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inkedtension · 4 days ago

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Dam dis gud

Hi, Dad.

Single dad! Photogrpher Lee Know x Traumatic amnesia suffering, pilot! Reader

Note: Reader is the mother of his daughter, this is part 1, so wait for part 2 which will be posted soon!

[trope: love at first sight, cuz it's unreal]

Stories without Queens

Lee Minho, adjusted the strap of his camera bag over his shoulder as he stepped out of his studio.

It was a little past four. Time to pick up his daughter.

Hae-soo was six—sharp, talkative, and curious to a fault. Born with a storm in her lungs and the resilience of her father’s silence, she had Minho’s eyes but her mother’s laugh—not that she knew what her mother looked like, or sounded like. There were no pictures. No letters.

Minho waited near the gate like always. Parents around him made small talk, but he barely responded, eyes sweeping over the sea of uniforms until he saw her.

Ponytail slightly crooked. A blue pencil pouch clutched too tightly. No skipping steps. No running into his arms today.

Odd.

She walked past him without a word.

Well… that’s new.

Back home, their apartment smelled of mint tea and grilled garlic—the signature of Minho's uncle, Hyun-chul, who had raised hae-soo with Minho after her mom wasn't there anymore. He had been there through everything, the career, the heartbreak, the child. Not by blood, but by bond. A kind-eyed man who wore aprons like a badge and scolded them when they skipped meals.

“Welcome back, my babies” Hyun-chul grinned, handing Minho a bottle of water. “How was school, Hae-soo-ah?”

Silence.

She kicked off her shoes quietly and padded into the living room, plopping onto the couch. She didn’t reach for the cats as well.

Dinner was unusually quiet, chopsticks clinking and soup bowls steaming.

Minho leaned closer to Hae-soo, brushing her bangs aside. “Alright, little fox. Tell us. What’s eating you?”

She looked up, lips trembling in dramatic indignation.

“There’s this guy in my class...”

Minho’s brows shot up.

Hyun-chul blinked. “Guy?”

Minho leaned sideways and whispered behind his hand, “Is this the age where she starts thinking about guys?”

Hyun-chul was about to reply when Hae-soo slammed her spoon down.

“He got 1% more than me on the math test, and now he won’t shut up about it!”

Minho sighed loudly, leaning back in relief.

“Oh, You misunderstood.” he says to Hyun-chul, as he scoffs, saying something like you did, idiot.

“Sweetheart, it’s just one mark. You’ll beat him next time.”

“I know” she mumbled, pouting. “But still.”

Minho hides his grin behind his glass of water. She’s so much like someone else.

That night, tucked under lilac bedsheets in a room dotted with star stickers and glow-in-the-dark planets, Hae-soo waits, hands under her chin. Minho settles beside her, legs folded, in pajama pants and a sleepy hoodie.

He runs his hand through her soft, dark hair. It’s a ritual. The bedtime story.

“Okay” he says softly. “Once upon a time… there was a king.”

Her eyes light up. “You’re the king!”

He chuckles, “The king had a beautiful daughter.”

“Me!” she says, grinning.

“Of course. You. And the king had three guards who protected the princess and made her laugh when she was sad.”

“Who?” she whispers. “Who do I imagine?”

Minho tilts his head. “What about… Soonie, Doongie, and Dori?”

She gasps, delighted.

He goes on, voice gentle, threading together a tale of mischief and kindness and cats saving her from imaginary monsters.

But when he finishes, when he says “The end” she doesn’t clap like she usually does.

She just lies there. Quiet again.

“Appa?” she says.

“Yes, baby?”

“There was no queen in this story.”

He stills.

“And last night’s story didn’t have one either,” she adds, a little sharper now. “None of the stories you tell ever have a mom. Do I not have a mom?”

His heart tightens. His hand falters where it’s been stroking her back.

He smiles faintly. “Some stories are like that, Hae-soo.”

“But… all your stories are like that,” she whispered. “There’s never a mom.”

she says. “All my classmates have moms. They ask me what my mom looks like. What do I say?”

There’s a pressure behind his eyes now. He exhales slowly.

She folds her arms. “Then I won’t take my tablets.”

“Yah,” he says gently. “Hae-soo…”

“I mean it. Unless you tell me a story about my mom.”

He pauses. Then leans down, kissing her forehead. His voice is low. “If you score higher than that boy in the next test.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Promise?”

“On all three cats,” he said smiling small.

She opens her little pill box. Cystic fibrosis medication — several of them, multiple times a day.

He sat there a while longer, staring at her small frame, listening to her breaths over the hum of the humidifier.

It’s 11:47 p.m. by the time Minho returns home. The studio had run late — a celebrity shoot, followed by last-minute lighting changes, a stubborn makeup artist, and endless calls from sponsors. He’s tired.

His body ached, jacket half slipping from one shoulder as he nudged open the door to Hae-soo’s room, expecting her to be out like a light, wrapped in her burrito-style strawberry blanket.

But she wasn’t asleep.

Not even close.

She sat upright, legs crossed, her face glowing with a kind of anxious excitement.

“You’re not asleep yet?” he asked gently, unzipping his coat, dropping his camera bag softly onto the chair.

She didn’t answer.

She just held up a piece of paper.

Minho’s eyes narrowed slightly. He took a step forward.

He took the sheet from her and scanned it—and there it was. A perfect 98%. Top of the class. Mathematics. English. Even Science, despite the breathing breaks she needed to get through lessons.

Minho let out a dramatic gasp, paper fluttering in one hand as he reached forward with the other and scooped her up.

“You did it!” he spun her around, careful of her lungs, mindful of her joints—but it didn’t stop her from shrieking with laughter, her giggles bouncing off the walls.

“I told you I would!” she puffed her cheeks. “And now… the mom story. You promised.”

Minho hesitated for a second.

She was still in his arms, her tiny fingers curled into his coat, her cheek resting on his shoulder. She sounded so hopeful. So sure that he would finally break the one silence in their home that even the cats avoided.

His smile faded just a little.

“I’m really tired today, sweetheart” he said softly, setting her down.

“But dad—!”

“You promised! You said—!”

“I said I’m tired.” His voice snapped slightly, sharper than he meant it to be.

She flinched.

Minho regretted it instantly, but he didn’t know how to take it back. So instead, he walked to the door. Paused. Turned away.

Outside, leaning against the hallway wall, stood his uncle.

The old man had been there for the entire exchange—his hearing may have weakened, but he never missed things when it came to Minho or Hae-soo.

“You can’t hide from her forever,” he said quietly, his voice soft like cotton soaked in old sorrow.

Minho didn’t reply. Just sighed, dragging his feet toward his own room.

By morning, the storm had passed.

Or so Minho thought.

No Doraemon playing from the living room. No squeals of cats being over-cuddled. No Hae-soo singing baby shark lyrics off-key while brushing her hair.

Minho walked into her room, still rubbing sleep from his eyes.

Empty.

The bed was made. The blanket neatly folded.

She was gone, so was soonie.

Minho stood frozen for a second before yelling, “uncle—! She’s not in her room!”

Hyun-chul, who had just started heating some soup in the kitchen, dropped the spoon. “What?”

“She’s not here. Not anywhere in the house.”

“She wouldn’t—she couldn’t have—” The old man’s breath hitched.

Minho’s jaw clenched. “She could. You know she could.”

Because running away when her wishes didn’t come true—that wasn’t just Hae-soo.

The next few hours were chaos.

Minho drove like a madman—rushing to her school, scanning every classroom, the playground, even the security footage. Nothing. No one had seen her arrive.

He called her classmates’ parents. Three of her closest friends. No luck.

Hyun-chul stayed home in case she came back. Every twenty minutes, he called again, his voice sounding increasingly shaky.

But Minho was spiraling.

She could barely walk long distances. She had a specific dietary routine. Her medications. What if—what if she—

His phone rang.

He picked it up mid-drive, engine growling beneath him.

“Hello?”

The voice on the other end was unlike anything he expected.

Calm. Warm.

“Is this Mr. Lee Minho?”

“Yes—yes, this is Minho—who is this?”

“Your daughter, Hae-soo, is here with me” the woman said gently. “She’s safe. We’re at Café Bae in xyz. Please come pick her up.”

Just the sound of her voice felt like exhaling after being underwater.

Minho blinked, gripping the steering wheel.

His heart finally began to beat normally again.

“I’m on my way.” he says, heart pounding. “Thank you. Please… please stay with her.”

Café Bae sat right under the shade of a ginkgo tree whose yellow petals were dancing across the entrance. It was too early for lunch but late enough for caffeine emergencies, and his heart was still somewhere around his ankles as he pushed through the glass doors.

Then he saw her.

Not Hae-soo.

You.

And beside you, his daughter—with her bright pink cheeks, sipping a neon-blue drink from a tall straw, giggling like she hadn’t just made every cell in his body burn with panic.

You sat in front of her, posture straight, one arm resting across the back of your chair. A pressed pilot uniform hugged your frame—white shirt and a black and an obvious airline uniform blazer on the table corner. Your hair was tucked behind one ear, a pen clipped into your lapel.

Hae-soo was beaming.

Even Soonie—his grumpy, shy, emotionally selective cat—was on your lap.

Minho almost tripped.

Soonie did not seem to forget. He's 98% sure soonie is the one who dragged you to Hae-soo.

Then you laugh softly — something offhandedly sweet — as Hae-soo pushes a napkin toward you.

“Sign it, please!” she demands. “You’re so cool! You fly planes!”

You raise an eyebrow, amused, tugging a pen. “I fly people,” you say with mock severity, scribbling your name. “But thank you, co-pilot. Next time, bring me a boarding pass, not a stolen cat.”

“She’s not stolen!” Hae-soo pouts. “She just… walked with me.”

You glance at the cat now lazily draped over the booth divider and whisper, “Traitor.”

Then you sense the new presence behind you.

“Hae-soo.”

His voice makes you look up.

The man standing near the booth wears a black coat over a grey sweatshirt, dark hair falling slightly into his eyes, his features carved with tension and a worry that hasn’t quite left his shoulders.

You stand.

She beams. “this is dad.” she says to you.

He walks closer, nods once at you.

You reach out first, polite, practiced. “Hi, Dad.”

“Minho” he replies, shaking your hand — firm, steady.

You offer a soft smile. “Y/N. And you’re welcome. She’s a fighter. Also, she’s been trying to convince me to adopt her for the last thirty minutes.”

You’d just gotten back from a red-eye Seoul-to-Tokyo route. Two cappuccinos and a rebellious cat had barely kept you conscious.

But when you’d seen the girl crying on the steps outside the bookstore, shivering, and a cat that approached you first, dragging your pants towards the child, you crouched immediately.

“Thanks for taking care of her” Minho said, brushing Hae-soo’s hair back with a mixture of relief and affection.

“She’s surprisingly easy to talk to,” you said, then looked down at the girl. “When she’s not screaming about being motherless in public.”

“Yah,” Minho muttered under his breath.

“I won’t leave, Appa,” Hae-soo declared, arms crossed, mouth still ringed blue from her drink. “Not unless you tell me the story. Now.”

“Sweetheart,” Minho tried. “Let’s go home, hmm? I’ll tell you in the evening. I promise—”

“No!” she whined loudly, stomping her feet under the table, making Soonie’s ears twitch. “You said that yesterday!”

You leaned back, arms folded. “To be fair, she said you use that excuse a lot.”

Minho gave you a look—half amused, half exasperated. “You told her everything?”

you said innocently. she told you everything. Down to his card PIN.

“I’m serious, Hae-soo” he says, voice patient. “Can we not talk about it here?”

“I’ll cry.”

“You can’t use tears to blackmail—”

She starts blinking very fast.

You cough lightly and sip your coffee. “I’d let her win, if I were you.”

He glares at you. “You’re not helping.”

“I flew a cargo-laden boeing across Japan this morning. I think I’m allowed to stir a little emotional drama.”

Minho groans under his breath.

Minho pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’ve really inherited the dramatics.”

“She’s six” you shrugged. “And probably smarter than half my flight deck.”

Minho gave you a long, almost suspicious glance. “And you’re really a pilot?”

“Last I checked.”

“Okay,” he finally said.

And then he begins.

Minho’s voice is quieter now. A little rough.

“About ten years ago” he says, brushing Hae-soo’s hair gently to the side, “I wasn’t like this. I mean— I wasn’t ‘Lee Minho, Studio Owner.’”

You tilt your head, resting your elbow on the table. There’s something in the way he speaks — like each word is walking barefoot over gravel.

“I was just a guy with a second-hand camera, a half-broken lens, and this internship that didn’t pay enough to cover even my rent,” he continues, eyes slightly distant now. “One of our assignments was to go to Gangwon and capture images of movement. Real, raw movement. Machines.”

Hae-soo is practically bouncing. “Like trains?”

He nods. “Exactly. So I went to this tiny station. No one around. Just fog, rust, and the distant rattle of wheels. Jisung was there, with an umbrella as it was raining.”

You imagine it — grey skies, empty benches, a younger Minho in a faded hoodie with his camera hanging loosely around his neck, eyes squinting through the viewfinder. Another guy, holding an umbrella for him in the rain.

“And while I was taking pictures of the train as it stopped, a woman, your mom, stepped down holding a—”

“Wait!” Hae-soo interrupts, shooting her hand up like a student in class. “Who do I imagine as mom?”

Silence falls.

It’s the kind that folds itself tightly into the corners of the café, the kind that pulls the air inward like a breath waiting to be exhaled.

Minho stills. His gaze drops to the table.

Even Soonie, who had been nuzzling your shoelace, seems to pause. A soft nudge to your foot, like he knows something deeper than he should.

And then…

You clear your throat.

You don’t even look at Minho.

You just say it. Softly. Kindly. “You can imagine me. It’s okay.”

Her eyes turn to you, surprised. Not because you offered — but because you didn’t hesitate.

Minho kind of chokes.

Somewhere between Seoul and a little nowhere town filled with flowers and fog, it happened.

Minho’s shoes were soaked, his jeans cuffed sloppily at the ankles, and his half-worn beanie kept sliding backward from the weight of his messy hair.

“Hyung, hyung, hyung!” came Han Jisung’s panicked voice from behind, one hand on Minho’s back, the other above his head holding an umbrella like his life depended on it. “Your camera, man! If that gets water damage again, your internship’s dead! Your career’s dead! I’m not paying for another one!”

“Just five more shots!” Minho yelled over the wind, trying to get the perfect frame. “Look at that lighting! It’s like a movie poster!”

As Jisung leaned further out, Minho suddenly snapped the shutter again—and paused.

“Wait.”

“What.”

“Who… is that?”

You had just stepped down from the train for a two-minute halt, your yellow umbrella blooming like a sunflower against the rain. The station was empty, mist curling under benches, the signage blurred. You walked across the platform, letting the rain touch your boots, face tilted upward.

Minho lowered the camera.

“Bro…” Jisung groaned. “Don’t say it.”

“She looks like a goddamn angel.”

“There it is.”

Minho raised his camera and clicked.

Once. Twice.

Again.

Then kept going.

Click. Click. Click.

Each frame framed you—feet splashing in puddles, your umbrella turning slightly in the wind, your head tilting, your smile at a passing dog.

Jisung peeked over his shoulder and blanched. “Hyung! No! That’s a person! A woman! You’re literally photographing a woman without her consent! That’s, like, lawsuit grounds! That’s creepy!”

“I’m not being creepy,” Minho murmured dreamily. “I’m capturing… serenity.”

“You’re capturing a restraining order!”

“She’s not the subject,” Jisung hissed behind Minho, eyes squinting. “Don’t you dare zoom.”

Minho didn’t respond. He was already following you — carefully, casually, through the lens.

“She’s just a person, bro. A very umbrella’d person. Not your muse.”

“But look at her movement,” Minho said, mouth slightly open.

“She’s just walking.”

“Exactly. But look at how she walks.”

“Do you hear yourself?”

You wandered further down the gravel path that hugged the coastline. The train hissed behind you as it settled to a stop. The umbrella kept dancing above your head like it had its own personality.

Minho wasn’t stalking, not exactly.

He was documenting.

At least, that’s what he told himself.

He took three more shots as you passed the station sign. Then two more near the curve in the track. Then one when you spun briefly to let the wind hit your face.

He couldn’t explain it.

He fell in love. The rain was a witness.

You weren’t even looking at him.

But your presence in the frame made it feel like the scene finally made sense.

“Hyung, this is literally what professors warn us about in class” Jisung hissed beside him, umbrella now tilted sideways as he tried to peer through Minho’s camera. “No model release form. No consent. No plan.”

“I’m not publishing it” Minho muttered. “Just… capturing it.”

“You’re capturing a person like she’s a butterfly in a jar.”

“She’s not a butterfly” Minho whispered, already adjusting the focus again.

You had paused near the edge of the platform, your yellow umbrella resting on your shoulder, eyes closed, like you were soaking in something no one else could see.

“She’s the beginning of something.”

Jisung groaned dramatically. “Oh my god. You’re down bad already.”

But Minho wasn’t listening.

Because in that moment — mist curling around the tracks, wind teasing at your scarf, his camera breathing quietly with every shutter — he thought maybe he’d already met the woman he would fall in love with.

Even if he didn’t know your name yet.

Even if you hadn’t looked at him once.

Even if the only thing between you and him was a yellow umbrella and about a thousand questions.

He clicked one last photo as you turned, briefly meeting his gaze from across the fog.

You had felt it. The subtle “click” through the rainfall.

You turn slightly, the yellow umbrella spinning on your wrist, and spot two drenched idiots about fifteen feet away. One — tall, soft features, camera plastered to his face like a fifth limb. The other — shorter, dramatically holding an umbrella over the first one, dressed like a K-drama sidekick who was done with life.

You squint. The taller one is staring directly at you.

You raise a brow.

He’s not blinking.

Just… snapping. Again. And again.

You frown. He’s cute, sure. But he’s not invisible.

You adjust your scarf, stomp toward them, your boots making little squeaks—

SNATCH.

Camera: confiscated.

“HEY!” Jisung yelps, nearly dropping the umbrella. “Whoa, whoa, whoa—chill! Lady!”

“You a pervert?” you bark, stepping back with Minho’s cam in hand. “Clicking my photos without asking? I’ll report you to the cops.”

Minho blinks, mouth open. He hasn't said a word. Still hasn’t. Still staring. Like his entire soul just walked out of a train in the rain, insulted him, and stole his heart (and also his camera).

“Yah!” Jisung yelped. “Whoa whoa whoa! Chill, woman!”

Minho blinked at you, mouth opening to protest—until he saw your eyes.

Sharp. Alert. Furious.

“You’re taking pictures of me, aren’t you?” you snapped, holding the camera up like evidence. “You freaking creep. I will report you.”

“Okay, okay, first of all — he’s not a creep, alright? He’s… just brain-dead right now.”

“Clearly,” you mutter, glaring at the tall one who’s currently blinking like a deer caught in hi-def.

“He’s interning for a photography course,” Jisung explains. “The project is on movement. Nature. Emotion. Not… stalking.”

You narrow your eyes. “That’s what every stalker says.”

“He didn’t even notice you at first,” Jisung continues. “He just said, ‘train, train,’ like a Pokemon. If you want, check the photos. They’re all on movement. The sky, the fog, the wheels. Nothing inappropriate.”

Minho opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

His brain had short-circuited. This close, you were even more stunning. Even your anger had symmetry. Your eyebrows furrowed at a perfect 32° angle. Your umbrella was dripping on his shoes.

But all he could think was: Whoa.

“I–uh–I–” he stammered.

“Ma’am,” Jisung stepped between you two, hands raised in peace, voice pitched higher in panic. “I swear, Minho’s not a creep. He’s a photography intern. He has a mentor and everything. He was just clicking nature, okay? No vulgar sho—”

You look at him, then at the camera.

“He has a name?” you snapped, flipping through the pictures. “Minho? Okay, Minho. Still. You ask before photographing people. That’s basic human decency.”

Then—you start flipping through the screen.

And okay… okay, yeah. It’s… good.

Actually, it’s insanely good.

There’s a shot of the tracks before the train, one with the wheels in motion — and yes, two, three zoom-in clear images with you in them. But they’re... artistic. Captured like a color or an emotion, not like a girl with a body.

You cross your arms. “That’s fine. But you still ask before clicking someone, don’t you?”

“You’re right” Jisung says quickly, nudging the frozen Minho. “Tell her, bro. Say sorry.”

Minho looked at you.

Still silent. Still completely gone. Still love-struck.

“I like you. Marry me.”

Dead silence.

You stare at him.

Jisung lets out a sound like someone choking on rice. Then he moves to stand protectively in front of you.

“Ma’am, I didn’t know he was like this. I have nothing to do with him. You want to complain? I’ll be your witness. I’ll even drive you to the station myself. I am so sorry. I don’t even like this guy, honestly. We just met today. I thought he was mute until two seconds ago. He may need psychiatric help.”

You’re gaping now. “You want me to—what?”

“Marry me” Minho repeats, calm now. “I mean, maybe not today. I’m broke. But like. In the future. If you want. You don’t have to, obviously. It’s just… a thought.”

You stare at him.

Then at Jisung.

Then at the camera in your hand.

You scowl, brow crunching, nose scrunching with disbelief and a kind of offended disbelief that someone just proposed to you without knowing your name.

Minho just smiled like he’d won the lottery. “You look beautiful when you’re angry.”

Jisung slapped his forehead.

Minho is staring at the crunch of your brow like God spent a little extra time sculpting just that particular expression.

You turn around and walk, with the camera still in your hand.

“Wait—HEY—” Jisung stammers. “She took the camera!”

Minho watches you go.

Your yellow umbrella bobbing above the sea of fog..

You, muttering to yourself about weirdos as you disappear down the platform with his most expensive gear.

Jisung slaps Minho’s arm. “Dude?! Your CAMERA?!”

Minho smiles dreamily.

“It’s okay.”

“…WHAT?”

“It’s with my wife.”

The platform still echoed with your footsteps long after you left, his cameras swaying on your shoulder like spoils of war. Minho blinked. Once. Twice. Then took a step to chase you.

That’s when Jisung tackled him from the side.

“I’m following her.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Jisung, let go.”

“I am letting go. Of my dignity. By being seen with you in public.”

“I’m going after her—”

“She has your camera, hyung. Not your soul. Don’t run after her like some tragic k-drama lead with debt.”

“Let me—”

Jisung latches onto Minho’s collar like a leech. “You’re gonna get banned from the station. BANNED. We still haven’t submitted your damn movement assignment. Let’s go.”

Minho scowls. “I just proposed to my future wife, and you’re talking about assignments?”

“I’m talking about prison time. For unsolicited photography.”

Minho sighs dramatically, but follows, mostly because Jisung is now crying loudly about “career suicide.” They trudge through the light drizzle, Minho still craning his head back toward the direction your umbrella disappeared.

Minho burst into the lobby just a minute late, hair wind-tossed, shirt wrinkled, panting.

Jisung trailed behind dramatically. “We’re alive. Barely.”

Jisung is just about to drop another comeback when he freezes mid-step.

“…Hyung.”

Minho walks into him. “What?”

“Bro. Don’t. Look. Left.”

“brodontlookleftbrodontlookleftbrodontlookleft”

Minho turns his head.

And saw you.

His thief.

You were standing—casual as anything—laughing with his boss, holding his camera in your hand like it was a soda can. Your umbrella leaned against the chair beside you, dripping politely onto the tiled floor. Your bag hung across your shoulder. And the minute Minho entered, your eyes flicked toward him.

Jisung gaped.

“Oh my god,” Jisung whispers. “You’re dead. You’re actually dead. This is a revenge arc. You messed with the niece of the boss. You’re gonna get kicked out of the program. Fired. Blacklisted.”

Minho swallows. “I didn’t know—”

“You called her your wife, bro. I am no longer emotionally invested in your survival.”

“Boys!”

Both boys jump.

Boss Kim waves him over.

Minho walks forward like a soldier to war. Jisung hovers nearby, muttering prayers under his breath.

“You’re good at printing, yes?” Boss Kim says. “Help my niece with the printer. She needs copies of some files.”

Jisung immediately points to Minho like he’s testifying in court. “This hyung can print in ten formats. TIFF, JPEG, RAW, Excel, Word, even power point.”

Minho looks at Jisung a bit betrayed, and Jisung whispers, “He said boys, I'm a man” back.

“Minho! Great, you're here. Help Y/N with printing some photos.”

Minho blinked.

“P–pardon?”

His boss pointed at you like it was nothing. “She needs the printing room. Help her with format settings and all that boring junk. It’s her first time here.”

Jisung was already scooting away like a crab.

You hand him the camera, coolly. “Printer?”

“This way” he mutters, leading you down the hall.

The printing room was silent.

Minho held the door for you. You didn’t say thank you. He smiled nervously and followed you in.

You sat by the monitor, inserted an SD card, then leaned back, arms folded, as the preview screen opened.

His stomach dropped.

They were all photos he’d taken. Of you.

The umbrella. The station. The yellow. The rain. That moment when you smiled at the stray dog. The shot where you were squinting at the cloudy sky.

You turned to him slowly, eyes glinting.

“My uncle said your compositions are nice,” you murmured. “But you should ask for permission next time.”

“Your… uncle?”

“Boss.”

“Like blood uncle? Real uncle?”

You nodded, clicking Print on one of the images.

The printer hissed and started whirring, slowly birthing out a photo that had consumed all of Minho’s heartbeats in the last twelve hours.

“I wasn’t being creepy” he said quietly.

“I know,” you replied. “That’s why I didn’t smash your lens.”

Minho smiled faintly. “Thanks.”

