i have the wine?’”

you’re still peering up at him, hugging the bottle of wine to your chest, teasing smile on your glossy lips. toji leans against the doorframe. arms crossed, dark eyes raking over your hips, plush thighs, pretty waist. fuck.

his lips twitch, “i’m not saying that.”

“aww,” you pout, glossy and spoiled. “guess i have to turn back home and drink this expensive wine all by myself.” you turn, and toji bites his cheek because your dress has ridden up to give him the perfect view of your ass. so soft. he can’t wait to squeeze it.

“i’m gonna be so lonely…” your back is still turned to him, voice wistful. “and i came all the way over here, too. i’m so upset.”

toji doesn’t let you take another step.

you squeal as he scoops you up with a grunt, arms snaking over your waist & under your thighs to lift you bridal style. you squeeze the bottle of wine in your arms, eyes shut tight as you giggle while he kicks the door shut. “toji! put me down!”

careful what you wish for.

toji drops you to his couch with a thud. you land with a breathless laugh, dress bunched up to your hips & he can see the print of your panties. your hair is fanned out, and the bottle of wine is pressed to your stomach. you’re giggling, eyes bright, and god. you look so fucking gorgeous all laid out for him. toji’s jaw ticks.

he climbs over you, pressing his warm body down until the wine digs into your stomach. his eyes are dark. hungry.

“please, pretty girl,” he murmurs, breath hot, lips teasing your neck. “may i have the wine?”

oh.

your breath hitches. you stare up at him, cheeks hot, eyes wide, thighs squeezing together in anticipation. but you’re a bad girl, so you don’t give toji zenin what he wants just yet.

your smile falters, but you tilt your head. “thought you weren’t gonna say it?”

he grins, pressing a hot kiss underneath your ear. “and i thought you were leavin’.”

you let out a shaky gasp as toji licks a hot stripe up your neck. he’s filthy—big hands gripping your hips to keep you pinned to the couch, squeezing you hard each time you moan and buck yourself into him. his breath is hot against your neck, sucking and kissing and teasing, the occasional nip when you whimper just the way he likes.

his weight presses the wine harder into your stomach. you gasp, “toji, the wine—“

“hold it, baby.”

your eyes squeeze shut as his kisses trail further down your neck, tummy fluttering as heat pools between your thighs. his thumb on your hip sinks under the silk of your panties, and you whine his name before he shushes you with a sweet kiss to your cheek.

toji doesn’t kiss you on the lips. the lips are too honest, and toji is not.

you’re still clutching the bottle, chest heaving as toji presses your hips deeper, deeper—

“ow!”

toji freezes.

in truth, toji zenin has never been a gentle man. his body is too big and his hands are too rough, and life itself has never treated him gently, nor given him much reason to be gentle towards others. but as toji hovers over you, limbs frozen in alarm, his stomach can’t help but twist with disgust. said body and rough hands have crushed something soft yet again.

“did i hurt you?” his voice comes out weird. “doll—look at me. you okay?”

“i’m fine,” you wince, cheeks flushed as you try to steady your breathing. you twist your leg slightly, sliding your fingers down into the sofa cushion where something sharp poked at you. “something... something poked my leg.”

you pull out a tiny, red brick.

you blink. “a lego?”

for the second time this evening, toji freezes.

he takes it from your hand, flicking it away. he lifts your arms to wrap them around his neck, and lowers himself back to your chest. “that what you stopped me for, princess?” he mutters coolly, like his heart isn’t beating in his throat. “had me so worried, baby.”

“toji, why do you have a lego?”

he kisses your jaw, “my nephew’s.”

ah, that makes sense. you hug his neck tighter, giggling as he slips the wine off your belly & onto the floor. he presses yet another kiss to your neck, warm & sweet, and you let your chin rest on his shoulder as he loves you with gentler hands.

but then you see it.

on the metal door of the kitchen fridge, past a jar of gummy worms and a poorly placed broom, a banana-shaped magnet is there.

and right under it, a scribbled drawing. the messy figure of a man with spiky hair, and a smaller, more spiky-haired boy.

