he is everything you've ever wanted in a man. patient, kind, considerate. he made it his life's mission to make sure you knew you were cherished and loved by him, if no one else.

growing up, you were surrounded by poverty, drugs, abuse, and death. your parents were selfish individuals who thought a child would fix their tainted relationship. spoiler alert: a child made it worse.

your mother overdosed intentionally, and your father was on something all the time—very much alive, but a deadbeat you still shared shelter with.

jujutsu was your way out. that is where you met kento. he was the light at the end of your dark, seemingly never-ending tunnel.

you two had known each other since second year. after knowing and loving him for four years, you two got married.

kento built a life soft enough for the both of you and ensured neither of you would ever have to return to the world of jujutsu.

he worked so hard for it. ever since both of you had decided to leave jujutsu life behind, you no longer had the financial support. he worked relentlessly—went in early, came home late, worked so much overtime, and always went above and beyond to get to the position he is in now.

he absolutely hated it. you would ask about his day when both of you got back from work and hear nothing but complaints about his coworkers and his former boss.

adjusting to capitalist life was tough for you too. luckily, you had extra schooling alongside jujutsu as a plan b and fuck, you'd be screwed if you hadn't done that.

you both knew exactly when you wanted to leave jujutsu society. it was after yu passed away on a mission with kento. you had a rude epiphany that night: jujutsu society was an unforgiving, remorseless, cruel, corrupt hierarchy that could not be changed without revolution.

you wanted to leave immediately with no notice, but kento had convinced you to stick until graduation. after all, you two had one more year left. all your losses would be meaningless if you were to stop there.

thankfully, that hard work did pay off. it had to. you two lived comfortably in a beautiful home you both designed and constructed together.

besides the labouring effort, he made you feel treasured in small gestures that meant the world to you. he bought you flowers every week, made you tea every morning without asking, always insisted on cooking you dinner because he knew how much you loved his food more than your own.

he always noticed the minute details. he fixed the collar of your cardigan because it always bothered him, noticed the slightest limp in your walks when you had a tiresome day at work, would call you back in if you forgot to kiss him bye for the day.

your marriage was a fairytale come to life.

so, you knew when it had began to grow stale, it was at the hands of jujutsu society.

kento had owed satoru a favour. you're not sure what your husband had received from that six eyes freak for it to amount to kento returning back to jujutsu high, but it must've weighed heavily.

your former upperclassman, suguru, had declared war on jujutsu high. as ridiculous as this was, you could never blame him. neither could kento.

you pleaded with him, begging him not to go back, regardless of what he requested from satoru, but there was no changing his mind.

ever since then, dinners were quietier, phone calls and texts felt like a pained chore, dates and sex became non-existent. your domestic life had been shattered, with jujutsu society being the culprit.

one night, kento came home to couples therapy and counselling brochures sitting on the dinner table instead of food. that was when he realized how hurt and distant the two of you were becoming because of his decision.

he embraced you into a warm hug—one you hadn't felt for two months, the same time he had been helping out at jujutsu high. you both had an extensive, very lengthy conversation about your marriage. you realized you didn't actually need to go to therapy or counselling because your problems had vanished as soon as kento became aware of your indifference.

he affirmed you constantly, making you feel like the most important woman in this universe. you were starting to feel okay with kento's affiliation with jujutsu high as he swore he would always be safe, and if anything came in the way of him coming home safe, he would never touch that high school's ground again.

months had passed, and you two were once again madly in love with each other. dinners had become lively, phone calls and texts updating each other throughout the day became frequent, dates and sex were overwhelmingly passionate.

you two had started trying for a baby. you were hesitant at first—worried about your career, your relationship with kento, and birthing a child in a world like this. you wanted to be a mother, but you were terrified—terrified you would let your child down and turn out like your own mother.

but, after taking one look at kento fast asleep beside you, you suddenly became sure. you were the most secure woman on this planet, and it was all because of your husband. you wanted kento to be the father of your children. you couldn't imagine it any other way.

two weeks had passed, and your period had not come. you took a good five or six pregnancy tests with kento, making sure to absolutely confirm you conceived. it was the happiest day of your life, right after your wedding.

the weeks went by quickly, you were already at your thirteenth week. both of your recorded ultrasounds were normal. your closest friend, shoko, was practically begging you to let her do ultrasounds off record so she can see your baby; those ultrasounds were also normal. your child with kento was normal and healthy.

you and kento were giving out halloween candy to trick-or-treaters when he got a call.

"you're kidding me, right?"

satoru was on the speaker, "nope. they're holding thousands of civilians hostage for me. the school and higher ups are trying to arrange something, so just keep an eye on your phone. they may call you for backup."

"no, no, no." you chimed in. "absolutely not."

"i'm irritated too," satoru started. "but it's not up to me–"

"isn't it though? satoru, can't you just put a stop to this by showing up? you're the strongest sorcerer alive, aren't you?"

kento muted the phone call. "baby, it's thousands of people. on halloween. he'll need backup."

"ken, you promised me."

"hey," he cupped your face. "i assure you, i'll be safe. i'm sure satoru can handle it on his own. it's just in case."

"if it's that safe, i'm coming with you."

kento sighed. "no. you're not." he unmuted satoru, who was talking this entire time, unaware of the fact that the line was muted. "satoru, tell her it'll be fine."

"it'll be fine. i'm the strongest after all."

"see?" kento pulled you in to kiss your forehead. "what time is it? almost 7:30pm. i'll be back by midnight. latest 12:30am. right, satoru?"

"damn straight."

"alright, i'll head down in a bit. see you soon."

"bye nanamiiiinnn~" kento ended the call.

you looked out the window. the wind was blowing orange leaves around. "the weather's getting chilly. i've completed my first trimester and don't have to go to any appointments for six weeks. we should go on a vacation after this, baby. like a push present with the push yet. we deserve this."

kento was ironing his work shirt when he chuckled. "i agree. i was thinking malaysia."

"mmmm," you helped him put his shirt on. "malaysia sounds nice."

"i'll book us a flight when i come back home tonight."

he leaned down to give you a kiss. his lips were soft against yours. you wrapped your arms around his waist, forcing him to come closer, and he cupped your face with both his hands.

he kissed you the way he always had—slowly, patiently, like there was nowhere else he'd rather be. his thumbs traced gentle crescents along your jawline as he tilted your head slightly, deepening the kiss. you made a small sound in your throat, rising up on your tippy toes to meet him. he responded with a low hum against your mouth, his tongue curling around yours.

when he finally pulled away, his eyes were still closed, memorizing the moment. "i'll be thinking about that all night," he murmured, his thumb brushing over your kiss-swollen lower lip.

"you think satoru can wait a bit longer?" you looked up at him with puppy eyes and looked over to your bed.

"are you trying to seduce me?"

"is it working?"

"yes. yes, it is. this is how we ended up with this angel." kento let out a soft laugh before stealing another kiss from you. "there's nothing more i'd rather do, but i'm running late, my love."

"fine, whatever. we'll just have one more thing to do before booking those flights." you pressed your forehead against his chest, still holding him, not ready to let go. "come back home quickly," you whispered.

he kissed your temple, then your hairline, "12am."

——

you didn't realize how anxious you were until your phone rang. you were in the midst of stress cleaning your kitchen when you got a call from kento.

"hi honey."

"hey baby," you answered back in relief. it was 9:27pm. maybe satoru had kept his word and handled it on his own. "coming back now?"

"i wish," he sighed on the other end. "satoru got sealed."

"what?!" you exclaimed. "what do you mean sealed?"

"it looked like suguru. i don't know. it definitely wasn't suguru though. suguru was executed. you could just tell. pale body, matted hair, voice distorted. i think some deranged entity took over suguru's dead body."

"like that kid you're always talking about? yuji?"

"sure," he replied. "something like that. i think he used his body to catch satoru off guard and seal him into a prison realm. the whole thing is sickening."

"fuck." your heart dropped. not only because of how fucked up the entire scheme was, but also because you realized: kento isn't backup anymore—he's on the front lines.

"i think this may take longer than expected. still banking on midnight though." you could tell he was frustrated. "i shouldn't have come."

"well, i hate to say i told you so... but, i told you so." you tried not to overthink it. "baby, just come home. i don't feel good about this."

"and let these kids handle it? i don't think so," he replied. "they'd be running around like chickens without heads."

you began pacing without realizing. "do you need me to–"

he cut you off. "no. don't even think about stepping near shibuya right now."

"ken–"

he refused. "i promise, it'll all be fine."

"you promise?"

"promise." he sounded so sincere. "go to sleep, honey. i'll keep you updated. i love you."

"i love you too."

you still felt uneasy. you were right to feel that way.

just a little after 11:10pm, you received a call from shoko. you stared at your phone, blank, not even wanting to know what awaited you on the other line.

you picked up.

"hey–"

"i need you to get here as soon as you can."

you tried to breathe. "is kento okay?"

"i don't want you to panic." too late. you already were. "i want you to know i tried my best. i really did. just– just come down here, please?"

before you could process anything, you got into your car and drove yourself to jujutsu high. you hadn't been there in six years. you didn't want to be here.

kento was transported from shibuya back to tokyo to avoid another potential suguru/kengaku situation from happening. you easily found your way to shoko's infirmary; you were always in there during your years at jujutsu high.

shoko stepped out emotional. you had never seen her like this before. you don't blame her, considering the series of events she had also gone through—her dead best friend being used for evil, her other best friend being sealed for an indefinite amount of time, and now her other friend, your husband, being on the brink of death.

"there's too much damage. he's exsanguinating. my reverse cursed technique could only do so much. i started massive transfusion. fuck, i even tried reboa, but he's hemorrhaging at a rate i cannot control."

"shoko. real words, please."

"internal bleeding. he's bleeding to death."

you didn't hear anything else she said. you remember her sniffing while holding back tears, and remember her staying right outside the room, but nothing else.

kento was barely conscious, but still alive. it seemed shoko had managed to prolong the inevitable.

"mrs. nanami," he greeted. "what are you doing here?"

"sho called me." you sat down next to him. "how are you?"

"i'm great now that my wife is here."

"ken," you looked down. your back hunched over, hair covering your face completely, trying your hardest to remain strong and not cry in front of your husband. "i can't do this without you."

"sure you can," he smiled, holding your hand a little tighter. "you're the most resilient person i know."

the tears started spilling and your voice began to crack. "you promised me."

"i know, i'm the worst." he chuckled before groaning in pain. "come lay beside me."

you obeyed and slipped carefully onto the narrow bed, mindful of the tubes surrounding him. the mattress dipped beneath your weight, and he instinctively shifted just enough to make room, the way he always had whenever you climbed into bed after him at home.

you tucked yourself against his side, resting your head lightly against his shoulder. you listened to the uneven rhythm of his breathing, committing every rise and fall to memory.

for a long moment, neither of you spoke. you simply existed together, as husband and wife, pretending the heart monitor was rain tapping against the bedroom window, and this hospital bed was your own.

one of his arms, weakened but stubbornly determined, found its way around your waist. "listen to me, okay–"

"no."

"go on that push trip to malaysia." you shook your head. he continued, "it's beautiful this time of year. not nearly as beautiful as you but–"

"don't do this to me."

"honey, please let me talk." he paused for a bit, ensuring you wouldn't cut him off again. "thank you. you'll find us there. two palm trees in the sand, remember?"

for your honeymoon, you and kento decided on a tropical destination, of course. during an excursion on the beach, you and kento wandered off from the rest of the group by accident and came across a secluded area on the beach.

it was well kept, as if it were a tourist spot, but completely empty. all there was were two palm trees in the sand. they were sturdy, growing intertwined with one another, clearly not placed intentionally as a tourist trap—something you had never seen before.

you decided it was a perfect representation of you and kento.

you gripped onto his hand like you were afraid to let go. truthfully, you were. "two palm trees in the sand."

kento's smile was as warm as it always was. "i love you, honey. now please, i'm dying for a kiss. literally."

you didn't want to entertain his humour this time, but giggled through your tears anyway. "shut up."

you leaned over him, your trembling hand cradling his cheek as though you could hold him here by touch alone. he lifted his head only slightly to meet you, the effort visible in the faint crease between his brows.

the kind of kiss shared after long workdays, before falling asleep, while waiting for the kettle to boil—quiet little reminders that home had always been the person in front of you.

his hand rose with strained effort, cupping your jaw one last time. His thumb brushed beneath your eye, wiping away a tear before it could fall. you kissed him again, silently begging time to stop.

"i love you too, you bastard."

you watched him slowly close his eyes, still smiling. you thought he was just resting.

"ken?" you barely let out. "ken, baby?" you shook him and received no response. "shoko!"

shoko rushed in again, just to hear that obnoxious noise and a flatline on the screen.

he was gone.

she took a deep breath in, and out.

"time of death: 12am."

——

a week had passed since your husband passed away. no. a week had passed since your husband was killed.

the silence in your home was deafening.

every evening, your hand still reached for the light switch just before 6pm, expecting to hear the front door unlock moments later. you still caught yourself listening for the familiar sound of polished dress shoes against hardwood floors, waiting for him to announce that he's home.

he never did.

his reading glasses remained folded neatly on the coffee table beside the novel he would never finish. his favourite mug still sat in the drying rack because you couldn't bring yourself to put it away. the beautiful bouquet of flowers he'd bought you the week before shibuya had begun to wilt in the vase. you changed the water anyway, out of habit.

hope, grief—you weren't sure which one it was anymore.

some mornings, you woke before your alarm and instinctively rolled toward his side of the bed, searching for the warmth your husband always offered without complaint. every cool morning, you'd burrow beneath his arm until he laughed and called himself your personal heater. now, your hand met nothing but sheets that had no fighting chance against the morning chills.

you weren't taking good care of yourself. all of your friends were busy with the aftermath of the shibuya incident and a new start of some darwanian apocalypse called the culling games. you didn't care to learn about it. you had no family besides your late husband, kento.

unknowingly, and unintentionally, you had deprived yourself of prenatal care. you weren't eating enough, you forgot to take your vitamins, you weren't getting an adequate amount of rest, and your mental well-being had plummeted to rock bottom.

you didn't realize you were neglecting yourself until you went to the bathroom and felt heavy cramps you hadn't felt since middle school.

the anxiety you had been feeling had caught up to you. you were having an anxiety attack.

when you looked down and wiped, you were spotting bright red and brown, with some tissue.

you immediately grabbed your phone. "something's wrong." you could not stop crying. "shoko, something is wrong."

"okay. fuck," she muttered under her breath. "deep breath in... and out." shoko instructed. "in... and out."

you tried your best, but your sobs did not allow you to regulate your breathing. "i don't know what this is. why am i bleeding?! i've never been pregnant before but this sure as hell isn't right."

"nothing is wrong. i'm sending ijichi over right now."

you couldn't walk. you were in pain and your eyes had been swollen nearly shut by the time ijichi got there. you were wheeled out of your house and into the infirmary, where shoko thoroughly performed another ultrasound on you.

shoko knew.

she knew before even doing the ultrasound. she still wanted a second opinion anyway and sent over the ultrasound imaging to her most trusted radiologist.

she stared at the screen with their findings, not knowing how to break it to you. her poker face was usually perfect—completely neutral—but the worry was seeping through the cracks. you looked over at her screen and read the bolded words that you knew, deep down, you were going to have to face, but still dreaded.

"second-trimester fetal demise."

"i'm so sorry." shoko held your hand. "second-trimester fetal losses can have an underlying medical cause, even when we can't identify it. chromosomal abnormalities, infections, placental issues, cervical insufficiency. it could have been anything."

"i lost our baby."

"you did nothing wrong."

"i lost our baby."

"nothing you did caused this."

"i lost our fucking baby," you shouted, breaking down into broken sobs once again.

"don't say that." shoko pulled you into a hug. you were too distraught to realize shoko's single tear dropping onto your scalp. "please don't say that. you didn't love your husband too much."

"i lost my final gift from him."

shoko shushed you again, reminding you to breathe. "you still have your memories. as long as you have those memories, you haven't lost anything."