You turned to him with narrowed eyes. “But still, you said, and I quote—‘I like you. Marry me.’”

He coughed into his sleeve. “I was… under the influence.”

“Of?”

“Your face.”

You blinked. “You’re so weird.”

“I’m aware.”

Another photo slid out of the printer.

You picked it up, stared at it.

“…you do have good angles. Even though, they seem a bit lonely.”

Minho took the compliment like it was his Pulitzer prize.

Then, as you gathered the photos, you tossed him his camera back.

Then, after a beat— “Wait. We’re not even friends?”

You glance over.

Minho blinks. “Can we be?”

You raise a brow. “You want friends?”

“I want marriage, actually.”

You shake your head.

He raises both hands, grinning. “Okay, okay. Friends.”

“I have two weeks left in Seoul. Then I head back for exams. So, if you press pause to your love story, then we can be friends.”

She said pause, not end, right?

Three days into the Pause

It was supposed to be simple.

Hang out. Walks. Coffee. Art exhibits. Maybe a photography trip or two.

What Minho didn’t account for was Soonie.

The world’s most dramatic, most demanding, least affectionate rescue kitten.

And how he immediately hated you.

Minho had found him crying in an alleyway three days ago—fur soaked from the rain, limping, crying like a siren.

You’d been with him when minho spotted him. While Minho knelt and cooed and pulled off his hoodie to wrap him in, you’d stood there looking unimpressed.

“That’s a stray.”

“he’s a baby.”

“he might bite.”

“he needs love.”

“he needs shots, Minho.”

“he needs a name.”

You paused. “he looks like a grumpy Ajhumma.”

“Okay, I love animals,” you said, sitting cross-legged in Minho’s living room, a green tea in your hand, “but this one’s got a personal grudge against my soul.”

Soonie, the tiny gray tabby with judgment in his eyes, hissed once and then retreated behind the couch like a soldier in trench warfare.

“he doesn’t hate you,” Minho lied. “She’s just shy.”

“Bro, he literally tried to slap my leg like I owed it rent.”

“he probably does that when she senses someone equally independent.”

You glared.

Soonie glared back from under the curtain.

It was war.

Later that night, after you left, Jisung flopped onto Minho’s couch, Soonie curled up on his stomach as if to spite Minho.

“he hates your girl,” Jisung whispered.

Minho, staring at the door you just walked out of, sighed dreamily. “She’s not my girl.”

“Bro, you said she’s your wife when she stole your camera.”

“I meant it.”

“Minho, she roasted your entire existence, threatened you with police, and insulted your cat.”

“She’s perfect.”

Jisung patted Soonie’s back. “You’re gonna have to up your game, my little furry niece.”

The problem with loving someone like you was that Minho hadn’t realized how much noise you were surviving in silence.

By the time he’d spent two weeks trailing behind your footsteps like a camera-smitten cat—buying you canned coffee after class, racing you to street food stalls at night, bribing Jisung with gimbap so he could third-wheel without sulking—he thought he’d seen every shade of your world.

He knew how your laughter curled when you were amused. He knew how you chewed on straws when you were thinking. He knew how you kicked vending machines when they refused your coins.

But he didn’t know that when your phone rang at 7:42 PM every night, your entire body tensed.

He didn’t know that your eyes darted out of focus.

Or that you always turned your back and whispered, “I’m busy, mom. Please—please, not now.”

He didn’t know that you always cut the call just before your brothers voice began crying on the other end.

You’d had a long, ugly phone call with your parents. The kind that leaves your hands shaking and your voice hollow.

Minho, blissfully unaware, found you on the rooftop terrace of his apartment building, watching the skyline blur.

He walked up grinning, two corn dogs in hand.

“Guess who got offered a spot in a photography panel and a free tripod.”

You smiled weakly.

He paused, then slid in beside you.

“…so,” he said, nudging your elbow, “we’re past friends now, right?”

You blinked.

“Like, officially. So can I officially say... we’re getting married next?”

He laughed lightly, half-joking, half-serious.

You didn’t laugh.

“Marriage” you repeated.

He blinked. “I mean—yes? Not now, not this second—but eventually. You know.”

You stood up.

“Kids, too?” you asked. “Just throw it in there, why not?”

Now he was worried.

“…Y/N?”

You were trembling. Your hands shook even as you shoved them into your hoodie.

“You know what happens with marriage, Minho?” Your voice cracked. “People scream. People break things. People leave. Even when they say they won’t.”

He stood. “What—?”

“They say I love you and then they throw cups at each other the next month. They stay for the kids and then blame the kids.”

Minho’s brows knit. “What’s—”

“Every time I come home, it’s like war. And my brother’s crying. And I’m the one holding him while my parents scream about us like we aren’t even human beings—”

“Y/N—”

“I don’t want marriage. I don’t want love. It NEVER. ENDS. WELL—!”

And then—

CRACK—CRACK—POP!

Firecrackers.

Someone downstairs had lit them early. Golden sparks burst behind the buildings, loud and sudden.

You dropped to your knees.

Minho dove forward, arms wrapping around you instantly, his hands flying to your ears.

“Shhh, shhh—Y/N, it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s just fireworks. Just stupid kids—”

You were crying now.

“I hate loud things” you whispered. “Everything’s always loud.”

Minho leaned closer, pressing his forehead against yours.

“Then we’ll be quiet,” he murmured. “From now on, I’ll be the quiet.”

You sniffed. “What kind of line is that?”

He smiled softly. “The kind you write for your wife.”

You looked up at him, red eyes and tear-lined cheeks.

“…We’re not married.”

He nodded.

He pulled you closer into a slow hug, your face pressing against his shoulder, his thumb rubbing gentle circles into your spine.

Two days later.

The problem with warming up to someone was that it always came with a side effect: vulnerability.

And you, who had trained your heart into a vault, had started to… melt.

It was subtle at first.

You no longer flinched when Minho looped your pinky in his for no reason while walking.

You had started texting first. Even dumb things—“Your shoelace was untied today. Fix your life.”

And Soonie.

That tiny demon with a food complex and a jealousy problem. The kitten you once side-eyed like he was a rat in disguise.

Now? You’d sneak treats into your hoodie pocket for him.

You let him curl against your legs when you studied.

You even whispered “don’t scratch me today, thanks” like he was your coworker.

Minho bounced into the studio with a wide grin, waving his brand-new tier DSLR camera like it was excalibur.

“Look what I got! Look at this beauty!”

You glanced up from the corner where you were editing some shots. You smiled faintly.

“New toy?”

“New future!” he beamed. “It cost, like, half my soul. But worth it, right?”

Jisung was at the coffee machine, suspiciously quiet.

You frowned.

“What happened?” you asked.

Minho turned to Jisung. “Tell her! Tell her how cool it is!”

Jisung stirred his coffee slowly.

Then turned to you with a plastic smile and said, “Oh nothing. He just sold Soonie, that’s all.”

Silence.

You blinked.

“What?”

Minho laughed awkwardly. “Not sold. he’s with a rich couple who love cats. he gets air-conditioning and filtered salmon! he’s living better than me!”

You stared at him.

“What if he doesn’t want that? What if he wants us? What if he waits by the alley for you every night?”

Minho hesitated. “I mean—he’s a cat, Y/N—”

You stood up slowly, eyes dark.

“Do you know how rich I am, Minho?”

Minho blinked. “Huh?”

“I’m rich. But rich isn’t everything.” Your voice cracked.

“I was dumb, Minho” you whispered, eyes burning. “Dumb to believe that for once someone could stay.”

Minho’s jaw tensed.

“Will you leave me the way you left Soonie?” you asked. “When you realize you can’t afford me?”

“No—”

“Will you give me away to someone richer too? Someone with more cameras? More tuna? Is that what love is for you? Just trade when you can’t provide?”

“Y/N, stop—”

“You’re stubborn, Minho. I know that. But you’re not responsible.”

His face went pale. His fingers twitched. His mouth opened and closed like he couldn’t find which sentence to start with.

But you were already turning.

6 months later.

You hadn’t planned to walk that way. Honestly, you thought he wouldn’t even remember. You were just tired after your exams, dragging your suitcase through the familiar streets after an exhausting train ride, the breeze crisp with cherry blossoms. The campus break was long this time—an extended semester with project work and portfolio submissions. You hadn't texted him once. You didn’t know what you’d say.

And yet, there he was.

Right where he used to wait. By the same platform where he took his first ever candid shot of you.

Standing awkwardly, like someone unsure if his love was still allowed. And in either arm, a cat.

You tried to turn. Tried to walk right past. Pretend the last six months hadn’t existed, that your heart didn’t skip and your lungs didn’t tighten.

But Soonie jumped off his arm. Ran right to you.

And you just—

You dropped your bag, crumbled to your knees, and wrapped your arms around the little furball.

he purred.

You buried your face in his fur and cried. Not hard, but like a kettle slowly releasing steam, soft sobs pressed into the tiny warmth of the cat that somehow meant everything.

“Hey,” came a familiar voice behind you.

You turned slightly.

Jisung.

He knelt beside you, smile small, soft, knowing.

“He brought him back that same night, you know?” Jisung said, brushing Soonie’s back like he was an old friend. “I went with him. The rich folks were mad, but he wouldn’t leave without him.”

Your lips parted.

Jisung leaned closer, whispering, “He didn’t sleep that night. He just sat with him and cried. Like a loser.”

You laughed wetly through your tears.

From behind you came the sound of a camera shutter.

Minho. Camera in hand.

You turned.

He lowered it slowly.

“I… I’ve been waiting to take that picture,” he said.

He took a few steps forward.

Then gently said, “I gave the money back. Every cent. The rich couple didn’t even need it, but I made sure they took it. And… this—” he lifted the DSLR in his hand, “—this one I bought with what I earned in six months.”

You stared at him. He looked different. Not drastically. But there was something in the way he stood. Still reckless. Still hopeful. But now…

PRESENT DAY – THE CAFE

“Then?” Hae-soo sniffled, mouth still blue from her butterfly lemonade, face flushed with stubborn tears. “Then what happened?”

Minho leaned forward. “After a long time, we got married, her mom didn't like it and then— you were born, she didn't want you, so she left. Thats what happened.”

Maybe because he said it so intently that you—unfortunately, imagined to be her mother as well and it just doesn't add up, why would she leave him? why would she—

Hae-soo sniffled, angry tears clinging to her lashes. “You’re not even my mom.”

Minho, calm but clearly frayed, crouched and tried to soothe her. “Hae-soo, don’t say that—”

“She left us” she sobbed. “She—” she started sobbing.

You tried to soothe her when she pushes your hands away, rude.

“I should go” you said softly. “She’s overwhelmed.”

Minho stood, lifting Hae-soo into his arms as she wiped her nose against his shirt.

“I’m… sorry, she did that because she imagined you as her mom, thats all” he said, voice thick.

Outside, you followed them—just a few steps behind.

As Minho tucked Hae-soo into her booster seat and adjusted her straps, you hovered awkwardly near the sidewalk, arms crossed tightly like they were holding something fragile inside you.

You stood awkwardly, hands wringing.

Then, with a quick glance, you said, “Please call me when she’s fine. I… I gave her my number. Just in case.”

Minho nodded once.

And then, just before he turned, he looked at you properly for the first time since he started telling that story.

Your eyes gave you away.

You hadn’t even realized you had water in your eyes.

He blinked, caught off guard by the softness in his own voice.

“Please…” he said, voice low “…don’t cry.”

“I don’t know why,” you said honestly, swallowing, brushing your face, “I just—when she cried like that… I just—”

Minho gave a tight nod, as if saying he understood.

he picked up Soonie, who was nuzzling shamelessly at your boots like he wanted to stay.

You looked up just as the car pulled away.

Just as he drove into a night you weren’t part of.

And the moment the taillights disappeared, you exhaled.

Your heart didn’t feel heavy.

It felt confused.

The driver pulls into your apartment complex.

Your co-pilot texts you. “Wheels up at 0400”

You look down at your phone, and find that message from a girl named “Hae-soo's dad” still sitting in your messages. It reads:

‘I hope you ride safe always. Please dont forget me. im soryy I behaved rude with you.’

You should forget her.

She’s not your child.

Minho stepped into the study, needing to distract himself from the sudden throb in his chest.

He dusted off his old laptop—the one he hadn’t touched in years, not since his early photography days, back when all his dreams still fit into unpaid gigs, coffee-fueled edits, and your laughter echoing in hallways.

The screen flickered to life with a gentle hum.

And then—his breath caught.

The wallpaper loaded slowly. A woman with a yellow umbrella in the rain.

A little blurred by time, but still there.

Still her.

Still you.

The Next Morning

The table was far too quiet for three people and a plate of kimchi pancakes.

Minho sat on one side of the table, sipping his black coffee without a word. Hae-soo had her spoon in her cereal, poking at the same soggy flake for the past seven minutes.

Across from them, Jisung blinked.

Then blinked again.

Then cleared his throat.

“So…” he said, drumming his fingers. “Y’all fighting or…?”

Nothing.

Hae-soo picked up one cornflake and stared at it like it had betrayed her.

Minho didn't even look up from his cup.

Jisung shifted in his seat. “Okay, cool. Cold war it is. Just say the word if we’re throwing nukes or eggs.”

Still nothing.

He tried again.

“Two breakfast diners walk into a silence—”

Ding-dong.

The doorbell cut through the room like an actual miracle.

“THANK GOD,” Jisung groaned, getting up and half-jogging toward the door. “It’s probably the mailman. Or even better—a traveling mariachi band here to save my sanity—”

He opened the door.

And froze.

His face went from peach to ghost-white in one second flat.

Standing in front of him was you.

Your pilot jacket was draped neatly over one arm, your hair pulled back in a casual ponytail. The sun bounced off your eyes just right—enough to make Jisung’s jaw fall slightly slack.

“Jisung?”

You tilted your head.

He blinked. “Y/N?”

His mouth opened and closed, he clutched his heart. “H-How do you know—”

You laughed gently. “Relax. When he told her about… her mom. I imagined the whole thing, you were very animated in my head.”

“Ohhh…” he said, hand on heart like a pigeon just flew into it. “That story. The traumatic memory-dumpster of a story. Cool. Cool cool cool cool.”

You laughed. “So how do you know me?”

And before he could answer, Minho appeared behind him, eyes wide and alarmed.

“Y/N?” he asked, already reaching for your elbow to gently usher you away from the doorway. “Why are you here?”

You held up the inhaler. “Hae-soo forgot this with me. She said she needed it every morning.”

Minho exhaled. “Right. Thanks.”

You hesitated. “Also... I promised her something last night. A small party. I’d like to take her out tonight. Just something light—ice cream, maybe a bakery stop. Kids' pilot-themed café I know in town.”

Minho stiffened. “No.”

Your brows lifted.

“I said no” he repeated, firm. “She’s not going.”

You blinked, surprised. “I’ll ask her myself, then.”

He stepped in front of you. “Y/N. No.”

You gave a dry smile. “Right. Okay.”

For one small second, he relaxed.

Then—bam. You slipped past him.

Straight into the house.

“Hae-soo!” you called.

She looked up from her cereal—and her entire face lit up.

“Y/N!!”

She scrambled down the chair, nearly knocking over her bowl.

You knelt to catch her as she jumped into your arms.

“I’m sorry for last night,” she said immediately, muffled into your shoulder. “Can I have your autograph again? I smudged the last one.”

You chuckled. “Of course.”

You pulled a pen from your bag and signed the back of the airline brochure on the table. She looked at it like it was a lottery ticket.

Meanwhile, Jisung stood there, quiet now, watching you in uniform, as you put your coat on the table.

But before the moment could soften—

“OH NO!” Hae-soo all but shouted.

Your eyes dropped to your coat.

Your very expensive, airline uniform blazer—

Now covered in chocolate cereal milk.

“Ah.”

Jisung let out a gasp like he was watching a historical tragedy unfold. “That jacket costs, like, what—?”

“About as much as your liver” you muttered, eyes wide.

Minho stood in the doorway, horrified, watching the entire chaos play out.

You slowly turned to Hae-soo.

She looked up at you, lower lip trembling. “I’ll give you all my pocket money for the next four years.”

Minho looked like he was about to cry.

The spill wasn’t a big deal.

At least, that’s what you kept saying out loud, even as you tried very hard not to cry over your extremely limited-edition, regulation-fit aircraft uniform jacket now looking like it’d been attacked by a milk monster.

You’d left it just for a moment. One second. But that was all it took.

“Oh my god—oh my god,” Jisung had been muttering in the background, pacing like you were about to detonate. “This is a government property situation. This is a uniform. Do we have insurance? Minho-hyung, do we have—”

You patted Hae-soo’s head when she looked up at you with eyes like shattered glass.

“I’ll tell my future kids never to touch cereal,” she mumbled solemnly.

Minho stood by, eyes locked onto the scene like he was trying to calculate damage control.

“I’m so sorry” she whispered again, panic in her little voice.

“Hey” you soothed, placing your hands on her cheeks. “It’s okay. No emergency. My assistant’s nearby. I’ll have her take it back to base.”

“You’re still… planning to take her out tonight?” Minho asked, voice quieter now. Less defensive. More guilty.

You stood. “Of course. It’s just a little cake-and-balloons party. She’s been looking forward to it.”

Minho hesitated.

Hae-soo looked up with wide, begging eyes.

He sighed. “Fine. Okay.”

You blinked. “Wait, really?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Just… text me the location. I’ll drop her.”

And with that, you waved goodbye and stepped out.

MINHO – FIVE MINUTES LATER

He slammed the laptop shut. Grabbed his wallet. Pulled out his phone.

“Jisung,” he said, not looking at him, “pack a bag.”

Hae-soo squealed. “Are we going to the party?”

“No. We’re going to Jeju. Iam not letting her go.”

Jisung almost choked on air. “WHAT?”

Minho’s eyes were steel. “Now. Tickets. Tonight. I don’t care how.”

Minho, Jisung, and Hae-soo touched down in Jeju just as the sun dipped into orange.

“Hyung” Jisung muttered, as he dragged two suitcases through the terminal. “You are either the most brilliant genius or the worst dad alive.”

“Shut up.”

“You’re actually fleeing the city just to avoid a children’s party. That’s commitment.”

Minho shot him a glare.

“I don’t want her… getting closer to someone who’s going to leave again.”

Hae-soo walked quietly between them, holding Minho’s hand.

She hadn’t cried. Not really.

But she hadn’t smiled, either.

“I wanted to go…” she mumbled. “She promised…”

Minho gently squeezed her hand. “We’ll have a party here. Beach cake. Balloon shells. Right, Jisung?”

“Yup,” Jisung forced cheer. “And—if we’re lucky—I’ll do the dolphin voice.”

Hae-soo blinked. “That’s a punishment.”

But then—

From the front of the arriving crew tunnel

You stepped out of the cockpit. In a new uniform. Hair neat, steps sharp.

Behind you trailed three assistants, a co-pilot, and a crowd of people. A few kids from the plane even rushed up asking for autographs, and you signed them all patiently.

Jisung turned slowly to Minho. “Did she just… pilot the plane we flew in?”

Minho grabbed Jisung’s sleeve. “Don’t make eye contact.”

But it was too late.

“Y/N!!”

Hae-soo wiggled out of Jisung’s arms and ran.

Straight to you.

You caught her effortlessly, lifting her off the ground with a laugh. “Whoa, whoa, what are you doing here?”

Her arms wrapped tightly around your neck. “I missed you!”

You blinked. A warm smile stretched across your face.

“I… missed you too, kid.”

Behind you, Jin-ah raised an eyebrow. “Captain. Are you collecting children now?”

“I have no idea what’s happening” you muttered, still smiling.

When you turned—still holding Hae-soo—your eyes met his.

Minho, dragging a suitcase, standing behind a wide-eyed Jisung, who looked like he’d seen two ghosts.

You stared at Minho.

He stared back.

Minho approached, defeated, Jisung trailing behind like a man being sent to the electric chair.

“Hi, I was just about to text you to postpone the party as I had an emergency flight. Such a pleasant surprise, right?” you said.

“Hi, yes, of course.” he sighed, still in shock.

By the time they reached the resort lobby, Hae-soo had already climbed into your arms again—legs swinging from your hips, arms around your shoulders like she belonged there. Like she had never belonged anywhere else.

You didn’t mind. You held her with the same careful balance that you used when taking over an aircraft in turbulence.

She fit.

Inside, the receptionist bowed and handed over keycards to Minho and Jisung.

Minho was still rattled, trying not to show it.

You saw it in the way his fingers flexed tightly around the handle of the suitcase. How his jaw twitched when Hae-soo tugged your jacket and said, “Y/N, will you stay for dinner too?”

You smiled gently at her. “Let’s see, hm?”

Jisung was still mumbling to himself like a conspiracy theorist. “We fly to Jeju to escape you, and somehow you pilot the actual plane. What kind of final destination sequel are we living in—”

Minho glanced sideways at you, then finally said it:

“So, uh. Where are you staying?”

You blinked. “Here.”

They stared.

“What, you mean here here?” Jisung narrowed his eyes. “This exact resort?”

You nodded, unfazed. “I own this resort.”

Both men blinked.

“You what.”

The days in Jeju were quieter than you expected.

Not quiet like loneliness. Quiet like… pause. The kind where time stretches gently between waves and sunlight, and suddenly, you don’t feel the rush to be anything but present.

Even the little girl, Hae-soo, had begun climbing your limbs like you were born to be her treehouse. Her curls often caught the wind, her laugh sometimes tangled in your jacket, and you had no idea how she’d managed to burrow under your skin so fast.

She liked pressing her cheek to your shoulder during sunsets. She liked hiding her whole face when she sneezed. She liked holding your pinky when she was sleepy.

You hadn’t realized how long it had been since you liked things.

You and Minho didn’t speak much at first.

Just greetings. Nods. Half-smiles when Hae-soo latched onto you like you were gravity.

But by the fourth evening, it was different.

There was a pillow and a striped mat spread out near the shore. Someone had brought snacks. Soonie kept switching laps like he couldn’t decide who was his favorite anymore.

And you… You weren’t in your uniform today.

You wore a soft white beach shirt, sleeves rolled up to your elbows, tucked into cream shorts. Your feet were bare. There was sand on your knees from where Hae-soo had pulled you down to build a pathetic sandcastle.

Minho was watching from the balcony for a while. It's just been so long since he's seen you in comfortable clothes.

“You know” you said, half-laughing as you wiped sunscreen off your nose, “I used to hate sand.”

Minho chuckled. “Still do?”

You shook your head. “No. Now I think I just hate wet socks.”

He smiled.

It wasn’t the kind that faded fast—it was the kind that stayed.

And the way the evening sun bounced off your cheekbones as you spoke about completely normal things, like airline food and your weird fear of inflatable animals, made something ache in his chest.

Jisung noticed it. Which is why he took Hae-soo away with a dramatic “I need help picking out beach sticks for tomorrow’s sand sculpture. Only you can help me, kid.”

She bolted. Because sugar. Because Jisung.

And then, it was just the two of you again.

Like before.

Like always.

You turned your face toward him, folding your legs on the mat.

“Can we be friends?” you asked softly. “Normal friends? I… want to be close to Hae-soo.”

Minho met your eyes, and for a moment he looked too young, too tired, too full.

“She makes everything else disappear,” you admit. “Things have been… hard at home.”

He blinked, nodded once, and gave you a smile so soft it almost broke.

“Yeah. Of course,” he said. “She already loves you.”

“She told me she wants to become a pilot” you added, laughing.

He grinned. “I’m doomed.”

The silence returned, warm like a blanket.

You picked at the loose thread on the pillow. “Your love story though… it doesn’t really… add up.”

He turned to you slowly.

He glances sideways, blinking more than once.

“We got married after a bit of.....issues,” Minho said softly. “Not much of a plan. Just… hope.”

You nodded, drawn in.

“Then,” he continued, “we fought a lot about kids. She wanted to wait. I didn’t want to. Then I apologized, said I’d wait however long. She changed her mind first.”

You smiled.

He chuckled. “Yeah. Then Hae-soo was born.”

Your eyes sparkled. “That part I do like.”

“But she had a condition. Cystic fibrosis.”

You froze for a second. “eh, wha—65 Roses?”

His head snapped toward you.

Minho chuckled—really chuckled—for the first time in a while.

“She said the same thing” he said. “My wife. The first time the doctors explained it to us.”

Your throat tightened.

“She cried for hours,” Minho continued, eyes unfocused. “Because she had it. Mild, but genetic. Blamed herself as Hae-soo's was an inherited one.”

You don’t interrupt.

“Then an accident happened... She was on a transplant list already, but… her lungs were too damaged, she had a lung transplant, but after the surgery, when I ran to her to show that they took Hae-soo out of the incubator and we can finally take her home, her mom stopped us and asked us to stay away because she doesnt remember anything, and trigerring any memory might be dangerous, and blah blah blah. we were out of her life for good.”

You know what he means even before he says it.

“Her mom told me never to come again. Said she wanted a divorce. Said she’d mentioned it before. But I don’t believe that part.”

He looks down and runs a thumb over his palm like he’s trying to erase a scar.

You nod slowly. Then reach behind your neck and gently pull your hair to the side.

“There was an accident,” you say. “For me, too.”

He looks at you then. Properly.

“I forgot everything. Woke up with stitches down the back of my neck. And dreams I don’t understand. Nothing else.”

He shifts closer on instinct, fingertips brushing the scar as you turn your back to him slightly. he traces the line gently, and he doesn’t speak. Just breathes.

“I used to have that too, that—65 roses, I never bother remembering how to pronounce it properly.” you add.