DADDY AND ME.

your body goes still.

toji’s hands are on your hips, thighs, waist—but his touch suddenly itches. the warmth has gone cold.

“toji,” you whisper. “who drew that?”

toji doesn't move. his eyes slowly follow your gaze to the fridge, and the panic in his eyes is unmistakable. the lie slips out of his mouth before his brain can even catch up to it.

“sociology project,” he breathes. “developmental regression. drew it with my left hand.”

“your left hand…”

your voice trails off as toji sinks his lips back to your neck.

toji zenin does not study sociology.

TORU’S REMARK : YOU CAN’T FOOL HER FOREVER.

BROKE BOY TACTICS #4: LEAN INTO THE LARP !

taught by: sato gojo

“you can’t pull up to a date in an uber. take my porsche—you’re a rich guy now.”

ΣΧ

it’s late, and three floors down, toji zenin has his hands on his hips, staring at sato’s sleek black porsche in disbelief while his tie itches at his neck. three floors up, in toji’s crappy apartment, the gang’s all there.

megumi has a blanket pulled up to his chin, seated on the couch next to suguru. sukuna is lounging on the floor with his back against said couch. sato is flipping through TV stations. the light in the room is dim, and sato snickers at something sukuna says before tossing him the remote.

“why does everyone always leave me?”

the trio freeze.

megumi’s expression is flat. he’s staring into the tv’s glow, but his eyes are soulless and empty. suguru hesitates—but then he rests a hand on megumi’s hair. “what do you mean, kiddo?”

“daddy’s always leaving now,” megumi closes his eyes, rigid against the couch cushions. “he never spends time with me anymore. he’s acting like my mommy did.”

the three boys’ hearts crack right down the middle.

they’re staring at each other now, the weight of megumi’s words on their shoulders. how do they tell a little boy that the reason his father has been less present—and is also not present tonight—is because he’s currently trying to hide his child’s existence to impress a woman? and that they’re all helping him?

sato speaks first. too quick, too fast.

“he’s just been busy,” he croaks out. “he’s been picking up new shifts. he’s working really hard.”

“yeah,” sukuna agrees. “he’s working hard. to take care of you, meg.”

megumi stares into the tv screen. geto’s hand is still heavy on his head, and his body is limp and his eyes are heavy.

“i know.” megumi mutters. “he’s my hero.”

suguru bites his lip. “you know what, meg? why don’t we draw something? a new picture for your dad?”

megumi’s eyes flit to the kitchen fridge. DADDY AND ME. the picture is still there, but the paper is crinkled and damp now. as if someone threw it away with heavy eyes, then somehow thought better of it.

megumi nods, “yeah.”

“okay, buddy. i’ll go get the crayons.”

“i’ll get the paper!”

“and i’ll… uh. you want a gatorade, kid?”

the three adults go after the various items. megumi takes one last look at his drawing on the fridge, and then he slips off the couch and pads away.

ⵌ SHOW TIME !

toji zenin is a man who can only have pride when he pretends.

so today, he pretends the sleek black porsche parked outside your house is his. he pretends he’s not wearing sato’s luxury cologne, that his tie isn’t secondhand, that the cuff of his suit isn’t too tight on his wrist and that the guilt in his mouth doesn’t taste like his blood.

he’s gripping the wheel so hard his knuckles turn white.

when you open the car door, you look like a dream.

your lips are glossy, always glossy, but it’s a different shade of shimmer tonight. your hair is loose all over your shoulders, heels clicky, dress black and matching the shade of sato’s car. toji stares, jaw slack as you slide into the passenger’s seat. the words in his throat have turned into bile.

“Hi.” you blink at him.

