It’s Whatever @eriks-girl - Tumblr Blog

⟢ ━━━ big feelings

modern au ⊹ bsf's older brother!sukuna 𝔁 f!reader ⊹ nsfw drabble!

warnings. smut, mdni. lowk strangers to lovers. age gap (30s him, 20s you). cunnilingus, fingering, piv, cpie. he's kind of pathetic and u own him like a dawg. protip listen to the song while reading

masterlist | wc: 3.2k

thinking about yuuji's older brother sukuna who doesn't pay attention to his annoying little friends. why would he care about a couple of twenty-something-year old kids when he has bills to pay?

but when he sees how polite you are to the local kobeni owner, a grumpy old man that usually yells him to high hell and back for dressing like a mobster and scaring off business? the man was speaking in gentle cadences sukuna wasn't aware he was capable of. and you pulled a smile out of the damn geezer to boot.

sure you're kind, but not a pushover. sukuna realized this key distinction when you refused to laugh at a joke he mouthed off, ripping on yuuji for being such a slob he probably would be forty before he landed a serious girlfriend. "quit being an asshole. nobody likes that. i don't see you sporting any long-time girlfriends yourself. tsk," you snapped back coldly.

but ever the enigma, you surprised him constantly. sukuna wishes he could figure you out, truly. despite your usual snippy attitude towards him, you knew the importance of gratitude and good manners.

so when sukuna's 32nd birthday comes around, he didn't expect to receive many gifts outside of a couple messages from his very few school friends, maybe something stupidly goofy from yuuji. a decent watch from their grandfather. an unwanted greasy coupon to the local kfc from that broke bum, fushiguro.

poniadeaur

"bigger than space"

After a month away on business, Nanami Kento returns home to an emotional reunion with his four-year-old daughter, who greets him with clingy joy and a hoard of handmade gifts. Determined to make up for lost time, he takes her on their first daddy-daughter date—complete with fast food, fancy dresses, and a makeover that leaves him looking ridiculous and feeling whole. But it's her innocent confession over milkshakes, revealing how carefully she's been watching and imitating her parents' love, that reminds him exactly what—and who—he's been working for all along.

The apartment door clicked open with that familiar sound—the one that used to signal the end of an ordinary workday, but now, after twenty-eight days of absence, felt like the opening chord of a symphony Nanami had been desperate to hear.

He stepped inside, his leather shoes silent against the hardwood floor he'd installed himself two summers ago, back when she'd been three and he'd wanted to make the space safer for her unsteady running. The scent of home hit him immediately—vanilla candles, the faint trace of the lavender fabric softener you used on everything, and something else. Something warm and alive and here.

His suitcase felt suddenly heavier, though he'd carried it through three airports, two train stations, and a taxi ride that had crawled through Shibuya traffic for forty minutes.

"Nanami?"

Your voice came from the kitchen, soft and questioning, as if you couldn't quite believe the notification from the smart lock had been real. But before he could answer, before he could call out his presence, there was a sound.

A gasp. Small. Tremulous. Like a bird's wingbeat.

Then—pitter-patterpitterpatterpatter—the sound of tiny feet against wood, faster than he'd ever heard them move, faster than her little legs should have been able to carry her.

She rounded the corner like a cannonball made of sunshine and silk pajamas, her dark hair—his hair, he'd always thought, though you claimed she had your cowlick—flying behind her like a banner. Her eyes, those perfect amber-hued mirrors of his own, went wide as dinner plates, and her mouth formed a perfect 'O' of disbelief.

"Papa!"

The word cracked in her throat, broke like a wave, and then she was moving again, launching herself across the remaining distance with the kind of reckless abandon that only four-year-olds possess, the kind that ignores physics and logic and the fact that hardwood floors are slippery when you're wearing fuzzy socks with bunnies on them.

Nanami dropped his briefcase. He didn't remember doing it. He didn't remember dropping to his knees either, but suddenly he was there, arms open, and then—

Impact.

She hit his chest like a comet, small arms wrapping around his neck with a strength that belied her size, her face burying itself in the crook of his shoulder where his coat met his skin. She was warm, so warm, trembling like a leaf in autumn, and he could feel her heart beating rabbit-fast against his own.

"Papa," she whimpered, and then again, "Papa, Papa, Papa," each repetition smaller than the last, until they were just breaths, just exhalations of relief that smelled like the strawberry toothpaste you used on her at bedtime.

Nanami's arms closed around her, one hand spanning her entire back, the other cradling her head, his fingers tangling in those dark silk strands that smelled like the baby shampoo he secretly loved. He pressed his face into her hair and inhaled, and something in his chest—something that had been clenched tight for twenty-eight days, something that had kept him awake in hotel rooms with their too-soft pillows and their silence—finally, finally unclenched.

"I missed you," he whispered, and his voice was rough, sandpaper over silk, because Nanami Kento, who faced cursed spirits without flinching, who negotiated with bureaucrats and sorcerers alike with the same cool detachment, was undone by four years and forty pounds of little girl in his arms.

She pulled back just enough to look at him, and her face—oh, her face—was red and tear-streaked and absolutely radiant. Her lower lip wobbled dangerously, and then she launched herself upward, small hands framing his face with a gentleness that made his heart ache, and pressed her mouth against his cheek with an audible mwah.

"I missed you more," she declared, fierce and trembling, and then she was hugging him again, her legs wrapping around his waist, her arms locked in a death grip around his neck. "I missed you so much. Like… like this much."

She tried to spread her arms to demonstrate, but couldn't bring herself to let go of him, so she just flapped one hand wildly while keeping the other firmly wrapped in his collar.

"More than whole earth," she whispered into his ear, and Nanami felt his eyes burn.

You appeared in the doorway then, leaning against the frame with that soft smile you wore when you were trying not to cry, and Nanami looked at you over their daughter's head, and he thought—this. This is everything. This is why I come back.

The next several hours passed in a blur of affection so concentrated it bordered on territorial warfare.

Nanami had managed to stand up, his daughter still attached to him like a particularly determined barnacle, and had made it few steps toward the living room before she demanded to be put down—not to walk, but so she could "properly welcome home." This apparently involved running in circles around his legs while holding his hand, chattering a mile a minute about everything he'd missed: "And then Mrs. Tanaka said my drawing was elegant and I used the blue crayon because it's your favorite and I didn't eat the broccoli on Tuesday but Mama didn't see because I gave it to Mochi—Mochi is our new plant, Papa, I named him—and I learned to write my name but the 'A' is elegant and I waited for you every night but you didn't come and I was sad but Mama said you were working and—"

She didn't pause for breath. She seemed to have developed a supernatural lung capacity in his absence. She also happened to learn the word 'elegant' while you two were watching Spy x Family together.

Nanami let her lead him to the couch, where she promptly claimed his lap as her sovereign territory, settling in with a squirm that suggested she was trying to merge their bodies into one entity. She kept touching his face—his jaw, his glasses, his hair—as if cataloging him, making sure he was real, making sure he matched the image she'd been holding in her mind for four weeks.

"You're scratchy," she observed, rubbing her cheek against his stubble with a giggle. "Like Mochi. Mochi cactus," she added helpfully.

"I see," Nanami managed, his hand automatically settling on her back, rubbing small circles there the way he always did when she was settling down to sleep.

"Did you miss me?" she asked, suddenly serious, her amber eyes searching his with an intensity that was almost adult. "Did you miss me every day?"

"Every minute," he said, and it wasn't hyperbole. It was arithmetic. Twenty-eight days. Forty thousand three hundred and twenty minutes. Each one containing at least one thought of her.

She seemed satisfied with this answer, or perhaps overwhelmed by it, because she launched herself at him again, wrapping her arms around his neck and squeezing with all her might. "Don't go away again," she commanded, her voice muffled against his throat. "Never ever ever again."

"I'll try not to," he promised, which was the only promise he could make. The only honest one.

You brought tea then, and the three of them sat on the couch with their daughter sprawled across Nanami's chest like a starfish, her ear pressed directly over his heart.

"Oh!" she suddenly exclaimed, sitting up so fast she nearly headbutted his chin. "The cookies! Papa, I made you cookies!"

"You did?" Nanami asked, glancing at you with a raised eyebrow.

"I made them," she insisted, sliding off his lap and grabbing his hand with both of hers, pulling with surprising strength. "Come see! Come see!"

She dragged him to the kitchen, where a Tupperware container sat on the counter with a proud note written in purple crayon: "PAPA'S COOKIES — DO NOT EET." The 'E' was backwards, and there was a drawing of what he assumed was him, complete with glasses and a smile that took up half the face.

You opened the container to reveal sugar cookies—some round, some vaguely triangular, one that looked like it had been dropped and then carefully reconstructed with frosting glue. They were decorated with pink and purple icing, silver sprinkles, and what appeared to be edible glitter that had been applied with enthusiastic abandon.

"We made them yesterday," you explained, "so they'd be fresh when you got home."

"I made them," his daughter corrected, standing on her tiptoes to reach the container. "Mama just helped with the oven part because I'm not allowed to touch fire until I'm seven." She said this with the weary patience of someone explaining obvious facts to the uninformed. She selected a cookie with particular care—one of the round ones, heavily decorated with what looked like a smiley face—and presented it to him with both hands, like an offering to a deity.

"For you," she said solemnly. "Because I missed you. And because airplane food is yucky."

Nanami took the cookie and bit into it, and it was—objectively speaking—slightly overbaked, the icing was uneven, and he could definitely taste a hint of the lemon soap she hadn't quite washed off her hands before helping. It was the best thing he'd ever eaten.

"Delicious," he said, and meant it with his whole heart.

She beamed, radiant as a sunrise, and then insisted on feeding him the rest herself, breaking off small pieces and holding them to his lips like he was a baby bird and she was the parent, roles reversed. Each time he accepted a bite, she giggled, and each time she giggled, he felt another piece of the month's tension dissolve.

When the cookie was gone, she licked the icing off her fingers and then, without warning, climbed back into his lap, settling in with a sigh that seemed to come from her toes.

"Stay here," she commanded, wrapping her arms around his middle and resting her head against his chest. "This is your spot now. I decided."

"Is it?" Nanami asked, stroking her hair.

"Yes. You're my papa-spot." To demonstrate, she tightened her grip, her small hands fisting in his sweater. "You're stuck. Forever."

"That sounds perfect," he said, and kissed the top of her head. Also, half of the things she said didn't make sense to either of you; she just assumed you both knew what she was imagining.

It wasn't until after dinner—a chaotic affair where she'd insisted on sitting in his lap to eat, feeding him bites of her macaroni between her own—that Nanami remembered the gifts.

"I brought you something," he said, when she was finally, reluctantly, allowing him to set her down so he could retrieve his suitcase from where he'd abandoned it by the door.

Her eyes went wide, then narrowed with suspicion. "Is it a pony?"

"It's… not a pony."

"Is it a dragon?"

"Also not a dragon."

"Is it—"

"Why don't you come see?"

He opened the suitcase on the living room floor, and she immediately climbed inside it, sitting among his folded shirts like a cat claiming a box. "I'm in your suitcase," she announced. "I am your shirt. I can come with."

"Noted," he said, pulling out the first package.

It was a stuffed rabbit, soft and cream-colored, wearing a tiny blue vest that matched his own. "For sleeping," he explained, "when I'm not here."

She clutched it to her chest immediately, burying her face in its fur. "I love him," she declared, though she hadn't looked at it properly. "His name is… papa bunny."

"Papa bunny?"

"Yes. Because he's from you." She said this as if it were the most logical thing in the world, and perhaps it was.

The next gift was a set of watercolor paints from Paris, the real kind with names like "Burnt Sienna" and "Cadmium Yellow" that she couldn't read yet but would appreciate for their fancy packaging. Then a music box that played a lullaby when opened, with a tiny ballerina inside that spun and spun. Then a book—The Little Prince in French, which she couldn't read, but which had beautiful illustrations of stars and roses.

With each gift, her excitement grew, but also her clinginess. She opened the paints while sitting in his lap. She wound the music box while leaning against his shoulder. She looked at the book's pictures while holding his hand, her fingers interlaced with his, checking every few seconds to make sure he was still there.

The final gift was the smallest—a tiny gold locket on a chain, with a photo of the three of them inside, taken last summer at the beach. She was between them, laughing, her hair full of sand. She also didn't like it. In her opinion, a princess necklace should at least be pink.

"So you can keep us close," Nanami said, his voice soft, "even when I'm away."

She didn't say anything for a long moment. Then she turned around in his lap, threw her arms around his neck, and whispered, "I love you, Papa. I love you bigger than the sky. Bigger than space. Bigger than… than everything."

Nanami held her tight, his heart full to bursting, and thought that perhaps, after all, he hadn't been the one giving gifts. She'd given him this—this moment, this warmth, this absolute, unconditional love that asked for nothing but his presence.

"I love you too," he said. "More than anything."

"Good," she said, satisfied, and kissed his cheek again, leaving a faint trace of macaroni sauce that he didn't wipe away.

That night, after you'd put her to bed (a process that took twice as long as usual because she kept calling out for "just one more hug from Papa"), Nanami sat in the living room with you, drinking tea and feeling the peculiar ache of being home—how it hurt in a good way, like stretching after being cramped.

"She missed you," you said softly. "Every day. She'd ask when Papa was coming home, and I'd say 'soon,' and she'd think I said 'sun' and say, 'sun is too far away.'"

"I know," Nanami said. "I felt it. Every minute I was gone, I felt like I was missing pieces of her growing up."

You reached over, took his hand. "You're here now. That's what matters."

He looked at you, at this life you'd built together—the teacups with chips in them from being knocked over by toddler elbows, the photo on the wall of their last birthday party, the quiet, profound beauty of domesticity—and he made a decision.

"Tomorrow," he said, "I'm taking her out. Just the two of us. A daddy-daughter date."

You smiled, that knowing smile that had first drawn him to you. "She'd love that."

"All day," he continued, plans already forming. "The whole day. Just us."

"She'll hold you to that," you warned.

"I hope she does," he said, and meant it.

The next morning, Nanami woke early—jet lag still clinging to his bones—and lay in bed listening to the sounds of the apartment coming alive. The shower running. The coffee maker gurgling. And then, eventually, the sound of small feet padding down the hallway, and the click of his bedroom door opening.

She peeked in, her hair sticking up in every direction, her stuffed rabbit clutched under one arm. When she saw he was awake, her face split into a grin that could have powered a small city.

"Papa! You're still here!"

"Where else would I be?" he asked, holding out his arms.

She ran and jumped, landing on the bed with a oof that knocked the wind out of him in the best way. "Good morning," she announced, pressing a kiss to his nose.

"Good morning, princess," he said, and she giggled at the nickname.

"Are we doing something today?" she asked, bouncing slightly. "Mama said you had a surprise."

"We're going on a date," he told her, and her eyes went so wide he could see the reflection of the window in them.

"A date?"

"Well," Nanami said, considering, "fancy clothes. And fun. And just us."

"Just us?" she gasped, as if this were the most decadent luxury imaginable. "No Mama?"

"Mama gets a day off," he said. "To rest. And we're going to have an adventure."

She screamed—actually screamed, a sound of pure joy—and then hugged him so tight he thought he might have bruises. "I need a fancy dress! I need to be beautiful! Papa, I need to be elegant!"

"Elegant," he agreed, amused. "Definitely elegant."

The bathing process was an event in itself.

Nanami ran the water in the tub, checking the temperature with his elbow the way you'd shown him, while she danced around the bathroom in her underwear, singing a song she'd made up that seemed to consist entirely of the words "date" and "Papa" repeated in various orders.

"Okay, in you go," he said, and she climbed in with the grace of a baby giraffe, splashing water everywhere and immediately beginning to build a bubble beard.

"Papa, I'm Santa Claus," she announced.

"Very convincing."

"No, now I'm a cloud. I'm a cloud monster. Rawr."

"Terrifying."

She entertained herself with various personas—bubble monster, mermaid, submarine captain—while Nanami washed her hair with gentle thoroughness, his large hands massaging her scalp, her head lolling back against his palm.

"Your hands are big," she observed, holding up her own dripping wet. "Like bear paws."

"Are they?"

"Yes. But soft. Mama says you have working hands. What are you working on?"

"Right now? Washing your hair."

She giggled."

She was quiet for a moment, processing this. Then: "That's a good job. You're good at your job, Papa."

"Thank you, princess."

When she was clean and wrapped in a towel that made her look like a small, very angry burrito, he carried her to her room to pick a dress.

"The blue one," she commanded, pointing to a navy dress with a satin bow that you'd bought for special occasions. "The elegant one."

He helped her into it, buttoning the tiny buttons in the back, adjusting the bow until it sat just so. She stood in front of her mirror, turning this way and that, her face serious with concentration.

"I look like a princess," she decided.

"You look like my princess," he corrected, and she beamed.

Then came the makeup.

"I want to be fancy," she insisted, pulling out her play makeup kit—a gift from her aunt that you had been slightly dubious about but which had become her most treasured possession.

"Alright," Nanami said, settling onto her small vanity chair, which creaked ominously under his weight. "Show me."

She approached her own face with the concentration of a surgeon, applying pink blush to her cheeks in circles that went up to her temples, then eyeshadow in a shade of blue that could only be described as "electric," then lipstick that missed her mouth entirely and went up to her nose.

"Beautiful," she declared, looking in the mirror.

Nanami studied her. "You know," he said carefully, "I think the lipstick might need a little… adjustment."

She looked at him, suspicious. "You don't like it?"

"I love it," he said, which was true. "But maybe… here." He took a tissue and gently wiped away the lipstick mustache, then helped her reapply it properly, showing her how to stay within the lines of her lips.

"Like that," she said, nodding seriously.

"Very elegant."

Then she turned to him, her eyes gleaming with mischief. "Now you."

"Me?"

"Yes! It's a date! You have to be pretty too!"

"Princess, I don't think—"

"Please?" She clasped her hands together, bottom lip wobbling. "Please, Papa? For our date?"

Nanami Kento, who had faced down Special Grade cursed spirits without breaking a sweat, who had negotiated contracts with the most dangerous sorcerers in Japan, who had maintained his composure through meetings that lasted six hours and involved PowerPoint presentations—Nanami Kento looked into his daughter's pleading eyes and surrendered completely.

"Alright," he said. "Make me pretty."

She squealed with delight and attacked.

The process took twenty minutes. She applied blush to his cheeks with heavy hands, leaving him looking like he'd run a marathon in a snowstorm. She attempted eyeliner, which resulted in a wobbly line that went from his eyelid to his eyebrow. She put glitter on his cheekbones, declaring him "sparkly." And then, the pièce de résistance—she found your hair mascara, the temporary kind that washed out, and decided his hair needed "highlights."

"Just a few," she promised, and proceeded to paint streaks of blue and purple into his carefully styled hair with the enthusiasm of a graffiti artist.

When she was done, she stepped back, hands on hips, surveying her work with immense satisfaction. "Perfect," she declared.

Nanami looked in the mirror. He looked like a clown who had been in a fight with a crayon factory. His cheeks were two bright pink circles. His eyes were ringed with blue. His hair had stripes of color that made him look like a tropical bird.

"Beautiful," he said, because she was beaming, and that was all that mattered.

"Now we're both pretty," she said, taking his hand. "Let's go on our date!"

He grabbed his wallet, his keys, and a pack of your makeup remover—and they set out.

McDonald's was her choice.

"I want a fancy dinner," she'd said, and when he'd suggested a nice restaurant, she'd shaken her head solemnly. "No, Papa. The fanciest."

So here they were, in a booth by the window, with a tray containing two cheeseburgers, a large fries, and two milkshakes—chocolate for him, strawberry for her.

She was wearing a paper crown that came with the Happy Meal, sitting on her knees to reach the table, her dress carefully tucked under her to avoid stains.

"Tell me about your trip," she commanded, dipping a fry in ketchup with mimicking you or maybe him.

Nanami considered how to explain a month of meetings, of negotiations, of the kind of work he did that kept him away from her. He looked at her expectant face, the sauce on her chin, the way she was swinging her legs under the table because they didn't quite reach the floor.

"Well," he began, "I went on an airplane, which is like a big metal bird that flies in the sky."

"I know what an airplane is," she said, rolling her eyes. "I'm four, not a baby."

"Right. Sorry. Well, this airplane took me to a faraway place where they speak a different language."

"Like Spanish?"

"Like… French."

"French," she repeated, trying out the word. "I can speak French. Bonjor?"

"Bonjour," he corrected.

He told her about the hotel with the elevator that went so fast her ears would pop. About the breakfast buffet with a chocolate fountain that he hadn't tried but thought she would have loved. About the park he walked through every morning, where there were pigeons that were "very rude" and wouldn't move out of the way.

"Rude pigeons," she giggled. "Did you tell them to move?"

"I did. They didn't listen."

"Birds cannot listen; they don't have ears," she explained, with the wisdom of someone who had tried to befriend many pigeons. "Except parrots. Parrots say words back. We should get a parrot."

"We'll discuss it."

She ate her burger with both hands, getting sauce on her cheeks, and told him about her month in return—about the new crayon she'd gotten that was "the best blue," about how she'd learned to hop on one foot, about the time she fell down at the park but didn't cry because she was brave like Papa.

"Very brave," he agreed, wiping her face with a napkin.

Then he asked, because it was her turn, because he wanted to know everything he'd missed: "What else did you do this month? Anything special?"

She froze. The fry halfway to her mouth paused. Her eyes went wide, then darted to the side, then back to him, and she had the expression of someone who was either about to confess to a crime or announce they'd won the lottery.

"I got married," she bleamed.

Nanami blinked. "You what?"

"Got married," she repeated, and took a defiant bite of the fry. "To Hiro. From my class. We're married now."

The world seemed to tilt slightly. Nanami set down his milkshake very carefully. "Married," he repeated, his voice carefully neutral.

"Yes. Last Tuesday. At recess. Mrs. Tanaka said we couldn't use the play kitchen for the ceremony but we did it. I wore my yellow dress and Hiro wore clean shirt. It was very elegant."

Nanami felt something cold in his chest. "And… how do you feel about this marriage?"

"I love him," she said simply, and the cold spread. "I love him so much. He's my wife now. That's how it works."

"I see." Nanami looked at his cheeseburger, which suddenly seemed unappetizing. He looked at his daughter, who was eating fries with the contentment of a newlywed, and felt a complex mixture of emotions that he couldn't quite name. She was four. She was four years old and she was married. To Hiro. Who was probably five, and probably had sticky hands, and probably didn't appreciate what he had.

"Tell me about it," he said, because he needed to know, because this was his daughter and he needed to understand this thing that had happened while he was away. "Tell me about your… marriage."

She brightened, happy to share. "Well," she began, "first, I make him coffee in the morning. With the play coffee maker. I say 'Good morning, my love, here's your coffee, I made it just how you like it.'"

Nanami froze. My love. The way he said it to you, every morning, the way he'd said it for years, the way she must have heard a thousand times.

"And then," she continued, oblivious to his stunned expression, "I kiss him goodbye and say 'Have a good day at work, my love, I'll miss you every minute.' And he goes to the blocks and I go to the art table, and that's our jobs."

"Your… jobs."

"Yes. And when he comes home, I ask him about his day, and I listen, and then I tell him I'm proud of him. And then we have dinner and I let him have the last cookie because I love him. And then we watch TV and I lean on his shoulder."

She said all this with the earnestness of a scholar reciting sacred texts, and Nanami realized with a start that she wasn't just playing at being married. She was imitating being married. She was imitating him. Not you, HIM.

"Where did you learn all this?" he asked, though he knew.

"From you and Mama," she said, as if it were obvious. "You're the best married. So I'm doing it like you. Hiro doesn't know how to be married, so I have to show him. I'm the Papa and he's the Mama."

Nanami stared at her. Then, slowly, he began to smile. Then to chuckle. Then, despite himself, he was laughing—really laughing, his shoulders shaking, his ridiculous makeup creasing around his eyes, his striped hair bobbing as he shook his head.

"You're the Papa," he repeated.