Minho lets out the softest hum. Of course you did, you were her mom.

“I still get weird dreams sometimes, no one at home tells me anything, dad's not even there, he's living somewhere else for his job.” you said, voice lighter than your bones felt.

Minho looked away and wiped at his eye quickly.

You pretended not to notice.

“So” you said after a pause. “It’s a good story.”

He looked at you.

You smiled. “Really. Wild.”

He didn’t answer, just looked at you.

Like he was staring at a house he built that someone else moved into.

He’d promised himself a hundred times over these past days: keep your distance. Let her live.

He told himself it wasn’t fair.

Not to her. Not to the life she’s built. Not to the new name she carries. Not to a woman who doesn't remember the ache he’s carried like bone-deep scar tissue.

But that night?

He came anyway.

He didn’t even realize he was walking out to the deck until he was already barefoot, jacketless, holding Soonie like a warm excuse.

You turned toward him. Just slightly.

“Why do you keep running away from me?” you asked, suddenly. “We talk. Then you disappear.”

He stiffened. “I don’t—”

“You do” you cut him gently.

He looked at you then.

And what he saw was terrifying.

Because you—wrapped in a blanket, in soft linen clothes, hair curling at the ends, with a teacup that smelled like ginger and sleep— looked exactly like you used to.

He’d sat too close. He’d let the cats crawl over the boundary he swore to keep. He’d let his shoulder brush yours. Let his silence feel like permission.

Because if he didn’t—

He might take your hand. He might press his forehead to your shoulder. He might cry and kiss you senseless.

Instead, he stood. Quietly.

“I should go check on Hae-soo,” he said, not meeting your eyes.

You nodded. “Of course.”

You were in a small, sun-warmed house. There was music playing faintly from a speaker in the corner. The light through the curtains was soft like milk, the smell of something fried was wafting through the air.

And you were laughing.

Because your belly was round and full and alive, And the man with the shorter hair, wearing the faded black shirt with oil paint on the sleeve, had his lips pressed to the skin just beneath your navel.

“Appa is talking,” he said in a baby voice.

You giggled. You couldn’t help it.

“Appa says,” he continued dramatically, “that he is going to buy a better, more expensive camera. One that captures even moonlight. One that—” he paused, kissing your bump again, “—will take your pictures till you're a grandma.”

You reached down and carded your fingers through his hair.

“I’ll buy it for you.”

“I want to earn it,” he said, seriously this time. “I want her to see how her father chased dreams like a maniac for her and her mother.”

“You’re dramatic” you whispered.

He looked up at you and smiled, still resting his cheek against your belly.

You sighed.

“You know… one day, we should visit a glowing beach” you said softly.

He blinked up at you. “What’s that?”

“Some beaches glow sometime. Because of bioluminescent algae. It’s beautiful. Like… the sea turning into stars.”

Minho sat up slightly, eyes flickering with interest. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Wherever it glows.”

“Take a photo.”

“Take a hundred.”

Then he leaned forward and kissed you.

And you woke up.

Next morning, Hae-soo's birthday.

Balloons were being tied to beach umbrellas. Jisung was running around yelling about cake sizes and blowing a whistle to “control the chaos.” And you?

You were kneeling in front of a beaming Hae-soo, handing her a gift wrapped in blue.

“A walkie-talkie set?” she gasped.

You smiled. “Five of them. You said you don't have a phone to talk to me, so....”

“YES!” she yelled, throwing her arms around your neck. “Y/N, you’re the coolest!”

“One for you, one for me, one for Minho, one for Jisung…” you said, ticking your fingers.

“And one for Soonie!” she shrieked.

“Obviously.”

The cat was less impressed but allowed the small device to be strapped across his chest like a soldier reporting for duty.

“Testing! Captain Hae-soo to Y/N!”

You picked yours up. “Come in, Captain.”

“I like the gift, Over” she said, nodding officially.

You saluted back. “Roger that. Over.”

Your heart felt like it had found a piece of itself you didn’t know was missing.

That evening, after cake and sparklers and a round of musical chairs where Minho was forced to join by Hae-soo and got beaten by a seven-year-old, you were sitting again.

You were still in your light summer dress—hair pulled back with one of Hae-soo’s birthday clips—and Minho was beside you, knees drawn up, resting his chin on them.

“I’m getting married next week” you said casually.

You continued, voice gentler. “He’s a doctor. Very kind. Works a lot, but good with kids. Kind of introverted. I think Hae-soo will like him.”

“Right,” Minho said, clearing his throat. “That’s… good.”

One more week and I'm out of your life.

Minho’s jaw flexed once before he nodded. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

There was a long pause.

You traced circles on your knee, voice dropping softer. “Lately though… I’ve been getting this feeling.”

“What kind?”

“The kind that makes you afraid of things you were once sure of.”

Minho turned his head slowly, watching you. “Marriage?”

You nodded.

His hand hovered, then gently rested on your shoulder.

“You’ll be okay,” he said softly.

You smiled a little. “Do you think some people are just… cursed when it comes to love?”

He doesn't answer.

The evening rolled on.

The mat was shifted closer to the patio lights of the resort as darkness deepened. More people had joined—other vacationers from the hotel who had been enchanted by Hae-soo’s megawatt charm. There were conversations and soft music, some light dancing, and even a small talent show put on by a pair of kids from Busan.

At some point, Jisung took a yawning Hae-soo inside—her walkie-talkie now crackling unintelligible static from Soonie sitting on the windowsill.

You saw from the corner of your eye, Minho leaving somehwere else with his camera and a tripod.

your mind drifted…back to that dream.

You follow him, to see him setting up the tripod, near the shore on the side where it was alone and dark. The camera clicks softly into place, and he sits down beside it, drawing his knees up, arms resting loosely.

You stand for a while before sinking down next to him.

He doesn’t look at you.

His eyes are distant, somewhere far away.

“For a man with a camera,” you said softly, “you sure pick the loneliest angles.”

He exhaled, just a little. Not quite a chuckle. “Some rare nights, the sea glows blue,” he said, adjusting a dial. “Because of bioluminescent algae.”

“Oh?” You tilted your head, a bit intrigued. “Tonight’s one of them?”

“Maybe,” he murmured. “If I fall asleep, I’ll miss it. And I can’t miss it.”

You looked at him, the hard line of his jaw, the mess of his bangs above one eyebrow.

“So you’ll just sit here?”

“Yeah.” he said.

“Did your wife say that? about the glowing algae?” you whispered.

He finally looked at you.

Then nodded.

Then you shift a little closer, arms brushing.

“She must’ve been wonderful,” you whisper. “How did she look?”

His breath caught.

“You must’ve taken pictures, right?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“None at all?”

His jaw tightened.

“Show me please, Just one?”

He stood. Picked up the camera. Moved five paces away, into the darker part of the shore, where the sand had different shades.

You sat still. Then called, “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to. I just—”

He hesitates. A moment too long. You go to him, he lets you sit next to him.

Moments ticked by.

“No, wait,” you said, voice trembling yet firm. “At least describe her.”

Again, he stands.

Again, he starts walking away—further this time, past the rocks, toward another curve of sand.

You shoot up, brushing off your shorts.

“Hey! I said I’m sorry, okay?! I won’t ask again!”

But he doesn’t stop.

You frown.

“What? You forgot how she looks like? Is that it?” You yell after him, tone sharp, a little mean, desperate in its ache. “I bet you did!”

He turned slowly. Walked over. Eyes blazing.

You were good at rage-baiting.

He was close. Too close.

“No,” he said, through gritted teeth.

“Then what? Tell me.”

He looked angry, looking at the beach once more before saying;

“She had pretty small eyes.”

You smiled—victory glinting, cheeks coming out to hide your eyes. But then he looked at you. Not just at you, into your eyes.

“And her smile… it made her cheeks puff. Her eyes would disappear. Like moons.”

Your smile softened.

He pointed to a particular shade of sand.

“Her skin was… like this.”

You looked down. He looked at you.

He wasn’t angry anymore.

“And no matter how irked I was,” he murmured, “Just looking at her would make me feel good. She was a heart-melting sight.”

You let that sink in, a soft warmth blooming.

His voice is gentler now, almost fond.

“She used to wear this black dress sometimes… it looked like she smeared all the night sky on herself—” he smiles softly.

You blink slowly.

His eyes find yours again.

“After a shower, she wouldn’t dry her hair properly. Let it fall… wet and wavy, all hair on one side. She'd probably do it on purpose...”

He says while showing with his own hands, how she'd move her hair to one shoulder.

You can’t look away from him.

Then he pointed to your cheek. “There was a mole right here.”

Your eyes flickered.

“She hated it sometimes. I told her it was the full stop that ended all my sentences.”

Suddenly blue illuminates his face, he turns to the beach as you still stared at his face.

And then he gestures to the sea—and this time, finally, finally—it glows.

Tiny specks of blue. Like fireflies caught in water. The waves shimmer with bioluminescence, dancing in motion where the foam rolls, painting the dark sea electric. Glowing.

He whispers, comes closer.

“She looked as pretty like that.”

You look at the beach and gasp, then smile wide. Full. Bright. Honest.

He takes in your reaction and sniffs once. The glowing blue bounces off his face, making his cheekbones shimmer.

He turns back to the camera, hiding the way he wipes at his eyes.

Click.

A few photos. He doesn’t speak.

You step beside him, the light kissing both your faces.

“You know” you say softly, watching the glowing water, “I feel like… I might fall in love with her too.”

He doesn't answer.

Just stares through the viewfinder a few seconds longer, finishes the last photo.

And then, without a word, he picks up the tripod, packs it away, slings the camera over his shoulder, and walks ahead.

You follow, and the laughter of people drifts from the resort’s direction. Music. Someone yelling about night drinks.

You're not even that drunk. Not really.

Okay, maybe the room is tilting a little. And okay, maybe Minho’s voice is way too loud for someone sitting right next to you. But you are definitely, totally, completely in control of your memory.

“You fellow” Minho slurs dramatically, pointing at your face, eyes squinty and full of betrayal, “You deleted all your past and I’m the one suffering!”

You blink. “Whaaaat?”

“She’ll remember tomorrow, hyung,” Jisung chips in from the floor, where he’s cross-legged and nursing a half-finished bottle of soju like it’s a baby. “I read somewhere. Like dreams. You forget when you wake up—unless it's traumatic. So just traumatize her.”

“That’s not even—”

“She won’t remember!” Minho declares over you, gripping your shoulder, and shaking you hard. “You won’t, don’t lie! You’re lying!”

“I DAMN well will!” you shoot back, poking him right in the chest.

He gasps. “Huh? What?! HUH??” He turns to Jisung, then back to you, dramatic as ever. “Your mom ruined my liiiiife, maaah liiiiife—”

“What are you talking about?” you shout over his howling, eyes wide.

Minho lunges forward, grabs your shoulders again, very seriously this time. “You’ll remember this tomorrow?”

You nod, aggressive. “Yeah!”

“Okay. Wait.” He holds a finger up in front of your face like a magician about to perform a trick. “Wait five seconds. Just five. Count with me. Five—”

“Four—” you mumble, narrowing your eyes.

“Three, two, ONE!” he finishes, then leans in way too close. “Now. What did you say five seconds ago?”

“What?”

He smacks his own forehead and falls backward onto the mat. “SEE?! YOU DON’T REMEMBER FIVE SECONDS AGO. What’ll you remember about a whole night ago, huh?”

Jisung starts laughing so hard he chokes on his own spit and ends up coughing violently.

You glare between both of them, rage bubbling up with the alcohol. “Idiots! Idiots, both of you! You had a great-ass love story! You idiot! I imagined being your wife, stupid! It’s all—stupid! Now I can’t—I’ve never—I mean sure I’ve never, but now I can’t even try to like my fiancée!”

Minho stares at you, mouth parted.

You gasp. “And I dreamt of being pregnant! With you! And I was telling you about some algae and you were crying and—ugh!” You dramatically flop onto the mat next to Minho.

“Did she say algae?” Jisung whispers.

Minho just murmurs, “Pregnant…” and then, like some puppet with cut strings, collapses beside you, shoulder brushing yours.

And that’s how all three of you pass out on a woven mat that smells faintly of the sea and seaweed snacks.

The Next Morning

There’s a rustle. Then a groan..

Minho's head hurts. His shirt is crooked. And your forehead is tucked right against the curve of his throat, breathing slow, arm accidentally draped across his waist.

“Bro…” Jisung whispers, already awake, staring. “She’s like… still asleep. But real question: is she actually remembering stuff or nah?”

Minho’s quiet. His arm’s around your shoulder, and he didn’t even realize until just now. Carefully, he tucks a loose strand of your hair behind your ear, like he’s done a hundred times in the past, and yet, not recently at all.

Jisung’s eyes light up. “Hyung. You can be together again. Right? You. Her. Hae Soo. Like, actually happy.”

Minho lets out a soft scoff. “No chance. Yesterday night I was at the beach. I took photos. Must’ve triggered something. That’s all.”

Jisung’s still sparkly-eyed, like some anime character full of hope and tragedy.

“She’s getting married next week.”

Jisung’s jaw drops. “WHAT?!”

He SCREAMS it, like a banshee’s final cry—enough to wake the entire resort and possibly startle a few birds off palm trees.

Your eyes fly open. Minho freezes. Jisung clamps his hands over his mouth.

Jisung is still whisper-screaming into his palms: married next week? MARRIED NEXT WEEK??

#skz #stray kids #skz imagines #skz x reader #fics #skz scenarios #lee know #skz lee know #lee know x reader #lee know x you #lee minho #skz minho #minho #stray kids minho #minho x reader #two shot #twoshot fic #twoshot #K-pop

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inkedtension · 6 days ago

Note

omg i love ur toji ficsss

Thank you so much! I def think about those a lot before I write em! <3

#ask #anon ask #Thanks!#jjk toji fushiguro

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inkedtension · 11 days ago

Text

Toji doesn’t say I love you. He says You done being annoying now? when you kiss him five times in a row, while lifting you up so you can do it better. He says Tch, move over, before tucking your legs over his lap. He says Don’t touch the tab, I got it even when you know he’s down to his last few yen.

You say I love you enough for both of you, anyway.

You notice the money problem before he says anything.

He never lets you pay for anything flashy—Toji’s too proud for that. But the way he gets quiet in front of vending machines, the way he turns down takeout even when your shared fridge is empty, the fact that he pawned his things—except his sunglasses (the ones you once said made him look hot)—it’s all proof.

You corner him one day, arms folded, hair messy from sleep and irritation.

“You’re broke.”

His eyes flick over to you from the couch. Shirtless. Legs spread. That unfairly sexy slouch he lives in.

“‘M not broke,” he mutters, mouth full of toothpick. “I’m just not wasting yen on overpriced pork broth.”

“Baby, you used to bathe in pork broth,” you say, stepping between his knees. “What happened, huh? Job fall through?”

He shrugs. His hands land on your hips automatically.

You soften, just a little. "Y’know I’ll cover it, right?"

He scowls. “Tch. Not your job to baby me.”

“Why not? You baby me all the time,” you smirk, dipping low to brush your nose against his. “You carried me all the way back from that warehouse in Kabukicho when I sprained my ankle and still stopped to buy me dumplings, remember?”

“…You cried, brat.” he mutters.

“So? You kissed my bruises, tough guy.”

He grunts but doesn’t argue. You win. He’s taking you on a ramen date tonight.

It’s almost midnight when you end up at your favorite hole-in-the-wall place in Shinjuku, wedged between a pachinko parlor and a 24-hour karaoke bar.

He scowls at your wallet when you slide it out.

"Don’t."

"Do you want to eat or do you want to stand outside glaring at the menu like it insulted your mother?"

You say it sweetly.

Toji just mutters something about “brats” and shoves his hands in his pockets. But you know he doesn’t mean it. Not when he pulls out your chair before slumping into his own. Not when he picks the garlic shoyu ramen because he remembers you like it. Not when his knee brushes yours under the tiny wooden table.

He eats like he’s starving. You slurp your noodles slowly, watching the steam curl against the night air outside the window.

Shinjuku’s neon glow spills across his jaw. You’re already thinking about kissing it.

"You're staring again," he mutters, not looking up.

You smile. "You're hot when you're broke."

You’re already two bites in when you groan dramatically and slump against Toji’s shoulder. “Ugh. I love you. And I love soup.”

He snorts. “Shoulda told the soup that instead of me.”

“Don’t be jealous of my other boyfriend,” you grin, licking broth off your chopsticks. “He’s hot, steamy, rich—”

Toji grabs your face with one big hand, coming from your other shoulder and smushes it. “You’re lucky I like you even when you’re being a little gremlin.”

You flash him a peace sign with your fingers, still trapped in his grip. “You love it. Admit it.”

He doesn’t respond, but his thumb brushes your cheek as he lets go.

You lean into his side again, warm, full, buzzed off salt and affection. Your legs swing a little under the counter seat.

Later, as you’re leaving, belly full and shoulders bumping with his, you spot them across the street.

A dad and his little girl.

She’s giggling, perched on his shoulders with her hands buried in his hair like it’s reins. He swings her legs a little as he walks. She squeals when he twirls.

It’s such a normal scene. So soft. So… unreachable, in your past.

You laugh.

Toji turns.

“What?”

“Nothing,” you say, brushing it off. “That just looks fun.”

He doesn’t say anything.

But you feel the shift in his chest beside you, he turns back to take a proper look and is back at your side as you start kicking rocks.

You fall asleep in his bed with his arm around your waist, his breath against your neck, and your leg flung over his thick thigh like it’s your rightful place.

You dream of floating.

You’re lounging on his couch, one sock on, one sock missing, hair a mess, scrolling on your phone and harassing him just by existing in his space like a warm, annoying kitten.

"Babyyy" you call. "I want attention."

"You've had attention since you woke up."

"You ignored me in the shower."

"I carried you into the shower."

"And then ignored me."

“You wanna go out?”

You blink. “Huh?”

“Get dressed. Wear shorts.”

You squint.

When you're out, he first streches like he slept for thirteen days straight, then looks at you, who just looks at him.

Your face said one thing: Where you taking me you broke anyway.

He crouches right in front of you, turns his back towards you.

“C’mere.”

You laugh. “Toji, wh—”

You’re still in shock two minutes later when he jerks his chin to the side to look at you over his shoulder.

“C’mon.”

“Toji—what the fuck—”

“Shut up. You said it looked fun.”

You slide onto his shoulders with clumsy amusement, thighs hugging either side of his head. His hands hook behind your knees.

Your laugh bubbles up before you can stop it. “You serious? Baby, I’m not five—”

He straightens to full height. You yelp. The street below you looks distant. His neck flexes under your hands.

“Yeah, and I’m not a damn jungle gym,” he snaps, but his grip doesn’t loosen. “But if you wanna be a brat about it, I’ll just run. See how long you last.”

Despite saying that, he first steadies himself, then starts walking slowly.

His massive hands slide up under your thighs, pulling you flush against his neck, legs dangling. It’s a little awkward. Wobbly.

You squeal, grabbing for his head.

"You're carrying me like a child?"

His grip’s adjusting, your balance is off. You’re squeezing his temples with your thighs while laughing hysterically.

“Baby—you’re gonna drop me!”

“You’re gripping my skull like a damn vice—stop kicking.”

“Why are you WALKING like that—?”

“It’s your fault for squirming.”

He moves like he’s stalking prey. Broad shoulders rolling under you, slow and dramatic, drawing attention. A little boy on the corner gasps. A teenager points. A middle-aged woman stares with horror.

You feel ten feet tall.

Actually… eleven.

Toji huffs. “You’re lucky I didn’t make you carry me.”

“I would, if I could,” you say between giggles. “You’re like three of your cheap fridges stacked on top of each other.”

He shrugs.

Toji keeps walking. Through alleys, past convenience stores, under blinking signs. The city stretches below you in all directions.

He even stops by to buy something from a store nearby the road while you made contact with the cats on the roof, petting them when they flinch, when he reaches up a un-wrapped lolipop for you.

"You're insane" you murmur, taking it from his hand, dazed from height and heat and adrenaline.

He adjusts your leg, starts walking back home.

"You liked it. Yesterday. When you saw that guy with his kid."

You go quiet.

"I just thought… maybe no one ever carried you like that. Not for fun."

The streetlights hit him just right. You stare down at his head, at his hair, at this ridiculous, massive, absurd man who pretends like he doesn't care.

Your throat tightens.

“You’re a sap” you say softly, voice cracking.

“And you’re heavy.”

You laugh through your tears and kick his chest. “Asshole.”

“Brat.”

He doesn’t stop walking.

Back at home, you collapse onto the futon, dead weight, a moaning noodle of a girl.

“Dead” you whimper. “You’re dead. Carrying me killed you. You’re a ghost now.”

He looms over you, pulling his shirt off with one hand from behind his neck.

“Nah. You’re the one who’s gonna be dead if you keep talkin’, brat.” he says with that grin that always ruins you.

You tug him down by the waistband.

“I’m always talkin’, baby,” you say. “Still love me?”

He kisses your jaw, then your throat, then down to your collarbone.

“Always.”

#jjk #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen toji #jjk toji #fushiguro toji #toji fushiguro #toji fluff #toji x you #toji x reader #fushiguro toji x reader #toji fushiguro x reader #im not saying that 'if he's your bf he's your father figure' this is just something i got to mind so calm down if you think weird #jjk fanfic #toji fanfic #fluff

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inkedtension · 19 days ago

Text

Something like a Pulse, 2.

This one's not much, but it will be better next part, I'm writing flashbacks please be patient!

Part-1

After that evening with Nanami.

It’s 10:37 a.m. The sun’s already biting at your eyes, even through the shade.

You lean against the railing outside the training field, the cold metal brushing through your sleeves. The morning’s quiet—except for some second-years screaming in the distance, probably over who drank all the vending machine milk again.

Yaga had caught you and Nanami just before you left last night, said Toge’s throat had been wrecked after pushing his technique too far again. Nothing permanent—he’d recover. But until then, he’d need one-on-one guidance. Quiet combat, precise movement, minimal verbal instruction. You.

You didn’t argue.

Now you’re staring at your phone. A recent curse in your life—thanks to Gojo Satoru, who insisted you “upgrade from that Nokia brick” and installed a new messaging app “for ease of communication and memes.”

You scroll through your contacts. You don’t have many.

You get Maki’s number from Shoko that morning. She sends Toge’s with zero questions and a thumbs-up emoji.

You open the chat. You type.

You: Come to the training field at 11:00 a.m.

Simple. Direct. Clear.

The typing bubble appears. Then disappears. Then returns. Then:

Toge Inumaki: i’ll skibidi ur gyatt lol

You stare. You blink. You lower the phone, check the number again. It’s the right one.

You: Pardon?

Silence.

The typing bubble shows for a split second. Then nothing.

You check the time. 10:52. You don’t move.

At 11:00 sharp, you’re standing in the middle of the field, arms folded. The wind rustles your turtleneck. You hear birds. No footsteps.

11:07. Your phone buzzes.

You glance down.

Toge Inumaki: OH MY GOD I’M SO SORRY SENSEI DIDN’T KNOW IT WAS YOU I SWEAR I THOUGHT IT WAS A BOT OR SOMETHING I’M NOT EVEN SURE WHAT A GYATT IS PLEASE DON’T FAIL ME I’M ALREADY IN ENOUGH PAIN I RESPECT YOU SO MUCH PLEASE I’LL BE THERE IN 3 MINUTES I’M RUNNING I BROUGHT WATER TOO

You stare at the wall of text.

Your thumb hovers over the keyboard.

You type:

You: Three minutes. I’m counting.

Then you lower the phone.

You don’t fail students.

But you do believe in suffering.

By the time Inumaki stumbles into the field, he’s half-dead from sprinting. Sweat-soaked, hoodie twisted, backpack dragging like he thought this was a camping trip instead of rehabilitation training. He bows so fast you think he might pass out right there.

You just turn.

And walk toward the target dummies.

He scrambles after you. Doesn’t say a word. Just unlocks his phone with shaking fingers.

Your phone vibrates.

Toge Inumaki: ty senpai 4 not nuking me

You ignore the message.

Instead, you gesture toward the field. The grass is marked by old blasts. There’s a shattered post still upright. You didn’t have time to fix it.

You toss him a practice knife.

He straightens. Nods. Face serious. The training begins.

Fifteen minutes pass.

Then thirty.

Your phone buzzes constantly.

You never check.

You glance at him. He’s looking at you with the most serious face he can manage.

You turn away again.

"You’re getting faster. Adjust your grip. You keep leading with your shoulder."

Toge Inumaki: ok ok coach don’t yell at me with ur mind sorry sensei-sama-dono-god-boss

You ignore that one too. You hand him another knife.

He probably realised you wont fail him whatsoever.

He texts mid-movement, mid-crash. It starts off cautious. Then strange. Then aggressively.

Toge Inumaki: no bc this technique training bouta make me rizzless training w u is like fighting a greek statue of judgment gyatt damn sensei

You raise your eyebrows, but never respond to any of it.

"Your left foot’s lagging. You’re losing momentum on turns. Rotate your hip fully."

He collapses into the grass and doesn’t get up.

You stand over him.

He types one-handed.

Toge Inumaki: if i die tell maki she can have my limited edition pokemon crocs sensei this is character development right am i your favorite now

You tilt your head. Say nothing.

He grins.

From then on, he starts walking closer. Not to flirt. Not to impress. But to poke the beast. To see if the cold, stoic phantom of a teacher will react to the stupidest slang possible.

Toge Inumaki: i made u a meme you’re mid in it tho jk ur valid ily sensei as a joke as a joke as a joke

You blink once. “Go run another lap.”

