suguru geto was the doll that every horror movie enthusiast dreamed of having—rumors of the bloodshed the 2’9 figure left behind following around like a bad cold. the very same doll perched up in your living room table.
FEATURING: chucky doll! geto suguru x fem! reader
CONTENT WARNINGS: 18+ content, MDNI. does not follow the chucky plot. non canon compliant/au. murder. blood. smut. sub!guru. reader is mentioned to have a tattoo. tongue piercing geto. bondage (geto receiving). face sitting. cunnilingus. suguru cums in his pants :( riding. choking. orgasm denial. creampie. use of pet names.
NOTE: subguru my love 🚬
based on a true story, a doll possessed by the devil and every evil spirit alike who wreaked havoc in the countryside of japan, had been the inspiration for the movie child's play being created.
since it's release in 1988, various renditions of merch have come out. from articles of clothing varying from sweaters, shirts, and pajama pants to coloring books, posters, and replicas to the one collectible nearly impossible to get:
suguru geto.
the prized doll that everyone wanted to get their grubby little hands on, you included. while many had been made in an attempt to replicate the original line made doll, only twenty had been distributed to the public and retailed at ¥7,623.
many had stayed up throughout the night to await the drop, not daring to stray away from the tab. not daring to refresh the page and stray away from their point in line. the twenty dolls sold out in the span of seconds, leaving many in the dust and wanting.
leaving many willing to pay obscene prices, sometimes even twenty more times than what it's worth.
however, it was the only piece that you were missing from your memorabilia collection: owning the original hockey mask used in friday the 13th, krueger's claws, myers' machete.. you get the point.
if there was a piece to be collected, changes were you already had it.
most of your free time was spent browsing through craigslist, through mercari, trying to find the doll without having to give up an arm and a limb. which only seemed to get more and more impossible by the day, sellers asking for what you could set a down payment on a car for.
once again, you decided to try your luck out and scroll through facebook marketplace.
thickdickuna: offer ¥1,505,005
an offer made by a man who spent his time analyzing and inspecting stockx graphs. you let out a small scoff, thumb swiping past that offer as quickly as you could to go to the next page. yes, you were desperate, but you could also pay off your semester's tuition with that kind of money. hard pass.
dilfnearyou: offer ¥753,233.00
the doll showing up on your screen barely looked like it was sitting upright, stitching messy around the overalls, and instead of 'good guys' on the front of the jean pocket, it was bad guys instead. upon closer inspection, googly eyes were put in place of the pretty purple ones you'd grown used to seeing.
it was quite possibly the worst knockoff you'd seen on this app.
you didn't hesitate to scroll onto the next page, each offer somehow worse than the last.
user420: offer ¥3,014.00
your first thought was this was a lame attempt at pulling off a scam, refreshing your screen just to make sure you weren't imagining things. the numbers hadn't changed, almost seeming to mock you. it wasn't even retail value, it just didn't make sense.
but you'd be lying if you said you weren't just the teensiest, tiniest bit curious. so, you clicked on it. you were welcomed by the sight of suguru in the original box on the first picture, a picture of him sitting on a dining chair on the next one. so, the doll look real enough.
but just how reliable was your seller?
the more you continued to scroll through her profile, the more you started to doubt yourself. your seller, user420, had reviews from actual real people, each one giving her a five star for getting their package quickly and efficiently.
you didn't hesitate to send her an offer, hearing back within the next hour.
after all the details had been sorted out, you decided to go to her home and pick him up. you weren't sure you trusted the postal service to take care of him.
the home was a quaint one on the countryside, shelves of multitudes of books and collectibles outlining the living room walls. a fluffy, white fat dog padded around the floor before splaying out right smack in front of the kitchen door, loud snores rumbling from her chest. sleeping like a single mom who'd just worked three jobs.
"do you want anything to drink?" she called out from the kitchen, getting a glass from the cupboard.
"just a water's fine."
it was quiet, serene but it still felt lively—felt like a home. well it was quiet until you heard a loud scream reverberating through the halls from upstairs, "fuck you, bitch!"
"sorry about that. my wife's playing eviction notice and things tend to.. get pretty heated." you slowly nodded, taking a sip from your glass.
"anyways, she wants me to get rid of the doll," she stated plainly, "it would be easy to sell him for just as much as other people are but i wanted to give him to someone who'd be able to give him a good home. and i'm hoping that it's you."
your back immediately straightened, hands folded in front of you as if this was an important interview. in a way, it was. you needed to prove you were capable enough to take care of suguru.
"i've been a big fan for years and i've wanted suguru since i saw him on the website," you started off, "and i know that you have plenty of candidates willing to pay for him, but just trust me when i say i'd take good care of him."
user420 looked at you, really looked at you, like she was trying to see whether you were being genuine before she stood up. she came back with suguru in her arms, setting the doll right in front of you. and wow, the pictures really did not do him justice.
suguru was in pristine condition— not one speck of dust, scratch, or scruff visible, tags still intact, and every single strand of hair accounted for. almost as if he'd just been taken out of the box. "i've had him for a couple years, got lucky and got him when it first came out."
still, you were skeptical. "can i ask what led to your wife wanting to get rid of the doll?" if you didn't know any better, you'd almost say she was looking to give him away.
"he saw us rubbing coin purses and came in with a pair of scissors like he wanted to join. never seen anything like it," she responded after a couple seconds, giggles leaving her lips like water before she stopped herself, "i have the purchase certificate if you're interested in seeing it."
now that little snippet of information made you set your cup down, brows furrowing even further. moving doll? you'd heard some reports about it before, but you'd never expected to hear it so casually. maybe you'd really just gotten lucky on the first time.
your eyes darted over to suguru, almost expecting to move on cue. he stayed completely still. "yeah, i'd like to see it, please." as soon as she left the room, you slowly started to poke at suguru's cheek. waiting for at least a blink, a shove of your finger, anything.
before you could continue to bother him further (and before he lost his last straw), she came back with a cardboard in hand and a bottle in the other, topping off her glass before setting it right beside her. she passed the paper over, letting you read it as long as you needed.
suguru geto—doll made in 2004. he wants you to be his best friend! verification number: 9474639268472. if lost, please return as soon as possible :)
any last doubts you had died down. he was very much real, this was very much real. you were going to get your very own geto doll. the chair shook beneath you with each jitter of excitement that coursed your veins, the smile on your face barely concealed.
but she was almost reluctant to let go of the doll just yet, clinging onto him tightly before passing him over to you. like she'd change her mind if she didn't. "like i said, i just want him well taken care of."
"i promise." with that, you and suguru (him with two seatbelts keeping him secure) were in your car heading back to your small apartment in the city.
the first day, nothing out of the ordinary happened.
you cleaned up the glass display your mother left a porcelain doll behind—family heirloom passed from generation to generation for the past five decades or whatnot (who really cared when you had your prized doll?), making sure that not a single speck was visible before gently setting suguru inside.
the most exciting thing that happened that night was that your latest purchase—a book—was now out for delivery.
the second night was when you started to hear movement.
rushed pitter patter of footsteps echoed outside of your bedroom door at around midnight, the sound rustling you out of your sleep. already preparing your complaint to your apartment manager for a rat invasion, you decided to try to fall asleep.
the steps continued. each one sounding less and less than some kind of mouse who'd crawled out of a crack in the wall. you opened your bedroom door to spot suguru standing there, a menacing look on his face while he held one of your kitchen knives over his head. anticipating the perfect moment to strike.
but unlike every victim he'd had thus far, you didn't run away. didn't so much as flinch. you only rubbed a hand over your face, "suguru, i have work tomorrow. can you save the scare until i've slept some?"
he supposed even old tricks managed to get boring eventually.
the knife slipped right from between his fingers, scattering across the floor. "still doesn't get you?" he question, head tilting to the side like he was genuinely confused.
"after years living with you, no." you rolled your eyes, picking the knife up by the handle. poking it against your pointer, you noticed, "it's dull. you're losing your touch, geto." with that little tidbit of information, you walked downstairs and set it in its cabinet.
you padded upstairs and instead of letting you pick him up to take him back to his glass cage downstairs, suguru rushed past you and plopped smack down in the middle of your bed. acting like he paid rent around this place.
you didn't bother trying to argue.
"scoot." suguru remained still, even going as far as to stretch his limbs out like a starfish.
"scoot over," you ordered, tone more firm as you prodded at his side harder. suguru let out a small groan but conceded, moving just the slightest inch to give you more space. rolling your eyes for the umpteenth time that night, you settled right beside him.
you could've sworn you felt him squish one of your tits while he was 'asleep.'
suguru was as demanding as they probably got. stomping up to your door at two or three in the morning with a scowl on his face and a hair brush in hand. plastic back pin straight while you combed through his long hair, getting all the knots and specks of dried blood off.
just as you were about to get up from your spot, something smacked right dab in the middle of your forehead. "ow—what the?" you grumbled, searching around the floor to search for the culprit. a pink sparkly hair tie. you picked up, spotting suguru giving you a dirty look.
"we're not finished yet. put my hair in a braid." you raised a brow at the demand, a quiet, "please?" added shortly after.
"keep doing that and i'll cut all your hair off," you grumbled, picking the tie off the floor, "stay still."
taking the almost silk like strands of hair in your hands, you parted them into three equal parts. each movement was swift, smooth—intertwining the right onto the middle before doing the same with the left. you continued to do that until each strand was neatly in a braid, tying up the end with the forsaken rubber band.
then came the fourth day.
you opened the front door in nothing but a bathrobe, loosely tied up at the front with cleavage on full display. small bleeding heart tattoo resting above your right tit, obvious when you moved even the slightest bit. "hi, what can i help you with?"
the mailman at the door swallows drily, eyes averting to your breasts before flipping back up to meet your gaze. "h-hi," he managed to spit out, sweat dribbling on his hairline, "i have a package."
you leaned forward, reveling in how nervous you were making the man. well that, and the fact you knew suguru was hearing every bit of this conversation. "i bet you do," your voice came out akin to a purr, the man almost dropping the box, "where do i need to sign?"
he fumbled with his tablet, holding a pen out with trembling hands while he leaned over. "right there on the dotted.." his throat went dry, eyes darting back onto your breasts again, "…line."
your wrist flicked as you signed your name onto the dotted line, taking the package from his hands. the mailman didn't leave just yet, hands stuffed in his pockets and mouth agape like words couldn't come to the tip of his tongue fast enough.
suguru's head turned to look at you, beady purple eyes practically burning a hole in the back of your head. anger coursed through all 2'9 feet of plastic the more you kept shamelessly flirting with the mailman, moving your bathrobe just the slightest bit.
"wouldyouliketogooutonadate?" the words left his mouth in a quick tumble, the man slapping a hand over his mouth like that'd take back what he said.
still, you played along. you bent down, the expanse of your legs on display as you set the box down before giving the mailman a innocent enough stare. "can you say that again? i didn't get that."
"would you like to go out on a date?"
a hum left your lips, your finger tapping against your chin like you were considering it, the golden band obvious on your finger now.
that was when he realized he'd screwed up. "ah, well, you see, i'd really love to but my husband wouldn't take that very well, you see." understatement of the year.
your mailman was left staring at your front door in a state of temporary shock, figuring out if he was imagining things. he shook it off, muttering something about a crazy woman before driving off.
you didn't notice what time suguru had snuck out from his box, telling him 'good night' at around 10:30. you didn't notice what time the door creaked open as he walked out into the night either. you only noticed when he did come back.
at approximately 3:45 a.m., you heard a loud thump on your doorstep, a creak of metal hinges following shortly after. the quick footsteps that you'd quickly learned to associate with suguru, a plate cracking on the floor as he presumably tried to get back into the confines of his box.
a quiet sigh left your lips before you pushed your fluffy blanket off, sliding onto your bunny slippers. padding downstairs, you were met with the sight of bloody miniature footsteps trailing to your front door, a handprint marking the knob.
tentatively, you slowly creaked the door open to spot your mailman from earlier delivered on your step like a christmas gift. blood gushing out from the multiple stab wounds penetrating through his back, hair tousled like he'd been pulled back with it.
you dropped down to your knees, extending a figure out to poke his cheek. unmoving, still very much dead. a new body that you had to dispose of at the crack of dawn.
dragging the man inside by his arms, you set him down on the cold floor before any of your neighbors taking a nightly run noticed the strange lump at your door. now to think what to do. garbage? no, the smell would practically give it away. meat grinder? too much work.
almost as if suguru had been reading your thoughts, he decided to speak up, "cut him up into pieces and throw him in a ditch." your arms ached by the time you were done, pieces in a garbage bag until you had to go to work in a couple hours.
"were you jealous?" you teased, walking up to suguru's display and lightly tapping on the glass. he looked like a complete and utter mess—a leaf and twig tangled up in his hair, mud smeared across his face and shoes, and blood stains painting the front of his overalls red.
a hmph left his lips, arms folded across his chest while he petulantly turned his head to the side. refusing to even hold eye contact with you. "no."
a giggle left your lips, reaching over and taking suguru out of his box. "well, if you were," you whispered, pushing a few stray strands away from his forehead, "i'd say you have nothing to be jealous about. till death do us part, remember?"
you placed a small kiss on his forehead and if dolls could blush, suguru was certain his plastic head would look like a ripe tomato. still, he swatted your face away. "good. because i'm not jealous. killed him because i wanted to."
"mhm, sure you did." you took him in your arm, leading him upstairs into your bathroom. the blaring white lights overhead made any chance of going back to sleep nearly impossible, but well, you had to deal with this now.
setting him down on the bathroom counter, you carefully pulled away the twig from his hair, trying not to tangle it even further. you'd never hear the end of it if you did. with a featherlight touch, you lightly wiped off the mud smeared across his face and his shoes.
the promise you made to your seller was already coming back to bite you in the ass.
"but we've talked about this, suguru," you clicked your tongue, pulling the clean sweater over his head. some shit with teddy bears from the baby's clothing section. "no killing people in the middle of the night."
suguru grumbled underneath his breath, pulling the sweater to look at it before giving you a deadly glare. you shrugged, "shouldn't have dirtied your sweater. come on, promise me. no more murders in the middle of the night."
he took your pinkie, begrudgingly wrapping his around yours. a promise that went above mere mortals. "i promise i won't murder in the middle of the night," he deadpanned, tone dry.
it was worth it to see the smile and tiny clap you'd directed his way, though. he'd even cleaned up his own mess the splotches of blood in your living room before you woke up for work, leaving you with less to do.
the perfect imagine of a gentledoll.
and then came the night of the full moon.
your living room had been prepared just right for the occasion, a ritual to bring suguru back to his original form if it worked.
you'd painted a large white circle painted in chalk right where your coffee table had just been earlier. pulling out a tape measure, you dragged it from one end of the circle to the other just to make sure. exactly nine feet. perfect.
you didn't have any ceremonial candles, but what you did have were candles you'd gotten on sale from bath and body works just last week. that was good enough, right? yeah, you'd be fine. they were under the recommended section, not the necessary.
everything would be fine, you just had to keep repeating that until you believed it.
the warm, yellow hue of the candles flickered against your face, an overly sweet smell of synthetic apples and cinnamon filling the room. a loud grandfather clock chimed in the corner, each tick an alert that the moment was inching closer and closer.
in one hand you had a glass of wine, halfway empty and in the other you had your reading selection for the night—voodoo for dummies. you took a sip, rim stained a deep shade of red when you pulled it away while skimming through the pages of the book.
skipping through goat sacrificing, blood ties, and a variety of spells, you finally got to page 435. damballa's chant.
"ade due damballa. give me the power i beg of you," you chanted, voice booming in the quiet of the room while you read from the excerpt in the book. you repeated the chant twice more, waiting with bated breath to see if it worked.
at first, nothing.
then it came, quickly. the temperature in the room dropped by almost 10 degrees in the span of seconds, a shiver running down your spine and goosebumps prickling your arms.
lightning flashed through your window, the flames from the candles flickering on and off before the room was completely painted in darkness. a low hum reverberated through the air, the overwhelming sense of being watched settling deep in your bones.
the candles flickered back on, the room painted in that golden hue again. smeared chalk replaced the lines that you'd drawn so intricately before, doll completely gone where you'd set him at.
had the spell not worked? other than the candles, you were sure that you did everything right. then you heard it. just barely but you heard it. a slight shuffle on the ground, following by a heavy groan.
in place of where the 2'9 doll had been laying earlier, there was a 6' man stretched out in your living room. the last time you'd seen him was in your shared home, shot dead by some cops in the area after he'd gone out for a hectic murder spree. probably deserved if you asked any of the townspeople.
this was a chance for the two of you to start over fresh—peace and serenity without the nervous breakdown over hearing a police siren or any murders. well, excluding the one that happened a couple days ago. that one didn't count.
he looked the same as he used to, except without all the bullet holes in his chest. he blinked slowly, raising his arms in front of him like he was making sure they were the right size before turning to look at you. "miss me?"
"just a little bit."
suguru's chains clinked as he moved to stand up from the floor, the sound of his boots squeaking against the ground when he got up to his knees. he didn't get the chance to get up, "aht aht," you clicked your tongue, the man looking up at you with anticipation. "on your knees and… crawl."
amethyst eyes bore into you, his knees shuffling against the hard floor as he slowly made his way towards you. "there we go.. good boy," you cooed, watching him come up to your feet.
"is this good enough, princess?" he asked, an amused grin spreading across his lips. suguru was nothing if not reverent, leaning in and pressing kiss after kiss on your exposed legs.
you pressed the sole of your heel against his forehead before he could get far, pushing him back. suguru slowly blinked, horny yet intrigued.
"not even close, keep going," you commanded, walking even further into the house without needing to turn back. you knew he was following.
suguru trailed behind your steps like a desperate puppy trying to keep up with their owner, following until you finally made it to the confines of your bedroom. he didn't dare move from his spot, watching everything that you were doing. setting up a pair of cuffs on your bed stand table—the thought sending a rush down to his cock.
you came, staring down at him before slowly moving your heel down his shirt, pointy end digging into his chest. popping a couple buttons loose, his chest exposed to you under the pale moonlight.
you moved lower and lower, the bottom of your heel slowly starting to trace the outline of his hard cock tenting in his pants. his breath hitched, hips bucking into the sharp edge just for something more, more stimulation, more of your touch. anything.
"not yet," your refusal came in the way of a coo, pulling away your heel with a teasing grin on your face. "go get on the bed."
obedient to almost a painful fault, suguru crawled his way up to the side of the bed before getting in the middle. his arms folded behind his head, watching with lidded eyes everything you were doing. each cabinet that you rummaged through, every item you picked up and put back.
"you gave me a lot of problems as the doll," you mused, a faux pout painting your pretty lips as you approached the bed, "i think you'd agree as much as i would that it wouldn't be fair if i just didn't do anything about it. isn't that right?"
suguru found himself nodding along, "don't think i was that bad," at your dirty look, he knew better than to continue, "but whatever you think is best."
metal cuffs restrained his limbs to each corner of the bed, leaving suguru completely helpless against your will. his dick couldn't help but jump at the notion, practically prodding a hole through his boxers with how fucking hard he was.
he spreads his legs as far apart as the cuffs let him move—not that far—but it allowed for you to slot yourself in between. you crawled up the bed, clothed pussy rubbing against his leg while you settled on his lap.
each rub and sway of your hips against him was pure torture, having you close and yet so far. feeling how wet you were, dripping onto his pants, without doing anything about it. you moved, taking one of his blades from the table beside you. he didn't do much as flinch, even when you brought it close to his skin.
if anything, it just made his cock throb. you didn't stab him, just yet anyways, instead cutting up the material of shirt. letting all those pesky buttons fall to the floor before you set your blade to the side.
your lips felt like a scorching kiss from a flame, each nerve on his body ignited with your touch. you moved up from his chest, sucking on a sensitive spot near the crook of his neck. "a-ah fuck." bullseye.
his lips slotted against yours like the missing piece of a puzzle, his touch tentative at first before he realized just how much he'd missed on. it grew sloppier, messier, a clash of tongues in a desperation to taste each other, to have each other once again.
"need to taste all of you, please," suguru panted out, his eyes all but pleading as he looked up when you pulled away, "f-fuck, i know, i know i don't deserve it but i want to eat you out plea-”
"i said yes," you spoke up, waving him off before slowly gliding your pussy up his stomach. leaving behind a slime trail in your wake, watching him accomodate himself. like his face was nothing more than just a seat for you.
his lip latched onto the front of your clothed pussy, sucking on whatever bit of essence was leaking from the thin lace material. the chains clinked with each thrust of his hips upward, cock aching and throbbing against his pants.
your thighs squeezed around the sides of his head, nearly suffocating him with your dripping pussy directly in his face. if this was the way he was supposed to go, he'd gladly accept it after he'd had his fill. "missed you," he let out a muffled moan, "missed you and this pussy, fuck."
and he was even more relentless when you finally pushed your panties to the sides, tongue slotting and sliding in between your folds before he latched his lips onto your clit. the tip of his tongue swirled around the throbbing nub, tongue piercing rolling against it in the most delicious way possible.
spit dribbled from the sides of his mouth, jaw falling slack and tongue tracing the outside of your puffy folds one side at a time. he dipped the tip of his tongue in, pushing it in and out before drawing small circles. "o-oh fuck," a whine managed to escape your lips, your hips bucking into his face.
his head started going back and forth, slowly moving and grinding you against his mouth. your fingers dug into the silk pillow of hair breath you, using that as you started to move faster against him, clit brushing against the tip of his nose with each move forward. "w-wouldn't kill anyone if i lived here forever."
a shaky laugh left your lips, "you'd still fin- ah!" his tongue swirled around the hood, not touching your swollen lil' clit just yet. he inched closer and closer, pulling away at the last second. and just as you were about to pull his hair, his tongue finally flicked around your clit. rolling circles around the nub, tracing figure eights that had your toes curling.
"k-keep goin', fuck, sugu," you mewled, nails digging into his scalp. he moaned at the sting, fingers twitching in the cuffs in desperation. in need to touch you, to feel you again. his lips replaced his tongue, suctioning and sucking on your clit.
"wanna taste you so bad, please baby, fuck, fuck, fu-" a loud moan left suguru's mouth, the front of his pants now stained with a dark patch. cumming in his pants just from eating you out. each flick of his tongue drove you closer and closer to your orgasm, coaxing it out of you.
"cumming, cumming, g-gonna cum!" babbling, your release sprayed out of you onto his expecting tongue. he swiped his tongue in between your folds like a credit card, desperate to get every last drop. you pulled away, watching suguru lick your slick off his glistening lips.
you reached over, taking the small key and undoing the cuffs around his hand. "you came in your pants so i'm not undoing the other ones." suguru would take what he could get at this rate.
your dexterous fingers worked on undoing his pants, unbuttoning them and sliding them just down to his ankles. even after he just came, his cock was still hard and tenting against his boxers.
no part of your skin went untouched, his fingers grazing upon every inch that he came along. in reverence, in delight, you weren't quite sure. and then he reached over, taking the blade in his hand. "wouldn't be fair, now would it?" he questioned, a teasing smile as he repeated your earlier words.
his knive slices through the middle of your very expensive corset, buttons popping off and clattering around the floor. the complain bubbling in the back of your throat was quickly pushed to the side when suguru's lips latched onto your tit, swirling his tongue around your hardening nub.
one of his hands came up, cupping your breast before his thumb flicked against your areola. feeling it harden underneath his touch. "missed your tits too," suguru let out a moan, chest heaving. his lips moved up, kissing his way up like he wasn't sure where to even begin.
the metal ball on his tongue traced the outline of the red heart, dragging the pink muscle through the dagger in the middle. then, he slowly started tracing the black ink on top of the heart, his tongue rolling with each cursive letter to his ability.
s-u-g-u-r-u.
your hand moved down, wrapping around his cock, lining it up with your sopping wet cunt. you slowly dragged his shaft between your folds, slick covering it like a glossy coat. "need to feel you," suguru jerked up his hips, lips jutted out in almost a pout. you wanted to take a picture and hang it up on the wall.
you sunk down inch by inch, walls fluttering around his shaft as you tried to get used to the intrusion. all the air in his lungs left when you took him all in one go, your walls squeezing around his shaft like your personal mission was to squeeze every drop of cum out him.
"o-oh fuck, don't move so much, 'm sensitive," suguru groaned, his hands coming up to rest on your hips. half a decade without being buried inside your warm, wet cunt did that to a man.