"that's so easy to say, sho."

shoko exhaled. "i know. but i need you to know that."

because the remainder of your tissue would not pass, you had to get surgery. the moment you recovered, you needed to get away. you could not live amongst the reminders of him anymore. it was a fresh wound a knife had kept twisting into.

you fulfilled your husband's final request by going to malaysia. instead of enjoying, you had gone to buddhist temples to find inner peace.

you couldn't.

religion had always been a touchy subject for you. you didn't believe in gods, nor divinity as a whole. it was always so culty to you. you believed that if there was a divine figure, they wouldn't put their disciples through such pain and hardship. you were tired of everyone telling you to turn to a god or deity.

kento would have agreed.

he was also more spiritual than he was religious.

you found a beach with some palm trees and scattered his ashes into the ocean water. you sat criss-crossed on the sand, listening to the waves speak to you the entire night and caught a flight back to tokyo the same morning.

you came home to your empty house, no longer full of light. the halls were gray, and dust accumulated on your floors and photo frames. you hadn't hired someone to take a look after your home during your week-long trip because you knew you had to distract yourself by cleaning.

while dusting off the pictures of you and your husband, you had come back to a thought you had when you were younger: jujutsu society was an unforgiving, remorseless, cruel, corrupt hierarchy that could not be changed without revolution.

kento nanami was the love of your life, and you were going to avenge him.

no mercy, no pardon for stolen time.

the words settled like a dead weight into the beige-painted room of your marriage counselor's office.

the session hadn't even formally started, a perfectly manicured finger pausing in mid air against the small, ticking timer on her desk. it indicated that only a minute had passed since you'd taken a seat on the overwhelmingly bright lime colored futon.

all your therapist had done was ask: "what brings you into my office today?" and that was the first thing you'd come to admit, the thought haunting you with every night that you spent in bed alone.

with each night you pretended to not hear him opening your window at the dead of night, stalking into your shared room despite each of his movements the same as a mouse skittering somewhere they shouldn’t. pretending like you didn't hear his breath catching in his throat, the man tempted to call you out on your lie, before ultimately turning his back.

there's only a few inches of distance between you and hiromi, a distance that could easily be broken if either one of you so much as dared to extend your hand out. but it feels more like a barrier extended multiple feet tall, a barrier that neither one of you is insistent on breaking. your husband's laying right next to you and you've never felt more alone.

pretending was easier than acknowledging. silence was better than arguing. a thought that the two of you had begrudgingly come to accept as the new norm of your marriage.

your therapist cleared her throat, pressing the timer to begin counting the hour down. the sound of pen scratching against paper filled the silence that your husband couldn't bring himself to break.

tic tic tic.

scratch.

tic tic tic.

you wonder if your therapist's writing down gibberish—anything so she wouldn't have to be faced with the awkwardness that seeped out of the room in thick waves. if she's writing about how you chose to address hiromi directly instead of saying i feel like i don't know my husband anymore.

if she's writing about how your marriage was over from the moment you stepped in the door.

before you find yourself down a rabbit hole of what she could've written in these past thirty seconds, she pushes her glasses up and looks over at you directly. clearing her throat before she asks, "so tell us, why are you feeling this way?"

us—you're suddenly reminded hiromi's sitting right next to you, clinging onto every word that left your mouth much like the woman in front of you. your clammy hands clasp together in front of you, thoughts coursing through your head at a million miles per hour.

"i am feeling this way because—” you take a pause, racking your brain. because of, what? because of everything? that would only lead to a barrage of more follow up questions.

after what feels like an eternity of the two of them gawking at you for an answer, you manage to build all the thoughts coursing through your head into one single sentence, “i am feeling this way because i used to read my husband with ease, i used to know what he wanted to say before he said it.

i know how he likes to drink his coffee, just black. i know what kind of jacket he prefers to court—double breasted with a peak lapel. but lately.. it’s like i don’t know who’s stepping through the door anymore.”

if only you knew.

another few moments of pen scratching against paper, another few moments of pretending like you don’t see hiromi staring from the corner of his eye. “thank you for admitting this. i know it can’t be easy. now i have to ask, when did you start noticing these changes in your marriage?”

the rest of the following hour ticks by painfully slow, with you filling in the blanks from your point of view and hiromi sitting in complete silence.

"okay, next week, i'd really like to hear things from your perspective, hiromi," your therapist speaks up with a calm smile, setting the notepad down. she stands up, crossing across the room to a drawer where a variety of pamphlets decorate the space.

all from self help guides to journaling advice, she pulls out two slips of papers. passing them over to you and hiromi. ‘how to communicate with your partner again! 50 conversation starters guaranteed to work’ written in big, bold letters smacks you right in the face when you start reading through it.

“i want the two of you to practice talking to each other again,” she speaks up, gesturing over to you, “i noticed you took the initiative with our session today. while nothing’s wrong with that, i think the two of you could benefit from expressing how you each feel in this relationship.”

—

expressing how you feel. what a load of bull. the drive back to the firm is filled with even more silence, radio playing some generic song neither one of you bothered to reach out to switch. the atmosphere’s filled with the sound of cars honking, people rushing by to catch a last minute taxi, police sirens swerving through narrow gaps in traffic.

“are you going to be coming home for dinner?” you question once the car comes to a stop, turning to look over at hiromi. the car sits on idle, his fingertips tapping against the steering wheel. when did having a simple conversation become so awkward?

he reaches out for the piece of paper the therapist handed out earlier, tired eyes scanning through the list. trying to find what conversation starter could be plugged into this situation. a vein in your forehead twitches at the sight, even if you’re trying to remind yourself he’s trying.

“i acknowledge how you feel, honey,” hiromi starts off, the apologetic smile on his face when he looks up to meet your annoyed expression fading away into a small frown, “and i recognize your efforts, but i don’t think i’ll be showing u-” you slam the car door before he gets a chance to finish.

hiromi doesn’t pull out of the spot just yet, watching as you headed up the stairs. you don’t turn to look back at him, not even once. “my god,” an agitated mutter leaves his lips, reading through the list once more before shaking his head. he doesn’t realize how long he’s been with the engine running, only pulling out of the space when a loud honk rings behind him.

there’s a manila folder on your door step when you step up to the office—no returning address, nothing to trace back to. no kind of note either, but you know it’s meant for you. daredevil. he’s been dedicating himself to sending little envelopes to your office—no signs of concrete evidence (that’d end up being inadmissible anyways), but enough trails to where finding said evidence was a cakewalk.

this week had been a statement of bank records linking an offshore account to one of fisk’s buildings. it was something, that with enough pressure and persistence, you could get something out of. your heels scruff against carpet as you make your way further into your office, plopping down on a rusted leather chair. a pile of paperwork waits for you as soon as you sit down, from nda’s to settlement offers made by fisk.

an elderly woman walks into the office half an hour later, her head swishing from side to side to see if she was in the right place. that much was a given, you supposed. you only had second-hand furniture around the place—wooden chairs chipped at the ends and worn with age, a coffee maker that ended up burning the beverage half the time, and a fax machine that no one used anymore.

it was easy to think the building was abandoned, in all honesty. you clear your throat, drawing her attention to the open door at the end of the hall. she steps into your office with a stack of papers in hand and a tupperware container filled to the brim in empanadas.

“hi, welcome in,” you greet her with a smile, pulling the chair back for her before taking a seat once more. the woman takes a seat in front of you, her hands resting against her lap. “what can i do for you today?”

her brows furrow. "pensé qué había alguien que hablara español.” you didn’t need to be fluent to hear the disappointment clinging onto her voice.

"that would be my…” you snap your fingers, willing the word to come to you, “esposo, but if you need someone that speaks punjabi, i'm here.”

(hiromi’s attempts at teaching you spanish had proven unsuccessful throughout the years.

white flurries of snow covered the pavement in a thick white layers, every other student in the library already gone to their dorm for the night. orange hues illuminated the path back to your dorm, higuruma walking right next to you and listening to every word.

you were going on about a failed test in your foreign language class, complaining about how hard punjabi had been to pick up. “spanish’s been easy, it’s just the gendering that gets me all messed up,” hiromi speaks up when you’re finally done, air leaving his lungs in thin wisps of smoke.

a groan leaves your lips in agreement, “don’t even get me started on the gendering. i might just have to go to the tutoring center.”

the two of you walk in relative silence, boots crunching against the ground underneath. it’s a peaceful kind of quiet, one that makes you feel comfortable without the overwhelming need to try to fill it.

“how do you say lawyers in spanish?” you suddenly question, turning to look over at him. a snowflake chose to land on his nose at that moment, your finger reaching up to lightly brush it off. a small flush makes itself visible up his neck, his cheeks dusted in a light pink.

every action you took made his heart do a little spitter sputter, almost in disbelief you seemed to like him.

then he remembers you’d asked him a question. “lawyers,” hiromi takes a moment to pause, rummaging through the catalogues in his brain after frying it off with reading review after review and cans of red bull, “oh, abogados.”

“we’re gonna be el grande avocados!” you exclaim, gesturing to an imaginary title. it’s easy to imagine something big, something grand with him. an office where you could solely do pro bono cases, where you didn’t need anything to but a simple ‘thanks’ to be fulfilled.

where bills and building maintenance and rent didn’t exist.

a laugh bubbled out of his throat, the sound a sweet melody in the midst of car horns and police sirens, “that’s not spanish, that’s fruit baby.”

your nameplate still reads avocado at law. you didn’t think that you’d be the only fulfilling this dream, though.)

“but i can take a recording of your testimony and have him transcribe it,” you assure her, pulling out your trusty tape recorder from storage (your drawer). a cloud of dust leaves the surface, a sign of how long it’s been since its last use.

the woman gives you what you could only describe as the most strained smile you’ve ever seen, clearing her throat before starting to speak to the recorder. her voice cracks during certain parts, a couple parts you could pick up—fisk, 150 grand, trash apartment. you give her a pack of tissues before she leaves your office, accepting her empanadas with a warm smile and a gracias that came out sounding like grassy ass.

yet another example of how your husband was neglecting even his work at this rate. you’re not sure when’s the last time you’ve seen him at the office for more than half an hour, and each time you do, he seems to be on edge. like he’s aching to leave, waiting for the right moment to make his grand exit.

the rest of the day is filled with even more tenants coming in with their suits towards the building owner, each one showing images of apartments that were less than livable. mold covered the walls in thick clouds, asbestos found in blood work brought in by the tenants, one who’s child has been affected with lead poisoning.

it’s more than enough to get a formal complaint started up. if only you could get some help to deal with a class action suit like this. a quiet huff leaves your lips, resigning yourself to spending most of your night cooped up in your office.

—

the fluorescent billboard in front of your apartment building’s already painting the room in a deep crimson hue when you arrive, pale moonlight striking through the glass windows. you plop your briefcase onto the couch before trudging your way into your bedroom, the exhaustion of the day finally starting to wear down on your body.

there’s no point in making dinner for one person, you’ll call in for takeout sometime later. and while most people leave their job as soon as they shut their office door, you're flickering through the different tv channels. trying to see if any more reports of wilson fisk have made the nightly news.

it’s nothing interesting other than reports of the stock market, of a robbery gone wrong, of daredevil intervening in some kind of drug trade. “the masked vigilante appears to have been spotted in the scene around eight p.m., stopping a large cargo boat allegedly carrying kilos of cocaine…” you let the news play in the background, picking up one of the books in your shelf.

zoning law and practice, eighth edition volume one. you need as much as you can get when it comes to going up against fisk and his expensive team of lawyers.

a shadow appears from the corner of your eye. at first, you play it off to exhaustion. to some tree swaying in the wind, some bird that flew too close to your window. you don’t think too much of it, you live on the second floor. another section gets highlighted and annotated.

then you hear it. a latch coming loose, a silhouette making itself visible. the highlighter in your hand falls onto the bed next to you, painting your covers in a light yellow shade. a man plops onto your bedroom floor in the middle of the night. a man staining blood with each inch he moved, a man holding a crowbar in a deathly grip.

all of your senses fly out the window.

a loud scream erupts from your throat at the sight of the intruder making their way through your window, slinking onto the floor. a couple lights flicker on from the apartments beside you, neighbors surely waken from the ruckus. still, you scramble to grab the first weapon you can find to defend yourself.

the high heel scattered on the floor? (that you swore you’d pick up tomorrow) no.

the waterproof rabbit vibrator you kept in the top drawer of your night stand? heavens no.

hell, even your house keys? not even that.

your weapon of choice in this case happened to be your eighth edition thousand page leather-bound book full of new york’s zoning laws.

it was enough to give the intruder a concussion and enough to leave your wallet mourning the damages after the fact.

mentally preparing yourself, you’re about to toss the book. holding it over your head when the intruder chooses to slide the black mask over their head. your eyes nearly pop out of your sockets when you see who it is, book held up in midair.

"you said—" hiromi chooses that moment to collapse onto the floor, hand clasped around his bleeding abdomen and breathing ragged, "—you didn't know me. this is who i am."

you blink once, twice, even three times. laughter bubbles straight from the depths of your chest, your head flying back at the absurdity of the situation. hiromi’s not laughing, you quickly come to realize. you pinch yourself only to find out this isn’t some sort of dream, isn’t some sort of sick prank that your husband’s decided to play on you.

you’re faced with the reality that your husband is daredevil.

you don’t only see the big bad daredevil whose mask covered face has been plastered on a corkboard in each new york precinct police department around hell's kitchen with the promise of a hefty reward. the big bad daredevil who’s been painted on news outlets as menacing, as a threat, as an untrustworthy agent working on his own twisted sense of justice.

but you also see the daredevil who’s been helping you out with your case against wilson fisk. the daredevil that’s been protecting women and children from getting harassed in the street late at night, unwilling to kill but eager to incapacitate.

then, you see what’s underneath the mask. what’s underneath the various headlines, what’s underneath the mystique and flashy acrobatics. you see the guy you met in 3l who dared to go against nietzsche’s ethics with a passion, calling his writing ‘half-assed fragments at best.’

you see the guy who’d memorized your coffee order off one study session, never once failing to bring it to your table following after. the guy who didn’t hesitate to go pursue pro-bono cases, accepting payment in the form of baked goods while your classmates pursued prestigious internships defending corporation after corporation.

while everyone else went after the fame and the money that came with being a lawyer, he went to pursue justice for those harmed. whether it be by the own flawed system the guilty have been incarcerated under or the ones needing some sort of defense.

and in that, you see the man that you fell in love with again. the one you planned out the rest of your life with, the one with big dreams who’d made your first nameplate on a napkin and promised to be your partner.

you shove your blankets off your body, hit with the cold air whistling through the crack in the window while you make your way to the bathroom. the first aid kit stowed away in your bottom cabinet is laughable—a couple bandaids and alcohol pads thrown in together in case of a paper cut, in case of a nasty fall.

nothing in case for your husband bleeding out on your floor in the middle of the night.

miraculously enough, you manage to find an old sewing needle your mom left behind on one of her visits and a nylon thread hiromi had borrowed from nurse claire from the floor underneath. you're not sure how many times you've wiped the needle with alcohol, trying to get it properly disinfected before making your way back to the bedroom.

kneeling down beside the bleeding mess that was your husband, you slowly begin to unravel the sopping wet layers covering his upper body. the harsh scent of iron clings to the air, a reminder you need to work faster. and yet, you find yourself hesitating every moment a pained groan leaves his lips.

the layers drop unceremoniously with a heavy plop, staining your ivory floors in a deep, crimson shade. now that there’s nothing in the way, you can see just how profound the slash cutting through his abdomen went. it starts right underneath his pecs diagonally across to just on top of the waistband of his pants.

your fingers trembled, trying to put the thin piece of nylon through the small hole of the needle. you miss once, then you miss again. a frustrated sigh leaves your lips, hiromi’s hands coming to rest against your own. “take a deep breath for me, honey.”

funny how the man bleeding out was the one trying to reassure you. still, you followed the movement of his hands. taking a deep breath in and then exhaling slowly, your shoulders losing tension. you’re able to focus more clearly now, slowly threading the thin string through the hole.

it’s hard to distinguish where the wound starts and where it ends, pieces of flesh sticking out from nearly every direction. but somehow, and some way, you manage to line up the very messy edges you were working on suturing. or at least, trying to.

hiromi tries his best not to flinch, not to move, not to react as you’re threading the needle through his abdomen. “i can hear you thinking, so ask your questions,” he murmurs, the silence starting to become unbearable. you’ve been biting down on your lip for the past five minutes, almost saying something before swallowing it down.

and there were, in fact, about a million questions coursing through your head right now. but the simplest one you could pin point for the time being was: “why?”

why did hiromi higuruma choose to put his life in danger every night? why did he choose to put on a black suit and play vigilante for the streets of new york?

his throat bobbed, watching as your fingers worked on tying the first knot with precision. “i choose to do this because law isn’t always fair. you know as well as i do, that half the people guilty don’t get enough of a punishment that they deserve. and the half that do, don’t deserve that kind of punishment.”

it’s true—you’ve seen more than enough people get locked away for nearly a decade for possession while assaulters don’t even get a slap on the wrist. it’s deplorable. it’s not fair. and yet, “so you’re punishing these people based on your own system of morals?”

“i was in court one day ah,” a pained wince leaves him when you prod in too deep into the flesh, fingers twitching by his sides in an attempt to keep himself still. he clears his throat before continuing, “i was in court one day. a little girl came up to me and begged me to put her dad away, begged me to do something. and all i could do was hear how the jury declared him not guilty.

“i stopped by her house to check up on her a couple days later. her dad was being violent again, yelling in her face for making a case about him. i decided that was the final straw.

“so yes, i am working based on my own morals. if that deserves me being locked up like the cops say, so be it.”

you work in silence for a bit, focusing on tying the knots in front of you as best as possible. “i don’t think you’re a bad guy for what you’ve done. i just wish you would’ve trusted me to let me in on this secret.”

the knots in front of you are nothing short of sloppy despite your best efforts, the stitch job sure to leave a scar by the time it healed. but it was good enough for now, it stopped the bleeding and it closed the wound. with light pressure, you slowly started wiping away the flakes of dry blood with rubbing alcohol.

a sigh leaves his lips, the man slouching against the wall behind him. “i can deal with me being like this, bloody and beaten,” he utters, gaze directed straight into you in a way that makes you shiver, “but i can’t handle the thought of someone hurting you because of me. that’s why i didn’t tell you.”

your breath stutters in your chest, focusing instead on the work in front of you. it’s easier to swipe and soak the pad instead of trying to figure out of your feelings for the time being. you swipe a couple drops of disinfecting ointment onto the wound, putting a bandage onto the skin.