“Hi.”

he can’t say much else, and he really ought to but he can’t, so instead he only watches as you huff and click your seatbelt in place. toji licks his lips, turns back to the wheel. says a quick prayer to a god he doesn’t believe in. “you look gorgeous.”

you don’t respond.

the car starts with an expensive growl. it makes toji wince, and he hopes you don’t notice. he’s practiced starting the car three times so he can pretend he’s used to it. he isn’t, and he’ll never be.

he pulls onto the streets, eyes frantically scanning the road as his pulse drums in his teeth.

“toji?” you say, eyes trained ahead of you, voice flat.

“yeah, baby?”

“where are we going?”

toji’s fingers drum on the steering wheel. he turns right at the fork. “somewhere nice,” his voice is strained. “somewhere you deserve to be.”

he lets his right hand shift to the center console, trying to bridge the gap. his hand is sweating, maybe. you glance at it. glance away.

you peer out the window, head against the edge, watching the lights blur through the glass. “i feel like i’m sitting in a museum,” you murmur, quiet. “everything feels curated. including you.”

he swallows. “i’m trying to make tonight special.”

“special…” you trail off, lashes fluttering as you stare out the window.

“i don’t know who you are, zenin.”

toji’s head aches. and so does his chest, violent and sharp and stabbing. he’s a liar, a con artist, a selfish man with rough hands and a son waiting at home. oh—megumi. his phone’s been buzzing in his pocket for a while now. how’s megumi?

“i’m just a guy,” he chooses to say. “a guy who likes you.”

“do you? or is that just part of the exhibit?”

maybe there really is a god watching, because before toji can respond something makes a sound.

he’s not sure what, honestly, but he’s quick to capitalize on it. he needs the air. toji turns into an empty street to park. he unbuckles his seat belt, leans over a bit. “stay in the car, okay?”

you only nod, and toji’s throat curls with guilt.

the night air is cool on his skin. he opens the car bonnet—careful, as careful as a man like him can be—pretending to scan the engines for a possible source of the noise. he doesn’t find anything wrong, and he knew he wouldn’t, but he holds up the bonnet and pretends to check anyways.

three minutes pass before he returns to the car.

three minutes of toji zenin teaching himself how to breathe. the same way he does when megumi shuts down even though he thinks the steps are corny. having a kid really changes you, doesn’t it?

megumi. he looks at his watch, 9PM. his boy should be in bed by now.

the buzzing from his phone has stopped. he should check it now, but you’re still waiting. still beautiful. still hurt.

so toji slams the hood shut. sucks in a breath and slides back into the driver’s seat. you’re staring at him as he buckles his seatbelt.

“toji,” your voice is careful. “do you have anything you want to tell me?”

yes. i work three jobs and i’m drowning in student loans. i got a girl pregnant when i was eighteen, and she left me when i turned twenty-one. i have a boy who’s five-and-a-half and he’s the only good thing i have left. and i’m sorry i lied, but i didn’t want you to leave me before i could love you and i’m sorry, and i’m sorry again, and you deserve better, and i’m sorry.

“no,” toji lies.

you purse your lips. “okay.”

the engine roars back to life. and toji is sweating, and the date feels over before it’s even started, and his pulse is too loud and—

“daddy?”

toji’s blood runs cold.

in the backseat of sato’s porsche, megumi zenin is there, body tucked under a blanket and rubbing his eyes. he slips off the seat and stumbles towards the console, still rubbing at his face. “hi, daddy.”

toji zenin can only stay frozen as megumi wraps his smaller arms around his neck.

he tries to speak, fingers twitching as they hover over his son’s back. “megumi—hey, buddy—what’re you doing here?”

megumi buries his nose into his father’s neck. “i didn’t want to be alone again.”

toji bites his lip. he can feel your eyes boring into him, and he nervously scrambles. “hey—you’re never alone, buddy. where are your uncles? come here.”

he lifts megumi into his lap, avoiding your gaze.

