birds of a feather [k.s]
pairing: Ken Sato x GN!Reader
wc: 1.4k
cw: bad hurt/comfort (?)
an: i got that skibidi found family type brainrot fs 😂 on gyatt.... anyways i promise i will get back to writing formula one but i need to simp for this man solidly. also i can't write hurt/comfort ive said this a million times but ugh man does it suck to write.
The house in Japan was a lot more peaceful than the one in the States. More secluded, quietly overlooking the city.
Every day you came home from work, the house dark and empty with Ken gone to his other job.
You didn’t bother him about it, keeping the delicate balance between his two jobs. You didn’t mind it either. It gave you time to yourself, time to adjust, but you weren’t sure you could’ve said the same about Ken.
Ever since his last run-in with the KDF, he’d been exhausted. His eyebags only grew instead of shrinking, and his watch went off almost every possible moment it could. You had asked him what was wrong, but he’d never been one to let you lick his wounds for him, watering it down to some kind of side effect of the stress on him.
Unlocking the doors, you hopped inside, pulling your shoes off as you looked around.
You could hear the tv running in the background, the clinking ice against metal. It wasn’t strange for him to be off duty after games, but you just assumed he wouldn’t be.
The beatdown was probably worse than usual, if you had to guess.
You wandered into the living room, and there he was, sitting in his ice bath. You couldn’t see much because of how dark the room was, but part of his face was lit by the replays on the screen.
You could almost make out his eyes narrowing at the screen, huffing as he sunk deeper into the water.
“Ken?” He turned to you, eyes pained as he pushed himself up.
“Hi baby.” He greeted softly, a hand tenderly moving to his side as he turned to you.
“Are you okay-“
“I’m fine.” You flinched at the strained quality of his voice.
“My bad. I was just trying to check on you.” You mumbled, holding up your hands as you stood stuck to your spot.
He saw, and his eyes softened, extending an inviting hand to you.
“I’m sorry. The seasons been kind of rough lately.” He murmured as he held your hand gently, squeezing it.
You hummed in response, eyes trailing down the expanse of his body. You could see some bruising, blooming in splotches of yellow, purple and red under his skin. It looked like it hurt.
“I’m taking it you got into a fight on field?”
“Not this time, no,” He scoffed, leaning against the warmth of your hand, “I collapsed, tried crawling my way to the last base, and failed. I was so close to getting those points.” The last part was tinged with embarrassment, his face pulled into a grimace as your hand ran across his arm.
“That's terrible, I'm sorry Ji.” He shrugged, eyes staring ahead at the screen, those embarrassing scenes reflecting back in his eyes. “It is what it is.”
“So you’re off duty tonight then?” He sighed, nodding reluctantly.
“For now, but who knows?” He said sullenly. You couldn’t stop your hopes from crashing entirely, hand slipping out of his unconsciously.
“Don’t look at me like that, you know how it is. I can’t control what happens, I…” He stopped, a look of regret creeping onto his face.
“I'll join you in a bit. Promise I'll try not to leave tonight?” He tried softly, looking at you with poorly disguised hope in his eyes.
It worked, and you released the breath you were holding.
“You’ll be okay?”
He didn’t respond, and you didn’t push him for one, quietly leaving the room.
True to his word, he appeared at the door an hour later, dragging himself across the threshold. He looked worse than he did earlier, wincing slightly as he sat down on the edge of the bed, hunched over into himself.
“That must have been one really good ice bath…” You trailed off, eyes narrowing at the various injuries on his arm.
“Those look awfully fresh Ji, did you at least get Mina to look at those?”
“No! No. Uh, no. I didn’t want her to.” He spluttered, crossing his arms. You couldn’t see his face, but you could almost imagine the expression he was making.
“Take off your shirt.” He blinked, a baffled look on his face as turned to you.
“No, why the-“
“Take off your shirt Ken, don’t make me say it again.”
He crossed his arms tighter as you got closer, hand outstretched. You paused, looking at him.
“Would you be okay with me looking?”
He nodded reluctantly, grumbling about not wanting to make a big deal out of it. He had turned away from you, breathing uneven as you got closer.
You pulled up his shirt, heart thumping at the sight. It was worse than what you’d seen earlier.
“Ji, what is this? How…?” He didn’t respond immediately, rubbing his face as he took a deep breath
“I didn’t think they were that bad,” He muttered, wincing as he pulled the shirt over his head, holding it in his hands tightly, “Not as bad as they were last week, babe.”
“How did you even get these?” You questioned, finger tracing up his spine, avoiding the poorly bandaged cuts and bruising.
“Do I have to tell you?” He said, flustering you with the defensiveness in his tone.
“No. No, you don’t have to.” You reaffirmed quietly, returning to your side of the bed to rummage through your night chest till you found what you needed. “But I would’ve liked it if you did.”
“It’s complicated.”
“I figured it would be. Hold still for me?”
You shook the bottle of neosporin, spraying down the wounds. He tensed up, a squeak escaping his lips.
“It hurts!”
“Would you rather Mina do it?”
He shook his head.
“That’s what I thought. Luckily these were already somewhat decently clean. That bruising looks like a muscle injury though.” You whistled, setting down the neosporin in favor of some bandaids.
He continued to let him work on your, mostly silent other than the occasional wincing. You could tell he was trying his hardest to play tough, unaware you could see through it all.
“I’m sorry you have to see me like this.” He muttered suddenly, fists clenching the bedsheets as you gently laid the bandages on his back. “It’s not fair to you.”
“Kenji, I know it's tough for you, but I'm here because I want to be. I care about you." You scooted to the edge of the bed, looping a hand into his loosening fist.
The dim lights highlighted the sharpness of his face, eyes cutting through the dimmed light as they looked out the window. He looked beautiful, as exhausted as he was.
“I want to tell you. I don’t know if there will ever be a right time for you, and you deserve better than me being on the move all day and night.”
“Nope.” You popped the p, clutching his hand tighter. “We promised to stick together, remember? Hell, I followed you all the way from the states because I was confident we could work together. So, I need you to speak to me. Make it work.”
A heartbeat passed. And then he spoke.
“The pressure, the expectations... I feel like I'm constantly running, trying to keep up." He confessed quietly, “There's a lot riding on what I’ve done.”
“Something tells me you’re not talking about baseball.”
“I’m not,” He laughed humorlessly, “I’m just worried I’m not doing enough. That I’m not enough.”
"Ken," you said softly, turning to him “I can’t pretend to understand what you do, but you’re making so many people proud. Your mother, your father, me.”
His eyes were glossed over, and he brought up an arm to cover them, sniffing slightly.
“I hope you know I’m here for you. Birds of a feather, we gotta stick together, you know? I’d follow you to hell and back Ken, and you know that.” You continued, bringing up his hand to press a kiss to it.
He nodded slowly, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips despite the tears. "Thank you," he murmured, voice barely above a whisper, "For everything."
“Of course,” you replied, leaning against him carefully.
“The next time you get injured, just let Mina or me know, understand?”
“Perfectly.”
1K notes
·
View notes