He groans so loud it echoes across the field.

You go back to checking his footwork, like nothing ever happened.

Post injury.

That night you were not allowed to patrol, and you slept in your house, dreamt of Geto Suguru and the night you spent in the shower rooms.

Flashback, Geto Suguru.

It’s too foggy to see clearly, and that’s probably why you don’t realize someone’s already in the shower room.

You’re sleep-deprived, ribs still sore from a cursed spirit that got a lucky hit. You don’t think twice before tossing your towel onto the nearest bench and stepping in. The water’s scalding but it doesn’t register. You scrub your arms, then your face, until it feels like something might come off. Dirt, maybe. Or skin. Or grief.

All you remember is steam. The thick kind — hot, choking — rising off the tile like fog.

You didn’t notice him until you’d already stepped under the water, stripped down, bruised and aching, hot spray running over your chest like it might peel your bones clean.

You bend backwards to rinse your hair, spine cracking, and—

There he is, across the stall.

Bent the same way. Water falling down his face. Black hair darker with wet.

Eyes locking with yours.

Who entered the wrong shower room again?

It should be awkward. Naked. Alone.

But you were two people who’d run out of the energy to care about shame.

A hard jolt — cough cough hiss — then the water slows to a pitiful trickle. You slap the faucet, annoyed. It sputters again, sprays sideways, then stops altogether.

You sigh, hand braced against the tile.

Then movement. From your left.

He walks over, still dripping from his own stall, muttering under his breath, and reaches around your faucet. Long fingers, callused palm. He hits something — a valve, maybe — and the pressure jerks back. Water floods the showerhead again.

You step back automatically, not thanking him, not sure if you're supposed to. He doesn't wait.

He just nods once, silent, and walks back to his own stall.

You return to scrubbing. The silence stretches. There’s only the hissing sound of the showers and your breathing, your fatigue, the growing fog.

You blink water from your lashes.

He steps out again.

You’re not sure why. Maybe he’s finished. Maybe he forgot something. Maybe he’s trying to remember something.

Steam curls around your ankles. A droplet falls from your jaw to your collarbone. The ache in your chest doesn’t go away, but it shifts. Something recognizes itself.

Eventually, he glances down at his hand.

He’s out of soap.

You reach blindly behind you and offer yours over the half-wall between stalls. He takes it without a word.

You’re rinsing your hair again when you catch it, he’s looking at you.

At your face. Your expression.

The blank way you stare into the spray, as if it might melt your face off and you wouldn't care.

You meet his eyes again. They’re tired and red now.

After the showers cut off and the steam begins to settle, neither of you move to get dressed.

You wrap your towel around your chest.

He wraps his around his waist.

You both sit on the bench, damp and silent, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee.

The tile floor sweats beneath your feet, water dripping down from your wet legs. The lights buzz. It’s almost 2 AM.

You don’t look at each other.

“Do you think they’ll ever stop sending us out?” you murmur, voice hoarse from the heat.

“No” Suguru replies. “They’ll stop when we die.”

You nod once.

He rubs his hand down his face, slow and heavy. “My last mission,” he says, “the curse cried.”

You glance at him.

He’s not looking at you.

“It was a mother who’d lost her son. The records said it killed three people, but I think they all deserved it.”

He huffs out a breath that isn’t quite a laugh.

“I still killed her.”

He’s not crying. But you feel like he wanted to.

You rest your elbow on your knee. “Mine was a two-headed child. It kept asking for its father. I crushed its skull with a brick.”

Suguru looks over, finally.

Your eyes meet again. You both look so exhausted.

So disgustingly young, and so impossibly old.

He speaks again, voice barely audible. “Why are we still here?”

You shrug. “Probably ‘cause we’re not brave enough to leave.”

His eyes stay on yours for a beat too long.

Then he chuckles. It’s a bitter, short sound.

“You’re awful company.”

“You’re worse.”

There’s a silence. Then another.

It stretches. Unspoken. Hollow.

Then he leans in, and kisses your lips.

And you don’t pull away.

It’s just lips at first. Chapped. Cold. Nothing special, yet it was soft. Gentler than you'd expect, it was softer and gentler than anything you've got from this world.

But you’ve both been so starved for something human.

You push your fingers into his hair. He cups your jaw.

It doesn’t feel like affection. It feels like surrender. Like two people giving in to the weight of the world pressing down on their ribs.

You don’t speak, your towels fall, eventually.

You let him touch you, you touch him back.

It’s not passionate. It’s just quiet.

A quiet that fills a silence neither of you could name.

After, you sit beside him on the cool tile, in towels again, back hitting the bench, as he lies with his head against your thigh, and you stroke his damp hair back.

He doesn’t say anything, just stares up at your face with those red-rimmed eyes, holding your wrist.

The next morning, you’re gone before he wakes up.

And when Suguru leaves the school month later, when he kills for the first time, when his name becomes something unspoken, you wonder if he remembers that night.

Because you do.

And when you saw his parents' dead bodies, you remembered how warm his hands had felt.

Next morning.

Gojo broke into your house. Mumbling how he's to make you his and marry you because he couldn't sleep alone all night as he was so worried about your injury. And, according to his calculations he should be dating you since the past 2 years, so you apparantly are. Now he's huffing and watching you sip tea with your ankles crossed.

Toge texts you. You feel the buzz.

Toge Inumaki: sensei r u having fun or r u funning from having feelings get it like running but FUNNING pls respond and get well soon

You don’t look up. You text back.

You: The next lap you run will be vertical

Post recovery. After a few days.

It’s 2:41 a.m. when you finally unlock your door, coming back from your first patrol after recovery.

You’ve just returned from a night patrol and a full day of dragging Toge across the training field while he texted you things.

Toge Inumaki: not to be dramatic but i’m gonna perish in ur arms if i do one more roll sensei u could never work at starbucks u could never spell my name right

Your back aches. Your neck is stiff. Your tolerance for idiocy is at its end.

You open the door.

There’s a long, loud thud at your feet.

Gojo Satoru is sprawled dramatically on the floor of your entryway. Face down. Shoes off.

Head turned slightly so he can peer up at you through half-lidded eyes.

“…Step on me,” he whispers.

You blink once.

Say nothing.

Then step over him.

“Hey—!”

“I’m not wasting the energy.”

He scrambles to his knees, still inside the threshold like a ghost that hasn’t been invited in. “What do you mean, not wasting? You can’t just ignore a perfectly good offer to assert dominance!”

You drop your bag on the chair. “You’re lucky I didn’t jump directly onto your spine.”

He pouts. “You knew I was here?”

“I knew you were following me. I didn’t think you’d break in again. That was… bold.”

He lifts a finger. “Technically, I just teleported through the wall.”

“Still breaking and entering.”

“Romantic.”

You sit on the edge of your new sofa—still a novelty—and start unlacing your boots.

Gojo doesn’t move from the floor. “I have a confession.”

“You’re dying?” you say flatly.

He gasps. “How did you know?”

You glance at him. His nose is red. His hoodie’s half-zipped. His voice is clogged like a toddler with allergies.

“You caught a cold.”

“This is the end,” he groans, collapsing onto his side. “I don’t have long.”

You sigh.

He looks up again, dramatically. “Will you take me to the rose garden? One last time?”

You pause.

“There’s no rose garden.”

“There could be.”

You say nothing.

He props his chin on his hand. “Just imagine. You, me, twilight. A bench under the trellis. Petals floating in the wind. You finally admit you’ve loved me all along.”

You finish unlacing your boots and stand.

He watches with gleaming eyes.

You walk into the kitchen.

He drags himself across the floor after you like a slug in heat. “I can’t die without closure…”

You open the fridge, now full thanks to his unrequested makeover. You grab the water bottle you left this morning. He leans against the doorway.

“I want roses at my funeral.”

You drink slowly. Turn to him.

“You’ll be cremated.”

He pouts harder. “What if I want to be reborn as a rose? In a rose garden you plant?”

You toss him a cold pack from the freezer.

It hits his shoulder.

“Fever dreams” you say.

He clutches the ice dramatically to his head. “I’m so brave.”

“I’ll call Nanami to come get you.”

He gasps. “You wouldn’t.”

You raise an eyebrow.

He scuttles to the couch. “Fine. But I’m not leaving until I feel loved. Or at least pitied.”

“You’ll be here a long time.”

He grins. “Good. I brought snacks.”

You watch him settle in, hoodie bunched at his neck, ridiculous energy radiating from every pore.

You walk past.

And drop a blanket on his lap.

“…Wait” he says quietly. “That’s not rejection.”

You don’t look back.

“Is it?” he calls after you.

The door to your room closes.

He grins to himself.

Nestles deeper into the couch.

And dreams of rose gardens he’s never seen.

Toge [11:23 PM]

did he come did he come did he come

You [11:23 PM] He reorganized my fridge.

Toge no bc sensei got that NPC behavior fr

You You’re supposed to defend your other teacher.

Toge i am defending he lowkey rizzed u up be honest

You You’re just typing words now.

Toge nah bc real talk sensei got that ✨emotional damage✨ mans saw u blink and thought it was character development sigma struggle

You You really hate him huh

Toge no bro(sry sensei) i respect him he’s the goat fr but like also a ✨Certified Goofy✨ bro got 20/20 vision and still can’t see ur not into him unless they stab him in the face he’s fighting for his life trying to get u to smile once

You I never said i wasnt into him?

Toge

Ohhhhhh so you do smilee

Toge not with ur face with ur aura i get it

Toge ur still in denial gonna bench press my cursed speech limit like a real sigma gyatt to maintain the grind

You [12:03 AM] Wait. You’re not joking, are you? He really like, actually likes me?

Toge [12:04 AM] sensei u bet on that skibidi he does man's gyatt more emotional bandwidth for u than cursed energy itself

You That makes no sense.

Toge neither does rearranging someone’s fridge alphabetically but he did that for u that’s not fake love that’s ✨soulmate grindset✨

You But he flirts with everyone.

Toge yeah but he don’t memorize nanami-senpai’s tea order he goes into NPC mode when u walk into the room like a glitching sim bro(sry sensei) down so astronomical even nasa gave up

You I thought he was just… being Gojo.

Toge nah this ain’t “just gojo” this is “gojo.exe stopped responding” mans been soft-launching his love since the heian period he waits for u like ur the update patch that’ll fix his entire life

You God. That’s… Weird.

Toge love is weird so is he so are u otp behavior tbh

You I hate this.

Toge no u don’t ur heart doing skibidi in ur ribcage rn don’t lie

Toge [12:12 AM] sensei HELP nanami-sensei looked at me like I committed tax fraud

You What did you do.

Toge I texted “live laugh slay” to him accidentally when he finished his mission debrief i forgot he isnt u I was SUPPORTING him like motivational speaker vibes??

You He’s going to put you in a casket

Toge pls save me you’re like the only human he listens to without judging help a lil bro out ill owe u like my soul my crocs

You : ....

Toge access to my gojo folder

You You have a Gojo folder?

Toge we all do some of us are just more honest about it

You Alright. I’ll fix this. In exchange. You tell me all the....weird things he’s said or done this week.

Toge BET

man whispered “i miss her voice” while looking at a pencil

drank soup with a fork “to prolong the experience”

tried to write a poem it started with “roses are cursed, violets are technique”

went quiet for 10 mins after u said goodnight one day. just stared into a mug like it held the meaning of life

You What mug?

Toge the one he stole from your cabinet says “world’s okayest sorcerer” he hugs it sometimes called it “a totem of her mild affection”

You You’re joking.

Toge sensei he calls ur mug "her relic" the mans is not okay like sigma core heartbroken sadboy arc

You I’ll talk to Nanami. You’re not off the hook yet.

Toge ily sensei ur the GOATest

Toge update: nanami-sensei said “ask her why she lets the world revolve around her silence”

You He said that?

Toge yeah like deadass real poetic for a salaryman also ino is now hiding behind a tree with another cat trying to impress him idk why u ppl r like this

You don’t know when exactly you made the mistake of letting Gojo Satoru into your life. Maybe it was when you let him walk beside you without telling him to buzz off. Maybe it was when you didn’t immediately ignore his idiotic attempts at flirting. Or maybe it was when, in a rare moment of weakness, you let him kiss your cheek and didn’t deck him afterward.

Now he's fixed you’re dating.

Now he won’t leave you alone, not after that 'incident' which he's so careful while mentioning because he's scared it'll happen again.

“Y/N” Satoru singsongs, leaning dramatically on your shoulder even though you’re standing. He manages to find the exact spot between your shoulder blade and collarbone that makes his weight feel heavier than it is. “Why do you always—mmm—is that leather? Ugh, you're so cool. I’m obsessed.”

You don’t say anything. You don’t even look at him.

You’re focused on your mission report, arms crossed, frame bent slightly as you scan over the document.

Satoru calls you his "goddess."

You call him an idiot.

He doesn’t take offense. Of course he doesn’t.

“Hellooooo?” he says again, this time poking your cheek with his gloved finger, stretching your stoic profile as if to mold it into something expressive. “Are you mad at me? Did I do something wrong? Or do you not love me anymore? Be honest. I can take it.”

You slap his hand away—not hard, but not gently either.

“Don’t touch me” you say flatly.

He pouts. “But we’re dating.”

“No” you correct. “You’re dating the idea of dating me.”

He gasps, clutching his chest like you stabbed him. “You wound me. After everything we’ve been through.”

“What, like you clinging to me in bed because you get ‘night terrors’?”

“They’re real! The dark is scary, sweetheart. And you’re my safety blanket.”

“You’re taller than me. And stronger.”

He grins, clearly delighted you acknowledged his height. “Only by a little. It’s hot. We look like a power couple. Like—like assassins-for-hire who kiss after killing a guy.”

“Stop romanticizing everything.”

You start walking, and he follows immediately, shoving his hands into his pockets and grinning like a dog off-leash.

He trots beside you now, matching your long stride like an eager puppy.

“Needy little thing, aren’t you?” you mutter.

Satoru’s grin widens. “You noticed me. That’s basically affection. I should log this in my journal. ‘Day 36712: She acknowledged my existence with mild contempt. My heart fluttered.’”

You stop walking. He nearly slams into you.

“Are you done?” you ask, voice even.

“Never” he replies sweetly. “Not until you’re head over heels in love with me.”

You narrow your eyes at him. They’re cold. Expressionless. They look like they were carved from the same shadows you wear so well. He’s seen those eyes in battle — steel under blood — and he knows you’re not someone to be trifled with.

But God, he loves being trifled.

“I don’t do love,” you say finally. “It’s not real.”

He tilts his head. “That so?”

“It’s chemical. Stupid. It makes people weak.”

Satoru steps into your space. For a moment, the cocky flirt fades, and something quieter passes through his expression. Like fog lifting.

“I’m already weak” he says. “When it comes to you.”

You roll your eyes. “You’re insufferable.”

“I know” he says brightly. “But you’re still here.”

That’s the problem.

You are still here. You haven’t left. Haven’t told him to piss off permanently. And you could. You’re one of the only people capable of shutting him down — physically, emotionally, strategically. You’ve beaten him in sparring before. You’ve outmaneuvered him in the field. You’ve resisted every one of his flirtations with terrifying resolve.

Except once.

That one night. That stupid night when the cold got to your bones, and his arms were warm, and he came willingly to hug you, you let him be something soft in a world that was only ever sharp.

Now he won’t shut up about it.

“I made you breakfast” he says suddenly.

You blink. “It’s 3PM.”

“It’s never too late for pancakes.”

“I don’t eat pancakes.”

“I made them in the shape of your initials.”

You stare at him.

“Satoru” you say slowly.

“Yes, my queen of darkness?”

“If you keep talking, I will choke you out and leave your unconscious body in a supply closet.”

He beams. “That’s the hottest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

You do eventually eat the pancakes.

And the next time you’re on a mission, and he won’t stop pacing around you with annoying little remarks like

“Are you sure you don’t wanna hold hands while we exorcise this curse? For morale?”

you don’t punch him.

You let him walk beside you. Shoulder brushing shoulder.

And when he slips his hand into yours under the smoke and ruin of a leveled battlefield, you don’t pull away.

You squeeze once. Only once.

He grins so wide it might split his face.

There’s a muffled thud behind you. Familiar, light-footed, and completely unnecessary, like a child trying to sneak up on someone who already knows they’re there. You don’t turn around. Not yet. You cross your arms instead, eyes focused on the small stack of mission files on your desk. You’re not reading them—just pretending to. You’d rather stare at ink than meet those annoyingly pretty blue eyes.

“You didn’t answer my messages,” comes the exaggerated whine, petulant and thick with dramatic suffering. “Not even a heart emoji. Or a dot. Nothing. You left me to die in the dark…”

You sigh. “You’re literally the strongest.”

“I’m emotionally fragile,” Gojo replies immediately, like he’s been rehearsing the line. You can hear the grin in his voice. “It’s different.”

Still, you don’t turn. You hope the wall of your back will discourage him. It doesn’t. You know better.

“You’re wearing the same black outfit again. You know what that does to me.” There’s a soft shuffle of fabric, and suddenly his chin is perched on your shoulder, like a cat that’s claimed its perch. He’s warm, obnoxiously so, like the sun climbing onto your personal weather system. “You’re not even gonna say hi to your loving, loyal boyfriend? The one who fought three curses last night and didn’t even brag about it?”

You tilt your head just slightly, enough to side-eye him. “Go away.”

He gasps, clutching his chest like you stabbed him. “You’re so cruel. I bring joy and sunshine into your dreary, colorless life, and you tell me to go away?”

You lift an eyebrow. “Yes.”

“Okay, but like… what if I don’t?” he counters, looping his arms around your waist from behind and hanging off you. “Let me stay here forever. You’re my emotional support monolith.”

You roll your eyes and shake him off, which is harder than you’d like to admit. He’s clingy and deceptively heavy when he wants to be. Like a weighted blanket of pure chaos. You turn finally, looming over him, your expression unreadable, arms crossed again like a shield.

“You’re needy.”

“I’m in love,” he says, dead serious for once. “With a terrifying woman who wears black like she’s allergic to joy. I think that says more about me than you.”

You grunt. You’ve heard it all before. He thrives off reactions, and you refuse to give him the satisfaction. So instead, you pivot back to your desk, ignoring how his eyes practically sparkle as he trails after you like a kicked puppy.

“Why don’t you ever text me first?” he tries again, plopping down on your couch like he owns it. “Or compliment me? I wore the cologne you said didn’t give you a headache. That’s relationship growth. That’s commitment.”

You snort. “It’s basic decency.”

He groans, flopping dramatically. “Why won’t you just say you love me already? Or like me. Or tolerate me. Give me crumbs. Please.”

“Gojo—”

“I’ll take anything,” he interrupts. “An elbow touch. A blink in my direction. A silent nod that might mean you thought about me once for 0.2 seconds—”

“Satoru.”

He sits up, eyes wide. “Oh my god. You’re gonna kill me. You are the curse.”

You narrow your eyes. “You done?”

“Emotionally? Never. Mentally? Rarely. But I’ll shut up if—” he leans forward, propping his chin in his hand with a shameless grin “—you give me one nice word. Just one. Like, ‘I appreciate you’ or ‘You’re marginally tolerable.’ I’ll take a grunt that could be affection.”

You stare at him. He stares back. You hate how pretty he is. It’s infuriating. Like his whole existence is designed to test your patience. His white hair is a mess, and his blindfold is pushed up so his eyes are visible—dangerous, glittering, and wholly fixated on you like you’re the only thing in the room.

“You’re annoying.”

He beams. “That’s flirty when you say it.”

You groan, leaning your forehead on the desk. “Why me?”

“Because you’re cool, emotionally constipated, and make my heart go boom boom even when you look like you’d rather set me on fire.” His voice softens. “And because no one else makes me feel like being this clingy is worth it.”

You pause, just a beat too long. He notices. Of course he does.

“…You’re lucky I tolerate you,” you mutter.

He gasps again. “Wait—wait—hold on. Did you just—? That was a compliment. A literal compliment.”

You flick a pen at his forehead.

“God, I love you.” he whispers, grinning as it bounces off his skull.

You ignore the sudden warmth in your chest and reach for the mission files again. If you look at him too long, you’ll actually smile, and that’s not allowed. Not when he’s already so insufferably pleased with himself.

Still, when he settles back onto the couch, humming some ridiculous love song and watching you like you’re his favorite show, you don’t tell him to leave again.

The knock on your door is too quiet. That’s how you know something’s wrong.

Gojo doesn’t knock. He bursts in like the world revolves around him—which, in his mind, it does. He usually makes his presence known with the sound of his obnoxious voice echoing down the hall, whining your name like it’s a song, demanding snacks, attention, or affection in that order.

But tonight, it’s just a soft knock.

You pause, halfway through pulling on a hoodie over your training top, and frown. You cross the room and open the door.

He’s standing there.

And he’s bleeding.

The white of his hair is matted with streaks of red. His blindfold is hanging from his neck, useless. There’s a cut over his brow, another deeper one across his side, staining the hem of his jacket. One arm is limp at his side, shoulder clearly dislocated. And yet, he’s smiling.

That same stupid, bright smile.

“Hi” he says. “You’re gonna be mad at me.”

Your fingers twitch at your sides. “Satoru—”

“I know,” he says quickly. “I shouldn’t have gone in alone. It wasn’t even a special grade, I just—well, okay, it became one. Surprise! Anyway, I handled it, but… yeah. Kinda got roughed up.”

You just grab him by the front of his bloodied jacket and drag him inside.

It takes fifteen minutes to clean him up. Mostly in silence.

He hisses when you reset his shoulder, muttering a quiet “ow, ow, ow” like a child trying not to cry during a shot. But he doesn’t complain beyond that. You wish he would, honestly. You’d know what to do with that. Jokes. Whining. The usual Gojo toolkit.

But instead, he’s subdued. Watchful. Studying you like he’s waiting for you to snap.

You finish wrapping his ribs and set the med kit aside.

“I’m sorry,” he says, suddenly. “I know you don’t like all the emotional crap, but if you hadn’t answered the door—”

You turn away.

You can’t look at him like this. Not when his smile is dimmer. Not when his hair’s stained and his body’s wrecked and he still said hi like it was just another tuesday. Like he wasn’t two minutes from passing out on your porch.

“You’re an idiot” you mutter. It comes out hoarse.

He perks up. “There it is. There’s my girl. C’mon, yell at me more. Scold me. Tell me I’m reckless and immature.”

You clench your jaw. “You are.”

He nods enthusiastically. “Right?”

“Satoru.”

Silence.

Your voice doesn’t sound like yours. You hate how it cracks. How the word lingers.

He looks at you for a long time. Then he does something worse than cracking a joke.

He leans forward, gently, rests his head against your shoulder, and wraps both arms around your waist. He holds you like you’re the thing keeping him grounded. You stiffen.

“…Don’t” you murmur, voice low, but you don’t push him away.

“'M sorry” he whispers into your hoodie. “I didn’t mean to.”

You stay silent. But your hands twitch. You should pull back. Tell him this is too much. You don’t do this—this closeness. You don’t do soft things.

But his breathing is shaky, uneven against your chest. The fabric of his jacket smells like blood and smoke and something vaguely like—his cologne. The one you said didn’t suck. Of course he remembered.

You exhale, defeated.

“Fine,” you grumble. “Come here.”

You guide him down onto your bed, muttering curses the entire way, scolding him for being heavy, dramatic, a damn child. He grins the whole time.

“I’m taking care of you. That’s all this is,” you say stiffly, pulling a blanket over both of you. “It’s not romantic.”

“Sure” he says, smug and slurred with exhaustion, already curling into your side like a human octopus. “Totally not romantic. Just let me borrow your warmth, o’ monolith of stoicism.”

“You’re injured” you snap.

“Mm-hm.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Love you too, very much.”

You stiffen at that, then sigh. Again. Somehow he always wins.

But you let your arm settle around him.

Just this once.

Just until he’s better.

You stare at the small bag in your hand like it personally offended you.

It crinkles loudly when you shift your grip. You hate the sound. Hate how bright the packaging is. Hate how the cashier looked at you like you were picking up candy for a child—“they must really love sweets!” she’d said, smiling. You grunted something noncommittal and left before you had to explain that no, they weren’t for a child.

They were for an emotionally volatile adult man with godlike power and a clinginess problem.

He’d been laying low for a few days after the injury. Mostly in your apartment. Not that you invited him. He just never left.

He’d complained once or twice about being “sweet-deprived,” in that dramatic, wounded-bird way of his—“how am I supposed to heal without sugar? You’re literally starving me of serotonin.” You’d rolled your eyes and ignored it. At least out loud.

But you remembered. And now here you are, standing outside your own door like a fool, with a bag of hand-picked lollipops clutched in your fist like it’s a bomb you’re about to throw.

You hate this. You hate him.

You open the door anyway.

He’s on your couch, of course. Draped across it like a Victorian ghost, arm over his eyes, long legs taking up the whole damn thing.

“Welcome home, dearest” he says without looking up. “I made myself at home. As usual.”

“I can see that.”

“You were gone forever. I almost perished. Where were you last night—some silent mission? An underground cage match?”

“Patrol.”

You walk past him and drop the bag on his chest.

He squawks. Like a literal bird. “What is—?”

You sit down next to him, arms crossed, eyes on the wall. “Lollipops. For your… thing. Your sweet tooth or whatever.”

Gojo lifts the bag slowly, reverently, like it’s sacred. He peeks inside. His eyes go wide. “You got the strawberry milk swirl ones. And the peach rings. And—oh my god, is this the sour cherry kind I like that only that weird little convenience store carries? Are you kidding me?”