"you were asking for it, sugu, i thought you could take it," you purred, nail dragging across his chest, "such a shame you killed that poor mailman. maybe he would've been better at taki- OH FUCK!"
your tease was cut off, his feet planted on the mattress flat as he thrusted into you. he was relentless, fucking you like he had something to prove, each ribbed edge grinding against your walls with each thrust. "s—oh fuck—still think that mailman could fuck you good?"
"n-no, just you, sugu," you mewled back in response, fucking back against him, ass rippling and smacking against his thighs. each swivel of your hips is downright hypnotizing, the scratch of your nails on his shoulders addicting.
one of your hands moved, wrapping around his neck, applying just enough pressure to barely restrict his airflow. the desperate mix of a moan and a whine that left his lips was almost sinful, "f-fuck, pretty. squeeze it tighter, 'm all yours to use."
you squeezed harder, bouncing yourself on his cock like he was just a toy there for your pleasure. your back arched, his hands coming up to your sides and your tits, twisting and rubbing your nipples. "s-so good, so good," you moaned, the tip of his cock hitting that spongy spot each. time.
"so wet, so fucking nasty, just like that, fuck me, fuck me." your cunt soaked his cock, each loud squelch echoing against the thin walls. you were practically gliding up and down his cock, slick pooling to his heavy balls and the sheets below.
one of his hands went to your lower tummy, an almost drunk laugh leaving his lips, "y'feel me all the way up here? yeah?" he bucked his hips, watching the slight nudge of the tip protrude against your skin. all you could do was nod, nails raking down his body.
"mhm, y-you're so deep, sugu!" you whined in response, hips stuttering as your orgasm started to build up. suguru's own breathing grew heavier, his thrusts starting to grow messier. "gonna cum, gonna cum, baby," he warned, your hand squeezing around his neck once.
"no, you're not."
a groan left his lips, his balls heavy with how much cum he was holding back. one of your hands went down your clit, rubbing at the nub in quick, little circles while your hips lazily grinded against his cock. just enough to feel him hit your g-spot. "fu-fuck, gonna cum, gonna cum," you whined, cunt squeezing around his cock all that much more.
the pressure in your lower belly built built built up, "almost there, shit," you all but slurred, fingers rubbing at that same rhythm until it snapped, your orgasm washing over you like a wave. a new wave of arousal coated suguru's cock, a slick mixture of both you and him creating a creamy ring around the base.
and then you remembered. when you saw him gripping the sheets, willing himself not to burst. "cum."
"a-ah fuck, finally," he let out a loud groan, spurt after spurt of cum covering your walls white. his eyes rolled back, thighs quivering as he continued to cum for what seemed to be minutes, the warm liquid dripping out of you onto your thighs. he leaned back once he finished, chest heaving and spent.
you didn't stand up, you didn't pull away. you swiped your pointer against the cum on your thighs, popping the digit in your mouth and swirling your tongue around it. "we still have half a decade to make up for, c'mon." suguru was certain he'd be shooting blanks by the time you were done with him.
Two years of dating, three years of marriage. You, Suguru and Satoru – a match made in heaven, most people could be jealous of. You loved each other so deeply that it almost hurt. Although... sometimes their love felt a little too tight. A little too consuming. But that's what true devotion looked like, right? You’re still wondering, while packing the suitcases with tears running down your cheeks.
masterlist
˖☾ ݁˖ pairing: ꒰ Satosugu x Reader ꒱
˖☾ ݁˖ content & warnings: ꒰ MDNI 18+ :: marriage :: husband Geto Suguru x reader :: husband Gojo Satoru x reader :: Satosugu :: yandere :: stalking :: obsessive behaviour :: possessive behaviour :: dark romance :: pregnancy :: kinda babytrapping :: anything but healthy relationship :: HEAVY smut :: HEAVY breeding kink :: if I put this tag it'll be a spoiler :: manipulation :: guilt-tripping :: age gap :: violence ꒱
˖☾ ݁˖ words: ꒰ 5.6k ꒱
art by kkatsujii
── Chapter Six
Of course they knew about your pregnancy.
And yet, when you took a test a few hours after their arrival, prompted by "you look pale, darling" and "have you eaten today?" to which you weakly replied "I'm fine", they still made you take a test.
Shiu was right.
You were pregnant.
Two stripes seemed clear and red, as you held the plastic test in your trembling fingers.
Pregnant.
You were pregnant.
With your two husbands, who today revealed themselves to be murderers and psychopaths. Part of something your mind couldn't quite grasp.
Mafia? Yakuza? An organisation of sorts that kept their true personalities neatly hidden from your silly eye.
The men in your house, meetings, bodyguards, their compulsive care for your safety.
Suddenly, everything clicked into place. A piece of a lost puzzle was found, and when it finally fitted into the labyrinth of your memory, you wondered how you could not have noticed sooner.
But it didn't matter now, as they both stood over your body, eyes bulging at the sight of the two lines on the plastic stick.
Satoru's breath hitched.
Suguru's fingers gently took the stick from your hand. His raven hair fell softly over his shoulders, brushing his chest and cheeks, obscuring his face with a tender curtain. Lavender eyes remained fixed on the test, a shiver passing through his breath before he looked up at you.
"You're pregnant," he whispered. "Darling, we're going to have a baby."
You bit the plush inside your cheek and nodded, a gentle smile on your face as tears suddenly and unexpectedly welled up behind your eyelids.
You were going to have a baby.
And this thought alone somehow made you want to jump with excitement and cry in despair. Out of all the people you must have loved, out of all the men in this world, you needed to give your heart, soul, and mind to men who were the last you imagined having children with.
If the last hour hadn't happened, if you discovered that the basement was just a basement, that your illusions were merely illusions, and that their possessiveness was nothing but a sign of their love – you would laugh, jump, and allow a giggle to slip past your lips.
You would fall into Satoru's arms, let Suguru kiss your cheeks, and permit them to fuck you tenderly, messily, passionately, until you cry with bliss and happiness.
And yet, the only thing you could do was to nod your head.
Satoru suddenly pulled you closer, wrapping his arms around you completely, while Suguru hugged both of you. Their laughter and near-crying gratitude echoed somewhere deep in your mind. Bouncing around inside your head, you stayed melted, dissociated in their embrace.
Satoru quickly pulled away, his warm hands cupping your cheeks.
"Sweetheart, why are you crying? What's wrong?"
You couldn't stop – tears streamed down your cheeks like a waterfall, wetting the pads of his fingers with saltiness.
"It's o-okay," you muffled, yet allowing another heavy burst to escape your throat. "Shit, I'm fine. Just so h-happy."
His eyes softened with gentleness. Calm, ocean waves rolling quietly beneath the scorching spills of sunshine.
"Of course, you are," Suguru said from behind you, his arms wrapping around your waist. His palms rested on your belly, still flat, yet the unmistakable feeling of something growing inside you was enough to make him chuckle. "We're having a baby, darling. You have no idea how long we've been waiting for it."
His lips pressed to your temple, warm and calming, as heavy body leaned against yours. It was as if he wished to share his happiness, gentleness, and love with you, wrapping himself around you like a snake.
Because snakes they were. Nasty, vile, cruel monsters, waiting for you to finally admit the secret you kept from them all this time.
And what frightened you most was that they didn't mention the UID at all. No, instead, they allowed you to spiral into psychotic thoughts, believing that their decision to keep this secret would lead to the most dreadful consequences.
Your mind blacked out, senseless, trying to think of all the possible punishments they could use to make you regret fooling them like that. And for such a long time too.
Yet, at the same time, you thought, why would they do it?
Have they ever hurt you?
Have they ever given you any pain?
Of course not, but for some reason, it was difficult to keep your thoughts at bay.
They loved you – so, so much, and you knew, of course you knew, that they would never hurt you.
But… at the same time, you recalled the basement and wondered how genuinely patient they were. How much you would need to act out before the thread of everlasting kindness finally snapped.
You knew how they were. You watched them all those years, your dearest husbands, whose gentleness extended as far as you were willing to be their gentle wife. Slightly ignorant, somewhat unaware, simply letting yourself melt into the love slipping through their fingertips, ignoring whatever was happening in the other, unreachable corners of their lives.
Satoru's hands still on your cheeks, as he squeezed them gently, before leaning closer and placing a small peck.
"Don't worry, sweetheart," he mumbled, while Suguru placed another kiss on your head. "We're going to take good care of you."
Words were lodged in your throat, as you couldn't say anything. The pulsating headache tore through your skull, tears still gathering beneath your eyelids as your heart... oh, and your heart felt as if it was pierced with a metal nail, torn between the desire to love your husbands dearly and the urge to escape from them.
Not simply for you, but now, for your child.
☾ ☾ ☾
The escape plan took longer than you thought it would.
Much, much longer.
As a month had passed, before Sukuna managed to meet you again. You texted him soon after the pregnancy test, locking yourself shut in the bathroom while Suguru and Satoru prepared a special dinner for you, sending a quick, I need help, before deleting your message.
He didn't text you back, and for a whole month you didn't know whether escaping would be possible.
But then he appeared – silent, with kindness shining in his crimson eyes, as he slipped out of their office once more and met you in the kitchen.
"Here," he whispered, pushing a small bottle across the counter. "Two, three droplets, no more. They'll be asleep for a full twenty-four hours."
You took it with trembling fingers, looking at the liquid hidden inside. Crystal clear, yet you could only question how strong it truly was.
"Thank you," you said, hiding the bottle in the pocket of your shorts. "When should I–"
"I'll text you," he said, his muscular arms crossed over his chest. "You'll need to do it that evening. Then pack light and meet Uraume outside. She's nice. You'll like her."
You nodded, biting the inside of your cheek. It was difficult to stop the tears that so willingly wished to well in your eyes. Your head dropped, hair covering a side of your warm cheek like a soft curtain.
Sukuna pushed a few strands behind your ear before you heard his warm voice.
"I know it's hard. But if you want to keep the child, you should do it somewhere far from them. You'll be safe on my territory. They won't enter it without my permission."
You nodded again, a small thank you barely reaching his ears.
"I just wish everything was different, you know?" You murmured, looking up into his crimson eyes. "I just… I still love them so much. It's killing me."
Sukuna couldn't stay too long, and so he left the kitchen a minute later. Leaving you alone, with a palm warmly pressed to your belly.
The next few weeks were almost like a fever dream.
If you felt pampered enough before, right now Satoru's and Suguru's devotion was an utter irritation to your mind.
You could barely walk on your own, as if your pregnancy were advanced enough to swell your feet with pain. Satoru washed you every day, helped roll you from bed, and watched as you sat outside the garden in case you slipped into the pool.
"I can swim," you reminded him as he joined you on the soft grass one day. The sun was slowly sinking below the horizon, kissing your skin with gold threads, as you allowed yourself to drift into a gentle slumber beneath the cherry blossom tree in your garden.
"I know," he chuckled, lying shirtless right next to you. "Just in case, yeah?"
You hummed, flipping a page of the book. "I can just walk around it. It's too shallow anyway."
But there was no point arguing with him. He was glued to your side like a leech, eyes following each of your steps. His finger was always somewhere close to your body – to grab you, pull you, keep you from going outside.
Almost two months had passed since you'd left the house, and another night in this place would drive you mad.
Suguru's head slipped from the house, noticing you two lying beneath the shadowed tree.
"Darling, don't lie on your belly," he said, coming your way. Hand clenching around the glass filled with something thick and disgusting. "Here, take it."
You sat up, taking the drink with a scowl. "I don't like them."
He chuckled, squatting down and pushing a glass closer to your lips. Lavender eyes, warm and gentle, but you knew the longer you resisted, the darker they would grow. If arguing with Satoru was difficult, discussing with Suguru felt like talking to yourself.
In your marriage, everything and everyone was working in one way – his way.
His head tilted, eyes slightly squinted. "Darling, it's good for your body. Drink it well." He cupped your cheek, brushing its swell with his thumb. A possessive, tight grip. "Supper will be ready in an hour."
He stood up and went back to the kitchen.
Satoru looked at you as you drank the whole thing down before his hand stretched out to grip your wrist. Pulling you closer, you fell onto his naked chest, slightly sticky and warm in the still summer air.
Lips pressed to your forehead, cheeks, and nose, peppering you sweetly as your face scowled in disgust at the mix of spinach and avocado.
"You know he wants the best for you," Satoru murmured into your hair as you lay on his chest. Ear listening to the familiar beat of his heart, lips gently pouted. "Don't be angry."
"I'm not," you sighed. "It's just too much. You're not letting me go outside, I can't meet Yuki any more, and I don't remember the last time I went into the kitchen."
Satoru brushed your back with his fingers, scratching it softly, as a hum filled his broad chest.
"You're in your most vulnerable state, sweetheart. The world is dangerous out there."
Of course it was. And yet, you've never encountered anything more dangerous than husbands of yours.
Shiu's words were still spiralling in your head. The questions without answers – about their parents, childhood, life before they'd met you.
It's not like you've never asked.
You wanted to know why their family didn't attend your wedding. Why they never talked about their family or visited their parents. Did they have siblings? Any friends? Why didn't you visit anyone for Christmas?
But such questions always put them into a foul mood.
Suguru, in particular, who always shut himself off like a stony fortress, pushing away all your questions with a simple "We don't keep in touch."
Satoru, on the other hand, simply boasted about the company he inherited and the shivering coldness in which his parents had always raised him. His story, however, always seemed more believable than Suguru's. Not convincing, yet not as weird.
And so, on the same summer evening, while sitting at the table and picking at your supper, you started thinking about it again. Peas on your plate rolled around, the fish smelled delicious, and warm rice steamed in a little bowl. You tried to catch a green pea with your chopsticks, biting the inside of your soft cheek.
Suguru and Satoru looked at each other before one of your husbands hummed.
"Sweetheart, do you not like it?" Satoru smiled, chewing on his food. "If there's anything else–"
"There's not. It's healthy for her," Suguru quickly said, before you and Satoru forced him to make a pile of plush pancakes with whipped cream. As you sometimes did, because Suguru was particularly soft to his wife's and husband's sweet pouty faces. "But if you really don't like it–"
"I do," you said, quickly picking up a piece of salmon. "I was just thinking…" you sighed, visibly awkward, and glanced up.
Your husbands stayed focused on your face. The happiness beaming from their faces was almost concerning.
"What is it, darling?" Suguru took a sip of the tea you brewed for them, while all the bottles of expensive wine were confiscated from your household on the same evening you ran a test.
"I was thinking that, you know. Maybe your parents would like to become grandparents. It's nice, when–"
"Eat your dinner, darling, and stop thinking about it," Suguru simply cut you off, looking back down at his plate.
Satoru sent you an apologetic smile and shook his head, trying to tell you to drop the topic.
But you didn't want to.
You couldn't.
Five years of knowing them, and you've never, ever met any part of their family.
Your sweating fingers gripped the chopsticks tighter, a deep breath filled the quiet living room as you began again, "But I really want to meet them. We've been married for three years, and you've never introduced me to anyone in your family."
Suguru didn't say anything. He simply ignored you, his handsome face almost still and lavender eyes fixed on his plate. Long hair curled down his back, a few strands at the front, a low bun high on his head.
You stared at him intently, while Satoru looked between you two with visible concern. He usually tried to calm Suguru down. He spoke to him a little more gently, even when Suguru opposed some ideas. He often stood on your side, but in a marriage of three, there was never such a thing as a side.
You were equal one, an absoluteness, balanced being, and so none of you should ever, ever pick any side.
And yet, sometimes you felt as if your voice, your choices, were quickly diminished by their decisions.
"I'm talking to you, Suguru," your voice slipped out harsher than you wished. But, well, you were irritated.
The long feeling of being locked within the tight embrace of their clutches finally began to bubble, spilling slowly past your poison-lined lips.
"Sweetheart–" Satoru started, trying to grab your hand from the other side of the table.
But you quickly pulled it away, hiding both your hands under the table so they would not see how much you trembled.
"I want to know what happened to your parents. Why, during the three years of our marriage, have I never met them?"
Suguru chewed slowly, taking scoop after scoop of sticky rice, eyes still glued to his plate.
"Why are you always like this? Why are you not treating me as your equal?"
Satoru sighed. "Sweetheart, really, I think you should calm–"
"Don't tell me to calm down, Satoru!" you screamed, feeling the warmth creeping up your neck. "Tell me what's going on! Why do I feel as if I don't know my husbands at all?! Why are you trying to lock me up in this house?! Why–" there's a whole slaughterhouse in our basement, and Shiu who forces you to run away from them?
You bit your tongue on the last one, quick enough yet too harsh. The metallic sweetness of blood spilt over your cheeks, while your fingers gripped the edge of the chair and your chest heaved.
Suguru finally looked up.
And oh, you wished he hadn't. Because you forgot how truly terrifying he was when you were acting up. His gaze, face, the deep, lavender gaze going stale, the irritated scowl bending his handsome forehead.
Usually, you would apologise immediately. Bite down on your cheek and let your head rest against your shoulder while playing awkwardly with the rest of your food.
He would calm down after a while, give you a brief peck on the shoulder, and tell you how much he hated it when you raised your voice.
Because he never did. Maybe that's why arguing with him felt so humiliating. With you, always giving in to your emotions, he needed only a single stare to shut you up.
Satoru's eyes narrowed at your sudden outburst. Suguru, on the other hand, stared at you for a while before his gaze dropped back to his plate.
"Eat your food and accept the fact that there are some things you will never know."
Oh, and the anger… the anger suddenly seeped deep into your marrow. Biting with its burning teeth, digging deep into your spine. Skin, mind, and you don't know how, oh God, you truly don't know, but suddenly your glass of water landed on the wall right behind Suguru's head.
A sharp, high-pitched cracking tone echoed irritably off the living room's walls. The glass shattered into pieces, your water painting the wall.
There was a silence for a while, with only your heavy breathing filling the burning room. They didn't react at all, as if your little performance was foolish and childish. You'd only noticed Satoru's irises widening, and Suguru's fingers gripping his chopsticks tightly.
He wanted to say something. You knew it – saw it. In the way his throat bobbed and eyes stared at the anger painting your face.
But before he could even part his lips, you gritted, "Enjoy your tea," and turned on your feet to disappear in the darkness of the corridors.
You locked yourself in your room, turned the lock, and pressed your back against the door.
As you slid down, a soft cry escaped your tightened throat. A stress that had bubbled for too long. After almost two months of closure, the mixed emotions that filled you, along with buzzing hormones and hope, finally withered away.
You wanted to give them one last chance.
You yearned, prayed for something within them to change. To finally be true and honest about everything they've been doing behind your back.
And yet, crying pitifully on the floor, you needed to accept that it was the last interaction you would probably have with your husbands for the rest of your life.
☾ ☾ ☾
Satoru doesn’t quite remember the first time they saw you.
That, in itself, irritated him.
Memory was supposed to be precise – especially his. He was the strongest, after all. The strongest in his clan, in Japan, hell, maybe even in the whole world.
Faces blurred, voices faded, but important things stayed. And you were the most important thing that had ever happened to them. So why couldn't he recall the first time his eyes fell upon your lovely face?
Maybe it was the coffee shop in their company’s building. You were sitting by the window, shoulders slightly hunched, sunlight catching your hair, threading it with golden silk that smooched your cheeks. Your eyes were glued to phone, thumb scrolling endlessly, oblivious to the fact that somewhere, mere metres from your table, two men had just stopped breathing.
Suguru, however, remembered that part better.
The way your cheeks swelled when you laughed at something that popped up on the screen. The way your eyes scanned the coffee shop, as if waiting for a special someone to finally appear. How your earring shone in the warm light, and lips pouted as you tapped out a message.
Who were you waiting for, he wondered. Why in their company, why looking like the loveliest little thing? So beautiful and kind, with eyes that looked around the place curiously, awaiting that one, fated person.
Your attention was fixed on everything but them, while everyone in the room, the hallway, and the cafe itself whispered about why the CEOs were standing like wax figures, staring blankly.
You were oblivious to their presence, looking over their shoulders rather than at them. Their faces frozen, hearts pounding so fast they almost fainted the moment you smiled and waved your hand.
Oh, was it for them?
Have you really noticed them?
And they almost moved. Almost ran straight to their company's coffee shop.
But then, someone passed them.
A man they knew far too well, with black hair and a rather bulky figure, as he passed with a soft, respectful nod.
His name fell off your tongue – sweetly, almost melting their ears the moment you repeated it.
One of their workers, unworthy of your gentle touch on his biceps. Intimate, sweet, and too suggestive for someone with a wife and a daughter.
Or maybe, well, it was the bar?
That version seemed to be settled in Satoru's mind. The apron was too tight around your waist, exhaustion clear in how you leaned against the counter, your head drooping between your shoulders, and soft giggles escaping your lips as your blonde coworker whispered something in your ear. They sat there for hours, drinks untouched, observing you behind the bar with the gentlest, sweetest smile.
Each time you passed their dimly lit table, hidden in the corner, Satoru felt a spark of hope. Stupid, bright, waiting for a glimpse of you like a starving dog.
Just one look. Just one glance.
It was all they needed – those innocent eyes, flushed cheeks and cherry lips, as if waiting for someone to brush them with a finger. So plush, Suguru was losing his mind every time you twisted them into a smile.
Satoru insisted it was the coffee shop. Suguru thought he was wrong – but maybe it didn't even matter.
What mattered, though, was that by the time you officially introduced yourself, they already knew your name.
They’d heard it spoken by others. Seen it on receipts. Ordered their man to dig up every piece of information about you they could.
And how convenient it was for you to walk naively in the night, completely unaware of them and of one vermin following you home. And how convenient it was for them to trust that you were so scared after the attack, leaning right into their arms – trembling like a bunny, with tears swelling in your eyes and cheeks growing warm. Satoru planned to introduce themselves officially in a more... pleasant way. But maybe they should thank the now-dead man for pushing such an occasion.
And the truth was – they did, while watching with chuckles as he dug his own grave in the forest right outside Tokyo.
Suguru saw how reluctant you were at the beginning. There was a wicked flame in your eyes. Wild, cheerful, so full of life, as you allowed yourself to be pampered by their riches and touches, as you willingly, blissfully, opened yourself to them each night.
At the beginning, it wasn't as easy as he thought it would be. For there was a willingness deep within your soul, to fight back and deny their needy flirtations.
Dinner invitations declined with harsh excuses. Movies postponed, drives around the city, met with cunning smiles and promises of maybe next time.
But when you finally agreed. Oh.
Satoru still remembered that faithful night, when you allowed them to fix their broken heart. In the backseat of their car, while they slurped on your cunt with the most maddened, spoilt whimpers, feasting on the sweetness you finally bestowed. The warmth of your body, breasts fitting tight in their palms, sweat running stickily down the naked spine, as you bent it oh so lovely.
They reached to touch you, kiss you, bury their face in your plum folds, licking that sweet spot until you squirted all over their faces.
And when you finally saw them, men absolutely obsessed with you, holding you almost possessively yet wrapped around your finger – Suguru couldn't be happier.
He would often go back to your first night together, your moans still haunting his mind when walls clenched tightly on his cock, milking him dry while he kissed your cervix with every thrust. The idea of you being their future wife already obsessively planted in his mind, his eyes already seeing the big ring on your finger and soft belly bulging with their children.
From then on, their care sharpened.
That's why they convinced you to move in.
They wanted to have you closer – always. Always there for them.
At first, it felt natural. Warm, even. The house was spacious and just to your taste – quiet, tucked away from prying eyes, close to nature. They cleared a drawer for your things. Then a closet. Then half the bedroom. By the time you realised nothing there truly belonged to you, you had already stopped keeping your own place.
They learned your routines faster than you could notice theirs.
Suguru remembered the time you woke without an alarm. Satoru somehow always appeared whenever you started missing them, leaning in doorways with that easy grin, asking if you’d eaten yet. If you forgot something, it was already waiting for you on the counter. If you mentioned wanting something in passing, it arrived the next day, neatly wrapped, as if the thought alone had summoned it.
And they loved this routine. You, waiting for them every day, leaning into their touches as a kitten pulled to warmth.
So the marriage felt only natural.
It meant stability, protection. Family.
Oh, how they longed for family. Children with your eyes and their smiles, small hands clutching their fingers. A house filled with laughter, warmth, and happiness seeping into every corner until there was no room left for doubt.