"Yes. I'm very good at it. I have a briefcase." She said this with immense pride. "It's pink and it has stickers."

"Of course it does."

"And Hiro is learning to make coffee too, but he's not very good yet. He keeps spilling it. But I say 'it's okay, my love, you'll get better.' Like you say to Mama when she burns the toast."

"I see."

"And I bought him a tie. For work. I tell him every day. I say 'Hiro, you're very beautiful and I'm lucky to be your husband, my love."

Nanami wiped his eyes, his laughter subsiding into warm, bubbling affection. He looked at this small person, this perfect combination of him and you, who had watched and learned and absorbed their love like a sponge, who was practicing it on her classmates with deadly seriousness, and he felt overwhelmed.

"Princess," he said, reaching across the table to take her hand, "I think you're the best married person I've ever met."

"You think so?" she asked, hopeful.

"I know so. And Hiro is very lucky to have you."

She beamed, triumphant. "I know. But don't tell him I said that."

"I won't tell."

They finished their meal, and she talked more about her marriage—about their "anniversary" which was going to be next Tuesday at recess, about their "house" which was the blue corner of the classroom, about their "car" which was the tricycle with two seats.

And Nanami listened to every word, storing them away, these precious, ridiculous, perfect details of the life she'd built while he was gone. She'd missed him, yes—missed him desperately, clung to him since he'd returned—but she had also grown. She had observed. She had learned what love looked like, and she was practicing it.

As they walked home, her hand in his, her paper crown slightly askew, she looked up at him and said, "Papa?"

"Yes, princess?"

"Can I get divor?"

He stopped walking. Eyes blow wide. "Divorce?"

"Yes. Hiro doesn't always listen when I tell him about my day."

Nanami considered this very seriously. "Well," he said, "marriage is hard work. You have to talk to each other. And maybe… maybe you and Hiro need to have a conversation about the that."

She nodded, solemn. "You're right. I'll tell him he hurt my feelings."

They walked the rest of the way home in comfortable silence, and when they arrived, she insisted on carrying the empty milkshake cups because "married people help with chores." You met them at the door, took one look at Nanami's face—still streaked with makeup—and burst out laughing.

"Successful date?" you asked.

"The best," Nanami said, swinging his daughter up into his arms. "She got married, divorced, and had a very serious talk about pigeons."

"Ah," you said. "A full day."

"The fullest," his daughter agreed, resting her head on Nanami's shoulder, her arms around his neck. "Papa?"

"Yes, princess?"

"Don't go away again. Okay?"

He held her tighter, feeling her warmth, smelling the strawberry shampoo and the faint trace of fries in her hair. "I can't promise that," he said honestly. "But I can promise that I'll always come back. And that when I'm here, I'll be here. Completely."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

She kissed his cheek, leaving a smear of ketchup that he didn't wipe away. "Good. Because you're the best Papa. And I love you bigger than space."

"Bigger than space," he agreed.

"And Hiro says hi," she added, suddenly. "I told him about you. He thinks you're cool. Because you have colored hair now."

"Tell Hiro thank you."

"I will. At our anniversary. If we're still married."

They went inside, into the warmth and the light and the life they were building together, one day at a time, one hug at a time, one ridiculous makeup session at a time. And Nanami Kento, who had spent a month in hotels and conference rooms and airports, who had traveled thousands of kilometers to do important work, knew that he had finally arrived exactly where he needed to be.

Home. epilogue?

You woke to the sound of Nanami already moving—shower running at 6:30, closet doors sliding open with more force than necessary, the distinct thud of his briefcase hitting the dresser.

You padded into the kitchen, still bleary-eyed, coffee mug in hand, and found him there. Suit pressed. Tie straight. Hair—now washed free of blue and purple stripes—combed with military precision. He was checking his watch with the intensity of a man about to negotiate a hostile merger.

"Nanami?" You squinted. "What are you doing?"

He looked up, amber eyes serious behind his glasses. "I'm taking her to school."

You blinked. "You just got back. You should rest. I can take her—"

"No." He cut you off, voice firm. He adjusted his cufflinks. "I need to do this."

"Why?" You set down your mug, confused. "It's just drop-off. She'll be fine, you can—"

He turned to face you fully, and his expression was so grave, so utterly solemn, that you almost laughed before he even spoke.

"I need to meet my son-in-law," he said.

The silence hung in the kitchen for three full seconds.

Then you burst out laughing. Really laughing—doubling over, hand on your stomach, wheezing sounds escaping your throat. "You—" you gasped, "you can't be serious. Nanami. She's four. Hiro is five."

He didn't smile. His jaw tightened. "He married my daughter. I wasn't here to… to give my blessing. To assess the situation." He picked up his car keys. "I'm going."

"Nanami, no—" You grabbed his arm, still giggling. "This is ridiculous. You can't just show up to preschool to interrogate a five-year-old—"

"I'm not going to interrogate him." He looked offended. "I'm simply going to… observe. Evaluate." He paused. "Ensure he understands the weight of his commitments."

"Oh my god." You wiped tears from your eyes. "You're impossible. You're actually impossible."

He was already walking toward your daughter's room. "Get dressed. You're coming too."

"I thought you said—"

"I need backup," he said, and if you didn't know better, you'd think he sounded nervous.

The preschool was a cheerful chaos of primary colors and tiny chairs. You'd dropped her off a thousand times, but never like this—never with Nanami walking beside you like he was entering a boardroom, spine straight, scanning the room for threats.

"Where is he?" he muttered.

"Nanami, stop—"

"Is that him? The one with the dinosaur shirt?"

"That's a girl, Nanami."

"Oh."

You signed her in, kissed her goodbye—she was too busy showing papa bunny to her teacher to notice the intensity of her father's farewell—and then Nanami was pulling you toward the office.

"Is there a viewing area?" he asked the receptionist, with the same tone he used to ask about quarterly reports. "A place parents can observe without… disrupting the classroom dynamic?"

The receptionist, used to anxious parents, smiled. "The observation room, second floor. Window looks into the Blue Room."

"Perfect."

He marched up the stairs, and you followed, equal parts mortified and amused.

The observation room was small—a few chairs, a one-way window looking down into the classroom below. Nanami sat in the center chair, leaning forward, hands clasped, watching with the focus of a hawk.

You sat beside him, trying not to laugh. "You're actually surveilling a preschool."

"I'm ensuring my daughter's wellbeing," he corrected, not looking away from the glass.

Below, you could see her—navy dress, paper crown replaced by a plastic one from the dress-up corner, sitting at the art table with a box of crayons. She was drawing something with intense concentration, tongue sticking out slightly.

"Where is he?" Nanami asked again.

"She's fine, Nanami. Look, she's happy—"

Then the door to the Blue Room opened, and a small boy entered. Dark hair, gap between his front teeth, wearing a shirt with a fire truck on it. He walked with confidence, scanning the room, and when his eyes landed on your daughter, he smiled.

"There," Nanami said, voice dropping an octave. "That's him."

"Nanami—"

"Hiro."

"Please don't say his name like that."

He ignored you, watching as the boy approached your daughter. You had to admit—there was something nerve-wracking about it, watching this tiny stranger walk up to your baby with intent.

"Hi," Hiro said, loud enough to carry through the observation room speakers.

"Hi," your daughter said back, not looking up from her drawing.

"I like your crown."

"Thanks. It mines."

"Can I wear it?"

"No."

Hiro hesitated, then spotted her crayons. The big box—the fancy one with the sharpener on the back that Nanami had brought from Paris. His eyes went wide.

"Those are pretty," he said.

"I know," she said, still drawing.

"Can I use the blue one?"

"No. I using it."

"I just need it for one minute—"

"No."

Hiro's face changed. The smile disappeared. He reached out and grabbed the blue crayon anyway.

"Hey!" Your daughter's head snapped up. "Give it back! That's mines!"

"Just for a second—"

"No! Papa gave me those! Give it back!" She stood up, reaching for it, but Hiro held it higher, out of her reach, and in the struggle—

Snap.

The crayon broke in half.

The sound of your daughter's wail pierced through the observation room speakers like an alarm. High, broken, utterly devastated. She looked at the broken crayon in Hiro's hand, then at the stub in hers, and her face crumpled.

"You broke it!" she screamed, tears springing instantly. "You broke my blue one! I hate you!"

Nanami shot to his feet so fast his chair tipped backward. His hands slammed against the glass, jaw clenched tight, a muscle jumping in his cheek. You'd seen that look before—usually directed at Special Grades, usually before violence.

"That," he said, voice dangerously low, "is unacceptable."

"Nanami, sit down—"

"He stole her property. He broke her trust. He made her cry." Each word was clipped, precise, furious. "This is exactly what I was concerned about. This lack of respect. This disregard for boundaries."

"Nanami, they're children—"

"She needs to divorce him," he said, turning to you with dead seriousness. "Immediately. This is grounds for annulment. I'll talk to her after class, we'll draft a statement—"

"Nanami Kento, if you try to explain divorce proceedings to a four-year-old, I will never let you hear the end of it."

He opened his mouth to argue, but below, the scene was unfolding. The teacher was intervening, kneeling between them, saying soft words you couldn't hear. Hiro looked stricken, holding the broken crayon like it was evidence at a crime scene. Your daughter was sobbing, arms crossed, backing away from him.

Then she turned. She looked up—almost like she could see through the one-way glass, like she knew exactly where he was—and she ran.

Out of the Blue Room, down the hall, feet pounding on carpet, and then the observation room door burst open.

"Papa!" she wailed, launching herself at Nanami's legs, burying her face in his suit pants, leaving snot and tears on the expensive fabric.

He was on his knees in an instant, scooping her up, holding her close. "Shh, shh, I'm here. I'm here, princess. What happened?"

She pulled back, face red and wet, hiccupping. "H-H-Hiro," she stuttered, "he took my crayon! The blue one! The one you g-g-gave me! And he broke it! And I told him no, I said no, but he didn't listen and he broke it and—" She dissolved into sobs again, clutching his neck.

"That's terrible," Nanami said, rubbing her back. "That's unacceptable."

"And—and—and I hate him!" she declared, pulling back to look him in the eyes with ferocious intensity. "I don't wanna be married no more! He not my wife! I want a divorce! Right now!"

You bit your lip to stop from laughing at the word "wife," but Nanami—

Nanami's shoulders dropped. The tension in his jaw released. Something like pure, unadulterated relief washed over his face, so obvious you could have read it from space.

"Of course," he said, voice suddenly gentle, almost warm. "Of course you don't. You deserve better."

"He not nice," she sniffled, nodding vigorously. "He not… not 'sponsible. He don't listen. I want a different wife."

"Maybe," Nanami said carefully, wiping her tears with his thumb, "maybe you should just be you for a while. No husband or wife. Just… my princess. Playing. Drawing. Being little."

She considered this, lower lip poking out. "But who gonna make me coffee?"

"I'll make you coffee," he promised. "Every morning. Real coffee when you're big. Play coffee now."

"And who gonna say 'good morning, my love'?"

"I will," he said, and kissed her forehead. "Good morning, my love. Every morning. Forever."

She seemed satisfied by this, nodding slowly. "Okay. Then I not married no more. Hiro is… is fired."

"Fired," Nanami agreed, barely hiding a smile. Also, he needs to inspect whatever she is watching on her YouTube.

"From being my wife."

"Absolutely."

The teacher appeared in the doorway, apologetic, explaining that Hiro was very sorry, that he wanted to apologize, that they could talk about sharing—

"No thank you," Nanami said, standing with your daughter in his arms. "We're taking a personal day. Family matter."

He carried her out of the preschool, past the line of parents staring, past Hiro who was standing in the hallway with the broken crayon in his hand looking confused, past the receptionist who called out "Have a good day!" with a knowing smile.

In the car, your daughter fell asleep in her car seat within five minutes, exhausted from emotional trauma.

You looked at Nanami, at the way he kept checking the rearview mirror to make sure she was still there, still okay.

"You realize," you said, "that this is going to happen again, right? Next week it'll be someone else. A boy with better crayon etiquette. Or a girl. Or nobody, and then suddenly somebody again."

"I know," he said.

"And you can't intimidate every five-year-old she brings home."

"I know."

"And you definitely can't use words like 'annulment' around her."

"I know." He paused at a red light, looked at you. "But today… today she chose me over him. Today she came running to me. And I was here. I was here to catch her."

You reached over, took his hand.

"You're ridiculous," you said softly.

"Yes," he agreed.

"And I love you."

"I know," he said again, and this time he was smiling—that rare, real smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. "I love you too. Both of you. Bigger than space."

"That's her line."

"I'm stealing it."

From the backseat, a small voice mumbled in sleep: "Papa?"

"Yes, princess?"

"You're the best wife."

Nanami's smile froze. You burst out laughing again, loud and free, and he groaned, but he was still smiling, and in the rearview mirror, you could see your daughter's peaceful face, dreaming of coffee and crowns and a father who would cross oceans and interrogate five-year-olds just to make sure she was loved.

It was, you thought, the most ridiculous, perfect morning you'd ever had.

And somewhere, you suspected, Hiro was learning a very valuable lesson about respecting other people's crayons.

The end.

10k celebration: fluff

fallentology

Run // Don't Debug

𝐑𝐘𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐔𝐍𝐀

SYNOPSIS: You built something that worked—perfectly, dangerously, without ever defining what it was. Now he’s ready to tear everything down and start over somewhere you might not belong. WORD COUNT: 19.3k

poniadeaur

To save you from me

When jujutsu sorcerer and salaryman Nanami Kento dies in the Shibuya Incident, his final thoughts are not of curses or battles, but of her—the woman he loved enough to leave behind. Given the impossible gift of returning to age twenty-one, he vows to rewrite their fate. If he never catches her when she falls, never speaks when she reaches out, never loves her at all, then perhaps she will be spared the grief of losing him.

But love is not so easily unwritten.

The twenty-first floor hummed with that particular frequency that only existed in corporate buildings—sterile, constant, a sound that burrowed into the skull and stayed there. Nanami Kento stood before the elevator bank, his reflection warped and fractured across the polished chrome doors, and he felt the weight of twenty-eight years pressing down on shoulders that were, physically, only twenty-one.

He had died three hours ago.

Or rather, three hours ago in a timeline that no longer existed, in a future that had been carved away from him like rotten fruit from a tree. He remembered the heat of Shibuya, the stench of cursed energy thick as oil in his lungs, the way his body had stopped responding to his commands. He remembered Mahito's fingers, casual and curious, reaching into his chest cavity as if checking the ripeness of a melon. He remembered the wet, sucking sound of his own heart being crushed.

But more than that—infinitely more than that—he remembered her.

The way she had screamed when they brought his body out. The way she had thrown herself across his half-burned corpse, her hands clutching at charred fabric and blistered skin, her voice breaking into frequencies that didn't sound human. "One more minute," she had begged, her tears falling onto his ruined face, mixing with the ash. "Please, just one more minute. I didn't get to say goodbye. I didn't get to say I love you one last time."

She had been thirty-one years old. They had been married for six years. They had been planning to try for a child.

And he had left her there, in that hell of smoke and sirens, with nothing but a ring on her finger and a hole in her chest that would never heal.

But the universe, in its infinite and terrible mercy, had heard his final prayer. Not a prayer for survival—he had known he was beyond saving—but a prayer for her. For her happiness. For her peace. Let her forget me. Let her find someone who will come home. Let her live without this grief eating her alive from the inside out.

And so he had opened his eyes to the morning of June 14th, 2008, twenty-one years old again, his body whole and unmarked, his heart beating with the obscene regularity of youth. He had stumbled to the bathroom mirror of his cramped apartment and vomited until there was nothing left but bile and dry heaving, because he could still feel her tears on his skin. He could still smell the smoke in his hair.

He could still hear her screaming.

Now, standing in the lobby of Miyamoto Financial Services, Nanami adjusted his tie with hands that trembled imperceptibly. The fabric was cheap polyester, the knot imperfect, the shirt still carrying the creases of a department store hanger. He remembered this day. He remembered it with the clarity of a man who had lived twenty-eight years of memory in a body that had only experienced twenty-one.

He remembered the exact moment she would walk through those glass doors at 9:47 AM, her hair pulled back in a ponytail that was already coming loose, her arms overloaded with a cardboard carrier containing eight cups of coffee because the senior associates had decided to haze the new interns by sending them on impossible errands.

He remembered catching her elbow. He remembered the way the tray had tilted, the way hot liquid had arced through the air like a bronze waterfall, the way his body had moved before his mind had caught up—shoving her aside, taking the scalding coffee across his own chest rather than letting it touch her skin.

He remembered her face turning up to his, eyes wide and grateful and impossibly bright. He remembered her voice, breathless and sweet: "Thank you. I'm so sorry. Thank you."

He remembered the first time she touched him, her fingers brushing his arm as she checked his burns. He remembered the first time she looked at him and really saw him—not as an obstacle or a colleague or a stranger, but as a person. As someone worth knowing.

That moment, that single moment of spilled coffee and burning skin, had been the beginning of everything. The first domino. The first thread that would eventually strangle them both.

The elevator dinged.

Nanami's heart stopped.

She stepped out, and he felt the world tilt on its axis. She was so young. So painfully, beautifully young. Her skin was unlined by the grief he would eventually etch into it. Her eyes were bright, untouched by the sleepless nights of waiting for a husband who patrolled cursed battlefields. She was wearing that yellow dress, the one with the small daisy print, the one she had told him years later she had bought specifically for her first day because she wanted to seem "cheerful and capable."

She was carrying eight cups of coffee in a cardboard carrier that was already sagging under the weight.

Nanami stepped back. He stepped back into the shadows of a decorative pillar, his breath coming in shallow gasps, his hands curling into fists at his sides. He could do this. He had to do this. He would not catch her. He would not save her. He would not be the reason she looked up with those grateful, wondering eyes.

He would not doom her to love him.

She walked past him. Close enough that he could smell her shampoo—strawberry, the same brand she would use for their entire life together, the smell that would linger on their pillows and in their bathroom and in the fibers of his sweaters when she borrowed them. Close enough that he could see the small mole on the back of her neck, the one he had kissed a thousand times in their marriage, the one he had traced with his fingers while she slept.

She tripped.

Of course she tripped. The floor was uneven near the reception desk, a flaw in the marble that had never been fixed. She had tripped that day, in the original timeline, and he had caught her. He had always caught her.

Nanami didn't move.

He watched, frozen in a horror of his own making, as the cardboard carrier tilted forward. He watched her face transform from concentration to panic to despair. He watched the coffee—black, two sugars, one cream, exactly as he remembered the orders—arc through the air in slow motion.

It hit her chest first. Then her arms. Then her hands as she instinctively tried to shield herself.

The scream that tore from her throat was not the scream of inconvenience or embarrassment. It was the scream of someone being burned. Third-degree burns. He knew, because he had memorized every detail of this day in the years that followed, torturing himself with the what-ifs and the almosts. The coffee had been brewed not twenty minutes ago. It was still near-boiling.

She collapsed to her knees, the empty cups scattering around her like fallen soldiers, and Nanami stood there, behind his pillar, his nails digging crescents into his palms until they bled.

I'm sorry, he thought, the words screaming through his skull with the force of a hurricane. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, my love, my heart, my everything. I'm sorry I didn't catch you. I'm sorry I let you burn. I'm sorry I'm saving you from me.

People were rushing to her now. The receptionist was calling for security, for a medic, for an ambulance. Someone was trying to help her stand, but she was crying too hard, the sounds tearing out of her in wounded-animal noises that Nanami knew he would hear in his nightmares for the rest of this second life.

He turned away.

He walked to the elevator. He pressed the button for the fifteenth floor. And when the doors closed, sealing him in that metal box with his reflection, he finally let himself feel it.

The grief hit him like a physical blow, doubling him over, forcing him to brace himself against the handrail. He sobbed—great, heaving, ugly sobs that shook his entire frame. He cried for her pain. He cried for the coffee burns that were even now blistering her beautiful skin. He cried for the fact that he had chosen this, that he had deliberately let her suffer, that he was the kind of man who could stand by and watch the woman he loved be hurt.

But mostly, he cried because he had forgotten how much he loved her.

Not the comfortable, worn-in love of a seven-year marriage. Not the love of shared grocery lists and inside jokes and comfortable silences. He had forgotten this—the violent, terrifying, all-consuming love of first sight. The love that felt like being struck by lightning. The love that made him want to tear his own heart out of his chest if it meant she would never know a moment's pain.

The elevator doors opened. Nanami wiped his face with his sleeve, straightened his tie, and walked into the intern bullpen as if his soul weren't currently screaming.

The morning was chaos. Rumors spread like wildfire—a new intern, some girl from HR's department, had been hospitalized with severe burns. The senior associates were nervous, worried about liability, about workers' compensation, about the optics of overworking an intern on her first day. Nanami sat at his desk and said nothing.

He worked.

He worked with the manic intensity of a man trying to outrun his own thoughts. He processed spreadsheets that would have taken a normal intern three hours to complete. He reviewed financial statements with the expertise of someone who had spent seven years in this industry before leaving to become a sorcerer. He answered emails, filed reports, and when his direct supervisor asked if he could stay late to help with a presentation, he said yes.

He said yes, and then he stayed until midnight.

And when the office was empty, when the cleaning crew had come and gone and the only light was the sickly glow of his computer monitor, Nanami finally let himself look at her desk.

It was three cubicles down from his, a temporary setup with a borrowed chair and a nameplate that read "Visitor." Her bag was still there, a canvas tote with a small embroidered cat on the front. He remembered that bag. She had carried it everywhere in their early twenties, until the strap finally broke and he had bought her a leather replacement for her birthday.

He walked over. He shouldn't have. He knew he shouldn't have, but his body moved without his permission, drawn to her like a planet to its sun.

Her notebook was open on the desk. Her handwriting—he knew her handwriting, had seen it on a thousand grocery lists and love notes and birthday cards—filled the pages with neat, careful kanji. She had been taking notes on the company's organizational structure. She had drawn a small star next to the name of the department she had wanted to transfer to after her internship: Corporate Social Responsibility.

She had wanted to help people. Even then, even at twenty-one, she had wanted to make the world a little kinder.

Nanami closed the notebook. He gathered her things—her bag, her notes, her spare cardigan that she had left draped over her chair—and he locked them in his own desk drawer for safekeeping. Then he sat back down at his computer and began doing her work.

He worked through the night. He answered the emails that had been sent to her account, completing the tasks she would have been assigned if she hadn't been in the hospital. He prepared the reports she would have had to file. He organized the data entry that was part of every intern's miserable existence.

At 6 AM, he finally stopped. His eyes were burning, his head pounding, his hands cramping from the repetitive motion of typing. But he had done it. He had completed three days of her work in eight hours. She would not fall behind. She would not be fired. She would still have a job waiting for her when she healed, even if he had to work himself to death to ensure it.

He went home. He showered. He changed his clothes. And then, standing in his tiny apartment kitchen, he finally let himself break.

The sound that came out of him didn't sound human. It was a howl, a wail, a raw expression of agony that seemed to tear itself from the marrow of his bones. He sank to the floor, his back against the refrigerator, and he screamed into his hands until his throat was raw.

He had let her burn. He had stood there, with arms that could have caught her, with a body that could have shielded her, and he had done nothing. He had watched her skin blister and bubble and char, and he had called it love.

This is mercy, he told himself, his voice cracking around the lie. This is kindness. She will find someone better. She will find someone who won't leave her crying over a corpse in the middle of Shibuya.

But his soul knew better. His soul knew that there was no one better, because there was no one else who would love her like he did. There was no one else who would memorize the way she took her tea, or the way she hummed when she was happy, or the exact pressure she liked when he scratched her back. There was no one else who would die for her, kill for her, sell his soul to every dark and terrible thing in the universe if it meant she would smile one more time.

He cried until he couldn't breathe. He cried until his face was swollen and his chest ached with the force of his own sobbing. And when he was empty, when there was nothing left inside him but ash and regret, he stood up, washed his face, and went back to work.

