reidsworld - Tumblr blog

reidsworld · 1 month ago

Text

THE NIGHT WE MET

SUMMARY. nanami kento is a widower haunted by memories of you, his late wife—the moments you shared, the love you built, and the dreams you made together before tragedy struck. as he drifts through grief, seven memories replay relentlessly, revealing the depth of a love that still burns, even when you’re gone.

TAGS/WARNINGS. angst, fluff, canonverse, kinda bittersweet ngl, smut, themes of love and loss, grief, domestic moments, sorcerer!reader, hurt/no comfort, established relationship, character death, trauma, exploration of grief and loss, emotional distress, mild blood and injury descriptions, wc: 13,8k

TORI’S NOTES. i know i mostly write fluff for nanami, but this had to happen, i’m sorry😭😭

nanami is a widowed man.

he wakes up every morning beside the empty stretch of bed where you used to sleep, still reaching for you like he hasn’t learned yet. his hand brushes against the cold sheets, and the silence that follows is louder than anything else in the apartment. it’s always like this—quiet, too quiet. not the peaceful kind of quiet, but the kind that feels like a wound left open too long, aching in the background of everything.

you were his wife. his partner. the only person he’d ever truly let in and now that you’re gone, he doesn’t know what to do with the parts of himself you used to hold. the softness, the warmth, the small, vulnerable places he’d only ever shown you. he doesn’t know where to put his hands, his thoughts, his love—because all of it still belongs to you. every bit of it. every bit of him.

he makes coffee in the mornings like he used to when you were alive, still pours two cups out of habit. he doesn’t realize he’s done it until both mugs are sitting on the counter, steam curling from each in that quiet kitchen light. sometimes he drinks both. sometimes he throws one out. most days, he just stands there staring at them, jaw clenched so tight it aches.

grief clings to him like second skin.

he wears it the way he used to wear his suits—carefully, deliberately, like it’s the only thing still keeping him put together. he goes to work. he comes home. he folds laundry and reads the paper and fixes that damn flickering hallway light. he does everything right, everything you’d want him to do, but none of it matters, not really. because you’re not here and no matter how many boxes he checks off, you won’t be here at the end of it.

he doesn’t talk much anymore. not because he’s withdrawn, but because there’s no one left who understood him the way you did. talking feels pointless now. meaningless. when you were alive, you used to finish his sentences. you used to sit across the dinner table and smile at him like you already knew what he was thinking and he used to think, this is what home feels like. now, he eats in silence and the food tastes like paper. he doesn’t bother finishing most meals.

the love is still there. that’s the worst part.

it hasn’t gone anywhere. it’s still sitting in his chest like a fire that won’t die down. a song stuck on repeat. it’s heavy, unwieldy, painful. every bit of affection he used to pour into you—every kiss good morning, every protective glance across a crowded room, every soft hand on your back as you fell asleep—it’s still with him. but it has nowhere to go. it just sits there. it builds. it chokes.

he tries, sometimes, to let it out. he talks to your photograph. he writes you letters in a notebook he never lets anyone see. he lights the incense you used to like and sits by your shrine, waiting for the scent to take him somewhere better. it never does. all it does is remind him of you and he doesn’t know if that’s comfort or punishment anymore.

you were his everything, still are. you made life make sense and made him make sense. and now he walks through the world like a man underwater, slow and directionless, always searching for something he’ll never find again. every time someone says your name, it cuts. every time someone doesn’t, it hurts worse.

he didn’t know it was possible to love someone this much. to lose them and still feel like you belong to them. but that’s what it is, that’s what you are. his forever, even now.

and he doesn’t know how to move forward without you. doesn’t even know if he wants to. all he knows is that this love—this overwhelming, all-consuming, aching love—is still inside him.

and he has nowhere left to put it.

still, he doesn’t cry often.

not because he doesn’t want to; sometimes he feels it, lump in his throat, stinging behind his eyes, itching in his nose, heavy in his chest like something ready to break open, but it’s as if his body doesn’t know how to let it out anymore. the grief has folded itself so tightly into him that there’s no space left for the tears. the weight of it just stays there—dense, immovable—until he’s too tired to even think.

it’s not the loud moments that hurt the most. it’s the quiet ones. the tiny cracks in the day where you used to be.

a short laugh at the back of a café, and for a second he thinks it’s yours. a song you used to hum under your breath while brushing your teeth. the smell of hand cream, just like the one you kept in the nightstand drawer. the mundane, normal parts of life that keep ambushing him with your absence.

and he wants to be angry, sometimes. shouldn’t grief be loud? shouldn’t the world shake with the fact that you’re not in it anymore? but no. the trains still run on time. people still smile at each other in the street. the city still moves forward like nothing’s happened like it doesn’t care that the most beautiful part of his life is gone.

he doesn’t talk about you to anyone, not really, not out loud. people say your name with a careful tone, like you’re glass and they’re afraid you’ll shatter in their mouths and nanami hates that. you weren’t fragile. you were warm, and clever, and kind, and maddeningly stubborn. so so real. not a ghost and not a memory.

he doesn’t want you to be a story someone tells with soft sympathy in their voice. he wants you here. wants to hold your hand again, wants to come home to you brushing your hair in the hallway mirror and talking about what you saw on the news. wants to hear your stupid jokes and your bad singing and the sound of your sleepy breathing when you curled into his side.

he’d give everything just to have one more day. one normal, boring day. not a dramatic farewell, not a flash of cinematic closure. just you, alive. asking him what he wants for dinner, tugging at his tie while calling him a workaholic. kissing him breathless and squealing when he lifts you up with a tight embrace. laughing at your own jokes. just you.

and the truth is—he doesn’t think he’ll ever stop loving you. not in the way people mean when they talk about love that lingers, no, this is different. this love still lives in him. it’s not quiet and it’s not peaceful. it claws at the walls of his chest some days. it feels like missing a step on a stair you’ve walked a thousand times, like forgetting how to breathe.

and what scares him more than anything is the thought that maybe, eventually, your voice in his memory will fade. maybe one day he won’t be able to picture your exact smile, or remember how your fingers used to trace idle shapes on his palm when you were both falling asleep. the idea that he could forget any piece of you—that is what keeps him up some nights, sitting in the dark, hands clenched in the fabric of your old sweater like a lifeline.

because if you fade, if time really does dull everything, then where does that leave him?

he doesn’t want to move on. doesn’t want to be told that healing means letting go. he doesn’t want to let go.

he just wants to love you. wants to keep loving you even if it hurts, even if it ruins him. even if it makes the rest of his life feel like an echo.

because loving you was the only thing that ever truly made sense.

and even now, with everything broken, it still does.

every day, without fail, his mind finds its way back to you.

not always with warning, not always with mercy. sometimes it’s a scent in the air, sometimes it’s the way the late afternoon light hits the floor of the living room. sometimes it’s nothing at all—just silence—and suddenly he’s standing there, unmoving, lost in some soft, unbearable echo of you.

he doesn’t try to stop it anymore.

every day, some part of his brain reaches back to something you said, something you did, something you were. a memory of you laughing so hard you had to hold your stomach, or the way you used to roll your eyes at his serious face, or how you looked first thing in the morning—barely awake, soft with sleep, voice scratchy as you murmured his name. needy, whiny, beautiful, his perfect, sweet soulmate. calling for him to come back to bed so you can be in his arms for a little more.

and it always hurts. even the happy memories hurt now. they bloom warm in his chest only to burn seconds later, because he remembers, again and again, that there will be no new ones. he remembers that these fragments are all he has left. and they never stop coming.

he’ll be walking down a street and suddenly remember the times you linked your arm in his and told him how pretty the sky looked that day. he’ll be folding laundry and see the sweater you loved—worn and faded from use—and remember how you used to wear it with nothing underneath and tease him when he blushed. he’ll be buying groceries and see your favorite snack and just… stand there, staring at it, like he’s forgotten why he’s even there at all.

and it’s not just the big things, it’s the little ones, too.

how you used to hum when you cooked. how you’d squeeze his hand three times for i love you. how you always forgot where you put your keys. how you never let him go to sleep angry, no matter what, coaxing him with apologies if you were in the wrong and making him apologize when he was, even though he was already planning to do so. how you had this laugh that only came out when you weren’t thinking about how loud it was and it was stored in his brain under the name of “his favorite song”.

he lives inside these memories now even though they are inside of him, not because he wants to, but because he has to. it’s the only way to stay close to you. it’s the only way to pretend, even for a second, that you’re still here.

he doesn’t talk about it to anyone. can’t. because how do you explain that you’re haunted by love? that every memory is a knife and a balm at once? that the happiest moments of your life now feel like punishments?

some days, he welcomes it.

he’ll close his eyes and let it come. let the memories pull him under like waves because even if it hurts, even if it breaks him a little more each time, at least it means you’re still with him. in some way, in some form. still part of the air he breathes. still wrapped around his ribs.

so every day, he remembers. without meaning to. without control.

because the love didn’t die when you did.

and now the memories are the only place he can still hold you.

every day, his memories pull him back to you. they rise without permission, sometimes gentle, sometimes ruthless—drifting through his thoughts when he’s tying his tie, walking to the station, waiting for his tea to steep. but no matter where he is or what he’s doing, there are certain memories—seven of them—that come sharper than the rest. louder. clearer. more you.

the first one, the one that always finds him when he least expects it, is the day he finally confessed.

it’s usually triggered by nothing at all. sometimes just a passing glance of the spring sky, or the feeling of warm air against his skin. sometimes just the way someone says his name, softly. and suddenly he’s back there, months and years peeled away, reliving the moment that changed everything.

he remembers how long he waited, how long he wanted. how he watched you laugh with others, how he listened to you talk about life and dreams and nonsense, always with his hands curled into tight fists, anchoring himself in restraint. because he was terrified. he didn’t believe he deserved you. because something that perfect, that real—it felt like a miracle, and he didn’t know how to reach for it without ruining it.

you were so you. so kind, so bright, so infuriatingly unafraid of getting close to him. you flirted without realizing it, touched his arm when you laughed, leaned into his space like it was yours—like he was yours. and he wanted to believe it. god, he wanted to believe you could want him the same way he wanted you.

it had been eating him alive, quietly. silently. he was always careful around you. always measured. but you were chaos wrapped in warmth—you got under his skin without even trying. he couldn’t keep his feelings hidden forever, not with you always looking at him like you knew he was lying.

he remembers the exact moment he broke.

you were walking home from dinner. something casual. something that should’ve just been another friendly meal. the night was warm, the street lamps glowed soft, and you were telling him a story about something ridiculous you saw on the train. he wasn’t even listening—not really. he was too busy watching your mouth move, too busy thinking about how close your hand was to his, how easy it would be to just reach.

and then you looked at him,stopped walking, tilted your head, and said his name in question.

“nanami?”

and something about the way you said it—like you were daring him to speak, like you knew—it cracked something open.

he remembers how stiff he went. how the words trembled behind his teeth, how for one heartbeat, he almost turned and walked away. but instead, he looked at you, into you, and said it, quiet and sharp like the edge of a knife,

“i love you.”

and the silence that followed was the loudest moment of his life.

his heart was pounding. he didn’t breathe, he didn’t move. every cell in his body was bracing for rejection, for your expression to twist, for you to step back and say he’d misunderstood everything. that he’d ruined it. that he’d made it awkward, made it worse, made you uncomfortable.

but you just stood there, eyes wide, lips parted as if you couldn’t quite believe what you’d heard. and then, out of nowhere—you giggled. something sweet and bubbling burst out of you and couldn’t be contained.

“you’re serious?” you asked, voice light, like you couldn’t help yourself.

he nodded once and you—god, you lit up like it was the sun rising behind your eyes.

“finally,” you whispered, before you reached for him with both hands and pulled him in, and kissed him.

he hadn’t expected it, not like that. not so sudden, so soft, so full of joy. he remembers standing still as stone, eyes wide while your lips pressed to his, and how you smiled against his mouth, like you couldn’t help it and you were too happy to stay still. and then he kissed you back.

carefully, reverently, like he’d waited his whole life just for this moment because he had. because nothing had ever felt as natural, as right, as kissing you.

you were so warm, you always were. hands on his jaw, your breath mingling with his, your nose bumping his cheek as you laughed in the middle of the kiss like you couldn’t stop being happy it was spilling out of you, uncontainable.

“i’ve been waiting for you to say it,” you told him, eyes sparkling, cheeks flushed. “i didn’t want to rush you, but—god, i’m so in love with you, nanami.”

he remembers the way his chest felt too tight for his ribs. the way his hands shook as he reached for you, as he held you close, closer than he’d ever dared to before. the way your forehead pressed to his and you looked at him like he was your whole world.

and in that moment, he believed you.mhe let himself believe in happiness. in having someone. in you. he’s never forgotten that night, not once, not even now, when it hurts the most.

it comes back to him in the strangest moments—when he’s ironing a shirt, when he’s standing in line at the pharmacy, when he’s drifting off to sleep alone in a cold bed. it strikes like lightning. vivid, searing, alive.

and then it’s gone again, leaving only the ache behind.

the memory plays on repeat, always, because it was the beginning of everything. and now, it’s the only place he can still feel your hands on his skin. your laughter in his mouth. your love, whole and unbroken, pressed warm against his chest.

he replays it down to the tiniest details.

the way your eyes flicked up to him when he said it—i love you—like you were searching his face for any sign of hesitation. how your lips parted, stunned at first, then curled into this soft, impossible smile that made his knees feel weak. how the light from the lamppost behind you glowed in your hair, like you were something divine.

he remembers thinking, this can’t be real. this can’t be mine.

you were so full of light, always had been. and for months, he’d been quietly orbiting you, keeping just enough distance to pretend his feelings were manageable. he used to think if he kept it buried, if he could just keep his mouth shut and his face unreadable, it would pass. he thought maybe you’d never notice and maybe the addicting ache in his chest would soften with time.

but it hadn’t. not even close.

it got worse, actually, more unbearable with each day, with each moment you leaned closer and laughed at his dry jokes, each time you brought him little things you thought he’d like—snacks, books, tea. every time you said his name like it meant something to you. it was never just friendly, not to him. never casual. it burned through him like something ancient and sacred and awful, this helpless, growing need to be yours.

and then that night, he snapped because he just couldn’t pretend anymore. couldn’t carry it all inside himself without cracking at the seams. so he let it out. barely above a whisper, like an apology.

but you didn’t flinch and you didn’t fumble. you didn’t even let the silence hang long enough to hurt.

your hands had gone to his face like it was the most natural thing in the world—thumbs pressing gently at the edges of his jaw, fingers threading up into his hair. like you’d been waiting to do it forever. and he froze because something deep inside him fractured under the weight of your joy.

you were smiling so big. you were giddy.

“you’re really saying it,” you said then, almost breathless, like it was a dream. “you really love me.”

he nodded, mute. because what was he supposed to say? that he loved you so much it scared him? that he’d rehearsed it a hundred times but the real thing was still so much harder? that he’d wanted you for so long he didn’t remember what it felt like not to?

but you didn’t need any of that. you never did. you saw straight through him, always.

you kissed him like you were saying it back with every part of you.

and he didn’t want to let go. not ever. he remembers how tightly he held you, afraid it would all vanish if he blinked too long. how your body pressed to his like you already belonged there, like you’d always belonged there. how you whispered to him through soft, giddy laughs—

“i was starting to think you’d never say it,”

“you looked so miserable, i almost said it for you,”

“you’re not allowed to take it back, okay?”

he remembers the way your nose wrinkled when you smiled, how your fingers slid down to link with his, squeezing, grounding him.

and when he walked you home that night, hand in hand, he felt taller. lighter. changed. something inside him had finally clicked into place. the world had cracked open and given him the one thing he never believed he could have and he was truly blessed.

and now?

he still walks past that same street sometimes. the one with the rusted railing and the single orange tree blooming in spring. it’s barely anything, just another corner, but he always slows when he reaches it. always glances up at the lamppost. always stops, just for a moment, just long enough for the memory to wash over him.

sometimes he closes his eyes and pretends he’s still there.

pretends you’re about to turn to him again, smile wide, heart open, and kiss him like it’s the first time all over again.

pretends the air still smells like your perfume. that your hands are still warm in his. that your voice is still in his ear, soft and full of wonder—

“you love me?”

“i love you too.”

god, he remembers it all.

and he always will.

another one always comes to him in the middle of something dull—waiting for the train, stirring sugar into his coffee, standing in front of the mirror adjusting his tie—and then, without fail, the memory slides in. but mostly it comes when he tries to avoid looking at the chessboard on the shelf.

you, sitting across from him, victorious and beaming, the chessboard between you knocked halfway askew because you’d leapt across it to throw your arms around his neck.

he never even got to say checkmate—because you beat him first.

and god, you were so smug about it.

he hadn’t expected it. not really. he’d been teaching you for months, patient and methodical, going over openings and endgames and positional sacrifices. he loved teaching you. even when you got distracted halfway through or kept saying stuff like “why are your hands so big” and “I like this shirt on you” or forgot how en passant worked for the fifth time.

“are you even listening?” he asked once, giving you a flat look across the board.

“i am,” you say, smiling up at him with faux innocence. “but you’re also very distracting, nanami-sensei.”

he sighed, then covered his mouth with his hand to hide his smile. you always listened. always came back the next day determined to do better. always pouted when he beat you, even when he tried to go easy. you were determined: kept dragging him to the board after dinner, even when you lost in fifteen minutes.

he used to think he enjoyed chess on its own. but no—he enjoyed playing with you.

you would prop your chin on your hand and study the board like it was a life-or-death mission, your brows furrowed in deep concentration, hair falling into your eyes. and he would watch you, amused, mostly charmed and very proud. the way you stuck your tongue out a little when you thought hard. the way you gasped dramatically every time he took one of your pieces. the way you refused to let him give you a free win, even when you were having a rough day.

once, you even managed to get his queen and you clapped your hands like you’ve won the lottery.

“you’re really improving,” he said one night, leaning back after a close game.

you smiled at him, pleased and sleepy in your pajamas. “you’re a good teacher.”

he looked at you for a long moment, then reached across the board to brush his fingers over yours. “you’re good student.”

you started playing all the time.

in the morning, while you sipped coffee and waited for toast. in the afternoon on the weekends, curled up on the floor with the sun coming through the windows. he brought a travel set when you went on trips and played with you on trains, guiding your fingers when you hesitated too long. he never let you win(by your request), but you didn’t mind. you like how thoughtful he got when he played, how seriously he took it even when it’s just with you.

you fell asleep on the couch once after losing a long game, head slumped onto the armrest. you woke up to find a folded blanket over you and a sticky note on your forehead with a little chessboard doodle and the words “you almost had me this time.”

so when the day came—the day—he hadn’t even seen it coming.

it was late, and the apartment was quiet. you were both sitting cross-legged on the carpet, a soft playlist humming from the speaker, and you were playing one of the best games you’d ever played. you hadn’t even realized you were winning—he’d taken your queen, and you’d lost half your pawns.

you shifted your bishop, and then froze.

“…checkmate?”

nanami had stared at the board. blinked. then leaned in, eyes scanning the positions slowly.

you bit your lip. “did i actually…?”

he had exhaled sharply, leaned back, blinking at you like he was seeing you for the first time.

“you beat me,” he had said, stunned.

you sat there for a second, then gasped. “i beat you?!”

he had nodded slowly. “you did.”

you squealed and threw yourself across the board at him. he caught you with a soft oof and fell backward onto the floor with you half on top of him, laughing into his chest.

“i did it! i beat you!”

“you did,” he had said again, smiling now, that rare full smile only you got to see. he cupped your face and pressed a kiss to your forehead. “i’m proud of you.”

you grinned and kissed him back. once, then again. messy and excited and warm. he cradled the back of your head like you were fragile, even when you were vibrating with joy.

“mwah,” you had said between kisses, pressing one to his cheek. “mwah,” one to his nose. “mwah,” one to his jaw.

“you’re going to gloat, aren’t you?” he had murmured, still smiling as you kissed every inch of his face.

“absolutely,” you had said, giggling. “i’m never letting you forget this.”

“i’d be disappointed if you did.”

he had kissed you again, deeper this time. slow and fond and full of the kind of affection he didn’t always put into words.

you had beaten him at chess. and then you were kissing him silly on the carpet with a board full of scattered pieces around you, and he was holding you like you were his greatest victory.

and god, you were so beautiful like that. flushed cheeks, hair mussed from moving too fast, your eyes shining like you’d just won a championship. you weren’t graceful about it, you didn’t even try to be. you were messy and overjoyed and proud of yourself in the most radiant, unrestrained way.

you were looking down at him like he hung the stars. for winning a chess game. like his opinion meant the world to you and this moment—this silly, chaotic, loud little moment—was one of the best in your life.

and it was.

he never reset that board. left the pieces just where they’d fallen. days passed, then weeks. you’d tease him about it every time you saw it, asking if he was keeping it as a crime scene memorial. he kind of was, but mostly he loved looking at the disarray and loved seeing your win frozen in time.

after you died, he kept the board exactly the same.

it’s still there.

in the living room. untouched.

a knight on its side. one pawn missing. your queen front and center, triumphant.

sometimes he sits in front of it and stares for hours. fingers twitching toward the pieces, aching to play again. not because he wants to win. but because he wants to hear you laugh again. wants to watch you bounce in your seat with joy. wants you to leap into his lap again and kiss him breathless and call him a sore loser.

sometimes he lets himself close his eyes and pretends you’re still across from him.

ready to play again. grinning.

“rematch?”

he would give anything to say yes.

whenever his eyes catch the light of the ring glinting under the sun, nanami heartbeat slows down for a couple of seconds. his eyes become useless and his breathing pattern changes because his mind keeps playing with him ruthlessly, replaying one the happiest days of his life.

he would also give anything to say yes to your proposal. that is a memory woven right into his heartbeat. it always comes back to him when he’s fumbling for words. when the right thing gets stuck in his throat. when he feels the shape of something heavy in his chest and can’t seem to let it out.

the day he tried to propose to you—and failed. every damn time.

he had it planned, too. carefully, too carefully. it had taken him weeks to find the ring, longer to find the courage. he told no one because didn’t want advice and didn’t want fuss. it was going to be simple. sincere. just you and him.

he carried the ring in his pocket all day.

you had the whole day off together, just the two of you. a lazy morning, a late breakfast, a walk through the city, a stop at that little café you liked—the one with the uneven tables and the chalkboard menu. he told himself he’d do it sometime after lunch. or before dinner. or maybe at the park, by the fountain you once said looked like a melted sundae.

but he couldn’t do it.

every time he looked at you, sitting across from him, laughing with your whole face, eyes squinting against the sunlight—he choked. you were so beautiful. not just in the way you looked, but in the way you existed. in the way you loved him. in the way you made every second feel like it might be the best one yet.

he would reach into his pocket, feel the small velvet box and the words would slip away.

at the café, you spilled cream on your sleeve. smiled at him sheepishly and wiped it off with a napkin, and he thought, this is it. this tiny, stupid moment, this is love. this is everything. but before he could speak, you were rambling about a pigeon that looked like it had a mustache, and the mood was gone.

in the park, you leaned into him, your hand tucked in his coat pocket alongside his own, and he thought, now. now. but then a kid with a balloon tripped and burst into tears and you— bless your soul— went to help him up, patting his back, offering him a tissue from your purse. and nanami thought—how could anyone ever deserve you?

he tried again at dinner. took you to that tiny rooftop place you loved. the candlelight was perfect. your dress was soft where it brushed his knee. you were talking about the future—about plans, about maybe moving, maybe getting a dog—and his hands trembled under the table.

you looked up at him, smiling, so open, so happy. and he couldn’t do it.

you noticed, of course.

you always noticed. he was never very good at hiding things from you. especially not when they involved you. your eyes kept narrowing at him over your glass. your hand crept over his under the table, squeezing gently.