They could keep you and their kids safe. Of course they could. They were the strongest ones.
But you didn't need to know that.
You didn’t need to burden your pretty head with such things.
You didn’t need to ask why their work was nothing like office work, why their clients arrived tense and left trembling, or why documents were never carried in briefcases but tucked close to the body beneath tailored suits.
You especially didn’t need to notice the nights.
The nights when they came home late. When Suguru would head straight for the bathroom without a word, sleeves already rolled up, scrubbing his hands and nails until the skin turned raw. When Satoru would order them to burn their clothes, just to get rid of any traces of blood you could see.
They were always careful.
But everything they did, they did for you.
And once you were married, once your name was bound to theirs in ink and ritual and whispered vows, the obsession sharpened into something far more focused.
So it was only natural to think about children.
At first, it was gentle. Hopeful. Suguru reading about fertility late at night, closing the tabs the moment you stirred. Satoru pressing his palm to your stomach with a grin, joking about future heirs, about tiny versions of you running through the halls. Their disappointment, when nothing happened, was silent at first, revealed only by soft sighs and lingering looks.
They started to worry, watching your body like a riddle they couldn't solve. Counting fertility days, asking carefully how you felt, whether you were tired, and whether you had eaten enough.
They may have grown rather... obsessive, Satoru would admit. But how could they not, with love for you almost eating them alive from the inside?
It wasn’t madness – just devotion. The only type of love they knew how to offer.
They just wanted a family, so it was rather normal for husbands to become more possessive of their wives. Right? To keep them safe and healthy, maybe even lock them up if needed. But they wouldn't do it!
Oh no, they had seen what that kind of life looked like. They had grown up surrounded by it – wives of yakuza bosses, hollow-eyed and silent. Children raised not with love but with expectations, sharpened into weapons and pushed into violence before they even knew how to spell their own names.
Suguru remembered all the wives of his father's partners, sitting silently in their house. Satoru remembered row upon row of graves. Of women who'd rather take their own lives than spend another minute in their husbands' presence.
Their childhood wasn't bliss. Growing up was harsh, and when they discovered, in high school, a forbidden yet sweet feeling that bloomed between them, they knew nothing good awaited them.
They wanted each other as much as they wished for someone else. They prayed for a family, for warmth and kindness. Even if Satoru couldn't imagine his life without being wrapped in and kissed by Suguru's gentleness, they still wanted something else.
And it would turn out to be you.
They parent's were, of course, all against it.
Satoru had already inherited the company by the time they decided to marry you. Cutting his parents off was easy.
Suguru, on the other hand, he… well. He simply didn't know how to tell you that his parents died because of you.
His father threatened to get rid of you in his own way if Suguru didn't marry a woman he chose for him. His mother hated the sight of Satoru from the very beginning and couldn't accept the idea of a polygamous marriage.
And thus Suguru had no choice but to get rid of them instead.
As there was nothing and no one who could stand in their way of possessing you whole.
They swore that you would never meet the fate of other yakuza wives.
You would never be like them.
You would be cherished, shielded, and spoiled, your children raised with loving warmth within the gentle cradle of their strong protection. You would never have to see blood, never have to understand why certain men never returned from meetings, why others bowed to them too deeply, too fearfully.
That was their burden to carry. Not yours.
And yet, when they woke up not a day but two days later, they couldn't understand what had gone wrong. Their heads pounded, necks hurt from sleeping under the door of your bedroom you locked yourself in. If you wanted to be mad at them, then fine.
They could accept your few days of silence.
But the moment they woke up, you were gone.
Not you, but everything that ever lingered in your drawers was nowhere to be found.
The panic rose in their chests almost immediately. Satoru noticed the tremble in Suguru's fingers as he checked the rooms one by one, eyes bulging, desperately trying to find your figure.
Satoru's breath hitched, his lip caught between his teeth, as he too ran madly around the house, wishing and expecting to see you lounging beneath the cherry tree, cheeks kissed by the sun and a book between your fingers.
Or maybe, to notice your swim in the pool, trying to give them a heart attack.
You, lying on the sofa, stuffing yourself with chips you and Satoru had neatly hidden in your special drawer for junk food, which Suguru didn't know about, and watching one of your series.
Or maybe you, playing cards with Megumi and Yuji, as you sometimes convinced them to leave their posts to amuse you.
You drinking the tea, you giggled at something you've noticed on your phone, you crying and laughing and stuffing your cheeks full of the lemon tart Suguru baked yesterday in apology.
You, you, you, you, you…
But you were nowhere to be found.
"It's my fault," Suguru fell onto the sofa, hiding his face in his arms. "Fucking hell, it's all my fault."
His head throbbed, and his knees jerked involuntarily as he struggled to breathe more deeply. Satoru's voice was muffled and distant, echoing between the front door and the garden, where he spoke on the phone with your main bodyguards.
Close all the borders, check every car, try to get access to the cameras.
They will find you, Suguru believed. They will, for how could they not? For there was a special thread binding the three of you, and he was certain they would find you. Always.
Satoru joined him on the couch, his warm hands quickly cupping his cheeks. Pale thumbs brushed away a single lock of hair, ocean blue meeting the dark, sorrowful lavender kiss.
"It's not your fault," he said. "Suguru, it's not your fault.
"I shouldn't have said that," he muttered, closing eyes with visible ache. Oh, his heart throbbed so painfully at the thought of you running away so willingly. "But I didn't, fuck, I didn't know she would..."
The thought of you leaving them had never truly crossed their minds.
You being kidnapped by their enemies? Sure.
You being hurt because of their job? Of course. That's why they eliminated everyone who could ever wish you ill.
But the certainty of your love was so deeply woven into the pulsing lines of their hearts that they had never, ever suspected you would leave them.
So now, sitting on the sofa and wondering what had gone wrong, they couldn't wrap their head around it.
For a split second, something feral flared in their chest when they finally saw a video of you slipping slowly from the house. Disappearing behind the only blind spot of their cameras, hand gripping the suitcase tight.
Just like that, with a last, single look at your house, you vanished into thin air. Into a forest that curled itself around you mercilessly.
A panic was stuck in their throat. And then a laughter, manic and breathless, before dying just as quickly.
Hello! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I sincerely apologise for the delay… honestly, I had no idea what to do with this story until just this week. I also hope you liked the little perspective from Satoru and Suguru, which is, oh god, so different from how the reader has been viewing their relationship 😭
🕸️🕷️✮⋆˙ LOG 6 — TRACE EVIDENCE (chapter 6 of my spiderman!jisung series)
pairing: han jisung x fem!reader, college spider-man au, established relationship
synopsis: late at night in the university lab, you run tests on the sample you secretly took from the mutant that approached your dorm window, hoping to find any clue that could help jisung
warnings: ~6k words, established relationship, fluff, brief argument, explicit content (MINORS DFNI!!), shower sex, oral sex (m. receiving), protected penetrative sex
a/n: yayyyy new chapter is outttt!! we're moving further into the plot hope you enjoy <333
prev
the lights buzzed like a hive of dying insects, the only sound besides the soft click of the mass spectrometer cycling through its scan. it was past 11 pm and the rest of the building was dark, but you’d sweet-talked the night security guard with a story.
it felt cozy having your lab coat buttoned over your pyjamas.
on the lab bench sat the sealed sample you’d taken from the window the morning after the mutant appeared. you’d cracked it open an hour ago, transferred the faintly discoloured tip to a slide, and run every test the department’s equipment would allow.
you were about to doze off when the screen in front of you flickered.
the spectrometer finished its run with a soft chime.
the result populated in slow lines across the screen. you didn’t really have a plan or end point, and you surely weren’t under any illusion you were about to solve something teams of actual scientists hadn’t already figured out.
“y/n?”
you jumped, your chair scraping back an inch as you twisted around.
a man stood in the doorway. for a second, your exhausted brain couldn’t make out who it was, which would’ve been mortifying considering he knew your name. he was dressed in smart clothes, a pair of glasses dangling from the collar of his shirt. after a moment of deep thought, your drowsy mind finally caught up.
you exhaled, shoulders dropping immediately. “professor han.”
he took a few steps into the lab. his trench coat was slung casually over one shoulder, and his hand was rubbing his forehead like you’d taken away ten years to his life. he looked a lot less put-together than usual. you instinctively pulled your lab coat tighter around yourself, covering the pink striped pyjamas underneath.
“are you supposed to be here right now?” he asked.
“well, technically not. i was just… finishing an assignment,” you said. you glanced back at the screen. “it’s bad of me to procrastinate, but…you know.”
he exhaled, understanding how hard university could be at times. “i was just making rounds before i leave. it seems you’re not the only one pushing work until late at night.”
that pulled a small smile out of you. “guess not.”
he gestured lightly toward the door. “make sure you tell them to lock up when you’re done.”
“i will.”
he gave you a short nod and turned to the door.
“professor?” you said when was always halfway out.
you weren’t sure why you stopped him. right now you felt like no one else would actually listen to what’s been on your mind lately. and professor han felt like the only person who might not brush you off with a change of subject or a warning to stop asking questions.
he turned back.
you swallowed and spoke. “you know… i find it so unsettling how none of this seems to be happening anywhere else in the world.” the words started spilling out. “we’re not just dealing with normal crime or accidents that make the news for a week and then disappear. this feels different.”
“every city has its headlines,” he replied gently, as if that should comfort you, “seoul’s just happen to be… more unusual than most.”
“but everything is being sugarcoated,” you continued, the sentences tumbling out of your mouth. you realized too late that you probably shouldn’t have called him back, because you couldn’t seem to stop. “no one in the city’s best labs is telling us what they’re actually finding about this high-tech stuff and these horrifying creatures. where do they even come from? how does technology like that exist? no one’s being transparent at all.”
“and the only thing the police talk about is the fact that spiderman makes everything worse by putting people in danger and going against the law, but he’s the only one who’s been able to do anything about it. because what we’re seeing is way beyond what normal cops can handle.”
you let out a small breath, the tension in your shoulders finally catching up to you.
“sorry,” you added, quieter now, rubbing awkwardly at the sleeve of your lab coat over your pyjamas. “i think i’m just… a little wound up. clearly.”
silence fell onto both of you. professor han was trying to pick the right words and you could tell.
“that would be understandable,” he said. “given the circumstances.”
“i just… i don’t know.” you looked down at your hands, fingers still fidgeting with the edge of the lab coat. “i feel like there’s so much more we could do about it. it’s probably way harder to figure it out than i’m making it sound. i’m not trying to pretend i know better than everyone else. i’m only upset at the way people are dismissing it… and criticising the ones who are actually getting things done.”
“well, y/n,” he said, “you know people mean well.”
you nodded. that was true, at least. most people did.
“they don’t want you getting too involved when it could put you in harm’s way,” professor han said. “no matter how much you think it doesn’t. you make yourself a threat every time you try to interfere.”
you swallowed hard. you suddenly remembered that night again when the elongated shadow came to your dorm. the memory was so chilling you had to fight the sudden urge to glance over your shoulder at the dark windows of the lab.
his gaze narrowed, just slightly. “and it hasn’t, has it? no accidents? no… unusual activity around you lately? i’m talking about you specifically.”
you couldn’t just keep pretending nothing happened that night in your room. the opportunity to actually talk about it with someone who might understand was right here in front of you.
professor han was by far the most open person to you about all of this. not even your own boyfriend would be this willing to listen to you.
the more he watched you, the more you felt like he already knew there was something you weren’t saying. his eyes were patient but piercing, like he was waiting for you to decide whether to trust him or keep hiding behind lies.
“i’m not asking to blame you,” he said, “nor am i trying to scare you away from your curiosity or ambition. i want to know in case you need to discuss it with someone. because it’s hard. i understand.”
you nodded and took a deep breath.
“i’m not working on an assignment,” you admitted. your eyes were staring at the floor because you couldn’t bring yourself to look at him. “i’m looking at a sample. from a mutant. a mutant that came up to me,” you continued.
your voice wavered, and a small shiver ran through you before you could stop it.
“it got closer than anything like that ever has. but what’s been driving me insane is that it didn’t attack me.” you swallowed, fingers twisting tighter into the sleeve of your lab coat. “perhaps it didn’t think it expected me to notice it, or maybe it did. i’m still trying to figure that part out.”
your thoughts were coming to you faster than you could keep up. but you still made sure not to share too much.
“maybe it didn’t attack because i stayed calm? or maybe fear triggers some kind of response in them.”
you finally forced yourself to look up at him, cheeks burning with anxiety.
“i just keep thinking… what would’ve happened if i hadn’t seen it in time?”
you could’ve been dead before you even realised what was happening. jisung might have had to fight it off right there in your room, and you had no idea how you’d ever explain what spiderman was doing in your dorm in the middle of the night.
professor han stayed quiet for a long moment, taking in everything.
“most people who encounter these things don’t get a second chance. instinctively, we freeze, run, or panic. all of the ways in which they give them a reason to hurt you. the way you handled it most likely saved you. but it won’t work every time.”
his answer was more realistic than you’d hoped for. you wanted to speak with someone who wouldn’t sugarcoat it, so who were you to complain?
“i’m not going to tell you to stop looking into it,” he continued, a small, tired smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “you’re clearly too sharp for that advice to stick anyway. but i will say this: be extremely careful how you pursue it. don’t share what you’re doing with just anyone. only with people you really trust. you never know who might be connected to all this in ways we don’t see yet. that part… that’s for the authorities to untangle, not students.”
his advice sounded a lot like jisung’s, and you found yourself nodding along, relieved that jisung was so level-headed about it too.
“if you’re not discreet,” he added gently, “it won’t take long before you’re perceived as a threat again. maybe even another visit to your window.” he paused, letting the words settle without making them sound like a threat.
you noticed something strange in his words.
“do you understand what i’m saying?” he asked.
“y-yes,” you managed to sputter out. to him, it probably just looked like you were intimidated by his warning.
“sorry,” he said quickly, tone softening. “i don’t mean to scare you. i have numerous experiences with losing people so maybe that’s why i’m so adamant about this. i don’t want to see anything happen to one of our students. especially a bright one like you.”
“thank you for looking out for me,” you said quietly.
“no worries at all.” he adjusted the trench coat on his shoulder and took a step toward the door. “well, i’ll be going now. get some rest soon and don’t push yourself too hard.”
“goodnight, professor,” you replied as he pulled the door.
the door clicked closed behind him. his footsteps echoed down the corridor, growing fainter and fainter until they disappeared completely.
you sat there for a long moment, staring at the closed door. you felt yourself break into a cold sweat.
“hey y/n, from the moment i was just an awkward loser in high school, you saw something in me no one else did. now i’m an awkward vigilante that carries danger around with me everywhere i go, but you’re still here with me. i don’t know what i did to deserve you, but i know i never want to spend another day without you by my side.”
jisung shook his head. “no, that’s…no.”
he was upside down, knees hanging bent over a narrow metal beam that jutted out from the very edge of one of seoul’s towers. the city sprawled beneath him like a glittering ocean of lights, hundreds of meters below.
he groaned, rubbing his face with both hands before flipping himself upright, landing lightly on the narrow platform.
“okay, try again,” he muttered to himself, rolling his shoulders.
he cleared his throat dramatically and began once more, this time with far too much enthusiasm:
“y/n, you’ve always been the perfect covalent bond that keeps me stable. you’re strong, unbreakable, and somehow still attracted to this mess of a molecule i call myself.”
jisung froze mid-sentence, lenses widening with his eyes in pure horror at his own words.
he immediately slapped a hand over his mouth, cheeks burning.
“no no no,” he groaned, voice cracking with embarrassment as he dragged both hands down his face.
jisung stopped pacing, took a slow, deep breath, and let the cool night air fill his lungs. he closed his eyes for a second.
“baby, you’re the only one who’s ever made me feel worth something even without the mask. you never stopped seeing me as han jisung. you make me feel like i’m enough, exactly as i am. that’s why i can’t imagine doing any of this without you anymore.”
jisung opened his eyes again, his voice growing softer. he swallowed hard, heart hammering against his ribs as he stared out at the glittering sea of lights far below.
“will you… marry me?”
the words died out. jisung blinked, suddenly aware of how quiet it had become up here. with a heavy sigh, he lowered himself down, legs dangling freely over the edge.
he reached up and slowly pulled his mask off, the wind messing up his brown hair even more as it fell over his forehead.
jisung’s hand slipped into the inner pocket of his suit. his fingers closed around his grandmother’s ring he’d been carrying with him for days. he pulled it out carefully and held it between his thumb and forefinger.
it was delicate and pretty, a thin layered design with a sparkling gem at the center that shimmered softly even in the low light. simple, but beautiful. just like the forever he wanted with you. he stared at it for a long time, turning it slowly in his fingers as the wind gently tugged at his hair.
it had been so hard to come up with the right words. he had so much he wanted to say he could probably write out a whole dissertation on how much you meant to him. but he wanted it to be perfect. no. greater than perfect.
he wanted to tell you how smart you are. he wanted to say how amazing you are to him, how you make even the hardest nights feel bearable, how your laugh still makes his stomach flip like it did back in high school.
jisung let out a soft, defeated sigh and leaned his head back.
before he could spiral any further, his phone suddenly buzzed in his other pocket. the cute upbeat ringtone he’d set just for you.
his heart jumped. he quickly tucked the ring back into his suit pocket and answered, pressing the phone to his ear.
“hey, baby,” he said, trying to sound casual.
your voice came through immediately, clearly worried. “jisung? where are you?”
he flinched at your tone. “i’m on the tower near my building,” he replied, glancing down at the glittering city far below.
you went silent. jisung pressed the phone closer to his ear.
“baby?” he asked softly, voice dropping with concern.
when your voice came, it almost sounded like you were on the verge of crying. “i’m at the university, jisung. i have to talk to you about something.”
he blinked, brows furrowing. your voice made his spider-sense tingle faintly at the back of his neck, even though there was no immediate danger he could see.
“in person?” he asked, already pushing himself up from the ledge.
“yes,” you replied. “please. i can’t explain it all over the phone.”
“yeah okay, i’ll come right now,” he said, reaching for his mask with his free hand. “i’ll be there in two, tops,” he added gently, trying to infuse as much reassurance as he could into the words.
he ended the call and let out a sharp breath. he pulled the mask down fully over his face, the white lenses glowing to life as he locked his gaze on the distant university campus across the glowing seoul skyline.
without another second wasted, he leapt off the tower. webs shot from his wrists, catching the buildings as he swung across those few blocks.
what could be so bad that you couldn’t tell him over the phone?
jisung landed lightly on the side of a glass building, clinging for a split second before launching himself toward the next anchor point. the university greenery, the familiar architecture of the science wing standing out against the darkness.
he dropped down into a narrow, dimly lit alleyway behind the building that was far enough from the main paths that no security cameras would catch him. his feet hit the pavement with barely a sound.
jisung pulled his mask up just enough to uncover his mouth and nose, then tapped your contact and pressed the phone to his ear again. his heart was still racing from the swing over.
it rang only once before you picked up.
“hey, i’m here,” he said softly.
you were just turning the corner from the main path. you quickened your steps toward the alley, phone still pressed to your ear.
“i see you,” you replied.
jisung turned at the sound of your footsteps as you were walking towards him. even in the low light, he could see the tension in your shoulders. his expression softened instantly with worry. he quickly scanned both ends of the alley to make sure he was alone, then reached up and pulled the mask off.
as soon as you reached him, he stepped forward, one gloved hand gently reaching out to brush your arm.
“what’s going on?” he asked.
you swallowed hard, heart racing.
“i might know who’s behind it all.”
he blinked, tilting his head slightly. “what?”
“it’s professor han,” you continued quickly. “and i know how crazy this sounds to you, but please hear me out—”
“wait, hold on.” jisung’s eyes widened, his head tilting slightly in disbelief. your boyfriend was by far the most expressive person you’ve ever met. you could say this is the most confused you’ve ever seen him. “are we talking about the same thing here?”
your heart pounded harder as you forced the next sentence out.
“i’m talking about who’s been endangering seoul.”
jisung’s hand froze on your arm, his fingers going completely still against the fabric of your jacket that was over your pyjamas. his brows pulled together even tighter, creating a deep crease between them.
“and you think that’s professor han?” he repeated, almost like he was testing the words. he let out a disbelieving breath and pulled his hand back. jisung ran a hand through his wind-tousled hair, his expression turning more serious. “what are you even talking about?”
you stepped closer, eyes pleading. “you have to understand that i’m just trying to help you here.”
he took a small step back. the confusion was clear in his eyes, but underneath it you could already see the first sparks of frustration building.
“y/n, i had zero idea you were even looking into any of this anymore. i told you, i specifically told you, not to poke around, not to tell anyone about it, and definitely not to start accusing a respected professor of being a criminal mastermind!”
“jisung, will you just listen to me first!” you snapped, anger flaring hot in your chest.
you knew the conversation would go like this, but a part of you had still hoped he’d be more understanding. clearly that had been too much to ask.
“i’m trying to talk to you and you’re already shutting me down!” you continued, voice rising despite your best efforts to keep it quiet. “i know you told me to stay out of it and i heard you. but i can’t just do nothing! every time you leave, i’m the one left wondering if you’re coming back. so yeah, my instinct as your girlfriend is to do something about it”
jisung’s eyes widened slightly at your tone, but the frustration on his face only deepened. he opened his mouth, but you didn’t give him the chance to interrupt.
“don’t stand there and act like i’m being reckless or delusional. i’m trying to help you. because if professor han really is connected to all of this, then you’re not just fighting random things, you’re fighting someone.”
you were breathing harder now, cheeks flushed with a mix of anger and the adrenaline of finally saying it all out loud.
“so yes, i went behind your back. yes, i looked into it. but i didn’t do it to spite you, jisung. i did it because i’m tired of sitting around feeling useless while you risk your life every single night!”
jisung closed his eyes and gripped the sides of your arms to show how desperate he was to make you understand.
“baby, you’re the farthest thing from useless anyone could ever be,” he said, his voice cracking slightly. he opened his eyes again, his dark brown gaze locking onto yours. “you stay up to care for my injuries. you let me crash with you even when i’m capable of staying at my own place.”
his grip on your arms tightened.
“that’s how you’re helping me, y/n, and i don’t need any more than that!”
you shook your head fiercely.
“but you do, jisung. that’s the problem you do need more,” you shot back. “because if we don’t figure this out any faster, i’m scared one day you just won’t come back to me.”
you took a shaky breath, eyes stinging as you stared up at him.
“and whether the end goal here is to kill you or not, and i don’t know yet because i haven’t found out that much, i know enough to see that you needed real help.”
jisung looked completely torn. he let go of your arms and took a step back, tilting his head all the way back as he stared up at the sky. a frustrated groan escaped him as he gripped fistfuls of his messy brown hair.
“jisung, just listen to how i know this—”
“goodness, baby” he muttered, voice strained. “you can’t just—”
“and i need you to not interrupt me while i’m speaking!” you snapped, voice rising with frustration. “please, for the love of—just let me explain!”
“fine, go!” he said through gritted teeth.
you took a deep breath, trying to keep your voice steady even though you were fuming
“the night before hyunjin’s party last week, a mutant came up to my window at around 2 or 3 am,” you began.
jisung’s eyes widened instantly, his whole body going rigid.
“a mutant came to your dorm?”
you quickly added, “i got really, really lucky. i managed to stay calm so it didn’t attack me. after that, i was even able to take a small sample from its handprint before it left.”
“you what?” his voice came out low and dangerous. “y/n, this was last week! how am i only finding out about this now?”
“will you stop focusing on the fact that i didn’t tell you!” you fired back.
he opened his mouth again, but you kept going, determined to get everything out.
“i ran tests on the sample tonight in the lab. that’s why i was still there so late. i was hoping the mass spectrometer would show something useful. while i was waiting for the results, professor han walked in.”
you paused for a second, watching his reaction carefully.
“i trusted him. he’s always been the only person who actually listens when we talk about the strange things happening in seoul. but i kept it vague on purpose in case of the horrible possibility that he isn’t who i think he is.”
you swallowed.
“so after i told him what i encountered, he said something about having to be careful in case i got ‘another visit to my window.’ i never told him the mutant came to my window let alone mentioned my dorm. he just knew. that’s what’s so terrifying. how would he have known unless he’s connected to it somehow?”