“is this your son?”

toji’s mouth dries.

he could say it’s his nephew, make up some lie about him referring to both him and his ‘brother’ as dad, but god. you’re already looking at him with something he doesn’t have the vocabulary to name, and toji’s jaw aches.

“yes,” he sucks in a breath. “this is my son, megumi.”

he brushes megumi’s hair back, taking his little fist away from his face so he stops rubbing at his eyes. “meg, say hi to the pretty lady.”

“hi, pretty lady.”

megumi waves a small hand, then collapses against his father’s stomach.

you force a smile and flick your eyes back up to toji.

“i think you should take me home.”

???’s REMARK : YOU CAN’T LARP YOUR WAY INTO BEING LOVED !

BROKE BOY TACTICS #5: EMBRACE YOUR ECONOMICS !

taught by: nanami kento, megumi zenin.

“maybe she doesn’t hate you. maybe she hates that you thought so little of her you felt the need to live a lie.”

ΣΧ

it’s a new day, and toji zenin is laden with old burdens.

he’s slumped against his bedroom wall, phone pressed to his ear with megumi on his stretched out legs. megumi has a red & green colored hand in another jar full of gummy worms. toji makes a mental note to hide it better next time.

“you didn’t just lose the date,” nanami’s voice cuts through the speaker, flat and professional as always. “you insulted her intelligence. made her out to be a shallow woman who’d only care about you if you had money in your bank account.”

toji stares at the ceiling. then at megumi, who’s about to eat a gummy worm off the floor. he flicks it away. “she looked at me like i was trash, nanami.”

“she looked at you like you were a liar,” nanami corrects. “which you are.”

nanami sighs, breath sending a crackle through the speaker. all he wanted to do was spend his afternoon reading his new favorite BL, doukyuusei, but once again the shenanigans of his friends have interrupted his peace.

“toji, you’re a smart man. and she sounds like a smart woman. i doubt she’d lose interest because you have a son—i believe she hates that you lied to her.”

megumi takes a worm and makes it crawl through toji’s lips. it’s cold, but toji chews and swallows anyways. “i need to apologize.”

“yes,” toji can hear a page flip. “and quickly. i have to attend to other matters now, but say hi to megumi for me.”

the line goes dead, and toji drops his hand to the floor.

megumi chews a gummy worm. then he takes it out of his mouth, frowns at it, then eats it again. “daddy, are you mad at me?”

toji frowns. “for what?”

“i ruined your date,” megumi looks into the jar of worms, frowning, then back at his dad. “with auntie.”

toji looks at his son. at his candy smeared cheeks, sticky hands, black spikes of hair and sugar in his teeth. megumi looks just like him. he’s always known it, but he’s growing to look more and more like his father every day.

“you didn’t ruin anything,” he murmurs, pulling his son into his chest. “you’ve never ruined anything in your life.”

he pats megumi’s hair, head thrown back. “i’m sorry, meg.”

five-year-old megumi zenin has already lost interest. he’s more focused on getting the red and blue gummy in the sea of yellow-green ones, small hand grabbing fistfuls of worms before dropping them back. he doesn’t know his father is sorry, sorry for everything, for trying to erase his existence to impress a woman and for bringing him into this world knowing he will never be able to give him the future he deserves.

megumi retrieves the red and blue gummy worm. his favorite flavor. he blinks at it once, twice.

then he turns to his dad. lifts the gummy worm on his palm to his face.

toji zenin eats it right off.