"i'm still mad at you." it comes out quiet. as cold as you’ve been, you’re also.. simply just tired.

you’re so tired of being angry, so tired of feeling tired, so so tired of feeling like you don’t know how to interact with your best friend. as if one wrong word, one wrong pause could simply…set things off and that’d be that.

and yet, you’ve spent so long being angry at your husband that you’re not sure how to feel any other way. if you’ll even feel anything but indifference when the anger subsides.

"i know."

"and this-” you gesture between the two of you, "—doesn't fix anything."

a more resigned, "i know."

but a wistful sigh leaves your lips, your hand coming up to rest on his cheek, "but i really want to kiss you right now. i don’t want to be mad at you."

hiromi’s quick to speak up, one of his hands coming up to rest against your cheek. you can’t help the way you melt into the touch, your anger fading away into something akin to longing. “so don’t be mad at me for right now. be mad at me later, honey. be mad at me all you want, be mad at me for the rest of your life. just don’t be indifferent with me again.”

you lean in slowly, breath caught in your throat. it’s awkward at first—you’re out of practice—fingers twitching by your sides until you firmly place them onto his shoulders in a deathly grip, breath caught in your throat, leaning the same way that he does when you’re close enough.

kissing him feels like trying to unlock something you don’t quite have the key for anymore. like trying to revisit an old home only to realize the numbers on the mailbox aren’t for you anymore, that the decorations hanging up aren’t the same old photos of you as a teen. like it’s nothing more than a distant memory.

the thought of that makes you sick. of your marriage being reduced to nothing but good memories. you try it again, his head tilting to the left and yours to the right. and just like that, every piece falls into place. your fingers loosen their grip, one of your hands moving up to his soft cheek.

it’s tentative, the way that his lips slot against yours. slow. his hands move by his sides like he’s also contemplating a difficult calculus equation before they move to your hold your hips. you move forward, back in an arch and he takes that chance to deepen the kiss.

his tongue traces the seam of your lips before they’re parting for him, his mouth swallowing every moan and shaky breath that left your lips. while the previous kisses had been a reacquaintance, these were much more needy. making up for lost time. his lips trail down, placing a small peck against your jaw. against the side of your neck.

“is this okay?” he whispers, his tongue tracing the sensitive flesh of your earlobe. “yeah,” you assure in a breathy whisper, your head thrown back in bliss. his fingers move down to the hem of your faded graphic tee, pulling it over your head with ease. cold air hits your body all once, a contradiction to how warm hiromi was making you feel.

you’re in nothing but an old bra, a simple beige one you pulled out from the back of your undergarment drawer. and yet, higuruma stares at you like you’re an angel incarnate. like it’s a blessing to even be in your presence. his brain short circuits, hands hovering in the air like he’s unsure.

grabbing his wrists in your own hands, you lead him closer and closer to your chest. “wow,” he murmurs under his breath, his thumbs rolling across your pebbled nipples. hiromi’s fingers squish at the flesh, tracing against your underboob. rubbing against all the little spots he knows you’re sensitive: your nipples, your areolas, your side boob.

placing little kisses where his fingers just were, reverent to you after he’s been neglecting the duty for so long.

your head rolls back, a muffled moan leaving your lips. he’s nothing if not eager to please, “let me take care of you.”

—

“you’re hurt.” you’re with your arms folded across your chest, brows furrowed as you take in the state hiromi’s in your bed. bandaged up and wincing when he moves his stomach too much. you didn’t think when he said let me take care of you, he wanted to jump straight into you sitting on his face.

the harsh look on your face makes his dick twitch.

“and you’re wet. like i said, let me take care of you,” he tries yet again, gesturing for you to come over with two fingers. as stubborn as you can be, there’s really no argument to be made. you pad your way over into the bed, avoiding the bandages on his abdomen before plopping down on his torso.

his hands come up to your hips, holding you in place like this is where you belonged. where you were meant to be.

“if at any point, you start feeling pain or you wanna stop, just let me know.” you jab a finger against his chest. he simply takes the digit, placing a gentle kiss onto the tip.

“yes ma’am.”

you moved up his chest, feeling harsh lines of muscle underneath. your cunt drips onto the thin material of your panties as you get closer and closer to his mouth. plush thighs settle by the sides of his head, nearly acting like earmuffs.

he revels in eating pussy, you know that. higuruma could spend hours in between your legs—jaw slack, fingers drenched and pruned, cheeks flushed, and dick weeping—and he’d still be asking for more. still, you find yourself hovering just above his awaiting mouth. you don’t want to end up hurting him any more than he already is.

his fingers grip onto the flesh of your thighs, leaving indents behind as he pushes your clothed pussy to be right on his lips. “you should know how to listen by now,” hiromi chides, tongue sliding across the sensitive skin of your inner thigh. a shudder runs down your spine, every movement making you hyperaware that your vibrator, well, couldn’t do this.

“i didn’t want you to suffocate,” you retort, fingers flying down to his hair. his lips are everywhere but your cunt, running up your thighs, peppering kisses onto your leg before moving back up again. a scoff leaves his lips, insulted at the insinuation.

“that’d be a dream come true.” his lips latch onto the wet patch of your underwear, sucking onto the thin piece of fabric separating your pussy from him. his tongue traces across your puffy folds, drinking every drop spilling from the lace like he wanted to consume you whole.

drool slips from the corner of his lips, drooping eyes fluttering shut in sheer pleasure while he sloppily makes out with your bottom set of lips. the bridge of his nose rubs against your clothed folds, tip nudging against your twitching clit. your fingers tighten up around his hair, nearly pulling on the roots.

all he does is moan in response.

your underwear’s drenched in a mixture of his drool and your slick when he pulls them off to the side with two, thick fingers. “look at you,” he speaks underneath you, reverence lacing his tone while he speaks to your vagina, “i missed you.”

your cunt clenched around nothing. guess she missed him too.

hiromi spits into your cunt and laps it back up like a man starved, every drop that lands on his tongue akin to the finest ambrosia. his tongue's flat, licking broad stripes from your dripping hole all the way up up to your swollen clit. his lips latch onto the nub, shifting between applying pressure that has you mewling and moaning for more and pressure that has you shifting to get away.

using his hair, you begin to swivel your hips against his awaiting mouth. rubbing your dripping folds across his lips, swiping against him like a card. your lips part into an ‘o’, rubbing your clit against the tip of his nose. “just like that, just use me,” he lets out a muffled groan underneath, his tongue dipping in and out of your hole.

his cock twitched and dripped against the material of his tactical pants, tenting up with each time he pushed his hips up into the air. your hand reaches out, giving him a few palms over the material and rubbing the dampened patch on his pants. “wanna cum already?” you ask in a breathy whisper, your own orgasm building up.

“only worried about you coming,” he responds easily, his own pleasure and needs discarded in favor of satisfying your own. two fingers take over where his tongue was thrusting in and out, pushing through a thin layer of resistance. he slowly began scissoring his fingers in and out, getting you adjusted to the stretch. "f-fuck keep going, just like that, please!"

his fingers curl up about a inch in, pushing against the spongy spot that has you pushing your hips deeper into his face. he switches from suctioning around clit, lips latched onto the nub, to rolling the tip of his tongue around it.

spelling out, ‘I’M SORRY’ in cursive. he mumbles the words like a prayer over and over again against your dripping cunt, almost like he wanted to get it through to you he was indeed, sorry.

“o-ooh fuck!” a strangled moan leaves your lips, thighs squeezing all that much tighter around his head. hiromi's lightheaded—whether that be from your legs squishing his head or from the anticipation of your release. he doesn’t let up, he lets you use him as you please. lets you fuck yourself onto his face, onto his mouth, tug on his hair, everything and anything that you need.

the orgasm that hits you feels like a wave, crashing onto you all at once. your thighs squeeze tighter, the grip on his hair gets tighter, everything gets tighter until SNAP! with one final curl of his fingers against your g-spot, with one final roll of his tongue against your clit, you cum.

clear spurts of your release drip onto his expecting tongue, onto his nose, onto his chin. hiromi doesn’t hesitate to swipe his tongue across his lips, lapping it up like a man finding water in a desert. he pulls out his fingers, immediately putting them in his mouth. swirling his tongue around them to get a taste.

you shift to get off, laying on the side of him. you don’t hesitate to pull him for a kiss when you finally settle down, tasting yourself on his tongue, tasting the remnants of iron from his busted lip, tasting what you’ve been missing. your nails dig into his scalp, your tongue moving against his in complete tandem. there’s no fight to dominate, nothing but just sheer bliss.

your lips move down the side of his neck, pressing a kiss against his jugular that has him resisting the urge to burst already. it’s slow, it’s teasing, the way you move inch by inch down the column of his neck. then you move onto his chest, finding it littered with a couple scars that hadn’t faded yet.

tentatively, your finger traces across the seams of the raised flesh. feeling him tense underneath you. your tongue takes place of your finger, tip tracing across the harsh lines that mark his pecs.

“do you think you deserve to fuck me?” you question, head tilted to the side as you meet his gaze.

hiromi’s quick to shake his head, “god no, i don’t deserve you,” he says it like the sheer notion is ridiculous but he’s quick to add anyways, “but i’ll spend the rest of my life trying to be deserving of you. to be deserving enough to fuck you.”

you shift onto the bed, presenting yourself like the most beautiful of gifts. propping yourself up on your hands and knees, your back in the most sinful arch possible. he’s not moving, not just yet. he’s awestruck, watching your ass jiggle from side to side like a hypnosis.

he snaps out of his trance a few moments later, moving over behind you. he’s quick to pull his pants down, nearly tripping over the pant sleeves when he rushes to kneel over your dripping cunt. his cock slaps against his happy trail when he slides his boxers down, tip flushed a deep shade of pink and dripping drops of precum.

one hand grips around the base, giving himself one tentative pump. you push back against him, shaft rubbing against your puffy folds. slick drips onto the shaft, wetting his cock before he slips inside. you’re still tight when he pushes in, walls tightly clenching around the tip. “there we go, you can take it, sweetheart.”

you nod your head fervently, feeling him stretch you out with each inch he started to push in. he’s thick, stuffing you full with ease. a loud moan leaves your lips when he knocks the air out of your lungs, cock fully snug inside of you and black tuffs of hair against your ass.

he pulls away slowly, your hips moving back to meet his cock. his hands firmly grip on to your hips, keeping you still before he’s pushing back in a deep thrust. it starts off like that, slow and deep, feeling him stuff himself to the brim from this position.

your hips move to meet each of his thrusts, his hands cupping the globes of your ass. “you just need some more, honey?” he questions, his tone gentle even if he was everything but. “more, hiromi, please!”

one of his feet plant onto the bedsheets beside you, the new angle allowing to reach in deeper. to mold your insides to the shape of his cock completely. his hips start pummeling into your sopping cunt, squelch after squelch after squelch ringing in your ears. heavy balls twack against the fat of your ass with each thrust, his own breathing heavy.

your hands give out underneath, your head buried against silk pillows and nails digging into the sheets beside you. his thumb rolls around your clit in quick, tight little circles as your orgasm starts to build up. “c’mon, it’s all yours baby, take it, i’m here,” he whispers in your ear, lips trailing down your back.

your eyes roll to the back of your head, his hips stuttering as he’s close to his own release. hiromi tilts your head over your shoulder, hand on your chin before meeting you for a sloppy kiss. he swallows every shaky moan that leaves your lips, every little i’m cumming baby, i’m gonna cum shiiit that you manage to get out.

you’re a babbling mess when your orgasm rolls over your body like a tidal wave. your pussy clenches tightly around his shaft before your release soaks him completely. he struggles to keep up—you’re tightening up, leaving him barely able to move. his thrusts are swallow and quick, running through the different statutes that come to mind to avoid cumming too soon.

“cum for me hiromi, want to feel you fill me up,” you babble, pushing yourself back onto his cock. his head flies back, unable to keep himself from denying you anything. with two more shallow thrusts and a guttural groan, he’s spurting a thick load that paints your walls white. he doesn’t move just yet—he stays still. feeling your walls snugly around his cock, the air still full of post sex bliss.

his breathing stills, his head coming to your shoulder. he presses one featherlight kiss onto the skin, letting out a relieved sigh. “i love you,” he murmurs, pressing another kiss. it’s the image of tranquility for those two perfect minutes that you sit there still, your heartbeats in tandem.

higuruma pulls off with a loud ‘pop’ echoing across the sex ridden room, dick glistening underneath the moonlight in a mixture of your release and his own cum. he moves across the room, shuffling his way into the bathroom to grab the softest towel he could find.

he lets it run under the sink for a couple seconds before squeezing out the excess, making his way back in between your legs. back home. he swipes the towel in between with care, lightly applying pressure to wipe off the milky trails dripping down your thighs.

“there we go,” he lets out a quiet hum, his lips pressing a small kiss onto your inner thigh, “you did so good for me, my love.” your arms come up, tugging him back to the mattress when he manages to get close enough.

hiromi sets the towel off to the side, making a mental note to pick it up in the morning. he settles back next to you, inching closer like he’s still afraid to test how close you’ll let him. he ends up wrapping one arm around you. “should we call the therapist and say we don’t need her?”

“she’d say this was an unhealthy coping mechanism, husband,” you note, a small laugh leaving hiromi’s lips in response. the air’s light for the first time in months, a nice reprieve from how distant the two of you had been. there’s no hostility, no awkwardness, no tense silence.

the super-healthy no grain no calories no sugar cereal sitting on the shelves of your local supermarket? zen’in industries.

a new toy in a shiny box turning from a truck to a computer to a toy dinosaur? zen’in industries.

military grade weapons approved under the guise of state defense and national security? zen’in industries.

the corporation had expanded throughout the last couple of years, a mega corporation with connections on nearly every continent. a building situated where they could get one propped up.

what had once started as a humble three-man facility now became a power-hungry rampage, always looking for more more more.

the zen’ins control their own privatized police force, bending the rule of law and the rule of justice underneath their thumb. where they didn’t control, their pockets funded to achieve said control. their research delving into illegal cloning devices and drugs not yet approved by the fda.

much quite like the one gojo satoru was testing right now.

a device designed to intertwine the dna of a spider—isolating its regeneration capability—and the dna of a human’s. if it works, it’ll diminish the amount of diseases that still affect a majority of people, diminishing the ability of cancer cells to spread.

or at least that’s what the company claims. that’s what satoru wants to achieve with his research, with every excruciating hour he spends either locked up in a lab or feeding a spidering. though, the research is meant to be exclusive. limited access to only the rich of the rich. a way to make them invincible in a world of uncertainty.

it’s too much, too much far too soon. testing on people. the tests that they’ve done on a couple lab rats have proven to be promising, their dna taking to the mutation quite well. if only with a couple failures amongst the batch. still, those failures hadn’t been modified enough to where the margin of error was low enough to test on humans.

and yet, naoya brings toji zen’in into his lab to play the sacrificial guinea pig.

the failure of the zenin family, a man with no future the corporation claimed. they'd wiped their hands off him, leaving almost zero trace that connected him back to them. and if this experiment failed, there'd be no trace that a man named toji zenin ever existed in the first place.

the implications hung in the air like dead weight.

"nice weather we're having, huh?" satoru attempts to break the silence once naoya steps out of the room, a nervous laugh escaping from his lips. he's met with a very unimpressed look from toji, the man's thoughts surely clouded with all the different ways to wring his neck like a chicken.

long fingers reach for the papers scattered across his desk, rummaging through the different sheets just to have something to do in the heavy silence. he flips through a couple sheets before reaching the end of the stack, coming across what he was looking for.

satoru clears his throat yet again, his gaze on the paper in front of him. “so, this is a consent paper.” he slips the document across the table with a dr. doom pen, watching as toji picks it up to read over it. “basically you’re signing up for this experiment and saying we’re not responsible for anything that happens to you.”

“there won’t be any need for that.” naoya’s voice breaks through the intercom, a stinging reminder that he was always watching. always listening.

the consent form is untouched between them, an experiment done under wraps. one whose results would be documented for the purpose of advancing the tech, later incinerated to wipe all residue of guilt. satoru takes the paper, placing it back in the stack of documents. shoving it to the back.