“and i’m not 100% sure about this yet… but i just know it might be a possibility. he knew i was looking into this so he probably sent that thing to my room to scare me off or worse, attack me. then he told me not to share what i was doing with just anyone and that i should only talk to people i really trust. it felt like he was trying to make me trust him more, or fishing to see how much i knew.”
before you knew, your eyes were brimming with tears and your voice was becoming shakier by the second.
“and now i feel like i just outed you, jisung. i was trying to help, i swear i was, but now i’m panicking because what if he already suspects something? what if he already knows who you are? i just feel so stupid.”
jisung immediately shook his head, stepping closer to you again. his hands came up to gently to your shoulder
“baby,” he said softly. “it doesn’t matter how much he knows, okay? it doesn’t. i’d never be mad at you for outing me accidentally. you were smart enough to even figure all of this out on your own.”
he was looking at you now with no anger left in his voice. it felt so good to finally talk to jisung about all of this. he was always gonna be your person.
“but i’m also really scared for you right now. if professor han really is involved in all this… then you just put yourself right in his line of sight. and that terrifies me more than anything he might know about me.”
his hand moved to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear.
“you’re not stupid, baby. not even a little. you’re brilliant. but please… promise me you won’t put yourself in danger like that again without me knowing.”
you nodded slowly, blinking back the tears as you whispered, “okay… i promise.”
“come here… come here, baby.”
he gently pulled you into his chest, wrapping his arms around you tightly. one hand cradled the back of your head while the other rubbed slow, soothing circles along your back. he held you close, his chin resting on top of your head as he let out a long, shaky breath.
“but we’re in this together now, right? if i find something else, i’ll tell you first. and you’ll do the same.” you said, looking up at him hopefully.
“yeah,” he said. “and i’m not going to stop you or get mad at you for it anymore. but we’ll do it together.”
he leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to your forehead, lingering there for a second before pulling back to meet your eyes again. you couldn’t help the small, relieved smile that went across your face as his nose gently nuzzled against yours.
he couldn’t thank you enough for this.
the warm water cascaded gently over both of you, filling the bathroom with soft steam that wrapped around your bodies. you stood under the steady stream with your eyes closed, completely melting as jisung’s fingers worked through your wet hair with loving care.
his lips brushed your shoulder in a trail of soft, lingering kisses, moving lazily across your skin while he started massaging the spot behind your ears, your shoulders dropped and your mind drifted somewhere blissfully far away. you leaned back into him, feeling almost floaty.
“my perfect girl,” he whispered against your damp skin, voice low and honey-sweet.
jisung was feeling extra affectionate tonight. he pressed another kiss right where your neck met your shoulder, then rested his forehead there for a second.
you turned slowly in his arms, the water sliding over your skin as you faced him. his hands slipped from your hair.
you saw the dark strands plastered to his forehead and dripping water down his face. a few droplets clung to his lashes. you slid your arms around his neck, fingers threading gently through the wet hair at his nape and you pulled him down.
the warm water poured over both of you as your lips met. jisung’s arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you flush against him until your chests pressed together. the kiss deepened as he tilted his head, lips moving against yours.
you pulled back from his mouth to trail your lips down his jaw. jisung’s breath hitched when you pressed a soft kiss to the side of his neck. then another, and another.
a shaky sigh escaped him the moment your lips found that sensitive spot right in the dip of his neck. his arms tightened around your waist, fingers pressing into your skin. he would melt every time loved on him like this.
as you kissed along his neck, jisung noticed the scent of your shampoo filling his lungs since you’d both just washed your hair. gosh, he loved that smell.
he was also becoming hyperaware of the thick steam rising around you both. he paid attention to the calming sound of the water raining down. and he also noticed the feeling of your body pressed so perfectly against his.
every little sensation made him feel lightheaded. maybe because all his blood was going straight to his cock, he figured. you felt it immediately pressed against your stomach.
he bent his head down and pressed a slow, lingering kiss to your shoulder, lips brushing tenderly over your wet skin.
“i love you, jisung.” you whispered, voice barely louder than the falling water.
jisung smiled against your shoulder, his heart swelling. he lifted his head just enough to look at you, droplets clinging to his lashes.
“i love you too,” he murmured. “so much.”
next he knew, you started lowering yourself down to your knees in front of him.
jisung sucked in a breath. you looked up at him, giving him your best ‘fuck me’ eyes. the sight of your gaze with water streaming down your face and body nearly made his knees buckle.
“baby,” he breathed.
he took his cock in his hand, giving himself one slow stroke from base to tip as he guided the flushed head toward your lips. the tip glistened with water and a bead of precum. he tapped it lightly against your bottom lip, his voice dropping into a husky murmur.
“open for me.”
you wrapped your mouth around him, being careful with your teeth as you took as much as you could of him inside. you immediately felt him touch the back of your throat, the urge to gag strong, but you slid back off of him, your tongue swirling around his tip. you breathed through your nose as you sucked at the first couple of inches, using your hand to jerk off the rest.
you peered up at jisung, eager to see his reaction, and found him watching you. he swallowed, his jaw clenching. you took your eye contact as a chance to take his entire length down your throat, immediately making him curse and throw his head back. his hands flung to your hair, tugging it. he gently pushed you further down, your nose pressed against his torso for a few seconds before he released you. you pulled away for a breather, a string of saliva connecting your lips with his cock.
"so good," he muttered, pulling you back on for more. he used your mouth without hurting you, his hips thrusting back and forth slowly.
gagging noises filled the air until eventually he pulled off of you completely, groaning as his wet cock bounced back up to hit his stomach.
he slid the glass door open to take a condom from the drawer you kept nearby. at this point, the two of you had sex so often that condoms were basically scattered around both your dorms. you always had a box tucked in your nightstand and another in your bathroom drawer.
“turn around, baby,” jisung said, his voice husky. his eyes were half-lidded like he was drunk on the sight of you.
you obeyed instantly, turning to face the tiled wall. you planted your hands against the cool surface and arched your back, pushing your ass back toward him until his cock only half an inch away from your heat.
the sound of the packet ripping echoed softly over the running water. jisung rolled the condom down his cock, his gaze locked on how dripping wet you were. your pussy was slick from your arousal and the shower water. he bit his bottom lip hard, trying not to groan out loud at the sight. jisung always thought you were the prettiest human being on this planet.
he nudged the swollen head of his cock against your soaked entrance, sliding it up and down your slippery folds, coating himself in your wetness. you whimpered softly at the gentle pressure.
“i want it, sungie,” you said sweetly.
who was he to deny your request?
when he slowly pushed in, you were so wet that he slid in smoothly, but you still felt so tight around him. from this angle, he was so deep you swore it felt like he was hitting your throat.
a breathy moan spilled from your lips the moment he bottomed out, your palms pressing harder against the tile wall for support. jisung started moving, his hips forcing your body forward with each thrust.
you noticed jisung was quieter than usual so you slowly turned your head to look at him over your shoulder. his head was tilted back, exposing the sharp line of his adam’s apple as it bobbed. his eyes were closed and his face scrunched up beautifully every time he pushed in.
you couldn’t stop staring, soft moans falling from your mouth with every roll of his hips.
then jisung’s eyes slowly fluttered open as he caught you looking.
a lazy smile spread across his face, eyes dark as he locked gazes with you. that smile sent a fresh wave of butterflies exploding in your stomach, and your pussy clenched hard around his cock without warning.
jisung let out a low groan at the sudden squeeze, his rhythm faltering for just a second.
“what are you looking at?” he asked, though the blissed-out expression never fully left his face.
“you just…” the words got caught in your throat when he gave a particularly deep thrust. “you look so lost in it,”
jisung’s smile widened. without a word, he bent over you, pressing his chest flush against your back. his lips found the curve of your shoulder and trailed soft kisses along your skin.
you moaned loudly as he started fucking you faster. “jisung!” you moaned, the sound breaking into a whimper.
he groaned right against your ear, his hips snapping against your ass repeatedly.
“are you gonna cum?” he murmured, voice strained with pleasure. “without me even touching your little clit?”
you nodded frantically, another broken moan falling from your lips as the pressure built fast. “i can, i’m so close.”
“come on, baby,” jisung growled softly, his hand sliding up to grip your hip tighter, pulling you back onto his cock with every thrust. “give it to me. let me feel you cum all over me.”
his words, combined with the relentless pace and the way he was kissing and biting at your shoulder, pushed you right to the edge. you moaned loudly, the sound echoing off the tiled walls as your orgasm crashed through you.
the feeling of you tightening and gushing around him sent him into his orgasm as well. a moan tore from his throat as he spilled into the condom.
he groaned, forehead dropping to rest between your shoulder blades as he rode out his release.
for a long moment, your heavy breaths filled the room.
eventually, jisung let out a long, satisfied sigh. he pressed one last soft kiss to your shoulder before slowly pulling out of you. he reached down, carefully removed the condom, tied it off, and tossed it into the small trash bin just outside the shower.
you straightened up slowly, your legs a little shaky, and turned around to face him. the warm water continued cascading over both of you as you looked up at him.
he cupped your face gently with both hands and leaned in, kissing you slow and deep. the kiss was full of love rather than lust. when he pulled back, his forehead rested against yours.
“tomorrow,” you whispered against his lips, still a little breathless, “we’ll look more into professor han, okay? i have a good feeling about this.”
jisung let out a soft chuckle, the sound rumbling warmly in his chest. he shook his head, nose brushing against yours.
“baby, please don’t talk about prof han right after we just made love.”
“sorry, sorry,” you said quickly.
jisung laughed softly again, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you closer.
he knew without doubt he wanted forever with you.
you guys guessed it!! as always, thank you for reading!!!!
𝜗𝜚 Gojo didn’t mean to yell at you, even though he knows you hate it
hurt/comfort
more like this
You ‘hate’ many things. The way muddy water collects at the cuffs of your jeans, the smell of something sweet when you’re already nauseous, when somebody takes the last thing you wanted from the bakery and you have to order your second option as your coffee gets cold.
You don’t really hate any of them, not truly- they’re just inconveniences, they spark a vehement dislike at most. You use hate as a throwaway word, then, as a hyperbolic description, something to laughably attribute to minuscule issues that tend to cause a headache, or at the very least an annoyed sigh from your lips.
But there are some things you do hate. Unequivocally, things that no amount of exposure could ever somehow desensitise yourself to. Being yelled at is one of them. It’s something leftover, lodged deep inside you; originating from somewhere blurry in childhood memories, maybe it has something to do with a teacher shouting at your class when you felt it was aimed at you, your little notebook trembling in your littler hands. Or perhaps an inherent, childish fear of loud noises and the angry people that come with them. Shattered glasses and broken promises.
Now you’re older, now you have autonomy over how people get to make you feel, you prefer to talk it out.
But that’s exactly what you aren’t doing with Gojo right now.
“You aren’t listening.” He says frustratedly, running a lax hand through already messy hair. His wedding band shines dimly. The light in the kitchen flickers as he keeps pacing. “I asked why it was bothering you so much and you’re lying to me.”
“I’m not lying, Satoru.” You say, massaging your temples. “Why do I need to have an excuse to want my husband back home? Isn’t me wanting you here enough? Isn't it?”
He sighs from where he’s stood on the opposite side of the living room, the couch between you a physical barrier and a cruel reminder, an emotional wall embodied and decorated with cosy throw cushions. “You don’t understand. I have to keep going wherever they tell me to-“
You fold your arms, hugging yourself in the way you wish he would as Gojo keeps speaking, slowly feeling more and more and impossibly more tiny and belittled as he inadvertently berates you. Finally, he pauses to take a breath, cheeks warmed from speech, and you quietly pipe up, voice nervous.
“I know how you feel, toru-“
“No, you don’t!” The outburst is sudden and out of character for your husband; the raised volume of his voice coupled with the expression on his face- angry, hurt, brows pulled taut in annoyance- prods at a very small part of you that makes your vision swim. And the lamp in the corner blow out, which frightens you more than you'd care to admit.
“Oh. O-okay.” Your voice cracks then, and you curse yourself internally. “I’ll… just leave you alone.”
Don’t let him see you cry, don’t let him see you cry, please don’t let him see you cry- it’s the mantra repeated in your head, rattling and screaming from ear to ear as you quietly pad your feet across the floor to the bathroom, trying to make as little noise as humanly possible. It’s stupid to think Gojo would yell at you over making any sound, but you’ve reverted back to your original settings and now-
“Okay, okay, okay-“ you whisper shakily to yourself, voice wavering as you fumble with the bathroom lock. Your eyes sting as it clicks into place, lashes blinking furiously while you slump against the door; but at least now there's a barrier stopping him from seeing, from knowing, from acknowledging, and you've always been able to retreat into yourself when things get like this.
Sobs leak out of you messily, uglily, short little gasping sounds that feel like individual gut punches every time you try to heave in another breath. The tears stream down your face, leaving glimmering tracks in their wake you don’t even bother wiping away; the tiles beneath your socked feet feel too slippery for comfort- the socks on your feet were an anniversary gift. It feels like a bad joke.
Slowly, against the smooth surface of your bathroom door, your back begins to curl. Your spine stretches into a curve, face searching to plaster itself to your drawn up knees- you don’t even remember adopting that position, something so infantile, the pose of somebody desperately seeking comfort.
But how can you feel comforted, when the person who’s supposed to offer salvation is the reason you’re seeking it?
“Hck-“ the sobs come messy now, muffled and heaving breaths that come up short and wrack your body of oxygen. You thought Gojo knew you hated yelling, how it makes you shut down and spiral, how it always ends with you curling in on yourself like a child while your eyes burn; or maybe he was just treating you like an adult, and it's your own fault for being so pathetic.
In the living room, Satoru Gojo is losing it.
He’s stood frozen, a statuesque figure posed with feet sinking into a cosy rug he doesn’t feel. He does know you hate shouting- despise it, in fact- so how could he?
His fingers twitch at his side like he wants to reach for you, but he can’t- he can’t tug you to his chest and whisper apologies, or gently kiss your forehead- because you aren’t even in the room, you left after he crossed the one line you drew out for him.
When he knows you hate it, when he’s known since the early days of your relationship; he’s known since you stood before him dressed in white, vowing to stick with him.
You’d cried then because of him, as pretty as ever, but the tears were tracing the lines of your smile instead while he slipped the ring onto your finger.
Suddenly, Gojo feels rather sick with himself.
And then his hypersensitive ears pick up on it- one loud, cracked sob, emanating dully from behind the locked bathroom door. His stomach pangs; he doesn’t need Six Eyes to tell him what you’re doing, because he already knows. He knows you’re sat against the door, crying into the palm slapped over your mouth to muffle the noises from him.
You’re crying because of him, and even worse- you’re hiding.
“Fuck.” He curses under his breath, angry at himself more than anything else- the adrenaline from the argument dissipates until he’s left feeling hollow, an empty and unpleasant pit settling in his stomach as he cautiously approaches the bathroom door.
His hand rests softly on the handle, pale fingers wavering as he speaks. “Hey, I’m sorry. Really. I should’ve stayed calm.”
You don’t reply, but the gasping eases just slightly. Progress, at least.
“I know you hate being shouted at, most people do, there's nothing wrong with you. I know you’re sensitive to it, and I-“ his voice trembles just a little, “-I didn’t mean to make you cry, sweetheart. Please. You do understand how I feel, better than anyone, and- and I love you.”
You slouch against the door, wiping your eyes as the tears stop falling as rapidly. You clear your throat from the thickness accumulated as you cried, and speak. “Satoru…”
His head perks up at that, palm pressed flat to the door in a cliche he doesn’t even want to laugh at right now. “Yeah?”
You sniff once more, and bring yourself to twist the lock as you shift across the floor to rest against the side of the bathtub instead. “Come in.”
Gojo does as you permit him, gently and softly. When you lift your face to look at him in the light, his heart almost breaks clean open. You look wrecked.
“Oh, baby…” he whispers, cupping your face gingerly and waiting for you to lean into his familiar touch. “God, I’m so sorry.”
You curl into his arms on the tile, letting them wrap around you as he buries his face into your hair and breathes you in; you ground each other, hands soothing unsteady heartbeats.
You sniff, blinking away residual teardrops. “I’m sorry for not understanding your -hic- side, but…” you sigh defeatedly, shoulders dropping. “Just… don’t shout at me again. Please.”
Gojo shakes his head vehemently, and tightens his arms around you, eyeing the tear stains on your face and the red rims of your eyes. He’s struck, then, by something- how many times have you done this before?
How many times have you locked yourself away and cried, noises ringing in your ears, as yells come from people who you just wanted to calmly talk with? Gojo hugs you again, thumb brushing a piece of hair from your temple. You look up at him, eyes still swimming and glossy, and he feels a surge of something fiercely protective and soft.
“Nobody is ever going to hurt you like that again, I promise.”
And you know he means it.
masterlist
a/n: currently rewatching normal people, in case you couldn't tell
…I see that town. Silent Hill. You promised you'd come back again someday. But you never did. Well, I'm alone there now...
One wrong turn can truly cost your life. The map gets lost, roads loop around, and every sign leads to the same town. Empty and eerie, with a dull sound bouncing off the walls every night. A voice of your long-gone lover, whom you left years ago.
a part of slutty (slasher) summer
˖♱ ݁˖ pairing: ꒰ Pyramid Head!Toji Fushiguro x Ex!Reader ꒱
˖♱ ݁˖ content & warnings: ꒰ Silent Hill AU :: not accurate with the game :: set in late 80s :: small town mystery :: horror :: yandere motifs :: obsessiveness :: possessiveness :: psycho ex Toji :: like PSYCHO :: guilt tripping :: manipulation :: blood :: murders :: mentions of past kidnapping :: side character's death (someone from jjk) :: memory loss :: reader is also a bit crazy :: rough sex :: belly bulges :: HEAVY breeding kink :: it's kinda nasty :: Toji is MONSTROUS :: like two meters tall and super heavy :: 10.6K WORDS ꒱
˖♱ ݁˖ notes: I pondered whether I should post this story. It seemed a bit too dark and bloody at first, and really freaky, but I decided it's a horror, so the horror vibe should be kept...
"I love you so much, baby."
His deep-voiced kisses warmed the skin of your neck.
"I love you so fucking much."
Big hands gripped your hips tighter. Massive body leaned towards your arched back, lips leaving drenched kisses along your spine.
"My beautiful girl, my love."
He moved your body with a brutal tenderness, letting another moan escape your throat. The darkness of the tiny room blinded your sight; the bed hit the old walls, the wood coming off with a pinching needle.
His warm breath mixed with your cries, chest pressed to your back, pounding with the warmth and maddening adoration. The deep thrusts made your spine tingle, eyes looking over your shoulder only to get covered by the petal kisses of his.
"Tell me how much you love me." He demanded, biting into your shoulder. "Baby, tell me you'll never leave me."
Your answer came through the thick fog, inaudible and incomprehensible. Whatever you said, he chuckled, a low groan in your ear.
You said something - a name.
But its letters fell into something unclear, confusing. Swelling your heart in an utterly familiar way, yet long-forgotten by your mind.
"I won't," you cried, feeling a strong arm wrap around your neck. "I won't leave, you…"
A low chuckle tickled your earlobe as the thrusts grew faster. More brutal, waving your body through the mattress, with a few little kisses of sunshine wrapping your holding hands.
"Wake up, baby," he whispered. "Wake up…"
"Hey, wake up!" Someone pinched your arm, immediately bringing you back from the deep slumber.
The car was rolling slowly along the forest road, all your friends arguing about something that was still understandable to your still-dizzy mind.
A low "Auch" slipped past your lips when Shoko accidentally hit your ribs with an elbow.
"Sorry," she sighed, bending double to check whether the thing they were all looking for was under the seat. "It's not here either."
Suguru, in the driver's seat, sighed and slammed his fist against the wheel. "Satoru, you're such an fucking idiot."
Cursing in the passenger seat, Satoru checked his bag again and again before opening the glove box. Long fingers searched through the condoms and stacks of cigarettes, still not finding the thing everyone was frantically looking for.
"I swear, I left it here," Satoru groaned, pointing at the box.
"What's going on?" You murmured, peeking at Shoko, pinching the bridge of her nose.
She sighed. "Satoru lost the map."
Your eyes widened and lips fell open as you shot a deathly look towards your friend. "What?! Satoru, please tell me you're joking!"
He looked over his shoulder. Milky hair brushed his forehead, and ocean eyes were already squinted in irritation. "I told all of you that giving me a map is not a good idea!"
Utahime, sitting next to Shoko, snorted, and Choso, with Yuki occupying the third row of the van, joined her with mumbled groans.
"Are you five? How could you lose the map?" Utahime groaned, pressing palms to her eyes. "Oh my god, so what now?"
You felt a shiver drip down your spine as the sizzling sun, which had burned your skin just moments before, slipped into a slumber and suddenly disappeared. Instead, a fog rose. It curled and wrapped around Suguru's old van, which was meant to take you straight to the campsite. The rest of the group should already be there, but you still had about two hours of driving.
"Look, the road can't be that fucking complicated," Yuki said, pulling herself up and resting her arms on your headrest. "Let's just drive straight until we find another petrol station. I'm sure they'll have some maps."
Suguru bit the inside of his cheek, cursing under his breath. "We're lost. I know it because that's the third time I've passed this car park."
Everyone leaned towards the right side of the car, following the small spot. The low, stony wall separated it from the slippery cliff overlooking a dense forest. A small body of water, a lake of some sort, peeked through the bending trees, yet the fog was too dense to see it clearly.
He stopped the van at the parking lot, no other soul around.
You wiped your eyes and yawned, opening the van's heavy door.
The air felt cold and crisp, sending shivers down your spine and pinching naked arms with little needles. You took the hoodie from your suitcase, pulling the soft, pinkish material over your top-clothed body. You stepped into the muddy pool in the white trainers, and a groany sigh slipped past your lips as you walked towards the stony wall.
Shoko joined you, a thin cigarette already lit between her fingers, before taking the first draw.
"I did not prepare clothes for such nasty weather," Utahime joined you, curling herself into Shoko's side. "Fuck, where the hell are we? It's been only an hour since we entered the forest. I was literally melting on that station."
Satoru and Suguru were still snapping at each other inside the car, while Choso and Yuki settled on the hood. With an old map from five years ago that was found in the trunk, they started scribbling a new one. They fought like an old couple, with Choso trying to draw neat lines and Yuki pointing her finger at the roads which were no longer used.
You chuckled, turning back to admire the heavy, misty view unfolding before your eyes. A gentle wind carried whispers, and an earthy smell tickled your nostrils. Your foot kicked the little pebble as it rolled and rolled, till it finally fell through the crack in an old stony wall. Trees whistled, a few branches creaking under the gentle mass of the rising fog.
"Are you okay?" Shoko's low voice suddenly brought you back.
Your head turned, a weak smile tugging on your lips. "Yeah, just a bad dream."
Grey smoke curled around her sweet face, brushed with long chestnut hair, slumber eyes trying to decode the restlessness beaming from your gaze.
"You were talking through your sleep."
Another pebble fell down the cliff as you kicked them one by one. Hands deep in the warm sweatpants, you thanked the god for wearing them instead of the shorts.
"Really? Sorry, sometimes it happens."
Shoko hummed, her voice laced with a hint of disbelief. Sometimes.
"You were repeating someone's name."
You bit the plush inside of your cheek, still looking down at your muddy shoes. A visible feeling of curiosity beamed off her eyes, while lips curled around the head of the cigarette. Another cloud of smoke mixed with the fog before she shyly, almost awkwardly, brushed a loose strand of her hair behind her ear.
You could already sense her next questions. After all, you've been friends for the past four years, and she'd never heard the name you sometimes repeated in your sleep.
Years of sharing the rented apartment, years of hearing your wailings and cries, always leading to one word only.
"So," she started, helping you kick the pebbles through the crack in the wall. "Do you want to share who's To–"
"Hey everyone!" Choso suddenly called, immediately getting your attention.
Shoko's lips fell into an awkward line before she turned with a muttered curse. In the depth of your mind, you thanked Choso for the timing and whispered, "Sorry, let's talk later," to your dear friend.
"What is it?" Suguru asked, slamming his van's door.
Everyone walked closer to Choso and Yuki, crouching over the old map.
"Here," Choso's finger landed on a crossed mark. "That's where we currently are. And here is the road we should take," he traced the thin line, at some point going outside the forest.