ⵌ SHOW TIME !

megumi zenin is in his best clothes: baby blue button-up from suguru. a white top with a red race car that sukuna had got him for his birthday. light up skechers from uncle sato. toji had tried to get him to wear normal shoes, but megumi shut that down quickly. he wanted to be seen.

you no longer frequent the local loblaws.

and it breaks toji’s heart, actually. you haven’t blocked him just yet, thank god, so toji thinks you might not yet hate him completely. that he might still have a chance.

call him a weirdo, but he’s been to almost every grocery store nearby.

no frills, sobeys, you name it. and now, at 12:30PM sunday, toji zenin is in his car with his son, watching you load groceries into the backseat with a pout on your lips. like you’re above this. like you need a big, strong man to offer his help. and toji’s chest aches. because he could be that man, you know. if you’d let him.

toji slips out of the car. megumi hops out too.

he stops just a few feet behind you, watching you mutter curses as you haul a carton of juice. toji’s lip twitches. then he pulls megumi along.

“let me help.”

you blink as toji comes out of seemingly nowhere to save the day. he lifts everything out of your cart and into your car, never breaking a sweat. truthfully, your groceries aren’t even that heavy. he’s not sure why you were struggling, but he thinks it’s so fucking cute.

he lets you click your remote to close the boot shut. then he turns to you: “i owe you an apology.”

you tilt your head. “do you?”

he squeezes megumi’s hand in his own to ground himself. “i lied because i was scared,” he admits, and you never thought you’d hear toji and ‘scared’ in the same sentence. “you’re a pretty girl from a nice family who spends my rent money on groceries,” he breathes. “and i want you, bad. and i thought if you saw me—the me who lived paycheck to paycheck and has nothing except this little brat,” he raises megumi’s hand, “you’d leave before i even got a chance.”

he shifts his hand to megumi’s head. “it’s fucking stupid, i know. but this is my son,” he ruffles megumi’s hair. “say hi, kid.”

“hi, auntie.”

your gaze shifts away from toji, and drops to the little boy beside him. megumi is apple cheeks, dark, messy hair and nervous feet shifting on the pavement. he looks like his dad, and the sight makes your heart melt.

“hi, baby boy.” you crouch down to his height. “i love your shirt. do you wanna come here?”

megumi nods. he abandons his father’s side to let you scoop him up in your arms.

toji frowns.

megumi’s a shy kid. or not shy—awkward. he can’t make eye contact with kids his age, his tone is too flat, and his eyes are always bored. he doesn’t like to be touched by people he isn’t familiar with, and he’s very quick to say no to what he doesn’t like or want. so toji can only watch, brows knit in confusion, as megumi’s fist curls over your necklace and he lets you press a kiss to his cheek.

“hi, auntie,” megumi collapses into your shoulder, fist still gripping your necklace. “i did a very good job.”

“so good, baby,” you kiss his hair, grinning. “i’m gonna buy you all the gummies in the world.”

megumi blushes from the affection. he shifts his head over your shoulder so all you can see is his pink chubby cheek.

“what the hell is happening?”

“daddy’s a big dummy,” megumi mutters into your shoulder. “the biggest,” you agree.

toji’s frown deepens, and you laugh. “i’ve already met megumi, silly.”

toji blinks. he’s about to ask how, but you beat him to it: “remember when you got out of the car? megumi woke up in the backseat,” you kiss his ear softly, and megumi’s blush deepens. “we had a long chat about you, toji. and i asked him to pretend we’ve never met, and go back to sleep in the car.”

you watch megumi, fond. his fingers curling deeper into your necklace, his eyes shy and staring behind you. “i can’t believe you’ve been keeping this little angel from me. you’re a monster, toji.”

“dummy monster…” megumi mutters. you kiss his cheek again and he hides.

toji thinks about it. to megumi referring to you as auntie back in the apartment. fuck. he didn’t think too much of it, but perhaps he should’ve.

“so? you two were testing me, or some shit?”

you shift a hand from megumi’s back to your hip. “no attitude, mister. i’m still mad at you,” your frown, and then your shoulders drop. “did you really think you had to fake having money to impress me? picking me up in a porsche when i’ve already seen your crappy apartment?”

you stroke megumi’s hair. “and lying about meg,” your expression goes soft, sad. “have you apologized to him?”