The next day, he learned that she had been admitted to Tokyo General Hospital with second-degree burns across her chest and arms. She would be there for at least two weeks. The doctors were concerned about infection, about scarring, about the psychological trauma of a burn injury so early in her professional life.

Nanami listened to this information with the expression of a man receiving a weather report. He nodded. He made appropriate noises of concern. And then he went back to his desk and worked fourteen hours, completing not only his assignments but hers as well.

He developed a routine. He would arrive at 6 AM, before anyone else, and work on her tasks. He would attend his own meetings, perform his own duties, and then stay until midnight doing the work she would have been assigned. He stopped eating regular meals. He stopped sleeping more than three hours a night. He became a ghost in the office, pale and hollow-eyed, moving through the fluorescent-lit halls with the single-minded determination of a man possessed.

On the fifth day, his manager—a middle-aged man named Tanaka who wore cheap suits and cheaper cologne—approached his desk.

"Kento," he said, using Nanami's first name with the familiarity of a superior who had never bothered to learn boundaries. "You've been working late. Every day. Is everything alright?"

Nanami looked up. His eyes were red-rimmed, his face gaunt. "I'm fine."

Tanaka shifted uncomfortably. "And… the new intern. The girl who was burned. The hospital said visitors are allowed now. Some of the team are going tomorrow. You should come. Show some team spirit."

The words hit Nanami like a physical blow. Visit her. See her. Stand in the same room as her, breathe the same air, look into her eyes and pretend he didn't know the exact shade of gold they turned in the sunlight. Pretend he hadn't memorized every freckle on her nose, every curve of her smile, every sound she made when she was happy or sad or in the throes of passion.

"No," he said, his voice flat.

Tanaka blinked. "Excuse me?"

"I'm paid to work," Nanami said, turning back to his computer. "Not to make hospital visits. If you want to deduct my salary for the time spent on personal matters, that's your prerogative. But I won't go."

There was a long silence. Then Tanaka cleared his throat, mumbled something about "young people these days," and walked away.

But the seed had been planted. The guilt had been watered.

That night, Nanami went home and stood in his shower until the water ran cold. He thought about her lying in that hospital bed, alone and in pain, surrounded by strangers. He thought about how scared she must be, how lonely, how confused about why her coworkers had abandoned her after only one day.

He thought about the flowers. He knew, because he had overheard the conversations in the break room, that people were bringing her flowers. Bouquets of lilies and roses and chrysanthemums, the standard hospital gifts, beautiful but impersonal. And fruit baskets. And boxes of chocolate. All the generic offerings of people who felt obligated to care but didn't know how.

She hated lilies. They reminded her of funerals.

She was allergic to most melons.

She preferred savory to sweet, always had, always would.

And nobody, not a single person, had thought to bring her something that mattered. Something that said I see you. I know you. You are not just a patient or an obligation or a workplace accident—you are a person, and you deserve to be known.

Nanami turned off the water. He stood in the darkness of his bathroom, dripping and naked and more broken than he had been at the moment of his death, and he made a decision.

He would not visit her. He would not speak to her. He would not let her see his face or hear his voice or know his name.

But he could feed her.

He got out of the shower. He dried himself with rough, efficient motions. And then he went to his kitchen, turned on the light, and opened his refrigerator.

It was nearly empty. He had been surviving on convenience store onigiri and vending machine coffee for five days. But in his pantry, he found flour. He found eggs. He found the ingredients for the dish he had cooked for her a hundred times in their marriage, the one she had called "the taste of home," the one she had requested on her birthday and their anniversary and the days when the world had been too heavy and she needed comfort.

Curry. Not the instant kind, not the blocks from a box, but real curry. The kind that took hours to make, with caramelized onions and homemade roux and a secret blend of spices that he had perfected over years of cooking for her.

He started at 1 AM.

He chopped onions until his eyes burned worse than they had from crying. He stirred the roux until his arm ached. He added the spices one by one, tasting and adjusting with the muscle memory of a man who had cooked this meal for the love of his life more times than he could count.

By 4 AM, the curry was perfect. Rich, golden, fragrant enough to make his empty stomach twist with longing. He portioned it into containers—three of them, enough for dinner and lunch the next day, because he knew she ate like a bird when she was stressed and he wanted her to have enough.

Then he made rice. Perfect, fluffy rice, each grain separate and gleaming.

He packed it all carefully, wrapping the containers in towels to keep them warm. He added pickles—her favorite kind, the sweet yellow daikon from his hometown. He added a small container of umeboshi, because she loved the sourness. He made miso soup with wakame and tofu, exactly the way she liked it, with the tofu cut into small cubes rather than chunks.

And then, because he knew she would be bored in that hospital room, because he knew she loved to read and would have finished whatever book she had brought within the first day, he went to his bookshelf.

His manga collection. He had kept it hidden during his first internship, embarrassed by what he thought was an immature hobby. She had discovered it years later, in their shared apartment, and had teased him mercilessly until he admitted that yes, he loved shonen manga, and yes, he had a particular soft spot for the ones about friendship and found family and fighting for what you believed in.

He selected her favorite. The one with the orange-haired protagonist who never gave up, no matter how broken he became. The one she had read so many times that the spine was cracked, the pages soft with handling.

He wrapped the books in brown paper. He wrote nothing on them. He would leave no trace, no signature, no clue that could lead back to him.

At 5:30 AM, he left his apartment.

The hospital was across town, but Nanami walked. He needed the time. He needed the cold morning air to clear his head, to remind him of what he was doing, to give him the strength to walk away after he had delivered his offerings.

He arrived at 6:45 AM. The morning shift was just beginning, nurses yawning as they received reports from the night crew. Nanami walked past the reception desk with the confidence of someone who belonged there, and he found her room number from the directory—307, third floor, shared room.

He took the stairs. He couldn't bear the thought of being trapped in an elevator, not when his heart was already pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat.

Room 307. The door was closed. He stood outside it for ten minutes, his hands shaking, his breath coming in shallow gasps. He could hear voices inside. A nurse, checking vitals. The rustle of sheets. A soft, tired voice—her voice—thanking the nurse for the help.

Nanami closed his eyes. He leaned his forehead against the cool wood of the doorframe, and he whispered her name into the silence. Just once. Just to feel the shape of it on his tongue, the familiar weight of syllables that had been his prayer and his home.

Then he waited. He waited until the nurse left, until the footsteps retreated down the hall, until the room fell into the particular stillness of early morning that meant she had gone back to sleep.

He opened the door.

She was lying on her side, facing away from him, her bandaged arm visible above the blanket. Even in sleep, she looked uncomfortable, her brow furrowed, her breathing shallow. The burns were hurting her. He could see the tension in her shoulders, the way she held herself rigid even in unconsciousness.

The room was terrible. He saw it immediately, with the eyes of a man who had spent his adult life protecting people. The bed was old, the mattress thin, the pillow flat. The window looked out onto a brick wall. There was another bed in the room, occupied by an elderly woman who snored with the wet, rattling sound of congested lungs. The air smelled of antiseptic and despair.

Nanami placed the food on the small table beside her bed. He arranged it carefully—the curry in the center, the rice beside it, the pickles and soup and umeboshi in a neat row. He placed the wrapped manga on the chair, where she would see it when she woke.

Then he looked at her.

Really looked at her, with the hunger of a starving man presented with a feast. He memorized the way her hair fell across the pillow, the smallness of her form under the thin hospital blanket, the flutter of her eyelashes as she dreamed. He wanted to touch her so badly his hands ached with it. He wanted to brush the hair from her face, to kiss her forehead, to whisper that she was safe, that he was here, that he would burn the world down before he let anything hurt her again.

Instead, he took a step back.

And another.

And another, until his back hit the wall and he realized he was crying again, silent tears streaming down his face, his hand pressed over his mouth to keep the sobs from escaping.

He forced himself to turn. Forced himself to walk to the door. Forced himself to leave her there, alone and unknowing, surrounded by the only gifts he could give her—food she loved, stories that would make her smile, and the cowardice of his absence.

But as he reached the door, he stopped. He looked back at the room, at the peeling paint and the broken blinds and the elderly roommate coughing in the corner, and he felt something inside him snap.

No.

She would not heal here. She would not recover in this place of shadows and suffering, surrounded by sickness and decay. She deserved sunlight. She deserved privacy. She deserved a room with a view of something green and growing, where she could rest and read and eat her curry in peace.

Nanami walked to the nurses' station. The nurse on duty looked up, surprised to see a young man in business attire at 7 AM.

"I'd like to pay for a room upgrade," he said, his voice steady despite the tears still wet on his cheeks. "Room 307. The patient with the burns. I want her moved to a private room. The best you have."

The nurse blinked. "Sir, that's… that's quite expensive. And we need the patient's consent, or family authorization—"

"I'll pay for six months in advance," Nanami interrupted, reaching for his wallet. He had savings from his previous life, money he had earned in a timeline that no longer existed, but the bank accounts were the same, the investments had been made, and he had access to funds that no twenty-one-year-old intern should possess. "And I'll cover all medical expenses. Whatever insurance doesn't pay. Whatever treatments she needs. Just… please. Move her today. This morning."

He pulled out a credit card. The platinum one, the one he had kept in his desk drawer for emergencies, the one that had enough available credit to buy a small car.

The nurse stared at the card, then at his face. "Sir, are you family?"

"No," Nanami said. "I'm no one. I'm nothing. Please, just… do this for her. Don't tell her who paid. Don't tell anyone. Just… let her have something nice. Let her heal somewhere beautiful."

Something in his voice must have convinced her. Perhaps it was the desperation. Perhaps it was the tears he wasn't bothering to hide. Perhaps it was simply the fact that it was 7 AM and she hadn't had her coffee yet and rich young men did strange things for love all the time.

She took the card. She processed the payment. And when she handed it back, she looked at him with something that might have been pity, or understanding, or both.

"Room 512," she said softly. "It's empty. It has a view of the garden. I'll have her moved within the hour."

Nanami nodded. He couldn't speak. He turned and walked away, down the hall, down the stairs, out into the morning light that felt like an assault.

He went to work. He sat at his desk. He stared at his computer screen without seeing it.

At 10 AM, Tanaka approached him again. The manager looked shaken, his usual bluster replaced by something that looked almost like guilt.

"Kento," he said quietly. "I went to the hospital this morning. To see the intern. The girl."

Nanami's hands froze on his keyboard. "Did you."

"She's been moved. To a private room. And… and I saw the food someone left her. Home-cooked. Curry. Rice. All her favorites, apparently. The nurse said she cried when she woke up and saw it. She said it was the kindest thing anyone had ever done for her."

Tanaka paused. He looked at Nanami's hollow cheeks, his red-rimmed eyes, his hands that were trembling slightly on the keyboard.

"Kento," he said, his voice gentler than Nanami had ever heard it. "I was wrong. I shouldn't have sent her for coffee. I shouldn't have let her carry so much alone. It was my fault she got hurt. And I… I need to apologize. To her. To everyone. I've been a terrible manager."

Nanami said nothing. He couldn't look away from his screen, couldn't risk Tanaka seeing the fresh tears gathering in his eyes.

"Will you come with me?" Tanaka asked. "To visit her? To apologize together?"

"No," Nanami whispered.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm paid to work," he said, the words tasting like ash. "Not to apologize. Not to visit. Not to…" He stopped. He couldn't finish the sentence. Not to love her. Not to save her. Not to be the reason she smiles.

Tanaka sighed. "You're a strange young man, Kento. But… I think you're a good one. Whatever you're going through… I hope you find peace."

He walked away. Nanami sat at his desk, his hands over his face, and cried silently until his throat was raw.

That night, he worked until 2 AM. He finished a week's worth of her assignments. He organized her desk, filing away the papers that had accumulated, leaving everything perfect for her return.

If she returned.

If she didn't quit after this, after the burns and the hospital and the strange anonymous benefactor who seemed to know her better than she knew herself.

If she didn't meet someone else, someone safer, someone who would love her without leaving her, someone who would give her the life Nanami was trying to buy for her with his absence.

He went home. He slept for four hours. He dreamed of Shibuya, of smoke and blood and her screaming face. He woke up gasping, her name on his lips, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.

Day six.

Day seven.

Day eight.

He continued his routine. Work, work, work. He completed her tasks and his own. He learned, from office gossip, that she was healing well. That the burns were responding to treatment. That she would likely recover without severe scarring, though she would need physical therapy for her hands.

He learned that she had read the manga he left her three times already. That she asked every nurse who brought her food if they knew who had cooked it, who had paid for her room, who had left the books.

No one knew. He had paid in cash for the subsequent meals, leaving them at the nurses' station with instructions to deliver them anonymously. Curry on Monday. Oyakodon on Tuesday. Miso ramen on Wednesday. All her favorites. All made with hands that shook from exhaustion and love.

On day nine, he broke again.

He was walking past the hospital on his way home. He told himself it was a shortcut, that he wasn't deliberately passing by, that he didn't know what he was doing until he found himself standing in the garden below her window.

Room 512. He could see the light on, could see the shadow of someone moving behind the curtain. She was awake. She was reading, probably, or eating, or just staring at the ceiling wondering why the universe had decided to burn her on her first day of work.

He stood there for an hour. Just watching her window, imagining her inside, imagining the way she would look in the soft lamplight, the way she would smell like hospital soap and the strawberry shampoo he knew she used.

And then, miracle of miracles, the window opened.

She leaned out, just her head and shoulders, her hair loose around her face, her bandaged arm resting on the sill. She took a deep breath of the evening air, and she looked up at the sky.

Nanami stepped back into the shadows of a tree, his heart stopped, his breath held.

She was so beautiful. Even wounded, even suffering, even confused and alone in a hospital room that shouldn't have been paid for by a stranger—she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. The moonlight caught her face, turning her skin to pearl, making her eyes glow with a light that seemed to come from within.

She smiled.

It was a small smile, tentative and sad, but it was there. She was looking at something—a cloud, a star, perhaps just the feeling of fresh air after days in a sterile room—and she was smiling.

Nanami felt his knees buckle. He caught himself on the tree trunk, his nails digging into the bark, his whole body shaking with the effort of not calling out to her, not running up those stairs, not throwing himself at her feet and begging for forgiveness.

I'm sorry, he thought, the words a prayer, a mantra, a lifeline. I'm sorry I let you burn. I'm sorry I'm not there. I'm sorry I'm too dangerous to love. But please, please, please… keep smiling. Even without me. Especially without me.

She stayed at the window for ten minutes. Nanami watched her for every second, memorizing the way the wind moved her hair, the way she rested her chin on her hand, the way she hummed a little tune under her breath—a song he knew, a song she had sung while cooking in their kitchen, while getting dressed for work, while lying in his arms on Sunday mornings.

Then she went back inside. The window closed. The light stayed on.

Nanami stayed in the garden until dawn.

He went to work the next day with leaves in his hair and dirt on his suit and a look in his eyes that made Tanaka give him a wide berth. He worked sixteen hours. He went home. He cooked her dinner—nikujaga this time, because he knew she loved the sweetness of the potatoes, the tenderness of the meat.

He brought it to the hospital at midnight. He left it with the night nurse, a kind older woman who was beginning to suspect who he was but said nothing, just took the containers with a gentle smile.

"She's getting better," the nurse told him. "She asks about you every day. The mystery man. She says she wants to thank him."

"Tell her…" Nanami paused. He looked at the closed door of Room 512, imagining her asleep inside, imagining her dreams. "Tell her she's welcome. Tell her… tell her to get well soon. Tell her the world is waiting for her."

"Why don't you tell her yourself?"

He shook his head. He walked away. He went home and stood in his shower and screamed into his hands until his voice gave out.

Week two began.

She was discharged on Wednesday. He learned this from the office gossip, from the excitement of HR preparing for her return, from the way people spoke of her with a mixture of pity and admiration—the brave intern who had survived a terrible accident, who was coming back to work despite her injuries.

Nanami prepared her desk. He left a new notebook, nicer than the one she had been using, with a soft leather cover and thick, creamy paper. He left a good pen, the kind that wrote smoothly without skipping. He left a small potted plant—a succulent, easy to care for, something green and living to keep her company.

He did not leave a note.

She returned on Friday.

Nanami was at his desk when she walked in. He heard the door open, heard the murmur of greetings, heard her voice—thank you, I'm happy to be back, yes I'm feeling much better—and felt the world tilt on its axis.

He didn't look up. He couldn't. He stared at his computer screen until the pixels blurred together, until he realized he had been typing the same sentence for ten minutes without making sense.

She walked past his desk.

He smelled her—strawberry shampoo, hospital soap, the faint lingering scent of the curry he had made her. She paused. He felt her eyes on him, curious, confused, wondering why this stranger looked so familiar when they had never met.

Then she moved on. She sat at her desk, three cubicles down, and began to unpack her bag.

Nanami let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding. His hands were shaking so badly he had to hide them under his desk. His heart was hammering so loud he was sure the whole office could hear it.

She was here. She was alive. She was healing.

And she didn't know him. She didn't love him. She didn't look at him with the weight of seven years of marriage, of shared memories, of a future that had been stolen from them.

He had done it. He had succeeded. He had erased himself from her life, and she was safe.

So why did it feel like he was dying?

The morning passed in a blur. He worked mechanically, automatically, his body going through the motions while his mind screamed. He heard her voice, answering phones, speaking to colleagues, asking questions about the work she had missed. He heard her laugh—god, her laugh, that bright, musical sound that had been his favorite song for a decade—and felt something inside him crack.

At lunch, people invited her to join them. She hesitated. He heard her say she had brought her own food, that she was still a bit tired, that she would eat at her desk.

He had made her bento that morning. He had left it in the office refrigerator with her name on it, knowing she would find it, knowing she would wonder, knowing she would eat it because she hated waste and because he had made her favorites—karaage, tamagoyaki, pickled vegetables, rice sprinkled with furikake.

He heard her open the container. He heard her sharp intake of breath. He heard her whisper, "Who…?"

Then, silence. Then, the soft sounds of her eating.

Nanami bent his head over his work and cried silently, tears falling onto his keyboard, his heart breaking and breaking and breaking with every bite she took.

The afternoon was torture. He could feel her presence like a physical weight, a gravitational pull that made it impossible to concentrate, impossible to breathe, impossible to be. Every time she moved, every time she spoke, every time she laughed or sighed or shifted in her chair, he was acutely, painfully aware of her.

At 5 PM, people began to leave. She stayed. He stayed. He was determined to outlast her, to make sure she got home safe without ever having to interact with her, to maintain the distance that was killing him but saving her.

At 6 PM, she stood up. He heard her gathering her things, putting on her cardigan—the yellow one with the daisy print, the one she had worn on her first day, the one that had been ruined by coffee but she had loved too much to throw away.

She walked toward the elevator.

She paused at his desk.

Nanami froze. He didn't look up. He couldn't look up, because if he looked up he would see her face, and if he saw her face he would be lost, he would say her name, he would beg her to remember him, to love him, to save him from this hell he had chosen.

"Excuse me," she said, her voice soft and uncertain. "Are you… do I know you? You look so familiar."

He said nothing. He shook his head, still staring at his screen, his hands clenched into fists so tight his nails drew blood from his palms.

"Oh," she said. "I'm sorry. It's just… you look like someone I know."

I am, he thought, the words tearing through him like shrapnel. I'm your husband. I'm your future. I'm the man who loves you more than breath, more than blood, more than life itself. I'm the one who held you while you cried, who kissed your tears away, who promised you forever and then died and left you alone.

He heard her walk away. He heard the elevator doors open, close, carry her down and away and out of his life.

Nanami sat at his desk until midnight. He didn't work. He didn't move. He just sat there, staring at the space where she had stood, breathing in the lingering scent of her perfume, feeling the absence of her like a phantom limb. Days passed.

The fluorescent lights of the fifteenth floor hummed their sterile song, and she was singing over them.

Not literally—though Nanami wouldn't have been surprised if she had burst into song, given the sheer vitality that seemed to radiate from her small form—but in the way she moved through the office, her voice lilting up and down in gentle arcs, greeting everyone by name, remembering details about their lives that she had only learned in passing. The way she asked Tanaka-san about his daughter's piano recital, the way she complimented the receptionist's new haircut, the way she brought an extra onigiri for the junior associate who always forgot breakfast.

She was sunlight poured into human shape, and she was killing him by inches.

Nanami sat at his desk, his spine rigid, his eyes fixed on the spreadsheet before him with the intensity of a man trying to memorize scripture. He didn't look up when she approached. He didn't need to. He could feel her presence like warmth radiating from a furnace, could smell that strawberry shampoo that haunted his dreams, could hear the soft shuffle of her footsteps stopping three feet from his cubicle wall.

"Good morning, Nanami-san!" Her voice was bright, buoyant, utterly without the shadow of resentment that should have followed him after what he'd done to her. After he'd let her burn. After he'd ignored her suffering. After he'd been cold and cruel and distant when she had every right to hate him.

He didn't respond. He typed a number into cell B-14. The cursor blinked back at him, accusing.

"I wanted to thank you," she continued, undeterred by his silence. She moved closer, close enough that he could see her hands in his peripheral vision—small, delicate hands still bearing the faint pink scars of healing burns, resting on the edge of his desk. "For the notes you left. While I was in the hospital. They were so detailed, so thorough. I would have been completely lost without them. You saved my job, probably."

I didn't save you, he thought, the words acid in his throat. I let you burn. I watched you suffer. I am not your savior. I am your curse.

"You're welcome," he said, his voice flat and cold as stone. He didn't look up. He didn't smile. He offered nothing—no warmth, no acknowledgment, no hint that he remembered her favorite curry or the mole on her neck or the way she hummed when she was happy.

There was a pause. He could feel her confusion like a physical weight, could imagine the way her brow was furrowing, the way she was tilting her head in that particular gesture of curiosity that he had sketched a hundred times in the margins of his notebooks in another life.

"Well," she said, her voice still cheerful but with a note of uncertainty now, a crack in the armor of her brightness. "I just wanted to say thank you. If you ever need anything—coffee, help with a project, someone to talk to—I'm here. We're desk neighbors, after all."

Don't be here, he wanted to scream. Don't be kind. Don't be warm. Don't look at me like I'm someone worth knowing when you have no idea what I cost you in another life. When you have no idea that loving me means your future becomes a graveyard.

"Is there anything else?" he asked, finally looking up, letting his eyes meet hers with all the coldness he could muster. "I have work to do."

She flinched. It was small, barely perceptible, but he saw it—the way her shoulders tightened, the way her smile faltered, the way she took a half-step back as if his words had physically pushed her.

"N-no," she stammered, her voice smaller now. "I'm sorry to bother you. I'll just… I'll get back to work."

She walked away, and Nanami watched her go in the reflection of his computer monitor, watched the way her steps slowed, the way she paused at her desk and sat down heavily, the way she stared at her keyboard for a long moment before squaring her shoulders and beginning to type.

He had hurt her. Good. That was the point. That was the only way to save her.

But she didn't avoid him.

If anything, his coldness seemed to make her more determined. It was as if she had looked at his walls and seen them not as fortifications to be respected, but as wounds to be healed. She began bringing him coffee—black, two sugars, exactly how he took it, though he had never told her. She began leaving small notes on his desk when she finished early, offering to help with his workload. She began studying him with those golden eyes, not with the frustration or anger he expected, but with a gentle, probing curiosity that made him feel like a puzzle she was determined to solve.

"Nanami-san," she said one afternoon, two weeks after her return. He was working late again, as he always did, as he had done every night since she came back, because the office was safe, the office was empty, the office didn't smell like strawberry shampoo and hope. "You're here late again. Do you… do you not like going home?"

He didn't look up from his spreadsheet. "I like my job."

"Do you have family waiting? Friends? A girlfriend?"

You, he thought. In another life, I had you. You waiting with dinner on the table. You in my bed, warm and soft and mine. You in my future, in my name, in my heart. I had everything, and I lost it, and now I have nothing because I chose to give you up.

"That's none of your business," he said, his voice sharp as a blade.