“the process is quite simple, really.” gojo pushes the thin frame of his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his pointer, clearing his throat. “the test subject, uh, you, in this case, steps into a chamber to have their dna altered by a retrovirus. the type of rna within the virus allows for the reversal of genetic information. the retrovirus in this case is a spider’s dna, which would swap your information to become a permanent part of your cells’ genome.

pretty much, if it works, you’re gonna have dormant spider abilities. it’s, uh, pretty cool,” even satoru can’t help the hint of excitement that sneaks onto his voice, his hands moving faster than he can articulate his thoughts into words.

unfortunately as cool as he thought it was, he was only met with a blank stare from toji. the man only folded his arms across his broad chest, tapping on his forearms. “fuck happens if it doesn’t work?”

gojo swallows dryly, his eyes darting to the various papers scattered throughout his desk. “it’s going to work.”

the fact is, gojo, didn’t know the full extent of the consequences of a failed experiment. in the rats he’d worked on a few days prior, they survived like normal for a few days, even going as far as playing on their wheel, before their own body started to reject their very being.

the rats had turned into an aggressive super being, nibbling on the cold metal of their cages and scratching anything that happened to be next to them. before they started to scratch themselves, ripping away their flesh without so much as a squeak. but gojo had his fingers crossed, that had to count for something.

toji stepped into the capsule awaiting, already resigned to his fate. gojo mumbled to himself while he got the machine started up, tapping a bunch of buttons that made no sense to anyone but him. "reduce the margin of error…mutation gene…." he picked up a clipboard, checking off every box.

electricity sparked as soon as the machine whirred to life, static crackling heavy in the air. the multiple plugs responsible for powering such machinery threaten to give out under the sudden surge, the vial of spider dna injected into toji's arm.

a loud scream rips from toji’s chest, the yell echoing through the walls. a scream that gojo's going to be hearing every night before he goes to bed. it's full of raw agony, of helplessness, of rage. and just as quickly as it happens, it's over. rhythmic taps echo across the floor, the tinge of iron landing on satoru's tongue.

he's anxious. he's never been anxious. hasn't been this anxious since he was a fresh faced fifteen year old freshman in a laboratory full of twenty year old college students.

a part of him wants to see what happened, another part wants to leave the room and avoid the surge of disappointment that's starting to take place.

steam wafts from the chamber, the area completely covered in a grey cloud. satoru’s vision is obstructed, a quiet prayer to darwin himself that the experiment was a success with every second that passed in bitter anticipation.

it didn’t work.

despite how many times he’s calibrated and recalibrated the system, toji’s dna wasn’t a match. his body had completely rejected the mutation, the spider dna turning into a different entity of its own rather than morphing into his system. "yet another failure." he could hear naoya's voice in his head as clear as day.

a spider-like creature with toji’s face remains after the gas settles, pinchers scratching against the glass almost painfully. attacking the glass in a way satoru had seen before, all eight eyes staring at him like they wanted him dead. then, the creature begins to dig at his arms, at his legs, at every piece of flesh that remains of toji fushiguro. there's no pain in the action, just sheer desperation with every scratch.

and then comes the final part of the failed transformation. a high pitched screech leaves the creature, the glass that once held up the capsule shut shattered into tiny pieces. it moves an inch, eyes narrowing directly onto gojo like a bullseye. but before it can move, before it can even react, it writhes against itself, worming on the floor. a twitch of its pinchers. then nothing.

no signs of a heartbeat, of any breaths. gojo's sitting at his desk, unable to move from his spot. each breath that enters his lungs leaves his chest in a heave, his shoulders shaking after the scene in front of him. a failed experiment, he could deal with. he's dealt with disappointment before. but he's never dealt with killing someone before.

a singular polaroid drops from the scraps holding up the remains of toji’s pants, a simple family portrait. it has a little boy at the center of the photograph, hair spiked up like a porcupine. he couldn’t have been older than six months, a pacifier in his mouth while he looked up at the woman.

toji’s wife, he presumed. the little boy was an exact carbon copy of the woman, if only a little grumpier. the only thing he’d taken from his father, as far as he could tell.

and now he had to call him to let them know toji wouldn’t be coming home tonight.

the monster in the chamber slithered within its confines, goo spilling out like gelatin from the sides. a stench more putrid than garbage day and still sewage water combined filters throughout the room, the remains of toji helplessly scratching against its flesh.

the call picks up on the second ring, the sound of cartoons in the background before someone speaks up, “toji?” his wife, satoru presumes, “are you almost home? your dinner’s getting cold, i made your favorite.”

his breath catches in his throat, unable to say or even think of how to go about this process. toji fushiguro had a life waiting for him at home and he ripped that from right under his feet, all to fulfill naoya’s persistence. a guy he couldn’t even stand, a guy he didn’t respect half the time.

“…toji?” the voice on the other end called out, voice dripping with thinly veiled concern, “is everything okay?”

guilt curls deep within gojo’s gut, curling itself around him tighter and tighter until he manages to choke out, “toji won’t be making it home for dinner.”

a pregnant silence ensues. for a second, it isn’t real. toji’s getting on the train and he’s getting home, complaining about how expensive his scratch ticket was despite buying two. he’s stepping into a warm home engulfed by spices and love seeping through the walls instead of a cold and merciless capsule.

a nervous laugh leaves the woman on the other end, “okay, pretty funny. i don’t know who this is, but could you give the phone back to my husband?”

gojo lets out a sharp breath, fingers coming up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “i work at zen’in industries—” the name makes the woman let out a gasp, something dropping in the background, “your husband was subjected to an experiment and it didn’t succeed. he didn’t make it.” he’s speaking in a clinical tone, trying to remove himself from the situation.

gojo doesn’t receive a response. the only thing he hears seconds later is the sound of the dial, the woman having hung up on him mid sentence. he drops the phone with a weary sigh, rubbing a hand over his face. the logical thing would be to go to the board, to complain about the ethics of this enterprise.

but the board's paid off, very well, to rule in favor of the zen'ins. his fingers twitch against the ballpoint pen in his harsh grasp, the words slipping out of him like water.

to whom this letter may concern,

i am choosing to quit this fucking company

he balls up the paper, tossing it into the trashcan across the room. it swirls around the rim before going in without effort. the pen taps against his desk before he's forcing himself to write a letter that doesn't make it sound like he wants to strangle naoya.

to whom this letter may concern,

the opportunities that i've recieved at this job have been incredible, i greatly appreciate the time that i've been granted to spend at this company. however, i have recently come across a experiment that conflicts with my ethics, which is why i cannot continue working at this company.

gojo goes on a spiel glazing the company, his jaw clenched with each time he has to write appreciate on the damn piece of paper. with a signature of his name, he reads over it again. good enough.

the elevator ride up to the fiftieth floor was painfully slow, windows giving way to the city lighting up after the sun's gone down. it's a mixture of led lights, street signs flickering from a distance, cars zooming past in a blur. the elevator music playing feels more eerie than anything, his grip on the piece of paper tightening.

it dings once before the metal doors open to reveal the ultimate floor of the building.

where paintings worth more than the down payment of a house hung on the walls, glass windows from floor to ceiling with an spectacular view of the skyline just below. where a singular office took up the entire floor, only having a secretary's desk in the lobby. and where you had to make an appointment months in advance to even step foot up here.

heavy footsteps echoed across pristine marble floors, leading him into the massive office at the end of the corridor. the lighting dimmed down menacingly, only one single lamp lighting up the door to the office.

satoru stops just outside of the door, a steadying breath leaving his lips before he brings his fist up. this is stupid, he should turn around. he knocks on the door anyways, three sharp raps against the wood. every second he spends waiting feels like an eternity,

“come in.” naobito’s voice cuts in through the silence, loud and authoritative. satoru feels like he’s under a microscope with each step he takes into the room, knuckles ghost white with how tightly he’s gripping the crumbling paper in his fingers.

naobito’s too relaxed, sitting back on a white leather ergonomic chair at a dark oak desk, polished to perfection with gold engraving. a stack of papers sits on his desk underneath a 24k gold paperweight, all from grant proposals to advancements in military tech with a neat little signature on the bottom.

he picks up the piece of paper, one of his bony fingers twirling around the paper straight mustache. naobito's not even willing to entertain it, skimming through a few sentences before setting it back down to be ignored with the rest of the documents on his table.

"take a seat." it's not so much as a suggestion, as a request, but rather a thinly veiled demand. satoru takes a seat across his desk, folding his hands across his lap. he watches his senior slip out a bottle of bourbon from one of his counters, a bottle probably worth more than what they're paying him.

naobito stares at the bottle like it's his prized son, "pappy van winkle, you've never tried, right?"

satoru merely shakes his head. while most of his coworkers opted for a shot or two when they went out for faculty drinks night, he went with a club soda. even in postgrad, he’d gotten through with sheer determination and caramel frappes with extra whipped cream.

the older man just lets out a wheezing laugh, coughing seconds after. "thought so."

the first taste of alcohol that lands on his tongue is bitter, the amber liquid making his features scrunch up on its way down. naobito lets out a low chuckle upon his reaction, his hand lazily swirling around his glass. “been sitting on the shelf for a couple years now, must be real aged by now.”

"yea…" the sentence remains unfinished. his grip around the glass trembles and loosens, pieces of glass shattered and the liquid drip dropping onto the once pristine floors. his vision blurs at the edges, everything transformed into a blob of what it was. he wills himself to move, to try to stand up, but he only manages to move a quarter of an inch before everything goes black.

if satoru, geneticist extraordinaire with an iq upwards of 200, would’ve paying a little bit more attention, would’ve interpreted naobito the way he did gene expressions, he would’ve noticed the old hag hadn’t so much as taken a sip from his glass.

satoru gojo wakes up sprawled across his office couch, a headache pounding at the back of his skull. his vision blurs at the edges, his fingers shaking and sweat dripping down his forehead. it’s 8 degrees celsius in the room. he’s not sure if he’s standing, the sensation gone in his legs completely.

no amount of alcohol fucked him up this badly. the glass is positioned right in front of him, settled on a cork coaster at the coffee table. the last thing he remembers is going up to naobito's office, resignation letter in tow before his memory starts to grow fuzzy. which meant the glass on his coffee table must've been planted, must've been put there to mess with his head even further.

gojo needed to test just what the fuck naobito had put in his drink.

normally, the testing of substances takes nearly a day. with interns, students, and other geneticists using up the material, each one claiming that theirs was more important. but the halls are completely devoid of any soul, even the ones that liked to linger late at night have left to go home. satoru should’ve done the same. but he trudged forward, haphazardly swinging his id card against the access reader.

then comes the biometric scanner. a red laser scans across his bloodshot eyes, the screen turning a dark shade of green before the doors swish open. he moves with purpose, quick strides leading him to the first available lab.

rapture.

one of the drugs that naobito had pushed and pushed to get approval from the dea, even going so far as offering to bribe the agency, only to ultimately get rejected. plenty of illegal drugs had been passed through with enough money, overlooked by those at the agency, but rapture proved to be too much of a danger to do so.

the drug itself was said to have been more addictive than cocaine and heroin combined, keeping its user hooked onto the drug by taking them to the brink of death if they didn't take their dosage. their body became a mechanism that only reacted to the drug, brain and muscles only stimulated with each injection.

how much had naobito put in the drink? though, he supposed that much didn't matter. just one drop was rumored to fuck up your body.

satoru realizes what this is—keeping him in the job by getting him addicted to a drug that only zen'in produces. he's already starting to feel the low of the drug, his fingers twitching against the results sheet. his skin is on fire, burning him from the inside out.

there's only thing one left to do.

he finds himself back at the lab, reading through the percentages he'd used with toji fushiguro. satoru messed around with the machine, altering the percentages to match with his dna. he swaps the bases necessary, matching a to pair up with the spider's t, the spider's c matching up with g.

he was going to alter his dna with the same chamber that killed toji fushiguro.

a quiet exhale left his lips before he forced himself to start up the machine. it whirs to life within seconds, electricity crackling as it courses through his veins. a tingly feeling settles deep within his body, replacing the overwhelming feeling of desperation from rapture earlier.

the surge of electricity stops after a few seconds. aquamarine eyes blink once, then twice, before they finally register the scene in front of him. he’s seeing the inside of the chamber, goo dripping from each crook and crevice. the room seems to have grown in size, everything suddenly magnified.

he’s not dead, he doesn’t think he is anyways.

he can still feel the chill of the lab's air hitting his spine, can still feel the utter exhaustion that's settled deep within his bones. but something must've happened. he doesn't feel the same as he once does. he reaches to rub a hand over his face, only to get a handful of hair.

for fuck's sake. satoru takes another look at his hands, seeing furry little paws in place of them. no wonder the room feels magnified—he's the one who shrunk down. little footsteps patter towards the huge glass windows, staring at his reflection. okay, definitely not dead.

but instead of being turned into one of the badass spider-man variants he’s read time and time again, the ones glorified in the newspaper as a hero, he’s turned into a fucking cat.

heavy footsteps echo across steel floors, the doors swishing open to reveal naoya coming back into the room. of course the two of them would plot against him. there's nothing in the chamber by the time naoya reaches it, satoru having dispersed as quickly as his little paws could carry him.

and he runs away to the only place he knows he'll be safe for the time being, narrowly avoiding being seen by any of the overhead cameras surrounding the building.

———

apartment 513.

a small one bedroom in an apartment complex that wasn’t exactly the nicest place around town. the kind where you needed to flush the toilet twice just to make sure it worked properly. where the dishwasher gave out years ago, never replaced by maintenance. where the a/c needed a pound or two to start funneling cold air again.

the kind where the only amenities offered were a desolate playground with brittle sand and a singular crooked swing and a washateria that ate up your spare coins, giving your clothes a half wash at best.

but as cheap and small as the space was, it was yours.

your neighbors were pretty sweet upon moving in, coming by your door first day to greet you with a plate of cookies and a warm welcome into the neighborhood. assuring you that they’d be there if you needed anything—from a spare cup of sugar to someone to talk to.

the only neighbor who hadn’t come by to greet you was the one next door, the guy from apartment 512.

you’d even assumed no one had lived there in the first place, the complex was full of empty apartments and you hadn’t heard a noise next door, haven’t even seen the lights come on underneath the crack of the door.

then you slowly started to hear the traces of the mystery tenant, hearing a keychain jingle at ungodly hours. mysterious gasses seeping in through the thin drywall every so often, a weird odor lingering hours after.

though you don’t see him two weeks after you moved in.

a bowl of kibble threatens to slip from your hand, the other holding on tightly to a bowl of water swishing and swirling around with each tentative step you take outside. two stray cats sit at your doorstep, their head perking up when you set the two bowls down. they don’t dare move, not just yet.

they only dare to move when you take a couple steps back, approaching the bowls slowly. a sniff at the bowl on one side, another sniff on the other side.

it’s starting to get chilly now, they shouldn’t have to be cold and hungry.

you don’t register the sound of footprints until they’re halfway down the hallway, where quite possibly, the most handsome guy you’ve seen, passes through. ivory hair falls messily onto his forehead, strands disheveled like he’d been running his fingers through it. a pair of clear glasses frames his face almost perfectly, framing cerulean eyes that make you feel like you’re staring into the clearest of oceans in paradise.

he’s dressed in a light brown crew neck and a pair of khakis, a white lab coat strewn on his arm and a messenger bag resting on his shoulder. the apartment complex seems too little for a man like him, much too modest, but he walks like he’s the center of his own universe. untouched and unscathed.

“they finally rented out the place.” it’s stated as an observation rather than a greeting. you don’t even realize you were staring until he steps right in front of you, a little too close, social boundaries be damned.

you force yourself to snap out of your trance, giving him an awkward smile. all your social skills went out the window. “uh, yeah. moved in two weeks ago, the rent’s super cheap.” like he wouldn’t know how cheap it was.

luckily for you, the mystery tenant didn’t seem too offset by your reaction. the books in his hands are maneuvered onto one hand, on the verge of slipping, but he extends the newly available one, “i guess that makes us neighbors. gojo satoru, nice to meet you.”

you give him your name, your hand reaching out to shake his own. his fingers are long, hands cold from his time at the lab, and yet.. you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. the handshake lasts for a couple seconds too long, satoru clears his throat, “um, could you let go now?”

heat rising to your cheeks when you realized you’d been holding his hand in a death grip, a sheepish laugh leaving your lips. way to go about a first meeting.

your meeting seemed to be the catalyst for a string of other encounters with gojo, seeing him nearly every day around the building. when you were lugging out a heavy bag of garbage, he was leaving to head out to work. when you were rummaging through your mail, he was strolling in to pick up a package.

and each time you will yourself to have a (semi) normal conversation, to avoid feeling on edge every time his fingertips so much as graze against your own. and each time you fail. you end up stuttering over your own words, reduced to a mumbling mess before saving yourself the embarrassment and shutting up.

today had just happened to be while you were taking out the trash and he was on his way to work, ditching the crew neck and going for a button down. you tried to avoid looking at his forearms, the way his veins flexed as he locked the door behind him.

"hey," a warm smile settles across his features as he greets you, stepping a little closer. you’ve noticed that satoru struggles with spatial awareness, not that you really mind, you get a whiff of nice, expensive smelling cologne every time he’s near.

that, and well, you can see the little freckles scattered throughout his face closer.

“hey,” you echo with a smile of your own, your grip on your trash bag tightening just a bit.

“how’s your day going?” he doesn’t ask like he’s just trying to be polite, he asks like he’s genuinely curious. the fact makes your hands grow even clammier if possible, your heart doing a stupid flip in your chest.

“oh um, it’s going good, yeah,” you retorted, shifting a bit in your spot. his gaze is intense, like he could see right through you without even trying. “and yours? busy busy day at the company?”

he’s about to respond when suddenly a loud riiiippppp came from your trash bag, contents spilling out from the bottom onto the floor and right onto gojo satoru’s expensive suede loafers.

your eyes widen. so much for his busy busy day at the company. you’re quick to pick up the veggie peels off his shoes, hastily moving to collect the embarrassing amount of instant ramen wrappers scattered on the floor.