“yeah,” megumi tugs your necklace. “he told me sorry.”

you smile at him, then kiss his little fist. “that’s great, baby. you deserve an apology. and i’m sorry as well, for taking away your time with your father.”

megumi pats your face, voice flat. “i forgive you.”

you giggle, pinching his cheek, and toji can only stare in disbelief.

megumi’s cheeks are pink from your kisses, little fingers curled tight around your necklace while you sway him absentmindedly against your chest. his light-up skechers blink every time his feet kick against your thighs. you’re smiling at him like he’s heaven as a boy, and megumi—quiet, awkward, megumi—is hiding his face in your shoulder because he’s shy.

how greedy.

how greedy of toji zenin to pick out cheerios from between couch cushions like trying to erase evidence of a crime scene. how greedy of him to scrub crayon off his walls, peel gummies off his floors and hide away his son with other people he can’t truly call family. how greedy of him to rip his son’s drawing off the fridge, only to put it back again later because he can’t even be greedy right.

how greedy of toji zenin to hide the only good thing in his life away; all because he wanted yet another good thing: you.

he wanted your pretty laugh in his apartment. wanted your heels by the front door, wanted your perfume in his sheets and your voice mixed with megumi’s cartoons on saturday mornings. toji zenin wanted everything.

now his everything was shoving his chubby hand in the face of his other everything to keep from getting attacked by kisses. but he was smiling. megumi zenin was smiling, and blushing, and laughing—and toji thinks about how he hasn’t seen megumi this childish in a while.

his heart aches.

“i’m sorry.”

sorry for what? he knows what he’s sorry for, but the words have failed him again, so he can only watch. watch as you tilt your head the way you always do, before megumi glances at you and tilts his head back at him the same way. oh god.

“‘gumi, do we forgive daddy?”

“yeah,” megumi’s feet kick. his shoes light up, red and blue. “if he stops hiding my gummies.”

toji won’t hide his gummies anymore. hell, he’ll never hide anything again in his life.

and maybe megumi senses the guilt on his father’s shoulders, because he squirms his tiny body for you to set him down and dashes so hard into his father’s legs that he knocks his forehead against his knee. “ow…”

toji snorts, crouching. “what are you doing, kid.” but he’s scooping megumi into his arms anyways. you pad closer, grin cheeky, and poke megumi on his side.

“how about we go shop for some gummy worms?”

BONUS — Y/N AND MEG’S FIRST MEET !

“who are you?”

the voice makes you jolt. you’re staring at your hands in the passenger’s seat of toji’s rented—no, probably borrowed—porsche, blinking away tears in your eyes when a tiny voice speaks behind you.

you whip your head around so fast your neck aches.

and standing there is a little boy, tiny, maybe four or five, rubbing away sleep from his eyes. his hair comes in tufts of black, and his eyes are blue, and oh my god he looks just like his father.

toji.

megumi is rubbing his eyes harder now. your heart melts.

“hi, baby,” you coo, patting away your own tears on your lashes. “i’m friends with your daddy. what’s your name?”

“i’m megumi,” he sniffles, yawns. “my friends call me meg. but i don’t have any friends.”

oh. “hi, meg. what’re you doing here? did your dad leave you home alone?”

you hope he says no, because you know toji’s been hiding something—someone from you, but he wouldn’t go that far. at least, you hope he wouldn’t.

“no, my uncles are at home,” he says sleepily. and you hover your hands over his face in silent permission. he blinks at your hands, sniffles again, before nodding to let you brush his hair back from his face. “i wanted to see daddy. he left for work.”

work? no he didn’t. toji zenin is outside, lifting the bonnet of a car he knows is too good to call his. “did he tell you he was going to work, meg?”

“no, but i know he is. he works for us. he wears the tie and he goes away.”