"I know," she said, and she didn't leave. She pulled up a chair—he heard the scrape of it against the carpet—and sat down beside him, close enough that he could feel the heat of her body, close enough that he could see her hands folded in her lap, the scars still pink and new. "I know it's none of my business. But you seem so lonely, Nanami-san. And I think… I think maybe people have been unkind to you. I think maybe you've been hurt. And I just want you to know that not everyone is like that. That some people want to be kind. That I want to be kind."

She reached out. Her hand hovered over his, not touching, just there, offering.

He jerked away as if burned. "Don't," he snapped, his voice rising, his composure cracking. "Don't pity me. Don't project your… your sunshine and rainbows onto me. I'm not some wounded bird for you to heal. I'm not some project. I'm just a man who wants to be left alone. Is that so difficult to understand?"

She withdrew her hand. She looked at him with those eyes—god, those eyes, the ones that had looked at him with love and lust and grief across two lifetimes—and he saw something there that terrified him more than any curse he had ever faced.

Understanding. Not complete, not yet, but the beginning of it. The suspicion that there was more to him than met the eye. That his cruelty was a mask. That his distance was a defense.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean to presume. I just… you seem like someone who needs a friend. And I need friends too. This job is new, and scary, and… never mind. I'll leave you alone."

She stood. She walked away. And Nanami sat there, his hands shaking, his chest heaving, feeling like he had just cut off his own arm with a dull knife.

But she didn't leave him alone.

She couldn't. It wasn't in her nature. Where another person would have been deterred by his coldness, she was only more intrigued. Where another would have given up, she persisted with a gentleness that felt like water wearing away at stone. She began leaving him small things—a packet of his favorite tea on his desk, a bookmark with a quote about perseverance, a note saying simply "The cherry blossoms are blooming in the park nearby. They're beautiful today."

She never pushed. She never demanded. She simply… existed. Softly, persistently, kindly.

And it was destroying him.

Because every time she smiled at him, he remembered the way she had smiled in their kitchen, wearing his shirt, making coffee on a Sunday morning. Every time she brought him coffee, he remembered the way she had learned to make it exactly how he liked it, the way she would bring it to him while he was reading, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. Every time she looked at him with those gentle eyes, he remembered the way she had looked at him in Shibuya, the way she had screamed his name while his blood ran between her fingers.

He was drowning in memory, suffocating in love, and she was the air he couldn't breathe.

Then came the investigation.

He noticed her watching him more carefully, noticed the way she would pause when she passed his desk, noticed the way she seemed to be putting together pieces of a puzzle he couldn't see. She asked subtle questions—when his birthday was (he had let it slip in a moment of weakness, mentioning it was "soon" when Tanaka asked about plans), what he liked to eat, what he did in his free time.

He answered tersely, guardedly, but she collected the information like a magpie collecting shiny things, storing it away with that secret smile that meant she was planning something.

He should have known. He should have recognized the signs. In their first life, she had been the same way—secretive and excited when planning surprises, her eyes sparkling with mischief, her hands fluttering with nervous energy.

But he was so tired. So exhausted from fighting his own heart every moment of every day. So depleted from loving her in silence, from watching her and wanting her and knowing he couldn't have her.

He didn't see it coming.

It was a Tuesday. The office was decorated with streamers and balloons, which should have been his first clue, but he was so focused on not looking at her, not thinking about her, not breathing her air, that he walked right into it.

"Surprise!"

The shout went up as he stepped off the elevator, and he froze, his blood turning to ice in his veins. The entire floor was there—Tanaka, the receptionist, the junior associates, the senior managers. They were all smiling, holding a cake, wearing party hats like ridiculous children.

And there she was, in the center of it all, holding a gift wrapped in gold paper, her face glowing with pride and happiness and that particular brand of joy that came from making someone else feel special.

"Happy birthday, Nanami-san!" she cried, stepping forward, pressing the gift into his hands, her fingers brushing his, her eyes shining. "We wanted to celebrate you! You're always working so hard, always helping everyone, and you never let anyone do anything for you. So… so I thought… I wanted to make you feel special. Just for one day."

The cake was pushed forward. Twenty-two candles—one for luck, she would have said in another life. The lights were too bright. The voices were too loud. The smell of sugar and frosting and cheap office coffee was overwhelming.

And suddenly, he wasn't in the office anymore.

He was in their apartment. Their real apartment, the one they had shared in Sangenjaya, with the big windows and the creaky floorboards and the kitchen that was too small but perfect because it was theirs. He was sitting at their table, wearing a sweater she had knitted him, his hair still wet from the shower.

She was in the kitchen, humming, bringing out a cake. Not a store-bought cake like this one, but a homemade one, lopsided and slightly burnt because she was terrible at baking but insisted on doing it anyway. She was wearing an apron and nothing else, her hair loose, her face flushed from the oven heat.

"Happy birthday, Kento," she said, leaning down to kiss him, her lips sweet with frosting. "Thirty-one years old. My old man."

"Thirty-one isn't old," he had protested, but he was smiling, pulling her into his lap, ignoring the cake in favor of tasting her.

They had talked for hours that night. They had eaten cake in bed, crumbs in the sheets, her head on his chest, his fingers in her hair. They had talked about the future. About the child they wanted to try for. About names—Yuki if it was a girl, after her grandmother. Haru if it was a boy, because she liked the way it sounded with his last name. Nanami Haru. Spring. New beginnings.

They had made love slowly, sweetly, whispering promises into each other's skin. They had fallen asleep tangled together, full of cake and hope and love.

Three months later, he died in Shibuya.

"Nanami-san?" Her voice cut through the memory, through the agony, through the ghost of a future that would never be. "Are you okay? You look pale. Do you want to sit down?"

He looked at her. Really looked at her. Saw the concern in her eyes, the hope, the kindness. Saw the way she had planned this for him, had thought about him, had wanted to make him happy.

And he saw red.

"How dare you," he whispered, his voice trembling with a rage that wasn't really rage at all, but grief so profound it had nowhere else to go.

The room went quiet. The smiles faded. People shifted uncomfortably, looking at each other, wondering what was happening.

"Nanami-san?" she asked, her voice small, uncertain. "I just… I wanted to—"

"Wanted to what?" he interrupted, his voice rising, cracking, breaking. He threw the gift to the ground, heard something inside it shatter. "Wanted to embarrass me? Wanted to make me the center of attention? Wanted to force your… your charity onto me?"

He was yelling now. He could hear himself, could feel the words tearing his throat, but he couldn't stop. The dam had broken, and years of love and loss and pain were flooding out, drowning everything in their path.

"I told you to leave me alone!" he shouted, advancing on her, watching her flinch back, watching the color drain from her face, watching her eyes fill with tears. "I told you I don't want your kindness! I don't want your attention! I don't want your… your cakes and your presents and your stupid, endless, suffocating niceness!"

"Nanami-san, please," she whispered, her hands raised as if to ward him off, her voice breaking. "I just thought… I wanted to make you happy…"

"Happy?" He laughed, and it was an ugly sound, bitter and broken. "You think this makes me happy? You think I want to be reminded that I'm alive? That I have birthdays? That I have a future?"

He was close to her now, close enough to see the tears spilling down her cheeks, close enough to see the way she was shaking, the way her colleagues were staring in horror, the way Tanaka was stepping forward to intervene.

"You don't know me," he snarled, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper that was somehow worse than the shouting. "You don't know anything about me. You don't know what I've done, what I've lost, what I'm trying to protect you from. And yet you keep pushing, keep prying, keep forcing your way into my life like some kind of… of parasite!"

The word hit her like a physical blow. She staggered back, her hand going to her mouth, her eyes wide with shock and hurt.

"So let me make this clear," he continued, his voice shaking now, tears he hadn't known he was capable of anymore streaming down his face. "I don't want you here. I don't want you near me. I don't want your friendship, your kindness, or your love. I want you to leave me alone. Is that simple enough for you? Can you understand that? Or are you too stupid to take a hint?"

The silence that followed was absolute. No one moved. No one breathed. He could hear the hum of the fluorescent lights, the distant sound of traffic from the street below, the rapid beat of his own heart.

She looked at him. Through her tears, through her pain, she looked at him. And he saw something in her eyes that would haunt him for the rest of this life and the next.

Not anger. Not hatred.

Recognition.

She saw him. Really saw him. Saw the pain beneath the rage, the love beneath the cruelty, the sacrifice beneath the rejection. She didn't understand it yet, not fully, but she saw it. And she was crying not just for herself, but for him.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "I'm so sorry, Kento."

She used his first name. She had never used his first name. Not in this life.

He turned and ran.

He didn't take the elevator. He took the stairs, two at a time, his lungs burning, his vision blurred. He burst out of the building into the evening air, gasping, choking, his hands shaking so badly he couldn't hold them still.

He walked. He didn't know where he was going. He just walked, his feet carrying him on autopilot, his mind a screaming void of self-loathing and despair.

How could he have said those things? How could he have been so cruel? She had only been kind. She had only been herself. And he had… he had destroyed her. Had called her a parasite. Had made her cry in front of everyone. Had taken her beautiful, generous heart and crushed it in his fist because he was too afraid to accept what she was offering.

He found himself at a bus stop. He didn't remember walking there. The bench was cold, the metal biting through his thin suit pants. He sat down heavily, his head in his hands, and he sobbed.

Great, heaving, broken sobs that shook his entire frame. He cried for her. For him. For the life they had lost and the life he was denying them. He cried for the names they would never choose, the children they would never have, the birthdays they would never celebrate together.

And when he was empty, when there were no more tears left, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the cigarettes he had started carrying again.

He had quit at twenty-two. In his first life, he had quit because she asked him to. Because she had wrinkled her nose at the smell and said, "I want you to live a long time, Kento. Long enough to grow old with me."

And he had quit. For her. For their future. For the life he wanted to build with her.

But now there was no future. Now he had given up on everything. So why not this too? Why not one more way to kill himself slowly?

He lit the cigarette with trembling hands. The smoke was harsh, burning his lungs, making him cough. It tasted like ash and failure. It tasted like exactly what he deserved.

He sat there, smoking, watching the buses come and go, watching the city lights flicker on one by one, watching the world continue without him.

And then he saw her.

She was across the street, at another bus stop, waiting for a different line. She must have left the office right after him, must have walked in the same direction without him noticing. She was sitting on her own bench, her small form hunched over, her face in her hands.

She was sobbing.

He could see it even from here—the way her shoulders shook, the way her breath hitched, the way she pressed her hands against her mouth as if trying to keep the sounds inside. She was crying the way she had cried in Shibuya. The way she had cried over his body. Brokenly. Desperately. Alone.

She thought she was alone now. She thought no one could see her. She had waited until she was away from the office, away from prying eyes, to let herself fall apart. To let herself feel the full weight of what he had done to her.

He watched her, the cigarette burning down between his fingers, forgotten. He watched her cry, and he felt his heart break all over again, felt it shatter into pieces so small they could never be put back together.

He had done this. He had caused this. He had taken the kindest, most loving soul he had ever known and he had made her cry alone on a bus bench.

Go to her, his heart screamed. Go to her and apologize. Go to her and tell her the truth. Tell her you love her. Tell her you're dying inside without her. Tell her you'll take it all back, every cruel word, if she'll just stop crying.

But he didn't move.

He couldn't. He was frozen, paralyzed by his own cruelty, trapped in the prison he had built for himself. He had to do this. He had to let her cry. He had to let her hate him. He had to let her move on and find someone else, someone better, someone who wouldn't die and leave her broken.

This was mercy. This was love. This was the only way to save her.

He watched until her bus came. Watched her wipe her face, straighten her shoulders, force herself to stop crying long enough to board. Watched the bus carry her away, into the night, away from him.

He sat there until his cigarette burned down to the filter, until it scorched his fingers, until the pain was the only thing he could feel.

Then he lit another one.

And another.

He sat on that bench until midnight, smoking and crying and hating himself, while the city moved around him, indifferent to his pain.

He had saved her. He had pushed her away. He had given her the gift of a future without him.

So why did it feel like he had died all over again?

The stars came out, one by one, indifferent and cold. He looked up at them, remembering how she had named them in their first life, making up stories about constellations, laughing when he pointed out that stars didn't actually work that way.

"I don't care," she had said, nestled against him on their balcony. "They're ours now. We can name them whatever we want."

He closed his eyes. He could still hear her voice. Still smell her hair. Still feel the ghost of her hand in his.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to the empty street, to the uncaring sky, to the woman who was already miles away. "I'm so sorry. I love you. I love you. I love you."

But love, he was learning, was not always enough.

Sometimes love was letting go. Sometimes love was being cruel. Sometimes love was sitting alone on a bus bench at midnight, smoking cigarettes you had promised to quit, crying for a woman you could never have, bleeding from wounds that would never heal.

He stood up. He walked home. He lay in his bed, fully clothed, staring at the ceiling until dawn.

Tomorrow, he would go back to work. He would sit at his desk. He would be cold and professional and distant.

And she would learn to hate him. She would learn to avoid him. She would transfer departments, or quit, or simply forget that he existed.

And someday, years from now, she would meet someone kind. Someone safe. Someone who would love her without leaving her, who would grow old with her, who would give her the children they had named in another life.

And she would be happy.

And that, Nanami told himself as the sun rose and the tears finally stopped, was worth any price. Even this. Even loneliness. Even a heart that would never beat again.

The hatred was a gift. She gave it to him freely, generously, the way she had once given him her heart—completely, without reservation, without looking back. He watched her learn it, watched the transformation happen in real time across the days and weeks that followed his cruelty.

It started with avoidance. She stopped passing his desk. Stopped bringing him coffee. Stopped leaving those gentle notes and small kindnesses that had been slowly dismantling his resolve. She took the long way around the office to reach the break room, the bathroom, the elevator. She averted her eyes when they passed in the hall, her gaze sliding over him like he was furniture, like he was air, like he was nothing.

Then came the silence. When he entered a room, she stopped talking. When he spoke in meetings, she found something fascinating to look at on her notepad. When Tanaka asked if anyone wanted to join him for lunch, she would only agree if Nanami declined, her eyes darting to him first, checking, always checking, making sure their paths wouldn't cross.

The office noticed. Of course they noticed. Offices were ecosystems of gossip and observation, and the sudden frost between the golden intern and the cold, strange young man was too dramatic to ignore. Whispers circulated. Theories formed. Some said he had rejected her romantically. Some said she had discovered something terrible about him. Some simply shrugged and said, "Nanami has always been strange."

Tanaka, to his credit, tried to intervene once. He called Nanami into his office, offered him tea, spoke in the careful, roundabout way of a man who had seen too many office dramas.

"Kento," he said, using Nanami's first name with uncharacteristic gentleness. "I don't know what happened between you and the girl. But… she's a good worker. Bright. Kind. The kind of person this company needs. If there's something I can do to help you two reconcile—"

"There's nothing to reconcile," Nanami interrupted, his voice flat as a frozen lake. "We were never anything to each other. We are colleagues who do not get along. It happens."

Tanaka studied him with eyes that were sharper than they appeared. "She cried, you know. In the bathroom. For an hour. I had to send her home early."

Nanami said nothing. He couldn't. His throat had closed around the image of her crying, the memory of her sobbing on that bus bench, the knowledge that he had caused her pain so profound she had to hide in a bathroom to endure it.

"Whatever you did," Tanaka continued, his voice dropping to a whisper, "whatever you said… you should apologize. While you still can."

But Nanami didn't apologize. He couldn't. Because Tanaka was wrong—there was nothing to reconcile because there had never been anything to break. They had never been friends. They had never been lovers. In this life, they had never been anything at all.

And that was exactly what Nanami had wanted.

The office adapted to their cold war with the efficiency of any living organism adjusting to a wound. Schedules were rearranged. Projects were reassigned. When teamwork was required, they were never paired together. When meetings were scheduled, they sat on opposite sides of the room. The space between them became a demilitarized zone, a buffer of empty chairs and careful planning that ensured they never had to speak, never had to look, never had to remember what had been lost.

It was perfect. It was torture.

Nanami threw himself into his work with the desperation of a drowning man. He arrived at dawn and left at midnight. He completed projects that should have taken weeks in days. He volunteered for the assignments no one wanted—the tedious audits, the difficult clients, the thankless data entry that made junior associates weep with boredom.

He didn't sleep. He didn't eat. He existed in a state of suspended animation, waiting for the years to pass, waiting for his twenty-eighth birthday to arrive, waiting for Shibuya to happen so he could finally die and be free of this hell.

And he watched her.

He couldn't help it. Despite the distance, despite the silence, despite his own best intentions, his eyes found her constantly. Across the conference room. Through the glass of the break room. In the reflection of the elevator doors. She was sunlight, and he was Icarus, drawn to her warmth even knowing it would destroy him.

She was healing. That was the worst part. She was healing from him, from his cruelty, from the wounds he had inflicted. He saw her smile return, first tentative, then genuine, then radiant. He saw her make friends, real friends, the kind who laughed with her at lunch and brought her coffee and included her in their weekend plans.

He saw her notice someone else.

His name was Nakamura. He was from accounting, a year older than her, with kind eyes and a gentle smile and the kind of stable, predictable future that Nanami could never offer. Nanami remembered him from his first life—remembered the way Nakamura had looked at her during the company Christmas party, the way he had blushed when she spoke to him, the way he had asked about her only to be gently rebuffed because she was already in love with someone else.

With Nanami.

But that had been another life. In this one, there was no Nanami to stand between them. In this one, when Nakamura brought her coffee—black, two sugars, exactly how she liked it—she smiled at him with gratitude instead of confusion. When he asked about her weekend, she answered with enthusiasm instead of distance. When he suggested lunch, she said yes.

Nanami saw them together in the elevator, once. Nakamura was telling a story, something about his sister's wedding, and she was laughing, her head thrown back, her eyes crinkled at the corners in that way that Nanami had once thought belonged only to him. She reached out to touch Nakamura's arm, a casual, intimate gesture, and Nanami felt his jaw tick, felt his teeth grind together, felt his hands curl into fists so tight his nails drew blood from his palms.

He was jealous. God, he was jealous. It was a physical sensation, a poison in his blood, a fire in his gut. He wanted to stride across the elevator, pull her away, snarl at Nakamura that she was his, that she had always been his, that they had named children together in another life and planned futures and grown old in each other's arms.

Instead, he stared straight ahead and said nothing.

The elevator doors opened. She stepped out with Nakamura, still laughing, still touching his arm, still glowing with a happiness that Nanami had destroyed in himself so she could have it.

He went back to his desk. He worked until 3 AM. He didn't cry. He had no tears left.

Six months passed. The internship ended. She was offered a permanent position in Corporate Social Responsibility—the department she had dreamed of, the work she had always wanted to do. Nakamura transferred to her floor. They began having lunch together every day.

Nanami resigned.

He told Tanaka it was for personal reasons, that he had received an offer elsewhere, that he was grateful for the opportunity but it was time to move on. Tanaka didn't believe him—they both knew Nanami had no other offers, knew he was leaving because he couldn't bear to watch her fall in love with someone else—but he signed the paperwork anyway, gave a generous severance, shook Nanami's hand with a sadness that suggested he understood more than he said.

On his last day, Nanami cleaned out his desk. He found a small sticky note tucked in the back of his drawer, faded and old, in handwriting he recognized immediately.

"The cherry blossoms are blooming. They're beautiful today."

She had written it months ago, during those early days when she had been trying to reach him, trying to break through his walls with gentleness and persistence. He had kept it. He had kept it like a talisman, like proof that she had once cared, that he had once been worth her attention.

He crumpled it in his fist. He threw it in the trash. He walked out of the building without looking back.

He moved to a different district. He found a new job, equally soul-crushing, equally meaningless. He rented an apartment that smelled of mildew and old cigarettes, the kind of place he would have never brought her to in their first life, the kind of place that suited his new existence as a ghost.

He didn't make friends. He didn't build a life. He simply waited.

Years passed.

He was twenty-five, then twenty-six, then twenty-seven. He heard about her occasionally, fragments of information carried on the wind of mutual acquaintances. She was doing well. She was promoted. She and Nakamura had broken up—amicably, apparently, Nakamura had transferred overseas—but she was dating someone new. Someone serious.

He was twenty-eight when he heard she was getting married.

It came from a former colleague, someone he ran into at a convenience store, someone who didn't know their history, who spoke of her wedding plans with the casual enthusiasm of a gossip sharing news.

"Such a lovely couple," the colleague said, selecting a rice ball from the shelf. "He's a doctor, I think. Or a lawyer. Someone respectable. They're having the ceremony in spring, when the cherry blossoms are blooming. Very romantic."

Nanami nodded. He bought his coffee. He walked home. He sat in his dark apartment and drank until he couldn't remember his own name.

He didn't attend the wedding. Of course he didn't. He wasn't invited, wasn't wanted, wasn't anything to her anymore. But he imagined it. He tortured himself with it. He saw her in white, glowing with happiness, walking down an aisle toward a man who wasn't him, who would never be him, who would give her everything he had denied them both.

He saw her say I do. He saw her kiss her groom. He saw her dance, laugh, celebrate a future that didn't include him, had never included him, would never include him.

He drank until he passed out. He woke up and drank again. He existed in a haze of alcohol and regret, counting down the days until Shibuya, until Mahito, until the death that would finally set him free.

Four years passed.

He was thirty-two. The date was circled on his calendar in red, a countdown to execution. He had quit his job. He had spent his savings on nothing—cheap whiskey, cheaper cigarettes, the occasional meal when his body demanded it. He was thin, pale, hollow-eyed. He looked like a man already dead.

And then, on a Tuesday in October, he saw her.

It was the Yamanote Line, the green loop that circled the city like a noose. He was standing, holding the overhead strap, staring blankly at the advertisements above the windows, when the train stopped at Shibuya station and she stepped on.

She was different. Older, of course—thirty-two now, like him—but it was more than that. She was tired. He could see it in the slope of her shoulders, the circles under her eyes, the way she balanced two heavy grocery bags while trying to hold onto the pole. Her hair was pulled back in a messy bun, strands escaping around her face. Her coat was worn at the elbows. She looked like any other working mother in Tokyo, exhausted and overburdened and trying to hold everything together.

But she was still beautiful. She would always be beautiful. To him, she would always be the girl in the yellow dress, the woman in white, the love of two lifetimes.

And then he saw the baby.

It was in a carrier on her chest, a small bundle wrapped in blue, sleeping peacefully despite the jostling of the train. He couldn't see its face, couldn't tell if it was a boy or girl, but he knew. He knew with a certainty that transcended logic or reason.

Haru. Or Yuki. One of the names they had chosen together, lying in bed on his thirtieth birthday, dreaming of a future that had never come.

She shifted the bags, trying to get a better grip, and the train lurched. She stumbled, catching herself on the pole, and the baby made a small, disgruntled noise. She immediately soothed it, her hand coming up to pat the small back, her voice dropping to a whisper that Nanami couldn't hear but could imagine perfectly—soft, loving, full of devotion.

"It's okay, Haru-chan," she murmured, and Nanami felt his knees buckle.

Haru. She had named him Haru. Spring. New beginnings. The name they had chosen together for the son they would never have.

She was smiling at the baby now, despite her exhaustion, despite the heavy bags and the crowded train and the weight of her life. It was the same smile he remembered, the same smile that had lit up his existence for seven years, the smile that had been his home and his heaven and his reason for being.

She kissed the baby's forehead. The baby cooed, content, safe in his mother's love.

Nanami wanted to help her. The urge was physical, overwhelming, a compulsion that made his hands reach out before his mind could stop them. He wanted to take her bags. He wanted to give her his seat. He wanted to ask about her life, her husband, her child, wanted to know if she was happy, truly happy, if the sacrifice he had made had been worth it.

But he couldn't. He was frozen, paralyzed by the gulf of years and choices and pain that separated them. He was a stranger. He was nothing. He had no right to her, no claim to her, no place in her life.

The train stopped at Harajuku. She got off, struggling with the bags and the baby and the door, and Nanami watched her go. Watched her walk away, down the platform, into a life that didn't include him.

He went home. He drank. He drank until the room spun, until he couldn't feel his hands, until he passed out on the floor and dreamed of her, of them, of the life they should have had.

