#this is before Everything btw. hence why neither of them are scarred up ^_^ | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sukirichi · 3 years

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earned it [05]

Gojo Satoru is a firm believer that if you work hard for it then you shall earn it. But on the other side, he’s not unfamiliar with his own sins. He also believes that there is punishment due for his sins as he’s earned it.

cw. domestic abuse, car accident, slight angst, sexism, suggestive scenes, unedited and my naoya simping is obvious with this one,

notes. TEAM NAOYA LET’S GOOOO *sighs* finally got this out from my drafts. anyways, here’s an earned it update while i recover from migraines because my schedule was so hectic last week and i’m so tired, might be sleeping a lot these days hence the hiatus :( also ik i keep saying this but future chapters will finally be more...UH SPICY AND MORE DRAMATIC, I guess? this is mostly an angst fic btw so please don’t expect too much fluff of heartwarming romance. there WILL be romance,,,it just takes some time hehe, anways ENJOY...or not :)

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Women were weak. Trained to be voiceless, compliant, and unable to fight – Naoya found them weak.

His own mother was the perfect epitome of that. For years, he’d watched her leave his father’s room with dried tears, wiping them away with the back of her sleeves. When she saw a little Naoya standing at the edge of the hallway, she’d immediately usher him back to his room, her tears replaced with a smile so convincing Naoya wouldn’t have believed she’d been crying if he hadn’t seen it for himself.

Naoya wasn’t stupid. How could he be when day and night, he’s surrounded by tutors, expected to take over his clan and lead them all to a brighter future?

How could he be stupid when he can’t sleep at night, for the screams and cries of his mother, the sound of palm hitting cheek resonating just from the other room, accompanied with the insults directed her way by his own father?

How could he be so stupid when he looked up to his mother – who he believed was the only source of light in the rather desolate walls of their manor – only to see that her beauty faded with each passing day, the brightness of her eyes now filled agony, with pain, with fear? She no longer smiled; not even for him. She no longer came around his room to read him bedtime stories no matter how much Naoya pleaded because he’d gotten tired of reciting scriptures and poetry. She no longer kissed him on the forehead as a morning greeting, opting to stay in the sidelines with her head bowed, acting as if she was a servant and not his mother.

Naoya wasn’t stupid. As the future leader of the Zen’in Clan, it was his duty to hear and see everything, to be wary of everyone around him and to observe. He knew his father abused her. He knew his father hated her, looked down on her, stepped on her at each moment he could. And as if that wasn’t enough, Naoya found out they weren’t married in the first place.

She had been nothing but a mere concubine whose role was to birth an heir. Now that Naoya had come to life, her purpose to live ceased to exist. And people who had no role in the Zen’in estate had no reason to stay any further.

“Mother,” Naoya cried out, tugging at his mother’s sleeve. “Mother, please don’t go, don’t leave me!”

She was crying again; he wished she’d stop doing that, that she’d stop being so weak. He wanted his mother to be strong and fight back, but she’s not even attempting to wipe her tears away this time, displaying her vulnerability and meek self to him. Had his father been there, she’d be scolded again, claiming that Naoya shouldn’t be exposed to behaviors of surrender and weakness.

His mother cupped his face, trying her best to keep the younger version of himself from dangling onto her robes; the expensive, silk material the last evidence she’d ever been a part of them.

“Naoya, baby, it’s okay. You need to grow up strong and be the clan leader, okay?”

“But why do you have to leave? Why do you never fight back?”

“I’m sorry, dear...” was all she said, finally kissing him on the forehead like she’d failed to do so for the past months. Somehow, it didn’t make him feel any better. Instead, Naoya’s cries grows louder with each minute, loud enough that he caught the attention of his manservants who paled at the Young Master’s wails that was sure to displease his father locked inside his study. His mother sent a glance their way that expressed messages he couldn’t yet understand due to his innocence. Strong arms wrapped around his smaller frame until they dragged Naoya away from his mother, the sight of a luggage behind her turning him weak in the knees.