"Great, then let's go," Satoru clasped, turning back towards the passenger's seat.
"Wait," Choso muttered with furrowed brows. "The problem is, this forest road was cut off years ago. We shouldn't even be here. In fact, after leaving the gas station, we were supposed to go here," his finger pointed at the road that went around the dense forest, far away from the coastline stretching behind your hunched backs.
A low fuck slipped past Suguru's lips as he gave a bitter laugh. Satoru took a step back, both hands high in the air – either ready to fight the wrath bubbling beneath Suguru's chest or trying to justify himself for the tenth time.
"I didn't tell you to go through the forest."
Suguru shot him a glare as he bit the soft inside of his cheek. The gentle wind brushed his dishevelled hair, and lavender eyes squinted at his friend.
"I know. I just naturally thought we were supposed to go this way," he squatted with a sigh, head hanging low between his slumped shoulders. "Should we go back to the station?"
"Actually…" Utahime's pitched voice slashed through the foggy air as she pointed her finger at something down the stony wall. "I see a silhouette of the church. Maybe there's a city we can check. I guess they will know the way out of the forest."
Choso's forehead wrinkled as he looked at the map more closely. Finger tracing the point you were supposed to be at, before a faint oh fell from his lips.
"You're right. There is some town here," his hazelnut eyes squinted, a few locks of long hair brushed the pale cheek. "But I can't read the name. There's a coffee stain."
He glanced up at Yuki's cherry cheeks.
"Sorry," she giggled. "I may or may not have spilt a few droplets on it this morning."
She kissed his cheek with a sweet pout before hugging the hoodie closer around her arms. The weather wasn't strictly cold, yet an unpleasant chill bit at everyone's skin, and a nippy fog gently hugged the shivering bodies.
There was something utterly grim yet beautiful about it. The way it floated with an unbothered air, as if gliding over the serene lake and the humming trees long before the dimmed light kissed the chilly earth. It rose high, hugging your ankles, calves, and thighs, as if slowly smooching your skin with frozen kisses.
It moved with you and changed with you, each step dissipating the weak puffs of hazy gloominess before it wrapped itself around you again.
You hid hands in the pockets before covering head with a hood.
"Should we go then?" Shoko sighed, squinting to see the pointed, crossed roof of the church. "Maybe they also have a new map."
A set of old wooden stairs led down towards the little town settled deep in the forest. You had no other option, so, with a heavy sigh, Suguru took a few things from the trunk.
"Here," he said, giving you, Choso, and Utahime a flashlight. "Try not to twist your ankle on this mud."
That said, he slowly walked down the stairs.
A drenched, narrow forest path led deeper into the woods. Trees bent and creaked wickedly over your bodies, humming the melody of long-forgotten memories. Each step rose a wet squelch into the air, as all of you walked in silence, following Suguru carefully.
He bickered with Satoru like an old couple, murmurs and hisses being the only sounds that mixed with the scrape of the old branches.
And as you walked, with each step wetter than the last and the narrow path nearing closer to the old church, something in your chest panged.
Head felt dizzy, almost heavy, as if the trees you passed, the leaves sticking to your shoes, the earthy smell and the old, stony church were a part of some distant memory. The one you tried to forget for a long, long time, as if your mind had simply erased it.
A name of some sort was at the tip of your tongue.
And the deeper you walked, the closer it was slipping towards your lips.
The silence stretched as you left the dense forest and walked next to the first glimmers of the town. Abandoned ranches, a windmill, a cemetery, a church that stood tall and spooky, towering over the gravelly road.
"Why is the fog getting denser?" Utahime shivered, trying to disperse it with her hand. "What is this place?"
Solely shadows and silhouettes appeared on the horizon, with a few more old ranches passing by as you walked deeper. There was no way to tell where you were or which way you were going – the land was cold and wrapped in fog, leaving no option but to immerse yourself blindly.
Something sinister hung in the air. Something that made your chest tighten and tongue fill the inside of the cheek, as if those two words you tried to remember were already tickling its tip.
"Is that a fucking cemetery?" Satoru muttered before he tripped over the small grave. "Fuck, sorry."
Suguru lit the way with the flashlight, casting a few flickers towards the old, long-forgotten tombs.
You've read them, one by one, each letter feeling almost familiar. As if some of them were already deeply carved into your mind, yet closed by a mysterious spell of some sort.
S… the name surely had an s…
"Choso, are you sure we're going the right way?" Satoru asked, instantly pulling a snort from Suguru's throat.
"That's rich coming from you," he muttered, ignoring his friend's deadly glare.
Choso lit the map, hazelnut eyes squinting as if trying to check your position. But as it was rather clear – he couldn't. For the town was simply too small and too unknown for the map to show its narrow, old roads exactly.
"We're on a good path. I guess."
"It's not like we have any other option," Yuki muttered, a grim tugging on her lips as she traced all the neglected stones. "But looking at this place, I'm not sure whether there's any civilisation."
And there was also an H… yes… S and H…
"A ghost town?" Shoko wondered out loud, lighting another cigarette. "That sounds fun."
Utahime, wrapped around her arm, trembling and shivering either from the cold or from fear, furrowed her brow. "Don't say that! This place is terrifying. I would much rather go back to the gas station."
S… hmm… S-s-s-s…
A light pinch to your arm brought you back from your thoughts, and you quickly looked at Shoko. She pushed Utahime towards Yuki, then slowed her pace and led you to the back.
"Are you okay? You're doing this again," she said, hooking her arm under yours.
Grey smoke mixed with the fog, its density only worsening. You didn't even notice she was observing your crazy, private murmurs to yourself all this time, and so a warmth kissed your neck.
"Just tired," you lied, sending her a weak smile. "It's just that…" I feel like I know this place. "I didn't get much sleep. I'm fine."
She pouted, taking another long drag. Her cheeks flushed sweetly beneath the chilly pinching, arms brushed yours. Lying to her felt horrible, nipping little needled into your aching chest.
Yet explaining the sudden fog that filled your mind seemed too difficult. First of all, it was something you wished to unravel yourself – this eerie sensation that tried to guide you towards a memory that warmed your heart with a pleasant flame.
Similar to the one you felt during the dream – hot and tender, with the name of the man who traced the loving kisses down your weeping spine.
The man who felt so familiar yet distant, plaguing your dreams for the past year. His face was never there, as if your mind had simply erased it.
"If you say so," Shoko sighed. "Oh, everyone. There's some board over there!"
All three lighters turned to a washed-green metal sign and… and your heart stopped.
"Silent Hill," Suguru read.
The air felt as if it had suddenly slipped into something heavier, colder, sending a wave of shivers through everyone's spines.
"Silent indeed," Satoru tried to relax the atmosphere, yet his pale cheeks turned cherry-red.
Silent Hill.
A soft, almost inaudible oh fell past your lips, yet everyone turned their heads to peek at your frozen, plagued-by-dread face.
With eyes bulging and lower lip trembling, you shifted your gaze from the old sign and looked farther towards the road. The fogged houses, abandoned and wrecked, looked so familiar. The mill, the church, the weeping willow hanging somewhere on the horizon. Long, slender branches weeping silently as the fog brushed them gently.
Something in your mind unlocked.
A memory of something, someone. And with it, the various sensations washed over you one by one. Dread of a sort, yet mixed with the passion that swelled your heart with the maddening, almost threatening temptation.
"What is it?" Shoko asked, squeezing your arm. "Do you know this place?"
A minute had passed before your short nod made everyone take a deep, whistling breath.
"It's my home," you mumbled, taking a step closer.
You walked slowly along the concrete road, with nothing but fog guiding you farther into the familiar, earthy smell swirling in the chilly air.
"Your home–"
Yuki started, but you quickly interrupted. "I was born here. I left this place five years ago, just before going for graduate school."
"Why?" Utahime tilted her head as everyone passed the old sign and followed you deep into the town.
You shrugged, passing the old university, now looking more deserted than ever. The old, creamy building was coated in dark smoke, as if someone had attempted to burn it.
Some memories, old and eerie, flashed through your mind, but you simply couldn't piece them together into a coherent picture. As if whatever happened here, in the town where you spent over twenty years of your life, was too scarring for your mind to remember.
As if the horrors you went through simply vanished from your memory, as if blotted out by the thick, unremovable marker.
You bit the inside of your cheek, feeling the unpleasant sensation squeezing your heart.
"I don't know," you answered honestly. "My parents told me I had an accident just after finishing my bachelor's degree. I only remember my life after moving cities. Whatever happened here…" you sighed, seeing that the hospital, built of deep red brick, was also half-burnt. "I don't know. They never talked about it."
Suguru and Satoru looked into some old cars standing freely by the road, as if looking for any sign of life.
But it seemed that the city had been abandoned for a long, long time, leaving nothing but the mist and tattered buildings.
"I don't think we'll find anything useful here," Choso sighed, opening another car's door. "I just don't understand why everyone suddenly left. Some of those cars probably still work." He slipped inside and grabbed something. "You see? Someone's purse, with the ID and everything. Why would you leave it behind?"
It was quite clear that none of you wished to be here anymore. That the goosebumps rose on your skins and foggy breaths escaped with a shudder.
The air was slipping into something eerie, wicked – not quite cold, but tingling your spines with the sense that lingering here any longer would do you no good.
"We should go back…" Utahime whispered, cuddling into Shoko's arm. "I don't feel good here."
"Well, why won't we at least visit your old home? Maybe you'll find something to bring back your memories."
"And we also need a few more batteries," Suguru murmured, shaking his slowly fading flashlight. "Let's look around, okay? But please don't walk alone anywhere."
You didn't remember exactly where you lived. But it seemed that your feet did, as after a few minutes you all found yourselves standing beneath the crimson-brick gate of an old apartment complex. No more than five floors, with the weeping windows and wet ivy curling around the empty frames.
Another tingling ran down your spine, as if to let you know it was here. That was the place you called home five years ago. Before you woke up in another city, with hazy memories of a life so strange, your mind simply decided to leave it alone.
A small garden curled around the building. The withered trees hung over the grimy windows; ivy covered the full length of the black metal gate. You pushed it gently, sending a high-pitched creak through the air.
Leaves swirled in the thick mist, falling gently onto the grey earth as you took the first steps inside.
"I don't remember on which floor my apartment was," you murmured, opening the old, crimson door.
Leading you all right into the long building. The fog slipped around you, marking the old, dusty rugs covering the creaking wooden planks. The air inside smelled musty and damp, yet much warmer than the chill spiralling outside. As if the heating was still active, with warmth running through the pipes connecting the abandoned apartments.
Two pairs of stairs led towards different parts of the building, and so you all looked at each other with the what now painting your tensed faces.
"Okay, me, Satoru, Yuki and Choso will go and look for some batter," Suguru said. "You, Shoko and Utahime will try to find your apartment."
"That's not fair. Why is no man coming with us?" Utahime snorted, wrapping her jumper more tightly around her goosebumped shoulders.
Satoru chuckled and slipped, "Because you have Shoko," before a low ouch followed after the brunette hit the back of his head.
"Anyways," Suguru sighed, pulling Satoru to his side. Like a naughty child who always needed a trusted adult around. "Let's meet here in thirty minutes. And please, don't leave this building no matter what. If you get lost in this fog, then it's over."
With brief nods, all of you went your way. You, Shoko and Utahime, climbed the left side, as something deep in your gut, a sense of sorts, led you towards it.
And the truth was that – you didn't know what to expect.
Your memories were slowly returning. Of Brookhaven Hospital, of Rosewater Park just passed, of Heaven's Night Club, which seemed to whisper tricksters' hints, as if wishing you to remember all the evenings you spent there. Drunk and giggly, always hanging on someone's shoulder, never on the one who haunted your dreams.
And the man, whoever he was, seemed to be a piece of the larger puzzle.
His low voice still swirling at the back of your mind. Heavy body pressing against yours, as you lay in the small, cosy room. With the sun or rain or fog slipping through the cracked window, as the seasons outside changed through all within one dream.
Sometimes, he kissed you during winter.
Another time, fucked amid the dark, rainy autumn.
When the feverish heat coated your bodies with the sheen of sweat, he promised his life to you over the deep, summer night. With the grasshoppers peeking through the thin blinds, and your mind registering nothing but the pleasure he bestowed upon your slumbered body.
And the farther you walked into the building, the more you seemed to recognise.
Because the room from your dreams must've been here.
You walked up the second floor, taking careful, quiet steps and checking every apartment with a flashlight, each and every corner.
Sometimes, a mouse crossed your path. A cockroach warmed itself next to the heating radiator, while the yellow lights flickered over the long corridors. There were at least ten apartments per floor – each one you quickly checked, holding your breath as you walked in first.
Because after a while, being here felt almost natural. As if your body consciously remembered your way around. Fingers brushing the familiar handrails, flicking the creamy light buttons, walking the old, wooden stairs that creaked under your feet.
"It looks more like a hotel," Utahime murmured, checking herself in the hallway's dirty mirror.
"Because it was," you confirmed, walking up to the second floor. "But it was too expensive, and developers changed it into an apartment complex."
Shoko hummed, opening the first door of the second floor with a gentle push. "That would explain why it's so easy to get lost in here. And also, why some flats are so tiny."
You checked the second floor, then the third, and only when you went onto the fourth did your breath hitch.
Because at the very end of the corridor, a door was ajar.
With the warm, steady light spilling from the small crack.
The three of you looked at each other, each more scared than the other.
"Don't tell me…" Utahime started, her voice trembling as if she had walked a mile in the snowstorm.
You nodded, biting the inside of your cheek. "I think that's my apartment."
So you walked closer and closer and closer, each step careful and soft, as if you were afraid of awakening whatever resided inside the still-warmed flat.
And when you pushed the wooden door, nothing but a normal, cosy apartment spread before your eyes.
Opening right into the living room, with the sofa still intact and the crimson rugs hugging the clean floor. The kitchen, whose shelves seemed fine and almost full, with a soft buzz from the fridge filling the small space.
The little, round table stood in the middle, with a withered rose hanging low over the burnt candle.
You stepped inside, your eyes sweeping the place as if looking for the hint of life you had left there.
As if trying to see your past self spread on the green sofa. Or looking out at the garden from the balcony, with a cup of tea in your hand.
Maybe dreaming on the soft bed, filling the tiny bedroom fully. Till nothing but a single bedside table slipped neatly between the frame and the wall.
Your fingers brushed the slightly dusty dresser, and you noticed a few dusty pictures.
All of them showing you.
And a–
"Oh, was that your boyfriend?" Utahime gasped, grabbing one of them. "Oh gosh, so handsome!"
And handsome he was.
Much taller than you, with muscles bulging beneath the leather jacket and white T-shirt showing through his broad chest.
Short, raven hair brushed his forehead gently, ending just above the bottle-green eyes. Deep and lowered, looking right at your smiley figure, cuddled to his side.
A smirk tugged at his lips, and only then did you spot a nasty scar running across them.
He was… someone.
Someone dear, someone close, yet someone you should stay away from. The sheer sight of him made your heart swell with both inexplicable fondness and fear.
"I don't know," you muttered, brushing his face with your thumb.
Shoko was going through the search on her own, and when her frightened, trembling voice filled the silent apartment, both you and Utahime quickly made your way to her.
She sat at the kitchen table, with a few old newspapers lying on the wooden surface and her trembling fingers turning through them one by one.
A gentle, yellow light hung over her head, casting a soft glow on her bulging, chestnut eyes and fallen lips.
"I don't know who you were just talking about," she took a deep breath before turning one of the newspapers your way. "But if that's him, then your parents had a good reason to leave this town."
Your eyes traced a row of neatly printed letters. Turning into words of some sort, but the longer you read them, the less sense they made. They puzzled over a piece of something peculiar, almost eerie, that gave you a painful, pulsing headache.
Utahime gasped, covering her mouth with a hand.
Shoko sat frozen, following the changing expressions on your face, as you dropped onto another chair.
She said your name. Whispered, while Utahime placed a hand on your shoulder.
You didn't understand why.
Because the words on the paper, linking into a Five male students and one female bartender killed out of jealousy! still sounded incoherent.
And when your eyes moved onto another newspaper, the world started to swirl.
The jealous boyfriend strikes again – another three lives to mourn.
Kidnapping of the female student – the girl found after a week!
And when your eyes dropped onto the newspaper from five years ago, just a few weeks after you left – your breath hitched.
Murderer on the loose! The man who took the lives of eight male students and kidnapped his girlfriend escapes from jail.
And in each one of the articles, there was the same face.
The one who looked at you with unconditional love, as you nuzzled your cheek into his leather jacket and let the heavy arm wrap around your shoulder.
"Toji Fushiguro," Utahime read before giving you a quick look. "And the girl who was kidnapped…"
You nodded, still staring blankly at the piece of paper. "Yeah. That was me."
And yet you had no memories of the supposed days spent under lock and key.
No, but rather of something warm and fuzzy tickling your skin. Of the warm kisses peppering your neck, thighs, and breasts, as the same man hung over you, wrapping you in a protective embrace.
You couldn't tell, however, whether those were memories of sorts, or rather yet another dream that haunted your mind every single night.
A dream of you loving someone, and him loving you – in an utterly twisted, possessive yet true manner.
"Toji Fushiguro," the name spilt sweetly on your tongue, like a honeyed glaze that stuck to the inside of your cheeks.
Sounding familiar and almost lovable, ripping another large, foggy flake from your memory. And as it fell somewhere into the depths of your mind, the man's face, always hiding behind your arched back, suddenly became clear. The name you whispered in your dreams over and over again, stuck heavy to your throat.
Toji Fushiguro.
A man, a lover, a nightmare.
You bit the inside of your cheek, brushing with a thumb his printed face. Handsome, yet scarred with an intimidating look. Completely different from the voice that guided you sweetly in your dreams.
Before you could open your mouth, a loud, weeping scream filled the whole building, as if it were coming from the deepest, ripest parts of someone's lungs, sending a surge of shivers down your spine.
Shoko immediately stood up and walked towards the ajar door. She peeked through the little crack, as if waiting for another scream to bounce off the dark hallway's walls.
And when it came with the same intensity, you and Utahime joined her.
"It sounded like Yuki," Shoko whispered, lighting the old carpet with a trembling flashlight.
A shuddered breath escaped her throat as she tried to keep the hand steady. But it seemed impossible, with the metallic stench slowly rising above the floors and floating right your way.
"Should we check it?" Utahime asked, trying to hide herself behind the doorframe. "Let's find the rest and just get the hell out of this place. I'm going to start crying any second now.
And she was right, as her lip trembled in fear and fingers clenched Shoko's arm in a deadly grip.
You curled your hands into a fist and took a flashlight from Shoko's hands. "Follow me. There's a hallway linking both sides, we can join them through it."
In a slow, single file, you slipped out of the room, with Shoko gripping your arm and Utahime's muffled cries filling the silent corridor. Each of your steps left a creak as the carpet-clad floors wept under your trembling bodies.
The hallway felt never-ending, leading you through the darkness and ajar rooms – always empty and cold, very different from your still cosy apartment.
Something moved at the end of the corridor. Another weep pinched your spines, and this time, it wasn't Utahime.
All three of you froze in place when a few muffled voices came from a place nearby. Unpleasant whispers, dull sobs, sounding slightly familiar.
"Yuki?" You whispered, waiting a few seconds before calling, "Suguru?"
You took another step, although your two trembling friends made it almost impossible. Utahime didn't try to hide her tears anymore, weeping right into Shoko's hoodie. She, on the other hand, bit her lower lip hard, till a few droplets of crimson blood bubbled on her dry skin.
"Choso?" You whispered again, awaiting any sign that the voices you've just heard were not, in fact, your imagination.
Or something worse – unknown, eerie, befitting the mystery that hugged this town with the innocent, soft fog.
You took a few steps before something grabbed your arm and pulled all three of you into one of the rooms.
"What the–"
But before you could finish, someone's trembling hand covered your lips.
You would recognise that light hair everywhere. With chestnut eyes dancing madly and milky skin dirtied with some sticky liquid.
"S-shh-hh," Yuki whispered, pressing a crimson finger to her lips. "Don't s-say anything, f-fuck…" She quickly looked out the room before closing the door.
Someone gasped, and only then did you notice Choso sitting right next to her. Curled against the wall, with his head between his shoulders and muffled, low cries slipping past his trembling lips.
"Choso…" Shoko inhaled with a hiss before her trembling hand touched his shoulder. "Choso are you okay?"
When he looked up, all three of you froze.
With mouth agape and eyes wide as porcelain plates, he traced the crimson stench trickling down his cut eyebrow. His white shirt turned vermilion, and his lip trembled as he looked at your untouched state.
"So you didn't meet him, huh?" He whispered, grabbing Shoko's wrist. "The m-monster, you didn't see h-him?"
Utahime was already on the verge of tears, so she curled up in the room's dusty corner, her thighs drawn to her chest. Shoko ripped a piece of her T-shirt and pressed it to Choso's bleeding forehead.
"What monster? Where's Satoru and Suguru?" Shoko asked, trying to keep a cool, steady tone.
But you could see the sweat trickling down her creamy neck. Eyes darted between Yuki and Choso, one looking worse than the other.
A loud sob slipped past Yuki's lips before she quickly muffled it with her hand. Choso groaned, banging his head against the wall, trying to hold back the tears that were scratching his eyelids.
"They're gone," he said so quietly, you needed to take a second look at his face.
Shoko placed hands on his cheeks, keeping his head steady. "What do you mean gone?"
He didn't need to say anything, for the deep, miserable sigh that escaped his throat and Yuki's storming sobs were enough.
"They were in another room, looking for those f-fucking batteries, a-and…" Another muffled cry filled the chilly room.
"He got them," Choso finished.
"He?" You asked, curling fingers on your hoodie. "Who's he?"
"I don't know. He's massive, like a fucking monster. Wears a helmet of sorts, but it looks triangular. And carries this, I don't know, long, heavy knife," Choso buried hands in his hair, tugging on them with a painful breath. "He cut them as if they were a fucking slice of meat. Fuck, we barely managed to run away, but he's still somewhere here."
And before you could ask anything else, a loud bang sliced through the long corridor. Something heavy hit the old pipes, and the dull clatter rose into the stale air. Hit after hit, growing steadily closer, as whatever was causing it turned your way.
Yuki and Choso looked at each other with bulging eyes before flying towards the door. Through the small crack, they peeked their heads out for a second before closing it with a thud.
"Everyone hide," Choso ordered, frantically scanning the small room. "His sight isn't the best, but he has a real-fucking-good sense of smell. Hide somewhere here."
Shoko pulled the trembling Utahime from the corner, then moved them both behind the long, dirty curtains.
The deep night had fallen over the abandoned town, bathing the tiny room in darkness as deep as the midnight sky. The fog rose in thick layers, slipping through the cracks in the window sills. The rain lay a thin layer over the tall windows, painting them with cries and weepings, as if wishing to muffle your heavy breaths filling the lonely apartment.
The noise was growing louder as all of you hid in the darkest corners of the room – behind the curtains, deep inside the closet, and under the lone, thin bed.
Yuki and Choso curled together beneath it, while you breathed in the old, musty air of the dresses waiting patiently in the closet. Sweat trickled down your neck, lungs squeezed, head pulsed.
Not in pain, but rather a strange feeling that pinched your heart in such an unsettling manner.
Heavy footsteps echoed through the corridor as someone began kicking in the doors to the apartments one by one. Looking inside for a few minutes before moving to the next, and next, with the dull, metallic noise cutting the vermilion carpet.
A low groan accompanied each step, as if the monster mumbled something under his nose.
A word… a name.
Sounding familiar yet so strange, only when he stood under your door did you recognise that it was indeed a name of yours.
A faint oh god, fell past Utahime's lips before Shoko quickly pressed her hand to shut her up.
Because the moment your room opened – everyone held their breath.
You peered through the little crack in the closet and pressed a hand to your lips. A shaky, teary gasp filled your tiny space as you saw a monster walking inside the room.
At least two metres tall, with shoulders barely fitting through the door frame and a single dirty cloth wrapped around his hips. A large, triangular helmet covered his panting face, while a vein-bulging hand dragged a long knife. Heavy, covered in vermilion liquid dripping onto the floor.