Three days later, Shibuya happened.

He had known it was coming. Had planned for it, waited for it, welcomed it as the end of his suffering. But he hadn't expected to see her there.

The station was chaos. Cursed energy filled the air like smoke, thick and choking and wrong. People were running, screaming, dying. Nanami moved through it like a man walking through a dream, his body already broken from encounters with curses he had no business fighting, his mind focused only on the end that awaited him.

And then he saw her.

She was on the platform, clutching Haru to her chest, her face white with terror. The baby was crying, screaming, sensing the danger that surrounded them. She was trying to run, trying to get to the exit, but the crowd was too thick, the panic too overwhelming.

And behind her, materializing from the shadows like a nightmare made flesh, was Mahito.

Nanami didn't think. He couldn't think. He simply moved, his body finding reserves of strength he didn't know he possessed, his legs carrying him across the platform faster than he had ever run.

"Get away from her!" he screamed, his voice raw, his hands reaching for the cursed spirit that had killed him once before.

Mahito turned. That terrible, beautiful face split into a smile. "Nanami Kento. I remember you. We met in another life, didn't we? How… nostalgic."

Nanami didn't answer. He threw himself between Mahito and her, his arms spread wide, his body a shield. He was half-dead already, his injuries from previous encounters leaving him weak, bleeding, barely standing. But he would stand. He would stand until there was nothing left of him to stand with.

"Run," he gasped, not turning to look at her, keeping his eyes locked on Mahito. "Take the baby and run. Don't look back."

"Kento?" Her voice. Her voice, saying his name, recognizing him despite the years, despite the hatred, despite everything. "Kento, what—"

"Run!" he screamed, and Mahito laughed.

"How touching," the curse purred.

The attack came too fast to dodge. Nanami tried to block it, tried to shield them both, but his body was failing him, his strength gone, his will the only thing keeping him upright. The cursed energy hit him square in the chest, lifting him off his feet, throwing him backward.

He crashed into her. They fell together, a tangle of limbs and terror, the baby wailing between them. Nanami rolled, trying to cover them both, trying to be the shield he had always wanted to be, the protector he had failed to become.

The baby was crying, screaming, small fists beating against Nanami's chest. Haru. He could have been their son. The child they had dreamed of, planned for, named in whispers and hope.

Mahito approached. Nanami could feel his footsteps vibrating through the platform, could feel the cursed energy gathering for the final blow. He had no strength left to fight. No way to save them. No future to hope for.

But he had this moment. This last, precious moment.

He reached out with trembling hands. He touched her face, tracing the lines that time had drawn, the scars that life had left, the beauty that had never faded. Then he turned to the baby. To Haru. To the son he would never know, never raise, never teach or comfort or watch grow.

He kissed the small forehead. The baby stopped crying, looking up at him with eyes that were golden like his mother's, wide and wondering and full of trust.

"Haru," he whispered, his voice breaking. "Haru. Be brave. Be kind. Be loved."

He gathered them both into his arms. His wife. His child. His family, finally, after eleven years of separation and sacrifice and pain. He held them tight, as tight as his broken body could manage, and he whispered into her hair the words he had never stopped thinking, never stopped feeling, never stopped being.

"I love you. I love you. I love you."

Mahito struck.

The cursed energy was overwhelming, a tsunami of destruction that consumed everything in its path. Nanami felt it hit, felt his body begin to dissolve, felt the heat and the pain and the terrible, beautiful release of death.

But he didn't let go. He held them, held them with arms that were no longer arms, with a body that was becoming something else, something less. He held them as they melted together, three bodies becoming one, three souls intertwining in their final moment.

He felt her hand in his. He felt the baby's heartbeat against his chest. He felt love, pure and absolute and eternal, washing away the pain, the fear, the regret.

They died together. As a family. As they should have lived.

When the medics arrived, hours later, after the curses had been defeated and the survivors counted, they found a strange formation on the platform. Three bodies, fused together by the intensity of the attack, melted into a single sculpture of embrace. A man, a woman, a child. Arms wrapped around each other, faces pressed together, frozen in a moment of love so profound it had transcended death itself.

They couldn't identify them. The damage was too severe, the records lost in the chaos. They were listed as unknowns, casualties of the Shibuya Incident, three more names on a list that stretched into thousands.

But the medic who found them, an old woman with kind eyes and a gentle touch, she wept when she saw them. She wept because she had never seen anything so beautiful in all her years of service. Because even in death, even in destruction, they had held on to each other. Because the love that had fused them together was stronger than the curse that had killed them.

"They were a family," she whispered to her colleagues, her voice thick with emotion. "Look at them. They died protecting each other. They died as a family."

They were cremated together. One casket, three bodies, three souls that had finally found their way home. The ashes were scattered in a garden of cherry blossoms, where the wind could carry them together, always together, into whatever came next.

And somewhere, in the spaces between heartbeats, in the pauses between breaths, in the quiet moments when the world holds its breath and magic leaks through the cracks of reality—they are still together.

Still holding each other. Still whispering love. Still a family, finally and forever, beyond death, beyond time, beyond the cruelty of a world that tried to tear them apart.

They had spring, after all. They had it in the end. Not the spring of years and aging, of children growing and lives unfolding. But the spring of reunion. The spring of love victorious. The spring of two souls, three souls, finding each other across the wasteland of sacrifice and loss, and holding on.

Holding on.

Never letting go.

--------------------------------

10k celebration series. Find out more

nanamineedstherapy

Sing to me

Producer!Zenin Naoya x J-Pop Idol!Reader x Drummer!Itadori Ryomen Choso

(ft. Fushiita, Zenin Megumi, Itadori Ryomen Yuji, Itadori Ryomen Sukuna, Itadori Ryomen Tatako Uro, Gojo Satoru, Kugisaki Nobara, Momo, Kasumi Miwa + others)

Synopsis: Choso has loved your voice for years. He has your records, your rare pressings, the songs your label buried, and enough sense to stay away from Naoya Zenin’s girl. Naoya Zenin had made you famous, then made you his. At thirteen, you were a girl with a demo. Years later, you are a star with a sold-out tour, a controlled image, a secret fiancé, and a career tied so tightly to the Zenin name that even your pain has to wait until after soundcheck. Then one hotel party breaks the lie open. He should have stayed away. The Itadori and Zenin families have hated each other for years, and you were Naoya’s singer, Naoya’s investment, Naoya’s... But then he heard you scream.

Content Tags: MDNI, explicit sexual content, protective Choso, softly toxic!Naoya, abusive relationship, emotional hurt/comfort, slow recovery, some dub-con (not all), grooming, exploitation of a minor by an entertainment company, producer/idol power imbalance, sexual coercion, rough sex used harmfully, attempted gang sexual assault (don't worry, daddy's there to save you), drugging/manipulated misrepresented medication, alcohol abuse, pill abuse, mixing pills and alcohol, addiction/substance dependency, withdrawal symptoms, panic attacks, PTSD symptoms, nightmares, dissociation, stalking, forced confinement (not like that), industry & contract abuse, dating bans, medical abuse, forged medical notes, public humiliation, betrayal, arranged engagement, physical violence, mentions of blood, threats, legal scandal, recovery after abuse, consensual sex after trauma, consent checking, praise kink, abs riding, oral, fingering, penetrative sex, condom, aftercare. WC: 17.2K Oneshot.

A/N: I wrote this in 35 hours during a hypomanic episode after watching this. Based on this request.

Moodboard | Song Naoya would listen to | Song Choso would listen to

(Notice how one is being sung to you & the other one is being sung to the homies about "a bitch.")

Playlist 1 | Playlist 2

Naoya had you pinned under him.

You had said you missed him when he pulled you back into bed. You had even laughed at first, because he used to kiss your shoulder and call you spoiled when you wanted five more minutes. He used to take his time.

But now his hand was closed around your wrists, holding them firmly above your head. His hips hit so hard that your breath kept breaking.

You tried to relax, telling yourself he had meetings, label calls, his father in his ear, and artists fighting over release dates.

Stress made people rough. Maybe it made him forget himself.

“Nh-Naoya,” you cried out, and it came out too small and shaky.

He ignored you and kept going, one hand moving to pinch your clit.

poniadeaur

The Meticulous Love of Nanami Kento

The apartment still smelled like him.

That was the cruelty of it—that the scent of sandalwood and expensive coffee and the faint, metallic undertone of the cursed energy he always carried could linger when the man himself could not. You stood in the doorway of his bedroom—their bedroom, though you'd never officially moved in, though you'd been planning to next month—and felt the weight of absence press against your ribs like a physical force.

Three weeks. It had been three weeks since Shibuya. Three weeks since Gojo-sensei had appeared at your door with blood on his hands that wasn't his own, with eyes that looked through you, with words that had severed your future in half with surgical precision.

"Nanami. I'm sorry. There was nothing—I'm sorry."

The funeral had been small. Private. The jujutsu world mourned its lost soldier while you mourned the man who made you tea exactly how you liked it—two sugars, splash of milk, stirred clockwise because he'd noticed that counterclockwise made you anxious for reasons even you didn't understand. The man who remembered your menstrual cycle better than you did and would appear with heating pads and dark chocolate without being asked. The man who kissed your forehead every morning before he left for work, who texted you "I'm alive" every hour during dangerous missions not because he thought you worried, but because he couldn't bear the thought of you not knowing.

You had to pack up his things. That was the task for today. His sister had called, gentle and grieving herself, to ask if you could sort through the personal items. The jujutsu higher-ups had already cleared out anything related to missions, to curses, to the secret world that had swallowed him whole. What remained was the man. The private man. The man who had been yours alone.

You started with the desk. Methodical. Nanami would have approved.

The top drawer was locked. You found the key taped underneath the desk surface—exactly where he'd told you emergency spare keys were kept, years ago, when you'd first started dating and he'd given you access to his apartment. "In case you ever need to hide," he'd said, serious as a heart attack, and you'd laughed and kissed his furrowed brow, not understanding then that he meant from curses, from danger, from the parts of his world that bled into yours.

The drawer slid open with a whisper.

Inside was a leather-bound journal. Not the sleek planner he carried for work—this was softer, worn at the edges, the kind of object that absorbed years of handling. Your hands shook as you lifted it. It was heavy. Dense with ink and intention.

You opened to the first page.

Property of Nanami Kento. If found, please return to [your name]. She knows where I live. Obviously.

You laughed. It came out broken, wet, a sob masquerading as humor. He'd written this years ago. The date in the corner confirmed it—three months into your relationship, when he was still trying to pretend he wasn't desperately in love with you, when he maintained that cool, professional distance that had made his eventual surrender all the sweeter.

You turned the page.

Notes on [Your Name]: A Reference Guide for the Future

Physical Characteristics:

Left-handed. Drinks coffee with left, writes with left, but throws right (discovered during baseball game date, June). Note: Do not seat at dinner tables where left elbow will be bumped by waiters.

Scar on right knee from childhood bicycle incident. Hates it. Thinks it's ugly. Tell her it's shaped like a crescent moon and makes her leg look like art.

Hair: [specific color], fine texture, tangles easily in humidity. Do not buy cheap hair ties. She deserves silk scrunchies. She deserves everything.

Eyes: [specific color]. When truly happy, the left one crinkles slightly more than the right. This is how you know she's faking laughter at your terrible jokes—symmetry means performance, asymmetry means truth.

Height: Perfect. Exactly right for resting chin on top of head during hugs. Do not mention this in her presence or she will call you condescending.

Weight: Irrelevant. Beautiful at every number. But she worries. She shouldn't. She is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in twenty-eight years of seeing things.

You stopped reading. Pressed the book to your chest and let yourself cry—ugly, gasping tears that left your face swollen and your throat raw. This was him. This was exactly him—the precision, the observation, the way he saw details that everyone else missed and filed them away like precious artifacts.

You kept reading.

Preferences (Culinary):

Hates mushrooms. All varieties. Texture issue, not taste. Do not attempt to hide in sauces. She will know. She always knows.

Loves strawberries but allergic to the leaves. Remove completely before serving. Buy organic only—pesticides make her stomach hurt.

Iron pills must be taken with food. Specifically, with vitamin C source. Orange juice ideal. On empty stomach causes nausea and she will suffer in silence rather than complain. Watch for this. Prevent this.

Coffee: two sugars, splash of milk (oat milk if available, dairy upsets her stomach in mornings), stirred clockwise. Counterclockwise makes her anxious. She doesn't know why. I don't need to know why. Just stir clockwise.

Tea: chamomile before bed, never peppermint (gives her heartburn). Green tea only in mornings—caffeine sensitivity.

Chocolate: dark, 70%+, fair trade. She pretends not to care about ethics but checks labels when she thinks I'm not looking. Buy the expensive ethical kind. She deserves to have her values honored even in dessert.

Preferences (Environmental):

Prefers window seat on trains. Likes to watch the world blur by. Claims it helps her think.

Hates fluorescent lighting. Gives her headaches. Use warm lamps at home.

Loves rain but won't go outside in it without proper coat. Pride issue. Buy her a coat she won't be embarrassed to be seen in. Something yellow. She looks like sunshine.

Temperature runs cold. Keep apartment at 24°C. She will say it's too warm. She is lying. She is always cold. She wears socks to bed in summer.

Emotional Landscape:

Prideful. Won't ask for help. Watch for signs of struggle and offer assistance before she reaches frustration point.

Laughs loudly when truly amused—uninhibited, almost barking. This is rare. Treasure it.

Cries in bathrooms when she thinks she's being discreet. Wait ten minutes, knock with tea. Do not mention the crying. She needs dignity more than comfort.

When angry, goes silent first. This is the danger zone. The silence means she's gathering words like weapons. Give space. When she speaks, listen completely. Do not defend. Just hear.

When hurt, makes jokes. Deflection mechanism. Look past the humor to the wound.

Loves being right but loves being challenged more. She wants someone who can meet her intellect. Don't let her win arguments she hasn't earned.

Needs physical affection but won't initiate when stressed. Initiate for her. She'll melt. She always melts.

Page after page. Detail after detail. The minutiae of your existence catalogued with the same intensity he applied to cursed energy analysis. But this wasn't clinical—every entry was soaked in adoration. Every observation was an act of love.

She bites her lip when concentrating. It drives me insane. I want to bite it for her.

She hums when she cooks—off-key, tuneless, perfect. I want to hear that sound every day for the rest of my life.

She pretends to be brave during horror movies but hides her face in my shoulder during jump scares. I pretend not to notice so she can maintain her dignity.

She deserves the world. I am trying to build it for her.

You turned pages with trembling fingers, years unfolding in ink. The entries became less formal as time passed, more intimate, more raw.

Year Two:

I bought a ring today. I can't afford it yet. I put it on layaway like a teenager buying his first car. The jeweler looked at me like I was insane—some salaryman in a suit, putting down payments on a diamond he can't take home yet.

But I needed to know it existed. Needed to know that someday, when I've saved enough, when I've made myself worthy, when I've built a life stable enough to offer her—I needed to know I could give her this.

It's [specific cut]. [Specific carat]. She doesn't care about diamonds. She'd be happy with a ring pop. But she deserves the earth. She deserves someone who planned. Who prepared. Who waited and worked and made sure everything was perfect before he asked.

I will ask her someday. When I'm ready. When the world is safer. When I can promise her forever without lying.

Year Three:

She said yes.

She said yes and I forgot how to breathe. She said yes in this kitchen, wearing my shirt, eating toast with jam, and I hadn't even planned to ask yet. I was going to wait. I was going to do it properly, with the ring and the speech and the perfect moment.

But she looked at me over her coffee cup and said, "I want to grow old with you, Kento," and I was on my knee before I could think, ring still in the box in the bedroom drawer, asking her with shaking hands and no preparation and she laughed and cried and said yes.

The ring is on her finger now. It fits. Of course it fits. I measured her finger while she slept, months ago. She doesn't know. She thinks I'm romantic. I'm just obsessive. I just love her so much it scares me.

You couldn't see the pages anymore. Your vision swam, tears dropping onto the paper, blurring the ink. You wiped them away carefully—preserving his words, his handwriting, the precise strokes of his pen that seemed to hold his voice.

The entries changed format after the engagement. Lists became letters. Plans became promises.

My future wife,

I am writing this on the train home from Shibuya. I am covered in blood that isn't mine. I am tired. I am so tired. But I am thinking of you, and that keeps the darkness at bay.

I want to tell you about the first time I saw you.

It was raining. I was standing outside the office building, smoking a cigarette I didn't want, wearing a suit that cost too much, carrying the weight of a job I hated and a purpose I'd lost. I was twenty-three and I felt eighty. I was drowning in grey.

And then you ran out of the building—you must have forgotten your umbrella, because you were trying to cover your head with a folder, and you were laughing at yourself, this bright, unselfconscious sound that cut through the rain like a blade of light.

You stopped when you saw me. You always tell people we met at the company mixer, but that's not true. We met in the rain. You looked at me—really looked at me—and you said, "You look like you need this more than I do," and you handed me your folder. Your ridiculous, soggy folder. And then you ran off into the rain without waiting for me to respond.

I stood there for ten minutes holding that folder. I didn't smoke the cigarette. I just stood there, getting wet, feeling something crack open in my chest that had been sealed for years.

I found out your name from the directory. I engineered reasons to be near your desk. I learned your schedule. I became a stalker with a corporate ID badge, and I didn't care because you were the first color I'd seen in so long.

You saved my life before you knew my name. You saved it again when you agreed to that first date. You save it every morning when you wake up next to me.

I am not a good man. I have killed things. I have made hard choices. I have blood on my hands that won't wash off. But when I am with you, I am someone who could be good. Who wants to be good. Who tries, every day, to be worthy of the light you carry.

I love you. I love you so much it restructures my DNA. I love you in ways that defy physics. I love you past the point of reason, past the point of return, past the point of no return.

If I die tomorrow—if this job takes me, if some curse ends me—I need you to know that you were the best thing that ever happened to me. That every second with you was worth every second of pain. That I died happier than I ever deserved to be because I had you.

Come home safe to me, Kento. Come home safe.

You were making sounds you didn't recognize. Keening. Wailing. The journal slipped from your hands and you doubled over, forehead pressed to the floor, your body rejecting the grief like a physical poison.

He'd known. He'd always known. The danger he was in, the life he'd chosen, the death that waited in shadows. And still he'd loved you. Still he'd planned. Still he'd hoped.

You forced yourself to sit up. Forced yourself to keep reading. You owed him that—to witness his love, to receive it fully, even now.

The next section was labeled in capital letters: Wedding Plans. For Review. Subject to Her Approval.

Venue Research:

She mentioned wanting outdoor ceremony but worries about weather. Compromise: venue with glass conservatory. Found location in Hakone with mountain views. Reserved tentatively for June. Deposit paid.

Backup indoor option: traditional shrine. She respects tradition even if she doesn't practice faith. Important to honor her values.

Catering: She loves Italian. Found chef who specializes in rustic Tuscan cuisine. Tasting scheduled for next month. Will tell her it's "just dinner" so she doesn't stress about decision-making.

Guest List:

Her side: 45 confirmed. She has more friends than she realizes. She thinks she's lonely. She has never been lonely. She has always been loved.

My side: 3. Maybe 4 if Gojo behaves. She will fill the room with light. I will fill the room with her.

The Vows (First Draft):

My love,

I stand before you today not because I am whole, but because you make me whole. Not because I am strong, but because you give me strength. Not because I deserve you—no one deserves you—but because you chose me, and I will spend every day of my life trying to be the man who deserves that choice.

I promise to stir your coffee clockwise. I promise to remove strawberry leaves. I promise to keep the apartment warm and buy you yellow raincoats and never, ever let you take iron pills on an empty stomach.

I promise to see you. To really see you—the way you bite your lip when you concentrate, the way you hum when you cook, the way you hide your tears in bathrooms and need dignity more than comfort. I see you. I will always see you.

I promise to build you a life that is safe, even if the world is not. To create a home that is warm, even if the world is cold. To love you so thoroughly, so completely, so obsessively, that you never doubt for a single second that you are the most precious thing in existence.

I promise to be your shelter. Your partner. Your best friend. Your lover. Your husband.

I promise to come home to you. Every time. No matter what. I will always find my way back to you.

You saved me in the rain with a soggy folder. You saved me every day since. Let me spend the rest of my life trying to save you back—in small ways, in big ways, in every way I can.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

Yours, always,

Kento

You couldn't breathe. You couldn't see. The pain was physical now—a hand around your throat, a weight on your chest, a hole where your heart had been.

But you kept reading. You had to. You had to take it all in, every last drop of his love, because this was all you had left.

Financial Planning:

Savings Account #4: "Our Future"

Current balance: ¥4,250,000

Goal: ¥8,000,000 (down payment on house)

She wants a garden. She wants space for children to play. She wants a kitchen with natural light where she can hum while she cooks.

I will give her the garden. I will give her the children. I will give her the light.

Additional savings: Ring (paid). Honeymoon (Hawaii, she mentioned wanting to see the ocean, deposit paid). Emergency fund (in case I die—she must be provided for).

Life insurance policy updated. Beneficiary: [Your Name]. Amount: sufficient for her to live comfortably, to pursue her dreams, to never worry about money while she grieves.

I hope she never needs it. I pray she never needs it. But I am a practical man, and I love her practically, which means preparing for the worst while hoping for the best.

Search History (Recent):

"best prenatal vitamins for sensitive stomachs"

"how to support partner during first trimester nausea"

"picnic ideas for toddlers finger foods"

"childproofing home checklist"

"how to be present father while maintaining dangerous career"

"can cursed energy be inherited"

"safest neighborhoods for raising children Tokyo"

"how to tell partner you want to try for baby"

"fertility tracking methods"

"adoption process Japan single parent (backup plan)"

You broke at that.

The search history—these tentative, hopeful queries from a man who planned everything, who wanted to give you everything, who was trying to figure out how to be a father when his own life was borrowed time.

He'd wanted children with you. He'd researched prenatal vitamins before you'd even discussed starting a family. He'd planned for adoption as a backup, because that was who he was—prepared for every eventuality, protective to the point of obsession, loving you in ways that manifested as spreadsheets and savings accounts and silent, meticulous care.

You found the box under the bed. You weren't ready for it, but your body moved without your mind's permission, crawling across the floor, reaching into the darkness, pulling out a cardboard container labeled in his neat handwriting: OPEN ONLY WHEN READY. NO RUSH. I LOVE YOU EITHER WAY.

Inside was a photo album. The first page was your first date—he'd had someone take the picture, you realized, some secret photographer, because there you were laughing at something he'd said, and there he was looking at you like you were the only thing in the world.

Page after page. You sleeping on his couch, drooling on his pillow. You cooking, flour on your nose. You in the rain, holding that yellow coat he'd bought you, looking surprised and delighted. You at the beach. You in the mountains. You in bed, morning light on your face, his hand in the frame touching your cheek.

Hundreds of photos. Thousands of moments. Evidence of a love so thorough, so complete, so painstakingly documented that there was no room for doubt, no space for wondering if he'd really loved you, if he'd really meant it, if you'd been enough.

You had been everything. You had been his whole world.

The last page of the album held a letter, sealed, addressed to you in his handwriting. You opened it with shaking hands.

My love,

If you're reading this, I didn't come home.

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I tried. I promise you I tried. I fought for every extra second, every possible future, every version of tomorrow that included you.

Don't let them tell you I was a hero. I wasn't. I was just a man who loved you, trying to survive long enough to love you longer.

The savings account information is in the desk. The life insurance will take care of you. The apartment is paid off—transfer the deed to your name. There's a list of people to call, things to cancel, practical matters I've arranged because I know you, and I know you'll try to handle everything yourself, and I want to make it easier even in death.

But that's not why I wrote this.

I wrote this to tell you that you were the best thing I ever did. That loving you was the only right decision I ever made. That every morning I woke up beside you was a gift I didn't deserve but accepted greedily, hungrily, desperately.

I want you to be happy. I want you to find love again—not because I didn't love you enough, but because I loved you so much that I want you to have every good thing, even if it comes from someone else's hands.