You grunt. “It’s just candy.”

“This is a declaration of love,” he says seriously, shaking the bag at you. “This is intimate. This is so hot. You are wooing me. This is level 6 seduction.”

“I will punch you.”

“I’d ask for it.”

You finally glance at him and immediately regret it. He’s glowing. Practically levitating with joy. He’s holding one of the lollipops like it’s a bouquet of roses. His smile is so bright it makes your teeth hurt.

“Don’t read into it” you mutter. “I was already out. You kept whining. I didn’t want to hear about it anymore.”

“Oh no” he gasps, leaning closer. “Did the ice queen bring me candy to shut me up? Is this how you show affection? I love this for us. Please keep threatening me while giving me sweets. I’ve never been more emotionally stimulated.”

You cover your face with one hand. “I should’ve left you bleeding on the porch.”

“You didn’t, though, and now you’re bringing me snacks like a 7-foot tsundere care package.”

“I’m not seven feet tall—”

“You’re taller than me when I’m slouching, and that’s emotionally significant.”

You turn toward him finally, expression sharp. “If you say one more word—”

He cuts you off by leaning over and planting a loud, obnoxious kiss on your cheek.

You freeze.

He pulls back, grinning so hard it’s a miracle his face doesn’t break in half. “Thanks, sweetcheeks.”

Your fists clench. Your eye twitches. Your whole face burns.

But you don’t shove him away.

And when he cracks open the lollipops and offers you the first one—“you get first pick, sugar supplier’s rights”—you grumble something and take it.

He leans his head on your shoulder after that, humming as he unwraps one for himself.

You let him stay there.

Gojo’s been quiet all morning.

Which, in Gojo terms, means only two full monologues about dream scenarios where you finally “give in and marry him” and exactly one dramatic sigh every ten minutes instead of three. But for him? Practically mute.

You don’t trust it.

He’s curled up at the far end of the couch, hoodie swallowing his lanky frame, hair sticking up like he lost a fight with a pillow. He has a lemon lollipop in his mouth and is very, very busy staring at the ceiling.

You narrow your eyes. “What are you sulking about?”

His head lolls to the side. He blinks at you. “Me? Sulk? Nooo. Not me. I’m just sitting here, thinking about the fact that I’ve laid my entire heart bare before you, multiple times, and yet…” He gestures vaguely toward you. “The mysterious, shadow queen remains emotionally unavailable.”

You roll your eyes. “I literally brought you lollipops two days ago.”

“And I treasure them. I’ve named them. I made them a shrine in your kitchen. But,” he says, dramatically flopping backward, “a man needs words, darling. I can only read so much from aggressive gift-giving and emotionally stunted cuddling.”

You stare. Then go back to sharpening your knife. There's a blade in your lap, a cloth in your hand, and irritation running deep through your veins.

“You’re exhausting.”

“I’m dying of affection deficiency.”

“You’re fine.”

“I’m fading,” he whimpers, sinking lower into the couch. “You’re watching your beautiful, loving boyfriend wither in the prime of his life. And all I want is—oh, I don’t know—a whisper of affection. A stray pet name. A single sentence that proves you don’t just tolerate me like a flea-ridden cat who won’t leave your doorstep.”

Your eye twitches.

You wipe the blade clean.

Then you stand.

Gojo watches you like he’s expecting to be stabbed. Which, to be fair, wouldn’t be that far out of character.

But instead, you walk over, towering and glowering, until you’re standing right over him, arms crossed, expression unreadable.

He blinks up at you. “Baby?”

You sigh. Loudly. Aggressively.

“I don’t do soft,” you mutter.

His lips part.

“I don’t like romantic crap. I don’t like saying things I don’t mean. So if I say something—if I ever do—then you better not make it a thing. Don’t drag it out. Don’t ruin it.”

He’s perfectly still.

“Because I swear to god, if I give you one real moment and you turn it into some weird dramatic musical number, I will disappear. I will evaporate. You will never find me again.”

His throat bobs. “Okay…”

“So,” you continue, each word sharp and reluctant like they’re being ripped out of you, “if I say—hypothetically—that I like having you around. That you’re not entirely insufferable. That sometimes, I think about you when you’re not here, and it doesn’t make me want to punch a wall…”

His lips part.

“…If I say those things,” you finish, voice low, “it means something.”

Silence.

Long. Tense. Emotionally dangerous.

Gojo stares at you like he’s just been struck by lightning in the middle of a flower field.

And then—predictably—he melts.

“Oh my god,” he breathes, grabbing your wrist and pulling you down into his lap like you don’t weigh more than a loaded war machine, and wraps his hands around you. “You love me.”

“I did not say love—”

“I heard it! My ears are trained! That was your version of ‘I love you’ and I accept it and I love you more, I win!”

“You’re the worst—”

“Say it again. I’ll be normal this time, I swear.”

“You just proved you won’t.”

“Please, babe. Please. Just grunt in a tone that suggests affection. That’s all I need.”

You groan and press your forehead to his shoulder in pure, defeated exasperation.

He makes the most obnoxious squealing noise you’ve ever heard.

And then he kisses the top of your head. Gently. Quietly.

And doesn’t say anything else for a while.

Which is good because you don’t hate being in his arms as much as you probably should.

#jjk #gojo #jjk x reader #gojo satoru #satoru gojo #satoru gojo x reader #crumbs for the next one #gojo satoru x reader #satoru x reader #satorou #toge #inumaki #nanami #jujutsu kaisen

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inkedtension · 23 days ago

Text

The door to Toji’s apartment creaked like it had arthritis. It swung open not with a welcome but a wheeze, like it was genuinely surprised he had brought someone home who wasn’t held at gunpoint.

You stepped in, head high, sleek sunglasses still perched like a crown over your face, even though the sun had long retired. Toji, who had been lazily tugging at your hand like a man walking his overexcited rottweiler, dropped his keys into a cracked dish by the door with a casual grunt.

“Don’t judge it too hard, princess” he mumbled, already peeling off his jacket. “It’s got personality.”

You took one look around and—God help you—your laugh erupted like a demon being exorcised. Loud, disrespectful, and uncontrollable. It echoed off the peeling walls and insulted every mismatched piece of furniture within a ten-foot radius.

“Oh my god, Toji,” you gasped between cackles, doubling over slightly. “You live like a raccoon.”

Toji turned his head slowly, that usual half-lidded stare narrowing, jaw ticking slightly. “Really, sweetheart?” His voice was all exasperated, the kind that suggested he’d once fought an actual curse and now he was fighting you, a brat who acted like wealth was a personality trait.

“I mean” you said, dramatically stepping over what could have been either a sock or a dishrag from the Edo period, “I thought you were like, tragic-poor, not sitcom-level poor.”

“Toji,” you added with a wicked grin, “you got two forks and no chairs. Baby, are you squatting?”

He scratched the back of his neck, grumbling something unintelligible, probably a curse—of the verbal kind this time. He wasn’t exactly known for pride, but watching his long-term girlfriend—his clingy, rude, mouthy little lioness—howl at his flooring choices like she was front row at a comedy club was definitely taking a notch off his ego.

“You laughin’ now, but you’re still comin’ back next weekend,” he muttered, stepping past you and grabbing a half-squished beer from the fridge like it was a love letter.

You plopped down on what passed as his couch, one eyebrow arched dangerously. “Not if tetanus gets me first.”

He glanced at you from the fridge, half a smirk crawling onto his face. “You ain’t that fancy. Pretty sure you steal hotel soaps.”

You gave him a lazy grin and stretched your legs out, your eyes glinting with the smug satisfaction of someone who does rich girl pilates and still punches like a bouncer.

“baby, I own the hotels.”

His eye twitched.

Toji stared at you like a man experiencing the slow, horrible realization that the girl he’d been dating for over a year, the one he thought was just weirdly good at faking bougie, might actually have a family crest and a yacht named after her biceps.

“…You’re rich?” he asked, voice flat.

You winked.

He took a long pull from his beer, swallowed hard, and then shrugged.

“Huh. That’s disappointing.”

You burst into another round of laughter. Loud. Rude. Obnoxiously you. He rolled his eyes but walked over anyway, flopping beside you like a man who’d just accepted his fate.

“I liked thinkin’ you were broke. It made the ramen dates feel romantic.”

You looped your arms around his neck, grinning with your whole face.

“You liked me clingy and rude. You just didn’t know it came with a butler and a private island.”

Toji groaned into your neck.

And with that, you kissed his cheek—gently. Almost sweet. Until you leaned back, looked up at the ceiling, found a stain on it, and laughed.

Again.

#jjk #jjk toji fushiguro #jujutsu kaisen toji #toji x reader #jjk toji #toji fushiguro #jjk x reader #toji fushigro x reader #toji fluff #toji fanfic

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inkedtension · 24 days ago

Text

Something like a pulse

Note:

went with a different approach than usual

probably more into plot but please get it

new writing style?? [Implied: gojo x reader]

errors [if found] with the main plot is intentional [they're none, but just in case]

constructive critisism is welcome

please dont be rude

long? very long, but i didnt count the words

enjoy!!

dividers by: @sisterlucifergraphics

for: @ghostykitty00, @scarsandmoons, @minminminswreckingmalife, @krispyloverlady

I'm bad at connecting two scenes so there are cuts often, and my network suggests I write small fics but this one's long, also there will absolutely be a part 2, I already wrote it too, but it will be posted later on, dont judge, and enjoy!

Got carried away. Sorry. these might seem more like snippets of a story written separately, i just got out of writers block

The city is a different beast at night.

It doesn’t breathe, not really. It holds its breath, like something is waiting. Watching.

By 11:03 PM, you’re past the school gates with your coat collar up, your cursed pen tucked into your inner lining, and your phone flipped to silent. Again.

You sneak in through the south wing to avoid Gojo.

Except he’s waiting.

“Can I ask you something?” he says, voice not bright, not smug—just awake.

You stop.

He’s leaning against the hallway wall, still wearing his uniform from the day before. No blindfold tonight—just dark glasses pushed up in his hair. Pale eyes sharp in the low light.

You exhale. “Go ask Nanami.”

“I’m asking you.”

You say nothing.

He pushes off the wall slowly, hands in pockets, posture too casual to be unintentional. He stops a few feet in front of you, eyes searching your face.

“You didn’t sleep.”

You shrug.

“You come back with blood on your cuffs and bite marks on your wrist. You haven’t filed a patrol report in three days.”

“It’s handled.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s okay.”

You snort. “Since when do you care if something’s okay?”

There’s a flicker in his face—just the slightest crack. You’ve learned how to read them.

“Since always,” he says, too quiet.

You move to brush past him.

He snatches your cigarette pack from your pocket as you pass.

You freeze.

“Hey.”

He tosses it in the trash. “Go chew gum.”

“You are insufferable.”

He grins now—real grin, lopsided and shitty and boyish. “That’s what you like about me.”

You shove his shoulder. Not hard. He lets it move him.

“Go to bed, Satoru,” you mutter.

He blinks.

You don’t say his name often.

You both notice it at once.

Something in him goes quiet. That grin slips off like a mask dropped in a hurry. You don’t look at him as you keep walking. But he watches you go.

The streets are cold. Not in temperature—but in feeling. You step past sleeping convenience stores, under flickering signs, by alleys that hiss and whisper with low-grade curses.

You clean up. Quietly.

You don’t come back until 6:27 AM. Your fingers are numb, and your coat smells like the city.

The sky is orange by the time you step off the train.

You don’t remember boarding it. You barely recall climbing onto the platform, coated in the stink of hollow, half-cleansed air. The city glows dim, just past sunrise, all orange and dying pinks like an old bruise stretching over high-rise buildings.

Another night gone. Another set of curses erased. Three low-grade, one semi-grade two, and something in the shadows you didn't bother engaging. You made a report about that one. Let the higher-ups deal with it. You aren't paid enough to lose a limb over curiosity.

Your coat’s collar is flipped up, not from style but habit. You roll your neck until it cracks.

By the time you pass the school gates, your hands are shoved in your pockets. A glint of silver reflects against the faint morning light—your cursed pen, swings from a chain inside your jacket.

You’re two steps from the main building when a blur of movement rushes your left side.

“Morning, sensei!” comes the too-bright voice.

You instinctively move aside.

Yuji’s fist punches through empty air and he nearly eats pavement.

"HEY!" he yells, skidding across the courtyard.

You reappear behind him with the flick of your cursed technique—soft distortion, shimmer, and then solid.

"Try harder," you mutter, your voice gravel from sleeplessness and street smoke.

Yuji beams at you, the way only a kid high on sunshine and sugar could.

"You saw that, right? That spin—I just learned that move!" He throws a quick, animated reenactment of the motion, eyes wide with excitement.

"It’s supposed to be this clean, but you—you actually blocked it!" He laughs, half in awe, jogging a few steps to catch up beside you.

"Okay, now I have to figure out how to break through that. Maybe— ooh, what if I go low next time?"

You grunt.

You head inside without another word, past students who are just arriving, past the smell of breakfast rice from the cafeteria. It’s early, but not for you. Never for you.

Nanami's already in the staff room, sleeves rolled, mug steaming, eyes quiet.

You drop into the seat next to him without removing your coat. You don’t need to speak. He glances at you once, notes the dried blood on your cuff, then slides a thermos your way.

Chamomile tea.

You murmur a thanks.

“Long night?” he asks, without looking.

You nod. “Shinjuku again. Something’s nesting under the rail yard.”

He exhales. “You sent the report?”

“Tagged the coordinates. Left a marker.” You lean back in your chair. “Didn’t engage.”

“Smart.”

You stare at the steam curling up from the thermos. “Didn’t feel smart. Felt like running.”

Nanami tilts his head, just slightly. “Running is only cowardice when it costs lives. It’s called strategy when you come back breathing.”

You don’t respond. Just sip the tea.

It burns, but you welcome the pain. It’s sharp. Real.

You don’t notice Gojo until his shadow falls across your table.

He’s always sudden. Even when he’s not trying.

“Look who made it back in one piece,” he says, grinning like he didn’t just appear out of thin air. “And in the same wrinkled suit. Impressive.”

You don’t lift your head. “I have three.”

“Oh, I know. I just think it’s cute that you rotate them like a cartoon character.”

“Bite me.”

“Tempting.”

You finally look up. He’s still grinning. Always grinning. That smug, radiant thing that shouldn’t feel as safe as it does.

“Tell me,” Gojo says, crouching down beside your chair, voice lowering. “You didn’t check that curse near the railyard, did you?”

Your jaw twitches, Nanami sighs.

Gojo hums. “You’re supposed to call us if it smells like a Special Grade.”

“It didn’t feel like a Special Grade,” you snap.

“But it made you walk away. What if it followed you?” His voice is soft now.

You hate when he’s like this. Kind through a knife's edge.

You turn away. “I left a marker. Do what you want.”

“Already dispatched a team,” he says. “But next time, you wait. You call. Or I’m stapling a tracker to your back.”

Gojo stands, ruffling your hair—your carefully flattened, barely combed hair. Then goes to ruffle Nanami’s too, he ducks.

Later, after Nanami leaves for a mission and Yuji is dragged off by Nobara for training, you find yourself alone in the shade behind the school. The city stretches beyond the fence.

Endless. Pulsing. You crouch there, smoke in your hand.

You don’t sleep because when you do, the dark things follow. But out here, in the sun, maybe you can rest your eyes. Just for a second.

You feel the presence before you see him. A subtle shift in the air. A footstep with too much weight behind it to be ignored.

snatch.

Your cigarette is plucked clean from your fingers.

You sit up fast. “What the—”

Gojo flicks the smoke to the dirt and crushes it under his heel. “Wow. So this is what thirty hours of no sleep and government-issue self-loathing looks like.”

You glare. “I was using that.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” He wrinkles his nose exaggeratedly, waving his hand through the faint curl of leftover smoke. “Smells like old men. Very sexy.”

“I will break your nose.”

He grins. “Kinky.”

You lunge for him, but he’s already dancing backwards, long limbs loose, laughing like this is his favorite game. Which it is. You know it is.

“You’re unbelievable,” you snap, standing now, brushing your hands off like you didn’t just fall asleep in the dirt.

“And you’re adorable when you’re homicidal.”

“Go away.”

“Make me.”

You step forward, ready to try, but he just keeps walking in a slow circle around you, hands behind his head like he’s on vacation.

“You know, most people smoke after something good happens. Not before they collapse like a cursed ragdoll under a sakura tree.”

“Maybe I like doing things backwards.”

“Maybe you like attention.”

Your stare is sharp. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

Gojo spins, walking backwards now, his sunglasses glinting. “I’m not the one brooding dramatically behind the school like a tragic anti-hero. What’s next? Monologues about the weight of power?”

“Go choke on your own ego.”

He gasps, mock-wounded. “You wound me, senpai. And after I graciously saved your lungs.”

You march past him, done with the scene, done with the sun, done with him—but his voice follows.

“You owe me one,” he calls.

“For what?” you snap over your shoulder.

“For the cig! I saved your life! That’s worth, like—coffee. Or dinner. Or naming your firstborn after me!”

You don’t answer.

You just raise your middle finger without looking back.

He’s still laughing when you vanish into the building.

You make it exactly fifteen minutes into breakfast before Yuji starts poking you with chopsticks.

“Are you gonna eat?” he asks, voice too loud, energy too raw for six-something in the morning.

“No,” you deadpan.

“You should! Rice is life!”

“I hope you choke on it.”

“Wow,” he says, chewing anyway. “So mean before 7 a.m.”

Across the table, Megumi watches you like a suspicious housecat. Arms crossed, head tilted, judging in silence. Nobara is eating, avoiding your eyes. You ignore them.

Your tray is untouched. You’re not sure why you got one. Habit, probably. Something about pretending you’re normal.

Yuji goes to poke you again—and then Gojo drops into the seat beside you like he’s been summoned by chaos itself.

He props his chin in his hand and smiles.

“Morning, sunshine.”

You sigh without looking at him. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Be delighted to see you alive?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Aw, c’mon. Would you prefer... sweet cheeks? My little gremlin? killer cutie?”

“I will put a pen through your eye socket.”

He grins. “Still not a no.”

Nanami sits down across from you, sipping from a thermos, and you actually relax a little.

He doesn’t comment. Just murmurs, “You’re late,” to Gojo.

Gojo shrugs. “Had to stop someone from setting themselves on fire behind the school.”

“I was fine,” you mutter.

“Oh, you were smoldering, alright,” he grins, elbow nudging yours. “In a hot mess kind of way.”

You finally turn to him, fully, and say—quietly, evenly

“Satoru.”

His smile flickers.

Just for a second. Like something short-circuits behind his blindfold.

Like you just dropped a match into his mouth and told him not to flinch.

“Die.”

He smirks.

You shove your tray toward Yuji without a word. He blinks at it.

“Wait, really?”

“Eat it before I change my mind.”

Yuji fist-pumps. “BEST SENSEI EVER! I’LL MAKE A SHRINE FOR YOU.”

Megumi suddenly looked horrified, you think you saw Nobara choke.

Gojo, beside you, clasps a hand to his chest in betrayal. “You fed the child and not me?”

“You’ll survive.”

“But will I, emotionally?”

You stand, grabbing your coat from the back of the chair. Nanami looks up at you.

“You leaving?”

“Bathroom,” you say.

He nods. Doesn’t press.

You leave the cafeteria. Step into a quiet hallway. No footsteps behind you—until there are.

You don’t turn. “You’re following.”

“Obviously,” Satoru says, less smug now. “Didn’t even try to lose me. You’re slipping.”

You pause by the window at the end of the hall, sunlight slicing through glass and dust. Below, the courtyard shimmers with the morning heat.

He leans against the wall beside you, sunglasses pushed up onto his head now, hair sticking up like it always does.

You don’t say anything. Just turn and start walking to the shower rooms.

The water takes too long to get warm.

You stand under it anyway.

Let it hit cold, like punishment. Like proof. The tiles are cracked at your feet, and the soap smells too clean, like a hospital pretending to be a spa.

You don’t wash your hair. You don’t even undress all the way—just peel the top half of your clothes off, let it slump down over your hips, the soaked sleeves dragging along your elbows like dead weight.

Steam rises eventually. Not enough.

You lean a hand against the wall, breathing like it’s a task. You hear a sound.

A click. A familiar one. Lighter flint.

“You smell like blood,” Shoko says through the thin stall divider.

You grunt. “Takes one to know one.”

A drag. A pause.

You stare at the chipped tile.

“I wasn’t going to light up in here.” she says.

You inhale. You hear the scratch of her back against the tile.

There’s something comforting about the quiet that follows. Not peaceful but familiar. Like the moment before a fuse burns out.

You shut the water off and let it drip from your eyelashes.

“Gojo’s looking for you,” Shoko says after a moment.

“He found me already.”

“Did he annoy you to death?”

“Almost.”

“Rookie numbers. You look half-dead anyway.”

You wring the water from your sleeves. “Don’t care.”

“Clearly.”

You wrap a towel over your shoulders and slump against the stall wall, mirroring her position—two backs to the same half-inch divider. You both stand there, for a while.

There’s a beat. You can hear the cigarette sizzle faintly in her hand. She knocks ash into the drain.

“You’re not sleeping again.”

You don’t answer.

She doesn’t push. “Nanami’s worried.”

You close your eyes. “He doesn’t say anything.”

“He doesn’t have to.”

You breathe. Let the silence sit. Water dripping down your back. Steam clinging to your skin.

“He said I should’ve called,” you mumble.

Shoko hums. “Satoru?”

You nod, even though she can’t see it.

“He’s not wrong.”

You turn your head. “Would you have called?”

She flicks ash again. “Nope.”

“Thought so.”

“But” she adds, “I also wouldn’t have walked into a rail yard alone with a bleeding suit and a hunger-activated cursed pen in my jacket. So.”

You sigh. “Touche.”

“Next time,” she says, tapping the wall once between you, “maybe don’t wait until you want to disappear.”

You stare at the grout line.

Then whisper, so faint she might not hear it:

I already do. You thought.

No answer. Just a flick of the lighter again. Flame, smoke, breath.

You walk out still damp.

Didn’t bother with a hairdryer. Didn’t pack spare clothes. The sleeves of your shirt cling to your arms, the collar wet and dark where it hugs your throat. Your jacket hangs off one shoulder. Steam is still caught in your skin. You look like something dragged from the ocean and left out to dry.

Gojo is exactly where you expect him not to be—leaning against the wall just beyond the turn, pretending to scroll through his phone.

His head lifts, very casually, half a beat too late. “Oh,” he says, like he just noticed you. “Fancy seeing you here.”

You don’t break stride. “Stalker.”

“Rude,” he hums, falling into step beside you. “I happen to haunt this hallway daily. This is my corner.”

You adjust the towel at your shoulders and keep walking. “Like mold.”

“I’m versatile,” he says. “You’re wet.”

You throw him a glare.

He shrugs. “Statement of fact. Didn’t think you owned a drowned rat aesthetic, but—”

“Bite me.”

“You keep offering. One day I’ll say yes.”

You pause. You do pause. Just long enough to make him stop walking, too.

“Satoru,” you say.

His mouth opens. But you’re already walking again.

He stares after you for a moment. Then jogs to catch up.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asks, quieter now.

“No.”

That shuts him up.

For two whole seconds.

Then, softer, trying too hard to sound casual, “Did you dream?”

You look at him.

Not like you hate him. Not like you want to kiss him. Just—like he asked a question that split you open.

And still you answer.

“Yeah.”

You’re already rounding the next corner when you say it, but he hears.

“Was it Haibara again?”

You don’t answer. You don’t have to.

Because he was there. He knows.

He remembers the three of you—back then. When Nanami still smiled sometimes, when Haibara lit up every room with something bright and stupid. You were younger. Meaner. Alive in a different way. Haibara used to call you by a nickname no one else was allowed to use. He was annoying and gentle and so, so good.

Too much like Yuji.

Too open. Too earnest. Always asking if you were okay, like he didn’t know you were capable of lying.

You breathe.

Gojo’s voice breaks the silence. “Yuji’s not him.”

“Yuji?”

He nods. “You know that, right?”

“Don’t say it like that,” you snap. “Like I hate him. I don’t.”

“I didn’t say you did.”

“I don’t.”

“I know, I know.”

You stop again.

This time, Gojo doesn’t pretend to be doing anything else. He’s just there.

Waiting.

You speak into the quiet.

“I dreamt about the last time we had lunch. Haibara and I. He brought that stupid plastic bento box. The one with the broken latch and the cartoon rabbit on it.”

Gojo’s mouth twitches. “You threw it at Nanami once.”

“He called it lucky.”

he tilts his head. “It wasn’t.”

“No” you say. “It really wasn’t.”

The air hangs heavy between you, grief caught in the walls, in your soaked collar, in the creases under your eyes that never really go away.

“I miss him,” you say. “And every time Yuji smiles like that, I think—what’s the fucking point? What’s the point of training these kids if all they do is die with their eyes still open?”

“I don’t know the answer,” he says.

You blink at him.

“You’re not supposed to,” you say.

His hand drops. He smiles again. Weaker. Realer.

Nanami rounds the corner just then, eyebrows lifting at the two of you. “You’ve been gone for thirty minutes.”

You blink. “I showered.”

“You’re still wet.”

“She’s going for a drenched aesthetic” Gojo chirps.

Nanami eyes your soaked collar, your towel-draped shoulders. “Very convincing.”

You roll your eyes and push past both of them.

“Breakfast is cold,” Nanami says mildly, falling in beside you.

“So is the grave,” you mutter.

Gojo snorts behind you. “Wow. Inspiring.”