“you okay?” you asked.

“fine,” he said. “just tired.”

liar.

after dinner, you walked home hand in hand, the city buzzing quietly around you. he was mentally berating himself the whole way, the ring in his pocket digging into his thigh, reminding him of every moment he should’ve done it. every second that slipped through his fingers. he felt like a man dragging his feet behind the most important decision of his life. and for what? fear? nerves?

he loved you. god, he loved you. more than anything. more than he knew how to say. and he wanted to marry you more than he wanted anything else in this world.

so why couldn’t he ask?

you both got home. you took off your shoes with a dramatic sigh, tossing your coat over the back of the chair, turning to him with that soft, fond little look you always gave when the day had been good.

“today was perfect,” you said, stepping into his space, hands looping around his neck.

he nodded, kissing your temple.

“you sure you’re okay?” you asked again. and then, quieter, “you’ve been weird.”

he hesitated as felt the words rising again. will you marry me. so small. so heavy.

but he didn’t speak.

you were quiet for a second, searching his face. then you smiled—slow and knowing—and tilted your head just slightly.

“you planning to propose to me or something?”

his breath hitched. his eyes flicked down to your mouth, then back up. wide. caught.

and you laughed, a little gasp of a thing: bright and delighted and giddy.

“holy shit,” you said, your hands sliding to his jaw, framing his face. “you were! you absolute disaster.”

he tried to speak, to explain, to tell you he didn’t want to mess it up, that every moment with you felt too big to hold, that he loved you so much it made his bones ache.

but you kissed him instead and reached into your pocket, pulling out your own ring box.

you held it up with a sheepish grin, your voice warm and shaky as you whispered, “guess we’re both disasters.”

he stared. blinked. he couldn’t believe it. you were going to propose to him? after the day he just spent tripping over his tongue and chickening out over and over?

he couldn’t help it, he laughed! laughed so hard he had to press his face into your shoulder, arms around your waist, heart pounding like it was trying to leap into your hands.

you leaned close, breathless against his ear, and asked—quiet, certain,

“marry me?”

and he whispered back, immediately, before you could even blink,

“yes.”

he said it again and again as he kissed you, said it into your mouth, into your hair, into the soft skin of your neck as he held you close like he’d never let go. said as he slid the ring from the velvety box in his pocket onto your finger. said it as he swallowed your watery laughter.

yes. yes. yes.

he still keeps both rings.

yours sits in the drawer by the bed. his is in box you gave it in. he looks at them sometimes, fingers brushing velvet and gold like he’s hoping they’ll still hum with the memory.

and he remembers how you looked that night, beaming up at him with triumph in your eyes and your whole life in your hands, offered to him without hesitation.

you asked him.

you chose him.

and nothing’s ever meant more.

he is starting to get sick it seems. and nanami hates being sick because now he has to take care of himself, which was so easy to forget since you always insisted on taking care of him.

when he’s feeling just off enough to notice the ache in his bones, or when he stares at the untouched tea on the table, he thinks—if she were here, she’d force me to drink this.

he doesn’t even remember what he came down with, exactly. probably the flu. it hit him fast, knocked him flat. sore throat, pounding head, high fever, the works. he was miserable. weak. annoyed. and more than anything, he hated being seen like that because nanami prided himself on being put-together, dependable, in control, but that day, he was none of those things.

he never liked being vulnerable—not really.

not when he was young, not when he was a salaryman, not even as a sorcerer. the kind of man nanami was… vulnerability never earned him anything but disappointment. it made him feel exposed, soft in ways the world didn’t know how to handle. so he learned to keep everything tightly wrapped, managed and when something went wrong, like falling sick it only reminded him how little control he had over his own body. how quickly the strength he depended on could fail.

and you… you just walked into that space, into the place where his discomfort and shame lived, and made it feel like home.

he didn’t understand it at first. why you weren’t put off by how distant he became when he felt like crap or why you didn’t flinch when he snapped, when the fever made him foggy and sharp. why you didn’t sigh or roll your eyes when he insisted he could take care of himself even though he looked like death.

you never made him feel guilty for not being perfect. you just… loved him.

he remembers how you sat beside him with a little bowl of soup in your hands, coaxing him to eat with the gentlest voice—“just a few spoonfuls, my love. it’s not poison, i promise.” and how, when he groaned in protest, you took a bite yourself to prove it.

“see? edible.”

he gave you the flattest look, but he took the spoon from your hands anyway.

you talked to him the whole time. kept your voice quiet, playful, as you tucked a blanket around his legs and rubbed soothing circles into the back of his neck. he was tense, the fever making his body feel tight and sore, but you didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away when he winced or when he snapped “i said i’m fine” for the third time.

you kissed his cheek and said, “i know. but i still want to take care of you, ‘nami.”

that sentence—it stuck, made him ache more than the sight of the soup you took time to make. more than the tissues you dutifully threw away the more they piled on his bedside table. more than the cold compress you held to his head or the humidifier you dug out of the closet at 2 a.m.

“i still want to take care of you.”

he didn’t know what to do with that kind of love.

so he stopped resisting. slowly, cautiously, like one does stepping into warm water. he let you tuck him in, let you stroke his hair back from his sweaty forehead, let you murmur dumb little stories into his ear while he drifted in and out of sleep, let you see him, soft and unguarded, even if it scared him.

and the next morning, when you woke up sick—snotty, groaning, miserable—he finally understood the depth of what you gave him.

because he watched you shuffle around in his sweatshirt, tissues stuffed in every pocket, dragging your feet and cursing the sun, and he couldn’t stop smiling.

you were just as bad as him. dramatic, whiny, and the opposite of him when he got sick: clingy. you clung to him like a koala, face buried in his chest, muttering that the world was ending because your ears were stuffy.

“you’re such a hypocrite,” he whispered, voice still hoarse.

“shut up and hold me,” you whispered back, eyes already falling closed.

he did.

he held you for hours. fed you soup you’d made for him the day before. watched your favorite movies. rubbed your back when you coughed and kissed your temple when you whined.

and he realized then—this was what you meant.

you didn’t love him because he was strong or stoic or put-together. you loved him because he let you in and he loved you back just the same. especially when you were weak. especially when you needed him.

he thinks about that day more than he can say.

not because of the illness that struck him, not because of how sick you both were, but more so because of the way you kept showing up for him, over and over, in ways that no one ever had. it was one of those small, unremarkable days that ended up meaning everything.

and now, when he gets sick, it’s unbearable.

because no matter how many pillows he stacks behind him or how many blankets he pulls over his lap or how much tea he brews—it’s not you. it’s not your voice humming beside him, not your fingers brushing across his forehead, not your laughter breaking through the fog of his fever.

just silence.

and a ghost of a memory curling around his ribs. warm and aching. keeping him from letting his body succumb to the darkness.

he’d give anything to get sick again, just for one more day of your hands in his hair, telling him he looked pathetic and that you loved him anyway.

you loved him in ways that nanami didn’t know how to brace for.

you loved him quietly, in the corners of his life where no one had ever dared to look before. in the little spaces between his sighs and silences. in the pauses he didn’t think anyone would notice.

you loved him without needing him to be anything more than he already was.

you never asked him to soften, never tried to pry him open with force. you just stayed. consistent. kind. present. you sat with him in silence and never rushed him to speak. you didn’t flinch when his words came out clipped, or when he avoided eye contact because he couldn’t quite bear to be seen. you didn’t take his distance as rejection, you simply waited. you let him be himself, fully, even when that self was quiet, or cold, or deeply tired.

and when he did open up—when he let you into the more fragile, frayed parts of him—you treated them like treasures and never exploited, never overplayed. just… received. gently. like they were sacred.

he never told you this out loud, but it used to terrify him, how easy it was for you to love him.

how you never seemed to be repelled by his exhaustion, his disinterest in small talk that swayed only under your eyes, his grim view of the world. you didn’t look at him and see a project and you didn’t try to fix him.

he would come home, gritted teeth and blood on his knuckles, the weight of the job pressing down on his shoulders, and you’d meet him at the door with a soft kiss and say, “rough day?” just gentle hands that pulled him out of his shoes and into something human.

sometimes he didn’t have anything to give. not a conversation, not a smile, not even his usual restraint. but you never resented him for that. you’d just sit beside him on the couch, leg pressed against his, a hand resting lightly on his thigh, and you’d lean your head on his shoulder without asking anything from him.

you made him feel safe.

safe to love. safe to rest. safe to fail. safe to not be okay.

and the thing that still gets to him, still guts him, is how you never made a show of it.

you loved him in the thousand little things you did without thinking. refilling the kettle because you knew he’d want tea the second he walked in. folding his work shirt just the way he liked it. making space in every corner of your life for him without ever acting like it was a sacrifice.

he remembers how you used to slide your hand into his back pocket when you walked together, a simple action with no flirting or teasing behind it. just because you wanted to be close to him as if that nook under his arm was were you belonged. and you didn’t care how rigid he stood or how stiffly he held your hand at first—because you knew, eventually, he’d relax into you.

and he did. he still wonders how you learned to perceive people so easily.

he loved you more than he thought himself capable of, but more than that, you loved him in a way he didn’t think anyone could. and now that you’re gone, that kind of love feels unreal. it sometimes feels like something he hallucinated. a kindness he didn’t earn.

yet it was real.

and it’s what haunts him most along with the awful silence he is met with every day. the unbearable, impossible beauty of being loved so completely.

and knowing he’ll never feel it again.

it was the way you loved him that made him want to be better and softer and more intentional.

and maybe that’s why that birthday stuck so deeply in his memory—because for once, he got to give something back. something that wasn’t practical or measured or quietly implied. something that wasn’t about efficiency or obligation. it was all about your joy and the way your whole face lit up when you saw it.

he planned it for weeks.

quietly, discreetly, scribbling notes in the margins of reports, texting people when you weren’t looking. he wasn’t good at surprises—never had been—but he wanted to do this right. wanted to give you a day that would live in your chest like a warm light.

you didn’t expect anything big. you never asked for much. and that was part of what hurt him most—how small your expectations were. how easily you seemed to settle for crumbs of kindness. “birthdays aren’t a big deal,” you’d said once, brushing it off with a shrug. “i never really celebrated growing up. doesn’t bother me.”

but it bothered him.

because you deserved to be celebrated. you deserved noise and laughter and people who couldn’t wait to hug you. so he gave you that.

he told you you were just going out to dinner. nothing fancy. told you to wear something nice but comfortable. and you smiled—sweet, unsuspecting—and let him lead you out the door like he wasn’t about to change the way you remembered your birthdays forever.

he booked a small venue. invited the people you loved most. even had gojo help string up decorations (which he immediately regretted, but the damage was minimal). there were streamers and lights and cake and your favorite songs queued up in a playlist. your favorite foods, carefully arranged on little plates. and in the center of it all: a single candle, flickering gold and soft in the dim.

you walked in and froze.

utter silence for two seconds, before—

“surprise!”

your eyes went wide. your hands flew to your mouth. and nanami, standing beside you with a soft smile and his hand on your back, felt the moment land exactly the way he’d hoped.

you turned to look at him like he’d hung the stars.

“you did this?” you whispered.

he nodded. “happy birthday, my love.”

and then you beamed. like your entire body had been set alight from the inside. you jumped into his arms, laughing, holding his face between your palms as you kissed him again and again. messy. smiling too much to do it properly. you whispered thank you so many times he lost count.

he didn’t stop smiling all night.

he watched you twirl with your friends, watched you eat three slices of cake, watched you sing along to old songs with no shame and pull him into pictures he didn’t want to take but would now give anything to have a copy of.

you looked so alive. so happy. it was the kind of happiness that made his chest ache. because he knew—somewhere deep down—that you weren’t used to this and you were still learning what it meant to be loved like this, just like him.

the party ended slowly. people trickled out. the lights dimmed. and he drove you home, your hand clasped in his like a secret. you were quiet, then. not tired. not drunk. just… full. as if the day had overwhelmed you in the best way.

and later, when the apartment was dark and you were curled up in bed beside him, you started to cry.

soft, quiet tears. you pressed your face to his shoulder and whispered, “no one’s ever thrown me a surprise party before.”

he held you tighter. curled around you like he could protect you from every version of your past that made you think you weren’t worth celebrating.

“you deserve all of this,” he said into your hair. “and more.”

you didn’t speak after that, just held onto him, trembling slightly, breathing slow and shaky, like the moment was too big for your chest.

and he held you until you fell asleep.

that memory comes back to him whenever he sees cake. or candles. or the color of the dress you wore that night. and each time, it cuts a little deeper. not just because he misses you—but because he still doesn’t understand how someone like you could’ve ever felt so unseen.

and he hates that he only had so many years to show you otherwise.

it keeps him up some nights along with the coldness of his sheets in the absence of your warm body—long after the world has gone quiet, after the city hums itself to sleep and the walls of your apartment stretch out around him like a hollow. because no matter how much he gave you, no matter how hard he tried to make you feel treasured, it never feels like it was enough.

you deserved decades of birthdays like that. dozens of surprise parties, years of waking up to breakfast in bed, to candles and kisses and arms around your waist. you deserved to grow old with the knowledge that every single year of your life meant something, to someone who never stopped being in awe of you.

he should’ve had more time to keep proving it.

even though you smiled so brightly that night, even though you laughed and kissed him like your heart might burst—there was still that ache in your voice when you whispered “no one’s ever done that for me before.”

still the ghost of every birthday you spent alone.

still the faint sadness that even all his love couldn’t erase overnight.

and that haunts him: that he ran out of time. that he didn’t get to spend the rest of his life loving you the way you always should’ve been loved. fully. loudly. endlessly.

he would’ve done it forever, if the world had let him.

maybe that’s why he thinks of your wedding day so often—because for once, it didn’t feel like he was making up for lost time.

for once, it wasn’t about healing old wounds or trying to undo the hurt left by people who hadn’t loved you the way you deserved.

it was just about you.

you, radiant in a way that made his chest feel too small. you, laughing like you’d been waiting your whole life for this joy to find you. you, looking at him like you already knew every version of him—the tired one, the bitter one, the one who got too quiet when he didn’t know what to say—and still said yes.

he hadn’t expected to cry that day. he really thought he wouldn’t. he’s always been good at managing himself, keeping things tightly wound. and he’d held it together through most of the morning, calm in the face of the chaos around him, stoic even when gojo tried to make him laugh with some idiotic comment about how he was “finally getting shackled.”

it was a simple wedding. small, intimate—just the way you wanted it. nanami had insisted on giving you whatever kind of day you dreamed of, and you, in all your maddening softness, had said you didn’t want grandeur, didn’t want to be paraded around, didn’t need chandeliers or a thousand roses or expensive menus.

you just wanted to marry him. to look him in the eye and promise him everything.

so that’s what you did.

it was held at a quiet little garden venue, tucked away from the city—green, sun-drenched, and fragrant with blooming jasmine. the kind of place you said looked like something out of a storybook. there were white chairs lined up in tidy rows, pale blue ribbons fluttering on the backs of them, and your favorite flowers arranged in clusters along the altar. nanami doesn’t even remember what they were called—he just knows you lit up when you saw them, and so he made sure they were everywhere.

he’d gotten there early, of course. typical of him. early enough to help set up, to check the place twice over, to pace slowly near the altar while trying not to wrinkle his suit. gojo was his best man (regrettably), but he kept his antics to a minimum—mostly because shoko was glaring at him the whole time, for kento’s sake.

nanami looked calm. poised. the very image of a man in control that he wasn’t.

his hands wouldn’t stop twitching. his tie felt too tight. he kept glancing at the entrance, at the path where you’d walk in, where his whole life would change the second he saw you.

and when the music started—soft, slow, the beginning notes of something you’d chosen weeks ago with your head on his shoulder—he thought he might actually fall apart.

because then he saw you and the world shifted.

you weren’t even halfway down the aisle before he realized he was holding his breath. you wore white, yes, but it wasn’t just the dress—it was you. the way you smiled, nervous and glowing. the way your eyes found him and stayed there. the way you walked like you knew exactly who you were walking toward.

and suddenly, the future wasn’t a blurry, far-off thing anymore.

it was real.

it was you.

because there you were. walking toward him, eyes locked with his like there was no one else in the world. your hands shaking just a little. your smile trembling under the weight of the moment. and all at once, it hit him—this is real.

you were marrying him.

and the look on your face as you reached him—it undid him completely. you were nervous, excited, glowing, but more than anything, you looked sure.

like this was always meant to happen and you’d never doubted it for a second.

when you reached him, he took your hand, steadying both of you. you whispered something—he doesn’t even remember what, only that it made him smile through the tightness in his throat.

the ceremony was short. the officiant spoke with warmth and kindness, but nanami barely heard any of it. not because he wasn’t paying attention—he was. god, he was. but all his focus was you. the way your thumb rubbed over his hand. you kept blinking fast to keep from crying too early and he did the same, causing you to snicker with a wobbly breath. you looked at him like he was your whole future wrapped in a neat little suit and tie.

you wrote your own vows.

he remembers yours perfectly.

you told him that you never believed in soulmates—not until him. that he made the world feel safe. that you loved him for the way he listened, for the way he stood still when everything else felt like it was breaking apart. and you promised to choose him every day, even on the ones when he couldn’t choose himself.

he doesn’t cry easily, he never has.

but he cried then.

and when it was his turn, he could barely get the words out. his voice caught in his throat halfway through, but he didn’t look away from you. not once.

he told you that he didn’t believe in fate—but he believed in you. that you were his calm in the storm. that you made life feel like something worth staying in. he told you he didn’t know how to be a perfect man, but that he would spend the rest of his life being yours.

when the rings were on and the kiss came, it wasn’t showy or rushed or too long.

it was tender. quiet while the room waited to erupt in applause and joyful laughter.

a promise sealed in silence, mouth to mouth, heart to heart.

afterward, the reception was all soft music and the kind of laughter that lingers in the ribs. everyone danced, even he danced. you pulled him onto the floor with both hands and kissed his cheek when he tried to protest. he let you spin him, tug him, smile up at him and he felt like he was the luckiest man alive.

(which he was.)

you fed each other cake. you had your first dance. someone’s kid spilled juice on the floor. gojo gave a terrible speech that made everyone laugh. and all the while, nanami just kept watching you. trying to memorize every expression. every laugh. every fleeting, radiant moment.

because he knew.

not that he would lose you. not then. not yet.

but he knew—on some deep, unshakable level—that this day would be one of the brightest in his life.

that one day, he might need to return to it.

and now, in the silence of your absence, he does.

over and over and over again.

until he almost convinces himself he’s still standing there, with your hand in his, the rest of the world gently fading away. and nanami, spending the day in a suit you’d helped him pick out, with his heart knocking hard against his ribs, thought to himself—

if i never do anything else right in this life, at least i loved her.

and that was enough.

—

when the reception ended—when the last of the guests had gone and the music had faded and the air was thick with the sweetness of the day—he couldn’t take his eyes off you.

you were still glowing, in that real, tangible way—your cheeks still flushed from dancing, your lips curved in a smile that wouldn’t quite fade, your hair a little mussed from all the embraces and photographs. and your hand… your hand still in his, like you weren’t ready to let go.

neither was he.

the drive to the hotel was quiet, your head resting against his shoulder in the backseat, your fingers loosely laced with his. you looked tired but soft, your eyes catching his in the low light, and there was something in that look—something he couldn’t name without his throat tightening.

and when the door to the suite closed behind you, he just stood there for a moment. watching you, taking you in. the stillness between you felt heavy, charged, warm. you laughed softly, almost shyly, like you didn’t know what to do with the weight of the day either.

he stepped forward.

he took your face in his hands and kissed you—slow, deliberate, nothing like the polite, restrained kiss at the altar. this was deeper and heavier. his thumb brushed your cheek, and he felt the way your breath hitched against his mouth.

“my wife,” he murmured into the kiss.

you smiled into it. “my husband.”

and god, he hadn’t realized until that moment how much he wanted to hear you say it.

the night stretched out from there in soft, lingering pieces—your veil somewhere on the floor, his tie abandoned somewhere near the door, his hands memorizing every inch of you like he was afraid the memory might fade. he touched you with the kind of care that comes from years of restraint finally breaking, his lips tracing reverent paths over your skin.

“my wife,” he whispered again, when you gasped under him, lik he had to remind himself it was real and the words themselves were too precious to let go of.

you’d been together for years, but that night… it was different. there was no rush in him, no sharp edge to his need. it was all deliberate, all slow-burning devotion. the kind of intimacy that came from knowing he had the rest of his life to love you—and still wanting to start now.

he kissed you until your knees went weak, until you were clinging to his shirt, breathing him in like you couldn’t get enough. his hands slid down your back, steady and warm, finding every curve, every line, every familiar place that had somehow become brand new.

when he undressed you, it was with care. not a single piece of fabric torn or tugged impatiently—he wanted to see you, fully, without breaking the spell of the moment. your dress slid down in a slow whisper, pooling at your feet, and his gaze swept over you like he was memorizing the sight.

“beautiful,” he murmured, almost to himself. then, softer, as if the truth had snuck up on him, “my wife is beautiful.”

you laughed, shy, and cupped his face in your hands. “you’re staring.”

“i have the right,” he said, his voice low, thumb stroking the side of your neck. “you’re mine.”

he kissed you again, deeper this time, his mouth coaxing yours open until your breaths tangled. his hands roamed over your bare skin, slow but sure, mapping you out all over again. every shiver. every sigh.

he laid you back on the bed, the sheets cool against your skin, and followed you down. his weight settled over you—protective, grounding, like he couldn’t stand to be even an inch away. his lips trailed down your throat, across your collarbone, lower still, until you were trembling under him.

he touched you like you were fragile porcelain, but kissed you like you were his only lifeline. every movement was careful, reverent, almost unbearably tender.

when he finally slid into you, he stopped—just for a moment—forehead pressed to yours, eyes locked on yours.

“you’re my wife,” he whispered, like he needed the confirmation to be spoken out loud and he needed you to know how much the word meant to him.

“i am,” you breathed back.

and only then he moved.

slow, deep strokes that had you arching beneath him, every inch of you pressed to every inch of him. his hands gripped your hips, then cradled your face, then threaded with your fingers, as if he couldn’t decide which part of you he needed to hold most.

he kissed you through every gasp, every moan, his lips catching your whimpers before they could reach the air.

“my wife,” he kept saying, his voice rough, breaking. “mine. i’ll take care of you. always.”

and you believed him—every word—because he was loving you like it was a vow.

his pace stayed unhurried, but there was a weight to it—each slow thrust carrying more than just want. it was him pouring every unspoken thing into you: every promise, every quiet devotion, every moment he’d ever looked at you and thought i don’t deserve her but kept it to himself.

you could feel it in the way he held you—firm enough to ground you, gentle enough to make you feel like you were something precious. one hand cradled the back of your head, fingers slipping into your hair, while the other slid along your side, tracing the curve of your waist to your thigh like he was trying to memorize you with his palms.

he kept his forehead pressed to yours, his eyes half-lidded but never wandering. every time your breath hitched, his softened; every time your lips parted on a quiet sound, his mouth found yours again.

“look at me,” he whispered, when your lashes fluttered shut. “want to see you.”

so you did—you held his gaze, even when it made your chest ache. it felt like he was seeing every version of you all at once.