But not yet. Grieve first. Be angry. Throw things. Scream. Cry in bathrooms and let someone bring you tea after ten minutes. Let yourself fall apart. I loved all of you, even the broken parts. Especially the broken parts.

And when you're ready—when you can breathe again—live. Live loudly. Live brightly. Live the life we planned, even without me. Have the garden. Have the children. Name one after me if you want, or don't, because I don't need to be remembered to have existed. I existed because you loved me. That was enough.

I love you. I love you past death. I love you in whatever comes after. I love you in every atom of my being that dissolves back into the universe. I will find my way back to you. I promise. Even if it takes lifetimes.

Wait for me. But not too long.

Yours,

Kento

P.S. The ring is in the safe. Code is your birthday. I was going to propose next month. I hope you would have said yes again.

You held the letter to your chest and you screamed.

You screamed until your throat bled. You screamed for the life you'd lost, the future stolen, the children you'd never have, the garden that would never be planted. You screamed for the wedding that would never happen, for the vows he'd never speak aloud, for the mornings you'd never have again.

You screamed for him—for his meticulous, obsessive, overwhelming love that had planned for everything except his own absence.

And when you had no voice left, when your body was empty of sound and tears, you lay on the floor of his apartment and whispered into the empty air:

"I would have said yes. I would have said yes every day. I would have said yes forever."

The sun set. The sun rose. You didn't move.

And on the third day, when you finally found the strength to stand, you went to the safe. You entered your birthday. You opened it.

Inside was the ring. And another note. And a folder—soggy at the edges, preserved carefully, the one he'd kept for seven years.

The note said: The first thing you ever gave me. The first thing I ever loved.

You opened the folder. Inside was a drawing—a terrible, childish sketch of a sun, drawn in crayon on the back of a meeting agenda. You remembered it now. You'd been bored in the conference room, doodling while the presenter droned on. You'd thrown it away on your way out, embarrassed by your lack of artistic skill.

He'd rescued it from the trash. He'd kept it for seven years. He'd labeled it: Proof that she is my light. Proof that I was already hers.

You put the ring on your finger. It fit perfectly. Of course it did. He'd measured while you slept.

You went to the window. It was raining.

You stepped outside. You stood in the downpour, wearing his yellow coat, holding his journal, feeling his love surround you like a physical force, stronger than cursed energy, stronger than death, stronger than anything in this world or the next.

And in the rain, you could almost feel him—his arms around you, his chin on your head, his voice in your ear, stirring your coffee clockwise, removing strawberry leaves, keeping you warm.

"I love you," you whispered to the sky. "I love you. I love you. I love you."

The rain said it back.

And somewhere, in whatever came after, Nanami Kento—the man who loved you in lists and spreadsheets and detailed observations, who loved you in silence and in action, who loved you past the point of reason and into the realm of forever—whispered back:

"I know. I know. I know. I'm here. I'm always here."

You stayed in the rain until you were soaked through, until you were ready to go inside, to begin the impossible work of living without him.

But you weren't alone. You would never be alone.

You had his love, meticulous and thorough and complete, written in ink and saved in accounts and captured in photographs, enough to last you the rest of your life.

You had been loved by Nanami Kento.

And that was enough to carry you home.

businesscasualtits

˙⋆✮ Kill Me Too ✮⋆˙

part 2 here

pairing: assassin!Sukuna x girlfriend!reader

Info: this quite literally came to me in a dream, and now I just wanna get it out of my google drive finally 👉👈 just lots of angst, probably toxic idk and idc

warnings: mdni, obvi. VIOLENCE, LADIES! She purposefully gets the shit kicked out of her. Major character death but also not really (it makes sense, lol). I guess there's a threat of sexual violence, because a woman in this situation would be under that threat, but I don't really mention it (on purpose, I don't want it in this fic frankly). Angst, angst, angst, grieving, not taking care of oneself... just, dark shit guys.

wc: 4k

That night haunts you, the details etched on the backs of your eyelids like you’d just watched them play out seconds ago.

You and Sukuna were on your way home from your favorite bar, a little hole in the wall that served the best southside fizz this side of the city. You wore your new dress—an emerald green babydoll that hugged your tits in that gentle, seductive way you knew Sukuna couldn’t ignore—and he wrapped his arm around your shoulders, holding you tight against his side as the late-night wind whipped through the empty streets.

You were a drink past buzzed—god, why had you insisted on that last round—and giggly, poking Sukuna in the ribs as he grunted at you about being a lightweight.

You were the reason the two of you had ended up in that alley, the gin in your veins like fire. You pressed him up against the brick wall, wrapped your arms around his neck, and stood on your tiptoes, fitting your bodies together as you molded your lips to his, memorizing the electric feel. He tasted like cinnamon and mischief, like violence and sanctuary, and you burned with need. You were hungry, starving, famished, and only Ryomen Sukuna could satisfy you.

You’d found each other four years ago—well, no, he’d found you. He’d broken into your shithole studio apartment one night, beaten and bloody and literally shot, while you’d been out working as a waitress in a skeevy bar. When you’d come home, you’d found him passed out in your bathtub, gauze in one hand as his breath had rattled shallow through his lungs. You hadn’t screamed, your first instinct to grab the taser in your purse, but there was something about the pink-haired man in your cracked tub. You’d stared at him, at the obsidian black lines inked across his face, his forearms, dipping down across his broad chest. He was all sharp angles, his body chiseled into a lethal weapon beneath the black slacks and black button-down shirt stuck to his body with clotting blood.

He was a stranger in every sense of the word, but something in your soul knew him. And, hell, you couldn’t stand the thought of someone, handsome or not, bleeding out in your bathtub.

So, you’d knelt down and got to work cleaning his wounds (thankful he’d managed to dig the bullet before losing consciousness). At one point, he’d jerked awake, made to reach for a weapon that wasn’t at his belt, then noticed you crouched in front of him.

He’d called you an angel before promptly slumping unconscious against the wall again.

So you’d patched him up, wrapped him in a fuzzy pink blanket from your couch bed, and left him there.

When you’d woken the next morning, he was gone, and the only thing that kept you from thinking you’d hallucinated him completely were the rust-red drops of blood still dotting the off-white tile of your bathroom. You’d missed him, though the two of you hadn’t spoken, hadn’t even really made eye contact. There was something about him that called to you, that seemed to pull at the frayed edge of a memory, a life, just beyond your grasp.

And apparently, he’d felt the same, because Sukuna came back that next night, roses as red as his eyes that bore into you the moment you’d answered your door. As red as the blood you’d washed from his flesh. You’d stood there for a few moments in silence, you in your giant Venom t-shirt, hair loose and tangled as it often was on your nights off; Sukuna in another pair of black slacks with a black button-down shirt, with the sleeves rolled up and the fabric mercifully free of knife-cuts and bulletholes. Your eyes had traveled from the roses to the cords of muscle in his forearms to the way the black fabric pulled against his chest to the blade-like edge of his jaw to his eyes. And his gaze made a similar journey, traveling from your bare feet, toes freshly painted a deep purple, to your own ink, an abstract swirl of black lines like smoke climbing up your thigh and beneath the hem of your t-shirt, to your cherry kool-aid stained lips, to your eyes.

“Sukuna,” He’d said, his voice as deep and rich as an inhale. “Ryomen Sukuna.”

You’d given your name back, and when he’d repeated it, you couldn’t stop the shiver that skittered down your spine.

He’d smirked at that, his features lighting up like neon.

You’d taken the roses, and then his hand, and that was that.

You were his, and he was yours.

You’d known from the moment you’d met him that Sukuna’s life was one of danger. Not in a fun, Hollywood way, but in a real, could-be-dead-at-any-second way. He would leave at a moment’s notice, his absence feeling too big in your shared apartment (he’d moved you out of your shithole as soon as you’d agreed, though it didn’t take much convincing). You wouldn’t ask questions—you knew he wouldn’t answer them, not because he didn’t trust you, but because he wanted to keep you safe—and to be honest, you didn’t need to ask questions. You just needed him to come home safe. You just needed him to come home so you could patch him up and give him what he needed, whether that was to fuck his stress out until the sun rose in the periwinkle morning or to hold him against your chest, your fingers twisting gently in his freshly-washed hair.

He’d taught you how to handle a gun, bought you a knife for your first anniversary that he demanded you carry with you whenever you left the safety of the apartment. He didn’t keep you trapped, you could truly go wherever you wanted whenever you wanted, but he was always there, too. Sometimes at your side, sometimes in the shadows. Just watching. Protecting.

And when he couldn’t, he had Uraume, his handler and a perfect ghost to everyone but you. You always knew when you were being watched, a skill as sharp as an icepick honed in a childhood home you’d rather forget. But you didn’t mind, not when you knew it was one less thing for Sukuna to stress about. To be distracted by.

Distractions.

You knew they were dangerous, but sometimes… sometimes you got reckless, and sometimes then, Sukuna got reckless, too.

Sometimes, you were each other’s perfect storms.

It would be romantic if it hadn’t gotten him killed.

You just wanted to kiss him. There was something about the way the warm beams of the streetlights caressed his face, made his crimson eyes glow, made his pink hair look ironically like a halo. You just wanted to kiss him, to make sure he was real, to make sure he knew you were real.

And so you pulled him into that alley.

And you pressed your lips to his.

You kissed him like he was salvation, and he kissed you like you were destruction.

And for you both, the world stopped.

So you didn’t hear the group of men advancing from the mouth of the alley, cutting you off from escape and help.

“King of Curses,” one of the men said, snapping you both back into the real world, and it’s very real danger. “You’re a hard man to track down, and an even harder man to get alone.”

Quicker than a gasp, Sukuna tucked behind his broad, muscular frame, one hand tight on your wrist and the other suddenly holding his glock, cocked and trained at the man who spoke, the apparent leader of this five-man gang. Sukuna wore a mask of indifference, almost boredom, but you noticed the way his jaw clenched just the slightest, the way his fingers pressed into your pulse point, hard enough to bring you to the edge of pain.

“Gentlemen, must we ruin your night?” Sukuna sighed, his aim unwavering.

The leader shrugged, but his lips pulled into a smirk so smug it sent a chill down your spine. He knew something you didn’t… That Sukuna didn’t, and that was rare.

“I think we’ll take our chances,” The leader drawled, and your frown deepened as he planted his hands in his pockets, like he was relaxed. Like he wasn’t facing off against the deadliest killer in the city. Sukuna could kill five men as easily as he could make a cup of coffee in the morning, whether he had a gun, a knife, or simply his bare hands. You’d seen it yourself, when they’d dare challenge him when you were out together—you’d seen him stab a man up through his jaw, blood spraying from his mouth like bright red seafoam; you’d seen him crush a man’s chest simply with his foot and enough force to cave in his ribcage. Hell, Sukuna had once ripped off a drunk man’s thumb when he’d grabbed you at a bar and refused to let go.

These stories swirled through the city streets like wind, howling a warning of how vicious, how fatal he could be, so why were these men smiling? No, not smiling.

Grinning.

A sound, a quiet scuff against the pavement, sounded behind you, so you turned your head to find more men emerging from the shadows like street-starved rats.

“Kuna.”

And then it started.

The men rushed at you from both sides, barely flinching as Sukuna pulled the trigger, downing one of the men from the mouth of the alley in less than a second. Your breath caught in your lungs and gunsmoke clogged your throat, but you weren’t useless. You pulled your knife, a beautiful black butterfly knife, from your boot and flicked it open with ease, your muscles proficient in all the necessary movement after hours of training with Sukuna. Yes, you’d brought a knife to a gun fight, and fuck did you hate that you didn’t have a better weapon, but not all of these men had firearms, and you knew enough to take at least help Sukuna.

At least, you thought you did.

Sukuna yanked you across the alley as another man took a silenced shot, and as he fired back, you turned to face the men coming at your other side.

The first man charged you, his own serrated blade in hand, and you ducked down, twisting your body and slicing across his thigh as you went. He squealed as blood sprayed against gray brick, and for a moment, you felt triumphant, powerful even. But then another man kicked a piece of trash in your path, and your legs caught on each other as you jerked to avoid it, sending you off-balance and stumbling.

A hand grabbed your bicep, and immediately you knew it wasn’t Sukuna. You stabbed frantically with your blade, clipping flesh but not sinking into it, not doing enough damage, and from nowhere, a foot connected with your stomach hard. You gasped, hot blood shooting up your throat and spraying from your lips, and the knife was yanked from your weakened grip. You tried to yell, but it was wet and muffled, and then your own blade was pressed to your throat as a pair of arms and thick and strong as iron banded around your waist, pressing down painfully, purposefully against your injured stomach. Your arms were held tightly against your sides, and when you bucked, you felt your skin start to split beneath the knife.

Fuck.

“Keep still, pretty,” your captor growled in your ear, and you realized it was the leader of the gang. There was pomp in his voice as he gave a small chuckle and called out, “King of Curses!”

Sukuna’s head swiveled as he parried a blow from one of the gang members, and damn him, he froze the moment he saw you. Saw the small bead of blood dribble a scarlet trail down the column of your throat.

“Kuna!” You screamed, but that split-second of stillness was enough for one of the men to land a blow to the back of his head, the sickening sound of skin-on-skin ringing in your ears like a gunshot. Your whole body jerked as he stumbled forwards, your stolen blade cutting even deeper into your flesh, but you barely felt it.

You barely felt anything other than the white-hot surge of self-hatred as it pulsed through your body, numbing and excruciating in your veins. This was your fault, from the alcohol in your blood to the stupid tryst in the alley to the suckerpunch that has Sukuna unsteady on his feet, blinking too much and swinging too wildly. His gun was gone, lost somewhere in the scuffle, and you looked wildly for it, as if you could find it, free yourself, and shoot every man who dared attack the man you loved more than your own soul.

Two of the men grabbed Sukuna by the arms, and a third captured him in a headlock, keeping him restrained and vulnerable. Then, they waited, and your stomach seized in terror.

“You picked the wrong man,” The leader whispered in your ear, and you could feel the way his lips cut up into an awful, cruel smile. Your body, as if recognizing a warning, tensed, and a second later, your stolen knife was hitting the pavement with a muffled clatter as the leader launched you headfirst into the brick.

…Sukuna screaming your name…

…your body shuddering once… twice…

…blood in your mouth, metallic—too salty, too rich…

The gunshot brought you back to earth, to the alley, to Sukuna.

You screamed, the sound as jagged as shattered glass, and in the haze of your mind fighting against the tendrils of oblivion, you saw Sukuna’s body collapse to the ground, crimson spreading around him like shadow. You screamed again, but it sounded so far away. So separate from you, like this was a dream.

Distantly, you hear the men leaving, bloated with confidence that the job was done. That the King of Curses had been put down.

But he couldn’t be.

You tried to stand, but your surroundings tilted too violently, a world distorted. So, you dragged yourself, gasping and choking, and as your fingers sliced through the pool of his blood—his life—you dug in his pockets for his phone and called for an ambulance. Your words slurred as your hands fumbled for the wound—fuck, fuck, FUCK—and in the moments right before you passed out again, you laid yourself against Sukuna’s stomach, praying that it would be enough to stop the bleeding until help arrived.

But it wasn’t.

You’d woken in the hospital, pumped full of drugs that somehow didn’t touch the pain splintering through your skull. Uraume had been there, and before you could ask, they'd told you.

Insurmountable blood loss.

No security cameras.

Already cremated.

Gone.

When Sukuna died, you died, too.

Those first six months, you were a ghost in a woman’s body. You didn’t eat unless Shoko made you, didn’t shower or leave the apartment unless you were forced. Your body was a husk, filled to bursting with a grief so vicious that it was comforting. You deserved to suffer, to shrink, to wither.

“Are you trying to kill yourself?” Shoko demanded, standing in front of you with furious, pleading eyes. She gestured at the food on the coffee table, noodles untouched from her visit the previous afternoon. She didn’t have to ask if you’d moved from the sofa since she’d been over—the answer was obvious.

You just stared past her, out the window to the gray-orange sky of dusk. There was no point in answering her question, not that she expected you to in the first place.

Your body was covered in a layer of grime—when was the last time you showered? A week ago?—and in another lifetime, you’d be disgusted. In another lifetime, you’d be scrubbing yourself raw in the shower with a loofah and your favorite shower gel. But in that lifetime, Sukuna would be alive, and he’d be in the shower with you, taking over as you allowed yourself to relax in his big, capable hands. He’d grumble about how hot the water was, how overpowering the citrus scent of your soap was, but the moment you’d insist you could just shower yourself, he’d silence you with a kiss. In another lifetime.

But in this lifetime, he was dead.

In this lifetime, you couldn’t stand the thought of taking a shower.

In this lifetime, Shoko would try to get you to eat, fail, and sit with you until the silence became too suffocating. She’d leave, and you’d wrap yourself in the shadows of before.

You became addicted to misery, a devotion so consuming that it wasn’t enough for you to inflict it on yourself. You needed others to hurt you, to make the pain that lit you like a lantern even more real.

So, you weren’t careful anymore.

You would take walks after midnight, that fucking butterfly knife Sukuna had bought you long gone to that night. You would drink alone and heavily, talking to men you knew Sukuna would’ve beat the shit out of just for glancing at you twice. You would even leave your apartment door unlocked half the time, your ears pricked for the slow rattle of the brass door knob as you lay in bed, halfway between sleep and hell. You waited, almost impatiently, but Sukuna’s reputation succeeded him, and everyone knew who you were.

His pretty little widow.

The two of you had never gotten married, never even had the chance to go ring shopping, but it didn’t matter. You were his, in life and death, so no one messed with you. Not out of fear, but out of respect.

And you hated them for it. Hated them for making you live such an empty life.

Fushiguro, Gojo, Geto… they could go to hell. They didn’t understand. They were torturing you by keeping you alive, and maybe you deserved that—no, you definitely did, torture was merely a drop in the bucket for what you’d done—but you couldn’t stand it, anymore. You weren’t strong enough.

It takes eight months, but you find a bar on the other edge of the city, in a particularly dangerous fringe that seems untouched by Sukuna’s influence.

If you had it, you’d wear that babydoll dress, but it was cut off of you at the hospital, the scraps of fabric gone to biohazard disposal. So you settled on a different dress, a short, black slip that would get you the attention you wanted. You cleaned yourself up, and with the knowledge that this was the end, it was almost enjoyable again. You did your hair the way Sukuna liked, glossy and wavy and free down your back, and painted your lips the same crimson as Sukuna’s eyes.

When you walk into the dive, you feel the eyes as they latch onto you like leeches. You ignore them as you approach the bar and slip onto one of the stools, the hem of your dress riding high on your thigh. You first ask the bartender for two shots of whiskey, which you down without so much as a wince—ironic, since you’d always hated whiskey, something Sukuna teased you for.

When the men in the bar realize you’re there to get drunk, they’re only too happy to oblige, buying you shot after shot of the nice shit as they try to make you laugh, or smile, or do anything other than stare at them with dead eyes. They don’t even try to read between the lines, to understand why you’re letting them ply you alcohol, why your body is too skinny, your face gaunt beneath your makeup. Instead of arriving at a place of concern, the men around you go from enjoying the challenge of cracking you to getting frustrated. To taking it personally that you’re not hanging off their arms, giggling at their jokes, gazing at their lips as you hiccup in the warm embrace of alcohol. To a strange place of fury borne from insecurity.

Good.

Insecure men are violent men, and you want to hurt.

When you get up from your barstool, the room swims, your limbs simultaneously too heavy and too light. You couldn’t fight back, even if you wanted to, and you’re glad for it. You don’t want an escape route. You want to cut off every source of oxygen until you suffocate.

You brush the men off, stumbling out of the bar to the soundtrack of their anger.

“Bitch, what the fuck?”

“God damn tease!”

“You owe me, slut!”

You feel the evening chill more than you feel the sting of their words, but as you stagger down the sidewalk, you hear them pour out of the bar after you. Hear their footfalls against the broken sidewalk as you step into a particularly dark spot in front of an empty lot between two buildings.

You fight back, at first. You have to, to keep their interest.

Even wasted, you’re a good fighter. Sukuna made sure you would be, hours spent together at Fushiguro’s gym after hours practicing self-defense. So, you know exactly where to jab the heel of your palm to break one man’s nose, a howl of pain ripping from him as blood gushes from his nose. You also know how to angle your elbow to connect with the most sensitive part of the jaw, sending another man’s head snapping backwards as his teeth snap painfully.

Now, they’re angry enough to kill, the liquor in their blood only helping assure them that this kind of violence is warranted. That you, a measly woman, deserve death for daring to fight back against them. For daring to hurt them, to cause them to bleed.

You find yourself smiling as they land blows up into your gut, blood spraying from your lips as your soft insides burst and bruise and swell. One yanks your hair so another has a clear target, the punch landing on your right cheek and sending your head snapping to the side. The force sends you to the ground, gravel embedding itself into your skin on impact, and when your head bounces against the concrete, a sound like a sob and a laugh heaves from your lips.

“This bitch is crazy!”

“Is she laughin’ at us?”

“Fuckin’ cunt, give ‘er somethin’ to laugh at.”

One of the men kicks your face, and your nose gives a sickening crunch as cartilage splinters and flesh rips. You have to open your mouth to breathe now, every inhale wheezing down your throat before a kick to your ribs forces it from your lungs.

Your body is a giant bruise, sensitive and exposed, and you don’t know if the warmth on your face is blood or tears. You curl in on yourself, your animal instinct kicking in, but it doesn’t matter.

It’s almost over.

Almost.

You close your eyes.

And then it stops.

The men don’t touch you again.

Instead, they start screaming.

Wait, you think distantly. Finish it.

FINISH IT.

The men scream and scream, and beneath it, you hear the awful echo of flesh-on-flesh.

Don’t save me!

Please!

DON’T SAVE ME!

When the screaming stops, you realize broken sobs are spilling from your lips. You don’t feel the pain, yet, and you don’t want to. You can’t. You can’t handle it. You’re not strong enough to be saved. You just need to die, you just need to die!

Hands, gentle as those of a lover, ghost over your face, and your heart stops.

Impossible.

But you open your eyes, and there he is.

Even in the fog of near-death, you see each feature clearly.

Inked jawline. Soft pink hair. Crimson eyes.

Sukuna, alive.

Too bad you’re as good as dead.

idk, man, I just like shit like this. Gimme all the dark shit, inject it into my veins

businesscasualtits

˙⋆✮ Awake // Alive ✮⋆˙

part one here

pairing: assassin!Sukuna x girlfriend!reader

info: I wrote a part two because we love to see a big man grovel ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ idk, let me live, luv u all (i entered a flow state at one point, idk if it's good, but fuck I liked it)

warnings: violence mentioned, but not really on the page. This is all just hurt and angst and eventual comfort...

wc: 4.5k

You’re surprised when you wake up.

That you wake up.

At first, you think you’ve given in to death, that the light seeping through your eyelids is the light. It’s warm, a sunset orange where you expected blinding white, and you’re glad for it. Glad and desperate to feel its embrace, but when you try to reach for it, try to pull yourself through the portal from life to death, you hear it.

… beep… beep… beep…

Then, you feel it.

All of it.

Every breath sends a fresh spasm of agony cracking through your chest, as if you’re one inhale away from shattering your ribcage. Even with your breathing as shallow as it is, you feel how tight your belly is, like you’ve swallowed a balloon that’s expanded far past its limits. And your head… fuck, your head… It’s like the pain can’t decide where it wants to locate, the front or the base, so it radiates between each spot, pounding so hard you just want your skull to split open and your gray matter to spill out like slush.

You open your eyes before you’re ready, not even realizing you’re doing it until you’re blinking against the blinding fluorescents overhead—which, of course, makes your headache a thousand times worse. Your vision seems to warp, like you’re looking in the reflection of a funhouse mirror, and bile starts to claw its way up your throat.

You hiss out a curse word, a fuck so jagged it’s like it’s been dragged through razor wire, and as your gaze sharpens, he’s the first thing that comes into focus.