“Remember, Mother always loves you.”

“No!” he fought against their hold. His servants did all they could to not harm the Young Master’s skin, but Naoya was too strong, too desperate that they were unable to hold him back.

Naoya kept running and running, uncaring of the fact his loose robes hindered him from going at full speed. He didn’t stop, even as his servants had trailed after him, desperate pleas for the Young Master to come back falling into deaf ears. His mother had arrived on a nearby bus from the open roads that led outside the Zen’in Estate’s outer gates, her hand frozen on the doors with her head slightly tilted to the side.

That slight moment of hesitance – to look behind or leave everything behind – was what made Naoya stop in his tracks. He breathed hard, sweaty palms on his knees as he silently prayed to the divine beings to bring his mother back, for her to look at him one last time.

But she didn’t.

And Naoya was frozen in his tracks, everything colliding into one crash and burn that he failed to make sense of everything. He stood there and watched his mother hop into the bus, her decision to leave him behind final and irrevocable. What had rung louder then? The way his heart shattered into pieces, or the loud honking of an incoming car that not even his skilled team of guards could protect him from?

Naoya figured it must’ve been the muffled cries of his mother behind the windows that rung the loudest even if he hadn’t heard it.

Until now, he carried the mark his mother left behind; a gnarly scar running inches from his kneecaps that throbs until now. It reminds him every day what could happen to someone once they’re weak, once they’re vulnerable, the horrifying consequence of not being strong enough to face in this world like a huge slap in his face. In a way, he felt grateful for the scar; at least it was proof he’d done his best to run after his mother, and this injury just taught him it was best to face things head on instead of running away.

This scar would always tell him that running away was never the option, and that was why Naoya felt so strong, so disappointed when he met you. Naoya saw much potential in you – the wrath firing in your eyes and the will to fight back is what pulled him in on the first place – and yet you were already trembling on the ground, your sweat dripping on the floor.

“Stand up!” he demanded, tapping his cane on the ground as he wobbled to his feet. “Do you really think being weak will make you survive in this world?”

“I’m trying!”

“You’re not trying hard enough,” he spat out, matching the intensity of your glare. Had you been any lesser of a woman, a servant, he’d have your eyes gouged out. But to him, you were a vessel of hope, an embodiment of strength he could help you hone that he let you off. Still, he felt extremely let down that he expected so much from you, and you’ve been pathetic so far.

Naoya shook his head as he left. “You’re going to die the moment you step out of here. And to think I actually had high hopes for you. As expected, you women are weak and pathetic. Each one of you is useless.”

He didn’t get very far when his injury throbbed again. Naoya fell to his knees and immediately bit down on his lip to conceal his groans, but it was too late. You’ve rushed to him in an instant, already pulling his slacks upwards to get a good look at his knee. Worry is painted all over your features still drenched in sweat and exhaustion, and he pried your hand away, a frown deep on his lips.

“Get away from me. I don’t need a woman’s help.”

“You’re so uptight, you know that?” you rebutted with a roll of your eyes. Naoya watched as you skipped to the nearest medical kit he always kept in his training grounds (which he rarely used) and popping out painkillers to hand to him. “Just shut up and let me take care of you. Unlike you, I don’t walk around calling people weak, and you having this injury never made you weak in my eyes, but you’re not impotent either,” scoffing at him, you pushed the bottle of water to a very annoyed looking Naoya. “At least let me take care of you every once in a while.”

His whole life, Naoya knew nothing but the familiar bitter cold. Being served tea, scaring his servants with his mere presence, the toxic view that everyone was below them drilled into his own head – that had been his life, and his feelings about it were neither hot nor cold.

To him, it was just the way he’s supposed to be.

But the warmth of your hands, the tenderness of your touch to his scars not because you found him weak but rather you cared for him…it tugged at his heartstrings. That had been at least five years ago and Naoya still remembered that moment very clearly.