“good girl,” he murmured, barely audible, kissing the corner of your mouth. “my wife. my beautiful wife.”

his hips rolled into yours, slow and deep, until your fingers tightened in his hair and your body arched against his. every inch of him stayed pressed to you, like he couldn’t stand the thought of any space between you. his thumb brushed lazy circles against your hip, grounding you in the rhythm, the closeness.

and when you whispered his name—soft, pleading—he answered it with your own, like it was the most sacred thing he’d ever spoken.

“i love you,” he said, the words breaking slightly in his throat. “i’ll love you every day, for the rest of my life.”

it wasn’t just something he said. it was something he gave you—with every kiss, every stroke, every careful touch.

and when your body trembled beneath his and you clung to him like you never wanted to let go, he followed you there—breathing hard against your mouth, holding you tighter as if to keep the moment from slipping away.

he stayed inside you afterward, chest pressed to yours, his hand smoothing along your hair, down your back. he didn’t speak for a long while—just breathed you in, the quiet between you steady and warm.

but when he finally did, it was a whisper against your temple.

“sleep, my wife.”

the day began in the kind of silence that felt earned. the morning was almost unnervingly quiet.

not in a tense, foreboding way—at least, not at first. it was the kind of quiet that came when two people had long since learned how to speak without words. the kind of quiet you’d both earned after years of mornings together.

you woke first, though you didn’t move much. you stayed curled into him, cheek pressed to his chest, breathing slow against the steady rhythm of his heart. he was warm, solid, and even in sleep, his arm rested around you like it belonged there.

eventually, he stirred. his breath shifted, deeper for a moment, then steadier. he didn’t open his eyes right away. instead, his fingers began tracing lazy, absent patterns over your hip—like his body knew you before his mind fully caught up.

“morning, nana,” you murmured against him, voice soft with sleep.

he hummed, kissing your hair without a word.

you stayed like that for a while, tangled together in the half-light bleeding through the curtains. no alarms. no rush. the city outside was still slow to wake, the hum of it far away, leaving just the faint sound of your breaths syncing.

when he finally did speak, it was barely above a whisper. “what time is the mission?”

you tilted your head up, cheek resting against his chest so you could see his face. “late afternoon. plenty of time.”

he only nodded, but his thumb kept stroking over your skin—slow, deliberate.

you ended up making coffee together, moving through the kitchen like clockwork. him grinding the beans, you setting the mugs. you teased him for being overly precise, he teased you for always adding too much sugar. the kind of easy domestic banter that came naturally after years of loving each other.

breakfast was simple. toast. fruit. he cooked eggs, the way you liked them, and pretended not to notice when you swapped plates halfway through because his looked better. you sat across from each other, bare feet brushing under the table.

it was so ordinary yet nanami loved every second of it.

the kind of ordinary you didn’t realize you were storing away until later—until you could no longer wake to the sound of his steady breathing, or watch his hands cradle a mug in the soft light of morning.

and even though neither of you said it outright, there was a heaviness threaded through the ease of it. a quiet understanding that every mission carried risk, even if you’d both survived countless ones before.

so when you finished breakfast, you didn’t rush to get up. you leaned back in your chair, sipping your coffee, just… looking at him. and he looked back.

the hours between breakfast and the time you had to leave seemed to slip away faster than they should have.

you lingered at home longer than necessary—showering slow, brushing past him in the hallway just to feel his hand catch at your waist, sharing one last cup of coffee you didn’t really need.

when you finally did head out together, the sky was washed in that pale, golden light that makes the whole city feel softer. he walked you to the car, fingers brushing yours in quiet habit, and drove in his usual, steady way. neither of you spoke much: filling the air felt unnecessary.

jujutsu tech was already buzzing when you arrived, well, as much as it could for all of it’s emptiness. the courtyard echoed faintly with voices—students in training, shoko crossing with a cigarette in hand, gojo waving obnoxiously from a distance.

you stepped out of the car and were immediately pulled into the familiar rhythm of the place. your steps carried you toward the mission briefing room, nanami matching your pace. the sun was warmer here, spilling across the old stone walkways, catching in the faint summer-green of the trees.

it smelled faintly of earth and fresh-cut grass—so normal it almost disguised the tension that always hummed beneath the surface in this place.

you greeted shoko with an easy smile, exchanged a few words with yuuji, then felt nanami’s presence settle at your side again. always close enough to reach.

the briefing was short, straightforward on paper—nothing unusual, nothing that sounded like it would become anything more than a line on your growing list of missions. but he still stood beside you, shoulders squared, listening as if the whole thing might hide a trap.

and when it was over, you stepped outside into the fading warmth of the afternoon. the sun had shifted lower, casting long shadows across the training grounds. the hum of cicadas swelled in the background, almost loud enough to fill the quiet between you.

you both had an hour before you needed to leave—enough time to be alone without it feeling like a goodbye, but not enough to pretend the mission wasn’t waiting.

so instead of drifting off into separate tasks, you found yourselves in one of the quieter hallways of the school, away from the echo of training shouts and clattering weapons. sunlight spilled in through the tall windows, painting the floor in soft gold.

you leaned against the wall, arms crossed loosely, watching him. there was a small crease between his brows, the one that showed up whenever he was thinking too far ahead.

“you’re doing it again,” you said, tilting your head.

“doing what?”

“overthinking.”

he exhaled slowly, his gaze dropping before it returned to you. “it’s my job to think ahead.”

you stepped closer, close enough that your chest brushed his with each breath. “and it’s mine to get back in one piece.”

he almost smiled. almost.

his hands found your hips without him seeming to notice, thumbs rubbing small, steady circles there. for a few seconds, neither of you spoke. the world outside the hallway seemed to blur, leaving only the faint sound of cicadas and the warm press of him in front of you.

“just—” his voice caught for a fraction of a second. “be careful.”

you reached up, straightening the lapel of his jacket, letting your fingers linger there. “always am.”

he didn’t kiss you, but his hand slid from your hip to your lower back, resting there like an anchor. you placed a small peck on the corner of his mouth. when gojo’s voice called from down the hall, breaking the moment, you didn’t move right away.

you let him hold you for just a few seconds longer, memorizing the weight of it, before you both stepped apart.

and then, together, you walked toward the gates.

how he wished you didn’t.

that evening before the mission—the one memory that he replays the most—had been so deceptively simple.

he thinks about that evening more than he should.

it had been quiet then, too, but in a softer, safer way. the day’s work was behind you, the sun long gone, and the apartment was wrapped in that kind of low, amber light that made the air feel warmer than it really was. dinner dishes were still in the sink, half-forgotten, and the couch had swallowed the both of you whole.

you’d both made it home late, still carrying the weight of the day in your shoulders. he’d cooked, because you were tired, and you’d teased him about his obsessive measuring of ingredients, which led to him teasing you about always trying to sneak bites before the food was done.

dinner had been easy, warm. the kind where the conversation flows without effort, drifting from work to memories to plans you weren’t even sure you’d ever act on.

it started with a joke—something you said between bites about how one day you were going to “kidnap him” from this world entirely and make him live somewhere quiet, far from all the noise and danger.

“and what would i do in this peaceful little exile of yours?” he asked, leaning back in his chair, eyebrow raised.

you grinned, leaning forward like you were letting him in on a conspiracy. “we’d have a baby. maybe two. you’d learn how to relax, and i’d get to see you in those tiny dad glasses, reading bedtime stories.”

he scoffed, shaking his head, but there was no real dismissal in it. “you make it sound so simple.”

“it is simple,” you countered, laughing. “just… leave all the cursed nonsense behind. be boring with me.”

you got up then, moving around the table to sit on his lap like it was the most natural thing in the world. his hands came to your waist without thinking, steadying you there, tethering you to him.

“you’re ridiculous,” he said, though there was the faintest smile tugging at his mouth.

“ridiculously in love with you,” you corrected, poking his chest. “come on, kento. can’t you imagine it? a little us running around, probably bossing you around because they’d definitely take after me.”

he chuckled low in his chest, and you felt it through your palm resting there. “i can imagine it,” he admitted, voice quieter now.

you were giggly, leaning your forehead against his, rambling about baby names and which one of you would be the strict parent. he listened to all of it—every silly, impossible detail—because your voice was lit with joy and your eyes sparkled in a way that made him feel like the luckiest man alive.

and later, when you’d both gone quiet, just sitting there with your arms around his neck, he kissed your temple and murmured, almost to himself—

“i’d give you all of it. the baby. the quiet. the life.”

you just smiled, pressing your lips to his jaw, and said, “we’ve got time.”

he believed you.

in the present, nanami sits at the kitchen table, his untouched mug of coffee cooling by his hand.

his gaze isn’t really on anything—not the faint steam curling from the drink, not the stack of unopened mail beside it. his eyes are fixed on some middle distance, somewhere past the walls, past the quiet apartment, past the here and now entirely.

he’s back there. on the couch with you, your laughter spilling into the dim light, your head resting on his thigh as you paint pictures of a life you’d never get to live together.

his fingers twitch faintly on the table, like they remember the weight of your leg over his, the way you’d absently rub your foot against his calf while you talked.

the memory plays uninvited, in full color, with every small sound and shift in your expression perfectly intact.

and it hurts.

hurts because in that moment, you’d been so alive, so certain, so happy. hurts because he can still feel the way his chest swelled when you said as long as it’s with you. hurts because part of him still, stupidly, waits for you to walk through the door and finish the conversation and start it again.

he blinks slowly, the image of you on that couch lingering behind his eyes even as the real world settles back around him. the silence of the apartment presses in, heavy and unmoving, and his hand finally closes around the mug—more for something to hold than for the coffee itself.

as he stares into the dark liquid, he remembers finding you in the dark.

the mission had gone wrong hours ago—he knew it the moment you got separated. the terrain was uneven, the curses faster than expected, the air heavy with that metallic tang of danger. he’d been calling your name, voice low but sharp, as he moved through the half-ruined streets.

the only answer had been the wind.

his steps were steady, methodical—he couldn’t afford to panic. not until he found you. he told himself you were fine, that you’d handled worse before. he clung to the memory of your smile that morning, the ease of your banter, like a talisman against the creeping thought that maybe you weren’t.

but then he turned a corner, and the world shifted.

you were there, just a few meters ahead, half-hidden in the jagged shadows of collapsed stone and splintered wood. for one breath, his body recognized your outline, your familiar shape—and for that single, impossible second, relief swelled in him.

then he saw the way you were lying.

too still.

too… wrong.

he moved to you fast—faster than he thought his body could. his knees hit the ground beside you, the jolt rattling through him, and his hands were on you before his mind could catch up.

“hey,” he said, low and urgent, the way you speak to someone who’s just on the edge of consciousness. “it’s me. it’s—”

his voice broke when he saw your face.

your eyes were half-lidded, glassy, unfocused. blood stained your mouth, your clothes, your skin. there was so much of it, soaking into the ground beneath you, sticky against his hands.

his breath stuttered, but he tried anyway—tried to check your pulse, tried to press his hand to the worst of the wounds. your chest gave the faintest rise under his palm, shallow and ragged, and for one insane, desperate heartbeat, he thought maybe—maybe—

his mind couldn’t seem to catch up to what his eyes were seeing.

even as his knees dug into the gravel, even as the damp from the blood seeped cold through his trousers, there was some stubborn, fractured part of him waiting for you to move. for your hand to twitch, for your mouth to form his name, for your chest to rise with a fuller breath.

but you didn’t.

your skin was cooling under his touch, your weight slack in his arms. the scent of iron clung to every inhale until it was all he could taste, all he could breathe.

but the damage… god, the damage.

he pressed his palm to the side of your face, his thumb brushing over your cheekbone like he could coax you back just by being gentle enough. “wake up, my love,” he murmured, voice shaking in a way it hadn’t in years. “please. just… wake up.”

your body was broken in ways that couldn’t be undone. jagged edges of bone where they shouldn’t be, deep, tearing gashes that pulsed weakly before stilling. he’d seen death before, seen it up close, but it was different now—because it was you.

he didn’t cry—not then. it was worse than that. there was no outpouring of grief, no breaking sobs, just a hollow stillness that seemed to dig into his chest and widen with every heartbeat.

because this couldn’t be it. it couldn’t end like this—on a dirty, broken street, under the shadow of some half-fallen wall, with your blood painting the ground around you, painting his suit with cruel strokes.

his eyes drifted over you—over the gashes he couldn’t close, the way your limbs had fallen at wrong angles. his stomach twisted hard, bile burning at the back of his throat, but he couldn’t look away.

these were wounds he should’ve been there to stop.

he should’ve been there with you.

“no. no, no—” the words rasped out, almost soundless. his hands wouldn’t stop moving—pressing here, tilting your chin, shaking lightly as if he could jolt you awake. “stay with me. just—stay with me. please.”

your lips parted, maybe to say something, maybe just on a dying breath. he leaned close, trying to catch whatever sound you had left, but all he heard was the thin, wet rattle in your chest.

and then that, too, faded.

his hands shook as he tried to shift you, to pull you closer to him without making it worse—not that it mattered now. he cradled your head in the crook of his elbow, pressing his forehead to yours like he had on your wedding night, whispering your name just to hear it in the air.

it didn’t echo back.

the world around him stayed silent—eerily so. no curse stirred, no wind broke the stillness. it was just him and you, and the weight of every moment you’d ever shared crashing down on him at once.

and still, he stayed there.

he stayed there, crouched over you, his hands hovering uselessly above the ruin of your body. the night pressed in heavy, the scent of blood thick in the air. ijichi’s voice ringed in his ear through a veil of water, urging him to let go and let gojo warp you back to shoko’s.

the curses were gone now—whether he’d killed them all or they’d simply scattered didn’t matter. nothing mattered.

just you.

just the unbearable weight of your silence.

he didn’t know how long he stayed like that—long enough for your blood to dry tacky on his skin, long enough for the cold to creep in through his suit. he brushed your hair back from your face, smoothed it gently, like you were only sleeping.

but you weren’t.

and there was nothing left for him to do but sit there in the wreckage, holding the body of the only person he’d ever loved like this, the word my heart echoing in his skull until it was all he could hear.

the summer sky above kuantan is so clear in his mind he almost believes it’s real—cloudless, deep blue, the kind of heat that hums in the bones, the kind of light that turns the sea into molten silver. he can hear the hush of waves, taste the faint tang of salt on the breeze.

but here in shibuya, the air is heavy with smoke and metal, each breath shallow. his body is slowing. his blood is warm against the concrete. still, his mind wanders—not to the curses, not to the fight, but to you.

the memory is soft, golden at the edges. it had been one of those late nights when neither of you could sleep, the city’s quiet pressing in through the open window. you were sprawled across the bed on your stomach, cheek resting on your folded arms, eyes fixed on him like he was more interesting than anything the world had to offer.

“if you could go anywhere,” you asked suddenly, voice low in the dark, “where would you go?”

he’d been lying on his back, staring at the faint patterns on the ceiling. “anywhere?”

“anywhere.” you scooted closer, chin now propped on his chest, your legs kicking lazily behind you. “no limits. no missions. just… you and me.”

he thought for a long moment before answering, his gaze still tilted toward the ceiling. “kuantan. malaysia.”

you tilted your head, curious. “have you been?”

he shook his head faintly. “no. i read about it once—white beaches, fishing boats, quiet mornings. the water’s supposed to be so clear you can see your own shadow on the sand beneath it. something about it stuck with me. i’ve always… wanted to see it for myself.”

you smiled at that, soft and sure. “then we’ll go.”

he glanced at you, one brow raising. “just like that?”

“just like that,” you said, without even a beat of hesitation. “i’d go to the edge of the world with you, kento. kuantan’s easy.”

he went still for a moment, his expression unreadable, and then his hand found your cheek, his thumb brushing slowly along your jaw like he was trying to commit every line of you to memory.

“you’re my heart,” he murmured, the words so quiet they almost dissolved into the air.

your smile grew, your fingers catching his wrist to hold his touch there. “yours,” you whispered back.

you stayed like that for a long while—your forehead pressed to his, your breathing slow and steady, the night wrapping around you like a secret you didn’t need to share with anyone else. eventually, your eyes closed, and he lay awake just a little longer, listening to your breathing, memorizing the weight of you against him.

and now—here, in shibuya—he clings to that memory like a lifeline. the noise fades, the pain dulls, and for a moment, he’s back there in that bed with you, the night warm and endless, the promise of kuantan just a thought away.

the sky above him isn’t kuantan’s, but in his mind, it is. it’s summer, and the sea is endless, and you’re beside him, smiling like you always did when you believed in something with your whole heart.

my heart.

he breathes the words again, this time only in his head, and lets them be the last thing he keeps.

#nanami x reader

794 notes · View notes

reidsworld · 1 month ago

Text

real

Just finished AOT. anyone wanna shoot me?

#attack on titan #aot

84 notes · View notes

reidsworld · 1 month ago

Text

"I'm quitting."

When Kento Nanami told you that your wanted to laugh, shake your head and smile at him for the joke. But his expression told you everything. Furthermore Nanami never joked.

"What are you saying?" you hated your voice, how emotionless it sounded. But at the same it was a blessing it didn't break.

"I'm leaving." he cleared his throat, his eyes glancing away from you. "I'm no longer working as an jujutsu sorcerer."

The silence that followed engulfed you, played with your heart and made you sick.

"Why?" you tried to catch his eyes but he kept avoiding yours.

"You know why."

He was right, you did. Who didn't as a jujutsu sorcerer?

"That doesn't mean I would leave!" you couldn't help but raise your sharp voice. "Just because it's hard, because it's unforgiving, because there are doubts, I wouldn't leave!"

He seemed small to you. His posture, his avoiding gaze, his tiredness, it all made him seem so so small.

"I can't do this anymore." he closed his eyes. "My work doesn't mean anything. It would probably better if Gojo did all my missions."

"Are you listening to yourself?" you wanted to scream. "Just because you are not 'the strongest' as they say, doesn't mean it makes your work meaningless! Every grade 2 curse we eliminate could have killed thousands of people if we didn't act. It's our du-"

"I can't do it anymore." he emphasized the word can't. "Not after Haibara. Not with this system that kills everyone, kid or adult."

And the moment Haibara was brought up you knew you lost him. After he died Nanami was never quite the same. There was a void in his belief system Haibara used to fill. Haibara said why Jujutsu Sorcery was important, why you and he mattered in this.

And Haibara was killed for that belief.

"I don't expect you to be okay with my decision, but I hope you of all people understand."

You did. But you just couldn't.

"But isn't Haibara one of the many reasons why we should keep fighting? Why we should fight against curses to protect people like him-"

"We are not protecting people like him, we are the people dying like him. People like you and me, who are no prodigys like Satoru Gojo." his voice was firm.

"Is that what you really think? That I'm throwing my life away in trying to safe people?"

You didn't notice the change of 'we' into 'I' till later.

He didn't answer you. And that was a 'yes' in your book. Nanami Kento believed you were throwing your life away. And that he was too, that's why he was leaving.

"Alright then." you cleared your throat a smile making its way onto your face. "Then run away. Do it. Live your life doing 'better things'."

You turned, leaving. You couldn't bear it to look at him. "But don't expect to hear from me. Be a coward, please, but don't expect me to be one too."

Nanami Kento didn't follow you or object that day. He just left.

And there was a part of you that did began to doubt jujutsu sorcery, that imagined what life would have been if you left too.

Because you loved Nanami Kento. You loved his annoyed scoff, the way he was always so collected, his smile which didn't show up often. Loved his big heart, his way of caring so so much.

But there was a bigger part of you born that day. The part that pushed you into your work as a jujutsu sorcerer.

A part that made you avoid Nanami Kento even when he returned.

·········⋆༺𓆩❀𓆪༻⋆·········

"You overdid it again."

You layed on your back as Shoko treated your (not so little) wounds. A big cut on your leg, you were happy didn't cut of your leg as a whole, and your right arm was broken.

"Hey, I did exorcize that special grade." you grinned up at her. "Cut me some slack.".

She sighed at that while applying her technique. "Always with that careless remarks. You know, if I didn't know you any better I would tell you to take a break. But I unfortunately do know you and know you wouldn't listen to me anyway."

After you were bandaged and healed up by her, you sat up with a yawn. "Please I'm more than alright." you gave her a soft smile. "Thanks to you."

"You know if you really wanna thank me-" the brunette gave you a smirk. "You should join Utahime and me tonight and maybe buy me a drink for my really hard work."

"Utahime? I thought she was in Kyoto?" you still remembered her scolding you last time you saw her. Said something along the lines that she almost should hire someone to look after you.

"You didn't hear? It's student exchange time and today the Kyoto school is arriving. Obviously the exchange event isn't immediately starting so we wanted to go out, you know."

Oops. You completely forgot, to busy with your missions.

"Maybe some other time." you gave her apologetic eyes. "Gojo asked me for some books from my family library. You know jujutsu stuff for the new first years."

"God, you and your work." Shoko sighed. "You're worse than Nanami."

She realized what she said seconds after it slipped, looking at you with wide eyes. Before she could say anything, probably an apology, you stood up.

"Well, I have to go now." you collected your stuff, while trying not to use your previously broken arm. "See you soon."

As you closed the door behind you, you heard her mutter: "Please not so soon in this room again."

·········⋆༺𓆩❀𓆪༻⋆·········

You made your way back to jujutsu high the very same day, with the books Gojo requested. Normally you would wait a day afted you were healed, but today you wanted to prove something to yourself.

The books were heavy to carry with your left arm. But you did it, maybe out of pride. To prove you were recovering.

As you entered the school again, you could see the second years training outside, with some other kids, probably the new first years. A brown haired girl you've never seen before and the black haired boy you already knew.

You heard the fired up screams of the girl and couldn't help but smile at her. Yeah, you remembered your first year at this school. How excited you were to do something, to have a purpose.

Before you were ever in real battle of life and death.

You walked down the halls, towards the classroom Gojo said to put the books. But you didn't expect to see the people that were there.

"Yuji, you will work with him, while I'm away-"

"Gojo, I brought you the books-" you were a bit troubled as you opened the door, your left arm carrying the books, while your right arm, still hurting, tried to normally open it.

And as you looked up, you saw him.

Shit, why did Gojo not say anything?

"Ahhh, thank you! You brought them already today? You're spoiling me!" Gojo walked in front of you, blocking your glare at Nanami.

"My pleasure." your voice was so distant again, making you wonder if it was really yours.

"Sensei? Who is this?" A boy with pink hair stood next to Nanami, looking curious. "Are you coming with us?"

"This is our 1. Grade wonder woman, Yuji my sweet!" Gojo swayed his arms around you like a bad TV reporter.

"Gojo what does he mean 'coming with us'? Is there another mission?" you looked at the boy who bowed a bit as he said his name. "Pleasure meeting you too." you replied and smiled at the sweet boy.

"If there was you wouldn't come with us because you need to rest. I see you were careless again." Of course Nanami was the one to notice your bandages first and of course he would say the oh so logical thing.

"I wasn't being careless, thank you very much." you snapped at him. There he stood in this stupid suit with that stupid look that made you want to cry. Because stupid Nanami was always being so caring. And you hated it. "Just a fight with a special grade. Which I beat anyway."

"Another special grade?" Gojo spoke up, trying to shift the topic. "There are really many these days."

"You accepted a mission with a special grade? Are you mad? You are still not recovered from last year!" Nanami sighed which made you even more mad.

"I think I can estimate if I'm recovered or not."

"Okay, my sweet coworkers!" Gojo raised his hands. "Maybe we should postpone this conversation to another time! Because our Yuji here-" he pointed at the boy who was a bit lost. "Has to train!"