The gravel crunches under your soles as you sit on the low ledge behind the training yard. It’s always quiet back here—except today, when Megumi shows up and ruins the silence without even speaking.

He just sits. Maybe two feet away.

You don't tell him to leave. He wouldn’t.

Instead, you stare ahead, both of you looking at nothing, like the ghosts hanging off your shoulders have names you’re too tired to whisper.

Yuji’s laughter echoes in the distance, high and bright—fighting with Nobara again, probably. He sounds so alive.

You don’t move.

“He’s loud” Megumi mutters after a while.

Your lips twitch. “He is.”

Silence again.

But it’s thick now. Not awkward—just too familiar. Heaviness is a language, and you both speak it.

The wind shifts. Megumi’s hair stirs across his forehead. For a second, you look at him—not for who he is, but who he reminds you of.

That brooding quiet. That reluctant kindness.

Suguru.

Then Yuji again, loud and laughing in the sun, and it’s like time folds in on itself. You see Satoru, years ago, with his unbearable smile, chasing after Suguru down the hall after stealing his drink.

You look away before your throat tightens.

One of them will die, or both.

You don’t know when. You don’t know how. But you’ve felt it since the first day Satoru dragged these kids into your world with too much faith and not enough fear.

you ask softly, “You sleeping okay?”

He shrugs. “Enough.”

You nod once and let the silence bloom again.

The sun filters through the clouds, weak and pale. There’s warmth in it, but not enough.

And for a moment, in the stillness, you remember the tile walls of the old dormitory showers. The steam. The quiet. Suguru. The beach.

You didn’t talk about it with anyone, honestly.

But it counted.

Back then, everything counted. Because it was before.

Before the split. Before the blood. Before Nanami found you in a stairwell with a bottle in your hand and told you “Don’t you dare.”

He’d meant it.

So you’d stayed.

Even when you didn’t want to.

Even now. You stand.

Megumi glances up but doesn’t follow.

“You should head in” you say.

He doesn’t argue.

Yuji barrels around the corner a few minutes later, cheeks red from running, hair damp with sweat. He’s too breathless to speak, too alive to hold.

You hesitate.

Then, without thinking, you lift your hand and pat his head once, gently. It’s not playful. It’s not sisterly.

It’s mourning.

Yuji stills under your hand.

Then smiles, eyes wide and simple and open.

You pull away and walk off before your hands can shake.

Nanami finds you in the corridor between classrooms later, where the light through the glass is watery and cruel. He doesn’t speak at first—just stands next to you.

“You were somewhere else today.”

You shrug.

He’s quiet a beat too long.

“Do I need to worry?” he asks. It’s not casual. Not rhetorical.

You look at him. Nanami, with his rolled sleeves and calm voice and the scar down his back you stitched up once in a storage closet with trembling hands. Nanami, who dragged you out of a freezing river two winters ago when you were sure you’d done enough living.

You say, “No.”

And it’s mostly true.

He eyes your posture. The way your hands are stuffed deep into your coat pockets. The way you’ve started wearing your collar higher again, like back then.

“You saw something” he says.

You nod.

“About the boys?”

You close your eyes and dont answer. Because he knows.

Because he saw what losing one did to Satoru.

And what nearly losing you did to him.

He doesn’t reach for you. He never has. But his presence leans warm against yours, the way walls don’t move when you collapse against them.

Somewhere down the hall, Yuji shouts something about donuts. A desk crashes. Nobara yells.

It’s so alive.

You want it to last.

Even though you know it won’t.

You’ve been avoiding this conversation since last week. Maybe longer.

The knock is half-hearted.

Yaga grunts from inside. “Come in.”

You step in, still wearing the suit from last night’s patrol. It’s stained—not from blood, but from the sweat and dust of another mission run solo. Your hands are in your pockets. Your face is unreadable.

Yaga doesn't look up at first. He’s hunched over a rectangular planter on his desk, two vine-like plants growing in a tight, impossible twist. He adjusts the soil, prunes a stem with careful fingers.

“I heard you didn’t return till after 7.”

You shift your weight. “Time slipped.”

He grunts again. That non-committal sound he makes when he knows you’re lying but doesn’t care enough to press. “You were supposed to check in. Gojo was pacing the hall like a cat in a thunderstorm.”

“He does that anyway.”

A faint smirk flickers over Yaga’s face, quickly gone. “He wanted to go looking. I told him you’d show up. You always do.”

You glance at the plants. “Barely.”

He looks at you this time. “Are you eating?”

You don’t answer.

Yaga sighs. It’s that deep, weary exhale only a man who's raised too many broken kids can make. “You keep doing this. Working yourself into the ground. One of these days, even Gojo won’t be fast enough to drag you out of it.”

You look away. His words cut in the way soft things do—quiet and clean, but deep.

Then he switches gears.

“Yuji came by earlier.”

Your eyes narrow.

“He asked—no, requested—on being assigned to train with you. Said your cursed technique was ‘cool as hell’ and he wanted to learn stealth and ‘mysterious girl fighting.’”

You blink slowly. “I’m not fine with it.”

“He seemed fine with that.” Yaga’s smile returns, subtle and fond. “Said he’d die ‘invisibly’ and it would be poetic.”

You roll your eyes. “Tell him to stick with Kento.”

“I tried. He called Nanami ‘too structured’ and said ‘you’d understand his artistic chaos.’”

You stare at Yaga, deadpan. “…He doesn’t know me.”

“No,” Yaga says, leaning back in his chair, “but he’s trying to.”

There’s a beat of silence. You want to dissolve, go back to patrol, disappear into the hollow between buildings where thoughts don’t follow. But you stay.

Yaga reaches out, fingers brushing the twisted vines in the planter. You watch them curl slightly in reaction—alive, maybe too alive.

“I’ve had these since before you joined. Same seeds. Planted in the same soil. Look at them now.”

You do. The vines are impossibly entwined, their stems so knotted they almost look like one plant.

“Tried moving one,” Yaga continues. “Thought they’d do better on their own. Thought the roots were fighting each other. But once I split them, they stopped growing. Like they didn’t know how to live without the other.”

You don’t speak.

He plucks a single dead leaf. Drops it in the trash. “So I put them back together. And they started again. Twisting, adapting. Never separate. No matter what pot I place them in.”

You shift—barely—but something flickers in your expression. Your eyes remain on the vines.

“Do you think they like each other? the answer is no. they' are each other, they just dont know it yet” he asks softly.

You say nothing.

Yaga doesn’t expect you to. he says after a moment. “Maybe it’s obsession. Maybe it’s survival. Maybe it’s just something they were born with—coded into their roots. But it’s... something.”

Silence again. Then, your voice, so faint it barely stirs the air.

“Is that a curse?”

Yaga looks at you. Really looks.

“If it is” he says gently, “it’s an old one.”

You nod once, more to yourself than him. The words crawl under your skin.

The vines are still twisting.

And Gojo’s face flashes uninvited in your mind—laughing, bleeding, tired-eyed, soft-voiced when he thought you weren’t listening. His words echo again.

You think I don’t know?

A thought suddenly flashes through your mind.

You don’t like that thought. But you don’t pull away from it either.

Yaga returns to his task, brushing soil over the roots, like covering something sacred.

You turn to leave.

“Don’t kill Yuji” he calls after you. “He’s just curious.”

You pause in the doorway.

And you’re gone.

But that question lingers in your head long after:

“Do you think they like each other? the answer is no. they' are each other, they just dont know it yet”

You never said it out loud.

But something in your chest curled in recognition.

Two winters ago.

You walked into the river like it wasn’t a decision.

No thought. No panic. Just one foot after another.

Boots left behind in the snow, socks soaked through. The water welcomed you without question—silent, freezing, black under the skin of ice.

The cold was crushing. It clung to your skin like teeth. And still, you didn’t stop.

You stared ahead—eyes dry, breath slowing—until the world narrowed to numbness.

You felt the coldness seep into your clothes, hair, ears and when you opened your mouth due to lack of breath, your lungs.

Then again, you felt nothing.

Not the wet fabric pulling at your shoulders. Not the bite of the wind cutting through your soaked clothes. Not even the trembling that began to climb your spine.

It was peace.

And then—it wasn’t.

Hands under your arms.

A jerk backward. Ice cracking beneath shifting weight.

“No—” you started, weak and hoarse, but the river swallowed the word.

“Get the fuck out,” a voice growled behind you—familiar and furious.

You thrashed, limp at first, then full-body jerks, kicking at the snow and ice, coughing out water as Nanami’s arms locked beneath your shoulders, dragging you up the bank like a corpse. You tried to twist free, elbow him, spit, scream. It didn’t matter. He was stronger. He was relentless.

“Let me go—Kento, let me go!”

“Shut up,” he snapped.

You clawed at his wrists, shoved at his chest, but he moved without hesitation—grabbed you fully, hoisted your soaked body up and threw you over his shoulder like dead weight.

You screamed. Hit at his back, fists weak. Legs kicking. Your nose started bleeding.

“PUT ME DOWN!”

He didn’t.

He didn’t speak.

He just walked—steady, powerful strides through the snow-covered path, through wind and silence and nothing but your fists pounding at his spine.

And then—gravel underfoot. The road. Streetlights in the distance. Some old van parked crooked in the snow. He dropped to one knee, and set you down on the roadside, your body folding in on itself.

You pushed yourself up to swing again—and he slapped you.

Just once. Sharp. A clean sting across your cheek. Not hard enough to bruise. But it landed.

You froze.

Eyes wide.

Mouth open—but no sound came out.

His face was twisted—jaw tight, red eyes wild with grief and panic and something unspoken. His breath steamed in the air between you.

“You don’t get to do that,” he said. Not shouted. Said.

You stared. And then you broke.

You collapsed forward, arms wrapping around him so fast it was clumsy, trembling fingers clawing at the fabric of his soaked shirt, blood seeping into his shirt from your nose.

“Don’t,” you sobbed. “Don’t yell at me—don’t leave me—don’t—”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, hands wrapping around you, voice low. “You hear me?”

You were shaking, your chest heaving with a sob that wouldn’t stop.

“Everyone keeps leaving,” you cried, nose pressed to his collarbone, teeth chattering.

“Kento—everyone keeps leaving!—”

“I know,” he whispered, folding his arms around your back.

“everyone’s fucking gone!”

He held you tighter.

You clawed at his shirt, screamed into his chest until your voice cracked.

He said nothing for a while.

Just wrapped his coat over your shoulders, rubbing warmth into your frozen arms, kneeling in the snow with you.

“I’m here,” he finally said. Quiet. So quiet it barely registered through your sobs. “You’re not alone.”

“I can’t—I can’t—”

“You can.” His hand slid to your face, fingers brushing the hair from your cheek. “You already did.”

You looked up at him through tears, lips trembling, face blotched red from cold and crying and blood. His expression was exhausted. His own eyes were red, rimmed with disbelief and grief, jaw working to hold in his own pain.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he whispered. His thumb brushed just beneath your eye. “You should’ve called me.”

You leaned into his touch like a dying thing starved of light.

“Don’t leave me,” you said again, barely audible.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. Not this time.

You stayed there for what felt like hours—kneeling in the slush, in the quiet aftermath of almost dying, clinging to the only person still standing in the crater your life had become.

And he also ate ice cream with you as he walked you home the same night, blue lips and numb legs.

For the first time in a long time you felt warm.

That was before he left,

You just added his name to the growing list of people who’d left.

Suguru. Nanami. The Class of 2007.

And eventually—you stopped reaching for anyone at all.

The villiage massacre.

You were used to the aftermath of curses. Used to blood. Screams. Silence.

But nothing prepared you for what you saw that night.

The village was hollow. Burnt out. The kind where people don't even realize they’re dying until they're dust. Suguru’s work.

You and Ichiji had arrived shortly after the incident was reported — a routine check. You expected another Level 2, maybe a rogue curse.

"I'll report it" Ichiji had said, his voice barely above a whisper. “This isn’t just a cleanup job.”

You nodded. "Tell them everything."

But you didn’t go back.

Instead, you turned toward the one place that hadn't yet been mentioned in the reports.

Suguru's family home.

You'd never met them before. His parents. You barely knew what they looked like. But you'd heard him mention them in passing — his mother cooked seaweed soup in winter, his father worked too much. Casual remarks. Nothing special.

And now they were dead.

Bodies limp. There were no signs of forced entry. Nothing stolen. Just tea cooling in ceramic cups, and two lives cut quietly at the root.

You knew right away that he’d done it.

Your knees gave out first. Then the sob caught in your throat, and you didn’t stop it. Not this time. You didn’t know these people. You had no memories to cry over, and yet you cried anyway. For whatever piece of his soul had died before he made the choice to do this.

You cremated the bodies, standing in silence. You watched the smoke carry their lives away.

You held a small funeral. you lit the incense with your lighter. You knelt before their ashes. Your hands trembled as you bowed, tears streaking down your cheeks.

"May you find peace" you whispered. "Even if your son couldn’t."

Telling the elders was worse.

Worse than the fire, the ashes, the way your voice gave out every time you tried to explain what had happened.

You became that person. The one who brought bad news. Who always returned alone, with blood or silence on her tongue. Some said you had bad luck. Some said you were cursed.

You believed it.

After that, you stopped going on joint missions. You stopped reporting directly to anyone. You took over the patrolling job.

You never quite came back from that house.

Eighteen and two months, the party.

The dress code was strange. White shirt, black pants. A marker in your pocket.

You hadn't questioned it — not out loud. Yaga had said it with a straight face, and no one dared poke the bear when he was in one of his "building camaraderie" moods.

But this was different. This wasn’t a mission or a funeral or blood-soaked silence. This was a… party?

If you squinted.

Suguru was the first to greet you, hair in his usual half-up style, a ridiculous party hat already askew on his head. “Hey, you made it,” he said, genuine and easy. “I had five bucks that you’d ghost this.”

You only blinked at him.

Behind him, Nanami nodded toward you, then shifted to open a pack of those tiny plastic forks with the concentration of a man defusing a bomb. Haibara was bouncing, literal sparkle in his eyes, waving you toward the table like you’d won some prize. “You came! Ah, Kento, she actually came!”

“I’m not blind,” Nanami muttered.

You sat without a word.

Gojo took the seat beside you before anyone else could. His hair was tied up loosely, his shirt already creased and messy, like he’d put it on last minute, possibly while wrestling a raccoon. He smelled like sugar. Why did he smell like sugar?

“You brought your marker?” he asked, mouth too close to your ear.

You gave a small nod.

He grinned wide and leaned back dramatically. “She speaks!”

“I didn’t speak.”

“She denies!” He clutched his chest. “God, I’m so into you.”

You turned your head, slowly, to stare at him.

He winked.

You ignored it.

Yaga gave a speech that lasted exactly three minutes too long and then mysteriously disappeared. The moment the door shut behind him, Geto clapped his hands.

“Alright! You heard the man. Mark each other up. Memories, insults, love letters. Whatever.”

You watched silently as chaos bloomed around the table. Suguru wrote something very questionable on Shoko’s shirt, laughing when she threw a grape at him. Haibara’s shirt was already covered in stars, hearts, and the phrase “I’m a sunshine disaster” in at least three different handwritings.

Nanami's said “Sleep is for the weak.”

Yours remained untouched.

Gojo watched it all.

Sprawled sideways, legs long and unruly under the table. Shirt already covered in chaos. Someone had written “dumbest genius in the room” across his ribs, and he wore it like a badge. He kept laughing, loud and easy, but his eyes never left you for long.

“s’my turn” Gojo announced, somehow behind you now.

You should’ve noticed. You usually did. Your brain, your… unwelcome noise, usually warned you when he was too close. But this time, there was nothing — just the heat of his presence and the pressure of the marker as it pressed against your back.

“Don’t move” he whispered.

Suguru watched him with tired eyes.

“What are you writing?” Suguru asked.

“Compliments. Vulnerable truths. My social security number.”

You didn’t move. You didn’t even flinch. You let him write whatever he wanted.

He placed a hand flat against your spine to keep you steady. His palm was warm. Fingers a little too long.

He dragged it out. Literally.

Big loops. Careful slants. Words that didn’t need to take up half your back but did, just so his hand could trail after each one. You didn’t flinch. It was strangely comforting.

He paused once.

Then kept writing.

It ended just above your lower back.

The others kept talking. Laughing. You focused on the hum, on Haibara’s dumb giggle, on Nanami trying to slap Geto’s hand away when he drew a cat on his neck.

When he finished, he didn’t say anything.

He just passed you the marker.

You turned.

“Satoru” you said.

He blinked, suddenly serious. “Yeah?”

You handed him the marker. “Your turn.”

His grin returned, lazy and lopsided. “You’re gonna write something sweet?”

You shrugged. Then uncapped the marker.

And across his back, in clean, blocky letters, you wrote:

“You’re exhausting. And maybe I’d miss it if you stopped.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he tilted his head at you and whispered, “That’s basically a confession.”

“Keep dreaming.”

“Oh, I am. Every night. Want details?”

You leaned slightly closer, voice low. “huh? no”

“…whatever you want, pwincess”

Later, when the food was just crumbs and soda cans, and Haibara was passed out on Shoko’s lap, you felt a tug on your sleeve.

Nanami leaned in and said, “Do you want to know what he wrote?”

You frowned.

He nodded toward Gojo, who was now drawing stick figures on Geto’s pants while humming.

You shook your head. “No.”

“You should.”

You didn’t see what anyone wrote. You just know those who read out aloud as they wrote. Like Haibara, Suguru, Shoko.

There were flashes of the real.

Like Haibara, crawling across the bench to get to you, nearly knocking over the soda can you hadn’t touched. He scribbled “Eat more fooooood” on your shoulder blade in giant bubble letters, rambling on about how he wants to write more, then added a small smiley with fangs.

He leaned close after and whispered, “If anyone bullies you, I’ll beat them up. Even if it’s Kento.”

Nanami sighed, long-suffering. “You are the one who keeps jumping out from behind doors to scare her.”

“That’s bonding!”

You let Haibara hug your arm and left it at that.

Utahime was already yelling, “Group photo! Everyone, let’s go, before someone falls asleep or explodes.”

Shoko had set up a disposable camera on timer, already blinking red.

You all crowded together in front of the old mission board. Half the room still wore party hats. Nanami looked faintly betrayed. Haibara squeezed between you and Geto, dragging your arm up for a crooked peace sign.

Satoru’s hand settled heavy on your shoulder. His thumb tapped once against your collarbone. Light. Unnoticed.

Click.

The camera flashed.

And for a second, there were no voices. Just a silence that felt like belonging.

You didn’t see the photo until weeks later.

After a shared mission with Nanami, your house.

The key creaks in the lock.

You hate that sound.

It meant you were here. Home. Back in this... place. A place that, even by accident, refused to feel like anything but a dark hollow shell. A mattress on the floor. No fridge. No electricity. No trace of softness. You didn’t need it. You were never here long enough to justify having anything. Nights were for patrols. Mornings were for school. Evenings? Brief flashes of a quiet bed and clean suit before heading out again.

And you liked it that way.

You and Nanami step into the darkness, the door groaning as it opens. Your eyes adjust automatically, though Nanami, who’s already sighing, flicks on the lights—

Click.

Wait.

Light?

Your eyes narrow, trained on the glow bathing the hallway in soft yellow. You take another step in, the soles of your boots no longer touching dusty floorboards but… clean laminate?

Nanami halts beside you. “...You have curtains.”

You don’t respond, just phase forward—silent, a flicker of motion.

The living room is...

Furnished.

There’s a couch. A coffee table. The floor is swept. Clean throw pillows like little marshmallow lies sit primly on the corners of the couch. There’s a TV mounted on the wall. The windows are dressed in blackout curtains, elegant and thick.

You phase again, into the kitchen.

The fridge hums—alive. The door opens and reveals fresh vegetables, cuts of meat, bottled water, beer—your favorite brand.

You slam it shut.

Nanami enters behind you, just as you teleport to the bedroom—your sanctuary of nothingness—and find—

Drawers. A wardrobe.

other clothes. Not just suits.

Just… soft things. Cotton. Sweaters. Even fucking pajamas. With clouds on them.

“Who broke into my house” you say flatly, appearing back in the kitchen with a thud of boots.

Nanami raises a brow. “I don’t think this qualifies as a break-in, exactly.”

You stare at him.

“Kento,” you say, voice low.

“Yes?”

“Tell me this wasn’t you.”

“You know I wouldn’t dare.”

You close your eyes and let out a sharp breath through your nose. “Then who—”

“I’ll make tea,” he interrupts, placing his coat over a new kitchen chair. A new chair. There was a stove. A dish set. “While you process the fact that your home no longer resembles a condemned shrine.”

You grunt but don’t stop him.

He moves with familiar ease, finding utensils like it’s instinct. You lean back against the counter, arms crossed, eyes flicking to him. His presence is steadying. Like always.

He opens a cabinet, finds mugs. “You remember the first place we rented in Sapporo?”

“Collapsed roof. No heat.”

“You dissolved the floor into a sinkhole because it was rotting.”

“...I warned the landlord,” you mutter.

Nanami huffs a quiet laugh.

You let him cook. Tea turns to dinner. You don’t even ask where he found rice, eggs. It just appears. And for a second, you forget to be mad.

You sit, both of you with plates, sipping, chewing, saying little—until the heat of old times loosens your tongue.

“You were always the one with taste,” you say, glancing at the apartment. “Guess I infected you.”

“You did,” he says, and his lips twitch. “You and your tragic sense of denial.”

You click your tongue.

The kitchen light buzzes softly above. Still too bright for your liking.

You stand near the counter, arms crossed, eyes cold as they scan your too-new kitchen like it��s a crime scene. Nanami’s beside you, calm as ever, sleeves rolled up, tie loosened, wristwatch removed and placed neatly on the windowsill like he always did before cooking.

He’s already got water boiling. Something aromatic simmers in a pan—probably pork belly. Of course he remembered your favorites.

You lean against the fridge, silent. The hum of it is still unnatural.

Nanami turns slightly, glancing over his shoulder at you. “You’re quiet.”

You scoff. “Processing.”

He smirks faintly. “Processing that you now own a functioning stove?”

You roll your eyes. “And curtains. Don’t forget those.”

Nanami shakes his head. “They match the walls. You should be grateful.”

“I don’t want to be grateful. I want my pit back.”

Nanami doesn’t bother replying. He just stirs the pot gently. The aroma deepens.

A beat passes. You shift.

“...Need help?”

His brows lift—mildly surprised. “Since when do you offer?”

“I didn’t offer,” you say flatly, moving toward the counter. “I just asked if you needed it.”

He pauses, then steps aside slightly. “Prove you still remember how.”

You snort and pull the cot aside with your foot, dropping it against the wall. The coat comes off next, heavy and long, tossed unceremoniously over a chair. Beneath it, a black turtleneck hugs your form—simple, worn. You roll your sleeves up, the movement fluid, practiced.

“Please,” you mutter, cracking your knuckles. “My skills haven’t lagged.”

Nanami hands you a cutting board and knife with a quiet look. “I’ll believe that when I survive your seasoning again.”

“Oh, fuck off,” you mutter, already slicing green onions with neat, aggressive speed.

“You almost poisoned Ino once.”

“He’s dramatic.”

“You mistook salt for sugar.”

“That was one time.”

“And you didn’t taste the difference?”

“I don’t taste while cooking,” you say, straightening. “I just know.”

He sighs deeply, as though the weight of knowing you has aged him ten years.

You begin working in sync. The oil sizzles, the kitchen fills with scent and steam. There’s a strange comfort to it—a rhythm older than either of you want to admit.

You flick oil from your knuckle. “This reminds you of something.”

Nanami glances at you sideways. “The apartment in Kyoto.”

You nod. “With the cracked ceiling.”

“And a mouse infestation.”

“You cooked every night.”

“You refused to shop for vegetables.”

“You refused to eat instant ramen.”

He shrugs. “I have standards.”

You smirk, just slightly. “You liked my miso soup.”

“...It was edible.”

“Bullshit.”

Nanami finally exhales a laugh, soft and deep. The smell of the past lingers between you—soy, broth, burnt onions, and time.

“You know,” he says slowly, as you wipe your hands, “you were reckless back then.”

Your brow twitches. “Don’t start.”

“You teleport mid-fight too often. You never rest. You haven’t reported half your injuries this month. If I have to remind you again—”

You slam the knife down gently.

“I survived, didn’t I?”

“That’s not enough,” he says, tone sharp now. His gaze pins you in place, no longer soft with nostalgia. “You’re not a student anymore. You’re not alone anymore. There are people who—”

“I know,” you cut in, flat.

But something in your voice slips.

He watches you for a beat longer, then returns to stirring.

You both work in silence after that. The meal finishes. Rice fluffs. The soup simmers low. You set out the bowls, the motion automatic. Almost... normal.

As you serve his plate, you mutter, “I didn’t forget how to cook.”

Nanami takes it with quiet reverence. “No. You didn’t.”

“Shut up and eat.”

He does.

The table is small, plain wood. Still new. Too clean for your liking. The chairs don’t creak like they should.

But the food’s hot. The scent of soy and garlic hangs in the air.

You both eat without speaking for a while. It's quiet—save for the hum of the fridge and the occasional clink of chopsticks against ceramic.

Nanami finishes his rice and sets his bowl down, wiping his mouth with a cloth napkin that absolutely didn’t belong to you before yesterday. “Not bad.”

You raise a brow. “Not bad?”

He exhales slowly. “Fine. It’s better than I expected.”

“Hah.”

You sip from your bowl. Heat settles in your chest—probably the broth. Not the warmth from shared routine. Definitely not that.