“i’m really sorry about that!” you blabber over and over again, handing over a napkin for him to finish wiping off. out of all the awkward moments with gojo, you’re certain this one takes the cake.

“just leave it.” satoru doesn’t leave any room for argument, shaking the muck off his shoes before letting out a begrudging sigh. he goes back into his apartment, taking a few minutes to change into another pair while you’re prolonging picking up the garbage scattered on the floor.

hoping to catch a glimpse of him, maybe apologize for the umpteenth time. but he doesn’t turn to look at you when he leaves, doesn’t even bother acknowledging your presence.

chances were that you were making a bigger deal than this was, that while you were left thinking over and over about the short conversations you'd shared, he'd already dismissed them like they never meant anything in the first place.

he rewired your entire nervous system and all the man had done was breathe. and you’d just gone and screwed it up with your garbage.

what you don't know is that satoru gojo gets to work late that day, leaving his apartment just a little later in hopes of running into you again.

———

the streets of tokyo are cold and lonely, cars relentless as they flash bright headlights at his shaking body, spraying dirty mud water onto his white coat. his paws ache as he pads on concrete, making his way back in a once familiar city suddenly in hues of blue, yellow, and green.

his stomach churns painfully at the whiff of yakitori at a stall nearby, careful eyes darting around for a morsel of a chicken scrap before he’s shooed away by a swat of an angry stall owner.

eventually, he does manage to find his way back to the apartment complex.

you're outside by the time he arrives at the apartment complex, setting down the bowl for the two regulars who are eagerly awaiting for their meal by your doorstep. he pads closer, stopping right before getting too close.

and then that's when you notice him.

a cat with fur as white as snow outside of your front door, akin to a head of hair you'd looked forward to seeing. despite his dirtied fur, you can tell that he's not a street cat like the two that roamed around the apartment complex. the poor thing probably ended up getting lost.

satoru takes a sniff from the bowl, the overwhelming stench of salmon nearly enough to make him hack up a hair ball ahead of time. but his stomach rumbles again—a stark reminder that all he’s had today is a cup of sugary coffee and a bite of stale overpriced mochi from one of the vending machines.

he steps in when the other two cats are done eating, taking a tentative nibble from the kibble presented to him. it's dry, crunching against his canines, and he's not sure if it's the hunger or the change in taste buds, but the food's the best thing he's tasted as of yet. he scarfs down the remainder of the kibble on the plate,

the two cats that came in for their daily dinner had already left, going off to find somewhere to sleep for the night. but the white cat remained outside of your door, you can't feel any chip underneath his fur, no kind of collar on his neck. “where’d you come from, sweetheart?”

“meow.” you’re not sure what other response you expected.

the white cat’s back arches, rubbing its side against your pajama pants. his ears move back like an airplane, practically purring like the motor of one. your fingers reach out to pet the top of his head only for your attempt to get rejected with a bat of his soft paws.

he wants to keep getting closer, you notice, watching as he's comfortably rubbing against you but he's too afraid to let himself be pet. you linger by the door for a little while before making your way back inside, leaving the door wide open.

the perfect opportunity, really. satoru scurries into your apartment before you manage to shut the door, giving you a quiet 'meow.'

“you can’t stay here tonight, i don’t have the things to take care of you.” even your protest was weak, you can’t bring yourself to kick him out when he’s shivering. cold and dirty.

the cat’s head tilts to the side, almost like he understood everything you were saying before pawing at your leg. you could feel yourself giving in to the furry creature with each passing second. “…okay. i won’t kick you out.”

his gaze is critical as he looks into your apartment, your living room composed of a grey futon and a tv propped up on a couple of dusty old books. there’s a half dead succulent on your windowsill (how you managed to do that, satoru doesn’t know) and a bookshelf full of novels.

“okay, shiro. i’m gonna put down a blanket just for tonight and then.. we’ll see what to do tomorrow.” you put down a cinnamoroll blanket down on the floor, the cat splaying across it. you’re nearly tempted to wrap him up in a burrito—deciding against it.

the lights are shut off and you retreat into your bedroom, leaving the cat alone with the sound of rushing traffic as a lullaby. it takes a while for him to fall asleep, wrinkling up the blanket from how much he’s turned at this rate.

and when he does fall asleep, it’s anything but relaxing. anything but blissful.

gojo, or shiro as you've dubbed him despite your insistence not to get attached, wakes up in the middle of the night with the sound of screams echoing through his head. toji. he can't remove the image from his head, can't force himself to go back to sleep. he sees the man every time he closes his eyes.

it isn't long before you're woken up from your sleep, a incessant scratching against your door. you think about ignoring it, about going back to sleep, but each meow just sounds more pitiful than the last. "okay, i'm up," you mumble, reluctantly shoving your blanket off.

opening the door, you're met with the sight of the fluffy little menace staring back at your half asleep state. he doesn't try to scram away or scratch at your arms when you pick him up, curling up against your chest.

“you’re okay,” your reassuring whispers do well to ease his mind, his paws kneading into your chest. setting him down on the bed, he chooses to lay down as closely as he can to you. even opting to lay on your pillow, his furry face against yours.

satoru shiro hasn’t slept that well in ages.

———

you don't see satoru again after yesterday. no more coincidental encounters, no more questions that had you giggling into your pillow at midnight. just pure silence.

you thought about knocking on his door, maybe once or twice. just out of pure concern—you haven't heard the jingle of his keys or his lights come on. but what would he think? that his awkward neighbor can't get the hint he's not interested? you couldn't deal with that embarrassment.

shiro had started taking up most of your time despite his short time in the apartment, demanding to be close to you at nearly every time possible. mounting up on the kitchen counter while you were brewing your morning coffee half asleep. pawing the bathroom door and peering into your soul while you were trying to do your business.

every corner you turned, shiro was there. even after he’d attempted to scratch your arms off after you gave him a bath, he still clung on next to you.

you spent nearly half of the morning before you had to get to work calling local animal shelters, seeing if there were any reports of a white fur menace missing. there weren't. keeping him would mean a massive responsibility, one you'd never had to deal with before. and yet you can't stomach the thought of dropping him off at the pound.

which is exactly how you found yourself at petsmart with a cart full of necessities, from an electronic litter box to heart shaped salmon treats.

"what kinda toy do you want?" you hold up two toy mice, each one infused with catnip. he paws at the one at the right and you toss it into the cart. each choice had been selected by the cat, letting him paw at what collar he wanted to get and what bed he wanted to lay in.

just to spite you, you’re certain, he chooses the most fucking expensive bed on the shelf. tempurpedic my ass. “come on, you don’t want this one?” you point to a small bed, one imprinted with little cats on the side.

shiro doesn’t move. he licks his paws on the tempurpedic bed, unrelenting towards giving up the bed. how a street cat could be such a goddamn diva. a quiet sigh leaves your lips before you end up picking it off the shelf, setting it down in the cart.

almost 80,000¥ and you were on your way back home, shiro in your passenger seat with one of your toys. your music gets interrupted by an incoming call, your ringtone blasting through the car. “hey.”

“hey!” your friend shoko calls out, already tipsy at three in the afternoon, “we’re going out for drinks on friday. you should come!”

satoru stops messing around with the mouse on his lap, finding himself clinging onto every bit of your conversation.

“oh, i’m not s-”

“come on! you’ve been obsessing over your neighbor long en-” oh?

“i’m not obsessing over my neighbor.” you protest, your grip on the steering wheel just a little bit tighter.

“you totalllyyy are. come on, it’ll be nice to get out of the house. maybe get laid.”

a defeated groan leaves your lips. this call wasn’t to ask if you wanted to go, it was to let you know you were going. “if i go, will you drop it?”

“absolutely.”

throughout the next couple days, shiro starts settling down in your apartment with much more ease than you’d originally expected. the electronic litter box? he only bat at it once before he got the hang of it. he didn’t try knocking any of the little plates you had, didn’t demand much other than being walked at exactly 6:36 p.m.

that, and well, he’d chosen to sleep in the room next to you. the tempurpedic bed was situated right on the foot of your bed, leaving shiro with little space between the two of you. he’d taken to watching some of the shows you’d put on tv like he was genuinely interested in getting to know you—despite that he couldn’t see them all that well.

the last week had been nothing but bliss for satoru, getting to relax from his responsibilities at zen’in and learn more about the shy neighbor. and then came friday.

“i’m gonna leave on finding nemo for you, okay? pretend they’re a seafood boil or something.” the bright colors were some he could finally see, the shape of the fish visible. you looks over to see you’d left out your outfit for the night, one that would for sure warrant attention and a couple stares.

he had to act fast.

despite your earlier insistence, you find yourself excited to go out with your friends for the night. maybe not to get laid. but to get your mind off satoru once and for all, to quit obsessing over every conversation you’d shared. you even find yourself lighting up a few candles and tossing a bath bomb in the water.

the tight dress you’d managed to get on discount from your last trip to the mall is now in scraps, adorning your bedsheets like red confetti. it was supposed to be a sinful sight, hugging your curves like a second skin, not a risk of a public indecency charge.

your eye twitches at the scene in front of you, turning to look over at the culprit. if he were a dog, you’re sure his tail would be wagging at this very instant.

but no, the white ball of fur stares up at you with an expression you could only describe as defiant, his paw reaching out to claw at the scraps once more. you scoop up the remains of your dress the best you can, dialing shoko’s number.

“i won’t be able to show up.” shoko senses the seriousness in your voice, much more serious than your usual excuses, and decides to let it slide. inviting you to the next one and assuring there weren’t any worries.

on a friday night at 11 pm, you find yourself watching finding nemo with an overly possessive cat and flavored water instead of tequila. not exactly your ideal way to spend a perfectly good evening—watching your the cat swat at every fish that popped up on the screen, but it wasn’t that bad. it was better than being in a pair of uncomfortable heels and waiting to be approached, that much was certain.

shiro, the stubborn ball of fluff that he is, refuses to lay down on the finest bed petsmart could offer. choosing instead to plop right in the middle of your bed, licking his paws like he paid all the bills in this apartment. you tried nearly everything, from setting him down on the bed to trying to coax him in with a squeezable. and yet, nothing worked.

eventually, you settled for having shiro sleep on your bed for the night.

"can you scoot over?" you found yourself reluctantly asking, waiting for shiro to move over. the cat in question merely blinked up at you, letting out a lazy meow. he didn’t move. not even when you tried to nudge him, when you tried to push him away. you settled for sleeping on the edge of the bed, nearly dangling off the mattress.

but even if you don’t cuddle with him that night, at least you didn’t go out. that’s enough to have him sleeping peacefully throughout the night.

———

you're not sure if your wet dreams have come to life or if you're hallucinating, but satoru gojo's sprawled out on your bed. shirtless with a cinnamoroll blanket covering his lower body. he’s blissfully asleep, the morning sun peering in through your curtains almost making him seem ethereal.

his limbs are sprawled out, his back turned to face you. a couple muscles ripple underneath his movements, few beauty marks painting his skin like a constellation. his hair’s tousled, you have to be dreaming, you have to be d-“OW!” okay, that pinch felt a little too real to be a dream.

still, you’re not certain what else could possibly explain what satoru’s doing butt ass naked (allegedly) in your bedroom. he slowly begins to stir, a lazy yawn leaving from his lips.

"morning," he speaks up, his voice a low rasp in the early hours of the morning. probably from going the past few days without saying anything other than 'meow.' still, he acts as if nothing's amiss. like waking up in your bedroom is something ordinary.

you blink slowly, still waiting for the off chance that cameras are coming out from the corner to zoom in on your face. 'prank!' there are no cameras. just the light hum of your air conditioning in the background, the soft sunlight bathing the room golden, and the dip of your mattress where satoru's laying at.

with shiro nowhere to be seen, the pitter patter of his paws against the hardwood floors nowhere to be heard. "w-what are you doing here?" you manage to speak up after a few seconds, pulling your blanket closer to you.

it sounds so ridiculous you can't help but believe him. you still expect to see shiro pop his fluffy head in through your bedroom door, but the cat never comes. “i dunno why i transformed back, must’ve been naoya’s dumbass…” he murmured to himself, making mental notes about the experiment.

"but i thought you didn't like me,” you suddenly speak up in the middle of his spiel, a small pout on your lips. “i thought you didn’t like our conversations, that you were just doing out of pity.”

"i don’t do anything out of pity. i looked forward to every single one of our conversations," satoru moves closer, taking your hands and intertwining them with his. the small contact shouldn't have your heart beating against your chest. “even with your garbage on my shoes, i liked you.

“let me show you just how much i like you.”

the first kiss you exchange with your neighbor happens gently, a soft brush of his rosy lips against yours. his forehead rests against yours, his eyes searching for any hint of uncertainty within your face. he doesn't find any. the only thing he finds is the same kind of unabashed want that courses through his mind.

only then is that he finally leans in. your eyes flutter shut, your nose bumping against his when you lean in. "whoops," he lets out a little groan, his lips jutted out into a small pout. a quiet laugh leaves your chest, your fingers moving to the back of his head, nails raking against his undercut that has his dick stirring underneath your covers. 

"take as lon-” you're instantly shut up by the feel of his lips against yours, a confession stronger than words could convey. 

every slow peck of his lips moving lower and lower feels like its own act of devotion, of reverence. his hands move down your sides like he's holding an antique, goosebumps on your arms when his fingertips slide underneath the material of your pajama shirt.

his fingers glide up, tracing your navel like a fine line before moving up. he cupped your breasts in his hand, his thumb rubbing against your peaked nubs. his mouth was everywhere it could reach, kissing your collarbone before moving down. “prettiest thing i’ve ever seen,” he all but lets out a moan, his lips latching onto whatever skin he could, “best thing i’ve ever tasted, too.”

your thighs press together, cunt fluttering against nothing but the material of your panties. satoru slips off your shirt, a small whistle leaving him at the sight of you. “just like i said. prettiest thing ever.”

his lips latch onto your tits, your back arching like a bow underneath the swipe of his tongue against your areola. his thumb rolls and squeezes against the other, giving both the same kind of attention. saliva drools from the corner of his mouth, his eyes fluttering shut in complete bliss.

“show me how you touched yourself to the thought of me, princess,” he breathes against your neck, pulling away to pepper kisses against the sensitive skin. you shiver against each one, attuned to every single movement of his mouth.

“is this for science?” you find yourself asking, head cocked to the side.

“yeah, strictly for science.”

your fingers pulled down your pajama pants along with your slick ridden panties, pushing them off your legs. tentatively, you spread to show yourself off to satoru. the sight makes him lick his lips, your puffy folds slick and dripping just at the thought of him.

his cock twitched at the sight, precum dripping and smearing onto the covers. the thought of having you to himself was overwhelming, to have you enveloped around him, but he needed to wait. patience was a virtue, after all.

you move your hand down your body, moving torturous inch by inch before you finally reach your dripping cunt. you don’t touch yourself immediately, your fingers run down your inner thighs, squeezing and rubbing against the sensitive skin. “thought about your big fingers doing this instead,” you admit through a breathy moan, “your hair buried between my thighs, tickling against me while you ate me out.”

satoru lets out a breathy laugh, his eyes focused on how your fingers now move to your folds. you swipe your slick up and downnn the expanse of your cunt, rubbing some of it onto your clit. “what else about my fingers?”

you rub your fingertips against your folds, smearing more of yourself onto them. “thought about you doing t—ah!” two of your fingers dip inside, wetness coating them down to your knuckles, “—this.”

your fingers move in and out of your sopping cunt at a slow pace, opening yourself up in front of him. head falling back against the pillow, you curl your fingers justtt right, hitting that spot almost two inches in. “pictured y-you just like this,” you moan out, hips bucking against your fingers, pushing them even deeper. you imagined that wouldn’t be a problem for him.

satoru brings your damp fingers up to his lips, his tongue darting out to taste the slick sticking to your fingers. he wrapped his lips around the two digits, letting out a muffled moan as he bottomed down to your knuckle. a little too good. he swiped to taste every drop that remained on your digits, savoring it with much more ease than the salmon treats he’d been eating these past few days. “so perfect. look and taste good, let me taste you, please?”

“y-yeah, go ahead.” satoru doesn’t move immediately, staring at your pussy like a fine piece at a museum before kneeling in between your legs. just like in every fantasy you’d had so far. you’re tempted to shut your legs, growing bashful underneath his critical stare.

but he simply pries your legs apart with his hands, leaving you like a meal on display. “let me say thank you for my food first,” he clears his throat dramatically, “bless the dinosaur that died to make the fossil fuel that was treated to become gasoline in the car that took your mom to the hospital to give birth to you.”

he moves to take off his glasses before he delves in, only to be stopped by your hand wrapping around his wrist. "keep them on," the request left you before you could think twice, adding a quiet, "please."

satoru gives a short nod before he moves like a man starved, his tongue swiping across your slick folds. your hand flies down to his hair, tugging at the snowy white strands. each breath he inhales through his nose fogs up his glasses, his eyes fluttered shut as his nose nudges your clit.