"Alright, alright I'm going." you muttered turning to the door. But before you could reach it, Nanami was already there holding it open for you.

And you knew he noticed your struggle on your way in.

And by his look he knew you knew.

"Welcome at jujutsu high, Yuji." you said while locking eyes with Nanami. "It's a bit hard sometimes but don't lose your goal. Don't forget why we are doing this."

With that you stepped outside. Never looking back at the guilty look in his eyes.

·········⋆༺𓆩❀𓆪༻⋆·········

You hated Kento Nanami ever since he left.

He didn't know it of course, but that day he broke your heart. And maybe it was childish but for you it was more than just a heartbreak, for you it was betrayal.

You were so convinced that both of you fought for the same purpose, for lives that couldn't fight. And you thought he was just as convinced as you. But he wasn't. He left.

And then he came back.

Just like that. Came back and worked like nothing happened. Raised to Grade 1 just like you. And like nothing ever happened.

You couldn't stand the sight of him.

And you do give him credit, to come back was obviously not easy. Probably it was really hard. And he did good work, he was a really good jujutsu sorcerer.

It was just so hard to look at him.

He wanted to make things right with you, you weren't stupid enough to not notice that. Every time you were at Shoko's and he knew, he sent you flowers and the first times he even tried to visit. Emphasis on 'tried' you never let him in.

You hated it that he still knew what your favorite flowers were.

You hated it that he still cared. Oh he cared so much. And maybe he also knew. Knew, that you still cared too.

Because even with that much hatred you knew, you never really hated him. You just hated that he left. And you couldn't accept that he was back again.

You were back at your apartment in no time. And you hated it but you collapsed onto your couch with exhaustion you repressed the whole day.

Shoko was right. Nanami was right.

You are still not recovered from last year. The night parade of a Hundred Demons.

It was embarrassing for you. How bad you have been beaten by the loads of curses. You were careless, like always others would say, and didn't protect your back. You still have a scar even after Shoko's help.

And he had saved you. Even setting the record of four consecutive black flashes while doing it, which seemed like a mockery of destiny.

Because Nanami Kento was so careful at work.

You groaned and fell asleep.

And when you woke up the next day there were new flowers outside and a card written by him.

Get well soon and don't overdo it again.

-Kento

The flowers were your favorite.

#nanami x reader

603 notes · View notes

reidsworld · 1 month ago

Text

His dick cried when you came back from your business trip (a ceo’s tale)

A/N: more ceo!nanami crack, enjoy!

IMAGE REFERENCE: nanami kento (jujutsu kaisen) drawn by nekonii | Danbooru

warnings: short n sweet, ceo nanami, m receiving head

To be clear — Nanami Kento is that CEO. The tall, dark, soul-sucked-by-capitalism, “I’m not your boss, I’m your employer,” three-piece-suit-wearing, 6PM-on-the-dot-you’re-fired-if-you’re-not-out type.

He walks like he owns the building (which he does), smells like sandalwood sin and money, and always, always has that stoic, solemn, “I have a migraine and everyone here is stupid” look on his face.

The only things that decorate his minimalist office are:

One bonsai tree (no, you may not touch it)

A 300-dollar pen (that he won’t let anyone use except the cleaning lady for some reason??)

Two photos: one of a woman in a traditional shiromuku kimono beside him in a wedding hakama (in black and white, of course, because he’s classy like that), and another of a woman smiling, eyes closed, holding a fat orange cat wearing a red bowtie.

The woman? Presumably his wife. The cat? Presumed co-conspirator.

But no one — no one — in the history of Nanami Conglomerate™ has ever seen her.

Not at the charity balls. Not at the fiscal year wrap dinners. Not even when that one intern tried to cyberstalk him and accidentally doxxed herself instead (RIP Stacy).

So naturally, the rumor mill thrives.

She’s dead. They’re separated. He was paid to marry her for tax purposes. She’s in the walls. He just has a wife in theoretical concept like communism.

The only constants? His wedding ring stays on, he never flirts, and he has never denied it.

Until.

The day.

The day you walk into the office, the entire 33rd floor stops breathing.

First of all. The heels? Stiletto. The kind that click like a threat on the tile floors. The lipstick? Oxblood red, sinful, and perfectly outlined. The hair? Snatched back like you’re about to commit a crime (and God, you are). The thighs? THIGHING. The tits? BREASTING. The ass? JIGGLING with a mind of its own.

You’re not just walking. You’re making an entrance.

You walk like you invented physics. Your thighs speak in iambic pentameter. Your hips write novels. Your smile is a crime.

Receptionist fumbles her coffee. Someone in HR gasps. Kyle from accounting walks into a potted plant.

You don’t stop. You never stop. You stalk toward the glass door office of Nanami Kento, Head Hot Man of all things stone-faced and suit porn.

Some intern audibly chokes on his cold brew. Another whispers, “She looks like she eats men for breakfast and then uses their bones to pick her teeth.”

You smile. It’s terrifying. Awe-inspiring. Beautiful.

You head straight for the elevator, eyes like heat-seeking missiles for one target only: his office.

“Uh—” a poor assistant stutters, scrambling up to stop you. “M-Ma’am, do you have an appointment—?”

You don’t even look at her.

You just glance at your glossy red nails, then flash your ID badge — Head of Biomedical Division, Level 7 Security Clearance — and the girl actually sits back down.

(You’re scary. God, it’s so hot.)

You reach the top floor.

You don’t knock.

You throw the door open like you pay the rent (which, honestly? You kinda do.)

Nanami Kento looks up from his paperwork.

Then — without missing a beat — you slap his ass.

Like, full contact. Full palm. Full cheek.

Not a gentle pat. Not a flirty swat. A full palm, Olympic-grade, home-run slap to the glutes.

His pen flies out of his hand. His mouth drops open a millimeter — a scandal! — and he whips around so fast he nearly knocks over the bonsai.

You coo, “Hi, Ken.”

The door closes.

But not before two unfortunate cubicle rats witness the event from their swivel chairs near the copier.

One of them drops her stapler. The other is already opening Slack.

🐀 cubicle_rat94: GUYS 🐀 cubicle_rat94: DID MRS. NANAMI JUST WALK IN 🐀 cubicle_rat94: AND SLAP HIS ASS???? 🐀 cubicle_rat94: HELP 🐀 cubicle_rat94: SHE’S HOT 🐀 cubicle_rat94: LIKE FERAL HOT 🐀 cubicle_rat94: HE DIDN’T EVEN FLINCH 🐀 cubicle_rat94: I THINK HE LIKED IT

Meanwhile. In the office.

Nanami exhales like someone just poured hot coffee down his spine. “You’re early.”

You lick your lips. “And you’re still wearing pants.”

“I have a meeting.”

“Oh, you’ll be meeting something alright—”

He covers your mouth with his hand, gritting his teeth. “There are security cameras—”

You lick his palm.

He whimpers.

CEO whimpers. Add that to your LinkedIn.

“Sweetheart,” he rasps, and God, the way his voice drops two octaves makes your knees do things. “You can’t just walk in here and—”

“Oh, I can. And I did.” You grin. “Do you want me to stop?”

Silence.

You have Nanami pressed against his desk like you’re about to fuck him six ways to Sunday.

He grips the desk behind him, knuckles white, face flushed pink — a rarity, considering the man emotes about as often as the stock market crashes.

“You’re late,” he mutters, low and sharp, but his hands are already at your waist.

“Am I?” you purr, dragging your hands up his chest, slow and teasing, leaving a smudge of lipstick on his tie. “And here I thought I was fashionably early.”

“Fashionably criminal,” he mutters. “Do you know how short your skirt is—?”

“Short enough that you’re thinking about bending me over this desk, Mr CEO Kento.”

He lets out a very put-upon sigh. His hands slip lower.

“You’re wearing that shade,” he says, trying to compose himself, his voice utterly ruined.

“Mmhmm.”

“The one that gets on everything.”

“Mmhmm.”

“You’re doing this on purpose.”

“Oh, absolutely.”

You lick a stripe across his throat.

He sighs again.

“You can’t just walk in here and—”

“—assault your boss?” you smile. “Who’s also your husband?”

“Exactly.”

“You’re lucky I don’t let security tackle you. You did just assault the CEO.”

You winked: “Assault implies you didn’t like it.”

Then you kiss him.

And God, you kiss him like you’re starving.

There’s tongue. There’s teeth. You’re grinding into him like it’s the club and he’s wearing grey sweats and no morals.

His tie gets undone.

Your lipstick is everywhere — collar, jaw, cheekbone — like a red-stained battle map of your conquest.

He breaks the kiss, breathless, eyes blown. “We’re at work.”

“You’re the CEO.”

“Yes, but—”

“Exactly. Now shut up and let me grab your dick.”

He actually gasps.

Nanami Kento. Gasps.

And then lets out a very strained, “My love—”

But you’re already unbuckling his belt.

He grabs your wrists, still somehow composed despite the fact that his wife — his soft, chubby, dangerously horny wife — is currently trying to fuck him stupid during business hours.

“We are not having sex in my office,” he says. “Again.”

“Oh?” you pout, tilting your head. “So you didn’t like it last time?”

His mouth opens. Then closes.

You grin. “You came in, like, four minutes.”

“That’s because—” he inhales, eyes fluttering when you rub against him — “you kept whispering stock market crash in my ear—”

“Because I am your crash, baby.”

“—and then you sat on me—”

“Like the economy.”

He groans. “Please.”

You smirk, lips at his ear.

“Say it.”

“...Say what?”

“Say you missed me.”

He goes quiet.

His hands tighten at your hips.

And then, voice low, reverent, wrecked: “I missed you.”

You kiss him again, softer this time.

Until he groans — because you’re grinding, and he’s hard, and his slacks are very expensive and now they’re also very tented.

“You’re evil,” he mutters.

You beam. “But I’m your evil.”

“Unfortunately.”

Downstairs, HR is having a meltdown.

There are calls being made. Tweets being posted. A Slack channel titled “#whosthatwife” has hit 147 messages in 3 minutes.

And then a new update hits:

🐀 cubicle_rat94: GUYS 🐀 cubicle_rat94: THEY’RE STILL IN THERE 🐀 cubicle_rat94: IT’S BEEN TWENTY MINUTES 🐀 cubicle_rat94: I HEARD A THUMP

*-*

He tries—he really does—to hold it together. Stoic. Professional. CEO-mode activated.

There’s a $3,000 office chair behind him. Ergonomic. Leather. Practically custom-molded to his Very Expensive CEO Back™.

He is not sitting in it.

Because you are sitting on your knees in front of him, lipstick smudged halfway to hell, hands planted on his thighs like they’re handlebars and you’re ready to take this ride off-road.

“Fuck—baby—”

Nanami’s hands are in your hair, hips twitching like he’s fighting the Holy Spirit and losing hard.

He hasn’t seen you in six weeks.

Six weeks of video calls. Six weeks of “Don’t touch yourself while you’re gone.” Six weeks of “Save it for me.”

You wrap your lips around his cock and the man damn near blacks out.

And you? You’re being so fucking obnoxious about it.

You’re being nasty. Disrespectful. You’re drooling like it’s your job. You know this man has to walk into a meeting in like an hour, and you’re here like:

“Aw, what’s wrong, bossman? Dick too sensitive? Been savin’ it for your slutty lil scientist wife, huh?”

You blink up at him, mascara already smudging, drool pooling at the corners of your mouth, hand pumping what doesn’t fit between your lips (which isn’t much—he’s been talking about quarterly reports in that deep 'Daddy' voice for weeks—you’ve been starving).

You pull off with a pop. Grin.

His eyes roll back so hard he sees the NASDAQ.

He groans. Loudly. Grips the arms of the chair like he’s praying. Eyes flutter shut.

"You're gonna—oh God—you're going to ruin me,” he mutters, voice hoarse.

You pop off for a second, eyes glistening.

“Didn’t hear a complaint last time I sucked you off in that private jet bathroom,” you hum, before diving back down like the wicked little succubus you are.

You immediately go back to choking on it like you’re solving global warming with your throat.

You swallow around him. He jerks.

Slurping. Sucking. Gagging, a little bit too loud. Spit and lipstick everywhere.

Lipstick stains the base of his cock. Spit’s dripping down your chin. He’s got one big, trembling hand buried in your hair like he’s trying to ground himself but failing. Miserably.

When he finally spills—chest heaving, body shaking, you moaning around him like a demon—he curses under his breath, shudders, and collapses back against the desk like you just performed open heart surgery.

He lasted like five minutes.

Which, in his defense, you've been gone for six weeks. Six weeks of boring international biomedical conferences, time zone differences, shitty hotel pillows, and zero head from his ridiculously hot, curvy, cat-owning wife.

You pull off with a pop, wipe your mouth with the back of your hand, and immediately go:

“So. I synthesized three new protein models based on the latest enzyme data.”

Kento Nanami is not okay.

“I need a minute,” Nanami pants, still trying to breathe.

"You'll be fine, so while I was gone-"

"You're evil," Nanami pants, slouched in his chair like a man deceased, dick still out, his whole soul vibrating.

"You say that every time," you say sweetly, already grabbing a tissue to wipe your lips.

You turn to him and start gently dabbing at his face with a tissue, wiping up smudged lipstick from his cheek, his chin, his fucking collarbone, because goddamn, you really were enthusiastic.

But you leave his dick alone.

“You’re a grown man,” you say sweetly. “You can wipe your own dick.”

He groans. “You’re horrible.”

Then he glares. (Weakly. Adorably.)

He’s still gasping like he ran a fucking marathon, hair disheveled, belt undone, entire life in shambles, and you’re just... fixing your makeup in the reflection of his office window. Like nothing happened. Like you didn’t just turn his office into a very expensive porn set.

“Mm,” you hum, blotting your lips. “Oh, by the way,” you chirp, grabbing a folder from the table. “The Geneva trial is going to shit, so I moved the molecular rollout to Q4, the Singapore team still hasn’t fixed the patent typo, and two of our researchers got into a slap-fight over genome sequencing priorities. I fixed it.”

Nanami is not done rebooting: Blinking, half-hard, still reeling from the sloppiest head of his goddamn life.

"...You handled all of that in six weeks?"

All while you're... well. Clicking your pen and tossing your hair.

"Yup! Also your VP of Finance tried to deny the funding for the cancer study again, so I emailed his boss. And the boss of the boss. And the press.”

He doesn’t respond.

He’s staring at you like he’s in love. (Which he is. God help him. This is his life.)

You reapply your lipstick again. Adjust your tits. Fluff your hair. He’s still sitting there, pants unzipped, watching you like you just stepped off Mount Olympus.

You wink.

He groans, covers his face, and mutters something that sounds a lot like “I married Satan with a biology degree.”

You take it as a compliment.

“Don’t forget to fix your pants,” you chirp sweetly, grabbing the stack of documents you originally came up here for. “You’ve got a meeting in fifteen.”

Then you strut to the door.

Open it.

Step out into the hallway—where at least three staff members immediately scramble to look busy—and go:

“Oh! Good afternoon.”

You smile. Your lipstick is immaculate. Your strut is deadly. Your ass is dangerous.

You leave.

The interns are traumatized.

*-*

Fifteen minutes later and Nanami walks into a board meeting.

He’s early. Composed. Stoic as ever.

Except—

His lips? A little too pink. His collar? A little too smudged with something suspiciously red. And the dazed, blissed-out face of someone who’s recently seen heaven and also got their balls drained like a Capri-Sun.

Everyone notices. Yet no one says a thing.

Someone coughs.

Someone else types in the group chat:

👀 finance_gf420: HE LOOKS RUINED 👀 finance_gf420: IS HE OKAY 👀 finance_gf420: OMG HIS LIPS????? 🐀 cubicle_rat94: #heGotSuckedOffDidntHe 🐀 cubicle_rat95: THAT LIPSTICK IS NOT NATURAL 🐀 cubicle_rat94: He looked like a MILF stepped on him and stole his wallet 🐀 cubicle_rat96: He’s smiling. He never smiles. He’s been SUCKED into HAPPINESS

*-*

You are sprawled across a couch in your shared penthouse like the domestic goddess you are, hair up, makeup off, comfy as shit in a big T-shirt that says:

BIOLOGY: IT GROWS ON YOU printed across the chest.

Sweatpants. Cartoon cat socks. A bag of takeout on the coffee table. Chairman Meow (the chunky orange cat, destroyer of worlds, 10/10 bastard) is purring in your lap as you brush him with one hand and scroll your phone with the other.

The door opens.

Cue husband entering, disheveled, tired, briefcase in hand, looking at you like you hung the moon.

You glance up.

“Hey, Ken.”

He melts.

“…I missed my wife.”

Literally drops his bag right there, undoes the first button of his shirt, and beelines for you like a man possessed.

You open your arms.

He sinks into them with a noise that can only be described as heartbroken relief.

“You’re home,” he breathes into your neck.

You kiss his cheek. “Mmhm. Fed the demon. Saved the division. Sucked my husband’s soul out his dick.”

He groans.

“I missed you.”

“I missed you too.”

“Don’t ever leave again.”

“You’ll miss the sloppy head.”

“I need the sloppy head. And you.”

Chairman Meow meows in protest (probably jealous).

You both ignore him.

Twenty minutes later, you’re curled on the couch together watching Bridgerton.

His arm is around you. Your legs are across his lap. Chairman Meow has reclaimed your thigh and is grooming himself with utter malice.

On screen, Lord Dumbass of Tragic Miscommunication says something like, “I cannot love you, my dear,” and your husband scoffs.

“He’s a coward.”

You raise a brow. “...Says the man who once ghosted me for three days because you thought your email signature was too flirtatious.”

“That’s different. I had reputation concerns.”

You snort. “You ended it with ‘Warm regards, yours always.’”

“I was trying to be professional! And anyways, he keeps making stupid choices.”

"You keep watching."

He grumbles again, but doesn't move, big hands sliding around your waist, pulling you closer, until you're tangled together like spaghetti in a bowl of marital bliss.

You laugh. He kisses you. You kiss back.

Then you’re making out again—deep, slow, fingers tangled in hair and shirts—and Chairman Meow huffs like a betrayed third wheel and hops off the couch in protest.

You don’t care.

You’re too busy kissing your husband like the world is ending. He pulls you close like he needs you to breathe. Your legs wrap around his hips, his mouth hot against yours, and somewhere in the distance, someone in HR has a very bad feeling.

And yeah, maybe your hand sneaks under his shirt. And maybe his mouth finds yours again. And maybe you end up making out with him to the soft backdrop of orchestral Ariana Grande.

Chairman Meow, to his credit, does not judge.

But he does leap off the couch right as Nanami groans into your mouth, "Don't start something you can’t finish, darling—"

And you giggle, breath hot, “Oh, I always finish.”

But for now?

You’re home. He’s home.

And all is right in the (office) world.

A/N: hope you enjoyed it!! pls do tell if theres any mistakes, i don't think there are any but u never know. not proofread btw sorry.

Masterlist

#nanami x reader

601 notes · View notes

reidsworld · 2 months ago

Text

Of perverse sins and perverse pastries.

Chef!Nanami who...

had never been so personally offended by a sentence in his life.

Which is saying something, considering he once watched Gojo try to flambé a crème brûlée with a flamethrower and call it “avant-garde.”

But you. You. Pen name: Oddity. Real name: classified. A ghost. A whisper. A French storm in red lipstick and four-inch heels who walked into his restaurant under the pseudonym “Mlle. Moreau,” ordered the tasting menu like a bored duchess at court, and left without a word. The next morning, your review hit the culinary world like a hand grenade in a soup pot.

Nanami didn’t read food critiques.

But Yuji did. And Yuji had panicked.

“Chef—Chef, please, wait—”

“Yuji.” Nanami adjusted his tie, always the same beige one. Calm. Polite. Stoic. Like a man who ironed his boxer briefs and emotionally distanced himself from everything but beurre blanc. “If you’re about to show me another influencer who poured ketchup on dry-aged steak, I—”

Yuji looked stricken. “It’s Oddity.”

The name was a knife. Even Nanami blinked.

Oddity. The critique whose prose made culinary school students cry. The one who once described a plate of oysters as “cold ocean phlegm cradled in the cracked pelvis of Poseidon.” The one whose review got a three-star brasserie in Lyon shut down and replaced by a vape shop. The one Michelin listened to.

And she had come here.

Nanami took Yuji’s phone in silence.

The title of the piece? “On the Ennui of Excellence: a night at Kento Nanami’s La Raison.” Subheading: “An autopsy of a beautiful corpse.”

Chef!Nanami who...

read it in the dry stillness of the prep kitchen like a man reading his own obituary.

“La Raison is a monument to technical mastery—every espuma stiff with obedience, every sauce a painting of its own perfection. And yet, dining there is like being gently fucked by a man who asks if you came before it even starts. Precision without passion. The experience left me yearning for something raw. Something real. Or at least, a reason.”

Nanami lowered the phone.

Yuji watched him like a man waiting for a soufflé to collapse. “Chef…?”

“‘A man who asks if you came before it even starts’,” Nanami echoed, voice flat.

Yuji coughed. “She’s…really poetic?”

Nanami was quiet for a long time. Then he looked up. “Find me everything she’s ever written.”

Chef!Nanami who...

became possessed.

He devoured your work like a woman starves a man on purpose. Ate each review like it owed him money. Spent nights flipping through digital archives of your poetic slaughter, mentally composing retaliations while zesting lemons with military precision.

You once said: that a duck you had eaten was “a limp fuck of a bird, more depression than duck, like it had walked itself into the oven out of sheer existential despair.”

“‘A limp fuck of a bird’,” he quoted under his breath one morning, dicing onions so furiously Yuji thought he was making confit de vengeance. “What does that even mean.”

“I think she meant the duck was—”

“I know what she meant, Yuji.”

He started adding salt more aggressively. Started plating with vicious flourish. He told a foie gras torchon to “try not to kill itself on the plate.” Yuji said nothing.

Your words lived under his skin like a rash. He’d dream about you—a faceless voice with a smoky accent—taunting him across a pristine white tablecloth, red wine in hand, lips curled around some obscenely metaphorical critique.

“You ever tasted your own ego, Chef Nanami?” you'd purr. “It’s a bit underseasoned.”

Chef!Nanami who...

didn’t know what bothered him more: that you tore apart his life’s work with the elegance of a guillotine, or that your metaphors made his cock twitch with interest.

Which felt wrong.

This wasn’t sex. This was war. He was in a duel. And he didn’t even know your face.

“Odity,” he hissed one night, scribbling new menu drafts like a mad scientist. “You want raw? I’ll give you raw.”

Yuji found the next iteration of the menu featured a dish simply titled: “Duck. Done Right.”

It was, in his words, “the sexiest fucking duck I’ve ever seen.” Sous-vide to pink perfection, crisped skin that crunched like a first kiss, a cherry jus reduction so deep it stared back into your soul.

Nanami plated it like a threat.

Chef!Nanami who...

rewrote his entire philosophy over the next three months.

He called it: The Passion Menu. It was messier. Looser. A flirtation with the edge of chaos. Less “Michelin by numbers” and more what if lust had a mise en place?

You noticed. Of course you noticed.

Two months after your first review, another one appeared.

“Chef Nanami has learned how to bleed. La Raison now tastes of frustration, heat, of unspoken confessions. The duck sings. The lamb groans. The panna cotta trembles on the tongue like a secret. He is furious, and I adore it. I suspect he may hate me. Good.”

Nanami read that one at midnight in his office.

Alone.

Twice.

Then once more, with a very specific problem.

Chef!Nanami who...

now dreams of your voice in the dark.