The stench of blood swirled in the air, mingling with a heavy, musky fragrance that tickled your nose. His footsteps shook the floor; beefy arms squeezed through the entrance as he stood in the middle of the room, looking around it at a slow, unhurried pace.
Your name once again fell off his lips, followed by a muffled baby baby baby, stuck in his mind like a mantra. A low, groany voice deepened the density of the aura he spread around himself.
And then… the massive, crimson helmet turned your way.
He took a deep breath, as if following the smell that slipped past the closet's cracked door.
He has some real-fucking-good sense of smell, you remembered Choso's words and gasped.
His steps were slow, rather crooked, as the long blade bent his back in an utterly strange way. The muscular, wide chest was covered in a thin layer of sweat, yet the fragrance smelled rather pleasant.
Familiar.
"Baby," his muffled groan slipped from beneath the helmet.
You knew this voice – low, raspy, lined with the tenderness that contradicted the pulsing dreadfulness it drew beneath your chest.
The same softness that haunted your dreams.
Your hand pressed against the door, eyes following his body as it came closer. And closer, and closer, until the musky smell hit your nostrils much harder as he grabbed the old closet door.
He didn't just open them, but tore them from the hinges with a single pull. Till nothing but a few pieces of wood hung loosely, exposing your small figure curled between the flowery dresses.
"T-To–"
But before you could finish, his fingers curled around your neck.
Pulling you closer, until you needed to stand on your toes to match his eye level. Although it was difficult to tell where his eyes were, as he hauled you right in front of his triangular helmet.
You've never felt such strength. Deathly, monstrous, overpowering you in every sense, with fat fingers gripping your throat.
"T-Toji…" you coughed again, dragging your nails over his beefy forearm. "Toji i-it's me."
His head tilted, as if trying to register your words.
You wriggled beneath his grip, twisted and squirmed, feeling pulsing blood slowly hitting your head.
A moment passed before he set you free, letting you fall back into the closet. But not for long, as a second later his arms curled around your waist and the world suddenly turned upside down.
You were hanging off his shoulder, with head dangling high in the air till you could see nothing but his blade dragged dully across the carpet.
You've noticed Shoko's bulging eyes mingling beneath the crisp moonlight. Yuki's arm trying to wriggle itself free from beneath the bed, until Choso quickly pulled her back in.
Everyone heard the monster whisper your name.
So everyone was ready to leave you be and save their own life.
And for that matter, you didn't mind it. As the long-gone feelings that had stayed locked deep within the confines of your heart suddenly spilt through the tiny cracks.
Your body hung swaying as the monster walked along the corridor. Towards the only apartment that was still brimming with life, as if cared for and tended to for years, waiting for your comeback.
When he passed the entrance and closed the door with a thud, you waited for your feet to touch the floor.
But instead, he dragged you to the bedroom, throwing you onto the soft bed. Your back bounced off the mattress as you tried to squirm into the farthest corner of the room.
He didn't let you go, grabbing your ankle and pulling you back in. Until you gasped, feeling his massive hands hook under your thighs, only to fold you in half.
"Take it off," he mumbled, dragging the end of his metal helmet along your trembling chin. "Take it off, baby."
You bit the inside of your cheek, grabbing the heavy, triangular helmet with both hands. The bloody stench dropped down the floor together with a loud clacker, filling the rain-peppered bedroom.
A soft gasp escaped your lips as the fog covering the face that appeared in your dreams every single night finally melted away your sealed memories.
The face of the only man you have ever loved loomed over your head.
With emerald eyes tracing the softness of your skin, gleaming in the chilly moonlight filtering through the blinds.
You trembled when he lifted his fingers to brush your cheek.
"My baby," he whispered, a low groan hitting you with a blooming warmth. His massive body fully blocked the only moonlight spilling in, bathing you in heat radiating from his chest. "It's been so long since I've lost you."
You didn't know what to do with your hands, but as he nuzzled his face against your breasts, you wrapped them around his neck. Tugging gently at raven hair, damp against his skin.
"Tell me you missed me," his fingers dug deeper into your thighs, as he pressed them against your chest. "Baby, tell me you thought of me this whole time."
But answering him was much more difficult than you expected, with fear and dizziness knotting deep in your neck. Only a soft pant slipped past your lips as he kissed your neck gently, licking the sweaty skin with a groan.
"W-why did you kill them?" you finally asked. "My friends…"
He knew who you were talking about, and chuckled, pulling away slightly, just to get a better view of your lovely face, with softly pouted lips and big eyes, looking up at his massive frame in panic.
"Because they wanted to take you away from me," He grinned. "Why the sad face, baby? Were they someone special for you?"
You bit lower lip, but he quickly pulled it down from between your teeth. "Answer me, baby. Were they someone special?"
"Y-ye–"
But Toji tilted his head, quickly cutting you off. "I would think twice before answering, baby."
You felt his fingers playing with the hem of your trousers. Fat digits, slowly, slowly slipping them off your hips. He used one hand to straighten your knees and roll the tracksuit swiftly, while keeping the other on your belly. Heavy and strong, pressing you into the mattress with a force you had no chance against.
The fear froze you in place as his fingers slipped beneath the hoodie.
"You don't want to make me angry, baby. Remember, some of your friends are still here," he muttered, warm breath tickling your earlobe. "Were the men I killed anyone special to you?"
"N-no," you sighed when one of his fat fingers brushed the hem of your bra. "No t-they weren't."
You wriggled beneath his massive body as he folded it in half again. He lifted your hips off the mattress and pressed himself against you with his full, crushing weight. A soft moan slipped past your lips as he tore your bra with a single pull.
Toji hummed, pressing a soft kiss to your chin. "You should be happy I didn't kill your parents, baby," Teeth bit the soft spot just beneath it, forcing you to tilt your head back. "That I was still in jail when they took my girl away from me."
Fear, panic and anxiety mixed with the waves of pleasure he sent through your body. With fingers pinching the perked, naked nipples, and teeth grazing the soft skin of your neck.
You voluntarily lifted your hands, allowing him to pull off your hoodie in one swift motion. Leaving you bare and sweating – splayed beneath his massive body, with nothing but a bloodstained leather tunic wrapped around his hips.
The panic echoed through your mind, but the body acted as if it longed for the touch that used to make your head spin from pleasure. Willingly working with his fingers, melting softly beneath the tender touch and kisses, his soft lips peppered you with.
"Those men…" You mumbled, recalling his face plastered to all the major news from five years ago. "The kidnapping. I don't remember anything."
Toji pulled away, his squinted eyes observing your face closely. As if looking for any signs of deceitfulness.
"What do you mean?"
You bit the inside of your cheek, when he leaned over your chest, wrapping lips around one of the perked nipples. Sucking it gently, with a tongue swirling the sensitive bud and giving it a soft bite.
"M-my memory, mhm," your eyes fluttered, feeling his hips press against your soaked panties. "T-tell me, what happened here?"
The stench of vermilion blood still covered his skin, painting it in dripping red strokes. The blood of your dearest friends, most surely.
He ripped your drenched panties off, using the flimsy material to wipe himself clean. Letting your lingerie soak the remains of the people you spent your past few years with.
You didn't dare to move. Didn't dare to fight.
Just allowed yourself to melt under his fingers slipping down your belly, towards the clenching, fluttering cunt that drenched your inner thighs with the nasty, sticky juices.
It felt utterly inappropriate. To feel the lustful flame biting your flesh while spreading yourself beneath the man who had killed your friends just a few minutes earlier.
The roll of your hips in desperate waves, tugging harshly at his raven hair sticking to his neck.
But he was the man you, supposedly, loved dearly those years ago, and it was no surprise that your body, heart, and soul pulled you towards him in weeping despair.
"That female bartender," you gasped, as his finger brushed your trembling clit. "T-toji, wait, please tell me–"
"Shhh," he licked the long stripe between your breasts, across your chest, up your neck, until his lips met yours in a messy, metallic kiss. "My pretty girl. You truly don't remember, hm?"
Your head shook, and lungs desperately gasped for air, as he put his massive weight on your body. Till the mattress dipped beneath your back and a few bedsprings pinched your spine.
"You killed her," he whispered, tugging slightly to keep an eye on the surprise twisting your face. "That's right, baby. You killed her because she flirted with me in the club's bathroom. And I only took the blame for you. After all, I never denied killing those eight fuckers, and another victim didn't make much difference."
Another big slab of memory slipped back into your mind.
From years ago, with a girl, tracing kisses up Toji's neck, as he tried to push her away. Her fingers on his bulging jeans, hand wrapping around the biceps.
You, waiting for her at the club's back door, till she walked out alone and had the misfortune of meeting you.
Her head smashed with a heavy stone, as you huffed and puffed over her body, a rage still bubbling in your veins.
And then Toji appeared – always lurking somewhere around, never out of your sight – hugging you from behind. "She made my baby angry, hm?"
You pouted, turning in his embrace. Eyes looking up to meet his, drenched fingers brushing his cheeks. "I didn't like the way she touched you."
He giggled, nuzzling into your soft palm. He kissed it tenderly, allowing a stench of blood to coat his gentle lips. "That's okay, baby. No one can ever take you away from me. I'm forever yours."
The memory slipped into your mind suddenly, almost like an intrusion, sparking a surge of panic and anxiety that filled your heart with a painful throb.
You killed someone.
You killed a woman, only because of your foolish jealousy.
And the man hanging over you took the blame because there was nothing, ever, he wouldn't do for his precious girl.
"I missed you so fucking much," he connected your maws again, pulling your lower lip with a soft groan. His finger scooped the honeyed juice sticking to your clenching folds, as another filthy moan hit your cheeks. "I bet you taste delicious, hm?"
A shuddering cry fell past your lips, as you felt his fat finger trying to squeeze itself through your tight, wet hole. Sticky juices coated his skin like a spiderweb, yet your clenching muscles were too shut to let his finger in.
"Baby, you need to relax," he chuckled, peppering kisses down your chin.
Through neck, breasts, staying a bit longer to suck on your perked nipples, before biting a small roll of your belly and finally kneeling in front of your spread legs.
"I won't be able to fuck you if you won't open up," emerald eyes followed your tightly shut cunt, before moving up to glance at the warmth hitting your embarrassed cheeks. "It's been so long, hm?" his warm breath smooched your trembling clit. "No one has touched you for the past five years, right, baby?"
Your head nodded in panic as a sly smile tugged at Toji's lips. "N-no one, I-I thought I was a virgin…"
And because the past few years of your life had been nothing but a misty memory, you frankly thought of yourself as fully inexperienced in sexual pleasures. With only lustful dreams plaguing your nights, of a man who currently looked up at you from between your spread legs.
"Truly, baby?" he sniffed your leaking cunt, shifting the air with a loud groan. "Because when I kidnapped you, we did nothing but fucked for a whole week," his fat finger once again tried to push through your walls, only to send a crying moan from your throat. "I filled you with so much cum, we were sure you would walk out pregnant," scarred lips finally pressed to your clit, swirling the trembling button with a drenched tongue. "My sweet baby, you were always crying so prettily on my cock. Come on, open yourself for me."
He sucked, licked, and kissed your puffy clit, with soaked fingers slowly stretching your sealed walls. The muscles wrapped around his digit in an almost painful manner, and he hissed, feeling how tight you truly were.
Your back arched from a pleasure washing over your spine, as he swirled his tongue all over your weeping cunt. Sucking gently on a clit, biting the swollen lips, drinking the spilling juices like a madman, till the sweetness of your pussy marked his whole face. Cheeks and chin, both smeared in the sticky cum, as emerald eyes rolled back at the creaminess spilling over his taste buds.
"I missed you so much, my love, my baby," Toji moaned, pulling you closer to his face. One meaty palm fell over your belly, while two fingers of another tried to slip inside your clenching pussy. "You have no fucking idea how angry I was when they took you. Fuck," another groan of his pinched your spine with a trembling pleasure, as your back arched. "I killed them all."
You glanced down at his wet forehead, brushing away a few strands of hair sticking to creamy skin. "Who?"
He groaned when you tugged on his hair. "Everyone. I killed everyone for taking you away from me. For locking me up and letting your parents take you, God knows where."
The abandoned hospital, burnt university, destroyed ranches – he killed them all.
And as much as you wished to feel some sympathy, all the lost memories were slowly flooding your mind.
The days spent in Toji's pleasure, with his maniacal, possessive love, were flooding your mind again. His jealousy and territorial control led to so many unnecessary deaths.
Some of them caused by your hands.
"Good," you suddenly whispered, feeling an overwhelming, blinding pleasure bubbling in your loins. "Mhm, Toji–ah–that's o-okay."
His fat fingers barely slipped inside your cunt, lips worked on your swollen clit with a groan sending tremblings through your sensitive bud. He kissed and licked and sucked your pussy with an almost devoted passion, massive hand pressing your lower belly to the mattress.
You spread your legs farther, allowing his wide shoulders to paint red the insides of your thighs.
"Yeah?" he muttered, slowly looking up. "Are you happy, baby? I punished them all. Just for you."
When his fingers slipped deeper, your head fell back, and a bubbly moan escaped your tightened throat. "F-fuck, am so happy–ahhh."
Your hips rolled against his plastered tongue, chasing the pleasure slowly splashing in your lower belly.
But you didn't want to cum like that. Not on his tongue, when you've already noticed the meaty cock stretching his leather tunic.
And so you placed a foot on his forehead, pushing his starving mouth away. Your sticky juices dripped from his chin, hearts dancing in the emerald eyes, plagued only by the longing and desperation to eat his pretty girl alive.
"Don't test me, baby," he muttered, kissing the sole of your foot. "I've been waiting for you five years. Do you know what it does to a man?"
But you could only smile – slyly, cheekily, as if the girl from five years ago were slowly slipping back into your body – and roll onto your belly. Just to lift your hips and spread your cheeks with one hand.
The droplets of cum oozed from your tight cunt, landing softly on the drenched mattress. The sudden surge of boldness smooched your neck with warm kisses, leaving you bare and trembling right in front of your lover's eyes.
"I don't wish to test you," you muttered, still a bit shyly, avoiding his heavy gaze. "Just please, fuck me already. I want to cum on your cock."
He hummed and stood up. His head almost brushed the ceiling, and his massive body cast a large shadow over your trembling figure. He ripped the leather tunic off his hips with one pull, leaving you completely breathless.
The sudden confidence… suddenly disappeared.
And instead, panic rose in your chest as you saw the hanging monstrosity he had been hiding all this time.
Too heavy to stick to his abdomen, yet stony hard and oozing with musty precum. The bluish veins curled around his fat, pulsing shaft, and the reddened head was ready to burst any second.
Before you could change a position, suddenly feeling that this one felt too intimidating and deep, his hands grabbed your hips and pressed them to his hanging length.
"What happened, baby? You were so confident just a mere seconds ago," Toji chuckled, feeling the heat of your cunt against his cock. "I wanted to stretch you a bit longer, but if you're sure that it's not needed…"
He grabbed pulsing head, drenching it in your juices. It already felt heavy, monstrous, as he smooched your tight entrance with the biting heat that spread all over your swollen pussy.
"N-no, wait–" you tried to push him away, but he quickly pressed you to the mattress with one hand.
A massive palm landed on your back, locking you in one position – with hips high up and nipples brushing the bedding. You begged and wriggled, feeling his massive body tremble with laughter.
"Shhh," he bent over, kissing your spine. "Take a deep breath, baby. You brought it upon yourself."
His massive cock poked on your entrance. Pulsing head squeezing through the tight rim of your muscles, getting itself drenched in your honeyed juices. Your walls squeezed his shaft with a painful pleasure, letting a low groan slip past his lips.
"Toji, you're too big–mmm," a muffled cry hit the pillow, as his hand still kept you pressed to the mattress. "I can't–"
"No, baby," he chuckled, yet a few droplets of sweat bubbled on his forehead. "You can. And you will. I haven't cummed in five fucking years. Do you know how much I've been holding up for you, hm? I hope you came hungry, because today I'll be stuffing you full."
The grip of your cunt was simply maddening, almost tormenting, and if he didn't bite down his lower lips, he would already tear your sweet cunt with a lone thrust. But instead, he slowly pushed in, taking a deep breath as his head fully slipped in.
Thick shaft swabbing your insides, his hand sliding down to feel himself through your belly. Palm pressing the shivering muscles, as he pushed, and pushed, forcing inch by inch into your weeping cunt.
Completely deaf to your sobbing when you tried to pull yourself off his massive cock.
"Toji, please, fuck, that's–ahhh," you attempted to turn your head back, but his hand between your shoulder blades was keeping you in place.
"Just a minute, baby," he hummed, feeling his cock, slide through the tightness of your cunt. Your belly bulged with his thickness, sending another ruffling chuckle through his chest, and a crying moan out of your lips. "I'm almost here. Arch yourself a bit more, hm? Let me hit that sweet spot of yours."
You did as he ordered, hugging the pillow he pressed your face to.
"That's right, my good girl." His fingers opened your pussylips to see the nasty mess coating his length. "Don't tell me you hate it, baby. Your pussy is sucking me in. And I know that if I do this," he suddenly, without a warning, pushed his full length in, drawing a weeping scream from your throat. "You will immediately cum."
And he was right, because the moment his fat, bursting head hit your womb, and fingers pinched your clit – you cummed all over the mattress. Drenching it in crystalline juices, as a wave of pleasure washed over your quivering spine.
He didn't stop. Didn't wait for you to calm down after the first orgasm.
Instead, his thrusts became brutal, almost inhumane, as he pounced on you like a savage monster. With one hand still rolling your clit, he leaned over to lick a filthy strip of your sweat-coated skin. Teeth biting deep into your shoulder, as you cried pitifully, feeling his cock rearrange your insides.
"What's wrong, baby?" He chuckled, noticing a warmth creeping up your neck. "You still want me to pull out?"
Your head shook, teary eyes glancing back at his handsome face. "You're so mean."
Yet your hips started to willingly hit against his, chasing the hefty smooches of his leaking head that swelled your womb. The fat shaft filled you with maddening fullness, hitting all sensitive bumps inside your pussy. Soft walls clamped down on his cock, as if desperately trying to keep it in place.
But Toji's hips were stronger, faster, as he pulled his cock out, till nothing but his tip was still getting sucked by your sweet cunt, only to slam it back and force a moany cry out of your lips.
"Yeah baby, I'm so fucking mean," the sweat glazed his forehead, a few droplets trickling down his massive back. "And I'll be so mean while stuffing your poor belly full. You're not leaving this room until I get you fucking, pregnant."
You moaned, rolling your hips to feel more of his monstrosity brush against your sweet spot. Eyes rolled back and mouth agape, a thread of crystal spit trickling down your chin.
Toji laughed, seeing your fucked-out face drooling into the pillow. "And you're going to thank me for it, right, baby?"
He grabbed a fistful of your hair and gently nodded your head. "Yeah, my sweet girl. You're not leaving my side ever again."
His hips hit you faster, more brutally, making your back twist into a painful arch and your feet curl, as another wave of pleasure already pinched your lower belly.
"Try to run away, and I'll promise you'll never see the sunlight again."
His cock pounded you madly, and you could swear that it somehow, suddenly, swelled. Becoming even thicker, fatter, till your poor womb cried from the brutal madness of his leaking head and fluttering walls tried to stretch under its sudden growth.
"Tell me how much you love me," he ordered, biting gently on your earlobe. "Come on, baby, tell me how much you missed me."
His massive body pressed you into the mattress; air barely slipped past your compressed lungs, yet a muffled, "I love you–ahhh–T-toji I love you s-so much," still forced its way out of your lips.
"I-m going to, mmm, Toji fuck–"
He chuckled, rolling your clit between his fingers. Cock ravishing your pussy brutally, another wave of cum already splashing in your lower belly, as he put all his massive weight onto your poor, trembling body.
The fat shaft sat heavily inside the sweet warmth of your cunt, nuzzling itself deep against the swollen womb.
And within another second – he finally came.
Or likely burst, painting your insides white, with thick, hefty spurts of sticky seed, filling the little belly pouch. Stuffing your womb full, just as he promised, till the cum started leaking past the veiny shaft swallowed fully by your weeping pussy.
Trembles after trembles flooded your spine, as he whispered sweet little nothing to your crying cheeks. Kissing away the salty droplets, before he rolled you over and folded you in half.
"Toji, it hurts," you mumbled, yet still softening from pleasure under his touch.
He didn't need another minute, not even a second, as his cock hardened a moment after seeing your puffy, lovely face.
"What hurts, baby?" He cooed, licking your soft cheeks. "Tell me, what's the matter?"
You pressed your hand to your lower belly, feeling the waves of his cum splashing inside your pulsing womb. "It's too much. Mhmmm, Toji, I can't do it again."
But he simply didn't give you any mind. Knowing how much pleasure you always took from being manhandled like a rag doll. Getting stuffed full, till the nausea hit your throat from the taste of his cum and cunt leaked for whole weeks.
And if you haven't remembered it yet, he simply needs to remind you.
So he did – over and over again. Until you truly became nothing but a doll, liquefying in his beefy arms and weeping sweetly as you rode his massive, gut-turning cock. And although your face was swollen from constant sobbing, your heart swelled with maddening, almost terrifying adoration.
Or a torment, maybe, towards a man whom you should rather hate than care for.
a quick one before the eternal worm devours the aether
gojo satoru x reader | one-shot
✦ pairing: gojo satoru x reader
✦ genre: angst. no comfort. not even a little.
✦ warnings: isolation · slow burn · character death · grief · morally complex reader · space au · passengers au · no happy ending
✦ word count: ~11k
✦ she did not mean to give him anything. she thought she was only leaving.
"Icarus was not failing as he fell, but just coming to the end of his triumph"
— deathconsciousness, have a nice life
✦ i. vacuum ✦
The ship is not beautiful when you are the only one awake in it.
This is the first thing you learn. The Aether — which the brochures called humanity's greatest achievement, which the promotional materials photographed in golden light with smiling faces pressed to observation windows — is not golden when there is no one to reflect it back at you. It is white. It is the specific white of something designed to impress that has nothing left to impress. The corridors hum. The lights adjust to your presence automatically, which means every room announces you — floods bright as you arrive, dims as you leave — and you have learned to hate this, the way the ship tracks you, the way it responds and still cannot give you anything that feels like company.
You woke up on a Tuesday.
You know this because the ship told you. Good morning, the system said, in the pleasant androgynous voice it uses for everything. The date is— and you stopped listening because the date was not the problem. The problem was the corridor stretching in both directions and the specific quality of the silence and the understanding, arriving slowly and then all at once, that something had gone very wrong.
Your pod had malfunctioned.
A fault in the hibernation mechanism — rare, the system said. Deeply unfortunate. And you stood in the corridor in your hibernation clothes and you did the math:
Eighty-nine years.
The math is simple. The math is the worst thing.
Your class level is Bronze. This is something you discover on day two, when the cafeteria on deck seven dispenses your breakfast — a protein bowl that tastes like nothing, grainy and grey and nutritionally sufficient in the way that a thing can be sufficient without being anything else — and the system cheerfully informs you that your daily allotment has been logged.
Daily allotment.
You look at the protein bowl. You eat it. You eat it the next day. And the day after that. You learn the four options available to Bronze class passengers: the protein bowl, the grain porridge, the nutrition bar, and the coffee. The coffee is acceptable. You drink a great deal of it. You eat the protein bowl every morning and you think about your classroom — the way it smelled, chalk and something sweet from the bakery two doors down, the noise of twenty-six eight-year-olds all existing at once — and you think about the colony planet and the schools that will need teachers and the children who will be born into a new gravity and need someone to show them what learning feels like —
You think: I have to survive this.
The bots are not company. You know this the way you know the difference between a photograph of a person and a person — technically similar, fundamentally not. But the silence is very large.
"Good morning," you say, to the service bot on deck seven.
"Good morning," it says. "The usual?"
"Yes," you say.
You talk to the bots. Not because it helps, exactly. But because the sound of your own voice, even unanswered, is better than the hum of the ship filling every silence. You tell the bot on deck seven about your classroom. You tell the navigation bot about the lesson plans you've started writing in the ship's open documents — all of them, every grade, every subject, adaptations for colony conditions you've been researching because you need something to do with your hands, with your mind, with the eighty-nine years —
The bots listen. They do not respond. You keep talking anyway.