He couldn’t understand whether he hated his inability to run away or not, because to be around you confused him to no end. One moment, he saw you as nothing but his one way ticket to fortune, but when he was alone with you, he was beginning to see you more as a woman rather than a pawn to his game. Soon, you became more than that, and nothing had terrified him even more that he let someone in his heart just like that.

Did he love you? No, most definitely not. A man like him didn’t know how to love. But with you – every time he saw you – Naoya is confident to admit that he could somehow understand what love meant.

It had been a hellish trip – one he’d never admit it out loud that he wished to never go on again. He was just happy to be home before he laughed, because home? He’d never thought he’d ever say that, yet there he was, beaming at the sight of you pushing your weight off the limousine.

You looked as stunning as usual, running up to him even with your heels before wrapping your arms around his neck. Usually, Naoya didn’t like public displays of affection since it could greatly deter his reputation, but everyone knew both of you weren’t each other’s weaknesses that he didn’t care whether his people could see their leader grinning as his wife welcomed with a kiss. Naoya balanced himself on his cane to encircle a hand to your waist, pulling you closer and burying his face in your hair.

“I missed you,” you mumbled with your head buried in his shoulder.

Naoya’s smile wasn’t any less affectionate. “I missed you more.” And he did – a whole lot. Even as you both made it inside the limousine, the tablet passed to him per the usual to update him on what happened on the few days of his absence, Naoya couldn’t keep his hands to himself. His cane balanced between his knee and the door, while his free hand intertwined with yours, mindlessly caressing the matching rings that symbolized more trust than love.

“How did it go?” he brought your knuckles up to his lips and kissed it, his attention still focused on today’s stock market. “Did you convince him to lend us the lab?”

“Yes, my love, everything is under control. I told you I had it.”

“Cunning little minx,” he smirked at the confidence and triumph dripping from your voice. Naoya shut his tablet off with a click, hauling you until you were resting on his lap. Giggles erupted beautifully from your lips as you pressed your forehead to his, both your smiles equally mischievous. “Did you sleep with him?”

“No. Satoru is still hopelessly in love with me, so it didn’t really take much to push him to the edge with a few tears and white lies,” you smiled at him, soon dropping from your face when Naoya’s eyes darkened with an unreadable – no, unfamiliar hint of worry behind them. “Naoya,” you caressed his leg, “I don’t care about him anymore, you’ve got nothing to worry about. I just want to survive and put everything behind,” you cupped his face and forced him to look you in the eye, making sure he heard every bit of sincerity in your voice. “You know I love you, right? I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth. Him coming back doesn’t change a thing.”

“I know that,” he said, although deep down, in the dark recesses of his heart, something agonizing stirred within.

You were a smart woman – too intelligent that he may have feared you had he been any lesser – who could easily read through him, but Naoya wanted to be a step ahead of you that he caught your lips to stop you from seeking beneath his soul already. He knew that if you looked a little too close, you’d see everything, and that would be the last thing he wanted.

Snaking his tongue past your lips, he greedily swallowed your moans. Naoya’s touch was possessive as he gripped your thigh, seconds away from ripping off the material of your dress. He only stopped once he saw his driver pale in awkwardness, and he chuckled to himself, squeezing your hips to stop you from grinding on his thigh.

“You’re always so good for me,” he praised, “I might just reward you once we get home.”

Home. Prior to meeting you, home had been nothing but a word in his extensive vocabulary. Home had been nothing but something that carried a meaning but no significance in his living, but now that he’d met you, home felt familiar. Home smelled like rose-scented shampoos, it resonated of bubbly laughter and curious hands finding its way to its belt. Home…you’d just given him something to lose.

As per the plan, you managed to sneak past Satoru’s defenses. Naoya had once said that your secret weapon was not your tempting nature as a woman, but rather your intelligence that sometimes put his to shame. He’d shamelessly announced his plan to use you again with the goal of taking matters into your own hands, looping Satoru into the picture until you have him wrapped around your finger again.