“oh, baby…”

toji zenin is a liar. a liar with a handsome face, and warm touch, and words that make your head dizzy. and you should be mad, really. you are, but the sight of this little boy with a face like his father’s only makes your heart ache.

you want to ask questions: who are your uncles? where were you when i came over? is your mother still in the picture?

but megumi zenin is blinking sleepily as you caress his cheek, leaning into your touch with a sigh.

“megumi, do you wanna make a deal?”

“what kind of deal?” megumi tries to rub his eyes, but you ease his fist away.

“a super simple one. your daddy’s been acting really strange, right? to you and me,” you pat his cheek. “all you have to do is act like we’ve never met, and i’ll give you anything you want.”

megumi thinks very hard. then he asks, “are you the lady daddy wants to impress?”

you blink. “what do you mean?”

“i heard him on the phone with uncle sugu,” megumi rests his head against your leather car seat. “he said he likes a nice lady. said he wants to be a better man for her.” he rubs his eye. “then he started leaving me. where’s daddy? i wanna talk to daddy.”

“oh, meg,” your heart breaks. “come here, baby.”

megumi hesitates, but then he lets you pull him into a hug. his hands are limp by his sides, but he pats your back once before his tiny hand slips away. “auntie, why are you crying?”

your shoulders shake over him. you sniffle, “don’t worry about it, meg. and your daddy’s gonna come back soon, okay? and he won’t leave you alone anymore. i’ll make sure of it.”

megumi pulls back. “you promise?”

you cup his cheeks. “i promise. go back to sleep, okay?”

EPILOGUE !

on the couch of toji’s crappy apartment, megumi zenin is curled into his father’s side, gummy worms in his mouth as he presses his sticky hands to the screen of his brand new ipad pro. a shiny gift from his loving uncle sato, who bought him the device despite suguru and toji’s wishes.

megumi offers his father a gummy worm. “when is auntie coming?”

toji eats it off his palm. “soon, kid,” he clicks his tongue. “swear you like her more than me now.”

megumi picks out five gummy worms from the jar, then lines them up on his ipad screen for convenience. “nah, i like daddy the most.”

toji softens.

all toji can see right now is the top of his little boy’s head, his tiny nose poking out and his chubby little cheeks. the ipad screen is sticky and candy smeared—much like megumi’s hands—and on the screen is a video of a teacup in a ballet dress—ballerina cappucina?—getting married to a little espresso man wearing a ninja bandana. toji frowns. the video gives him flashbacks to his days of working as skai jackson’s personal AI prompt writer. he shivers.

toji shakes his head. “meg, you know i’m never leaving, right?”

“i know,” megumi groans. “you told me a billion times yesterday!”

“quit whining,” toji murmurs, pulling his son into his lap. megumi reaches for his jar of gummy worms, and toji tugs it closer. “just wanted to remind you.” he mumbles.

megumi slumps against his father’s chest. soft, distracted, satisfied. “you don’t need to say sorry anymore. i forgive you.”

toji kisses his hair, burying his face in the dark strands. he sighs, “thanks, kiddo.”

———

when the doorbell rings, toji zenin is already half-asleep.

the sound—and megumi’s accidental jab of his elbow against his stomach—wakes him right up. toji smooths his hair, rubs the sleep from his eyes. then he turns to tell megumi to go wash his sticky hands, then decides not to.

he sucks in a breath and opens the door.

“hi, pretty.”

“move. i’m not here for you.”

you shove at his chest and push your way into the apartment, and on the couch to the right megumi zenin is there, ipad in hands and cheeks sticky and looking up at you with big, blue eyes.

“auntie?”

“oh, my baby!”

you scoop him off the couch and into your arms, and megumi clutches your shoulders tight as you attack him with kisses on his forehead, cheeks, everywhere. toji’s eye twitches in disbelief. “are we serious?”