By month three you have mapped every corridor your Bronze access permits. By month five you have read every accessible book in the ship's library and started on the technical manuals. By month eight you have learned more about the Aether's propulsion system than you ever wanted to know, and that beyond the Bronze decks there are Gold decks and Platinum decks and something called Founder Class that isn't listed in the public manifest at all — just a blank space where information should be.
By the end of the first year, the silence has a weight and a texture and a specific quality that you know the way you know your own heartbeat.
You are so tired.
Tired in the way that has no practical solution. That lives underneath everything. That accumulates like the distance between here and there.
You are tired of being the only heartbeat awake in a vessel of five thousand sleeping people.
You find him at the end of the first year.
You are not looking for him. You are doing what you do most afternoons — walking the operational levels, the parts of the ship that run the running, because your Bronze access technically doesn't cover these corridors but the maintenance panels respond to a sequence you found in a technical manual and you stopped feeling guilty about that around month four —
The hibernation deck is long and very quiet.
Five thousand pods. Five thousand people sleeping through the distance, through the dark — and you walk among them sometimes because the sound of the environmental systems keeping them alive is the closest thing to the sound of breathing you have found on this ship —
You find him in row forty-seven. You stop walking.
He is — you stop.
He is very beautiful.
This is an objective observation. You are a person who has not seen another face in a year and you are capable of objective observation and the face in pod 4716 is, objectively, the most beautiful thing you have seen on this ship including the stars. Sharp jaw. White hair, strange and striking even in sleep. The specific quality of someone whose face in stillness still suggests movement, intelligence, a mind that doesn't stop even here —
The pod's classification panel reads differently from every other pod you've passed. No class designation. No passenger number. Just:
Gojo Satoru. Aether Founder. Systems Architect.
Priority: ORIGIN.
You don't know what Origin means. You've never seen that designation.
You stand there for a long time. You tell yourself you are just looking.
You come back the next day. And the day after that.
You tell yourself there is no decision being made here, slowly, day by day, in the specific loneliness of someone who has been talking to bots for a year —
On the three-hundred-and-seventy-eighth day, you open his pod.
✦ ii. perihelion ✦
He doesn't wake up gracefully.
You had prepared for this — for the disorientation, the physical difficulty of coming back from that kind of cold. You had not prepared for the sound. The gasping, terrible sound of a person being pulled from very deep water, and then he is upright and coughing and you are there with a glass of water and your heart is doing something very loud in your chest —
"What," he says.
"Oh—" Your voice comes out with exactly the right amount of surprise you had been practicing with. "Oh, thank god — I heard something from this corridor, I thought it was a system malfunction—" You gesture at the pod, at him, at the vague idea of a person who has just unexpectedly woken up. "Are you okay? Do you know where you are?"
He stares at you. His eyes are not quite focusing. He takes the water. He drinks it. He looks around the hibernation bay with the specific expression of someone running a great many calculations at once.
"I'm on the Aether," he says.
"Yes," you say.
"I'm awake." "Yes." "I shouldn't be awake." Not to you — just the fact, stated. The way you'd state a mathematical impossibility. "My pod is the most secure unit on this ship. I designed the failsafe systems for this entire deck. There is no scenario in which—" He stops. Looks at his hands. Looks at you. "Who are you?"
You tell him your name. "What class?" "Bronze," you say.
Something moves across his face. "How long have you been awake?"
You pause for just the right amount of time. "A year," you say. "My pod malfunctioned about a year ago."
The expression that crosses his face is not pity. Something more complicated — faster, more internal, the expression of someone absorbing information and immediately beginning to do something about it.
"A year," he says. "Alone." "Yes." "What have you been eating."
You blink. Of all the questions — "The Bronze cafeteria. Deck seven. Protein bowls, mostly."
His expression does something that you will later recognize as the specific face he makes when someone has told him about a system that is deeply, personally offensive to him.
"Protein bowls," he says flatly. "And coffee," you say. "The coffee is—" "Come with me," he says.
His name is Gojo Satoru and he overrides your class restriction in approximately three seconds.
Not the upper dining hall's door panel — your entire Bronze designation, lifted, replaced with something that doesn't have a name in the public system. He does it from the ship's main console on the operational level, his hands moving across the panels with the ease of someone who doesn't navigate systems so much as speak to them, and when he's done he turns to you and says: "You can go anywhere on the ship now."
You stare at him.
"The class system," he says, and his voice does something — flat, controlled, the control of someone pressing down on something that wants very much to surface — "was not my design. It was my business partner's. Suguru thought a tiered revenue structure would make the mission financially viable. I thought it was obscene. I needed his funding." He looks at the panel. "You've been on this ship for a year eating protein bowls because of a decision I made in a negotiation I've regretted since the day I signed it."
"That's not—" you start. "It's not your fault," he says. "It's not particularly your problem either. But I can fix it so I'm fixing it." He looks at you with those eyes, which are, now that they're focused, an extremely unsettling shade of pale. "Are you hungry?"
You laugh. It comes out slightly broken — the first real laugh in a year, and it sounds like it — and he watches you with an expression you can't read yet and won't be able to read for months.
"Yes," you say. "I'm very hungry." "Good," he says. "I know where the real food is."
He is scared.
You see it underneath the competence, underneath the easy authority of someone who knows every system on this ship — the specific fear of a man who has understood something he cannot fix. His pod should not have malfunctioned. He says this in pieces, over the following days, while he runs diagnostics and checks failsafes and sits in the navigation deck talking to the ship's consciousness with the quiet focused voice he uses when he's thinking hardest —
"Someone tampered with it," he says one morning, over breakfast. Real breakfast, upper level, eggs and coffee that he makes wrong and doesn't know he makes wrong yet.
"Who would—" "Suguru wouldn't." Immediately. Certain. Then, less certain: "Suguru wouldn't." He looks at his coffee. "There are people who didn't want me on this colony. People who thought my research was dangerous. Who thought a neurologist with my access to the colonist population was—" He stops. "It doesn't matter now."
You look at him across the table. The stars move past the window.
"What were you going to do there?" you ask. "On the colony."
He looks up. Something in his face does the thing you will come to know very well — a brightness, brief and real, the light switched on behind the pale eyes — and he tells you.
He tells you about the blank page. About what it means to study a human brain adapting to a new gravitational constant, a new atmospheric composition, the first generation of children born into a different sky. He tells you about the research he's been building toward for twenty years, the thing that required a new planet because Earth had given him everything it had and he needed more variables, more unknowns —
"You needed a place where everything was a question," you say. He looks at you. "Yes," he says. "Exactly that."
"I understand that," you say. "That's why I wanted to teach there. The first children. The ones who won't know any other sky — I wanted to be there when they start asking questions about it."
He is quiet for a moment. "What grade?" he asks. "Eight-year-olds," you say. "Roughly. Whatever that maps to on a new planet."
"Eight-year-olds," he says, in the tone of someone who finds this both baffling and somehow correct. "They're the best age," you say. "Old enough to have real questions. Young enough to still think the answers are magic."
He looks at you for a long moment. "Tell me about your lesson plans," he says.
✦ iii. accretion ✦
He shows you the ship.
This is how it happens — gradually, the way all the most important things happen, in increments so small each one is dismissible. He takes you through the atmospheric processors first, because you ask about the hum — it changes pitch sometimes, you tell him, around what I think is 3am, it drops slightly and then comes back — and his eyes do the thing and he takes you to deck twelve and shows you the seasonal variation cycle, the way the ship mimics Earth's atmospheric rhythms to keep five thousand sleeping bodies calibrated.
"The human body needs rhythm," he explains, his hands moving over the panel. "Even unconscious. Even in hibernation. It needs to know that time is passing in a way it recognizes. Without the cycle the immune response degrades, the circadian architecture collapses—" He glances at you. "Sorry. Too technical?" "No," you say. "Keep going."
He keeps going.
He shows you the navigation deck and the star maps and traces the route with one long finger — the arc between here and there, the specific trajectory that adds two years to the journey — "a radiation belt," he says, "most people didn't notice the adjustment, they were already asleep, but I spent six months calculating the safest path and Suguru tried to override it because the shorter route was cheaper to fuel—" "What did you do?" "I told him I would dismantle the navigation consciousness I'd built if he changed the route." "Would you have?" He looks at you. "No," he says. "But he didn't know that."
You laugh. He watches you laugh the way he's been watching you — the specific quality of his attention when you do something he finds not surprising, exactly. Something more like confirming.
He shows you the observation deck last. You've found it on your own — of course you have, you've mapped every corridor — but you've never been here with someone else, and being here with someone else makes it different. The glass in every direction. The stars at every angle, their positions wrong, shifted by velocity and distance into configurations that have no names yet —
"That one," you say, pointing. "Cygnus," he says. He leans slightly — closer than necessary — following your finger. "Though from this angle it looks more like a question mark."
You look at him instead of the stars. He looks back. Neither of you says anything.
The ship hums around you. Two people awake in a glass room full of unnamed stars —
You look away first.
He gives you access to the medical level on day forty of his waking.
"For safety," he says. "You've been alone on this ship for over a year. You should be able to access the full medical suite." "Satoru," you say, "I'm not—" "It's practical," he says. Not looking at you. "The full access lets you into the emergency systems. Survival equipment. The cryogenic medical preservation units on sub-level four — those are last-resort systems, built for catastrophic injury, they freeze cellular activity to prevent death until proper treatment is available." He pulls up the clearance on the panel. "You should know they're there." "Okay," you say. "Okay," he says.
He doesn't look at you. You don't think about sub-level four again for a long time.
✦ iv. binary ✦
It takes eight months after he wakes up.
You mark it not by a specific moment but by the morning you wake up and realize the guilt has gone quiet. It was there underneath everything for so long — the specific weight of what you did, the five thousand sleeping people and the eighty-nine years and the word selfish applied to yourself every night — and then one morning you reach for it and find only the hum of the ship and the light coming through the porthole and the thought:
He makes coffee wrong. I should tell him.
You tell him. He argues with the specific energy of someone who has never been wrong about anything and finds the possibility philosophically interesting rather than threatening. You argue back. He makes it correctly under protest and takes one sip and says nothing for a moment and then says: "It's marginally better." "It's significantly better," you say. "Marginally," he says.
You feel something so ordinary it almost hurts.
Two years together looks like this:
It looks like breakfast every morning in the upper dining hall, the real food, the coffee argument that never resolves. It looks like him appearing in the observation deck when you're already there and sitting beside you without asking, close enough that your shoulders almost touch, both of you looking at the wrong-angled stars.
It looks like him pulling up star charts and pointing out things that have no names — "this cluster," he says, "doesn't exist in any catalog because no one has seen it from this angle before" — and you say "then we should name it" and he says "that's not how astronomy works" and you say "we're the only people awake in a billion miles, I think we make the rules" and he is quiet for a moment and then he says, "alright. what would you call it?"
You name seventeen stars over two years. He pretends to find this scientifically embarrassing and writes all seventeen names in his notebook.
It looks like him getting sick — a minor thing, a ship-borne virus from the recycled air — and you bringing him tea and sitting in the chair by his bed while he sleeps because you know what it feels like to be alone on this ship with nothing wrong and you won't let him be alone with something wrong. When he wakes up and finds you there he looks at you for a long moment and says nothing, just: "the tea is cold." "I'll make more," you say. "You make it wrong," he says. "I make it correctly," you say. "You have a fever and compromised judgment." He almost smiles.
It looks like learning each other in the specific way you learn things in a small space with nowhere else to go. The way he goes quiet when he's working on something that matters. The way he talks to the ship's consciousness like it's a colleague. The way he looks at the planet on the navigation charts — Kepler-452b, the destination, the blank page — with something that is not quite grief and not quite longing and takes up a shape in his face that you have never asked about because you know what it is.
It looks like him saying your name in the observation deck one evening — just your name, nothing attached to it — and you turning and finding him looking at you with the expression he's been building toward for eight months, the one with nothing performed in it, just him, and him saying:
"I need you to know that whatever happens. Whatever this is. I'm — glad you're here."
The ship hums around you. "Satoru," you say. "You don't have to say anything back," he says quickly. "I just — I needed you to know."
You look at him. At the pale eyes and the white hair and the face that has been the only face on this ship for two years, the face you woke up to find, the face you found in row forty-seven and told yourself you were only looking —
"I'm glad too," you say.
He exhales. The stars move past the window. Not moving. You are moving.
✦ v. redshift ✦
He finds it on a Thursday.
You are in the observation deck when it happens. You feel it — the specific change in the quality of the ship's atmosphere that you've learned to read after two years of being one of two people awake in it — and you sit very still and you wait.
He comes to find you. His face is doing something you've never seen it do — very still, very controlled, the control of someone holding something enormous and not sure they can hold it —
"The bots keep recordings," he says. "Standard liability protocol. I was running a diagnostic and I found — there are recordings of you. From before I woke up." He looks at you. "From when you were deciding."
The observation deck is very quiet.
"You found me on day forty-three of your first year," he says. His voice is very even. Extremely even. "You came back every day for three hundred and thirty-five days. You talked to the bots about it. About finding me. About—" His jaw works. "You planned it."
"Satoru—" "You knew." Still even. "You knew what my classification meant — Origin class, it's in the public addendum if you know where to look — you knew what my work was and what this mission—" "I didn't know what Origin meant," you say. "I found out after. I didn't know who you were when I—" "When you decided." His voice finally does something. Just at the edge. "Does it matter whether you knew my name? You knew I was a person. You knew what you were taking from me."
The stars are in every window. "Yes," you say. "I knew."
The silence after is total.
"I was alone for a year," you say. Quietly. "I'm not telling you that so you'll forgive me. I'm telling you because it's the truth and I owe you the truth." You look at your hands. "I was so alone. And I told myself for three hundred and thirty-five days that I wasn't going to do it. And then I did it. And I'm sorry. I know what it cost you. I know what the colony was supposed to be. I know what your research—"
"Do you." His voice is very quiet now. The quiet is worse than the volume. "I read everything you published," you say. "After I woke you up. Every paper. Every proposal. I know what you were going to do there and I know what I took and I have been sorry every day and it has never been enough and I know that."
Something moves across his face. "You doomed it," he says. "The research. The colony neurological program. The first generation data that would have taken human medicine forward by fifty years. There were people — there are people who don't exist yet — who needed that work." His voice cracks, just slightly, just once. "What were you thinking."
You don't answer.
Because the answer is: I was thinking I couldn't survive one more day.
"I'm sorry," you say. He leaves.
The silence that follows is a different kind. Before, the silence was the ship's — vast and impersonal. Now it has a shape. It occupies the observation deck without him. The breakfast table with one setting. The navigation deck where he works late and you no longer bring coffee.
You give him the space. You do not follow.
You sit in the observation deck and you name the remaining stars alone and you think about sub-level four. About the cryogenic medical preservation units. About what he told you when he gave you the access:
Last-resort systems. They freeze cellular activity to prevent death until proper treatment is available.
You think about it for a long time. You think: he won't miss me. After what I did. He shouldn't. You think: this is going out on my own terms. You think: at least it will be quiet.
✦ vi. event horizon ✦
You leave a message on the ship's system on a Sunday.
Meet me in the upper bar tonight. I know you don't want to. One drink. One conversation. After that I'll leave you alone.
He comes.
He sits across from you with the stars behind him and you pour him a drink — the good whiskey, the real kind — and you pour one for yourself and you look at him.
"I'm not going to ask you to forgive me," you say. "I know you can't. I just wanted to sit with you one more time."
He looks at you for a long moment. "Okay," he says.
You talk. Not about the big things. Just — talk. The way you used to. He tells you about a recalibration he's been running on the navigation system, a minor inefficiency he found that he is fixing because he cannot leave a fixable thing unfixed, and this is so specifically him that something in your chest does something you don't let show. You tell him about the lesson plans — the complete archive, every grade, every subject — and that you've filed them in the ship's system under a public folder.
"All of them?" he says. "All of them," you say. "Someone should use them."
He looks at you. "You would have been extraordinary at it," he says. Quietly. "The teaching."
You look at your glass. "Another?" "Yes," he says.
You pour. His has something extra in it.
You watch his eyes change.
Not immediately — gradually, the way the ship's lights change at the cycle's edge, so slow you could almost miss it. He's mid-sentence about something in the navigation deck when the words start coming slowly. His hand on the glass goes still.
"What—" he says. "I'm sorry," you say. "I know you wouldn't have agreed any other way."
He looks at you. The pale eyes finding you through the fog, through whatever the sedative is doing, and the expression on his face is not angry. Not anymore. Something past anger. Something that has come all the way around to the other side of it —
"You can't," he says. Slow. Careful with the words. "You'll be okay," you say. "The pod is ready. I've been checking the systems for weeks." "You'll be—" He stops. Tries again. "You'll be alone." "I know," you say. "I don't—" His eyes are losing the focus. "I don't want you to be alone." Your throat does something. "Sleep," you say. "It's okay."
His head tips forward. You are already there — your hands on his arms, careful, guiding — and he looks up at you from that low angle with the losing-focus eyes and his mouth tries to form something that might have been your name —
You put your hand on his face. His cheek against your palm. You look at him the way you have been looking at him since day three-hundred-and-seventy-eight, pod 4716 — the specific look of someone who has made a decision so large it has become a kind of peace.
I love you, you think. I'm sorry I woke you up. I'm sorry I couldn't be sorry enough to not do it.
He goes under.
You put him back in his pod yourself. You know every panel — you've been learning them, quietly, for weeks. You run the sequence. You watch the panel cycle through.
Hibernation stable. Estimated wake: arrival at Kepler-452b.
You put your hand on the glass. You take it away.
You write the lesson plans. All of them. Every grade, every subject, every adaptation for colony conditions, margin notes in your handwriting — for the first teachers, for the children who won't know any other sky — and you file them in the ship's system under a public folder where anyone can find them.
You watch every film in the ship's library. You read every book. You learn the names of the seventeen stars you named together, so you won't forget them even though there is no one left to tell.
You write him a letter.
To Satoru.
I'm sorry I woke you up. I know you're probably still angry at me, and I don't mind that. You had every right to be.
I know you're upset about our last drink. I knew you wouldn't agree to go back any other way. I looked for another option for a long time. There wasn't one that I could live with.
Satoru. I really loved you. I know that doesn't fix anything. I know it doesn't give you back the years or the research or the colony the way it was supposed to be. But I loved you and I wanted you to know, because I don't think I ever said it properly and this is the last chance I have to say anything.
After I put you back I did some research. I didn't know, when I found you, that you were THE Satoru Gojo. Founder of the Aether. Architect of everything. The person this mission was built around. If I had known —
I think I still would have woken you up. I'm sorry. I think I still would have. You were so beautiful and I was so tired and I —
Anyway.
I hope you live out your life on the colony planet the way you wanted to. I hope the blank page is everything you needed it to be. I hope you learn everything again.
I know nobody on this ship will remember me. You don't have to either.
I found the preservation units on sub-level four. The ones you told me about when you gave me the access. I understand what they're for now. I'm going to use one. I know it's meant for injury, not for this, but I've been reading the technical specifications for weeks and I think it will work the way I need it to.
I'm not afraid. I've had the stars and I've had you and that's more than I expected when I woke up on that Tuesday.
I named the rest of the stars. All seventeen. They're in the ship's log now. I thought you should know.
Have a nice life, Satoru.
✦ vii. remnant ✦
The planet comes into view on a Wednesday.
Good morning, the ship says. Arrival at Kepler-452b in seventy-two hours.
He lies in the wake-up bay with the fluorescent lights and the specific fog of coming back from that kind of deep and the knowledge already there waiting for him before he is fully conscious —
You're gone.
Around him the bay fills with the noise of five thousand people waking all at once — coughing, confusion, the slow reorientation of bodies returning to themselves — and he lies in the middle of all of it and thinks about a woman who found him in row forty-seven and performed shock very convincingly and brought him coffee made correctly for two years.
He gets up. He finds his quarters. The box is on the desk.
Small. Plain. His name in her handwriting — four months of her handwriting on coffee arguments and navigation notes and the margins of borrowed books, he would know it anywhere —
To Satoru.
He sits down. He reads it. He reads it again.
I think I still would have woken you up. You were so beautiful and I was so tired and I —
He puts the letter down.
He sits while the planet fills the observation windows — blue-green and new and waiting — and outside his door the Aether comes fully alive for the first time in eighty-nine years, five thousand people moving through corridors that were empty for most of his memory of them.
I know nobody on this ship will remember me.
He stands up.
He finds her on sub-level four.
He knew he would. He has known since the letter — the line about the preservation units, the cellular freeze, and the specific tone of someone who has thought very carefully about a thing and made a decision — and he follows the access log to a maintenance corridor he showed her himself, the clearance he gave her himself, and the door he opens himself —
The medical preservation unit is humming. Has been humming, the log tells him, for eighty-seven years and four months.
He opens the display panel. He reads the cellular status. He goes very still.
The unit was not designed for this. She did not know what she was doing — or she knew exactly what she was doing and not what it would mean, which is different — and the cellular preservation is not perfect, it is not what the hibernation pods achieve, but it is —
It is something.
It is the specific something that a man who has spent his life studying what the human body can survive looks at and does not look away from. It is the specific something that a man who has never left a fixable thing unfixed recognizes immediately and with the full force of everything he is —
He looks at her face through the glass. He has looked at this face across breakfast tables and in observation decks and in the last moments before a sedative took him under. He has looked at this face for two years and then lost it and then carried the loss across eighty-nine years of cold dark sleep —
You are so still. The specific stillness of something that is waiting without knowing it is waiting.
He opens the unit. He carries you to the hibernation deck. He finds an Origin class pod — his own specifications, the ones he wrote knowing exactly what they would do — and places her inside with the care of someone who has been thinking about what the body can survive for his entire career and has never wanted the answer more than he does right now.
He programs it himself. He seals it. He puts his hand on the glass.
He straightens. He looks at the planet in the window at the end of the corridor. Blue-green. New. Full of blank pages.
He takes out his notebook. At the top of a fresh page, in the handwriting she knew, he writes:
maybe the next technology I invent brings back —
He doesn't finish the sentence. He closes the notebook. He goes to the colony. He goes to work.
✦ viii. synthesis ✦
you did not mean to give him anything.
you thought you were only leaving.
you named seventeen stars.
they are in the ship's log.
he knows all their names.
have a nice life, satoru.
he intends to.
author's note: hi hello🤍 so I couldn't go to sleep without writing out this fic, its late and probably not proofread but I had to get it out there lol. dead reckoning chapter should be out by the end of this weekend, thank you all so much for your support I truly appreciate it! I'm always open to requests or just random asks!
synopsis. One year before Shinjuku, Gojo Satoru got down on one knee in the snow. He was flustered, fumbling, so desperately in love that he forgot every word he'd rehearsed. You said yes. You kissed him in the falling snow. You thought forever meant forever. — Or: a proposal captured on accident, and the winter that came after.
part 2. please read "Maybe in Another Life" here!
pairing. gojo satoru x f!reader
content & warnings. MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH (canon compliant — shinjuku showdown), angst/NO comfort (i'm sorry), fluff in the first half, proposal, happy tears then REAL tears, blood, death scene, last kiss, snow motif, grief, BRING TISSUES!!!!!!!, you will cry. i'm sorry. i cried too.
word count. 2.9k+
A/N. before u read, i highly suggest playing je te laisserai mots by Patrick Watson, sparks by Coldplay, or The Night We Met by Lord Huron while reading !! ^^ enjoy <3
The snow started falling on a Tuesday.
Not the angry, biting kind of snow that made you want to stay inside forever. This was the soft kind — the kind that drifted down in lazy spirals, catching the streetlight glow like little falling stars. The kind that made the world feel quiet. Made everything feel possible.
You were standing in Satoru's backyard, bundled in one of his coats — the black one that swallowed you whole, the sleeves falling past your fingers, the collar smelling like him. Mint and something warm. Something safe.
"Satoru, it's freezing," you called out, your breath fogging in the air.
He was across the yard, already packing a snowball with suspiciously efficient hands. His blindfold was pushed up into his hair — messy, falling over his forehead — and his cheeks were pink from the cold. He looked young. He looked happy.
"That's the point!" he called back. "Snow fights require snow! And cold! And—"
A snowball hit him square in the chest before he could finish.
He looked down at the white splatter on his dark sweater. Then back up at you. His eyes narrowed.
"Oh, you're dead."
You shrieked and took off running, your boots crunching in the fresh snow. His laughter chased you across the yard — loud, bright, echoing off the trees.