Your eyes flick to him, thoughtful.

“…Kento.”

He glances up.

You hesitate. “Did you know?”

He frowns. “Know what?”

“That he… did all this.”

A pause. Then:

“No” he says. “But I suspected it the moment I saw the fridge.”

You sigh, pushing rice around your bowl. “So stupid.”

He leans back slightly, crossing one leg over the other. “You’ll never admit it, but you needed this.”

“I didn’t need anything. Especially not a renovation from a walking god complex.”

A faint smile plays at his lips. “He means well. You know that.”

You grunt. “Satoru’s… relentless.”

Nanami watches you carefully. You don’t meet his gaze.

“He’s been bothering you again?”

You don’t answer immediately. You stir your soup.

“Not bothering,” you mutter. “He just… talks too much. Touches too much. Shows up when he’s not wanted.”

Nanami raises his eyebrows, like he knows you've said something you didn't want to, and that you'd hit anyone else who'd say the same thing. “And yet, you never go away from him.”

Your eyes snap up, sharp. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

He nods. “Of course not.”

You hate that he says it like that. Like he knows.

Your voice drops. “He doesn’t get it.”

“What doesn’t he get?”

“That not everyone wants things. That not everyone needs to be surrounded all the time. That maybe I like being alone.”

Nanami raises a brow. “Do you?”

The question hangs there, heavy and precise like everything he says.

You look away.

“I don’t want to need him.”

Nanami nods slowly. “That’s different.”

You tense.

He sets his cup down gently, folding his hands in his lap. “You’ve never been good at needing anyone. Even back then, you only let people close when they were bleeding out or trying to leave.”

“Don’t psychologize me” you mutter.

“I’m not,” he says simply. “Just stating facts.”

Silence falls again. You chew slowly, jaw tight.

After a long moment, you speak.

“I don’t know what he wants from me.”

Nanami stares down into his tea. “Maybe nothing.”

Your brow furrows.

“Maybe,” he says, voice lower now, gentler, “he just wants to be where you are.”

You go still.

Your fingers tighten around your spoon.

Nanami, sensing the weight of your quiet, doesn’t push.

Eventually, you rise without a word and collect the plates. He doesn’t stop you.

You don’t speak again until the sink water’s running and your back is to him.

“He makes things messy.”

Nanami exhales a soft breath through his nose. “Yes. But so do you.”

“Shut up.”

His smirk is audible.

“I’m just saying,” he says mildly. “You let him in.”

You glance back at him, eyes half-lidded. “Barely.”

“Still counts.”

You flick a droplet of water in his direction. “Keep talking and you’re sleeping on the couch.”

“He installed the couch,” he reminds.

“I’ll dissolve the couch.”

Nanami chuckles, slow and full in his chest.

You let the moment hang, let it fade into the clatter of dishes and the distant noise of your city—the one you patrol, protect, disappear into.

And even though Gojo isn’t here, it still feels like he’s in the room.

After sleepless nights and overthinking.

You weren’t ever really part of them.

Not in the stories they told around tables with cheap beer and broken bones. You were somewhere else. Always somewhere else. Just randomly close to Nanami and Haibara, until one died and one left, and came back again.

And that was by design.

It’s not like you were invisible—not yet—but you might as well have been. Some people are made to be seen, like Gojo Satoru. Others are made to be followed, like Suguru Geto. You? You were made to disappear. You liked it that way.

Most of the time.

The name they gave your technique is a mouthful— Phase Dissolution. Not very poetic. Not like Limitless. Not like Cursed Spirit Manipulation. Yours just made you unseeable. Forgettable. You learned to twist the technique until you could manipulate your own presence—erase your voice, your scent, your weight in the world. The closer someone got to you emotionally, the harder it was to disappear.

Which meant, mercifully, you were invisible almost always.

You never took normal missions. They stopped trying to assign you any after that third year, when Gojo and Geto started leveling small mountains and you just started wandering. When Haibara died, and Nanami left.

You loved Yu Haibara.

Not in the way girls write in journals about. Not in the way people expect—sweet and soft and glowing with crushes. You loved him like a little brother you didn’t deserve. Like a bright lantern in a dark temple.

He called you senpai, for fun, because you let him.

“Y/N senpai” he’d beam. “Did you eat yet? You look like a withering flower! Rice is life!”

You punched him for that. Lightly.

You remember his laugh. You remember how he glowed with sincerity, how he was one of the only ones who didn’t mind how quiet you were. He told you once, “I think your silence is peaceful, not scary.”

And then he died.

You stopped speaking for three weeks.

Kento Nanami was different. Not warm like Haibara, but dependable. Steady.

He used to train with you after class, not talking much. You both preferred it that way. Grunts. Nods. Sweating in silence.

After Haibara’s death, the school changed for you both.

You remember the day Nanami walked out. He didn’t say goodbye to anyone. Except you.

You’d been leaning against the back steps, pretending not to wait for him. He stood beside you for a few long seconds before muttering, “It’s not worth it anymore.”

You didn’t argue.

You just watched him go, your throat too dry to speak.

And you stayed.

Like a fool.

Years later, when Nanami walks back through the halls of Jujutsu Tech, it feels like seeing a ghost wearing a new suit.

You’re in the training yard when you spot him.

He pauses when he sees you—just a flicker of recognition—and gives you a nod.

It’s not a reunion. You don’t hug. You don’t speak for another week.

But when you sit beside him on a bench during a break in missions, you say, “I was angry at you.”

He doesn’t deny it.

“Still am,” you mutter.

“I know,” he says.

And that was enough.

That was your job: to roam. Tokyo, Osaka, wherever. You found curses before they found others. If they were weak, you killed them. If they were stronger than you, you tagged the location and passed it off to the higher-ups.

They turned it into a real mission. Your name never ended up on the reports. You were just the invisible smoke before the fire.

You haven’t slept in days. Again.

There’s a burning behind your eyes, the kind that presses behind the sockets and drips down your spine like rot. You’ve forgotten how to taste food. How to feel temperature. You move through the city like something in between — not alive, not dead, just moving.

Your abdomen hurts.

You’re walking home when you hear it.

It’s not the usual cursed energy flicker that makes you pause. It’s a voice. A quiet, ugly grunt. A breath that doesn’t belong on a child’s neck.

You round the alley’s edge and see it. Small body. Pants half-off. A man’s hand on the back of the boy’s neck. His other hand working at his zipper. The kid was crying.

“Please stop, please—please don’t—I didn’t say anything, I—!”

The man towers over him. Smiling.

“It’s not the first time,” he mutters, voice low and casual, like he's talking about the weather. “Stop whining. You know what to do.”

You’re too tired to think.

Too tired to breathe.

Too tired to speak, or scream, or question what’s happening, or why you’re here.

Your fingers are already inside your coat pocket.

A cursed object. A cheap black fountain pen used by a murderer in a high school hostage crisis. It killed six. Now it only kills when you want it to.

You’ve been walking among curses long enough to recognize when the ugliest one is human.

You just take it out the way you’d take out a cigarette or a key, walking over.

Your forearm hits his throat, and he stumbles back, crashing into the opposite wall with a winded grunt. The boy falls to his side with a whimper, scrambling back, and before you know it, you're standing between them.

The man coughs, glares at you, and spits. “What the fuck—?”

The boy looks up at you like you’re some kind of hallucination. That’s fine. You're used to being a waking dream for people like him.

You crouch and touch the top of his head gently. “Close your eyes.”

You the man down to the ground with force.

He crashes to the ground with a grunt, but not before his nails dig deep into your shoulders — dragging, tearing through fabric and skin as he resists, snarling like an animal cornered.

You take out your pen. He sees it too late.

“No—hey, don’t—wait—”

You plunge it into his eye.

Just a sound—a soft, wet crack, like a rotten peach under a boot.

He thrashes, nails tearing into your back again as his body convulses beneath you.

But you don’t stop.

You don’t scream. You don’t shake. You don’t cry.

You stab again. And again. And again.

Until his body stops twitching. Until you can’t hear anything but the sound of your own breath. Until blood coats your hands like gloves and the pen sticks, cracked halfway down the shaft, lodged in bone.

Your arms are heavy.

Your vision pulses dark at the edges.

You barely feel the blood running from your shoulder where his nails tore skin open. It drips down your side and soaks into your pants.

You stay there a second longer, kneeling on a corpse.

Just breathing.

The boy is behind you now.

He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t cry. He’s shaking — arms wrapped around his knees, head ducked down.

You turn, slowly, and peel your blazer off your shoulders — sticky with sweat, ripped at the seam, spotted with blood.

You crouch low. Hold it out.

He flinches.

But he reaches for it.

You wrap it around him carefully. Gently. A little like you're bandaging a wound.

Your hand finds your phone.

You dial without looking. You don’t trust your voice. You don’t trust your knees, either.

The call picks up fast.

“Hello?”

“...Nanami” you rasp. Your voice sounds like it’s underwater. “Pick up a kid. Alleyway by the old bookstore on 3rd and West. Don’t ask.”

A pause.

Then a simple, steady: “I’m on my way.”

You let the phone fall from your hand.

The boy’s little fingers are still clinging to the back of your shirt.

Your knees give first.

Then your chest.

You feel yourself fold, slowly, to the side. Like paper. Like cloth.

You hit the concrete with a soft thud.

And then everything goes black.

Nanami’s car screeches to a halt.

The alley’s empty.

At least, that’s how it looks.

The kid is there, huddled in your blazer, silent, still half-exposed, shoes soaked from standing in the runoff water. His face is pale and rigid. Frozen like stone.

And you?

You’re nowhere.

Nanami frowns and exhales through his nose. He asks the kid slowly, about a woman and the kid points to nothingness on the wall.

There.

A disturbance in the current. An outline, faint but real, half-sunken against the wall.

She’s here.

She never turned it off, Nanami thinks grimly.

No wonder the kid’s confused. He’s not a sorcerer. He saw a woman kill a man and vanish into nothing. Even now, his eyes dart toward the dead body — the pen still buried in the man’s eye socket like a signature left behind.

“Don’t be afraid,” Nanami says, slowly.

The kid flinches.

He doesn't move.

Nanami approaches the body first. The man’s eye is split open around the cursed pen like spoiled fruit.

With a steady hand, Nanami wraps his fingers around the blood-slick pen, and with one clean pull, removes it.

Nanami slides it into a cloth-wrap and stows it carefully.

Your technique drops.

Not on purpose.

Your body simply can’t hold it anymore.

You re-materialize like a ghost coming back from fog, limbs limp, blood soaking your side and inner thighs, head tilted to the shoulder like a broken doll.

Nanami’s hands move fast, catching your body before it slumps completely.

She’s burning up, he realizes. Fever. Blood loss. Something else?

He lifts you — slow, careful. You’re light, all things considered. Lean muscle over bone. You’ve always been heavier than you look.

The boy clings to your side the whole way to the car, refusing to sit anywhere but next to you in the backseat.

Nanami drives one-handed as he calls Shoko.

You’re unconscious when Shoko starts.

“Jesus, she’s bleeding like hell—” she mutters, snapping on gloves. “Shoulder’s ripped open, bruising at the ribs, hand trauma…she’s got injuries and she never got treated, wait—"

She checks again.

“Oh for fuck’s sake.”

She yanks open a drawer and pulls out extra gauze.

You’re menstruating. Heavy. Severe cramps, coupled with blood loss from the fight and god knows how many days without sleep. Your body’s on the edge of total shutdown.

And then—

You sit up.

No drama. No groan. You just lift your upper body like someone getting out of a cheap motel bed.

Shoko’s eyes narrow. “You're joking.”

You blink, sluggish, then look down at the blood on the sheet beneath you.

“…Guess that explains the stomach cramps,” you mutter hoarsely.

“You’re an idiot,” Shoko says flatly.

You don’t argue.

Instead, you glance toward the side and swipe the curtains to the side and your eyes dart to where the boy’s sitting with a juice box. His knees are hugged to his chest. His hair is still damp from sweat.

He sees you.

His face lights up.

And then — he rushes in.

Shoko opens her mouth to stop him, but you raise a hand. Just one.

The boy wraps his arms around you as best he can.

He doesn’t cry.

He just presses his forehead into your side.

“…Thank you” he whispers.

You rest your hand on his hair. You don’t smile. But you don’t pull away either.

Look, Suguru, this boy here is just as innocent as those girls.

Nanami stands in the doorway, arms folded, expression unreadable.

“I’ll take him” he says simply. The kid doesn’t want to leave.

But he glances at you — your torn shirt, the thick bandages around your ribs, the dried blood on your thigh where Shoko couldn’t quite clean everything — and he seems to realize he shouldn’t be here.

He nods.

Nanami lays a steady hand on the boy’s shoulder and guides him down the hall, slow and careful like he’s leading someone blind.

The door shuts softly, Shoko leaves as well, murmuring about how much of a jackass you are (again).

Then you fall asleep again.

You wake up to the click of a lighter.

Your eyes snap open—only halfway, the kind of wakefulness that comes after too many nights on the edge. But the figure isn’t a threat. He’s too tall, too loud even when silent, sitting on the edge of your bed, with your lighter in hand, playing with it.

“Didn’t expect you to fall asleep,” he says, voice low.

There’s a rare bite in his voice.

He rarely raises it. He’s always fun and games with you, until it’s about you.

You hadn't spoken to Gojo Satoru properly in your life, at least until eight years ago. He did enough talking for both of you.

"You’re like a fridge," he told you once, years ago, chewing on a rice cracker. "Big, cold, and probably full of old stuff no one wants to touch."

You had stared at him. He waited. You didn’t give him the satisfaction of a reply.

Later, you’d realize that was the only thing he remembered about you for months.

He used to look through you, not past you — through you, like you were a pane of glass that hadn’t shattered yet.

Until Geto died.

Until his blood painted the pavement like a cracked koi pond, and the air went still for months afterward.

That changed the day he cornered you outside the morgue. The white hallway lights flickered. You'd just signed your name off on mission clearance and were trying to make it to the vending machine before throwing up.

“Did you know?” he asked, voice hoarse and drunk on loss.

You blinked. “Know what?”

“That he was going to do it.”

Your jaw tightened. “Do I look like I mattered enough to be told?”

He looked at you. You realized, maybe grief has its own kind of vision. Maybe it strips you naked.

He didn’t reply. Just stood there. His sunglasses hung low on his nose, and the bags under his eyes had turned him ghost-white. That scared you more than anything.

Now, you’ve all gotten so much closer like plants would get when stuffed into the same space.

You look at him properly now, — and what you see isn’t anger.

“I didn’t sleep,” you murmur.

“Right. Just… rested your eyes. Like an old man on a park bench.”

“Why are you here?”

He shrugs. “Wanted to make sure you weren’t dead.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not. But okay.”

“You’ve been working too much,” he says after a long silence. “Even Nanami’s starting to get worried. That means the world is probably ending.”

“Don’t dramatize.”

“Oh, I live for the drama. But this isn’t that.” He shifts, finally looking at you. His sunglasses slide down his nose just enough to show his eyes. Too blue. Too much. “This is me… asking.”

You blink. “Asking what?”

“If you ever stop running long enough to sleep—do you dream?”

You don’t answer. You can’t.

He shifts a bit closer.

Like he’s asking permission without saying it.

The silence between you stretches. You don’t say what you’re thinking. You don’t say that maybe, if he had asked you, you would’ve probably followed him.

Not out of agreement. But out of not knowing where else to go.

Instead, you shift your weight and wince again. Gojo notices, eyes trailing down to the cloth shoko put in between your legs near your knees.

“I talked to the higher-ups,” he says suddenly, like he’s trying to change the subject. “They’re not happy.”

You scoff.

“When are they ever.”

“They want a report. They think your actions were… impulsive. Undignified.”

Your jaw clenches. “He was raping that kid.”

“I know” he says sharply.

You both freeze.

His hand is clenched.

His voice, when he speaks again, is lower.

“I know” he repeats. “But they only see paperwork. Protocol. Headlines.”

You don’t need to ask what happens next. You already know how these things go.

Slaps on the wrist. Private lectures. Eyes that never look at the bloodstains.

“I’ll cover it,” Gojo says.

You blink. “…What?”

“I’ll file it. Under my name.”

You stare at him.

“Just so you know, I wouldn’t do it for anyone else” He says again.

“Why me?” you ask. “Why not someone else?”

“Because you don’t ask me if I’m okay,” he says.

You look at the ceiling. “Are you okay?”

“Bitch” he says, “what did I just say?”

You laugh. He laughs too. It was unexpected, for you too.

You want to live again. Not for long. But long enough to hear him make that sound again.

But his voice is serious.

“Because it’s the first time you’ve done something like this. And I’m sure it won’t be the last. And if someone’s gonna take the fallout for your so-called recklessness…” he looks at you, dead-on, “…it might as well be me.”

The words land like a drop in water.

You don’t know what to say.

So you don’t.

You look at him, this man you barely spoke to in your school days — this man who was always loud, always shining, always orbiting around someone else.

And now here he is.

“Call me next time,” He says, jaws clenched, and leaves the room. You sigh and try to move, before Shoko bursts in again, making you flinch.

Shoko lets you go back after that evening.

#jjk #jujutsu kaisen #jjk x reader #gojo x reader #satoru x reader #gojo satoru x reader #jjk fics #inkedtension #gojo #gojo satoru #platonic nanami x reader #jjk fanfic #jjk au #jjk fic #jujustsu kaisen x reader

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inkedtension · 1 month ago

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*real footage*

Bitch my requests are now OPEN, send me the fluff, the smut, the down bad ideas so I can write a mini novel for you .

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inkedtension · 2 months ago

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Title: “Warm Enough for You?” Pairing: Toji Fushiguro x Reader

Toji wasn’t much for cuddling.

You knew this. Liked him anyway. Loved the scars, the bluntness, the way he filled a room like a shadow you’d never quite get rid of—and never wanted to.

The heater in your apartment was busted. Again. Your hands were freezing. Toji had just finished his shower, towel slung low on his hips, muscles still damp and glistening under the shitty bathroom light. He raised a brow when he found you curled in bed like a shivering ball, blankets up to your ears.

“Seriously?” he muttered, dropping the towel and pulling on just his boxers.

You peeked out. “It’s freezing. The blankets aren’t working.”

“Mm.” He climbed into bed next to you anyway, lifting the covers and slipping behind you. One arm lazily draped over your waist, his breath already hot on your neck.

Still not warm enough.

You squirmed a little, pressing back into him, feeling the hard lines of his body—and the heat, God, the heat he gave off like a furnace.

“Toji,” you whispered, soft and careful, testing the waters.

His hand gripped your hip lazily. “Yeah?”

Your face flushed, but you turned just enough to meet his eyes in the dark.

“Can I—can we... just cockwarm? For the heat.”

He went still for half a second, then let out a slow, surprised laugh. “That what you want, mama?” he rasped. “You cold enough to beg for me like that?”

Your throat tightened, but you nodded. “Please. Just wanna feel full. I’ll be good.”

His voice dropped to a growl—low, dangerous, but amused. “Fuck. You’re really somethin’, you know that?”

He moved behind you, slow and heavy, large hand sliding up your thigh, gripping you just under the knee as he shifted your leg forward.

“No squirming,” he warned. “You ask for this? You better take it like a good girl.”

You did.

And when he pressed flush against you, sliding inside in one long, possessive motion—you finally felt warm. You breathed out something between a sigh and a whimper, head dropping back against his shoulder.

Toji exhaled against your skin. “There. That warm enough for you, baby?”

You nodded, eyes fluttering shut.

“Good,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to your temple. “Now go to sleep like this. Mine. Stuffed full. Pretty little heater, huh?”

You smiled softly in the dark, heat blooming low in your belly, every inch of you claimed and wrapped in him.

You were trying to focus on the warmth, on staying still like you promised—but he was so deep. Toji filled you in a way that made you feel split and whole all at once. Heavy. Hot. His.

You shifted slightly, trying not to move too much. But even the tiniest motion had his breath catching behind you.

“Mm.” His voice rumbled against your spine. “Thought you were gonna be good.”

You bit your lip. “I am.”

Toji chuckled darkly, hand sliding up your body beneath the blankets, rough fingertips tracing the shape of your waist, ribs, then—slowly—your breasts. He exhaled like he was looking at a damn shrine.

“Goddamn,” he murmured. “These tits... always so fuckin’ perfect.”

You gasped when he cupped them fully, massaging them with reverent, greedy hands. His thumbs brushed your nipples, and they hardened instantly in the cold air as the blankets slipped down. You felt him twitch inside you. He grinned.

“You’re warm now, yeah?” he whispered. “So you won’t mind if I enjoy myself a little.”

Then—he thrust up.

Not hard. Not fast. Just deep and slow enough to make your eyes fly open, a soft, choked sound catching in your throat.

“Toji—!”

He hummed. “You said cockwarming,” he teased, thrusting up again, just a little firmer. “Didn’t say I couldn’t have fun.”

Your back arched when he rolled one nipple between his fingers. “Fuck—just like that. Look at ‘em…” He leaned in, mouth dragging hot along your shoulder. “Softest fuckin’ tits I’ve ever touched. Could fall asleep with my mouth on ‘em.”

You moaned when he pinched, then soothed the sting with his tongue. He moved you onto your back with ease, never pulling out, just pressing in deeper.

Now he was above you—big, heavy, eyes dark with lust and that twisted kind of worship he’d never admit to.

“Gonna take my time,” he said low, dragging his tongue over your nipple, then sucking it into his mouth like he needed it. “You’re warm, wet, full, and lookin’ at me like you wanna cry if I stop.”

He thrust up again—slow, teasing, maddening.

“Say please” he said around your breast. “Say please, mama.”

“Please” you whispered, breathless. “Toji, please.”

He groaned like that word did something to him. Mama. Sweet. Filthy. Yours.

“That’s my girl” he said, dragging his tongue over your chest again, teeth grazing sensitive skin, squeezing them tits with his hands then burying his face in the soft skin. “Fuck, I could stay right here all night. Buried in this pussy, mouth full of these tits. Best goddamn heater I ever had.”

“Fuck this,” he muttered. “I’m done playin’.”

You barely had time to breathe before he slammed his hips forward, deep and hard, knocking a full moan out of you—raw and stunned.

“God—Toji!”

He growled. Not soft, not amused—feral. Like the leash he kept on himself finally snapped.

“You beg like that and expect me to hold back?” Another thrust—rougher this time. His hand fisted in the sheets by your head, his other on your jaw, tilting you to look at him. “Nah, mama. You knew what you were doing.”

You tried to answer, to explain it wasn’t a trick—but it didn’t matter. His rhythm had gone from slow and teasing to animal. Deep. Brutal. Overwhelming.

His eyes locked on your face like he was reading every reaction, memorizing the way your mouth opened with every push, the way your breasts bounced with every thrust. You were a mess under him, and he loved it.

“This pussy’s too good to waste on patience,” he gritted out, sweat dripping from his jaw as he fucked into you harder. “You keep clenching like that, makin’ those fuckin’ noises—what did you expect me to do, huh?”

You cried out, fingers digging into his back, legs locking around him on instinct.

“Toji—!”

He snapped his hips again, faster now, chasing the sound of his name like it fed something inside him.

“Yeah,” he panted, breath hot against your mouth. “Say it again.”

“Toji—!”

“Louder.”

“Toji—please—!”

“There she is,” he groaned, forehead pressing to yours. “That’s my fuckin’ girl. All mine.”

His mouth was on your neck now, biting, licking, breathing against your skin like he needed to mark you everywhere. His hand slid down to your thigh, pulling your legs over his shoulders, gripping tight enough to bruise as he pounded into you like he didn’t want to stop. Like he couldn’t.

“Feel that?” he grunted, voice wrecked. “That’s what you do to me. Every time. You break me, mama. You fuckin’ ruin me.”

“Fuck, you feel so damn good,” he mutters, his grip tightening around your waist.

He pinches a nipple, tugging it between his fingers.

“Can’t help but play with you, mama. You’re just too goddamn perfect.”

He leans over, closer to your face, spits in your agape mouth and watches you gulp it down, your two legs are then pushed again, onto a mating press and he starts pumping into you, resisting the urge to roll his eyes back to stare at your face.

“You’re so fuckin' perfect,” he groans, his voice ragged as he holds you steady.

You’re lost, fully lost in him now, everything around you spinning—his hands, his voice, his control.

He holds you still, hands coming up to your wrists to hold then above your head, mouth meeting yours in a gruffly affectionate kiss, moans and groans matching yours, as he cums, deep.

“Yasss, mama, there we go,” he says while kissing you down the way, as you shivered a little.

“She took it all in, how sweet,” he puts your panties back on.

#jjk #jjk smu #jjk smut #jjk toji fushiguro #jjk toji #toji fushiguro #toji smut #toji x reader #toji x you #fushiguro toji #toji fushiguro x reader #toji x reader smut #the jjk fans in my ask box i hear you pls give me time #requested #jjk toji fushiguro smut

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inkedtension · 2 months ago

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Hypothesis: You’re Mine

requested. Nerd Gojo x reader (smut)

***********************

You don’t know exactly when he started studying you, but if you asked him, Gojo Satoru would say it was the first time you beat him.

Not at math—that’d be too predictable. He had pride in his equations. He had owned that mathlete crown since middle school. But you walked into physics lab on the first day of your second year, not just knowing the concepts, but folding space-time diagrams like origami, talking about entropy like it was a bedtime story.

You were beautiful. It hurt. And worse—you were clever. Unforgivingly clever.

He was done for.