It turned out to be easier than expected. Truthfully, you wanted to refuse. It wasn’t because you were worried you’d beat yourself in your own game and fall for Satoru again, but because it felt so uncomfortable to hold him like that, to kiss him like that.

Each second you spent with him just served as a painful reminder of how he’d mindlessly pushed you to the side from a failed plan of ‘protecting’ you.

However, you couldn’t complain nor deny Naoya’s wishes. He wanted to use your abilities to the fullest of its extent and bring out your potential. Besides, you trusted him wholeheartedly that you’d never question his motives, even if it included seducing Satoru with crocodile tears and a faux broken heart to get him to bend and move at your will. After all, your will was also Naoya’s, and that was what made the both of you so dangerous together.

Standing here now in Satoru’s laboraty, sending him phoney desperate glances as you clutched your husband’s hand, the game had just begun.

He was giving you both a tour of what you could use from his laboratory, and Naoya had kept silent the whole time. The whole drug manufacturing was more your expertise than his. He simply observed everything with watchful eyes, his gaze darting between Satoru’s longing ones and yours. It was a play pretend of push and pull, everyone in the room except for Satoru unaware that soon, you’d bare your fangs to rip his neck apart, and then you’d stand aside and let Naoya finish the business.

You would’ve laughed had Naoya not tightened his grip on your hand. Both you and Satoru paused as Naoya desperately shushed you up, his eyes wide and floating from one corner to another.

Suddenly, a loud explosion came out of nowhere. The blast crushed half of the building to bare rubble and concrete and you saw nothing but black, inhaled so much smoke that your lungs quivered. The ringing in your ears didn’t stop as you wobbled to unsteady legs, waving the smoke away and coughing whatever filled your system. Satoru was right beside you, his long limbs quicker than yours before he hauled you up, checking to see if you had injuries but you were too scared, too desolate to care for his worry.

For your husband laid under a pile of rubble, an arm and his head the only parts of his body saved from the explosion.

“Naoya!” You screamed and pushed Gojo away, taking your heels off before darting straight to where he was. Jumping from broken debris to one another, your feet scraped and burned with each contact, the ringing in your ears growing louder along with the pounding of your heartbeat.

“Naoya, baby, no!” you tried to pick up the heavy slab of concrete that had crushed his body, tears blurring your vision until Naoya’s blond hair swiveled with his dark clothes. “Don’t leave me, don’t leave me, don’t you fucking dare-”

“Gojo,” he choked out blood. You fell to your knees as you cupped his face and grasped his hand all the while, your entire body shaking. His name kept falling from your lips as you asked him to stand up but he pushed your hand away, not sparing you another glance as he glared at the shock still man behind you. “Take her someplace far – somewhere he won’t find the both of you. It’s T-Toji.”

“No, Naoya, please! I’m not leaving without you!” It was too late. Satoru had easily carried you and threw you over his shoulder, running away from the scene because that was what he was best at. You pounded at his back as the smoke enlarged and covered the entirety of the building that had fizzled with chemicals inside, your husband starting to disappear from view. “Satoru, let me go! We can’t just leave him there!”

“Listen to your husband! He knows what he’s doing!”

As the smoke cleared for a split second, your world stilled. Naoya’s face was smothered with dirt and stains, pain evident on his twisted features, and yet – he was smiling. “Go,” he mouthed, hands outstretched far enough for your matching rings to glint under the sparkling lights. “Live.”

You slumped into Satoru’s arms. It was too late.

You couldn’t comprehend the events that happened afterwards. Satoru had pushed you inside his car before taking off to who knows where. All you knew was that you’d left your husband behind, and you stared emptily at the streets that flashed by, unable to feel or understand anything. It wasn’t until Satoru dragged you out by the wrist and a plane whirring before you snapped you back to life, your feet turning heavy as you plant yourself on the ground.

Satoru looked back at you.