Ryomen Sukuna.

He’s not facing you, and his sweatshirt hood is up over his head, but you know it’s him as certainly as you know your nose is broken. And when he whirls around, activated by your broken groan, your whole being goes weightless, like you’re made up of helium and nothing else.

You don’t know how long the two of you stare at each other, how long you examine every millimeter of his appearance, looking for a flaw, a clue that he’s not real. That none of this is real. That he’s still dead and gone, and all you have is this hallucination from a very, very bad concussion.

But he looks so like himself, his light pink hair pushed back from his forehead, revealing those angular features you’d spent night after night memorizing while he’d slept. If anything, he looks even more built than before that night in the alley, like a broken bone that healed stronger from its injury. Sukuna is right there.

And suddenly, you’re terrified, because if he vanishes again, blowing away like loose sand… you can’t even imagine the agony… how can you shatter when you’re already in pieces? How can… You can’t… He isn’t—

“Hey, hey, hey!”

The hallucination lurches around the side of the bed, grabbing your IV hand in his familiar, calloused grip. At your side, your heart monitor screeches too fast, an urgent underscore as you realize you’re hyperventilating. Your breath seems to trap in your throat, backing up into your lungs, and all you can do is gawk at the ghost of Sukuna, too petrified to be comforted by his presence.

“You’re n-n-not real,” you stammer, your voice sandpaper hoarse. “I saw—blood, I—”

“I’m real,” he insists, but you can’t understand him. He shouldn’t be able to touch you, and you try to pull away. Try to force your skin to forget how his feels.

“No, no, no,” you groan, the heart monitor screaming next to you. “No, no, no.”

Hallucination Sukuna calls your name like he’s begging, and you shake your head too violently. The room around you spins and pulses, lights flaring like gasps, and you think you choke on something—air, spit, vomit—but your body, mercifully, sends you spiraling in the dark before you can feel anything else.

The second time you wake up, floating up through the sludge of oblivion, Sukuna’s sitting next to your bed, crimson eyes glued to your face. The moment your eyelids open, he takes your IV hand with urgent softness and holds it up to his throat. Before you have a chance to process, to panic, you feel it.

His pulse, steady and strong beneath your fingertips.

Your hand trembles beneath his, but Sukuna holds you there, forcing you to comprehend that he’s not a ghost or a hallucination or a manifestation. He’s alive, and somehow, your already-annihilated heart breaks further, vaporizes into dust that you’ll never be able to recollect.

You open your mouth, try to speak, but all that comes out is a rasp of a sound, and you realize you’re desperate for water.

Sukuna sees it in your eyes, like he always has. Almost every night before bed, without you even asking, he used to fill up your favorite water bottle, a pink Owala covered in the stupidest meme stickers you could find.

Slowly, carefully, he places your hand back in your lap and pours water out of a beige pitcher into a plastic cup with a straw. Then, he holds it up to your lips and watches intensely as you suck down the cool liquid faster than you thought possible. It’s a balm to your aching throat, and a break in an otherwise suffocating moment. You try, you really do, to understand, but you can’t.

Insurmountable blood loss. No security cameras. Already cremated. Gone.

Uraume’s voice, steady in their sorrow, echoes in your ears, as it has every day—every hour—since that night. Since Sukuna died.

You’d soaked in his blood, pressed against his gunshot wound, grasped at his too-still body.

Sukuna had died, he’d—he’d…

The cup falls from your hand, clattering lightly against the floor as you grab at him, at his clothes, his hands, anything you can touch. Is he truly solid? Is he truly here? For a moment, Sukuna’s eyes widen in confused panic, but only for a moment. Then, he understands.

His tattooed jaw clenches, and then he’s tugging his black hoodie off and climbing into your hospital bed, tucking you into his side and guiding your ear to his chest. Now, through the thin fabric of his t-shirt, his heartbeat thrums into your ear, a soundtrack you never thought you’d hear again. Before, you’d fall asleep every night draped across his bare chest, listening to his heartbeat like your favorite lullaby while his fingers tangled and twirled in the ends of your hair.

As you curl into him, slowly letting yourself slide back into unconsciousness, you feel Sukuna’s body beneath yours. More specifically, the way his muscles tense like a dam straining against the power of a roaring river. You think about picking up your hand, of placing it on his side and running your fingers up and down his ribs like you know he likes. But you’re too tired.

Far too tired.

When you wake again, Sukuna is no longer in the hospital bed. Instead, he paces back and forth along your bedside, eyes cast down and the hinge of his jaw clenched tightly. His lips twist in a deeply carved scowl, and his fingers flex, as if debating whether he wants to hit something or not. You’re not sure how long you’ve been asleep, but clearly, it’s been long enough for him to spiral down a black hole of thinking. One that’s left him shrouded in an air of violence so thick you can see the way it drapes around his shoulders like an imperial cloak.

You blink once, twice, and on the third time, he notices you’re awake. He stops in his tracks as if suddenly made of stone, his fingers mid-curl, and his crimson eyes regard you as if you’re a fawn seconds away from fleeing. Which, you can’t blame him for. The last two times you were conscious, you could barely handle that the dead man was in front of you, decidedly not dead.

You don’t know what to say, how to even begin to process that Sukuna’s here, really here, now that the mere sight of him isn’t sending you spiraling into a delirious panic attack. During all those months alone, wrapped in the freezing cold of isolation, you’d dreamt about what you’d say to Sukuna the moment you saw him again, but you’d always assumed that reunion would only occur in death. You imagined yourself running out of a gray miasmus of pain and desolation and into the arms of the man you loved. He’d kiss your tears away as you inhaled his trademark scent of gunsmoke and spice, and you’d slip your hands up under his shirt and dig your nails into his skin so he couldn’t leave you again.

And you’d apologize, over and over, for getting him killed.

Because, really, you knew it was your fault. You’d distracted him that night, had dragged him into the alley where he’d lost his life, had been utterly useless when that pack of men had you both cornered. You’d as good as killed him with your own two hands.

At least, you’d thought you had.

You’d grieved like you had.

Punished yourself like you had.

But here he was, alive and angry.

You know the men who’d attacked you are dead. In fact, you wouldn’t be surprised if Sukuna hadn’t cut up their bodies and littered the streets with their limbs—he had a flair for the dramatic when he had a message to send. So who was there left to be mad at?

“What the fuck were you doing in that bar?”

Oh.

Sukuna glares at you as if he can see inside you, as if he can find the answer he’s looking for just by scaring away every layer of you until he’s satisfied. Beneath his fury, you see the fear, though. You see the desperation in his eyes like burgeoning tears, the tremor to his fingers as he digs his hands into a tuft of blankets at the end of the bed.

He thought you were going to die, you realize.

Which, yes, that had been the goal at the time, but only because Sukuna was dead. Because you’d tortured yourself for almost a year, grieving the other half of your heart and soul, and dying at the hands of violence was the only way you could think to truly and finally atone for what you’d done.

Except, Sukuna had never been dead.

“You’re mad at me.”

You barely have a voice, but the statement still hangs in the air between you, as if giving Sukuna a chance to reconsider what he’s about to say. Of course, he doesn’t. Whatever flashing warning lights he sees exploding around your head, he ignores, and for the first time in almost a year, your heart begins to burn with something other than self-hatred.

“How could you be so careless?” Sukuna demands, words sharp as needles. “How could you be so reckless?”

The chuckle that tumbles from your lips is broken and sour.

“You watched me,” you say, the puzzle pieces of the last eight months clicking into place. “I always thought it was Uraume, but it was you, wasn’t it?”

Sukuna freezes like an animal under a floodlight, and you think you might be sick.

All of that pain, all of those moments spent tearing yourself apart from the inside out, thinking you deserved misery… Not only was he alive, but he witnessed it all. He let it happen because… because…

“Why?” you ask, the question dripping in venom you didn’t realize was pooling in your mouth. You don’t clarify—you don’t need to. From the guilt that flashes across his face, Sukuna knows exactly what you’re asking.

“It was too dangerous,” he states, but despite himself, he doesn’t sound as convicted as you know he wants to. “So I did what I had to do.”

Fuck, you could slap him.

But fine, if he was going to be obtuse, so would you.

“So did I,” you retort, and Sukuna growls like a frustrated dog.

“You could’ve been killed!”

“That was the intention, yes.”

“How can you be that fucking stupid?”

The flames inside your heart flare into an inferno, consuming every bit of pain in your body and transforming it into fuel.

“You died, Sukuna! Whether or not you stopped breathing. To me, you were gone. No—no, not gone. You were murdered right in front of me because of me! Because of me!”

In all these months, it’s the first time you’ve truly said the words out loud, and distantly, in another world maybe, you find it disturbingly hysterical that you’re saying them to Sukuna himself.

“I hated myself, you fucking bastard!” You’re screaming now, shrill and thin and awful. “Every day, I just wanted to hurt because I thought I deserved it. I thought I’d gotten the love of my life killed, and I couldn’t stand myself. I couldn’t stand being alive, and I thought maybe, maybe, I could finally put an end to it all. I could finally be fucking selfish and just die!”

Sukuna seems to shrink with every word you spit, as if finally, finally, he’s realizing just how far you’ve ruined yourself. How far he’s let you ruin yourself.

“I wanted to die like you, Sukuna,” you say, your voice suddenly flat. Suddenly too tired to hold emotion. “I wanted to die in pain because I didn’t deserve mercy, but now…” You gesture a hand weakly at him, at his body that’s stronger than it was the night you went out to that god forsaken bar. He’d healed while you’d rotted.

Sukuna whispers your name, his voice steeped in so much sorrow that you have no choice but to ignore it.

“You let me think you were dead.”

You let the statement settle there, in the chasm between you, so wide and deep it seems bottomless. Insurmountable. Sukuna opens his mouth and then closes it, and you just shake your head.

“Don’t ask me why the fuck I was at that bar,” you say finally, “Ask yourself.”

You see it all in his eyes, see the spiral of thoughts that bring him down to just how low you were. He’ll never understand it, not truly, but now he’ll suffer like you did, and that’s all you’ll get.

Suddenly, you want to kiss him. You haven’t since that night, and your body craves him. Craves his lips against yours, his arms around your body. You crave his comfort because it’s one of the few places you’ve always felt safe. But now, now you know what it feels like to have that comfort ripped away because of him. Because he chose for the both of you, and in doing so, destroyed you.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” you murmur, “But I need you to get out.”

And he does, leaving you alone once again.

The sounds of your hospital room are strangely comforting—the consistent beep of your heart monitor, the wheeze of your oxygen tube, the delicate drip of your IV… It welcomes you when you float into consciousness, and it lulls you back into unconsciousness just as kindly.

Shoko had visited a few times, bringing you your favorite fuzzy blanket and one of Sukuna’s old hoodies that you’d used as an emotional crutch for the best eight months—it was his favorite, the one he got most pissed at you for stealing. You’d thought about telling her that he’d been alive this whole time, but something kept you from telling her the truth. A protective something that knew she’d hate him for it, that knew Shoko would go on a diatribe about how selfish and horrible Sukuna was for putting you through that. And she was right, but also, you couldn’t hear it.

You should hate him, but you just… can’t. Beneath it all—the fury and the hurt—you’re just so fucking happy he’s alive. There’s a relief so extreme that you can barely comprehend it, knowing that you still exist in a world with him.

You love him, you don’t think you’re capable of not loving him, but that doesn’t mean you forgive him. And you’re not sure you ever can.

As happy as you are that he’s still here, you can’t ignore that he let you go eight months thinking he was dead. For what? For the vague reason that it was too dangerous? What did that even mean? You’d known about Sukuna’s world since the night you found him in your bathtub, had woven yourself into that same world over the course of four years, and then suddenly he decided to just rip you out? Not because you’d asked him to, but because he decided he knew what was best for you? No conversation, no choice, and no more Sukuna.

And then he let you self-destruct.

No, you’re not sure you can forgive him for that.

It doesn’t take long for you to slip into Sukuna’s hoodie. You tell yourself it’s because you’re cold and the hospital’s freezing (it really actually is), but there’s something about the familiar black hoodie that brings you comfort like nothing else. When you’d thought Sukuna dead, you’d don this hoodie while trying to sleep, and you’d pretend the perfectly worn fabric was his embrace. You’d gotten so good at pretending he was the one keeping you warm that you could sometimes feel his arms tightening around you, as if scared to let you go.

You hate that the hoodie still comforts you now, but more than that, you hate that you crave the real thing now that you know you can have it.

You’ll never admit it, but wearing Sukuna’s hoodie does help you sleep better.

Before you open your eyes, you know Sukuna’s back in your room.

It’s been two days since you sent him away, but according to the nurses, he’s never actually left the hospital. He’d just camped out in different hallways, eating vending machine snacks and chugging cup after cup of crappy cafeteria coffee. Whenever he saw your doctor, he’d ask for an update, but the doctor had refused to give him answers other than vague she’s stables and she’s healings. It gives you a sick satisfaction knowing he’s being choked out of information, knowing he’s dealing with a fraction of what you had.

But also, you knew that sooner or later, he’d end up back in your room, the volatile mixture of frustration, anger, and desperation pumping through his veins finally getting too much for him to suppress. You knew it was never a question of if, just a question of when. So, when you blink into consciousness to find him sitting in the chair next to your bed, elbows on his knees and head in his hands, you don’t so much as jump.

“Have the nurses seen you yet?”

Sukuna does jump at the sound of your voice, his head snapping up so quickly you hear a distinct crack. His swollen eyes find yours… he looks utter shit. The flesh beneath his eyes is sunken and purple, and the rest of his face seems sallow and gaunt. His bottom lip is split in the middle, as if he’s been gnawing on it nonstop. When your gaze drops to his hands, you find the knuckles bloody and raw, and you’re sure there’s a wall in some stairwell somewhere that served as his punching bag.

“No,” he finally says, clearing his throat. “They’re all busy right after the shift change, so I managed to sneak by.”

“Ah.” You nod, then wince at the way your concussion has you completely destabilized, and Sukuna jumps to his feet.

“What do you need?”

You wave him off, pressing the heel of your hand to your forehead.

“I’m okay,” you mutter, “Just brain-damaged.”

It’s a joke, you think, but neither of you laugh. If anything, Sukuna seems to sink under the weight of your words. He’s in the same clothes from the last time you saw him, and his pale pink hair hangs limply on his head, falling into his eyes.

You don’t like the silence between you two because you don’t know what it means. For the last two days, you’ve been drifting in the currents of oblivion, but clearly, Sukuna hasn’t. His mouth twists in a grimace, like he can’t stand sitting with his own thoughts, and you almost reach out to him, but he’s too far away.

“My love.”

Your eyebrows shoot to your hairline at those two words.

My love.

He’s never called you that before, not even in those fragile moments where he’d been at his softest, letting you hold him in bed while the moon spilled through the window and your nails skated across his scalp. He’d called you plenty of other names, teasing names and precious names, but never that.

Never my love.

Whatever is happening now is delicate, and you don’t know who’s more terrified to break it.

“My love,” he repeats, inhaling as he rubs his palms on his thighs. “I… I betrayed you.”

You breathe in sharply, but Sukuna keeps going like a runaway train. His crimson eyes lock onto yours, and you’ve never seen him so scared.

“I betrayed you that night. I always thought I’d be able to protect you from my enemies, but that night, I was proved wrong. Seeing you hurt like that… It was my fault. I wasn’t alert enough, I wasn’t strong enough, I wasn’t fast enough… I wasn’t enough to keep you safe.”

He pauses, his fingers trembling against his jeans.

“I saw you in the hospital,” he says softly. “You looked so broken, and I hated myself—I still do, hate myself—for what I’d gotten you into. I thought the only way to protect you was to remove myself, so I did, and I did it in the only way I knew would keep you from looking for me.”

You almost smile at that, despite the way it feels like a serrated knife to the stomach, because he’s right. If you hadn’t thought him dead, you would’ve torn the world apart looking for him.

“I stayed close, though,” he continues, and his expression darkens. “You’re right. I did watch you. I watched you every day, waiting for the morning where you’d wake up and realize I wasn’t worth crying over, but you never did. You just got… smaller, and that’s my fault. I did that to you.”

Violence flashes through his eyes, violence in a dance with hatred, and his nails dig into his jeans now, as if he wants to hurt himself at the memories replaying in his mind. Memories of you starving and slipping further into yourself.

You want to make him feel better, want to soothe the storm inside him, but you don’t. He needs to feel it. You need him to feel it.

“I thought it was my fault,” you whisper, “I thought I got you killed.”

Sukuna lets out an animalistic sound, something between a growl and a moan, and then he’s at your side, hands grasping yours like a lifeline.

“You abandoned me, Sukuna.” Fuck, your voice is so small, so brittle. You don’t know how to explain it to him, how to choose the right words to let him know exactly how you hurt because how can you describe something so deep? “You took away my power, my choice in my life.”

“Because you would’ve chosen me!”

Thwap!

You don’t realize you’ve slapped him until your palm is stinging and his head is jerking left. Your fury from two days ago returns, white hot and all consuming, and it churns with the hurt pounding beneath your rips, causing you to explode like a volcano.

“Yes!” you hiss, leaning forward, “I would’ve chosen you, you fucking asshole! Because I get to choose you if I want to. If you don’t want to choose me back for whatever pseudohonorable reason, then don’t, but don’t be a god damn coward and just disappear!” Your throat is too raw for this kind of anger, and you know you’re on the cusp of losing your voice, but you just need to finish. To say it all now, while you can. “You made me powerless, Sukuna,” you say, emotion leaking into your words, “and I never thought you would do that to me.”

Slowly, he looks back at you, and the utter devastation written plainly across his features—features you once through too hard, too sharp for such emotion—takes your breath away. He reaches for you, but instead of cradling your face like you expect, he brushes his thumb against your cheek. It comes back wet, and immediately, your own hands go to your face. Sure enough, salt-slick trails descend down to your chin—you didn’t realize you were crying, but at the sight of your tears, a sob wrenches from your lips.

“Kuna…”

“You were at that bar because of me,” Sukuna says roughly, like the words are scraping the inside of his throat as they come out. “Because I wasn’t there. Because I chose wrong. Because I was wrong. Please—” He stops abruptly, like he’s scared, like he has to force the words out because he’s almost too terrified of what you’ll say.

“Please,” he repeats, looking at you with a desperation you’ve never seen before. “Please, choose me, because I’m begging for you.” It’s as if whatever you decide, it’s a decision between life and death. And, yeah… it is.

But you don’t know what to say. You can’t explain it—how much you want to forgive him right now, but how you know that you can’t. You know It can’t be that easy. You deserve your forgiveness to mean something, to be something hard-fought-for. You need to know it's valuable, and you need Sukuna to know, too.

“I don’t—” Your voice breaks, so you stop and take a second to breathe. You’re one misstep away from sobbing, and you can’t right now, not when what you need to say requires a steady voice. “I don’t know how to forgive you.”

He takes your hand and holds it against his face, pressing his reddened cheek into your palm. For a moment, he closes his eyes, and you can’t stop yourself—you let your pointer finger trace the obsidian black lines at the crest of his cheekbone, and Sukuna sighs at the touch. Slowly, his hand comes up to completely cover yours, his rough calluses aligning with your knuckles.

“Then don’t,” he says finally, opening his eyes. “Don’t forgive me right now. Just… let me try to earn it. Let me try to prove that you can trust me, that I’ll never do anything to hurt you again.” He tilts his chin up and carefully kisses your pointer finger. “Please?”

Before you can answer, there’s a brusque knock on your hospital room door before the nurse rushes in, her gray hair pulled back in a claw clip that matches her matcha green, dinosaur-adorned scrubs. She’s halfway through smiling at you when she sees Sukuna at your bedside, and her beautiful, wrinkled face immediately turns hostile.

“You’re not supposed to be in here,” she growls, jabbing a finger towards him.

Despite being an absolute beast of a man, panic flashes across Sukuna’s face, and you can’t help yourself: you laugh.

Then, because he was right, you choose him. Because you can. Because despite everything, you want to.

“It’s okay,” you say, brushing Sukuna’s hair back from his face. “He can stay.”

I s2g, that slap came to me in a dream HIT HIM, BITCH!

I have a fluff fic I might write next

@taocee

poniadeaur

Trophy boyfriend

Sukuna helps his girlfriend of three years move in together, but an unexpected discovery among her belongings triggers his competitive nature in ways neither of them anticipated—leading to a heartfelt exploration of insecurity, devotion, and what it truly means to be someone's "best."

The cardboard box hit the floor of the new apartment with a heavy thud, and Ryomen Sukuna straightened up, rolling his shoulders with an audible crack that echoed through the empty space. Three years. Three years of dating you, and now you were finally—finally—moving in with him. The apartment was sleek, modern, all clean lines and floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the city skyline. It suited him. It suited them.

"That's the last of the bedroom stuff," he announced, his voice carrying that familiar gravelly timbre that still sent shivers down your spine even after all this time. He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, his pink hair slightly disheveled from the day's labor. Even in a simple black tank top and joggas, he looked dangerous—muscles coiled like a predator's, those eyes hidden behind a pair of designer sunglasses that he'd donned to avoid frightening the neighbors.

You emerged from the kitchen, holding two water bottles. "Thank you," you breathed, pressing one into his massive hand. "I seriously couldn't have done this without you."

He took the water, his fingers brushing yours, and for a moment his expression softened—the way it only ever did for you. "You'd have managed," he grunted, but there was pride in his voice. "You always do."

The afternoon sun was scorching outside, the living room where dozens of boxes sat waiting to be unpacked. Sukuna's gaze drifted over them—kitchenware, books, clothes, and then—his eyes narrowed.

"What's in that one?" he asked, nodding toward a battered cardboard box tucked in the corner. It was different from the others—older, worn, with "TRASH???" scrawled across the side in faded marker.

You followed his gaze and winced slightly. "Oh. That's just… old stuff I haven't gone through in years. Things I meant to throw out but never got around to."

Sukuna's curiosity was piqued. He moved toward it with the predatory grace that defined every movement of his body, crouching down despite your protest of "Sukuna, wait, you don't have to—"

He was already opening it.

The box contained the detritus of a life half-forgotten: old concert tickets, dried flowers pressed between pages of a notebook, a chipped mug, and then—his hand stilled.

He pulled it out slowly, turning it over in his calloused palms.

A trophy.

Small, gold-painted plastic, the kind you could buy at any novelty store. It read "BEST BOYFRIEND EVER" in bold, slightly tacky letters.

Sukuna stared at it.

The silence stretched.

"Sukuna," you said carefully, approaching him. "I can explain—"

"Explain what?" His voice was carefully controlled, but you knew him well enough to hear the edge beneath it. The way his jaw tightened, the muscle ticking in his cheek. He turned the trophy over in his hands, reading the inscription again. "Best. Boyfriend. Ever."

"It was from when I was eighteen," you said quickly, reaching for it. "My ex. I gave it to him because I didn't know what else to get, and when we broke up, he returned it sarcastically. I threw it in that box and forgot about it. It's trash, literally. That's why it's in the trash box."

Sukuna looked at you, his expression unreadable behind those sunglasses. "You gave this to him."

"Years ago. When I was a teenager."

"And he gave it back."

"Because he was an asshole," you said firmly. "Sukuna, it didn't mean anything. It was a stupid, cheap thing. I bought it at a gas station on the way to his apartment because I felt obligated to get him something for our anniversary and I was broke."

Sukuna set the trophy down on the floor with deliberate care. Too careful. "I see," he said.

And then he stood, all six-plus feet of coiled power, and walked toward the kitchen without another word.

"Sukuna—"

"Let's finish unpacking," he said, his back to you. "We still have the kitchen boxes."

He was fine.

Throughout the rest of the day, Sukuna helped you unpack with efficiency. He hung your clothes in the closet next to his—silk dresses beside his hoodies, delicate blouses beside his training gear. He arranged your books on the shelf, organized your skincare products in the bathroom, even placed your favorite mug in the cabinet beside his own.

He was fine.

Except he wasn't saying much.