“f-fuck, just like that, satoru!” your hips buck into his eager mouth, his tongue flicking in and out of your gushing cunt. he slurps every drop you’ve spilled, spitting it back out before lapping and sucking it back again.

his hips buck into the mattress, getting off on every shaky breath, every moan, every tug of his hair. two of his fingers take place of his tongue, much thicker and longer than yours. you drip around his fingers, filthy squelch after another echoing with each thrust of his fingers.

gojo’s tongue circles around your clit, alternating between sucking on the throbbing nub like his favorite lollipop or rolling the pink muscle in a variety of shapes. his fingers curled, tips hitting your g-spot with each push of his fingers. “so, so good, just wanna stay here forever,” he babbled, drunk off the taste of you (a much better substance in his opinion), “gonna make you my wife, at this rate. don’t even have to move that far.”

your toes curled, the grip you had on his hair now iron tight. “j-just next door,” you babble, equally drunk off pleasure. you feel that familiar pressure building in your lower abdomen, your cunt clenching around his fingers like a second heartbeat. the pressure built built built up with each swipe of his tongue, with each push of his fingers, before it reached its peak.

“c-cumming, gonna cum,” you let out a warning, your cunt doing most of the speaking regardless. your orgasm washes over you merely seconds later, coating his lips and his fingers in your release. he laps it away like a man starved, pushing you to the brink of overstimulation before pulling away.

you taste yourself when he leans into kiss you, a kiss full of saliva and tongue and teeth and everything the first one wasn’t. while that one had been gentle, a means to explore your feelings towards one another, this one was sloppy. a kiss of pure want and need, kissing you like you’d fade away if he didn’t. like he needed the contact as much as the oxygen entering his lungs.

"please sweetheart, need to feel you, i'll make you feel you so good, i promise." having you cum over his fingers isn't enough for him. he wants to bury himself inside, feel you clench around his cock, coat it with your slick.

you reach out, sliding his glasses off the bridge of his nose. you wiped them off with the utmost care in the world before setting them down on the table next to you. “need you just as badly, ‘toru.” if he were a snake, he would’ve already been hypnotized by how sweet your request sounded, a much better charm than a flute.

he didn’t hesitate in pushing the covers off his lower body, exposing himself fully to you. he was more muscular than you’d expected, his biceps rippling as he shoves the blankets away. his body’s littered in a few freckles here and there, the prettiest of constellations. a white trail of hair leads you down to what is possibly the best dick you’ve seen.

you didn’t expect for one to look this pretty—much too accustomed to the ones taken in low exposure rooms, toes curled at the end of the photograph. but no, satoru’s pretty in every sense of the word. his dick’s long—8 or 9 inches if you had to guess—curving to the right. the tip’s a flushed pink, dripping splat after splat of precum onto your sheets.

he doesn’t give you much time to admire, though. he’s already wrapping a hand around the base, swiping the tip against your folds. nudging it against your clit. up and down, letting your slick coat the head before he slowly pushed it inside. pushing against that initial ring of resistance.

“biggg stretch, there we go,” a hiss escaped from his lips, feeling your walls squeeze against him tightly. he had to close his eyes, refusing to look down at you. he knew that if he did, that would be all it would take for him to bust.

satoru placed your legs on his shoulders, slowly starting to move his hips forward. pushing inch by inch inside with each thrust, up until he could see his tip bulging in your lower tummy. he starts off slow, his hands gripping your waist while his cock retracts.

your walls stretch to accommodate to the size, taking the mold of his cock so fucking well. he grinds against you deep, letting you feel every inch of him before he pulls away. it’s what you need at first—to be able to take him in, but you find yourself growing needier with each one.

“toru?” your voice broke him out of the trance, hazy blues meeting your own glazed over gaze.

“yes, baby?”

“you can go faster. wanna feel you, please.” every last bit of his self control snapped then.

satoru broke out into a cheshire like grin, making you instantly regret your ask, “y-yeah, anything for you, sweetheart.”

*PLAP* *PLAP* *PLAP*

the sound of your skin slapping against his own, the sound of your moans and his shaky breaths filled the room, mixing in with the heavy stench of sex and your headboard smacking against the thin walls. satoru’s grip on your thighs tightened, his fingers digging into you while he used your cunt how he pleased.

“that fast enough for you, baby?” satoru taunted, a smirk on his face. the sight in front of him was nothing short of perfect—from the way your jaw fell taut, drool leaking out from the corner of your lips with each punishing thrust. all the way down to the way your tits bounced, each bounce nearly putting him in a hypnosis.

“yes yes, fuck!” your hands dug into the bedsheets underneath as a lifeline, something to cling onto. you could even feel the slight curve to the left, each vein grazing your walls.

“y-yeah? you’re feeling good? just need you to feel good, fuck, fuck, you just keep milking my dick, it’s all yours.” you could only nod in response, his cock drilling out every thought. your walls squeezed around him, toes curling against his back. you didn’t have to give him any warning this time—he simply knew.

“so good, so good,” you babbled like a broken record, his dick hitting your g-spot like a target. bulls-eye every time. your legs wrap around his waist, holding him tightly against you. his hips snap into yours with fervor, your nails digging into his back in the most delicious way possible.

“suck for me.” satoru prodded his thumb against your bottom lip. you instinctively parted your lips, swirling your tongue around it and sucking on it. all while keeping your eyes on him. he could’ve sworn you were trying to kill him now. his thumb glistened with your saliva when you pulled away.

“ah fuck! keep going, keep going!” satoru rubbed quick circles against your clit, his own thrusts starting to grow sloppier and sloppier. heavy balls smacked against your ass with each push of his hips, one of his feet propped up against the mattress for an angle that had your eyes rolling back.

“n-need to feel you cummin’ around me sweetheart, need you to do it first,” satoru whines against your neck, your walls tightening around his shaft. his thumb rubs against your swollen clit, each snap of his hips sloppier and quicker than the last. “cum for me, please. need to feel you, need to make you feel good.”

your pussy clamps down on him like a vice, walls snug against every inch. his hips stagger and stutter, unable to keep up. his balls grow heavy, his chest heaves, each thrust pushing him closer to cumming. but he can’t think about that—you come first.

the pressure this time grows with a vengeance, much more brazen than your last orgasm. your back arches off the bed, chest pressed against his. your lips part into an ‘o,’ “gonna come, satoru, gonna cum gonna cum!” your orgasm spurts out of you, soaking him and his shaft completely.

satoru kisses you again, his tongue moving in synchrony with yours. “not gonna last, pussy’s too good, f-fuck!” snowy strands dust across your face, a moan slipping into your mouth as he cums. white spurts paint your insides, his release filling you to the brim and then some.

he slips out of your pussy with a 'pop', shoving back the cum smearing down your thighs in milky trails with two thick fingers. he moves around your bedroom with expertise (you suppose that's warranted), running a rag under your bathroom sink. he wrings out the excess water before he moves back in between your legs, his touch featherlight as he wipes away at your thighs.

the bed dips when he lays down, one of his hands splayed out across your middle. strangely enough, this feels much more intimate than the moment you’d just shared. he holds you close, kissing the top of your head. “i meant what i said, i really do like you, neighbor.”

“you’ve been balls deep inside of me. are you still calling me neighbor?”

that makes him pause. “fair point.”

“but, i really do like you too,” you let out a yawn, snuggling closer to him. he’s warm, akin to a human furnace, “i think i’m gonna miss shiro though.”

"if you miss shiro so much, i'll put on a pair of cat ears and meow for you, sweetheart," satoru muses, drawing a couple circles against your thigh with his finger, “quit my job and become your personal cat.”

your mother claimed you’d come out the womb with a white coat on and a stethoscope in hand, your father would show off your awards, your medals, your trophies to whoever would listen about how brilliant his little girl was. teachers would vie against each other in hopes it’d be their classroom you’d step in, in their classroom that you’d excel and shine in.

since you’d turned seven, you knew what you wanted to be. it was an innocent career fair, of all things, a way to show kids what type of jobs they could pursue. firefighters, vets, police officers, office workers, and more showed up to talk about their experiences and answer all types of questions.

turns out dalmatians weren’t a complimentary perk of fire fighting. huh.

what really captured your attention, however, had been the doctor that showed up. her display hadn’t been as showy as the other people that went up before—there had been no flashy powerpoint with three hundred transitions, no kind of gift for listening in. just a realistic figure of a brain and a dream.

“hello everyone.” her voice was warm, gentle as she spoke. but she wasn’t talking down to you, like most adults tended to do. you liked her already. “i’m here to talk about my job as a doctor. i specialized as a neurologist at tokyo tech and i’ve just started as an attending.” most of the kids next to you were either doodling on the margin of their notebook, drawing stick figures and eyes, or they were simply just not bothering to pay attention.

but you leaned forward in your seat, your back straight as a pin as you watched intently. “this part of the brain’s called the cerebellum.” she points to the back of the brain, underneath the cerebrum. “it acts sort of as a little brain and it’s responsible for controlling your movements. most of the cases i get are either from trauma or a tumor, my most complicated one was actually five years ago…”

since then, you’d been determined in what career you wanted to pursue. there wasn’t any moment of self doubt, of waking up one day and realizing you’ve been chasing after a dream you no longer want to do. it started off simple, cutting up your plush animals and pretending to do surgery on them, stitching them back to health (and stabbing your fingers 3000 times in the process).

throughout middle school, you started as many preparatory ap courses you could take, piling up more and more work onto your load until you’re eventually buried in books. pre-ap algebra, pre-ap history, pre-ap english, you were doing it all.

that workload only intensified during high school. while many of your classmates were enjoying their last couple teenage years, you were buried in sat prep books and collegeboard textbooks that weighed your backpack down by twenty pounds.

when you weren’t at school, you were either at the library or going out to volunteer with cleaning up a beach or helping out at a soup kitchen. getting more than the necessary hours to fulfill your requirements, padding your resume into making you the ideal candidate. into making you one they just simply couldn’t refuse.

doing sports you never would’ve entertained under normal circumstances, joining groups you had a semblance of interest for to have something to list on your college application. stretching yourself out to fit into every slot you’ve signed up—to make it to every team meeting, every volunteering session, every tutoring session. exhaustion weighed heavily in your bones, dark circles practically engraved underneath your eyes.

tokyo tech’s prestigious, hard to get into if you weren’t legacy or had enough money to pad the university’s board. their university was essentially a feeder school into some of the best medical schools in the country. but you managed to get in, with a 4.5 gpa, a list of extracurriculars trailing almost a mile long, and a hefty stack of recommendations (after begging for months).

there was nothing in your way to getting into medical school. if you were determined in high school, you were much more determined now. practically living in and out of your school’s café, fueled by caffeine and spite to go through whatever mcat prep book you could find and still get your assignments done at least three weeks prior to the due date.

and yet, your intro to neuro professor seems keen on destroying that very goal. you’re certain of it.

“good afternoon class.” the class falls silent upon dr. yaga’s arrival, a couple students managing to trickle in as inconspicuously as possible before he shut the door. there was no room for tardiness, no room for any bullshit in his class. many dropped out before he’d even finished going through the syllabus first day.

his footsteps echoed through the auditorium, each one purposeful and determined. the promethium sparks to life, this week’s powerpoint up on the screen. “we will be working on a group project—” a chorus of groans erupts from the back, though a stern glare from dr. yaga has them quickly shutting up.

you’re not much of a fan either. people usually take too long to organize, to figure out what they want to do, just to end up doing a half assed attempt of what’s supposed to be their part of the project. or they usually make you feel like you’re intruding when you do go to ask to be a part. needless to say, you’re already dreading it.

“i will be selecting your partners for this assignment and it involves studying injuries to the brain and how it affects each function. for example, concussions, contusions, strokes, inflammation, each one of your groups will be responsible for choosing one and what part you want to focus on.

“you have a month to work on this assignment before you have to present. i don’t care how you divide the work amongst yourselves, i need everyone to work equally on the project though.” hands shot up immediately after he was done speaking, an exasperated sigh leaving your professor’s lips.

most of the questions are repeats of what he’s already stated, his annoyance clear with each one he has to answer. “alright, if that’s all, i will now be assigning you to your groups. there will be no changes done to this, so don’t bother asking.” the last line’s directed towards you.

he starts off listing off names, the people in question already starting to move to their designed partner. chairs scrape against the floor, conversations are whispered while everyone’s slowly starting to get their space set up. your ears perk up at the mention of your name, leaned over against your desk to hear him clearly. there’s not many options left, but you hope it’s a decent one at the very least.

anyone but naoya zen’in at this rate. you’re not certain you’ll make it to graduation inside of a prison cell.

“suguru geto.”

the pencil in your grasp snaps between your fingers, pieces of splintered wood splattering across your once pristine workspace.

—

you don’t have a reason to hate suguru geto, not really. he hasn’t done anything to personally offend you or your bloodline, hasn’t done anything but meet your competitive streak with a simple, calm smile. with an easiness you could only wish to achieve in this lifetime.

it was infuriating, nonetheless.

the way suguru geto never had to bury his face into a book, never had to study, never had to show up to class with anything other than a mechanical pencil and a pink eraser to achieve the same things you did.

everything came naturally to him.

photography? the rule of thirds was practically encoded into his dna, lighting and background perfect around his subject each and every time. breaking the rule came just as easily, the man capable of creating perfect symmetry without focusing too deeply on the subject.

biology? suguru geto didn’t need to show up to class unless he needed to do a quiz, mastering the function of each organ without needing to open up a textbook. finishing up two hour quizzes in twenty minutes, labeling the humerus, femur, radius, and ulna without a bit of hesitation.

making friends? he didn’t even have to try to engage in conversation, people just naturally gravitated towards him like planets to the sun. wanting to talk with him, wanting to listen to him, they all just wanted a chance to be able to be around his proximity. it was almost a cult-like following.

everything you needed to work on, that you needed to pour energy and effort into, he excelled in.

“okay, now go on and meet up with your group partner. exchange contact info, talk to one another, figure out what you want to do, all that.” professor yaga retreats from the podium over to his desk, taking a seat in front of his computer. the projector shuts off, leaving everyone to whisper amongst themselves.

you don’t stand up, slowly putting your stuff away. opening your backpack up at a snail’s pace, putting your laptop inside. suguru stands up from his spot at the top, quickly descending to the front. “hey.” he approaches your desk, taking a seat next to you.

geto inches closer to you, placing his laptop and notebook in front of him. in a sea of overwhelming axe body spray and dior sauvage, he’s calming. a velvety, warm aroma of sandalwood and bergamot makes itself known as he leans in, the scent lingering long after he’s pulled away. you hate yourself for how much you like it.

you clear your throat, forcing yourself to focus. there’s no need for introductions, no need to act friendly, “so i was thinking we could do the effects of stroke on the motor cortex and how it affects muscle movements,” you don’t hesitate in speaking up, watching as suguru already starts to type it up in a word document. at least he’s efficient.

“sounds good, you wanna meet up today?” geto looks up from his laptop, amethyst eyes meeting your own, “i know you’re busy and all. don’t want to intrude on your schedule.”

you were busy. you had to finish up studying for a quiz and finish up another project before this afternoon. but you suppose you could spare a few hours, if only for your grade. “we’ll meet up at the library at four pm. don’t be late.” you don’t give him a chance to respond, leaving right after the clock hit 12:30. he’s left scrambling to pick up his stuff while everyone else follows suit.

—

you’re already at the library by the time suguru geto steps in through the doors. sitting at the second floor on a table near the window, not enough for the sun to scorch your body, but just close enough where the space feels warm, that it feels like a blanket’s engulfed around your body. there’s a textbook in your hands, a notebook decorated in pink and blue highlighter next to you.

you almost look approachable from this distance, completely at ease in your element. lazily flipping through the pages, skimming through each paragraph before you’re annotating a couple notes down. suguru doesn’t go up just yet, taking the time to admire you from afar. how the sun he knows that as soon as he steps up, you’ll have your guard back up again.

the smell of caffeine makes you raise your head, looking over to see suguru placed a cup in front of you. “didn’t know which one you preferred so i settled for vanilla with three sugars,” he explains, taking a seat right in front of you. he's quick to take out his stuff, setting down his cup of tea next to him.

“thank… you.” your lips twist awkwardly as you force the words to come out, feeling a physical pain in your chest, even if they’re nothing more than a whisper. suguru seems to hear them all the same, giving you a curt nod. it’s disgusting, it’s humiliating, and it’s really fucking good??

bringing the cup to your lips, your taste buds are engulfed by the sweet taste of vanilla and creamer. it’s better than the coffee you’re used to from the watered down excuse from the student lounge.

suguru pretends not to notice the little pleased smile on your face, choosing instead to bask in it for as long as you’d allow him to. it’s the only time you’ve looked like you tolerated being here.