“I’m not going anywhere,” you shook your head, “I’m not leaving him behind, Satoru, he’s all I have. I need to save him – even if it means I die.”

“You’re not going to die,” he starts off slowly. Satoru moves to place his hands down on your shoulders as if to brace you, even going as far as to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, but you couldn’t really listen, not when the plane hummed to life and remnants of the explosion still clung to your skin.

“Listen, Naoya is a smart man, okay? You know that yourself. He’ll survive, you just need to trust that he’ll make it. Now we have to go before Toji catches up to us and we end up all dying here!” he shook you back to life when your sobs overpowered his speech that fell on deaf ears, and you cried harder, much less like a little girl who quivered in his arms. Satoru sighed, perhaps just as broken from seeing you this way. “He told you to live. Naoya isn’t asking you to die for him, he’s asking you to live and if you don’t get on the plane, we can’t fulfill his wish,” he convinced, but you only bit your lip, still looking back at the car. You could steal it – one punch to his nose and you could easily get away, get back to Naoya, until he said, “You love him right? So respect his wishes.”

You love him. You love Naoya. He would’ve wanted me to live. He asked me to live.

That was the only consolation you could give yourself as you allowed Satoru to take you inside. His right hand man, Geto or something, quietly closed the cabin doors behind you. He was making sure his boss was situated, who in turn was fretting over you. All it took was one last warning glare sent Satoru’s way before he backed off, raising his hands in surrender and falling back to his seat.

Sooner than you’d like, the plane had took off, leaving your heart right behind with each passing second. The higher you flew up in the air, the number you became.

“Where are we going?”

“I have a base in Italy. We should be safe there for a while. Gather resources, plan our next move, contact friends...we’ll be fine,” Satoru pinched the bridge of his nose. It was hard to believe things would be fine when he too seemed restless; whatever happened between him and Toji must’ve really left a scar; not that you cared. You huffed away from Satoru and stared outside the windows instead, your heart dropping the farther Japan was becoming. “Hey. You should get some rest. You’ve had a long day.”

“Whatever,” you snapped at him. You couldn’t stand his voice, not even if he’s saved you.

The only thing that mattered now was living up to Naoya’s wish, and as much as you hated it, Satoru was right. You had to hope he would survive.

The chances of him making it out were low, but knowing Naoya, low chances weren’t zero. As long as he had a little bit of something, he would keep pushing. You just had to place your trust in him.

Kissing your dusty ring, you wiped away your tears one last time, eyes shut tight as you chanted over and over, live, live, live for me! Live! Naoya couldn’t give up that easily. You both had a long way to go, still so many places to travel, thousand more enemies to conquer and defeat. He promised you the fun was just beginning and that you’d get your revenge soon, and Naoya never broke his promises. So you had to trust, had no other choice but to believe that soon he’d be right beside you. He may not be able to completely walk anymore, though none of that mattered. You just wanted to be with him again.

You didn’t realize you’d fallen asleep until Satoru’s hushed whispers woke you up. Sitting up straight, you saw him scowling to whoever he’s talking to on the phone. He looked grim, long, slender fingers caressing his forehead as he sighed. Whatever he heard, it couldn’t have been good, and curiosity got the best of you before you could help it.

“What is it?” Satoru stilled at the sound of your voice, having not expected you to be awake. He refused to meet your eyes as he shut his phone. It angered you further and you stalked his way, slapping a palm down the table before him. “I said, what is it?”

“It’s Naoya...” he said through clenched teeth, still refusing to look you in the eye. “He didn’t make it.”

notes. team naoya...let’s go...cry 😭 when I said I would write more gojo x reader scenes and that they’re still the pairing, I meant it, I just had to take a dark route anyways DO YOU GUYS UNDERSTAND WHY IT TOOK SO LONG FOR ME TO UPDATE THIS, I DIDN’T WANT TO DO THIS TO NAOYA BAE 😭 but on the bright side, italy arc is gonna be SHEESH

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