Who doesn’t want to fuck you so much as defeat you in the most erotic, gourmet game of chess the culinary world has ever seen.

Who imagines you showing up to his kitchen with a blindfold and a fork, whispering things like “show me rage, Chef” and “this risotto tastes like foreplay—soft, needy, a little arrogant.”

Yuji finds Nanami staring into nothing while stirring béchamel, mumbling about “restraint being a cage” and “how dare she make soufflé sound like a religious experience.”

Yuji knows better than to ask.

Chef!Nanami who...

doesn’t know who you are.

Doesn’t know you watched him from across the room on your second visit, heart jackhammering behind your ribs as he swept through the dining floor like a god who smelled of truffle oil and quiet fury.

You watched him command his kitchen like an orchestra, a tie still perfectly in place even as his soul caught fire.

You’d never been reviewed in return. Never had a subject fight back so beautifully. You’d never been tempted to sign your name.

Until now.

Chef!Nanami who...

had, by now, a binder.

A fucking binder. Of your reviews. Indexed. Annotated. Possibly cursed. Definitely tabbed by mood (from “mild disdain” to “poetic destruction” to “culinary hate-fuck.”)

He wouldn’t call it an obsession, per se. He would call it… research. Yes. Tactical gathering. (If tactical gathering involved staring at your use of the phrase “a flaccid ode to mediocrity” and muttering “what the fuck does that even mean” at 2am while angrily making a reduction.)

It had been two months. Two slow, simmering months of passive-aggressive menu changes, mysterious anonymous re-bookings, and a subtle, mutual emotional strangulation via metaphor.

Until.

It was a quiet Tuesday.

Rain slicked the windows. Yuji had the radio on low in the back, humming some unholy remix of Edith Piaf and trap. And Nanami… Nanami just felt it.

There was an itch.

An atmospheric shift. A culinary sixth sense.

The kind of inexplicable chef’s instinct that once helped him identify a bad béarnaise by smell from three rooms away.

He looked up from garnishing a mousse.

Paused.

Then—

“Chef,” said Aimée, one of the floor servers, poking her head into the kitchen like she was afraid of being sautéed. “There’s a… customer who wishes to speak to you.”

Nanami didn’t look up. “Tell them I’m unavailable.”

“She said,” Aimée continued slowly, “and I quote: ‘I would sooner eat my own shoe than another bite of his pretentious little foie gras eulogy.’”

Nanami dropped the microgreens.

Yuji dropped the spatula.

“…It’s her, isn’t it?” he muttered.

Aimée blinked. “Her who?”

Nanami’s tie was already off. “Where is she.”

Chef!Nanami who...

walked out onto the dining floor with the slow grace of a man approaching his own funeral.

There you were.

At a window-side table, framed in pale Parisian twilight like some goddamn cursed portrait.

Finishing the last spoonful of his dessert—the reworked passionfruit crème brûlée that Yuji had described as “orgasm-adjacent.”

You didn’t look up.

Not until he stopped beside your table, arms crossed, expression unreadable.

And then— oh, then. You smiled. Like the devil in Dior.

“Chef Nanami,” you said. Voice honeyed sin. “Won’t you sit?”

Nanami sat.

You tilted your head slightly, studying him like a beetle under glass.

Then, almost lazily, you began:

“The entrée was a liminal experience. Flirting with transcendence, yes—but ultimately confused. Like a poem that doesn’t know where to end. A culinary semicolon.”

He blinked.

“The second dish—quail, yes?—was a valiant effort. But overcompensating. You keep trying to impress me with restraint, but it tastes like you’re terrified of your own desire. Classic case of a man afraid to make a mess.”

He opened his mouth.

You raised a finger.

“And the dessert. Mmm.” You leaned back, licking your spoon like a sin. “Now that was new. Angry. Fuckable. Burnt at the edges, like it wanted me to choke on it. I was aroused. Briefly. Then I tasted the mint.”

Nanami stared.

You set your spoon down. Folded your hands.

And said, softly: “Hi, by the way. I'm Oddity.”

Chef!Nanami who...

did not sleep that night.

Not because of the review. Not even because he now knew the face that had been haunting his pantry. (Though Christ, you were—were you wearing lipstick while critiquing his asparagus?)

No. He didn’t sleep because he couldn’t stop thinking about what you said.

You’re terrified of your own desire.

The words crawled inside his chest like steam, like sugar smoke, like want.

Chef!Nanami who...

closed the restaurant that weekend.

For “maintenance.” (Yuji knew better. Yuji called it “horny chef trauma.”)

The kitchen was empty.

Except—

You were there.

Seated on the counter, legs swinging, wearing black slacks and a high-collared blouse and an expression like you might either fuck him or ruin his life again.

(Why not both.)

“Hope you don’t mind,” you said, as he stepped in. “I let myself in.”

“You’re trespassing.”

“And yet, you didn’t stop me.”

He didn’t.

Instead, he rolled up his sleeves.

“…You wanted to cook?”

You smiled. “I wanted to see you cook.”

Chef!Nanami who...

hated how arousing it was to be criticized mid-chiffonade.

“Your knife work is tense,” you murmured. “Like you're afraid the shallot might write a bad review.”

“You’re insufferable,” he muttered.

“You’re repressed.”

“You’re a menace.”

“You have excellent forearms.”

He paused.

You grinned.

He continued slicing, jaw tight.

It was a fever dream of saucepans and stares. Of bare gas flames and unspoken challenges. Of you sipping stolen wine from his stemware and telling him about how Chairman Meow had fallen through the fucking ceiling of your bistro in Montmartre.

“Tiny bastard was yowling inside the vent,” you said, “and I thought it was a ghost. Turns out it was a kitten with the gall of Napoleon and the appetite of a trucker.”

Nanami almost smiled.

Almost.

“Why cooking?” you asked, later, between tasting spoons.

He shrugged. “Why critique?”

You stared at the stove. “Because I couldn’t not. Because there’s too much mediocrity being applauded. Because food is the last honest art form, and people keep fucking it.”

He nodded.

“Why Yuji?” you asked.

That—was gentler.

“He reminded me of someone,” Nanami said quietly. “Hungry. Messy. But real.”

You were quiet a moment.

“You’re not emotionless, you know,” you said. “You just bottle it in foie gras and hope no one notices.”

Nanami turned, slow.

“You don’t know me.”

“I do, Chef,” you murmured, stepping closer. “I’ve tasted you.”

He didn’t kiss you.

But Christ, it was close.

Chef!Nanami who...

now lives in a purgatory of want.

Because you’re the first person who’s ever matched him. Who’s ever looked him in the eyes and said: you could be better. And meant it like a promise, not an insult.

You’re also the first person to taste his soufflé and say:

“It’s good. Still boring. But better. You’re learning.”

(He got hard in under two seconds.)

Chef!Nanami who...

insists on driving you home. Because it’s late. Because it’s raining. Because, despite your overwhelming need to emotionally garrote him with feedback and snark, he’s a gentleman who cannot in good faith let you suffer public transport after five hours of toe-curling, sexually tense mise en place.

You try to protest.

You try.

“I don’t need a chaperone, Nanami. I’m not a Victorian child with rickets—”

“You live on the outskirts of Tokyo.”

“So?”

“It’s eleven-thirty and you look like you provoke demons for fun.”

“I do.”

“Get in the car.”

So you get in the car.

Chef!Nanami who...

drives like he fucks cooks. Focused. Calm. Hands firm. Smooth execution. Eyes on the road.

You, meanwhile, are chaos in the passenger seat.

Fidgeting. Picking at your rings. Thinking about how his forearms flex against the wheel. Trying to pretend the car doesn’t smell like bergamot and subtle male despair.

“You’re brooding,” you say eventually, watching the city blur by.

“I’m driving.”

“You brood like you julienne—tight and restrained.”

“And you talk like you’re writing an obituary for my ego.”

You grin.

“Don’t worry. I’ll send flowers.”

Your apartment building is very you.

Top floor of a pre-war pile of bricks, just crooked enough to be charming. Creaky wood floors. Windows that sigh when the wind hits right. The elevator wheezes like it needs a cigarette. The hallway smells like old books and plants that need watering.

Nanami follows you up with that expression he wears when faced with unbridled whimsy. Neutral. Contained. Secretly enchanted.

Until—

“That your cat?”

You nod.

Because there, perched majestically in front of your apartment door like the goddamn emperor of ambiance, is a tiny cream-and-ginger menace.

Wearing a red bowtie.

Chairman Meow.

He looks at Nanami like he owes him money.

“He doesn’t like men,” you say, unlocking the door.

“Smart cat.”

“Also tried to bite my head cook once.”

You both step inside. Nanami pauses.

Because the interior is…

Well.

It’s Ghibli threw up.

Books everywhere. Fairy lights. A teapot that looks like it’s seen some shit. Art supplies. An antique chaise lounge. A photo of you and a younger Chairman Meow standing outside a bistro, both in chef’s hats.

“This is like if a French cottage got railed by a wizard,” he murmurs.

You beam. “I know.”

Chef!Nanami who...

watches in utter, stunned, repressed arousal as you make your cat’s dinner by hand.

“He’s on a special diet,” you say, stirring a pan. “Lamb liver, bone broth, a bit of kelp.”

“Your cat eats better than Yuji.”

“As he should.”

You serve Chairman Meow in a porcelain dish.

Nanami watches you kneel. Watches your fingers brush through the cat’s fur. Watches the way your blouse slips off one shoulder as you lean over.

And you turn— Catch his stare— Raise an eyebrow like you already know what he’s thinking—

And that’s it.

The tension snaps.

Chef!Nanami who...

kisses like a secret he’s finally tired of keeping.

Hard. Clean. Controlled.

Until it isn’t.

Until his hands are in your hair, and yours are clawing his shirt off, and you’re both knocking over a bowl of cat treats in the blind rush toward your creaky antique couch.

“God—fuck—” you gasp against his throat.

“You’re infuriating,” he mutters, mouth on your collarbone.

“You’re obsessed with me.”

“You taste like arrogance.”

“You taste like daddy issues and restraint, bite me harder—”

He does.

Chef!Nanami who...

is a demon in bed.

A gentleman in the streets, but a glorious ruin of technique and filth in the sheets.

He drops to his knees like he’s about to pray, but you’re the altar.

And oh. Oh.

He knows where the clit is.

Knows how to kiss it, tap it, suck it like he’s conducting a fucking symphony.

Knows how to build tension like a course menu. Soft at first. Then deeper. Then mean. Fingers inside you like he’s trying to find the part of your soul that wrote that review about his duck.

“This what you wanted?” he growls into your thigh.

“I wanted you desperate,” you pant. “I wanted you wrecked.”

“You’ll get it,” he says. “But you’re going to come for me first.”

And you do.

You see God. She’s French. She says oui, mon chéri, and slaps your ass on the way out.

Then his pants come off.

And Jesus wept.

Because Nanami’s dick is exquisite. Like he measured it. Like he steamed it. Like it’s served on a bone china plate with a reduction of “you’ll feel this tomorrow.”

You barely manage a breathless, “Fuck, is that—”

“Do you ever not critique?” he says.

“Do you ever not overachieve?”

Then he fucks you like a recipe for redemption.

You try to sass him. You do.

But then he grabs your hips and hits that spot like he mapped it out during intermission.

“Still have something to say?” he mutters against your neck.

“Y-yeah—fuck—this is just adequate—”

He fucks you harder.

Chef!Nanami who...

is big, thick, and fucking excellent at what he does.

Each thrust is calculated. Rhythmic. Purposeful.

Like he’s balancing flavor profiles in your cervix.

You’re scratching down his back like you're scoring duck skin.

He’s panting. Brow tight. Mouth parted.

“That little crease in your forehead,” you moan, dazed. “Hot as fuck.”

“You’re insatiable,” he growls, driving in deeper.

“You’re ruining my life.”

“Good.”

You come again—this time with a whole thesis.

He follows soon after, hips stuttering, grip bruising your hips.

And the face he makes?

Tiny crease. Head tipped back. A low, wrecked groan—

You want to bottle it. Sell it. Serve it with a cheese plate.

You shower together. It’s less sexy and more spiritual rebirth.

You insult his soap. He washes your hair. You try to lick his pec. He tells you to behave.

It’s domestic. It’s sinful. It’s unfair how much you like it.

Later, you collapse into bed beside him, wet hair on his arm.

Chairman Meow curls up near your feet, tail flicking like judgment.

You fall asleep with Nanami’s hand on your thigh and a grin on your lips.

You wake up—

To smell.

Butter. Coffee. Bacon. Something slightly citrus.

You shuffle to the kitchen in one of his shirts.

And there he is.

At your stove.

Making breakfast like he’s lived here for years.

You blink.

“Is that… a soufflé pancake?”

“You like dramatic food.”

“You’re wearing my apron.”

“You weren’t using it.”

You stare. Chairman Meow is screaming as he circles Nanami's ankles.

You smile.

“I’m going to ruin your life.”

He flips the pancake.

He sets the plate in front of you.

Then leans down.

And says:

“Still adequate?”

You kiss him stupid.

A/N: oof... this was supposed to be a full fic, like i planned to make it a full fic, but i got rlly frustrated with it. so for now the full fic is getting benched. i also want to say i have NO professional culinary experience (except cooking for myself), so this is based on tv shows and shit i've read.

Masterlist.

#nanami x reader

310 notes · View notes

reidsworld · 2 months ago

Text

014 - My exception

Tags: nanami x fem!reader, teen!nanami, fluff, funny, sorcerer!reader, piece of life.

Synopsis: a very weird way to flirt, honestly!

The school trip had turned out exactly as you expected: exhausting, ridiculous, and full of unnecessary complications that could have easily been avoided with proper planning from the adults in charge. The forest smelled of damp earth and stress, and all you wanted was for this day to end, to secure your bonus points, and get back to your dorm in Tokyo to do absolutely nothing—as you always preferred.

Finally, after a long, tiring day in the Yamagata woods, you and your teammates reached the designated meeting point. The sunset was vibrant, streaking shades of gold and crimson through the trees, casting elongated shadows across the leaf-covered ground.

By this point in your second year, everyone knew you never did anything unless it directly benefited you. You didn't waste time on idle chatter, didn’t smile without reason, and definitely didn't grant favors. It wasn't arrogance or disdain; it just wasn’t in your nature. You had always taken care of your own business, relying solely on yourself. That suited you just fine. So whenever someone asked you for a favor, your answer was short, clear, and absolute: "No."

Now, walking alongside your teammates—Nanami and Haibara, the only other students in your generation—you felt a rare ease. Not friendship exactly, but functional cooperation. They were useful, quiet, and not annoying, which was more than enough.

And maybe, just maybe, somewhere deep down, you held a certain admiration for Nanami.

There was something quietly remarkable about the way he existed: calm, straightforward, and subtly considerate. He had handed Haibara a Coke earlier without a word, as though it were routine. Then, he'd passed you a water bottle, eyes fixed ahead, no hidden agenda or expectations. You took it silently, casting him a sideways glance. And though he didn't smile or speak, you felt a strange flutter in your fingertips.

You hated it—a little. You hated how that subtle kindness made you want to do something equally selfless for him, without expecting anything in return. Something you'd never felt for anyone else before.

As you approached the clearing, you saw the boisterous third-year students already there: Gojo, Geto, and Shoko. Immediately, Gojo greeted you, far too cheerfully for someone covered in dirt and leaves:

"Hey, look who made it! Did you kiddos manage to survive without our glorious presence?"

You ignored him completely, briefly checking your minor injuries. From the corner of your eye, though, you noticed something—Nanami’s bandage had come loose around his hand. Normally, you'd never bother mentioning it, but this time your body acted before your brain had a chance to intervene.

"Nanami," you called softly, drawing his attention as you extended your hand toward him. "Give me your hand for a second."

Nanami’s eyes widened slightly in surprise, but he complied immediately, holding his hand out. Your fingers worked gently but efficiently, tightening the bandage around his palm as heat slowly crept into his cheeks. The rough cotton felt foreign beneath your touch, yet somehow comforting.

"There," you muttered quietly without lifting your gaze, though you could feel Nanami’s eyes fixed steadily upon you. "Try not to let it come loose again, alright?"

He glanced down at his now perfectly wrapped hand, then back up at you, an unreadable emotion flickering in his typically impassive eyes. For a brief moment, a faint, warm smile crossed his lips.

Before either of you could fully process the moment, Gojo interrupted theatrically, his voice loud enough for everyone to hear:

"Ohhh? Well, isn’t this an interesting sight!" he teased with a mischievous grin. "Since when are you kind, y/n? Or should I say... openly flirting with Nanami?"

You immediately pulled your hand back, startled by his remark. Nanami frowned slightly, shooting Gojo a cold glare.

"Don't be ridiculous, Gojo," Nanami responded sharply, maintaining his usual composure. "y/n was just being kind."

Those words, spoken with such conviction, sparked something defiant within you. You shook your head slowly and looked Nanami straight in the eyes, your voice calm and clear:

"Don't mistake kindness for flirting, Nanami," you said steadily. "I'm never kind."

The sentence hit so hard it practically echoed in the sudden, heavy silence that enveloped the group. Nanami stood frozen in place, his face rapidly turning a vivid shade of red, unable to hold your gaze any longer.

Behind you, Haibara violently sputtered out the Coke he was drinking, choking on his own surprise. Geto hid a small chuckle behind his hand, clearly amused by the unfolding drama. Shoko remained completely oblivious, absorbed in her phone screen. Gojo, momentarily stunned into silence, sighed theatrically—recognizing he'd been thoroughly defeated at his own game.

Your own cheeks began to burn with embarrassment as you fully registered the weight of what you'd just admitted aloud. Without wasting another second, you mumbled something about getting water and quickly turned away, desperate to leave before anyone could notice your flushed face.

You had barely made it a few steps when you heard steady footsteps trailing close behind you. A brief glance over your shoulder confirmed the obvious: Nanami was following you, close as a puppy unable to stray far from its owner.

"I... need some water too," he muttered softly, averting his eyes immediately afterward.

You didn't respond, but you didn't push him away either. As the two of you walked quietly towards the nearby stream, you heard Haibara's resigned voice faintly murmuring from behind:

"Well... guess it's crystal clear now. I'm definitely the third wheel."

A small smile tugged at your lips, one you didn’t bother to hide this time, as you silently admitted to yourself that for the very first time, you'd said exactly what you'd meant.

After all, you truly weren't kind.

You were simply flirting.

And thankfully, Nanami had understood that perfectly.

🅼🅰🆂🆃🅴🆁🅻🅸🆂🆃

#nanami x reader

87 notes · View notes

reidsworld · 2 months ago

Text

sunday morning

nanami's ending: one | previous chapter | chapter index

mistakes? or maybe meant to be?

pairings: ex-bf!Nanami x f!Reader, FWB!Gojo x f!Reader

content: mdni, smut and angst, drinking, making out, bathroom sex, unprotected sex, creampie, uncomfortable conversations, emotional hurt, morning after, second chance romance

a/n: art is by @/neeeem8 on X!!

“Come here,” Gojo murmured, tugging you down the narrow hall, music thumping loudly all around you as he pushed open the door to the bathroom tucked away in the back.

“We're gonna get caught,” You giggled, letting him pull you in. Not stopping him when he sunk his hands in your hair and kissed you hard. Both of you were a few too many drinks in and dizzy on desire, giggling in between stolen breaths. Either you were at the wrong club, or Yuki had bailed. Not that it mattered that much when you were with him. All of tonight's missteps and mistakes started to melt away the longer he held you. Wiping the slate clean, ignoring the traces left behind of what was there before.

“Nuh-uh,” He laughed, picking you up and putting you down on the sink, squeezing your ass as he did it.

“You know we could have more fun if you take me home,” You were kissing him again though, trailing little pecks up his neck and along his jaw, the glitter of your lip gloss sticking to his skin.

“You were the one who wanted to come here,” He whined, tilting his head back as you started to suck harder, letting your teeth graze against the nape of his neck, shivering against you. “I want you now.”

“Fine,” You relented, as if you were ever going to say no to him. “Better make it quick.”

The last thing you needed was to have some poor employee or wasted straggler walking in, given your already frequent history of getting interrupted.

He was ripping your underwear down your thighs before you could blink, stuffing them in his pocket and throwing a leg over his shoulder, your dress riding up to your hips. You nearly slipped off the porcelain, grabbing the cold edges of the sink for balance as you yelped.

“Fuck, Satoru,” You started to curse, but he was already diving in, licking a clean stripe along the inside of your thigh up to your entrance.

“You're so fucking wet,” He murmured, the sharp line of his nose digging into your clit as his tongue swirled messy patterns inside you. Your heart jumped into your throat at the rasp in his voice.

“I, fuck, I wasn't ready,” You panted.

“You said to make it quick,” He sarcastically reminded you, moving up to suck the swollen bud, painting little patterns around it as two fingers slotted inside you with ease.

He was going to make it too quick at this rate. His touch left you writhing desperately around him, all the muscles in your thighs clenching, hips arching into him.

His fingers finding a steady rhythm pumping in-and-out again and again, his tongue working your clit almost to the brink of overstimulation.

“Say my name again,” He glanced up at you, the hunger in his eyes mirroring your own. Needing the confirmation he was the one you wanted.

“Toru,” You whispered. You didn't think you'd ever seen anyone so attractive, his white hair all messed-up, swollen and pretty pink bottom lip jutted out in a pout despite how sharp his gaze was, piercing through you like he was trying to burn the memory of this into his brain.

“I need to fuck you right now,” He barely sounded like himself, his fingers freezing still half-curled inside you. “I'll make you cum as many times as you want tonight, but right now-”

You bobbed your head up-and-down, breathing heavily as he slid out, picking you up and flipping you around to bend you over the sink.

You watched him through the mirror, his brows drawn in concentration, the soft clink of his belt coming undone before he quickly pulled down his zipper, the outline of his bulge obvious even through the dark fabric of his dress pants.

“I missed you,” You confessed, the corner of his mouth twitching up when he finally freed himself from the confines of his boxers.

“I missed you too, pretty girl.” Like he was trying to prove it, he pushed himself all the way in, using your hips as handlebars and ripping a moan out of you. You had a death grip on the sink, clinging on as hard as you could while he stretched you around him.

“Baby,” You cried out, breath fogging the mirror, thighs pressing against the edge of the porcelain as he slammed into you. “I'm, ah, I'm not going anywhere.”

“Better not,” His jaw was clenched, short and fast exhales falling out of his nose, all of his focus on you. “You're not getting rid of me now.”

He leaned in, taking his time to paint a line of hungry little sucks along the crook of your collarbone to your shoulder, the fabric of his shirt rustling against your back.

His kisses meant to claim you, staking his territory. When he took back the ring tomorrow, at least the marks would still be there. Was he going to ask for the ring? You hadn't asked - but surely he wasn't just going to let you keep something so ridiculously expensive.

One of the hands on your hips slipped around front, reaching for your clit, rubbing hard and fast circles around the already sensitive bud.

“I’m gonna cum, fuck Toru,” You gasped.

“Already?” He teased.

The big tears welling up in the corner of your eyes only spurring him on, his thrusts getting faster, deeper. You almost smacked into the mirror, your fingers smudging the glass even more when you held it up to protect your face last second.

“Shit, sorry,” He apologized, a guttural grunt escaping his throat as he readjusted his grip.

But the new added pressure on your clit made your head swim, nothing but desperate little pants leaving your mouth, eyes scrunched shut.

He grabbed a fistful of hair, snapping your head up not hard enough to hurt, but for your eyes to flutter open in surprise. Your fucked-out expression greeting you in the mirror, mascara starting to run, lip gloss smeared across your mouth, glossy-eyed and slack-jawed.