“are you capable enough of explaining the motor cortex while i take care of the research or do i have to do everything?” and just like that, your attitude returns. like you’ve suddenly remembered you’re supposed to hate him.

his eyes narrow as he meets your sudden glare, “i’m capable of doing the bare minimum, yes.” pulling out his notebook, you’re instantly drawn to the very detailed illustrations on his journal, his handwriting neat and precise. suguru skims through his notes on the primary motor cortex, long, slim fingers trailing behind the page with each word he reads.

nothing about him is sloppy, you’ve come to notice. his hair’s carefully tucked away from his face, his clothes are without creases, even his converse are miraculously clean. you force yourself to look away before he notices your lingering gaze, staring at your computer.

silence clung onto your quiet space of the library, only the sound of your taps against your keyboard echoing around the space. you’ve been scanning through abstracts for what seems to be an eternity, trying to find articles worth using in your project. the words start to mesh into one big times new roman blob.

the sun’s set by the time you’ve finished your session for the day, students trickling out the doors one by one. a few still linger on the tables, the sharp fluorescent from their computer screen only highlighting each and every one of their exhausted features.

rubbing a hand over your eyes, you’re forcing yourself to stay focused. to keep reading the paragraph in front of you—hemiparesis, studies show recovery after stroke is most effective in the first three to six months, neuroplasticity… “you want something to eat?” the question breaks you out of your stupor, looking up to see geto starting to pack up already.

he expects a protest at first, a why the hell would i endure more than necessary with you? but to his surprise, you merely shrugged, “sure. i get to pick the place, though.” you’d be stupid not to bank in on a chance to get free food, especially when you can hear your stomach growling in the silent halls of the library.

—

suguru wholeheartedly expects you to drain his pockets, expects you to pick an expensive restaurant where reservations are a three month wait, where the menus don’t have the prices next to them, and chandeliers glisten overhead in dizzying glamour.

but you settle for a small ramen shop not to far off campus, tucked away in a corner. it’d be hard to miss if you weren’t looking for it. a bell chimes overhead upon your arrival, the rich scent of broth and vegetables permeating through the air with each step you took inside.

one of the shop owners stepped out from the back, approaching you with a tight embrace. “we’ve missed you around here. you don’t show your face too much anymore,” she jests with a small, wistful sigh. you’ve been neglecting coming over, often finding yourself too tired to make the walk over, resigned to cooking yourself cheap ramen.

she doesn’t seem to linger on it for too long—turning to look over at geto, a bright smile immediately taking over her features. she doesn’t hesitate in embracing him in the same tight hug, “ooh, you finally got yourself a boyfriend. he’s real handsome.”

the idea nearly makes you recoil in your spot. “he’s not my bo-”

“thank you onēsan,” geto’s quick to interrupt your previous protest, a shit eating grin on his face when you turn to look at him. if looks could kill, he’s certain he’d be six feet under right now. but, alas, you’re not that powerful (yet), so you simply follow behind the two over to a small booth in the back.

the lights are dimmed down, the shadows playing over each crevice of his face. it’s too warm, too intimate. “what would you like to order?” you don’t need to flip through the menu brochure, “i’ll get your tsukumi soba, please.”

geto spends a few seconds scanning through the menu, reading over one side before flipping it around. “your beef yakisoba, please.” she takes away your menus, retreating into the back to get the noodles started up. ambient music plays in the background, your fingers tapping against the table. it’s still for a minute, quiet.

he breaks the silence first, gesturing to the space around you, “so can i ask why you picked this place?”

you purse your lips, pretending to be deep in thought before uttering, “no, you cannot.”

“alright then.” geto’s not sure why he expected another response to you, why he expected that one dinner would be enough to change your mind about him.

you merely raise a brow, unimpressed. “do you give up so easily on your endeavors?”

“no,” he’s quick to defend, “i just don’t want to risk making you uncomfortable.”

you can’t believe you’re letting suguru know you on a more intimate level, already regretting the words before you’re even speaking. “i chose this place because the owner’s been kind to me—” he perks up like a puppy at the information, so much for being nonchalant (he couldn’t be even if he tried), “—i came here when i didn’t have anything other than five bucks to my name. and even though the business isn’t doing so well, she covered the rest for me that day.

“i haven’t been here in a while. but i like to come whenever i have a little extra money and i have the time to.” you don’t add your father had been nearly laid off from his position at the time of the incident, leaving you scrambling to figure out how to pay rent on time, much less worry about an actual meal. the old woman had extended a hand of kindness where you weren’t expecting any.

geto clears his throat, “thank you for letting me know this little slice of you. it’s nice knowing you as something other than the valedictorian with a grudge.” you let out a noncommittal hum in response, watching as the old woman walked over with your food. you were welcomed by the earthy scent of the noodles, the aroma wafting throughout the table.

you could feel your mouth start to water before she even finished putting the plates down. “enjoy,” she tells you both, once again leaving you completely alone. there’s no rush when it comes to eating for either of you, no sense of urgency to get out. you blow on your noodles, twisting them around your chopsticks before taking a bite.

“so, are they up to your palate?” why you were making conversation with geto, you didn’t know. but nevertheless, you couldn’t exactly take the words back once they’d left your lips.

“they are. better than what i’m used to.” you savor each drop that lands on your tongue, each bite of the egg yolk that you take. it’s just the right amount of runny, the taste melding in perfectly with the broth. geto makes a few comments here in between about how good the beef is, how the noodles taste, and for once, you don’t find yourself wanting to smash a keyboard over his head.

you even make a few remarks yourself, about the different kinds of noodles that the shop offered. like you were already planning out to come here with him again. the thought should’ve been unsettling, should’ve been straight of your worst nightmares, but it wasn’t all too bad.

geto doesn’t hesitate in leaving a hefty tip behind when the check comes, earning a bright smile from the old lady. it seems she approves of him.

“do you want me to walk you back home?” he speaks up once you make it out of the shop, lingering on the street. it’s dark outside and you still had a long way to walk back home—but it’s just what you need. being in close proximity with geto has messed with your head enough, made him seem tolerable for one afternoon.

“i’d rather take my chances getting kidnapped,” you retort, already starting to walk away. he doesn’t linger for too long, walking away in the opposite direction. the walk back home is brisk, only a few cars passing by on the street, a nice chill in the air. it doesn’t take long for you to reach your building,

you’re certain you see a figure swinging away from the same direction geto had just headed in. you amount it to exhaustion, to your mind playing tricks on you. stepping inside your apartment, you’re welcomed to complete darkness—both of your parents already off to bed.

following suit, you drop your backpack off on the floor and get changed into your pair of pajamas as quietly as you can. you’ve barely managed to get into bed, to snuggle underneath your warm blanket, when your phone buzzes.

a message from geto.

geto: i hope you didn’t get kidnapped on your way home.

you: i’m sure that you’d be delighted to hear that, less competition for valedictorian after all.

geto: fair point. but then i’d have to do this project all by myself :(

you: i’m sure you’d be able to figure out if you rubbed your last two brain cells together

geto: i’m sure. good night.

—

as begrudging as it becomes to admit, you slowly start to get comfortable to having suguru around. to having your designed meet up at the library every monday and wednesday at four, being greeted with a warm cup of coffee and a kind of patience a saint would be jealous of.

it’s ridiculous. suguru doesn’t stoop as low as to meet your biting remarks with one of his own. he simply treats it with a calm smile, with a, “yeah, i’ll get that done.” when you bite out an order to do something.

“you’re more capable than i gave you credit for,” you remark, opening up the powerpoint to find that he’d settled on picking a nice theme. he’d picked up on where you left off last night with ease—sorting out your scrambled mess of notes into something feasible.

it was weird having someone you didn’t have to constantly be explaining yourself to. weird, but nice.

“well, you set a high bar. i, at least, have to make the effort to be worthy of working with you,” he retorts, reaching over. a quiet laugh escapes you, a sound he wants to bottle up just so he knows he’s not imaging it.

“your efforts are greatly appreciated.” you’re not sure when’s the last time you’ve been such at ease working on a group project. maybe never. you’re usually too stressed out trying to pick up where everyone else is lacking. plugging your earbuds on, you get back to reading through an article on motor functions.

“you should send me that playlist. for motivational purposes, of course,” suguru speaks up when you’re finished for the night. amongst corny science memes (from his part) and photos of cats he’s found on the street, you send him your playlist. showing him a glimpse of your soul—or at least what you like to listen to.

of course, it’s in alphabetical order. he finds himself playing each song, carefully listening to each of the lyrics. wondering what your thoughts were when listening, how you related to each one. your mind was a complex cavern, one that he intended to explore fully.

and across the city, you find yourself thinking about every interaction you’ve been having with him lately. about how he’s changed his brand of pencils to pentel 0.5mm in case you’d ever ask for one, the way his touch makes you feel like your body’s been electrocuted, how he’s memorized your coffee order by now.

you’re thinking too much about it, aren’t you? definitely. no way in hell you’re starting to develop feelings for suguru geto. you hate him. you hate him. you hate him.

and yet, why can’t you convince yourself of the fact?

“you’re acting weird. you okay?” suguru doesn’t hesitate to call you out, noticing you’ve been all too quiet during your session today. no biting remarks, no jokes, just silence. at first, it was comforting. now it just seems unsettling.

you nearly jump out of your seat, having been staring at the same word—and—for the past five minutes. you clear your throat, nodding. “i’m alright.” he’s not convinced but he lets it go. maybe you’re just having a bad day. you’re grateful he doesn’t try to ask any more questions, but… you miss the conversation.

fuck, you’re screwed.

—

suguru: can’t show up to our library session tonight, try not to miss me too much ;)

you’re not sure why you almost feel…disappointed at the news. it’s not like you wanted him to see that you’d put in more effort into dressing up today—that you’d ditched your (very comfortable) hoodie and sweats for a pair of jeans and a nice blouse you’d gotten on a discount rack. that you’d put on a dab of mascara and tinted gloss.

absolutely not. you didn’t care.

with nothing else to do around campus, you decide to head back home. flipping the tv on, you quickly come to find out each news channel’s covering the same segment—a giant lizard terrorizing the city while spider-man swings from building to building before jumping into action.

the hero picks up a decent looking buick, the expensive car practically weightless in his arms, tossing it over. it pierces through the air like a bullet, cameramen at the scene quickly panning their cameras to the zooming vehicle going at what seems to be a hundred miles per hour. it lands.

and spider-man misses. tossing it a mile past the point where the lizard’s crawling up a building, the car crashing into nothing but a mess of glass and debris. police sirens speed closer to the scene of the crime, thick clouds of grey smoke from the impact clouding up the atmosphere.

that’d be your last straw, you think. coming out of a late shift only to find your car completely totaled into smithereens. without so much as having some kind of insurance it’d be covered under.

luckily, it’s not you.

with that thought, you shut your tv off. choosing instead to work on some assignments, to work on converting radon mass into mols, to filling out equations that had more symbols than numbers on it. the hours pour over slowly, sun fading away into the shadows as night takes over.

there’s a knock on your window. you live on the third floor, that’s enough to unsettle you as it is. no one could get up here without using the fire escape, and that seemed like too much of a hassle just to rob you. right? another knock followed after the first, forcing you to get up from your spot.

shoving the curtains to the side, you’re met with the sight of spider-man outside your window. his suit’s ripped and tattered, exposing slivers of a blood streaked gash running down his chest. his chest heaves with each ragged and hoarse breath that leaves his lungs, a sharp pain digging through his ribs.

he leans against your windowsill, clutching a hand tightly against his stomach. his other hand reaches up, swiping at the constricting mask concealing his identity. black hair falls in long waves once its freed from its confines, a face you’re too familiar with meeting your gaze.

suguru. he leans his head back, a smear of blood marking his cheek. he’s never looked as hot as he did now—bleeding out and groaning at your windowsill. “hey, nice to see you again,” he lets out a breathy chuckle, “room looks cozy.”

there’s about a million questions bubbling in your head. how’d he manage to go to school and be the city’s hero? how’d he deal with the burden placed on his shoulders? still, there’s no time for you to be surprised. you have to act quick before he loses any more blood.

easing him into your bed, you get out your suturing kit with 140 pieces inside. pulling on a pair of gloves, you’re quick to get out what you need. a nylon needle, a silk piece of thread, some alcohol pads, and an advil just in case. “why’d you come to me?” you bring yourself to ask, pulling away at the sopping latex fabric.

it falls to your bedroom floor with an unceremonious plop, blood smearing onto your hardwood floors. you’d clean it up later. for now, you focus on evaluating the wound. the slash cut deep enough where stitches were necessary, but it seemed straight forward for the most part.

“you’re the only one in our program i trust not to drive a needle through a vein and stab me half to death,” he responds after a bit, his breathing labored as your hands squish the wound together. trying to make some sense of the ragged edges you’re trying to line up, of where you needed to poke the needle through.

“high praise,” you murmur, blood seeping and dripping from the rag you were delicately rubbing against his skin. cleaning him up as gently as possible, trying to avoid hurting the gash any more than necessary. any more than you needed to before the next step.

silence settles over your room as you draw the needle through his skin, piercing just deep enough to ensure it’d be sealed properly. forcing your trembling hands to steady, you get to work. sliding the needle through his skin, tightening the thread against each edge of the gash with each knot you do. it’s not perfect—you know that much, but it’s enough for right now.

“are you okay?” you’re the first one to break the silence tonight, gently wiping away at the streaks of crimson marring his scarred skin. blood dribbles and pours from the gash, quiet winces leaving his lips when you happen to press too hard.

a disgruntled, frustrated sigh leaves his lips, “no. the lizard escaped from me at last minute and i have no idea how to start looking for him.” taking your gloves off, you’re now faced with an incredibly hard decision. figuring out what suguru was going to wear.

you’re sure he’s bound to get questions if he walks out in a spider-man costume, digging through your cabinets to find something. an old pair of sweats that’s been too big and an oversized shirt. that’s good enough. “thanks.” suguru takes the clothes from you, quickly sliding them on.

“i’m sure you’ll find him. you’re nothing if not persistent,” you reassure, swiping away at a hair that covered his face. lightly, you dragged a clean rag through his cheeks, wiping away ruby colored streaks in three swipes. his gaze goes to your lips, your breath catches in your throat.

you’re too close. you should pull away, should tell him to leave and go back to studying. instead, you lean into the kiss. slowly and tentatively pressing your lips against his own, one of your hands coming to rest on his shoulder.

bruised hands settle on your waist, tugging you closer against his body. his lips brush against yours with all the patience in the world, the taste of him intoxicating up close. nothing else—not the city of new york, not the lizard—mattered. his lips locked against yours like a missing puzzle piece, slotting against yours perfectly.

“is this why you’ve been acting weird towards me?” suguru breathes out when he pulls away, forehead resting against your own. the proximity, of being mere inches apart, has heat rising up your neck, up to your face. everywhere you turned, he was there.

“yes,” your response comes out as a breathless whisper, his fingers drawing small lines against your arms. there’s no rush to the moment, no rush into pulling yourselves apart. a shiver runs down your spine as his touch ghosts even higher, leaving you wanting more.

hinges creak against themselves as soon as your bedroom door’s swung open, your father standing in the doorway. his eyes immediately narrowed at the sight of suguru plopped down on your bed, the two of you too close for comfort. you quickly scooted away, putting on a few inches of distance.

it wasn’t enough to erase his intrigue. with an exasperated huff, he rubbed a hand over his temples, “do you want to tell me why there’s a guy over this late? and with your door closed?” not particularly, but you figured it wasn’t as much as a question as an accusation.

“he…uh…” oh no, you hesitated. your father’s brows merely furrowed while you scrambled to find any reasonable excuse to have suguru geto in your bed at 10 pm. c’mon think think think. he’s getting suspicious.

suguru can practically see the wheels turning in your head, his teeth biting down on his lip to keep himself from snickering. your eyes dart from one corner of your room to the next, to your bed, to your nightstand before you take hold of the shut laptop next to you, blurting out, “he came to work on our project!”

“out!” your father exclaims just as soon as you’ve finished trying to find an excuse, “project my ass, we use the front door in this house for those.” he storms off into the living room, presumably to continue to continue watching his late night soccer game.

suguru let out a quiet laugh, leaning over to press a small kiss on your forehead. it doesn’t feel like enough after your admission, feels too small. but, it’s what you’ll have to make do for now. “for someone so smart, you sure are a bad liar, pretty girl.”

you’re left alone again.

you can’t focus on your project. the blank screen on your monitor burnt into your retinas, blinking cursor on the screen taunting you with each second that passes.

you can’t sleep either. you’ve tried. tossed and turned from one side to the next, throwing your leg over one of your prized plushies to no avail. you try counting sheep, you try listening to calming asmr in attempts it’d still your racing mind. nothing works. frustration boils deep in your gut, your thighs rubbing against one another.

you don’t think about suguru as just the guy you once hated and are now starting to develop a crush on, but you see him as spider-man too. see the responsibility that he takes on to protect the city, to ensure that people feel just a little bit safer walking down the streets while keeping up with school. while still managing to get you your coffee every day without so much as a protest.

the more that you get to know about him, the more that you realize that you’ve already fallen for him. tonight—that kiss—had just cemented the fact, your mind lingering on how soft he’d been. how gentle and reverent he’d treated you, being patient without treating you like you couldn’t handle it.

with a resigned sigh, you slowly began to trail your fingers down your navel. dragging your fingertips against the sensitive flesh, picturing geto’s long, digits as your eyes flutter shut. imagining his soft, plush lips making their way down your body the same you are, with an amount of reverence and tenderness.

you don’t dip your fingers inside your cunt just yet, rubbing yourself through the thin material of your panties, sliding your fingertips against your clothed slit, slowly starting to drip through the thin material. your fingers move up, rubbing at your neglected clit in small little circles.

deep in the back of his mind, suguru knows he’s not supposed to intrude on such a private moment. and yet, he can’t bring himself to leave.

he can hear footsteps up to five miles away, can hear every whispered conversation, and yet all he can focus on is the way your breath picks up, the sound of your cunt squelching around the fingers. on your rapid heartbeat thumping against your chest, on the whisper of his name that you thought left your lips into the dead of night.

wait, what?