“oh, you’re still here,” you glance over at him, bored. “meg and i are gonna make cookies today. mind being a doll and fetching the ingredients from the car?” you toss him your car keys.

toji looks at the keys in his hands. then you, who is cooing silly things that make megumi blush and bury his head in your neck.

toji pads over to you, slow. “i wanted to see you.”

you ignore his hands snaking around your hips. you turn your nose up at him, “and now, you have.”

“you still mad at me?”

of course you’re still mad. maybe not as mad as you were a week ago, but still upset. that he lied. that he thought so little of you that he went out of his way to sculpt a whole other life and hide away the little angel in your arms. but toji’s hands are still heavy on your hips. his voice is warm in your ear. and he apologized, you know. in the parking lot that day. at your house on monday, holding a bouquet of half-dead flowers and wearing a rented suit that went to waste because you refused to go out with him anyway. he sent you an hour long voicemail apologizing. you listened to it all on the way here.

toji zenin is such a sap.

he acts like he isn’t, though. but he is, and you feel it in how he presses his lips to your neck, over and over and over again. i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry.

megumi shoves his father’s lips away. “daddy stop.”

you laugh, nuzzling megumi’s cheek. “he’s such a dummy, isn’t he meg? do you think i should forgive him?”

“yeah,” megumi mutters, collapsing into your neck. “he said sorry a billion times to me yesterday. daddy’s really sorry for everything.”

“aww. daddy’s so cute when he’s sorry, isn’t he?”

toji is glaring at you. you can only giggle and press a kiss to his jaw, and his eyes widen a bit in surprise. you cup his jaw and press another one to his cheek. just one more, because you’d be lying if you said you hadn’t missed him as well.

“i forgive you, mister. now go get those groceries—shoo!”

toji nuzzles your neck before leaving the apartment.

megumi is still on your hip, clutching your shoulders for balance as you pick out pans and trays from the cupboard. he grips your hair in a tiny fist. “auntie?”

“hm, gummy?”

megumi hides in your neck—shy, nervous. “are you gonna be my new mommy?”

you freeze.

megumi clutches you tighter. his face is buried in your throat, and he’s gripping so tightly his little nails bite into your skin, but you soften. toji had already confessed everything in his voicemail. his mom isn’t in the picture anymore. how a mother can let go of a little angel like meg, you don’t know, but who are you to judge and conclude?

“i don’t know, meg, it’s too soon,” you hum softly, setting a pan on the tabletop. “but i know i’ll be here, baby. for you.”

“will you be at my school, too?” he peers up at you, big eyes glimmering with hope. “all the other kids have mommies except for me.”

“oh, megumi—of course i’ll be there!”

it’s taking everything in you not to carry this boy and run! you attack his face with kisses, and megumi squirms in your arms but he’s giggling. his hands are sticky on your face, neck, everywhere, but you kiss him over and over again, because you’ve only known him for a little over a week but you’re already ready to give him the world. “auntie, stop!” but he’s laughing. “there’s lip gloss all over me!”

when toji walks in, he can’t believe his eyes.

there are too many shopping bags in his hands, because everything about you is too much, even down to your shopping, and toji is staring in disbelief. the woman of his dreams in his kitchen, holding his son, and his son is laughing. laughing the way he used to before his mother left him two years ago.

and he doesn’t really deserve the warmth curling in his chest, or the strange feeling coursing through his veins, but who is toji zenin if not greedy?

so he drops the bags to his feet (gently, because you’d curse him if the eggs broke), and pads over to the kitchen where you’re showering megumi with affection, and he snakes his arms around your waist and drops his head into your neck. you turn, grinning, and you don’t push him away when he presses a quick kiss to your lips. the lips are honest, and now toji is too.

“aww, look at you getting all sappy.”

“auntie made my face all sticky..”

toji squeezes you both tight. a little greed never killed a man.

MEGUMI’S REMARK : CAN I HAVE SOME GUMMY WORMS…?

#SIGMA CHI STORIES !

LOVE OVER LOBLAWS, end.

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