And he wasn't touching you as much as he usually did—the casual hand on your waist, the brush of fingers against your neck, the way he'd normally crowd your space just to breathe you in. All of it, absent.

You told yourself he was just tired. Moving was exhausting. Even for a man who could bench press three times his body weight, who spent hours in the boxing gym every week, who had a trophy case in his old apartment filled with golden cups and championship belts—actual achievements, hard-won through blood and sweat and broken knuckles.

But as the sun set and the city lights began to twinkle outside your new shared windows, you found him standing on the balcony, arms braced against the railing, staring out at nothing.

"Sukuna?" You stepped out behind him, wrapping your arms around his waist, pressing your cheek between his shoulder blades. "You okay?"

He was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was rough. "In three years," he said slowly, "you've never given me a trophy."

Your heart sank. "Sukuna—"

"You gave me that leather jacket last winter," he continued, as if reciting a list. "The one from that boutique in Harajuku. You remembered I mentioned liking it three months prior. You tracked it down even though they said it was sold out everywhere."

"Sukuna—"

"You gave me that first edition book of poetry for my birthday. The one I'd been looking for since I was twenty. You found it in an estate sale in another country and had it shipped."

"I remember," you whispered.

"You gave me that watch," he said, his voice dropping lower. "The vintage one. You spent weeks researching the movement, the history, found the exact reference I wanted. You remembered everything. Every detail."

"Because I love you," you said, tightening your arms around him. "Because you deserve thoughtful gifts."

"But never a trophy." He turned around finally, and you saw it—the vulnerability he so rarely showed. The way his jaw was set, the tightness around his eyes, the faint flush of color on his sharp cheekbones. He looked almost… embarrassed. Ashamed of his own feelings. "Never something that said… that."

The realization hit you like a physical blow. Sukuna—Ryomen Sukuna, who had faced down opponents in the ring without flinching, who had built an empire with his bare hands, who was feared and respected in equal measure—was jealous.

Of a plastic trophy.

From a gas station.

Given to a boy when you were eighteen.

"Sukuna," you breathed, reaching up to touch his face. He flinched slightly, then leaned into your palm. "That trophy was nothing. It was cheap plastic. It was a joke, even when I gave it. I didn't know what love was. I didn't know what a real relationship looked like. I gave him a gas station trophy because I was young and stupid and didn't know how to show I cared."

"He got a trophy," Sukuna said, and his voice cracked slightly. "He got words. Best boyfriend ever. Even if you didn't mean it. Even if it was cheap. You gave it to him."

"And he threw it back in my face," you said firmly. "Literally. He returned it when we broke up. He didn't want it. He didn't deserve it."

"But you gave it," Sukuna insisted, and now you saw the real pain there—the insecurity buried so deep under layers of confidence and strength that it rarely saw the light of day. "You thought to give it. In three years, you've never thought to give me something like that. Something that… claims me. That tells the world what I am to you."

Your heart broke open.

"Is that what you want?" you asked softly. "To be claimed?"

His eyes—those beautiful, terrifying eyes—met yours. "I want to be your best," he said, the words raw and honest. "I want to be the one you give trophies to. I want… I want to know I'm better than him. Better than anyone. That after three years, I'm not just… convenient. That I'm chosen."

The confession hung in the air between you, fragile and trembling.

You stepped closer, rising on your toes to press a kiss to his jaw, his cheek, the corner of his mouth. "You are chosen," you whispered. "You are my choice. Every day. That stupid trophy meant nothing—it was a placeholder for feelings I didn't understand. The things I've given you, I gave because I know you. Because I see you. Because I love you in ways I didn't even know existed when I was eighteen."

Sukuna's hands came up to cradle your face, his thumbs brushing over your cheekbones. "Then why does it hurt?" he asked, and he sounded so young in that moment—so unlike the powerful man the world knew. "Why does that plastic piece of garbage make me feel like I'm losing? I've won championships. I've held belts. I've beaten men twice my size. But this…" He laughed, bitter and self-deprecating. "This makes me want to burn something down."

"Because you want to be my champion," you said, understanding dawning. "Not just in the ring. In everything."

"Pathetic," he muttered, but he was pulling you closer, burying his face in your neck, inhaling deeply. "I'm pathetic."

"You're mine," you corrected, holding him tight. "And I'm yours. That trophy is going in the actual trash tomorrow. And if you want, I'll buy you a hundred trophies. I'll fill this apartment with them. Best Boyfriend Ever. Best Partner Ever. Best Everything Ever."

He made a sound—half laugh, half groan. "Don't mock me."

"I'm not," you promised, pulling back to look at him. "I'm serious. If that's what you need, that's what you'll get. But Sukuna—you already have everything I have to give. My heart isn't a trophy. It's not something you win once and display. It's yours. Every day. In the jacket, in the book, in the watch. In the way I moved my entire life to be with you."

He kissed you then—desperate and deep and full of all the words he couldn't say. When he finally pulled back, his forehead rested against yours, his breathing ragged.

"Okay," he whispered.

"Okay?"

"Okay," he repeated, and kissed you again, softer this time. "I believe you."

But you couldn't stop thinking about it.

Even after you fell asleep in his arms, even after you woke to his soft breathing and the warmth of his body wrapped around yours—you kept hearing his voice. That crack in his armor. The way he'd asked, "Why does it hurt?"

He'd given you everything. Every part of himself. And somewhere in the back of his mind, that stupid plastic trophy had become a symbol of everything he feared—that he wasn't enough, that he wasn't claimed, that he wasn't chosen in the way he needed to be.

You slipped out of bed at 5 AM, careful not to wake him. The city was still dark, the apartment quiet. You dressed quickly, grabbed your keys, and slipped out the door.

You went to four different stores before you found it.

The first was a party supply shop that only had "World's Best Dad" and "Employee of the Month." The second was a gift shop that looked promising but only sold corporate awards. The third didn't open until 8. The fourth—a novelty store near the gym where Sukuna trained—had exactly what you needed.

You bought it with shaking hands, paid cash because your card was acting up, and practically ran home.

The sun was rising when you let yourself back into the apartment, the trophy tucked inside your jacket like a secret. Sukuna was still asleep, sprawled across the bed, one arm reaching toward your empty side. You placed the trophy on the nightstand and crawled back into bed beside him.

He woke an hour later, as he always did, reaching for you immediately. His hand found your hip, pulled you close, and he buried his face in your hair with a contented hum.

"Morning," you whispered.

"Morning," he rumbled, his voice thick with sleep. "You're warm."

"Come have breakfast with me," you said, pulling away just enough to look at him. "I want to show you something."

He opened his eyes slowly, blinking at you with that rare, vulnerable softness he only showed in the first moments of waking. "Show me what?"

"Come to the kitchen," you said, and kissed his forehead. "I'll make coffee."

You dressed in one of his oversized hoodies while he pulled on pajama pants, both of you moving through the new apartment with the quiet intimacy of shared space. You'd assembled the small breakfast table yesterday, laughing as you tried to decipher the Swedish instructions. Now it sat by the window, bathed in morning light.

Sukuna padded into the kitchen, scratching his chest, his pink hair sticking up in every direction. "You didn't have to get up early," he said, leaning against the counter as you started the coffee. "We could have slept in."

"I wanted to," you said, and turned to face him.

Then you reached under the table—where you'd hidden it—and brought out the trophy.

It was gold and gleaming, catching the morning light. Small, like the other one had been. But new. Shiny. Yours to give.

Sukuna froze. His eyes locked onto the trophy, then lifted to your face, then back to the trophy. His mouth opened slightly, but no words came out.

You held it in both hands, suddenly nervous. "I went to four stores this morning," you said, your voice trembling slightly. "The first three didn't have what I needed. But the fourth… the fourth had exactly one left."

You stepped closer to him, holding the trophy out like an offering. "Ryomen Sukuna," you said formally, your heart hammering against your ribs. "You are the best boyfriend I have ever had. You are the best man I have ever known. You are my champion, my protector, my home. And I should have given you this three years ago. I should have given it to you on our first month anniversary, on our first year, on every day that you've made me feel loved."

Tears blurred your vision, but you kept going. "I didn't give you a trophy because I thought you were above cheap plastic. Because the gifts I gave you were meant to show how well I know you, how deeply I see you. But I understand now. I understand that sometimes you need the words. You need the claim. You need to know that I am proud to call you mine, that I want the world to know what you are to me."

You turned the trophy so he could read the inscription.

His breath caught.

BEST FIANCE EVER

"I looked for 'boyfriend,'" you said, laughing through your tears. "I looked everywhere. But they were sold out. Or maybe they don't make them anymore. But they had this one. And I thought… I thought maybe that's okay. Because I don't want you to be my boyfriend anymore, Sukuna. I want you to be my future. My forever. My husband."

You held the trophy out to him, your hands shaking. "So here. This is yours. You earned it. Not because you asked for it, but because you've been earning it every single day for three years. Will you… will you take it?"

Sukuna stared at the trophy. Then at you. Then back at the trophy.

His eyes were wet—he would deny it later, claim it was allergies, but you knew. You knew him.

He reached out with trembling hands and took the trophy from you, his fingers brushing yours. He held it like it was made of glass, like it weighed more than all his championship belts combined.

"You went to four stores," he repeated, his voice barely above a whisper.

"At five in the morning," you confirmed.

"For this."

"For you."

He looked at the trophy again, turning it over in his hands, reading the inscription like it was sacred text. Best Fiance Ever. The plastic caught the light, cheap and gaudy and perfect.

"I didn't even ask," he said, his voice cracking. "I didn't ask you to—"

"I know," you said, stepping closer, placing your hands on his chest. "I wanted to. I needed to. You needed to know, Sukuna. You needed to know that you're chosen. That you're claimed. That you're my best, my only, my everything."

He broke then—the way he only ever did for you. The trophy clattered to the counter as he swept you into his arms, lifting you off your feet, burying his face in your neck. You felt his shoulders shake, felt the wetness of tears against your skin.

"I love you," he choked out, the words raw and broken and true. "I love you so much it scares me. I love you so much I don't know what to do with it. I saw that trophy yesterday and I wanted to destroy something. I wanted to find him and show him what it means to lose. But you… you went and bought me one. You gave it to me. You chose me."

"Always," you whispered, holding him tight. "I will always choose you. Every day. For the rest of my life."

He pulled back just enough to look at you, his face streaked with tears he wasn't ashamed of, not with you. Never with you. "Is that a proposal?" he asked, his voice thick with emotion.

You laughed, the sound wet and joyful. "I guess it is. Is that… is that okay? Should I have waited? Should I have done it differently?"

Sukuna cupped your face in his hands, his thumbs wiping away tears you hadn't realized you were shedding. "It's perfect," he said, and he was smiling now—that rare, blinding smile that transformed his face from dangerous to devastatingly beautiful. "You're perfect. And yes. Yes, I'll marry you. I'll be your fiancé. I'll be your husband. I'll be whatever you want, whatever you need, as long as I'm yours."

"You're mine," you confirmed, rising on your toes to kiss him. "And I'm yours."

He kissed you then—deep and reverent and full of promise, the morning light wrapping around you both like a blessing. When he finally pulled back, he reached for the trophy on the counter, holding it carefully in one hand while keeping the other wrapped around your waist.

"I have twenty-seven trophies," he said, his voice soft with wonder. "Twenty-seven championships, tournaments, belts. They used to mean everything to me. They were proof that I was strong. That I was the best."

He looked at the cheap plastic trophy in his hand, then at you. "But this one," he said, his voice breaking slightly. "This one means more than all of them combined. Because you gave it to me. Because you chose to give it to me. Because you woke up at five in the morning and went to four different stores just to make sure I knew."

He pressed a kiss to your forehead, your temple, the corner of your mouth. "I'll treasure it forever," he whispered. "I'll put it where I can see it every day. I'll earn it every morning. I'll be the best fiancé you've ever had, I promise. I'll be the best husband. I'll be everything you deserve."

"You already are," you said, taking the trophy from him and placing it on the breakfast table where it caught the light like a golden promise. "Now feed me breakfast, fiancé. We have a future to plan."

He laughed—that rare and beautiful sound—and pulled you into his arms again, holding you like you were the only thing that mattered.

Because to him, you were.

And now he had the trophy to prove it.

Later, when the apartment was fully unpacked and the trophy had found a permanent home on the shelf beside his championship belts, Sukuna would catch you looking at it and smile that secret, satisfied smile.

He'd won a lot of trophies in his life.

But this one—this cheap, gold-painted, slightly ridiculous declaration of love—this one he treasured most of all.

Because you'd given it to him.

Because you'd chosen him.

Because he was yours, and you were his, and that was the only victory that had ever mattered.

THE END

nanamineedstherapy

Into the Future

Nanami Kento x Soft Isekied!Reader

(ft. Fushiita, GoShoko, InuOoku, NobaMaki (all aged up to present day, 2026).)

16.7k | Explicit | Post-JJK AU

Summary: LOCAL WOMAN REMOVES ORANGE PITH. MAN WITH EIGHT YEARS OF REPRESSION IS SEEN MALFUNCTIONING LIKE A TESLA BECAUSE THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED.

Or, Nanami only comes to his own birthday camping trip because Gojo steals his keys. He plans to survive one hour, avoid the group photo & leave before anyone can make a speech. Then you hand him a plate exactly the way he likes it, Shoko says what everyone has been pretending not to know, & one bad photograph catches the truth before he can look away. + Other couples have their own moments.

Warnings: MDNI, Crack-Treated-Serious, Canon Divergence eight years Post-JJK (2026), eyepatch, facial scarring, body insecurity, chronic pain/knee pain, injury recovery, medical caretaking history, trauma aftermath, references to Shibuya/Mahito, reader with no verifiable family/past records, alcohol mention, adult former students now sorcerers/teachers, background ships, audible background voyeuristic sex (for petty reasons), One bed/hotel room, scar/body worship, eyepatch Nanami, emotional comfort, caretaking history, friends-to-lovers, mutual pining, Explicit sex, oral sex, face-fucking, gagging, titty-fucking, cumming on chest, fingering, cunnilingus, size kink, praise kink, pet names (good girl), tummy bulge, hand on throat/breath play, rough sex, overstimulation, marathon sex, multiple positions, missionary, cuddle-fucking, mating press, aftercare, protected sex, condom theft & mentions of morning-after pills (not for reader).

A/N: Happy birthday to my man, my man, my man, and also me for 2 years of fic writing. This is a well-awaited sequel to my first-ever fic, which I wrote on his birthday in 2024 & is finally an answer to the first-ever ask I got on Tumblr, based on an amazing ask from this anon. TBH this is the fluffiest fic I have ever written. Based on this event.

Nanami arrived at his own birthday camping trip late.

He had said he wouldn’t show up.

Then Gojo stole his car keys.

“You look nice, Nanamin!”

Yuji, twenty-four years old, called from the fold-out chair by the river, taller and broader now, older around the scars, with the same smile.

Nanami adjusted his eyepatch, damp with sweat under the strap. The burn scars pulled a little near his mouth when he answered, “You’ve grown into a terrible liar.”

Yuji laughed and carded his fingers through Megumi’s hair, where Megumi had dozed off against his knee.

You were by the picnic blanket, sleeves rolled up, turning skewers on the small grill while Nobara yelled at Inumaki over the paint set, one eye narrowed above the edge of her eyepatch, and Maki opened a jar with one hand better than most people could with both.

Panda had somehow been put in charge of the same fruit he'd been caught stealing earlier.

Gojo had been kept away from touching the food after he tried to “improve” the rice balls with frosting. You looked up when Nanami reached you.

“Hi,” you said, holding tongs in one hand. “You made it.”

“I was kidnapped.”

“You still came.”

“That is what kidnapping means.”

nanamineedstherapy

Into the Future

Nanami Kento x Soft Isekied!Reader

(ft. Fushiita, GoShoko, InuOoku, NobaMaki (all aged up to present day, 2026).)

16.7k | Explicit | Post-JJK AU

Summary: LOCAL WOMAN REMOVES ORANGE PITH. MAN WITH EIGHT YEARS OF REPRESSION IS SEEN MALFUNCTIONING LIKE A TESLA BECAUSE THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED.

Warnings: MDNI, Crack-Treated-Serious, Canon Divergence eight years Post-JJK (2026), eyepatch, facial scarring, body insecurity, chronic pain/knee pain, injury recovery, medical caretaking history, trauma aftermath, references to Shibuya/Mahito, reader with no verifiable family/past records, alcohol mention, adult former students not sorcerers/teachers, background ships, audible background voyeuristic sex (for petty reasons), One bed/hotel room, scar/body worship, eyepatch Nanami, emotional comfort, caretaking history, friends-to-lovers, mutual pining, Explicit sex, oral sex, face-fucking, gagging, titty-fucking, cumming on chest, fingering, cunnilingus, size kink, praise kink, pet names (good girl), tummy bulge, hand on throat/breath play, rough sex, overstimulation, marathon sex, multiple positions, missionary, cuddle-fucking, mating press, aftercare, protected sex, condom theft & mentions of morning-after pills (not for reader).

Part 1

The receptionist looked at the two of you—your rumpled clothes, his serious face, the bags, the hour—and made a decision behind her polite smile.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “We only have one room available.”

Nanami’s shoulders tensed. “Anything with two beds?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

You watched her glance at you while Nanami turned to set bags down.

Her smile sharpened by half an inch, conspiratorial. “Only if you’re comfortable,” she murmured, her voice too low for him to hear. “I can check again.”

You looked at Nanami, who was trying to help with your badly zipped bag. The key in your pocket pressed against your thigh. “One room is fine. I’m sure he’ll offer to sleep on the couch.”

The receptionist’s smile warmed. “Of course.”

Nanami turned back. “I can ask another hotel.”

“It’s late. The other hotels are far,” you mentioned. “And it’s better to get back faster in the morning before Yaga might wake up and discover we abandoned camp over tent crimes.”

His mouth flattened and the receptionist made a noise that might have been a cough.

kbg96

C'est comme ça qu'on joue face aux grandes nations de foot: sans complexe.

kyoshithewriter

Take a bow Cape Verde 👏🏾

peyiswriting

In this house we don't support Argentina

osulawrites

SAY THAT LOUDER FOR THE PPL AT THE BACK

tophollands

HANGING OUT TO DRY

A bet is classic. What could be more fun than targeting a sweet girl and making her fall in love with the reputable campus fuckboy? Surely he wouldn’t fall in love with you.

fratboy!gojo x f!reader

notes: I have seen sooooo many ideas and tiktoks about the trope of reader being a bet & it always hurts so good! wanted to try it out and ofc it had to be with fratboy gojo >:)))

warnings: angst obvi hehehe, drinking, cursing, reader is super sweet and a bet obvi, no comfort or happy ending (yet? who knows), mentions of vomiting but doesn’t, mentions of blood, reader is never someone’s first choice:(( ummmm, gojo is an asshole ofc

Credit to @uzmacchiato for the divider!!

Satoru knew he should've said no in the beginning, knew it wasn't worth it just to impress his friends- his stupid frat brothers who never took anything seriously. Never thought about the consequences of their actions.

Buuut the idea of the bet was just too good to turn down.

The effort, the build up, the dedication- it would all come together so perfectly, especially with you as the main star. With you being you, you were doomed from the start before the bet could even fully take shape.

Sweet little you. Shouldn't you have known better?

Going around, shamelessly wearing your heart on your sleeve, always spreading kindness on the darkest of days, looking and talking to people as if they genuinely mattered- and maybe to you, they actually did, even when they couldn't have cared less about returning the favor. Not that you ever expected anything in return.

And most importantly of it all? You were so understanding. Far too understanding for your own good. The debilitating type that had rooted itself early on as some sort of lousy defense mechanism and eventually morphed into something self destructive. Had you subconsciously constructing and molding subpar excuses to justify someone's behavior, especially when it was directed towards you.

Always being an overly empathetic thing, so willing to sacrifice and minimize your own feelings when it came to others, always softening their blow.

Were you desperate or something to get people to stay? So desperate that you had unintentionally turned yourself into a doormat that people could stomp all over?

Anybody could've told you that it was idiotic to try and see everyone at face value, to so naively believe the words people told you. But you could've argued the opposite.

It wasn't naivety. It was you, sweet and trusting you, determined to not let your past heartbreak change the way you viewed others, to not let it bias you, scare you, or haunt you. Despite having been constantly hurt, you refused to allow your past experiences make you question and doubt every. single. new. relationship.

Always trying to see the good in people.

It would have turned out great, perfectly actually. You had played your part with flying colors, just as expected, putting on the most spectacular, albeit unknown, performance. And Satoru? Well.

Things would have turned out great.

If he hadn't started falling in love with you.

But the show must go on.

nanamineedstherapy

I'll wait for you

F1 Driver Soft! Ex-Ryomen Sukuna x F!Reader (Satoru's sister)

+ Brojo being the absolute best brother around.

Summary: You got stood up at a local fair by a man from Hinge, then got trapped beside your ex, and remembered that Ryomen Sukuna could drive a Ferrari for a living but still get scared by carnival rides. Then you relearn that Sukuna still knew your usual order, your cat hates him on sight, and your brother had once told you to stop throwing your life away for him. (Ft. Gojo Satoru, Catoru, Takako Uro & mentioned Geto Suguru Slander).

Or, Satoru got sick a few years ago & you haven't been the same since. Will the F1 driver be able to get you back?

Based on this poll. WC: 6.5K.

Warnings: Contains Fic Spoilers, Crack treated seriously, fluff, exes to lovers, hurt/comfort, mentions of illness (metastatic uveal melanoma (ocular cancer with secondary poliosis)), brief panic attack/sensory overwhelm in public but don't worry Sukuna’s there, nothing graphic & good ending.

A/N: I have never cried this much while writing a fic (at Satoru's parts.) Not beta read; I'll reread it once I'm not smelling colors. Playlist

You arrived at the fair in an outfit that made men stupider, which meant Suguru from Hinge had chosen a historic day to become legally dead to you.

The skirt and the boots were new. The lipstick was so expensive that it made you eat fries with caution and drink water through a straw held at an angle. You had spent twenty minutes deciding between earrings, then another ten pretending that decision said anything meaningful about you on a first date.

Suguru had sent you a voice note that morning.

Can’t wait to finally see you.

nanamineedstherapy

(Don't) Call Me Chuki

Summary: Heian Era Trueform!Sukuna is brought to his knees by the deadliest curse of all: a pet name. Centuries later, the nickname comes back to haunt him—in ways even the King of Curses can’t endure.

Warnings: Period Drama but Horny, Period-accurate smut (power play, rough sex, humiliation, possessiveness), Body horror (tummy mouth having a mind of it's own & humiliating Sukuna on a regular), Public humiliation (jokingly), Pet Name Kink Gone Wrong, Belly Mouth With Puppy Energy, Domestic Banquet From Hell, Threats of violence/intimidation (unserious), Pregnancy mention, Canon-typical death, Canon typical Yandere!Sukuna obsession, Domestic Fluff, Accidental Angst, Crack, Hurt/Comfort, SMUT MDNI.

A/N: Look, I wasn't alive in the Haien Era so Idk how accurate this is, so feel free to share feedback but be gentle. This fic started because I thought “what if sukuna’s tummy mouth acted like a golden retriever around his wife” & then accidentally wrote a period drama about humiliation, horny violence, & intergenerational trauma. Anyway have fun. 🍵🐍 WC: 3.8k.

The heat of midsummer Heian capital clung to the lacquered beams of Ryomen Sukuna’s hall, thick as incense smoke. Cicadas screamed outside.

Inside, the air was thick with exertion, sweat, and the unique, potent energy that clung to the King of Curses like a second skin.

He loomed above his wife like a carved idol come to obscene life—four arms braced around her, muscles drawn taut, the dark lattice of cursed markings twitching with strain.

His wife lay beneath him, breath coming in ragged gasps that matched his own, her nails scoring faint lines across the impossible hardness of his shoulders. The world had narrowed to the slick heat between them, the frantic rhythm they’d built, the sheer, overwhelming pressure coiling at the base of Sukuna’s spine.

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