“I wanna see your face when you cum,” He dreamily sighed, nipping at the exposed skin of your neck.

You clenched around him, a desperate whimper escaping. Body shivering, white-knuckling the sink when you cried out his name again, an intense wave of pleasure crashing into you all at once. He had to let go of your hair so he could hold your hip up again, pulling you into him and supporting your weight.

“That's it, baby,” He purred, still fucking you through it. “Good girl.”

Even while taunting you, you could see it in his face that he wasn't far off, beads of sweat plastering loose strands to his forehead, his brows tight and furrowed together as he desperately rutted into you.

“I think I'm falling for you,” You muttered in a haze, too intoxicated by being so full of him, so wrapped up in his attentiveness that you weren't sure what you were even saying until it exited your mouth.

“Oh fuck,” He moaned, his cock throbbing inside of you, something warm filling you up as he paused, slick dripping down your inner thigh. “I, uh, might've accidentally finished inside you.”

He hadn't pulled out, his hands hesitating to move.

Was he going to say anything about your confession?

You didn't know what response you were even hoping for.

“You’re really going to get me pregnant if you keep doing that,” You raised an eyebrow at him in the mirror, not sure what you should say now either.

He helped you stand up straight and grabbed a few of the cheap paper towels from the dispenser, squatting down and doing his best to clean the mess he made.

“I said sorry,” He mumbled.

“You did not,” You laughed. When he got back up, you leaned back across the sink to fix your running makeup, yanking a clean paper towel down and running the water over it until it was damp enough to get rid of some of the smeared mascara under your eyes.

“I’m very sorry, then,” He wrapped his arms around your waist, nuzzling against your hair as he dramatically sighed. “You'd look cute with my baby though.”

“Yeah, you wish.”

You were smiling though, enjoying his compliment and its implication far more than you wanted to admit.

He picked your purse off the floor, something you had forgotten you even brought with you after he'd been carrying it for you this whole time. You held your hand out and he passed it over, quickly unzipping it and pulling out your lip gloss to reapply a final time.

“Is Suguru still coming?”

“I should check,” He rubbed the back of his neck, checking his phone with one hand while the other fixed his belt.

You walked over to the door, tugging it open and waiting for him to walk over. He grabbed the top of the door, his foot tapping against the tile as he read whatever was on his screen and letting you continue in front of him.

You laughed at his insistence to be the one to hold it for you, stepping back in the hall. He slipped his arm over your shoulder, still distracted.

The hallway wasn't empty.

“Satoru,” You hissed, elbowing him hard.

“Huh?” He looked up.

Nanami was watching you with distaste, seemingly content to just brush past you on his way to the bathroom. The lighting was too dim to make out much of his face. For a horrifying moment, you imagined what it would've been like if he needed to go just a few minutes earlier.

The bathroom door slammed shut behind you.

“You think Yuki invited him too?” You mumbled, glancing anxiously behind you.

“I guess,” Satoru replied through gritted teeth, his grip on you tightening. “Suguru is on his way. We’ll leave when he gets here.”

“Sure,” You nodded. If you wanted to go, you'd have to wait for another driver anyway, considering you were both too wasted to get behind the wheel yourselves.

“Want another drink, sweetheart?” He whispered in your ear as you walked back into the thick crowd, gesturing towards the bar on the other side.

“Um, yeah, that sounds good,” You agreed, scanning for an empty booth. “I'll try to find a place for us to sit.”

Unfortunately, it didn't appear there were any. By the time you shuffled through the groups of people and realized you were pretty much out of luck, Satoru was no longer at the bar.

Even more unfortunately, he wasn't alone when you did find him.

A gorgeous white-haired woman was next to him, a little smirk on her face as she talked to him. She had her hand on his forearm, riding past where his sleeves were cuffed up to squeeze his bicep. Jealousy was already pricking at you by the time your gaze skimmed up to his face to realize he was laughing.

One of those stupid big grins plastered on his face, directed towards her. Someone bumped into his shoulder, and he stepped away, just for the hand that was on him reaching over to snag one of the drinks out of his hands and down it in a long gulp.

What the fuck?

You tried to push through the crowd, losing sight of them every few seconds as you navigated closer. You heard them before you saw them again.

"Heard you're shacking up with Nanami's ex," She cooly said.

"Yeah," Gojo just chuckled.

“Isn't that a little cruel to our poor Nanami?” She didn't sound like she cared though, more like she was reveling in any misery around her. But you were still stuck on the way she said our.

“What can I say? I'm a selfish guy,” He shrugged.

She laughed a little, while he yawned, fixing the cuff of his sleeve before continuing.

"I don't like to lose,” He casually said. “Especially not to him.”

It was hard to breathe.

Was that the extent of your relationship? Even now?

Maybe you were feeling more vulnerable than usual after what you blurted out in the heat of the moment, but his words had crawled under your skin, and you didn't know how to scratch them out.

"Am I supposed to feel bad for him or for her?" The woman laughed with him. At you.

It wasn't like it was a new worry, just one you'd continuously shoved down every time it popped up. How much of his interest was in you and how much was simply a matter of his pride.

Seeing him with someone like her, someone who seemed to match him so well, it just rubbed salt in the wound.

You could go up, ask him what the fuck he meant or pick a fight, but you had your own pride, however broken and cracked it already was.

You wanted out.

Slipping through the mass of bodies, cold sweat starting to drip down your forehead as you searched for some escape route away from them and tonight. You still had your phone and your purse, even if you didn't have your house key. Maybe Yuji would be sober enough to come get you.

There were enough people clustered around the entrance to be a fire hazard, blocking your way.

Shit.

You paused, glancing over to the bar and resigning yourself to one more drink, one that he should've gotten for you, sliding into a barstool and waving over the bartender. After ordering, you dug your phone out of your purse, frowning as you scrolled through a handful of new messages from Yuji, mostly goofy selfies of him out with his brothers. Someone set a glass in front of you, although you were too distracted replying to Yuji to immediately look up.

“Thanks,” You muttered, reaching over to grab it.

When you raised your head, you noticed him first. Two seats down, his side profile as sharp as ever, his hand hovering in the air as he ordered another whiskey.

You didn't think he'd stick around.

He saw you out of the corner of his eyes, his brows furrowing as you quickly looked away.

“Where's your fiancé?” He spat out the last word.

The alcohol on your tongue didn't make his venom any less bitter. You didn't answer.

“You're ignoring me now?”

Nanami actually laughed. A low chuckle, shaking his head as he set an empty drink back against the bartop and moved to the seat next to you.

“You're drunk,” You commented, looking back towards the crowd while the bartender slid over a new drink for him as you sipped your own. What number was he on? Four? Five? More?

“So are you,” He dryly pointed out. But then he followed your line of sight across the dance floor to where she was pressing even closer to Satoru, her fingers still wrapped around his drink. He was leaning down, letting her whisper something in his ear. Even when he rolled his eyes at whatever she said, you hated how it made your heart ache, skin itch at the discomfort.

You weren't his though. Friends, lovers, whatever it had become for you, you were starting to think it wasn’t the same for him after all.

“Don't say it,” You warned before he had the chance to open his mouth, not ready for an I told you so when you still had Satoru's cum dripping down your thigh.

“He's an asshole,” Nanami bluntly said.

“Yeah, you both are,” You scoffed.

“What did I do?” He looked down at you.

You gaped at him.

“What do you mean?” Nanami wasn't an idiot. He had to know exactly what you were referring to. “You were a fucking dick earlier.”

Cornering you outside of the restaurant and kissing you was just the fucking cherry on top.

“How did you think I was going to react?” He scoffed. “You say all this stuff about us and wanting me to ‘want’ you, while you were fucking someone you know I hate.”

“I'm sorry, okay? Fuck,” You muttered, baffled at how you somehow always ended up the one apologizing. Bringing the glass up to your mouth to down the rest of it as fast as possible "I didn't fuck Gojo because of you."

Mostly.

“Do you think I want you to be sorry?”

You had no clue what he wanted. What he expected from you after all this time.

“I don't know,” You threw your hands up in the air, chewing on the inside of your cheek.

You just felt sick.

Maybe the drinks were finally catching up to you.

Pushing off the bartop, your thoughts muddled and wrecked as you hooked your purse over your elbow. You rummaged through your wallet to scrounge up enough cash to cover your drinks and a tip, sliding it across the bartender when he passed by. You still had Satoru's card tucked next to your own, grimacing at the realization. Maybe you could just give it to Yuji to return it to its proper owner so he could pass it along to the next girl.

“Where are you going?” He asked.

“I'm leaving,” You mumbled, nearly stumbling into someone passing by. “Sorry.”

You hadn't realized he was following you until you were already out of the entrance, the night breeze sending goosebumps down your arm.

“How are you getting home?” He called out, the door thudding shut behind him.

“I dunno,” You shrugged. “Was just gonna call Yuji.”

Worst case, Choso was probably sober enough to get you, even if you didn't particularly want to see him or face whatever uncomfortable conversation that would entail. Though, what was one more after the night you had?

“I'll wait out here with you,” He insisted.

It wasn't worth fighting with him.

Yuji hadn't texted you back. You still tried calling, holding it up to your ear, the dull drone of the phone ringing grinding on your quickly-fraying nerves. No answer. The generic voicemail message started playing, reciting instructions you'd heard a thousand times before to leave a message after the beep. Irritated, you hung up, immediately calling him again to the same result.

Well, it could be worse.

You scrolled through your contacts for Choso, loathing yourself while you did it, reluctantly hitting the call button. Were you really going to have to go back inside and ask Gojo if Suguru could just take you home? He didn't pick up either, his mailbox too full for you to even leave a message if you wanted to.

And there it was.

“Damn it,” You rubbed your eyes, your phone slipping out of your hand and hitting the concrete. You bent down to grab it, but Nanami was already picking it up for you, his hand brushing against yours when you took it back. The screen was cracked, the glass screen protector shattered, but it still turned on.

Was that one of those little things you were supposed to be grateful for?

You started to stand, but stumbled. He went to steady you, trying to slip an arm around your waist, but you pulled away and actually fell down this time. Knees scraping against the pavement, sharp pain shooting down your legs. The thin layer of skin had peeled off, bits of gravel and blood covering your shins.

Both of you probably looked like a fucking wreck. Bruises still blooming on Nanami's face, your makeup running and legs scraped to hell.

“Ow,” You bit your lip, pushing off the ground and wobbling back to your feet.

“Do you need a ride home?”

Everything ached.

Your brain, your body, your cu-

What the fuck had you and Satoru done last night?

You started to roll over, your eyes cracking open just to shut again, the light too bright for your blistering hangover. Maybe it was the empty spot next to you, the firmness of the warm mattress, the scent hanging to it. Or maybe the running water from the fish tank clued you in, but you were forcing your eyes back open, the first phantom fingers of panic starting to pry it's way in.

It wasn't Satoru's bed. Or yours.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,” You muttered under your breath, bile crawling up your throat as you grabbed the blankets in a rush to cover yourself up, not a scrap of clothing left on you. Lips cracked, all dry and swollen, every inhale making you cringe. A hangover in the form of a headache making your head pound.

A hickey was by your hip, a pretty shade of blue. But none the one you thought you'd be waking up to.

The worst part?

You weren't sure whose cum was leaking down your thigh.

Nanami wasn't there.

A glass of water was though. Some medicine left next to it.

Both you were quick to swallow, sucking the water down and hoping it'd help soothe your sore throat.

You searched your brain for answers, only getting flashes, small glimpses of what happened after leaving the club. Arguing in the backseat of a taxi. A mouth latched on your neck. Your fingers fumbling for a zipper that wasn't your own. The low rumble of a familiar laugh.

And now here you were, waking in your ex-boyfriend’s bed completely naked.

Would Nanami remember the rest?

He was just as wasted as you were, maybe more.

Probably had to drag himself out to get breakfast. You doubted he'd be able to fill in the blanks.

You groaned, rubbing your forehead as you slipped out of his sheets. The wooden floor was freezing underneath your feet as you got out of his bed, desperately scanning his room for your stuff. Another piece clicked in place while you searched for your purse. Keys. You didn't have your keys last night. That was why he brought you here. There was a note on the nightstand, a few lines written in his neat penmanship.

Gone out to grab breakfast. Be back soon. Stay in bed.

What was Nanami expecting?

You to be waiting for him like a good little girlfriend again? For some weekend sleepover where you pretended he hadn't gotten into a fist fight with your fuck buddy twelve hours ago?

All your shit was still at Gojo's place - and you still lived with the guy you'd broken up over.

Hate sex had to be a one-time deal.

Something else in your relationship that went unspoken and forgotten.

It would've been easier to sneak out if your dress wasn't torn and stained on the floor and you had to rummage through his drawers for any clothes you might've left there months ago.

All you found was a pair of your pajama pants, yanking down one of his t-shirts and throwing it on before snagging your purse from underneath his bed.

Searching through it for your phone just for the fake engagement ring to glint in the morning sun, stuck in there haphazardly. At least you took it off before you had sex with someone else, you guessed.

You still frowned at it though, sticking it in a separate pocket of your bag for safe keeping while you pulled out your cracked phone.

There was barely enough battery left to make a call - but you could probably get a ride now. Taxi or Uber or even seeing if Yuji would come get you and take you back home now, hoping he hadn't drank as much as you did last night.

You hadn't even managed to unlock it, only a few steps in the living room when you hear the key in the lock.

Freezing just as the door swung open and Nanami caught you trying to flee from your one-night-stand, bags of takeout slung over his elbow. His nose wasn't broken, but still a little swollen, a dark bruise across his jaw.

And there, right below it, a lipstick stain in your very own shade. Hickies and lovebites littering his throat that made it look like whoever left him hated him as much as they wanted him.

He clicked his tongue, sighing softly as he casually walked over to drop everything off on the counter.

"You should at least eat before you leave me."

#nanami x reader

392 notes · View notes

reidsworld · 2 months ago

Text

mamma mia | episode three: first light

prev / next / series masterlist / full masterlist wc: 1.2k content: fluff, drinking 18+ please <3

by the time morning comes, paris feels different. less like something happening to you, more like a dare.

kento is already at the café when you arrive, seated by the window with a folded newspaper. he looks up at the chime of the door, and you’re struck by how different he seems in daylight—brighter, less brooding.

“morning.”

“morning,” he echoes, standing to pull out your chair. his palm grazes the small of your back as you sit. it’s only a second, but the touch lingers like a thumbprint.

a waitress brings coffee and fresh croissants. you watch steam curl into the cool air between you. he tears his in half and sets the bigger piece on your plate without a word.

you try not to grin like an idiot. you fail spectacularly.

⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄

the museum is bigger than you expected.

at the counter, kento insists on covering your ticket. you don’t argue. once you step into the first exhibit, you’re surrounded with the quiet importance of old things, sunlight pooling across marble floors.

you walk slowly, side by side, both waiting to see what might unfold.

at some point, you pause in front of a massive canvas—swaths of pale blue and smeared white that you pretend to understand. kento steps up behind you, so close you feel the warmth of his chest against your shoulder blades.

“any theories?” he asks.

you tilt your head, pretending to study it with grave seriousness. “a very sad fish,” you say. “obviously.”

he lets out a soft laugh that carries through the narrow space between you. “a sad fish,” he repeats.

his hand drifts to your waist, heat sinking through fabric before it settles there.

for a second, you wonder if this is the kind of thing people regret—starting to like someone this much after less than a day. but you breathe past it and decide, just for now, to let it slip away.

he doesn’t pull you closer. he only holds you there, the two of you fixed in front of something you’ll remember by feeling rather than by name.

when you finally move on, his hand finds yours without either of you thinking about it. you keep walking as the afternoon starts to slip by.

the bookstore is tucked behind the last exhibit, a bright little pocket of paper and varnished shelves.

you drift toward a table stacked with paperbacks. your fingers close around a slim volume, the title printed in looping french cursive. you have no idea what it’s about, but you like the weight in your hands.

kento leans in to read over your shoulder. “it’s a novel,” he says. “about a woman who leaves home without warning. she travels around the world with no plan.”

you glance up, startled by how close he is. his eyes catch on your mouth, quick but unmistakable, before he clears his throat and looks back at the book.

“sounds familiar,” you manage.

he gives you a small smile. “maybe a little.”

before you can think to stop him, he gently takes the book and steps to the counter, saying something to the cashier. you start to protest, but he just shakes his head, already signing the receipt.

he flips the front cover open and writes something you can’t see. when he hands it to you, the corner of his mouth lifts shyly. “for later,” he says.

you don’t look at what he’s written until you’re back at the hostel for the night.

for when you want to remember this. his initials, the date.

⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄

you don’t see him until late the next day.

it drizzles lightly all afternoon, slicking the pavement and painting everything in soft grey. you spend hours wandering by yourself, ducking into side streets and tiny shops, more at ease than you’ve been in weeks.

when you finally step into the little bistro, shoulders damp, kento is waiting again. he looks younger somehow—his collar open, sleeves pushed up, hair mussed like he didn’t bother to slick it back.

he glances up when you enter, and you see it right away: the softness in his expression, the relief that it’s you. something in your chest loosens in response.

“rough day?” you ask, setting your bag down.

he studies you for a moment, his mouth tilting into a smile. “not anymore.”

you split a carafe of red wine over dinner. then another. neither of you bothers to keep track of how much you drink, because it doesn’t feel like it matters.

conversation drifts in and out of a comfortable hush. rain starts sometime after sunset, drumming steadily against the windows.

he watches you over the rim of his glass. you watch the rain outside. midway through, you’re warm all over, loose in a way that emboldens you.

kento seems softer at the edges now. a lock of hair falls over his forehead, and you barely resist the urge to smooth it back. his elbow rests on the table, chin resting on his hand as he watches you. when he laughs, it comes easier than it did yesterday.

you wonder, fleetingly, if you’re imagining all of this. if he’s just being polite. if it would be as easy as everything else to lean across the table and kiss him.

and you realize, distantly, that it must be late. the shadows have shifted; the rain is heavier. but neither of you moves to check the time.

when you finally step out, the rain is falling so hard that there’s no point in umbrellas. you’re both laughing, half-drunk, immediately soaked. he pulls you under the narrow awning of a shuttered shop and shakes water from his hair. you stand there, taking the moment to catch your breath.

when you look up, he’s already looking at you, eyes warm and intent in the half-light.

it happens without much thought.

you reach for him at the same moment he leans in. the first kiss is tentative, almost questioning. just the press of his mouth to yours and the scared shock of how simple it feels.

the second is slower. more certain. his hand lifts to cradle your jaw as the other finds your waist, thumb sliding over damp cotton. when you open your mouth to him, you taste rain and wine.

you pull back just enough to see him. you’re both breathing hard, hair dripping onto your clothes, your heart hammering like it has a point to prove.

“sorry,” you whisper, though you don’t mean it at all.

he huffs out a laugh, so close you can feel it against your skin.

“please don’t be,” he says. his voice is rougher than you’ve heard it. he searches your face like he’s trying to decide something.

“stay with me tonight.”

it’s soft. not a demand—never that. an offering. he swallows, and you realize he might be almost as nervous as you are.

something flutters painfully in your chest—fear, want, the understanding that this might matter more than you can afford.

“okay,” you murmur, your voice barely louder than the rain.

#jjk x reader #nanami x reader

110 notes · View notes

reidsworld · 2 months ago

Text

Empires and Emperors

Toto Wolff x Cadillac team principal!Reader

Summary: the old adage says “don’t mix business with pleasure,” but Formula 1 requires pushing boundaries … both on the track and off of it

Warnings: mentions of a career-ending crash

The Bahrain sun is merciless, already scorching the tarmac at ten in the morning. Camera crews buzz like flies, microphones aimed at anyone in team gear, but the paddock doesn’t truly snap to attention until the Cadillac garage doors roll up and you step out — aviators low, Americano in hand, ponytail like a loaded weapon.

You don’t flinch when the press crush starts.

You barely blink.

Toto watches from the Mercedes garage with the faint smirk of a man who’s seen every variety of hype crash and burn. But this … this is different.

“Christ,” mutters a race engineer, watching the growing commotion. “She’s not even driving.”

Toto hums. “That’s the point.”

You stride past Sky Sports, nod at a reporter who tries to corral you into an impromptu hit. You say, “Sorry, I’m not caffeinated enough to be charming yet,” without breaking pace. They laugh. You don’t.

Your white Cadillac team shirt is immaculately crisp, tucked into tailored black trousers that mean business. Your name is embroidered over your heart like a signature. There's something terrifying about how calm you look. You pass McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull. Eyes track you like hawks. You’re not even trying to cause a scene, you're just unapologetically here.

By the time you reach the team principals’ press conference, the seats are mostly filled. Toto’s already on stage, seated with Christian, Fred, and Andrea. You take the last chair, perfectly on time, and thank the moderator like you're doing him a favor.

“Welcome, Y/N,” the moderator says, clearly over-eager. “Exciting moment for Cadillac today. First day of testing. First American-led team since Haas. How does it feel?”

You lean into the mic, flick your gaze across the room — sizing it up.

“It feels like everyone wants to see if we crash or combust. I plan on disappointing them.”

A ripple of laughter. Christian chuckles like he’s amused, but Toto watches your fingers tap idly on the desk, left ring to index, again and again. A tic? A tell?

Fred leans forward. “A lot of buzz around your car. You think it’s ready?”

You arch a brow. “I think our car’s been ready since before you all started noticing it.”

Toto finally speaks. “Strong words for a car that hasn’t run a lap.”

You look at him. Really look. The moment hangs.

“I’ve seen plenty of cars run laps and still not show up when it counts.”

Christian makes a low, “Oof.”

Toto tilts his head, amused. “Hopefully your strategy is better than your temper.”

“My strategy,” you say sweetly, “is to keep everyone guessing. Starting with you.”

Laughter, again. Louder this time. Cameras flash.

Your phone buzzes in your lap. A text from your PR Officer.

Calm down. You’re going to give the FIA a stroke.

You ignore it.

The questions move on. Andrea is saying something about wind tunnel data. Christian’s lobbing vague insults at the cost cap. But you’re still aware of Toto. He doesn’t look at you anymore, but you can feel his attention like static.

The press conference ends. Everyone stands. There's the shuffle of paper, the awkward murmurs of media trying to corner principals before they vanish. You take your time. You’re about to walk off when-

“I take it you’re not planning to make many friends in here,” Toto says, low enough that only you hear.

You don’t smile. “I’ve got a team. That’s enough.”

He nods once. “Mm. Must be nice.”

You blink. The look in his eyes is fleeting, but something sharp lives behind it. You know it when you see it — resignation, maybe. Or regret.

“I don’t do politics,” you say. “Not anymore.”

“Then you’re in the wrong sport.”

You smirk. “I’m not here to fit in, Toto.”

He doesn’t flinch at the name. Most people don’t say it like that — like a challenge.

“Clearly,” he says, dry as sand. Then, with a glance at your lanyard, “You ever think about going back?”

The flashback hits like a punch.

A wall of flame. A split-second decision to pit. Your engineer shouting too late. The impact sharp enough to rattle your soul. The sound of carbon shattering. The way silence follows trauma like an old friend.

And after: the meetings where they called you difficult, aggressive, uncooperative. When you pushed back, you were “a liability.” Not marketable enough. Not compliant enough.

You left IndyCar with trophies and screws in your shoulder. You left knowing you’d never crawl back.

“Not even if it paid double,” you say.

He nods. “Fair.”

You pause. “You actually care?”