From that moment on, you were the only variable worth solving. And Gojo, loser among men, gangly and twitchy with glasses and pens sticking out of his hoodie pocket, began documenting you like a Nobel prize experiment.

“Subject: [Name]. Lab Partner. Goddess. Entity of Devastation.”

You always looked perfect. Not just cute or pretty—sharp. Lip tint just enough to make him bite his own. Glasses? Rarely. You didn’t need them—your vision was already too clear. And your answers in class? Always correct. Always concise. You didn’t speak often, but when you did, people shut up.

And he listened. He recorded. He analyzed.

He had a whole Google Doc titled:

“Nobel_Potential_Tensor_Calculations.”

The Complete Observational Thesis : Personality, Patterns, Perfections, and Maybe One Day… Consent.

It had tabs:

Wardrobe rotation patterns (updated every week)

Pencil preference (Which he archived when you left them behind)

Tone shift when addressing classmates vs. him ("Everyone else = flat or neutral. With me = teasing, sarcastic...flirty?? Hypothesis: She knows. She wants me dead.")

He was beyond salvation.

Everyone thought you had a thing for the basketball team. Guys with tattoos and overconfident smirks.

But no. You weren’t into the jocks. He’d studied that, too. Watched how your eyes barely twitched when they flirted. But in the lab, when he muttered something under his breath and you leaned in with a smirk and said, “Come again, Satoru?”—

That was the first time you called him by name.

Yeah, he almost did come again.

His brain exploded. Then imploded. Then exploded again.

He fumbled with his notes, his pen, his mouth. You’d said Satoru like it meant something. Like you were letting him in on something private. And that was the moment.

He got worse after that.

He rewound that syllable in his mind on loop, like a prayer: Satoru, Satoru, Satoru…

In the privacy of his dorm room, he’d press his face into the hoodie you once borrowed when the classroom was too cold. He never washed it. He never could. It smelled like your shampoo and something divine.

His hand would drift down. His breathing shallow. And all he’d see was your expression when you said his name.

He wasn’t proud of this part of himself.

He nearly died. From arousal or humiliation—or arousal by humiliation—unclear.

But he wasn’t sorry, either.

You knew.

God, of course you knew.

You noticed the way he twitched when you leaned too close during lab. The way his hand would tremble if yours brushed it by accident. The way he stared—like he was watching a star about to collapse into itself.

You weren’t oblivious. Just patient. Meticulous.

You knew what he was. A pervert. A loser. A genius. And you liked it. You liked him. How can you not?

But why let him know all that? It was more fun this way.

You wore a little more perfume when you knew you’d be lab partners. Purposely tied your hair up so your nape showed. Sat next to him in the library, thighs barely brushing, and didn’t move.

You whispered his name sometimes—only sometimes—just to watch him suffer.

"Satoru, can you hand me that? Thanks."

And that one time you said, "You smell nice today."

He didn’t breathe for twelve whole seconds. He counted.

He didn’t want it to stop.

He had dreams. Filthy ones. You, in his hoodie and nothing else, sitting on his desk with your legs parted. Wearing his glasses, and they were fogged from the heat of it all.

He didn’t want it to stop.

He'd wake up sticky, aching, and trembling, whispering your name like a lunatic. Then he’d go to class and pretend he hadn’t spent the last eight hours picturing your moans.

Every time you leaned over to help him debug a line of code, every time you tilted your head and smiled lazily at him like you knew he wanted to ruin you on a lab bench—he choked. Figuratively. Sometimes literally.

He’d beat off after class so often it started to feel like a Pavlovian response to the sound of your voice.

But he never asked you, never touched you. Never even tried.

Because Gojo Satoru, freak that he was, needed your yes more than he needed oxygen. He'd wait. Forever, if he had to.

But if you ever whispered that consent?

He’d ruin you with the kind of obsession that doesn’t come back from the brink.

One rainy Thursday, you sat next to him during a lab session and sighed dramatically. “Laptop’s dead. Guess I’ll just wait.”

He offered his. A little too fast. “You—you can use mine.”

“Oh?” You blinked slowly at him. “Won’t that leave you helpless and alone without your lifeline?”

He flushed. “I–I can manage.”

Of course, that was the moment Suguru texted. Something about the court. Satoru hesitated. You looked up at him from under your lashes, already pulling the laptop toward yourself.

“Go. I promise not to look at your other things.”

He laughed nervously. If only you knew.

Except… you did.

And by the time he returned—sweaty, flushed from playing one very bad half of basketball—he opened the lab door and nearly dropped dead.

There you were, brows slightly raised. One finger delicately on the trackpad. Lips formed in what could only be described as a fell-from-hell smirk and—

Amusement.

A single chill ran down his spine.

“Uh,” Gojo wheezed, stepping closer, dread forming in his gut like a black hole. “What… are you reading?”

You turned your head slowly, like a predator who’d just caught something squirming.

Your voice came out smooth. Too smooth.

“You’re thorough, Satoru. I’ll give you that.”

Well in your defence, his hard drive had an entire folder encrypted under layers of fake research data—labelled as “Nobel_Potential_Tensor_Calculations.” Inside was the real data. About you.

It had everything. What coffee you liked. How often you changed your perfume. A spreadsheet of your class schedule. A compiled zip of your voice memos from shared project meetings. A screenshot folder filled with blurry images from zoom meetings—your face caught mid-laugh. He had graphs of your seating preferences. Charts of your skirt lengths per semester. Hypotheses filed under “Effects of Verbal Affirmation on My Autonomic Response.” Subfolder: She Called Me ‘Satoru’ Twice This Month.

Creepy, you'd call, if you hadn't done some 'research' on him yourself.

well, he doesnt have to know that, right?

You looked up slowly. Smiling. “’Behavioral Log, 3:52PM. She touched my hand accidentally. Temperature spike. Heart rate elevated.’” You raised a brow. “This is... dense research, Satoru.”

His mouth opened. Closed. He tried to swallow, but his throat felt dry. His cock? Already twitching like a traitor.

“I—It’s just a dumb— It’s not real research, I just—”

You tilted your head. “Didn’t know I was the subject of an ongoing study.”

He stepped back, hard, like your chair was a landmine. His whole face flamed. His breath was shallow. You were still reading. Still smiling, smugly.

“I especially liked the part where you documented what lip balm I wear.” You tilted the screen toward him. “‘Subject applied Burt’s Bees pomegranate at 9:42 AM. Lip-to-cup contact observed. Resisted urge to bite desk.’ That’s cute.”

His soul left his body.

You kept going, merciless.

“Also, I can’t believe you actually made a flowchart about my laugh. What were the categories again? ‘Soft and rare,’ ‘cynical chuckle,’ and…” You grinned, devilish. “‘Accidental wheeze—induced during suggestive jokes.’”

He was going to combust. Right there. Just explode into a puff of shame, lust, and regret.

He wanted to fuck you on that desk. With his glasses slipping down your nose, with his name on your tongue, with your thighs shaking around his head while he shoved that smugness right out of you. Right here. Now.

And then—you walked away. As if you hadn’t just lit a match and dropped it into the very core of his existence.

Well, you were wet.

Gojo sat down. Hard.

He stared at the screen.

His entire manifesto was still open.

“...fuck,” he whispered.

He came in his boxers on the way to the locker room. No hands. Just the memory of your voice purring the word Satoru while reading from his worst-kept secret.

Arousal by humiliation, it is.

He didn’t talk to you for three days.

You didn’t make it easy.

You laughed a little too loud when he passed by. You pressed too close at the vending machine. You dropped your pen on his desk. And today—today you “accidentally” fell into his lap during the club meeting.

“Oops,” you whispered, blinking up at him.

He’d frozen. Completely. You were sitting on him. Right on him. His cock pressed against your ass through just four-maybe layers of fabric. He was stiff in more ways than one. If he didn’t move you soon, he’d—god, no. Not again.

You stood too late.

He excused himself with a choked, “Sorry! Be right back!” and nearly tripped out of the room.

He ran to Suguru again. “Spare pants. Please. Please—”

“You came again?”

“Shut up, it’s not—shut up—”

Gojo didn’t even want to know how much Suguru already knew. He didn’t even want to think about how Suguru might’ve pieced this together.

The next day, you were nowhere. No hallway run-ins. No sarcastic greetings. No sly jokes. He was almost relieved.

Until someone grabbed him and yanked him into the abandoned AV room.

“—wha—!”

You. Chest heaving. Eyes angry. Hands gripping his collar.

“You’ve been ignoring me.”

“I—I wasn’t—”

“Shut up.”

You shoved him against the wall, your body flush against his. He could feel your warmth through your clothes. Your breath on his neck.

“You wanna fuck me, right?” you asked lowly.

He blinked. “What?”

“You wanna bend me over this table and fuck me like a little experiment, right?”

His knees nearly buckled.

“Well?”

He opened his mouth to stammer something—anything—when you slowly, deliberately, knelt.

He stopped breathing.

“Tell me to stop,” you said, undoing his belt.

“Tell me,” you repeated, glancing up at him. “Tell me no.”

He was shaking.

When you pulled his pants down and his hard, flushed cock sprang free,

Your lips parted slightly in awe, eyes widening at the full length of him, flushed and twitching, precum already smeared against your lower lip. You let out a low, breathy gasp.

“Oh my god, Satoru—” That broke him.

A sharp growl escaped his throat—one you’d never heard from him before. He yanked off his glasses with one hand,

“I wanna see you in them.” he murmured. His voice was hoarse now. Deeper.

His fingers brushed against your hair as he bent slightly, lifting the frames.

You watched him , even though your heart was thudding in your chest. There was something raw, desperate in the way he handled the glasses. Something that made your pulse spike.

He pressed the glasses back onto your face. The delicate weight of them slid down your nose slightly.

The moment your mouth wrapped around him—warm, wet, slowly easing him past your lips like you were savoring him—Satoru’s mind went blank.

Gone. No equations, no frantic calculations, no escape route. Just the heat of your mouth and the dangerous way you were watching him, eyes half-lidded, smug, daring him to breathe.

“Fuck,” he whispered, voice breaking. “You’re really—ah—”

Your hand gripped the base of his cock, stroking him gently while your tongue flicked over the head. His legs trembled.

His hand on your head tightened slightly, clutching your hair, not pushing, just guiding. You moaned—just faintly, just enough—and the vibration nearly made him lose control. He throbbed against your tongue.

“Shit—okay, yeah, like that, just—fuck, you’re perfect—”

You were trying to keep control, but he could see the strain in your throat as you took more of him. Could feel your saliva sliding warm and messy down the base. Your jaw trembled around him. Your hand squeezed his thigh for balance, and that alone made him buck forward just a little, hitting the back of your throat.

You choked, just a bit. Gagged. Pulled back with a small whimper and your eyes watering.

And then—then you looked up again. When did he pull up his oversized cardigan and put the edge in his mouth? You didn’t know but God, was it hot.

The glasses were a little crooked now. Your lips were swollen. And you smiled.

He let out the loudest moan yet. Desperate. Raspy. Feral.

“God, you’re—are you even real?” he whispered, breath hitching again. “Been jerking off to this for months. And you—you just—fuck—”

You moaned around him again, deliberately this time, teasing.

He let out a choked curse. His grip in your hair tightened more firmly now, finally taking control of the pace—slow, deliberate thrusts into your mouth, watching his cock slide between your lips. His thighs were tensing. His voice was breaking.

“You wanted this,” he hissed, gently rocking his hips into you. “All those little games—you knew. You knew what you were doing to me.”

You pulled off for air, nodding.

He groaned—long and low—and then pushed back into your mouth, deeper, letting his head fall back against the wall.

“Don’t stop,” he begged, desperate now. “Fuck, don’t you dare stop—just like that—”

he came down your throat while pushing your head down so that your nose touched the base of his happy trail.

He swears he never came that hard his entire life.

Well, it was safe to say he didn’t hold back after that day.

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inkedtension · 2 months ago

Text

Satoru doesn’t stop moving.

He doesn’t stop to think, doesn’t stop to breathe—he just searches.

Because if he stops, if he lets himself feel for even a second, the panic clawing at his chest will eat him alive.

He doesn’t remember how long he’s been looking when he sees you.

Right there.

In front of a KFC.

The world stills.

His pulse hammers in his ears, and for a second—just a second—he swears he’s back in Shinjuku, back in the rain, back in front of Suguru.

Suguru, standing there like he had already made his decision.

Suguru, looking at him with that quiet, empty expression, like he was already gone.

Satoru blinks, and it’s you.

Standing alone in front of the restaurant, staring at nothing, hands stuffed in your pockets.

You’re not hurt. Not scared. Not running.

Just… standing.

Like you don’t even realise three weeks have passed.

Like you don’t realize you’ve disappeared.

Something twists in his gut.

For a moment, he doesn’t move.

#Jjk #Gojo #Satoru x reader #geto #geto suguru #anime x reader #jjk x reader

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inkedtension · 4 months ago

Text

He looks exhausted when he walks in—a hectic week altogether—tie loose, hair a mess, the weight of the day still clinging to his shoulders. You only get a proper kiss before he mumbles something about freshening up, leaving you standing there, needy and restless, watching him disappear into the bathroom.

When he comes back, he’s shirtless, hair damp, towel lazily slung around his neck. He settles on the bed against the headboard, long legs stretched out, a book in his hand. The glow of the bedside lamp casts soft shadows over his chest, the definition of his collarbones, the slope of his abs. And yet, he doesn’t seem to notice the way your gaze lingers.

You’re curled up at the edge of the bed, watching him, sulking a little. He must feel it, must sense the heat of your stare, because he barely glances up from his book before tilting his head toward you.

“Come here, baby.” His voice is low, lazy, but there’s something in it that makes your stomach tighten. “Sit on me.”

You first didn't understand if he meant his face or his lap, when he takes off his shorts is when you understand.

Your breath catches. “Aren’t you tired?”

A slow smirk tugs at his lips. “And? C'm on, you know both you and I want it.”

That was enough to make warmth pool at the base of your spine. He sets the book aside for a second, beckoning you with his fingers.

“C’mere, sweetheart,” he murmurs, voice like honey, thick and coaxing. “Missed you.”

It’s enough to make you move before you can think better of it, before you can let the last bit of hesitation keep you away. As soon as you settle onto his lap, his hands find your waist, taking down your panties as you lift your hips up.

He lifts you slightly, making you sit on his cock, it doesn't completely fit, of course, thumbs stroking your skin through the fabric of your shirt as his tip teases that spot.

He picks up the book again, but his eyes flicker down to yours,

“You gonna behave while I read?”

You shift slightly, just enough to make his grip tighten.

His chuckle is low, teasing. “Didn’t think so.”

He picks up the book again, pretending to be absorbed in it, but you don’t miss the way his grip tightens when you shift just a little.

“You comfortable, darlin'?” he murmurs absently, eyes flicking over the pages, but there’s a teasing lilt to his voice. Like he knows exactly what he’s doing.

You hum, pressing your palms to his bare chest, tracing slow circles over his skin. “Mhm,” you breathe, leaning in, brushing your lips over his jaw. He doesn’t react, doesn’t move—just keeps reading like you’re not practically melting against him.

So, you move. Just a little. A slow, innocent shift, dragging your body against his like you’re just trying to get comfortable. His fingers twitch against your waist.

Still, he doesn’t say anything.

You try again, shifting higher, rolling your hips ever so slightly before sinking back down, your arms wrapping loosely around his neck.

His jaw tenses, his breath catches—just for a second—but he keeps his face hidden behind the book, stubbornly ignoring you.

“Baby,” you whine softly, dragging your lips along the column of his throat, your fingers slipping into his hair. He’s so warm, so solid beneath you, and the way he’s acting like he doesn’t care makes heat spark in your stomach.

He exhales through his nose, tilting his head back just enough to let you nuzzle into him, but his voice stays even. “What is it, sweetheart?”

You shift again, slower this time, your body pressing flush against his. His hands slide down, palms warm against your thighs now, holding you in place—but not stopping you.

“You’re ignoring me,” you pout, rolling your hips ever so slightly.

He lets out a low hum, flipping a page with maddening calm. “Am I?”

“Mmhm,” you whisper, lips brushing his ear now. “Feels mean.”

His grip tightens, his fingers flexing, but he doesn’t pull you closer, doesn’t stop you. He just lets you move, lets you tease yourself against him while he hides behind the book like you’re not driving him insane.

Finally, after another slow shift of your hips, he exhales sharply, his fingers pressing into your skin. “You having fun, sweet thing?”

You grin, pressing your forehead against his. “Maybe.”

You keep moving against him, slow and teasing, pressing yourself closer, but he doesn’t give in. Doesn’t acknowledge the way your body rolls against his, how your hands roam over his chest, fingertips tracing over his collarbones, his shoulders, the muscles in his arms.

He just keeps his book in front of his face, pretending to be unaffected, though his grip on your waist tightens each time you shift.

Still, you don’t stop.

You press your lips to the curve of his jaw, down his throat, your breath warm against his skin. Nothing. Another slow roll of your hips. Nothing. His chest rises a little quicker, but he keeps reading, keeps ignoring the way you’re growing needier by the second.

So you pull back.

Lift off of him completely, his hands falling from your waist as you shift onto your knees in front of him. He doesn’t say a word, but you can feel his gaze burning into you. Like he isn’t gripping the book just a little too tight.

And then—slowly, deliberately—you pull your shirt over your head. Let it fall somewhere on the bed before you turn around, completely bare.

This time, when you sink on him again, when your skin presses against his, warm and soft, he sucks in a quiet breath. It’s subtle, barely audible, but you hear it—the smallest groan, low in his throat, like he’s finally letting himself react, just for a second.

You smirk, leaning back against his chest, your bare back skin meeting his warmth. His hand finds your waist again, palm splayed across your stomach now, going lower, caressing your public hair, fingers pressing in ever so slightly, then, creeping up to your breasts.

But still—one hand stays on the book, his eyes flickering over the pages like he isn’t affected, like he doesn’t feel the heat of your body against his.

Then—slowly, lazily—his free hand moves up, reaching for the band holding your hair in place. A gentle tug, and your ponytail loosens, hair spilling over your shoulders, cascading down your back.

He exhales, fingers threading through the strands, brushing them over one shoulder before his palm rests lightly against your collarbone. His lips ghost the side of your head, warm and teasing.

You lift again, rolling your hips, teasing yourself against him, but he’s too big—he doesn’t completely fit, and the realization sends a frustrated whimper past your lips. You try again, sinking down only to an extent, but it’s not enough. The slow drag, the aching stretch—it’s driving you crazy.

And then—you feel it. The sharp inhale he takes, the way his fingers dig into your hips, his patience snapping in an instant.

His book is tossed aside without a second thought.

Before you can process it, he grips your waist and pushes you down onto him fully, a deep, strained groan rumbling from his chest as you gasp with a moan, hands flying to his thighs for support. The pressure, the overwhelming fullness—it has your whole body trembling.

Then, he moves.

He leans forward, chest pressing against your back, his warmth caging you in as he shifts, guiding you down onto your elbows and knees. You barely register the change in position before he presses against you from behind, rolling his hips in slow, deep thrusts that knock the air from your lungs.

A strangled moan escapes you, your fingers clutching at the sheets as he moves again, unhurried but devastating, each motion precise, like he’s savoring the way you fall apart beneath him.

His breath is heavy, hot against the back of your neck. “You drive me crazy, you know that?” His voice is rough, strained, and when you whimper in response, he lets out a low groan, his hips pressing even deeper.

He leans forward, to hear you and to feel your skin better—his arm slides around your throat from behind, not tight, just enough to keep you close, to keep you exactly where he wants you.

His grip is firm but careful, fingers resting lightly against your pulse, feeling the way it races beneath his touch. He groans again, voice husky in your ear as he keeps moving, slow and deep, his other hand holding your waist.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” he murmurs, pressing a lingering kiss to the side of your neck. “Take it. J—just like that.”

Your eyes flutter open, hazy with pleasure, and that’s when you see it—the mirror straight ahead, mounted on the wall opposite the bed.

The sight knocks the breath from your lungs.

The reflection captures everything—his body towering over yours, his one hand gripping your waist and the other on your heck, the way he moves against you, desperate, like he can’t get enough. His expression is dark with hunger, his lips parted, chest heaving with each deep thrust, biting and kissing your neck.

You can’t look away.

A choked moan escapes your lips, louder than before, your gaze locked on the image before you. The way you tremble beneath him, the way his body fits against yours so perfectly—it sends another wave of heat through you.

Behind you, he notices.

His pace falters for a second, his head tilting slightly before he follows your gaze—and when he sees it, when he sees himself buried deep inside you, his body covering yours, your dazed eyes, drool from your lips, how you tighten around him, how your moans got louder, his grip on your waist tightens.

A low, guttural groan rumbles from his chest.

"You like that view, sweetheart?" His voice is husky, rough with desire.

You can barely manage a response, your moan answering for you, and that’s all it takes.

"Y—yeah? you like that baby?"

His pace shifts—harder, faster, so hard you start moving upwards away from him so he pulls you back on him, as if the sight of you together, of you unraveling beneath him, has pushed him over the edge. His breathing turns ragged, each thrust sending shivers down your spine, and you know he’s close.

So are you.

Your hands clench the sheets, your body arching, the tension coiling tighter and tighter until—

His name spills from your lips, broken and breathless, as the pleasure crashes over you, leaving you trembling in his grasp.

Only then does he let go.

With one final thrust, his body tenses, his own release following yours, a deep groan escaping as he collapses onto you, his weight warm and heavy, pressing you into the bed.

For a moment, neither of you move.

His chest rises and falls against your back, his breath warm against your shoulder, his arms still wrapped around you like he’s unwilling to let go just yet.

Then—softly, teasingly—he presses a lazy kiss to the side of your neck, his voice a deep murmur against your skin.

"Now that," he breathes, a satisfied smirk in his tone, "was a sight worth watching."

A lazy hum vibrates against your skin as he stays draped over you, his weight heavy but comforting, grounding you after the storm you both just weathered. His lips graze your shoulder, soft and lingering, before he finally shifts, rolling off you just enough to let you breathe.

But he doesn’t let go.

Instead, he pulls you back against his chest, wrapping an arm around your waist and pressing his face into the crook of your neck. His breathing is deep, still uneven, but his lips find your skin again, trailing slow, featherlight kisses along your shoulder, up to your jaw.

"You okay, sweetheart?" His voice is warm, thick with exhaustion, but there’s a hint of something else too—concern, devotion, the quiet way he always makes sure you’re alright.

You nod, still catching your breath, and he chuckles softly, his fingers brushing lazy circles against your bare skin.

"Did so well for me," he murmurs, pressing a kiss behind your ear.

You sigh, sinking into his warmth, letting yourself melt as he shifts to sit up, reaching over to grab the blanket from the edge of the bed. With careful hands, he pulls it over both of you, tucking you close against him, his body still warm from exertion.

The weight of exhaustion tugs at your limbs, pulling you toward sleep, but just as you begin to drift, you feel it—

A slow, lazy touch trailing along your skin.

At first, it’s featherlight, almost absentminded, like he’s moving on instinct even in his half-asleep state. His fingertips trace delicate patterns along your stomach before slipping lower, pressing against you with a knowing intent.

Your breath hitches.

"Mm," he hums sleepily against your neck, his voice thick with exhaustion but still laced with that ever-present hunger. "Not done with you yet, sweetheart."

The words send a shiver through you, heat pooling where his fingers tease, slow and deliberate, like he’s savoring the way you react even with his eyes closed. His grip tightens around your waist, keeping you close as his lips press against the curve of your shoulder, a lazy, satisfied smirk tugging at his lips.

"You can take one more for me, can’t you? I can’t believe I lived without this for a week.”

Usually, he takes his time, his mouth and hands working in tandem, drawing you apart piece by piece, only then do you come on his cock, but tonight, there was a crack in the routine.

He’s tired—so tired—and yet, not enough to resist.

Not enough to deny himself this.

His fingers dip lower, pressing against you, and when he feels the heat, the wetness waiting for him, he lets out a low, satisfied hum.

“I almost forgot,” he murmurs, lips trailing along the curve of your jaw, “how gorgeous you are like this. All flustered, sensitive and red and—”

He presses in, two fingers sliding deep, and the breath you take is sharp, stolen from your lungs.

“—so fucking wet for me.”

His fingers move with a practiced rhythm, slow but deliberate, coaxing you closer. His lips press against your shoulder, murmuring against your flushed skin, a litany of sweet nothings that only make the pleasure coil tighter inside you.

"That’s it, sweet, sweet cunt," he breathes, voice thick with exhaustion but dripping with satisfaction. "Let go for me… just like that."

Your head falls back against his shoulder, body melting into his as he works you through it, his touch unrelenting until he feels you come undone, trembling in his arms. He doesn’t stop until the last wave passes, until he’s sure he’s wrung out every last drop of pleasure from you.

Only then does he ease his fingers out, dragging them up over your thigh, slow and reverent, as if he’s memorizing the way you feel against him. His other arm tightens around your waist, pulling you impossibly closer, anchoring you against his chest, clean his fingers by tasting you.

"Missed you so much," he mutters into your hair, voice barely above a whisper. "Don’t think I can go a week without you again."

His lips press against your temple, soft and lingering, before he shifts, reaching for the blanket and pulling it over both of you. His warmth surrounds you, his touch still gentle as he strokes lazy circles into your hip, lulling you into a haze of post-bliss exhaustion.

"You good, sweetheart?" he asks, voice softer now, more tender. You nod sleepily, and he chuckles, kissing the top of your head.

"Sleep," he whispers. "I’ve got you."

And with his arms wrapped around you, his breath steady and warm against your skin, you believe him.

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