“oh, fuck, suguru.” a breathless whisper leaves your lips, his ears perking up underneath the mask. he can practically taste you on his tongue with how intense the scent penetrates through your bedroom walls. his cock throbs in the latex, precum smearing onto the costume. that’s enough to get him sliding the costume down to his mid thighs, leaving him nearly exposed.

anybody could look up and see the city’s hero jerking himself off on the side of a building. that should’ve been enough to stop him, to make him wait until he was in his room. but no, instead, he wraps his hand around his shaft, thumb smearing precum alllll the way down to the base.

you are all that consumes his thoughts, his very being.

pushing your panties to the side, you dip two fingers inside your cunt with a wet little shlickk. all the while picturing suguru’s thick fingers instead of your own, picturing how’d he finger you. he’d start slow—just to tease you. so you decide to slowly start pumping your fingers in and out, slick dripping down to your knuckles.

suguru starts off at the same pace you’re going, timing his own orgasm to your own. soul ties and the such. his fingers wrap tightly around his cock, fist slowly dragging uppp and downn the shaft. he rubs at his swollen cockhead, smearing precum over his fist and his dick.

“o-oh fuck,” a hushed moan leaves your lips, your fingers curling about a inch in. you’re hitting your g-spot with each thrust of your fingertips, back bowed into an arch. would he let you cum? maybe if he was feeling kind enough. you rub at your clit, pushing yourself to reach your peak only to let it slip through your fingers right at the precipice.

when you do let yourself cum to the thought of it being on suguru’s fingers, of imagining him bringing them up to his mouth, wrapping his lips around them and tasting you fully, you soak your fingers and sheets underneath with a shuddered little moan.

suguru isn’t faring well outside of your window either.

sweat dribbles down from his forehead, heavy load of cum covering his hand and stomach. he leans his head back, listening to your racing heartbeat slowly return back to normal. he wipes his hand off on the side of his costume, zipping it back up before reluctantly heading back home.

so much for hating him.

—

you avoid suguru geto completely after that.

it wasn’t that hard in the grand scheme of things. sure, you were both confined to the same building for most of the day, but you avoided taking any main hallways you were certain to find him in. avoided lingering in the lounge for too long, hiding away in the back stairwell and doing some assignments. it’s quite nice the few times you get lucky and there’s no one making out underneath.

and sure, you had a few classes together, but you avoid being in your usual spots. go up to sit in the back instead of the front, in one of the far right wings of the auditorium where even the professor’s surprised when they take attendance. you don’t linger too much after class either, immediately leaving upon dismissal with your head down.

but even then, you supposed you should’ve accounted for how to avoid him at your own home.

“do i have to keep showing up to your house all bruised and battered for you to spare your friendly neighborhood spider-man five minutes?” suguru pops his head in through your window, sliding his mask off once he was inside.

you raise a brow, leaning in closer to take a look at the ‘wound’ he’s whining and pouting about. it’s a simple cut across his cheek, already starting to heal from his enhanced abilities. “you came over for this?”

“yes. i’m dying, doc,” he deadpans much to your dismay. you gesture for him to take a seat on your bed, watching as he makes himself at home amongst your plushies. taking a hold of your kit, you stand in between his legs to clean up the cut.

that’s not good enough for suguru.

“what the—” his hands take hold of your waist, easing you down onto his lap. your thighs rest upon either side of his own, your ass pressed directly on top of his lap. moving forward slightly, you grind yourself against him, a quiet moan leaving your lips upon feeling the tip against your clit.

how very unprofessional of you.

you force yourself to stay focused, taking his face in your hand. purple eyes glimmer underneath the pale moonlight, meeting your gaze as your fingers brush against the ‘bruise.’ slowly, you dab on a little bit of antibiotic onto the cut before plastering on a hello kitty bandaid on his cheek. “perfect.”

neither one of you moves. suguru’s hands stay splayed against your waist, holding you tightly against his body. trying to keep you there as long as possible. you let him, your fingers ghosting across his face before you reluctantly pull your hand away.

this time, his hand cradles your cheek, “i haven’t been able to stop thinking about your lips since the last time i’ve seen you. thinking about kissing you again.” he didn’t kiss you like he had last time, gentle and patient, no, he kissed you like he was desperate (which he, admittedly, was).

your hips swivel as you grind yourself down on his hardening cock, feeling each ridge against your dripping cunt. heavy breaths leave your lips the faster you start moving against him, the more you feel his tip prodding into your clothed pussy. “this feel good?” he questions, his hands moving up your nightshirt. cupping your breasts in between his hands, rubbing his thumb around your nipples.

“y-yeah, feels good,” you nod, head thrown back and back arched. your nails dig into his shoulders, using that as leverage as you move yourself against him. his lips move down to your neck, leaving kiss after kiss as he trails his way down. he slides your shirt off, tossing it to one corner of your room.

“can i taste you, please?” you nod, expecting him to get down on his knees and get in between your legs. to start slowly kissing his way up your legs before making his way to your cunt. but no, you watch as he crawls up to your ceiling, sticking it it before hanging upside down.

a thin, white string’s clutched between his fingers, keeping him in position. suguru hangs off your roof with relative ease, onyx strands cascading onto your silk sheets. he leans forward, his free hand swiping at the slick dribbling from your puffy folds.

syrupy strings cling onto his gloved fingertips, tongue enveloping around the latex to taste every last drop. “need to taste all of you, spread out for me,” suguru uses his free hand to spread your legs apart, your ass up in the air as you settle into an arch, “there we go. just like that, princess.”

he delves in like a man starving, his tongue swiping across your slit, lapping up every drop of your essence. your fingers tightly wrap around your sheets, hips moving back to meet his eager mouth. he’s unabashed with each swipe, with each lick to your sopping pussy.

suguru takes one of your folds in his mouth, spit slobbering over the sensitive skin to mix with the syrupy slick dripping onto his tongue, starting to make out with your lower pair of lips. “fuck, you’re so good to me, wanna stay here,” he’s already pussydrunk, each babble leaving his lips like water.

while nothing about him is sloppy, the way that he’s making out with your pussy certainly is. he takes note of what makes your heart run faster, what makes you react to adjust what he does. no reaction you make goes unnoticed.

you gushed around his mouth and chin like a running faucet, your essence smeared all over his face. suguru slid his tongue in and outt of your cunt, his nose nudging against your sensitive clit with each push. “so, so good sugu,” you whined against him, eyes rolling back. each swipe of his tongue, the desperate way he ate you out, had you inching closer and closer to your orgasm.

“mm, i know, i know,” he coos, jaw falling slack as he buries his face in between your legs. he alternates between making out with your folds, tracing his tongue across each one, and thrusting his tongue in and out of your hole. suguru licks up a broad stripe up your cunt to your clit, the tip of his tongue drawing a small circle onto the nub.

blood rushes down to his head, almost making him feel high off the taste of your cunt. his lips latch onto your clit, sucking and swirling his tongue around the nub. “fuck, fuck, sugu, just like that!” your praise only serves to spur him on, your orgasm the only thing on his mind.

two of his fingers dip inside your cunt, filling you even better than you’d imagined just a few days ago. suguru curls his fingers perfectly, drawing out desperate moans from your lips with each prod against your g-spot. he continues sucking around your clit, pleasure building up deep in your gut.

his fingers spread you open, pearlescent slick dribbling down his gloved fingers. your hips move on their own accord, pushing them even deeper as you chase your orgasm. “gonna cum, gonna cum,” you babble, smearing yourself across his face and fingers. your own couldn’t compare to this, not by a long mile.

“that’s it, come for me, take what you want from me,” suguru’s words unraveled you like a birthday present, your orgasm hitting your body in waves. shudders rack through your body, your legs shaking as your release spurted out of you, coating his mouth, chin, and nose. he’s quick to lap up at the drops lingering on his lips, wrapping his mouth around his fingers. sucking them off completely, a moan leaving his lips at the taste.

suguru made quick work of sliding down the rest of his costume, letting it fall on your floor. his cock slapped against his stomach once released, tan at the base with a couple veins running up the thick shaft, tip a reddish pink and dripping drops of precum. a slight eight inches if you had to go off on estimate.

he moves to his spot behind you, wrapping a hand around his shaft. slowly starting to swipe it up and down your folds, tip nudging against your sensitive clit. “i thought it was fuck me, c’mon sweetheart, tell sugu how much you hate him.”

“fuck y—” his cock sinks in completely, lips parting into a moan while your walls clench around him, tightly wrapped around his shaft like a vice. suguru doesn’t move just yet, even as you push your hips back for some kind of friction, “come on, finish your sentence. don’t be rude.”

you’re too desperate to form a cohesive thought—blurting out the first thing on your mind, “oh fuck me, please!”

“with pleasure, sweetheart.” he pulls back in one swift motion, hips snapping against your own when he thrusts back in, curve of his cock dizzying as it hit every single spot that had your toes curl. "ah ah ah, fuck, don't stop!" suguru doesn’t start off fast, but he starts off deep—letting you feel every inch he was stuffing inside. your cunt dripped around his shaft, squelching as your slick mixed in with the drops of precum dribbling down.

“like this?” he has the audacity to ask, his hands gripping onto your waist as he fucks into you. your ass jiggles back against him with each shove of his cock, balls smacking against the back of your thighs. he starts to move faster, pounding into your cunt like he wanted to imprint the shape of him into your walls.

“j-just like that!” you respond, head buried into the sheets in front of you. the grip you had on your sheets tightens tenfold, body jerking back and forth. that just won’t do. he raises your head up from its hiding spot, turning your head to kiss you. it’s sloppy, it’s desperate, and it’s more teeth and tongue than anything.

it’s perfect.

“keep your head up, wanna hear every little moan,” he babbles behind you, reveling in every little ah! ah! ah! that left your lips, moans mixing in with the sound of skin slapping against skin. your eyes roll back, drool leaking from your lips with every inch he drags across your cunt.

suguru plants one of his feet up on the bed, the position allowing for him to thrust even deeper. his tip kissed your cervix with each punishing thrust of his hips, each vein and ridge rubbing against your walls deliciously. one of his hands moves down in between your legs, rubbing desperate little circles around your clit.

you clamp down around his shaft, your release quickly building up. suguru feels his own approaching, balls tightening up, but he’s determined. determined to make you gush around his cock before he spills his load. your legs tremble and quake, orgasm hitting you much more intense than last time.

your release dribbles and spurts around his shaft, a creamy ring at the base as he pulls back. his hips stutter while he tries to maintain his pace, abs clenching the longer he tries to prolong his orgasm. “come for me, suguru, fill me up.” that’s enough to drag a strangled moan from his lips, a thick load of cum painting your walls white.

suguru remains still for a second before gently pulling his softening cock out, watching as you all but collapse face down onto your bed. “where do you keep your rags?” he moves across your bedroom, heading over to the bathroom.

“second cabinet on the right.” he grabs a few, making sure to get one wet enough to clean up between your legs. he takes the opportunity that your parents aren’t home to leave your bedroom, going over to grab a water bottle.

“here, take a sip.” he holds it up against your mouth, your hands reaching out to take hold of it. a moment of stillness, calm settles over your bedroom as he lightly rubs the rag against your skin, wiping away the milky trails of cum dribbling down your cunt and thighs. you close off the bottle, setting it aside on your nightstand.

“my photography class is making me submit my portfolio for my final, wanted to know if you’d be my model for tomorrow,” he speaks up, settling next to you. he wipes the sweat away from your forehead with a clean rag, just as gently as he’d done before. your body feels sluggish and limp, melting into his embrace as he wraps a hand around your stomach.

“that sounds nice. i’ll show up around three,” you whisper before succumbing to sleep, one of your own arms wrapped around his chest. even if suguru wanted to move (which he didn’t), he couldn’t move with how tightly you were holding onto him. it was the nicest sleep you’ve had thus far, the most relaxed you’ve allowed yourself to be.

the walk over to his apartment was quiet, the city still with each step you took. the trees rustled with each light breeze that passed, birds chirped a melody in the distance. for once, there weren’t any police sirens or honking cars out on the street.

maybe that should’ve been your first sign something was wrong.

—

the quiet before the storm never seems to last for very long, does it?

you never made it to his apartment. never sent a text message saying you couldn’t make it, no kind of explanation. suguru had been waiting for hours now, unwilling to accept the fact he’d simply been ghosted out of the blue. sure, you’d done that before, but his gut told him otherwise.

turning his tv on, he was greeted by the sight of the lizard. he’d regenerated faster than expected, all the effort that suguru put into fighting him the first time diminished into nothing but cheap headlines. but that’s not all that he sees. when the camera pans in, focusing on the lizard’s scaly hand, his heart drops to his ass.

“come out, come out if you want to see your girlfriend again, spider.” each taunt only makes his blood boil, watching helplessly as the lizard dangled your limp body from side to side. dropping you, gasps erupting from the public watching, before his tail wrapped around your body. “you know where to find me.”

pulling the mask on to defend the city had always felt like an obligation, some kind of punishment for sneaking out during a field trip and getting himself bit by a radioactive spider. but this time, it felt more like necessity. adrenaline pumped through his veins, pushing him through each building he swung and pulled himself off of.

of course, the lizard couldn’t have made things easy enough for him. sneaking through the clock tower, he came across a machine set to go off in thirty minutes, containing a vial full of lizard dna. if the average person would so much as inhale even a speck of air when it went off, they’d immediately face the effects.

effects that their body wasn’t suited to take, effects that their body would reject until their untimely demise. the countdown ticked, 30… 29… 28… and right at the same time spider-man made his appearance, the lizard decided to give him a choice. the city of new york or you.

spider-man was a hero revered for his ability to think fast on his feet, for his ability to swing into action with the best possible solution.

but suguru was fucking scared.

he could hear his heart thumping in his ears, his breaths coming out in short little wisps. even one little second was too much to waste, a second that could’ve to save you. to save the city of new york. the machine doesn’t take long to deactivate, only needing the vial to be removed.

he couldn’t afford to hesitate now. suguru tossed himself off the clocktower’s peak, diving straight towards where you were helplessly flailing around. your hands clawed at pure air, reaching out for a final salvation to no avail. his wrist flicked forward, a silken web extending out to your chest.

four strings extended from the original web, a hand reaching out towards your body. you flailed helplessly in mid air, hearing people gasp and scream right behind you. you couldn’t focus on them, couldn’t focus on anything but suguru. the air feels cold, too loud in your ears, your vision blurry. the ground seems so close, and yet so far away. like you’re falling in slow motion.

suguru was so close, he was nearly there. his fingertips grazed against your skin, reaching out to take hold of your hand. just as soon as he thought he’d assured a tight grip over your body, you slipped away from his fingers. the web connected to your body, a second too late.

the memories behind your eyelids weren’t ones about your academic achievements, about a party you skipped to get your pre-sat score higher. no, you got painful reminders of everything you didn’t get to do. that you didn’t get to go out on a date with suguru, that you didn’t get the chance to get to know him better, that you’d die and no one would know you as anything other than the girl with a tight stick up her ass. you’d never be able to do those things, either.

never get to feel the warmth of the sun against your face again, never get to feel the softness and tenderness from suguru’s touch. that one, you think, hurts the most.

CRACK.

he felt it before he heard it. felt the moment your heart went silent, the moment that spider-man failed you. still, he persisted. there must be something he could still do, anything at all.

he can’t afford to lose you, he just can’t.

his hands hooked underneath your legs when he got close enough, cradling you close to his chest. “hey,” his voice cracks, tears welling underneath his mask. “open your eyes, please. talk to me. say you hate me, say you love me, say anything.

just… come back to me. please.” guilt seeps in through the open wound with a vengeance, a reminder you wouldn’t have been in this predicament if he wasn’t so careless. if spider-man hadn’t allowed himself to feel a smidge of happiness, you’d still be alive.

you had many dreams in the world. and that’s all they would be, just dreams.

—

WHERE IS SPIDER-MAN?!

article published by the daily bugle, 2026

spider-man. the man we seek out to solve most of our problems throughout the city whether it be the simplest of bank robberies or a giant lizard wrecking havoc amongst the city.

he has shown up time and time again in our time of need, in times where everything was once thought of as a lost cause. but one has to wonder, how good is this dependence?

the webbed vigilante has left us to our own devices, having gone missing for months now. we are completely helpless, doubting our finest officers that put their lives on the line to keep us safe. this sick hero’s been working on his own merit, on his own accord without any policing, to ‘protect’ the city.

but recently, there haven’t been any reports. any sightings of the masked hero since the fight against the lizard three months ago. nothing against the villains that he, himself, is responsible for bringing into our city. one has to wonder just where is spider-man?

twas thinking of either doing this kinda ending or the nwh ending where mj lost her memory so just lmk if you’d like to see that as a second part :3 and a big shout to my irl bestie for explaining brain shit to me, i love you.

GETO SUGURU TAGLIST: @b14sr10 @victheauthor @sugurusxo @inluvtoru