He shrugs. “I’ve been watching motorsport long enough to know when someone gets chewed up.”

You look at him differently, then. Not soft, not grateful. Just ... seeing him, maybe for the first time.

“You think I’ll get chewed up here?” You ask.

“No,” he says, turning. “I think you’ll bite back.”

You watch him walk off, all precise posture and tailored black. An engineer falls into step beside him, murmuring something. He answers without looking back.

“She’s going to be trouble,” Toto says. His voice is just loud enough for the words to carry.

The engineer frowns. “What, like — media trouble?”

Toto’s mouth curves. “No.” Then, quieter, with a smile that’s almost fond, “The interesting kind.”

***

The FIA meeting room smells like stale coffee, over-conditioned air, and the permanent tension of eleven egos shoved into one overlit box. There’s a bowl of untouched almonds in the center of the table. You wonder if they were here yesterday. Or last season.

You’re seated between Andrea and Christian, who are both smiling like diplomats but vibrating with the low-level condescension of men who are used to being the most interesting person in the room.

“Let’s talk about your diffuser,” Christian starts, as if the word diffuser is a veiled insult. “Interesting interpretation of the regulations.”

You don’t look at him. “Everything we’ve done is legal.”

“Legal’s not the same as sporting,” Andrea chimes in. “There’s a spirit to these things.”

“Oh, please.” You finally turn. “The spirit of the sport died the day you all decided performance was negotiable and politics were a KPI.”

That earns a few raised brows. You glance at Fred, who just shrugs like he’s too old to pretend any of this isn’t performative.

“The FIA cleared our design. If you have an issue with it, file a protest,” you add, sipping from the coffee you brought in yourself because the FIA’s is undrinkable. “Or better yet, copy it like you usually do.”

Christian lets out a short laugh, more amused than offended. “You’re not interested in playing nice, are you?”

“I’m interested in winning. I don’t know what you all are doing here.”

Andrea leans back. “You’re new. That’s fine. But you’ll learn — this isn’t just about the car. It’s about relationships.”

You glance around the room. “Funny. I thought it was about racing.”

Toto hasn’t said a word. He’s across from you, fingers interlaced, watching with the infuriating patience of someone who’s not here to win the argument, he’s here to win the war. You meet his gaze once. It’s unreadable. Then he looks away.

The meeting drones on. Brake ducts. Tire allocations. Something-something sustainability. Everyone has opinions, none of them productive. You say less as the hour drags. You’re learning the rhythm of this room — the pauses, the fake outrages, the knowing glances exchanged over your head.

At the end, as everyone rises and starts gathering notes they won’t read again, Toto approaches.

“Coffee?” He says, tone almost offhand. “Neutral ground.”

You raise a brow. “Why? You bored of watching me set fires in here?”

He doesn’t smile. “Just curious what you’re actually trying to burn down.”

You should say no. You don’t.

***

The paddock lounge is quiet when you arrive twenty minutes later. Cool-toned, clean lines, suspiciously good espresso. There’s an understated confidence in the way everything is exactly where it should be. Nothing flashy. Just efficient.

Toto’s already seated at a small table in the back, a steaming cup in front of him. No assistants. No PR. Just him, white shirt rolled at the forearms, reading something on his phone with that same unsettling stillness.

You slide into the seat across from him.

“Still neutral?” You ask.

He sets the phone down. “That depends on how you define neutral.”

“I define it as: no offers, no threats, no press leaks.”

He nods. “Then yes.”

A pause.

You take in the lounge. The screens showing pit lane footage, the muted international voices from a side room, the slow drip of espresso behind the bar. Controlled. Precise. Familiar, if you squint.

“You remind me of Penske,” you say, almost to yourself.

Toto lifts a brow. “In what way?”

“Quiet until it matters. Never without a plan. Likes to watch before you strike.”

He folds his hands. “You’ve studied me?”

You shrug. “I study everyone. Occupational hazard.”

“I’ve studied you, too.”

You lean back. “That sounds ominous.”

“I don’t mean it to be.” He pauses. “You were fast. In Indy. Efficient. Cut through the noise.”

You laugh once. “They said I was difficult. That I didn’t smile enough.”

“They say that about anyone who doesn’t need approval.”

You don’t say anything to that. Not yet.

The coffee arrives, and you both thank the lounge staff at the same time — reflexive, polite. You clock it. He does, too.

“So,” he says, resting one arm on the table. “What’s the endgame, really? Visibility? Disruption? A Netflix arc?”

You blink once, slowly. “You think I came here to be an influencer?”

“I think you came here knowing exactly how much attention your appointment would cause.”

“Of course I did,” you say. “But that’s not the end game. That’s just the noise.”

“Then what’s the signal?”

You study him. His eyes are sharp, sure. Not cruel, but relentless. There’s no wasted motion in the way he speaks, listens. You don’t hate it. You recognize it.

“The signal is innovation,” you say finally. “The car, the structure, the tech we’re developing — Cadillac didn’t join to sell more SUVs. We came because the sport needs a hard reset.”

He doesn’t flinch. “And you think you’re the one to do it.”

“No,” you say. “I know I’m the one who’s not afraid to try.”

Silence, but not heavy. Just considered.

Then he leans forward a little. “You don’t recognize tradition.”

You tilt your head. “And you don’t recognize innovation unless it’s wearing silver.”

He smiles, just barely. “That’s not true.”

“Oh? You didn’t try to bury the DAS system in regs the second someone else used it?”

“It wasn’t safe.”

“It wasn’t only yours anymore,” you say, sipping your coffee. “There’s a difference.”

He chuckles softly. “You’re not wrong.”

“Of course I’m not.”

Another pause. You watch people come and go behind the glass — engineers, interns, drivers. Nobody interrupts you. They all know better. This is what you came for. The real meetings never happen in FIA rooms. They happen like this — two people sitting across a table, pretending not to size each other up.

Toto finally speaks. “You could’ve joined any team. Taken an advisory role. Sat back. Why Cadillac? Why a full team principal position with a rookie team and a target the size of a billboard?”

You stir your coffee. “Because I’m tired of fixing other people’s broken systems. I want to build something from scratch. Something that doesn’t need politics to survive.”

“You think that’s possible here?”

You meet his gaze. “Not yet. But it will be. Eventually. Maybe not this season. Maybe not for a few. But it’s coming.”

“You’re going to get hit hard.”

You nod. “I’ve been hit harder.”

A flicker of something moves across his face — approval? Curiosity? You’re not sure.

“You were right about one thing,” you add. “I don’t care about fitting in. But I do care about impact.”

He nods slowly. “Then I suggest you learn how to play the long game.”

“Oh, I’m playing it. But not with the same pieces as you.”

He stands. Not abruptly. Not coldly. Just … finished.

You rise, too.

“Thanks for the coffee,” you say.

He inclines his head. “Thanks for not flipping the table.”

“Yet.”

That earns a real laugh, short and clean.

You pause at the door, glance back. “By the way — your wind tunnel data’s off by 0.2 percent. Rear aero.”

He raises a brow. “How do you know that?”

You wink. “I read.”

Then you’re gone.

***

Back in the Cadillac garage, your lead engineer looks up from the pit wall.

“How was your playdate?”

You throw your headset down gently. “Exactly what I expected.”

He grins. “And?”

You shake your head. “He’s testing me.”

“Did you pass?”

“No idea,” you say. “But I think he did.”

The sun is lower now, but still sharp. You can feel the paddock humming again, whispers curling around your name, your car, your meetings. You let them talk.

Toto watches from across the way as you rejoin your team.

“She’s good,” says Shov, standing beside him now.

Toto doesn’t answer immediately. He watches as you lean in to talk with a mechanic, one hand on the front wing, completely in control of the chaos you’ve created.

“She’s dangerous,” Toto says.

He doesn’t sound worried. Not even a little.

He sounds … intrigued.

***

The Melbourne circuit is a festival of chaos and sunscreen. Fans draped in American flags chant CA-DIL-LAC like they’re tailgating a college football game, not watching a brand-new F1 team fumble its way through its first real Sunday.

You knew this race would be hard. You planned for it, trained for it, told everyone — including yourself — that the only goal was to finish clean.

But watching both your drivers sink like stones after Lap 15 is a different kind of pain.

The car looks fast on Fridays. Hell, it is fast in qualifying. Top ten for both drivers. You’d been calm on the pit wall then, headset snug against your ears, fingers steady on the tablet. You even let yourself believe it might hold.

But now, with ten laps to go, you’re crouched low beside the wall, headset slung around your neck like dead weight, watching the times drop sector by sector. The Caddy’s chewing through tires like they’re made of tissue paper. The balance is off. There’s understeer in the mid-speed corners. One driver is already radioing in frustration, the other’s silent. You hate the silence more.

“Y/N?” Your lead strategist calls, voice tinny in your earpiece. “We could try offsetting the stint, pit now and pray for a safety car-”

“No,” you say.

“It could-”

“No.”

He goes quiet. Everyone always goes quiet when you use that voice. The one you used in IndyCar when you were flying at 220 mph and someone told you to back off. The one that means: I’ll take the blame, but I’m not gambling just to gamble.

You don't speak for the rest of the race.

The checkered flag drops. P13 and P15. No points. You don’t move.

Eventually, the garage begins to wind down, packing gear, muttering half-hearted debriefs. You remove your headset. Stand. Leave the garage without a word.

You walk until you’re behind the pit wall again, away from the paddock, from the PR handlers and tech directors and sponsor-friendly excuses. You crouch low, same as during the race, elbows on knees, eyes on the empty straight like it might still hold some kind of answer.

It doesn’t.

Footsteps crunch softly behind you. You don’t look up.

Toto doesn’t say anything at first. Just stands there, hands in his pockets, looking out at the track beside you like he owns the whole place. Maybe he does.

Finally, his voice cuts through the still air.

“You don’t trust your engineers.”

You exhale through your nose. Not laughter, not quite. “That’s the problem, huh?”

He nods once. “One of them.”

You stand, slowly. Turn toward him. Your face is unreadable, but your eyes … your eyes are flint.

“I don’t trust anyone yet.”

He doesn’t flinch. He just studies you. Like a problem worth solving.

You cross your arms, lean your shoulder against the pit wall. “You think I don’t want to trust them? You think I enjoy second-guessing every call from the box, every predictive model that tells me what I should do while I watch my drivers skid through corners like amateurs?”

“No,” Toto says. “I think you were trained not to.”

That silences you. Just for a moment.

Then, voice low, “I was trained to win. In a world that didn’t expect me to survive, let alone lead.”

Toto nods. “And now?”

“Now I’m trying to lead a team that still thinks leadership means shouting louder than the telemetry.”

“You hired them.”

“I hired who was willing to jump off a cliff with me. Some of them are good. Some are bluffing. And I don’t have time to wait and see which is which when every second on track costs us ten in the media.”

Toto studies your face. You hate that he can see through you. Even more than that, you hate that you don’t want to hide.

“You miss being in the car,” he says.

The admission sits heavy in your chest, like a truth you didn’t mean to bring to the surface. You don’t answer.

“You think if you were driving, you’d have made up the time.”

Now you look at him. “I know I would’ve.”

“You would’ve overdriven it,” he says. “Tried to outmuscle the problem. It’s not the same up here.”

“I know it’s not the same.” The words come out sharp, bitter. “You think I haven’t figured that out every day since I handed my race suit to a kid half my age and told him to go make headlines?”

Toto doesn’t push. He just waits. You hate that, too.

You pace a few steps, then stop. The paddock is quieter now. The race over, the noise receding. Just the hum of logistics and engines cooling down. You’re too wired to sit, too angry to leave.

“You know what it is?” You say finally. “It’s not just the car. Or the engineers. It’s that I still see everything. Every line, every brake point, every corner entry. And I see where it’s going wrong in real time, and I can’t do anything about it.”

“You can do something about it,” Toto says. “But not everything.”

You glance at him. “That sounds suspiciously like advice.”

He smirks. “Just an observation.”

“You like doing that. Observing.”

“People reveal themselves when they’re losing.”

“And what have I revealed?”

He’s quiet for a beat too long.

“That you care more than you let on.”

You scoff. “That’s not a revelation.”

Toto shrugs. “Maybe not to you.”

A long silence stretches between you. Then you ask, almost idly, “Do you remember your first real loss as a team principal?”

He nods. “Nürburgring. 2013. We lost a front wing in Turn 2. Strategy failed. P9 and DNF.”

“And what did you do after?”

“I rebuilt the strategy department from the ground up. And hired someone who knew how to say no to me.”

You nod slowly. “Smart.”

“Painful,” he corrects. “But necessary.”

You glance down at your hands. They’re steady. They weren’t earlier, mid-race. You’d clenched the tablet so hard you left marks on the casing.

“Everyone told me to hire safe,” you say. “Experienced. People who’d been in the paddock for a decade.”

“Why didn’t you?”

You meet his eyes. “Because those people helped build the system I want to break.”

Toto’s expression shifts — something between surprise and admiration.

“And yet,” he says, “you still chose to play in the system.”

“I’m not here to burn it down. I’m here to prove it can be better.”

“And if it can’t?”

You hesitate.

“Then at least I’ll go out knowing I tried.”

There’s something raw in your voice now. Not broken. Just exposed. Toto sees it. That unrelenting belief in what this could be if you just had enough time, enough patience, enough people who gave a damn. But beneath it is the fear you don’t say aloud.

The fear that they won’t follow you.

Or worse, that they will and it still won’t be enough.

“You’re not going to get many more races like this,” Toto says, voice low. “Where no one expects anything. Where you can fail quietly.”

You nod. “I know.”

“So use them.”

You glance at him, a flicker of something like gratitude in your eyes, but it’s gone in an instant.

“Thanks for the unsolicited coaching.”

He smirks. “You’re welcome.”

You both linger in the quiet a moment longer.

Then he turns to go, footsteps slow and deliberate. Just before he disappears back toward the Mercedes motorhome, he calls over his shoulder —

“Get some sleep. You’ll need it before Jeddah.”

You don’t answer. Just stare out at the track a moment longer.

The silence feels like failure. But beneath it, if you listen closely, there’s something else.

Resolve.

Because the difference between a broken team and a building one is just time.

And you’re not done yet.

***

The invitation arrives sealed in creamy card stock, embossed with the gold FIA crest as if that somehow softens the blow. You stare at it for a full minute before tossing it onto your desk like it’s radioactive.

“Absolutely not,” you tell your assistant without looking up.

“They said attendance is strongly encouraged.”

“So is hydration. Doesn’t mean I go to Dasani’s Christmas party.”

But hours later, after three different calls, two sponsor nudges, and one not-so-subtle email from an FIA board member about “team visibility,” you find yourself pulling on a sleek navy dress and walking into a dimly lit ballroom in London filled with too much money and too little sincerity.

The lighting is designed to make executives look interesting. It fails.

Waiters drift by with expensive wine and tiny hors d’oeuvres no one knows how to eat. Conversations bloom and die in corners. You scan the room. Everyone is here. Christian, already holding court like he’s emceeing his own eulogy. Andrea, pretending not to look bored. Zak, laughing too loudly.

You steel yourself. You can do this. Smile. Shake hands. Laugh politely at someone’s joke about American engineering.

Then you see the place card at your assigned seat and feel your stomach drop.

Y/N Y/L/N … right next to Toto Wolff.

“Of course,” you mutter under your breath, sliding into the chair just as he arrives, tall and too composed, dressed in black like he’s attending a private funeral for the concept of relaxation.

He sits with the grace of someone who’s done this too many times. “Evening.”

You nod. “They ran out of neutral corners?”

“I requested the seat.”

You blink. “Did you.”

“I was curious if you’d still try to escape halfway through the salad course.”

“That depends. Is the salad course edible?”

The corners of his mouth twitch, and just like that, the chill between you begins to thaw.

The dinner begins with toasts from people you don’t care about, celebrating values they don’t uphold. “Innovation.” “Excellence.” “Legacy.” You sip wine through the speeches and feel your spine calcify.

Toto leans in, voice low. “Do you think they rehearse those?”

“Oh, for sure,” you whisper. “Some poor intern had to time that speech to match the fireworks on the highlight reel.”

He chuckles softly, and you hate that it warms something in you.

By the second course, the wine is flowing freely and the table’s conversations splinter off. You swirl your glass, lean back, and eye him.

“So what made you request the seat, really? Curiosity? Strategy? Morbid fascination?”

He shrugs. “You interest me.”

“That’s vague.”

“So are you.”

You look away. “Careful. You’re starting to sound like you think we’re similar.”

“We are.”

You snort. “You think you’re like me?”

“I think we both don’t sleep,” he says, without missing a beat. “I think we both control more than we show. And I think we’ve both lost something that changed the shape of everything after.”

You go still.

He doesn’t push. Just sips his wine and looks out over the room.

You let the silence linger before asking, carefully, “What did you lose?”

He doesn’t answer right away.

Then, finally, “Control. In 2021. The final race.” A pause. “I thought we were prepared for every scenario. We weren’t.”

Your voice is quieter now. “How long did it take to come back from that?”

He thinks. “I’m not sure we have.”

You nod, slowly. “I remember watching it. I was halfway through rehab. Crutches, ice machine, full of pain meds. Screamed at the TV like it was a horror movie.”

His brow lifts. “Rehab?”

You glance down. This part you don’t talk about often.

“There was a crash. IndyCar. Mid-season. Rear suspension failure at speed. Hit the wall at 220. Didn’t wake up for three minutes.”

He says nothing. Doesn’t pity. Doesn’t interrupt.

You keep going.

“Broke my femur. Collapsed lung. Grade three concussion. They told me I’d walk with a limp. I told them I had a sponsor dinner in three weeks.” You smile faintly. “The sponsor was Cadillac.”

He’s watching you now with a different kind of intensity. Not evaluative. Something softer. Earnest.

“They brought me on after,” you say. “Not just as a driver, but as part of the R&D think tank. I couldn’t race, so I built. Helped design simulator feedback loops, performance modeling.” You pause. “Three months later, they offered me a job that didn’t involve a steering wheel.”

Toto is quiet for a long moment.

“And you said yes.”

“I said I’d think about it. Then my former team tried to pin the crash on me to cover the parts failure.” You laugh once, dry. “Suddenly, I didn’t feel so sentimental about staying a driver.”

He studies you. “So this wasn’t your dream.”

“No,” you say. “This was my decision.”

That lands between you like a stone in water. Heavy, slow, true.

You glance around. The dinner’s winding down. Someone’s giving a speech that no one is listening to. Laughter bubbles at another table. Glasses clink.

Toto leans in again. “Do you miss it?”

You nod. “Every day.”

“And would you go back?”

You take a breath. “If I thought it would change anything? No. I gave everything I had to a system that didn’t protect me. Now I want to build something that does.”

His gaze softens. “And you don’t trust anyone to help.”

You meet his eyes. “Would you?”

“No.”

You laugh. This time it’s real.

Something shifts in the space between you. The air feels quieter. The noise of the room fades. It’s not romantic — not yet — but it’s intimate. Honest.

You realize you’re still looking at him. And he’s still looking at you.

That’s your cue.

You stand, smooth your dress.

“Leaving already?” He asks.

“I hate long goodbyes.”

You don’t say goodbye.

You leave through the side entrance, past the press, into the cold London night. Your car’s parked by the curb, driver waiting.

You open the door, slide in, close it-

A knock on the window.

You blink. Lower it.

Toto.

“I’m walking,” he says. “But I figured I’d see you off.”

You look at him, uncertain.

“I meant what I said,” he adds.

“About what?”

“You don’t trust anyone-”

You open your mouth to argue.

“But I’d like to change that,” he finishes.

You stare at the hum for a second too long.

He doesn’t smile. Just waits.

And for once, you don’t know what to say.

The driver asks, “Shall we go, ma’am?”

You nod.

But you look back at Toto once more before the car pulls away.

And he’s still there. Still watching.

Like maybe, just maybe, you’re worth believing in.

***

The news breaks on a Tuesday. Always a Tuesday.

You’re mid-strategy call, marker pen in hand, sketching out a race-weekend plan across three whiteboards when someone clears their throat behind you.

“Y/N,” your assistant says, hesitant. “You might want to see this.”

You glance back, ready to wave it off. You hate interruptions. But then you see her expression — careful, cautious, like she’s delivering news about a death in the family.

“What is it?”

She hands you a tablet. You don’t recognize the site at first. Not motorsport. Not serious. But the headline is loud enough to punch through:

PADDOCK POWER COUPLE? F1 INSIDERS WHISPER ABOUT CADILLAC’S Y/L/N AND MERCEDES BOSS WOLFF

You scroll. The article is trash — pure speculation, stitched together with blurry photos from the FIA dinner in London and a conveniently timed sighting of you both walking near the paddock in Jeddah. But the tone drips with implication. Power imbalance. Bedroom politics. A sidebar wonders aloud if your rapid climb in F1 might have “benefitted” from “strategic alliances.”

You feel your stomach clench.

“Who leaked this?” You demand, voice cold.

“We’re still checking. But it’s … making rounds.”

The article’s already been picked up by a dozen smaller outlets. Social media’s chewing on it like raw meat. You know how fast this kind of thing spreads. Especially when you’re the only woman in the paddock running a team. Especially when the man in question happens to run Mercedes.

You head straight for the Mercedes hospitality.

Toto’s in a meeting when you arrive. You don’t wait. You walk straight in.

The room goes silent.

“Toto,” you say, curt. “Now.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Everyone out,” he says calmly.

The engineers file out quickly, eyes flicking between the two of you like they’re fleeing an earthquake.

Once the door shuts, you round on him.

“You leaked it.”

He doesn’t flinch. “Excuse me?”

“You think I wouldn’t notice the timing? The angle? It frames you like some kind of generous kingmaker and me like a fame-hungry idiot with good hair.”

“I don’t write gossip columns.”

“No, but you have people. And you like to control the story.”

He stands, slow and deliberate. He’s taller than you, but you don’t back down. Not even a millimeter.

“I don’t use people like that,” he says, voice low, tight. “Not even you.”

You blink. The sharpness of it cuts through your anger. But you don’t let it go yet.

“I’ve been here three races and already someone’s trying to rewrite my career into a tabloid plotline.”

“Yes,” he says. “Welcome to F1.”

That sets you off again. “Don’t patronize me.”

“I’m not. I’m telling you that if I wanted to manipulate you, you wouldn’t know until you were already dancing to my music. And you’re not.”

You narrow your eyes. “Flattering. So you admit there’s a game being played.”

“There’s always a game being played.”

“And what’s yours?”

He meets your gaze, unwavering. “I don’t like what they’re saying about you. Not because of me. Because you’ve earned better.”

That stops you.

You step back, slightly. Your heartbeat’s too fast, your jaw tight. You hate how much the article got to you. How much it still matters what people think, even after everything you’ve survived.

He doesn’t press.

You leave without another word.

***

It’s nearly 9 p.m. when the truth comes out.

Your head of comms calls, voice tight.

“We traced the leak. It was your junior driver’s agent. The oldest one. He tipped off a reporter. Was trying to get him a reserve driver slot with Mercedes. Thought the buzz would make him more marketable.”

You stare at the floor of your office, fury blooming again — but now it’s cleaner, more directed. And shame colors the edges. You’d aimed at the wrong target.

“Did Mercedes bite?”

“No,” she says. “Toto shut it down personally.”

You hang up. Let the phone sit heavy in your lap.

Then you stand.

***

The paddock is quiet at night. Crews have mostly gone home. The media’s packed up. The motorhomes hum softly under security lights, like sleeping giants.

You find him in the Mercedes motorhome. Lights dim, one lamp glowing in the corner. He’s alone, reading something on his phone. A glass of wine at his elbow.

He looks up as you enter. Says nothing.

You cross the room and stop beside his table.

“You were right,” you say softly.

He tilts his head. “About which thing?”

You hesitate. “Not using people.”

He gestures to the empty seat. You sit.

“I’m sorry,” you say after a long pause. “I was angry. And humiliated. And I thought-”

“You thought I was like everyone else.”

You nod. “Yeah.”

He takes a slow sip of wine, then sets the glass down.

“You said it yourself,” he murmurs. “You don’t trust anyone yet.”

You glance at him. There’s no judgment in his voice. Just fact. Like he’s holding it up, not to shame you, but to understand you better.

“Why did you shut it down?” You ask.

“Because I wouldn’t want someone like that on my team. And because … I care what they say about you. Even if you don’t care what they say about me.”

“I didn’t ask for that.”

“I didn’t say it was your fault.”

A long silence stretches between you. The kind that used to feel awkward, but now feels full — weighted, not empty.

You reach for the bottle between you and pour a second glass. He slides it toward you, fingertips brushing lightly against yours.

You don’t pull away.

Another beat passes.

You take a sip. Then ask, quietly, “Do you miss when it was simple?”

He chuckles. “It was never simple.”

“When you were still just … managing people and not empires.”

Toto leans back in his chair. “The first time I sat on the pit wall, I thought, this is it. This is the dream. Then I realized the dream was mostly budgeting spreadsheets and answering questions about tire strategy on live TV.”

You smile faintly. “Still. You’ve built something.”

“So have you.”

“Not yet.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

You look down, quiet again. The warmth of the wine lingers in your chest. So does his voice.

After a long stretch, you whisper, “Sometimes I feel like if I stop moving for one second, it’ll all fall apart.”

His voice softens. “And what if it doesn’t?”

You shake your head. “I can’t afford that kind of hope.”

A silence falls, but it’s not empty.

It’s full of everything unsaid.

You glance at his hand — resting on the table, fingers splayed. His other cradles the wine glass, but he isn’t drinking anymore. Just watching you.

He reaches out — lightly, deliberately — and his fingers brush yours. Just a whisper of contact.

You don’t pull away.

Not tonight.

There’s no kiss. No dramatic gesture. Just quiet. Contact. A kind of peace neither of you are used to.

He doesn’t say anything more.

And for once, neither do you.

***

The skies over Imola threaten rain all weekend, but never follow through. It’s worse than an actual storm — this looming, suspended tension that makes everyone twitchy, including you. Your engineers bicker over tire strategies, your drivers don’t trust the brake upgrades, and the data simulator is doing its best impression of a brick wall.

By the time Sunday arrives, you’ve slept four hours total in three nights and consumed more espresso than should legally be allowed.

But something clicks.

Maybe it’s the revised pit strategy. Maybe it’s the aggressive tire call on Lap 32. Maybe it’s just sheer, stubborn Cadillac will. Whatever it is, the car flies.

You don’t dare breathe during the final ten laps.

P3 is right there. Right in front of you.

When your lead driver crosses the line in fourth — just half a second off the podium — you swear the collective scream from your garage could level the surrounding trees.

It isn’t a trophy. But it’s proof.

Cadillac belongs.

You belong.

The moment feels … huge. Humbling. Everyone’s hugging. Someone pops a bottle of something probably not FIA-legal. Your driver tackles you in a sweaty embrace and you laugh for the first time in what feels like a month.

You stay late, long after the broadcast ends, surrounded by the people who have been pulling miracles from underfunded wings and sleepless nights. Mechanics. Data analysts. Your aero guy who hasn’t taken a full weekend off since Bahrain.

You’re still in the garage when the paddock starts emptying out. Your hair’s in a messy bun, race suit tied around your waist, black Cadillac t-shirt soaked with beer and effort.

You don’t notice Toto standing across the way, outside the Mercedes garage, arms folded, watching you.

He doesn’t interrupt. Just smiles to himself. Quiet. Almost proud.

You’re not his, he thinks. You belong to yourself.

And that’s so much better.

***

You stare at the hotel ceiling for thirty minutes before giving in.

You don’t want to be alone. Not tonight. Not with this weird ache in your chest that’s part adrenaline, part exhaustion, part something you can’t name.

You don’t even think about it. You just throw on a hoodie over your sleep shirt and walk down the hotel corridor barefoot, still slightly buzzed on the ghost of the race.

His door is ajar.

He opens it before you knock.

You blink. “Were you expecting someone?”

He leans on the doorframe, not smiling. Not serious. “Not exactly.”

You exhale. “Can I come in?”

He steps back. “Always.”

His suite is quiet. Low lighting. A decanter on the table, half-full. A few race notes open on a tablet, abandoned. He closes it as you walk in.

“Sorry. I should’ve — this was probably stupid.”

“You want to be alone but not alone,” he says, like he’s read this chapter before.

You nod. “Is that allowed?”

He tilts his head. “With me? Yes.”

You sit on the edge of the couch. He offers you a drink. You decline. He pours you water instead.

Silence stretches.

“So,” he says eventually. “P4.”

You shake your head in disbelief. “I didn’t think we’d make it out of Q2 this weekend. Then the car just … worked.”

“It was aggressive,” he says. “Risky strategy.”

“I had to trust the numbers. And my gut.”

“Did it feel like being back in the car?”

You glance at him. “Exactly like that. Except worse. Because now I’m responsible for six hundred people and not just me.”

“Do you regret it?” He asks. “This life?”

You think about it.

“No,” you say. “But it’s lonelier than I thought it’d be.”

He doesn’t answer. Just sits next to you on the couch, not close enough to touch, but not far either.

You lean your head back.

“I used to think even the little wins would feel more final. Like they’d fix something. Or earn back everything I lost.”

“And now?”

“Now I think they’re just proof you survived long enough to try again.”

He nods. “That’s all this sport is. Trying again.”

You’re quiet.

And then, because it’s late and you’re exhausted and this version of the world feels gentler than the one outside, you ask, “What were you like before all this?”

He smiles faintly. “Angrier. Less patient. I thought I could control everything.”

“Bet that worked out well.”

“I crashed a GT3 car into a wall at Red Bull Ring once because I didn’t want to lose to a guy half my age. Broke three ribs. Didn’t tell anyone.”

You laugh. “Seriously?”

He nods. “Pain is a better teacher than pride.”

You watch him for a moment.

“There’s something I haven’t told anyone,” you say. “Not even my team.”

He looks at you, waiting.

“I still hear the crash sometimes. In my dreams. It’s never loud. Just … this sharp silence before everything shatters. I wake up before the impact.”

He doesn’t say anything. Just sits still.

“It’s not that I want to drive again,” you continue. “I just want to stop remembering.”

Toto’s voice is quiet. “That doesn’t go away. But it stops owning you.”

You look down at your hands.

“You know,” you say softly, “for someone so famously calculating, you’re weirdly good at this.”

“At what?”

“This. Being … human.”

He shrugs. “Takes practice.”

You don’t realize how close he’s sitting until your shoulders brush.

But he doesn’t make a move. Doesn’t touch you. Just sits with you.

You fall asleep like that. On the couch, legs tucked under you, head tilted back, listening to the sound of his quiet breathing beside you.

***

When you wake, it’s still dark.

You’re not on the couch anymore.

You’re in his bed. Still fully clothed. The covers pulled gently around you.

Toto’s on the couch now, asleep, arms folded, as if he’s been guarding something.

The ache in your chest is different this morning. Deeper.

You slide out of bed quietly. Pad over to him.

He stirs.

“You should’ve let me stay on the couch,” you whisper.

“I didn’t think you’d sleep like that.”

You hesitate.

“Thank you,” you say.

He nods. Doesn’t reach for you. Doesn’t ask for anything.

And that’s somehow what unravels you most.

Because for the first time in a long time, someone wanted nothing from you except to let you rest.

And you have no idea what to do with that kind of kindness.

So you just stand there, caught in the early morning light and everything unsaid between you.

Not lovers. Not yet.

But something real.

And quietly — terrifyingly — you realize you don’t want to lose it.

***

Toto pulls away the next weekend.

No message. No follow-up. Nothing.

He nods at you in the paddock like you’re just another team principal. His smile is neutral, professional, precise. Mercedes posts their usual press photos — clean, sterile, branded to hell. Your name doesn’t pass his lips.

And you know what this is.

He’s building a wall.

You see it in the stiff set of his shoulders at the team principals' meeting in Spain. The clipped tone he uses when you pass him in the paddock in Montreal. You say “morning.” He says “yep.”

You want to punch something. Preferably him.

But instead, you bury yourself in upgrades. Your tech director calls it obsessive. Your engineers call it inspiring. You call it survival.

The new front wing design works in the wind tunnel. You burn through simulations like caffeine, throw out half the aero plan and rebuild it from scratch. Every sleepless night, every ignored text, every time you walk past Toto and feel nothing from him fuels you like gasoline.

You tell your team: Silverstone is ours. They believe you.

It starts raining during FP2.

You grin at the sky like it’s personal.

***

You don’t speak to Toto all weekend.

Not during track walks. Not during press conferences. Not even when your drivers both qualify in the top six and the entire paddock starts whispering that Cadillac might actually do it.

And then race day comes.

And you finally snap.

He’s in the pit lane before the race, talking to someone from Pirelli. You see him out of the corner of your eye as you’re checking tire pressures with your race engineer.

You don’t even think about it.

You march across the line.

“Hey.”

He turns. Sees you. Hesitates. “Y/N.”

You’re already furious. His voice — his face — ignites something in your chest that feels suspiciously like heartbreak but tastes like gasoline.

“I get it,” you say. “You pulled back. You’re scared. Fine. But at least have the spine to say it to my face.”

He glances around. The pit lane’s crowded, noisy, full of mechanics and techs and photographers. It doesn’t matter. You’re locked in.

“I’m not scared,” he says.

You step closer. “Then what is it? You changed overnight. One minute I wake up in your hotel room, and the next you’re acting like I’m a PR liability.”

“You’re not.”

“Then stop treating me like one.”

“I’m treating you like someone who terrifies me.”

That halts you.

You blink. “What?”

Toto runs a hand through his hair, exhaling. “You terrify me. Because you make me forget how much this job costs. How many knives are out. How easy it is to lose everything.”

“And?”

“And I like it. I like you. Too much.”

You stare at him.

“Then say it,” you demand.

“I just did.”

“No. Say the part where you let yourself want something. Say the part where you’re not a control freak running scared because someone finally sees you.”

“You don’t get it,” he says, voice low. “I can’t afford the distraction.”

“You think I can?” You snap. “You think I can afford to feel anything and still wake up every morning knowing the sport I bled for will never respect me the way it respects you?”

Toto’s jaw tightens.

“I see you,” you say, softer now. “Even when you hide. I still see you.”

He doesn’t answer.

Then the call comes over the loudspeaker. “Formation lap in thirty.”

You walk away first. No dramatic exit. Just one last glance.

His eyes are still on you.

***

The rain starts on Lap 23.

It’s light at first — enough to make the track glisten, not enough for inters. Half the grid hesitates. The other half spins.

Your radio explodes with chatter.

“Front’s going — too slick — should we box?”

Your lead driver’s voice is ragged with tension.

Your race engineer is mid-debate when you pull the headset off him and grab the mic yourself.

“Box now,” you say. “Full inters. Don’t argue.”

The pit crew isn’t ready. You scream at them through the rain.

“Get the tires! Now! Get the goddamn tires!”

It’s chaos. But somehow, your driver’s in and out faster than the Red Bull next to him. Two laps later, half the grid is pitting. The other half is aquaplaning off the track.

You take a deep breath.

“Tell him to defend like hell. We are not giving this away.”

***

Cadillac wins its first Grand Prix on Lap 52 of a rain-soaked Silverstone.

Your driver screams across the radio. Your garage erupts. Mechanics cry. Engineers kiss. Your comms chief sprints into your arms like a lunatic and you let her because right now you’ve done it.

You did it.

You lift the headset off, rain slicking down your arms.

The trophy is heavy and ridiculous. Champagne stings your eyes. The Star-Spangled Banner plays, and for a moment, the sound of thousands of people screaming drowns out everything else.

You scan the crowd from the podium.

Toto isn’t there.

You search for him anyway.

He’s already gone.

***

Back at the garage, they replay the race on the screens while your team takes selfies with the trophy. Someone made an edit out of your pit wall scream. You’re soaked and exhausted and still vibrating with adrenaline, but all you can think is he wasn’t even there.

Your assistant hands you a towel. “You good?”

“Yeah,” you lie.

“You sure?”

You look up at the sky. Rain’s easing now. The world smells like wet tarmac and victory.

“I’m not sure of anything,” you say. “But we won.”

She smiles. “That’s something.”

You nod.

But it’s not everything.

Not tonight.

***

It’s Friday. Spa. The garage smells like rubber and heat and stress, like it always does when qualifying’s creeping up and the sensors keep glitching. You’re elbow-deep in a conversation about tire deg curves when someone taps your shoulder.

You turn, expecting your race engineer or maybe a PR rep with bad news.

Instead, it’s Toto Wolff.

You blink.

He’s standing there in black Mercedes team kit, sunglasses hooked in his collar, eyes locked on yours like you’re the only person in the damn paddock.

You say, sharp as ever, “Lost, Wolff?”

“No.”

“You’re in enemy territory.”

“I’m aware.”

Your crew is watching from the corners of their eyes, pretending not to. Someone coughs awkwardly.

You nod toward the back. “Office.”

He follows you through the garage, past spare parts and laptops and the low hum of tension. Inside your office, you shut the door. The silence is sudden and thick.

You cross your arms. “What?”

Toto doesn’t sit. Doesn’t pace. Just stands in front of your desk like he’s about to confess to corporate espionage.

“I watched Silverstone,” he says.

You arch a brow. “Congratulations. You and seventy-five million others.”

“I watched you.”

Something in your stomach tenses.

He swallows. “I left because I was afraid. Of the distraction. Of what this could cost me. Of how easily you could undo me without even trying.”

You stay still.

He takes a step closer.

“But I’m tired of safety,” he says. “I’m tired of guarding everything I’ve built like it’s sacred when it’s already broken. You make me want to risk things I’ve spent over a decade protecting.”

You feel the breath leave your body.

“Toto,” you start.

“No,” he interrupts, voice low and serious and unmistakably yours. “Let me finish.”

You let him.

“I haven’t slept right since Imola. I think about you when I watch your pit wall react to strategy calls. I read your press conferences just to see if you mention me. I see you with your team, and I think this is what it’s supposed to look like. Not the polished machine I’ve kept running on habit and fear.”

You don’t move.

You can’t.

He steps even closer.

“And the worst part is, I don’t want to stop.”

You inhale, slow and sharp. “Then don’t.”

The kiss isn’t soft.

It’s not gentle or delicate or romantic in the storybook sense.

It’s need. Weeks of it. Months, maybe. Pinned under frustration and silence and professionalism.

His hands find your waist like they’ve been waiting to memorize it. Your fingers dig into his shirt like you’re afraid he’ll disappear again. His mouth is warm, urgent, a little desperate. Yours is no better.

You pull back once. Just enough to say, “Close the door properly.”

He does.

***

His suite smells like coffee and paper. His race notes are scattered across the desk. You don’t even get halfway to the bed before he’s kissing you again — slower this time, but no less hungry.

He doesn’t rush.

And neither do you.

Because if this is a bad decision, you’re going to make it the best bad decision either of you has ever had.

You undress him carefully. He does the same, unhurried, reverent. He touches your shoulder like it’s something holy. You run your hands down his spine like you want to remember how his body fits against yours.

The bed is large and too white, but he warms it like he’s made of fire.

The intimacy isn't in the sex itself — it’s in the way he kisses your throat afterward, in the way you curl into his chest without asking, in the way his hand finds yours under the covers like a reflex.

You fall asleep with your head on his shoulder.

He breathes evenly for the first time in months.

***

You wake to the smell of coffee.

His room is flooded with pale Belgian morning light. Your clothes are still scattered, but you don’t care. You find his white Mercedes button-up hanging over the back of a chair and shrug it on. The sleeves drown your hands. The collar smells like him — clean, expensive, slightly burned espresso.

You walk barefoot into the suite’s kitchen area.

He’s standing over a French press, eyebrows furrowed, as if he’s trying to solve an engineering problem with the water temperature.

He glances up. His expression softens the second he sees you.

“You’re stealing my shirt,” he says.

“It’s not stealing if you weren’t wearing it.”

He hands you a mug. “That’s not how shirts work.”

“It is now.”

You both sit at the table, quiet for a few beats. It’s domestic. Too domestic. You in his shirt, him sipping coffee in boxers and half-mussed hair.

You glance at him over the rim of your mug. “So. What now?”

He doesn’t pretend to misunderstand.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “But I’m not going to disappear again.”

You nod slowly.

“I’m still Cadillac,” you say.

“I know.”

“You’re still Mercedes.”

He nods. “Yes.”

“And this is … very stupid.”

“It’s the stupidest thing I’ve done in years.”

You grin. “Good. I hate being the only reckless one.”

He leans back, watching you. “I’m serious, Y/N. This won’t be simple.”

“I know.”

“There will be questions.”

“There always are.”

He watches you for a long moment. “You’re not scared?”

“I am,” you say honestly. “But I’ve been scared before. Didn’t stop me then either.”

He smiles.

You drink your coffee. The silence between you isn’t awkward anymore. It’s thick with possibility.

Eventually, you stand. “I should go. FP3 in a few.”

He stands too. “I’ll see you on track.”

You smirk. “Try not to stare too hard.”

“I’m not making any promises.”

You walk to the door. He follows.

Before you leave, he says, voice low, “I meant what I said. You make me want things I thought I buried.”

You kiss him one more time — just soft enough to make him curse under his breath.

“I’ll see you out there,” you say.

And then you walk back into the world, still wearing his shirt, heart beating faster than it ever did in a race car.

***

It starts with a headline.

Love in the Wolff Den: F1 Power Couple or Conflict of Interest?

Then come the blurry photos. Your hand on his chest. His fingers brushing your jaw. Grainy, flash-washed shots snapped from across a Stavelot hotel lobby that make everything look sleazier than it was.

It spreads like wildfire. Not just gossip sites, but major outlets — Sky, Motorsport, Bloomberg, for God’s sake. Everyone with a byline and an opinion suddenly thinks they understand what this is, what you are.

And then come the calls.

Not from your comms team. Not from PR.

From the board.

You’re standing in the middle of Cadillac’s race operations suite in Indiana when it comes in — your CFO, voice clipped, polite, fake. He phrases it delicately, like it’s your idea. Optics, you understand. Just a temporary step back, maybe for the rest of the season. Let things cool off. He uses the word “professionalism” three times in one sentence. You count.

“You’re asking me to sideline myself,” you say, tone dangerously calm. “Over a man.”

“It’s not that-”

“It is that.”

“There’s pressure. External. The headlines are framing it as a conflict. You’re both decision-makers. If this were a boardroom-”

“It’s not a boardroom. It’s a goddamn pit lane.”

He doesn’t argue. Which pisses you off more.

***

Toto’s phone doesn’t stop buzzing either.

He ignores it until it starts vibrating his desk.

Shaila barges in. “You need to respond.”

“I have,” he says, flipping through tire comp analysis. “I told them I wasn’t leaking strategy to my girlfriend over breakfast.”

She blinks. “You called her your girlfriend?”

He glances up. “That’s the word everyone else is using.”

“Okay,” she says carefully. “Well. The shareholders want a closed-door call. Today. They’re throwing around words like ‘governance’ and ‘interteam transparency.’”

He exhales through his nose. His jaw tightens.

“Tell them I’ll take the call after I finish reviewing the telemetry,” he says. “But if they suggest I pull back from managing the team over something that hasn’t affected a single race outcome, I’ll remind them that Ferrari and McLaren literally ran a married couple in engineering for five years.”

“Noted,” Shaila says, and walks out with the speed of someone who wants to live.

***

You don’t talk for three days.

Not because you’re angry at each other.

Because you’re both working.

Because the world is watching.

Because you’re trying — maybe futilely — to hold your ground.

You’re staring at a mockup of the new rear wing, not really seeing it, when Derek, your number two, comes into your office.

“You’re going to want to see this,” he says.

You look up. “Is it a fire?”

“Sort of.”

He turns the monitor toward you.

You squint.

It’s a live press conference. Mercedes-branded backdrop. Toto behind the mic.

Someone off-camera asks, “Toto, with recent rumors about your relationship with Cadillac’s team principal, how do you respond to those saying it presents a conflict of interest?”

He doesn’t even flinch.

“I think,” he says slowly, “that it’s interesting how quickly some people invoke ‘conflict of interest’ when a woman dares to take up space at the same table.”

Your breath catches.

“In this sport,” he continues, “we celebrate cutthroat negotiations. Aggressive contracts. Power plays. But the second a woman builds something formidable, people start calling it a threat.”

He’s calm. Surgical. But you can see the steel under his words.

“I have not compromised my team. She has not compromised hers. We are professionals. We are rivals. And if anyone believes the existence of mutual respect — or affection — between two team principals undermines the integrity of the championship, perhaps their issue isn’t with governance. It’s with equality.”

Someone tries to interrupt. He cuts them off with a single glance.

“And for the record,” he adds, “she’s done more in four months to shake this sport out of its stagnation than most of us have in ten years. I suggest we stop punishing her for succeeding.”

The clip ends.

Derek looks at you. “That was a choice.”

You stare at the screen for a long time.

Then you stand.

“Cancel my dinner with marketing,” you say. “And get me a driver to the hotel.”

***

It’s late. You don’t knock.

Toto opens the door like he’s been expecting you.

You step inside. Neither of you says anything for a beat.

He closes the door behind you. “I didn’t do it for a thank you.”

“Good,” you say. “Because you’re not getting one.”

A pause.

You look at him, all carefully unbuttoned collar and tired eyes, and say, quieter now, “But I saw it.”

“I meant it,” he says simply.

You sit down on the edge of the couch. Your hands are still curled into fists.

“You know I almost agreed to step back?” You admit. “Just for a second. I thought maybe it would make everything easier.”

“And then?”

You look up. “And then I realized I didn’t fight this hard to build something just to let them push me out the second I’m inconvenient.”

He watches you. “No. You didn’t.”

You swallow. “You didn’t have to speak up.”

“Yes,” he says, crossing to you, “I did.”

He kneels in front of you, hands resting on your knees.

“This sport chews people up,” he says. “It makes us choose between the parts of ourselves we care about most. But you … you make me remember why I cared in the first place.”

You study him. His face is open, unguarded in a way you don’t think he’s ever allowed himself to be on purpose.

You speak slowly. “We’re both trying to build empires.”

He nods. “Yes.”

“Let’s see if we can share one.”

His smile is small. Real. “God help Formula 1.”

You lean in.

This kiss is different.

It’s not born from tension or defiance. It’s something else. An alignment. A decision.

You don’t say you love him. Not yet.

But it’s there. In the way your hand rests on his cheek. In the way he kisses you like he’s found a home.

***

The next morning, a headline reads:

WOLFF AND Y/L/N: FORMULA 1’S NEW POWER COUPLE GOES PUBLIC

You sip your coffee and shrug.

Toto glances over. “You’re not going to throw your phone this time?”

You grin. “Depends. Did you leak it?”

He raises a brow. “Did you want me to leak it?”

You laugh.

And then the day begins.

Because empires don’t build themselves.

But maybe you don’t have to build them alone.

#toto wolff x reader

1K notes · View notes