You didn't stand a chance.
He was faster. He was always faster. His arms wrapped around your waist from behind, spinning you around once before both of you tumbled into a snowbank in a tangle of limbs and breathless laughter.
"I win," he announced, hovering over you, his face inches from yours.
"You cheated."
"I played strategically."
"That's not a thing."
"It is when I do it."
Snowflakes were catching in his white hair, melting on his eyelashes. His nose was pink. His lips were parted, still smiling. He was so beautiful it made your chest ache.
"I love you," you whispered.
The smile on his face softened into something quieter. Something real.
"I know," he said, just as soft. "I love you too."
He kissed you then — cold lips, warm heart — and the snow kept falling around you like the world was giving you its blessing.
"Okay, okay, round two," you said, propping your phone against a snow-covered rock. "But this time — this time — I'm going to win."
Satoru raised an eyebrow from across the yard. "You want me to go easy on you?"
"I want you to try."
"Bold words from someone who's already wearing my coat."
"Your coat is my coat now. I stole it fair and square."
He gasped dramatically, one hand over his heart. "The betrayal! The audacity! And on the Lord's day—"
"It's Tuesday."
"—on the Lord's Tuesday!"
You threw a snowball at his face.
He dodged it effortlessly (annoying), packed three of his own in rapid succession (unfair), and the battle began again.
The snowball fight reached its peak quickly. You were laughing so hard your stomach hurt, your cheeks were numb from the cold, and you were winning — or at least, that's what you kept telling yourself.
"Last one!" you called out, ducking behind a snowbank. "I'm getting the final shot!"
Satoru's laughter echoed across the yard. "You can try, sweetheart!"
You scooped up a handful of snow, packed it tight, and grinned to yourself. This was it. The winning shot. He'd never see it coming.
"Sweetheart?"
You paused.
His voice had changed. It wasn't playful anymore. It was... softer. Quieter.
"Can you— can you come here for a second?"
You rolled your eyes, still grinning. "Nice try! You're not tricking me that easily!"
"I'm not— I'm not tricking you. I promise."
Something in his voice made you stop.
Not because he sounded like he was lying. But because he sounded like he was scared. And Gojo Satoru was never scared.
You dropped the snowball.
Slowly — confusion prickling at the back of your mind — you stood up from behind the snowbank and turned around.
And then.
And then.
He was on one knee.
His white hair was messy, falling over his forehead. His cheeks were pink — from the cold, or from something else, you couldn't tell. His hands were shaking. His blindfold was pushed up into his hair, and his eyes — those impossible, endless blue eyes — were looking at you like you were the only thing in the world that mattered.
In his trembling hands was a small velvet box.
Open.
A ring inside.
The snow was falling around him — catching in his hair, melting on his shoulders — and he looked like something out of a dream. Like something too beautiful to be real.
"Satoru?" Your voice came out as a whisper.
"I had a speech planned," he said, and his voice cracked. His voice never cracked. "I practiced it. Like, a lot. Shoko helped. She said it was 'acceptable,' which from her is basically a standing ovation."
Your hands flew to your mouth.
"You forgot the snowball," he continued, rambling now, words tumbling out like he couldn't stop them. "You were about to throw it at me. I saw you packing it. And I thought — I thought, if she throws that snowball, I'm going to lose my nerve. So I called you over. And now you're here. And I'm—"
He swallowed.
His eyes were wet.
"I'm on my knees. In the snow. Asking you to marry me. And I forgot every single word I was supposed to say, because you're standing there in my coat with snow in your hair and you're beautiful and I can't— I can't think. I can't breathe. I can't do anything except—"
He held out the ring.
His hands were shaking so badly.
"I've been planning this for a year," he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. "A whole year. I had spreadsheets. Geto made fun of me. Shoko called me pathetic. Which — fair. But I wanted it to be perfect. I wanted you to know that I didn't just... wake up one day and decide. I've been choosing you. Every day. For so long I can't remember what it felt like not to."
A tear slipped down your cheek.
Then another.
Then you were crying — full-body sobs that shook your shoulders — and you didn't even care. You didn't care that the snow was cold. You didn't care that your nose was running. You didn't care about anything except him.
"Please don't cry," he said, his own voice wobbling. "If you cry, I'm going to cry, and then we're both going to be crying in the snow and the recording is going to be ruined—"
You let out a wet laugh, gesturing vaguely toward the rock. "You're the one who set up the recording!"
"For memories!" he protested. "Not for— not for this—"
"For what? Me saying yes?"
"For you crying! I didn't plan for the crying!"
"You're crying too!"
"I'm emotional! There's a difference!"
You laughed again — a real laugh, wobbly and tearful and so full of love it hurt — and dropped to your knees in front of him, snow soaking through your jeans.
"Yes," you said, cupping his cold face in your hands. "I will marry you. I will be your wife. I will wear your last name and steal your hoodies and wake up next to you every single morning until I'm old and gray and you're still annoyingly pretty."
"I'm not pretty, I'm devastating—"
"Shut up and put the ring on me."
He did.
His hands were still shaking. He almost dropped it twice. You laughed at him. He didn't even care.
When the ring finally settled on your finger — a perfect fit, because of course he'd checked — he let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.
"We're getting married," he said.
"We're getting married."
"I'm going to be your husband."
"You're going to be my husband."
He kissed you then — snow falling around you, your phone still recording on the rock, the whole world quiet and soft and right.
And when he pulled back, you were both crying.
"I love you," he whispered.
"I know."
"Say it back."
"I love you too, Satoru."
Behind you, forgotten in the snow, the snowball you'd dropped was slowly melting.
You didn't need it anymore.
You'd already won.
The snow started falling on a Thursday.
Not the soft kind. Not the kind that made you think of laughter and proposals and warm coats. This was the angry kind — the kind that fell in sheets, driven by wind, stinging your cheeks like tiny shards of glass.
You didn't feel it.
You couldn't feel anything.
Because Satoru was in your arms, and he was dying.
No.
The word echoed in your skull, hollow and useless. A denial that meant nothing. A prayer that wouldn't be answered.
No, no, no, no, no—
His blood was soaking through his clothes, dark and warm against your hands. You pressed down — you pressed so hard — but it kept coming. Kept spilling. Kept leaving him.
"Satoru," you whispered. "Satoru, stay with me. Please."
His eyes were open — those impossible blue eyes, the ones that had looked at you like you were the only real thing in the world. But they were hazy now. Distant. Like he was looking at something you couldn't see.
"Hey," he said, and his voice was so soft. So tired. "You're... you're crying."
He was the one dying and he was worried about your tears.
"Don't," you choked out. "Don't talk. Save your strength."
"I've saved enough strength," he murmured. "I've been saving it... for years. For this."
"Don't."
"You look beautiful." His hand — cold, trembling — reached up to touch your face. His fingers left a trail of red on your cheek. "Even now. Even with... the crying. You're so beautiful."
"Satoru, please—"
"I should have... married you sooner." His lips twitched — almost a smile. "I was scared. Isn't that funny? The strongest... scared of a wedding."
"Stop it. Stop talking like—" Your voice broke. "You're going to be fine. You're going to— the others are coming. Shoko can—"
"She can't fix this."
The words hit you like a physical blow.
"Don't say that."
"You know I don't... lie to you. Not about... important things."
The snow was falling on both of you now — catching in his white hair, melting on his pale skin. He looked like a painting. Like something frozen in time.
"Do you remember," he said, his voice barely a whisper, "the snow... last year...?"
"Stop talking."
"I was so nervous. I forgot... everything. Every word."
"You proposed. That's all that matters."
"I wanted it to be... perfect. For you." His hand found yours — cold fingers intertwining with your bloodstained ones. "Was it... was it perfect?"
"Yes," you sobbed. "It was perfect. You were perfect. Please stay."
"I can't."
"You promised."
His eyes — those beautiful, terrible eyes — found yours one last time. And even now, even like this, they were soft. They were loving.
"I know," he whispered. "I'm sorry."
"Satoru—"
"Tell me... about the snow. Tell me... you remember."
"I remember," you said, your voice cracking. "I remember everything. You were wearing that stupid sweater. You kept fixing your hair. You were so nervous you dropped the ring in the snow and had to dig for it."
"I did not—" A weak laugh. "Okay. I did."
"You called me beautiful. You said you'd been choosing me every day. You said you couldn't remember what it felt like not to."
"Sounded... smoother... in my head."
"It was perfect."
His eyes were drifting. His hand was getting colder.
"Satoru." You gripped his fingers tighter. "Satoru, look at me. Please."
He did.
Barely.
"I love you," you said. "I love you so much. I'm going to say it every day. Every single day. Even when you can't hear me anymore."
"Waste of... good words."
"They're not wasted. They're for you. They're always for you."
His lips curved — just a little — into that soft, private smile he only ever gave you.
"I love you too," he breathed. "My... my wife."
You weren't married. You never got the chance. The wedding was supposed to be in spring — cherry blossoms, not snow. A white dress, not bloodstained hands.
But he called you his wife anyway.
And you let him.
Because you were. You always would be.
"Kiss me?" he asked. Quiet. Hopeful. Like he was asking for something small.
He was asking for a last kiss.
You leaned down — snow falling on his face, on his lips, on his closed eyes — and pressed your mouth to his.
He was cold.
He was so cold.
But his lips moved against yours — weak, fading — and you felt his hand squeeze yours one last time.
"I love you," he didn't say.
"I know," you didn't answer.
When you pulled back, his eyes were closed.
The snow was falling on his face — on his white hair, his pale cheeks, his parted lips.
His hand was limp in yours.
"Satoru?"
Nothing.
"Satoru, wake up."
The wind howled.
The snow kept falling.
And Gojo Satoru — the strongest sorcerer in the world, the man who had grinned in the face of death, the man who had dropped a snowball and forgotten every word of his proposal because you were too beautiful — did not move.
Did not breathe.
Did not open his eyes.
He was gone.
You don't know why you watched it.
It's been three months. Or six. Or a year. You've stopped counting. Time doesn't feel real anymore — not without him.
But tonight, the snow is falling again. Soft. Gentle. The kind that reminds you of him.
And you find yourself scrolling through your phone.
Past the mission reports. Past the concerned texts from Shoko. Past the photos you can't bring yourself to delete.
And then — there it is.
The video.
The one you recorded on that Tuesday, one year before the world ended. Before he ended.
Your thumb hovers over the screen.
"Don't," you tell yourself. "Don't do this to yourself."
You press play.
The video is shaky at first — your phone propped against a rock, the lens speckled with snow. You hear your own voice, distant and laughing: "Okay, round two. But this time — this time — I'm going to win."
And then — him.
Satoru appears in the frame, messy-haired and pink-cheeked, his blindfold pushed up into his white hair. He's grinning — that stupid, brilliant grin that used to make your heart stutter.
"Bold words from someone who's already wearing my coat."
You watch yourself throw a snowball at his face. You watch him dodge it (show-off). You watch the two of you chase each other across the yard, laughing, breathless, alive.
You watch yourself duck behind a snowbank. Hear your own voice: "Last one! I'm getting the final shot!"
You watch him call out: "You can try, sweetheart!"
And then —
His voice changes.
"Sweetheart?"
"Can you— can you come here for a second?"
"Nice try! You're not tricking me that easily!"
"I'm not— I'm not tricking you. I promise."
The video captures it perfectly: the moment the snowball fight stops. The moment your laughter fades. The moment you drop the snowball — you see it fall from your hands, forgotten — and turn around.
And then —
He's on one knee.
The snow is falling around him. His hands are shaking. His voice cracks when he speaks.
"I had a speech planned. I practiced it. Like, a lot. Shoko helped. She said it was 'acceptable,' which from her is basically a standing ovation."
You're crying now. Tears slipping down your cheeks, warm against your cold skin.
"But I forgot it. I forgot every single word. Because you're standing there in my coat with snow in your hair and you're laughing and you're beautiful and I can't— I can't think. I can't breathe."
He opens the ring box.
"I've been planning this for a year. A whole year. I wanted it to be perfect. I wanted you to know that I didn't just... wake up one day and decide. I've been choosing you. Every day. For so long I can't remember what it felt like not to."
You watch yourself say yes.
You watch him put the ring on your finger.
You watch him kiss you in the falling snow.
And you watch — at the very end of the video, just before your phone tips over in the snow — his face.
He's looking at you like you're the sun.
Like you're the only thing keeping him warm.
Like he already knows — even then, even when everything was still possible — that you were the best thing that would ever happen to him.
The video ends.
The screen goes dark.
Outside, the snow keeps falling.
And you press your hand to your chest — right where the ring hangs on a chain beneath your shirt, too precious to put away — and you whisper it.
"I love you too, Satoru."
The wind doesn't answer.
The snow doesn't stop.
But somewhere — somewhere beyond the cold, beyond the dark, beyond the place where the strongest sorcerer in the world took his last breath—
You swear you hear him say it back.
A/N. guys im sorry please dont kill me i am so sorry I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!! i cried writing this 🙁
This one's for everyone who's ever lost someone too soon.
Plagiarism not authorized. Do not feed my work to AI. Feel free to req!! <3
The Victorian-style house looked a bit creepy, but rather cute. Very pinkish. Perfectly serene for your remote job and longing for silence. And everything would be wonderful if not for this little weird doll that looks like you and a small door in the living room, leading to... nowhere? And what about those two guys who lived here sixty years ago?
˖𖦹 ݁˖ pairing: Satosugu x Reader
˖𖦹 ݁˖ content/warnigs: ꒰ Coraline AU :: yandere :: stalking :: Satoru and Suguru have buttons for eyes :: they desperately want you to stay :: horror :: hope it will be a bit creepy :: obsessive behaviours :: possessive behaviour :: dark romance :: heavy smut :: manipulation :: death :: demons :: use of some Coraline conspiracy theories ꒱
˖𖦹 ݁˖ notes: The first chapter will be posted on June 22! And on that day I will also post my main summerween, slasher collection <3
Taglist for this mini series is open! Just let me know in the comments ˖𖦹 ݁˖
My dearest townsfolk! You have no idea how excited I am for this series! It is a part of my Summerween collection, but since my main collection focuses on slashers, I decided to post the Coraline separately!
art by by K05062688 - twitter
button divider by @saradika-graphics
the air in the bedroom was humid and filled with the wet sounds and- “o-oh god,” you moan, muffling your cries into the bed as he pounds into you, hips snapping into you.
“slow down-- mmph fuck…” gripping the sheets with a iron grip as droplets of sweat glide down your forehead and back
your husband leans down and tightens a arm around your neck “ f-fuck shut up and take it” pulling you back against his chest, using his other hand to run down your body and rub your tiny bud-
“take it, take it, fucking take it.” he pants into your ear,kissing down your neck
“wan-- fuck, ‘baby… w-want you to fill me up,” you babble through whines and pornographic moans .
grabbing your hair and tilting your head back “ y-yeah - you like that? ” He whispers in your ear
summary: in a dystopian future where the government enforces arranged marriages to combat plummeting birth rates, you’re assigned a husband—choi yeonjun, a stranger you’ve never met.
warnings: explicit sexual content, soft breeding kink, language, forced marriage system, emotional vulnerability, pregnancy, domestic intimacy, power imbalance due to forced pairing, first time sex, creampie, dirty talk, oral sex,
wc: 19,1k
notes: hi everyone! ✨ so recently this idea popped into my head—i’ve been wanting to write something with an arranged marriage trope but the whole cold ceo x neglected wife thing was starting to feel a bit repetitive, especially since i’ve already written something in that genre (which i still LOVE btw, but i just wanted to try something new) 🥲 then i remembered this anime called koi to uso — it’s about this dystopian world where the government assigns you a partner and yeah… i never finished it because it turned super harem-y and that’s not really my vibe AJSJHSKJJH but the concept really caught my attention, so i thought hmm maybe i should give it a try 🫣
hope you guys enjoy it!! 🫶
everything begins the day you turn twenty.
you wake up to the faint noise of birds outside your window, sunlight filtering through the pale curtains, painting quiet shadows across your bedroom floor. your mother is already in the kitchen, humming lowly, but there’s something off in her tone. a tremble, maybe. or maybe it’s just you. maybe you’re imagining it because today’s the day you have to register.
the day you officially surrender your right to choose who you’ll love.
in this country, love is not a decision. it is a number, an equation, a state-mandated obligation for survival. for years now, the country’s birth rate has been plummeting. desperate to avoid demographic collapse, the government instituted the pairing system: when you turn twenty, your data—genetic markers, temperament, emotional intelligence, compatibility rates—is run through the database. the algorithm does the rest. your match is chosen, your future locked in, and within the year, you are expected to marry and attend compulsory family planning. you have one job: produce offspring.
love is banned unless sanctioned by the state.
you walk into the government building with your hands shaking, your mother squeezing your fingers too tightly, her eyes red-rimmed but dry. she’s been crying in secret, you know. she didn’t want this for you. no one does.
and yet—there is no other choice.
the registration is swift. a photo, a signature, your blood drawn for one final compatibility cross-check. they tell you the letter will arrive in three to five business days. the envelope will be yellow. unmistakable.
“please return home and prepare for assignment.”
you try to keep your days normal after that. university lectures. cafeteria lunches. walking home with your head down, ignoring the couples holding hands across campus, each one with an official barcode tattooed on their ring fingers—a symbol of government approval. your own hand feels heavy just looking at them. branded love. manufactured desire. they never really chose each other.
sometimes you wonder if any of them are happy.
three days later, the yellow envelope is in your mailbox.
you freeze when you see it. fingers trembling, breath caught, skin going cold. the paper almost burns in your hands. you don’t open it right away. you walk straight to your room, lock the door, sit on your bed with your heart racing so violently you think you might throw up. and then, slowly, carefully, you tear the seal.
your eyes skim the top. the official logo of the bureau of demographic affairs. your name, your assigned number. and then:
assigned partner: choi yeonjun. age: 20.
a small, passport-sized photo is attached to the right side of the letter.
you stare.
he’s... beautiful.
cat-like eyes, tilted just enough to make him look a little wild. dark lashes, long and thick. a soft, upturned nose with a gentle slope that suits the elegant structure of his face. lips—full, plush, the kind that look perpetually kiss-bruised even in monochrome. his jaw is sharp but not too much, softened by a slight pout in his mouth. he’s unnervingly symmetrical. there’s a balance to his features, a harmony, like he was designed—crafted—to be attractive.
your throat feels dry.
beneath the photo, there’s a line of text confirming the date of your preliminary meeting—next friday at 2 p.m., government center, family conference room 2B. both sets of parents are expected to attend. your wedding will be planned based on that meeting’s outcome.
you lie back on the bed, letter pressed to your chest, and stare at the ceiling.
it feels... wrong to think this—but he’s attractive. unfairly so. and that terrifies you even more. because you were always taught not to feel. not to dream of fairytales or meet-cutes or falling for someone in the rain. love at first sight is a myth now. it's forbidden. it would disrupt the system. too much emotion, too much unpredictability. and yet—
yet here you are, cheeks warm, heart skipping, staring at the grayscale face of a boy you’re about to marry.
a boy you’ve never met.
friday. 2:00 p.m.government center, family conference room 2B.
you’re early.
your dress is navy, modest, but it hugs your figure in a way you wish it wouldn’t. you didn’t pick it to be pretty—you picked it because it was formal, appropriate. your mother insisted on curling your hair, and your father didn’t speak the entire ride over. only your little brother tried to smile at you, but even his usual mischief was subdued. he kept playing with the sleeves of his hoodie in the backseat, pretending not to be upset.
the building is tall and silent, cold in a way that doesn't come from the air conditioning. it's the sterility of a place that sees life as a series of documents and laws. a place that doesn’t care about dreams.
you sit on one side of the long glass table, your family beside you. your mother keeps wringing a tissue in her lap. your father’s jaw is clenched, his hands crossed tightly. this is the last time they will sit with you like this—before you are someone else's.
and then the door opens.
you hear his voice before you see him. low, warm, laughing quietly at something one of his parents said. and when he walks in, it’s—
it’s hard to breathe.
he’s wearing a black suit that fits too well. slim, tailored, crisp like a page never touched. his hair is pushed back, soft and styled, a few strands falling delicately onto his forehead. and his face—his photo didn’t do him justice. his features move with his expressions, eyes gleaming like obsidian, mouth curved just slightly at the corners as if he’s always on the edge of a smile.
choi yeonjun.
his mother is elegant, her hair in a low twist, expression unreadable. his father looks composed, dignified, already halfway through a handshake with the government official present. this isn’t their first pairing. you remember reading his file—third son. they’ve done this before.
you feel like you’re being auctioned off.
“this is my assigned partner?” yeonjun asks, voice lilting, curious—not judgmental. he’s looking straight at you. and then he bows.
you stand and bow too, polite. your voice stays caught in your throat.
“you’re pretty,” he says softly, once he straightens. “i’m glad.”
it shouldn’t affect you. it shouldn’t. and yet your stomach flutters, just for a second, before you kill the feeling dead.
you don’t say anything. not because you’re rude—but because this isn’t real. this is a performance. this is a sentence.
the government mediator begins to speak, outlining the stages of the arrangement: the preliminary meeting. the planning process. the mandatory cohabitation. the one-year marriage trial before reproduction is expected.
you zone out after a while. your mother is crying again. your father’s voice is hoarse when he answers the legal questions. your little brother won’t look at you. and across from you, yeonjun looks like he’s done this in another life. calm. collected. but not cruel.
then, the mediator clears her throat.
“now, if the parents could please give the pair some time to speak privately. it is customary.”
your mother hesitates. she squeezes your hand until her knuckles turn white. she whispers something—"don’t let them take your heart too, okay?"—and then lets go.
and just like that, you are alone with him.
just the two of you, in a silent room that smells like paper and polished wood.
yeonjun exhales once your families are gone. his shoulders relax a little.
“wow,” he says. “that was intense.”
you nod. your hands are in your lap, clutching the fabric of your dress.
“you don’t talk much, huh?”
you glance up at him. he’s watching you with a soft kind of curiosity. not the kind that pries. more like he’s observing the weather—trying to guess if rain is coming.
“i do,” you say finally, voice quiet. “just... not today.”
he smiles. “that’s fair.”
a pause. he sits across from you again, legs crossed, posture easy, like he’s not under the weight of state surveillance. like this is his decision.
“i know this is strange,” he says. “i’m not gonna pretend it’s not. they pick someone for you, give you a name and a photo, and you’re supposed to start building a future. it's... a lot.”
you say nothing. you’re watching the way his fingers tap on the edge of the table. rhythmical. patient.
“i’m not here to make this harder for you,” he says, gentler now. “i know some people get assigned to assholes. i promise i won’t be one.”
your brows knit together, surprised.
he leans forward, elbows on the table, chin resting in one palm.
“if we have to go through this, we might as well not suffer through it.”
and you look at him then, really look.
his gaze is steady. not forceful. not manipulative. he’s not trying to make you like him. he’s just... honest.
"you’re used to this,” you murmur.
his smile falters. “not really. i’ve just watched my brothers go through it. and i learned what not to do.”
there’s something about the way he says it. like he’s seen what happens when the system doesn’t pair people right. like he knows how love can die before it’s even born.
you swallow, throat tight.
“i didn’t want this,” you admit.
he nods. “me neither.”
silence settles between you again. it’s not awkward. just full. like both of you are trying to breathe in a place with no air.
“but...” he says softly, after a while. “i think you’re interesting. and you’re easy to talk to. even if you don’t say much.”
your cheeks flush, and you hate that you can feel it. he notices, of course. but he doesn’t tease you. he just smiles to himself, quiet and pleased.
“so,” he says, tilting his head. “can i know something real about you? not government data. just... you.”
you blink.
he waits.
slow burn. that’s what this is. he’s not rushing. he’s not playing pretend. he’s offering you a chance to make something human out of something cold.
and even though everything in you is screaming don’t trust it—
you speak.
you tell him a little. not much. just enough.
and he listens. attentively. sincerely.
maybe that’s how it starts. not with a kiss. not with a confession. but with someone sitting across from you, asking who you are when no one’s watching.
two weeks later.
the wedding is on a thursday.
you don’t get a white dress. there’s no music, no flowers. no ceremony beyond a document and a pen and the sterile voices of government officials making sure everything is binding and accounted for.
you wear beige.
yeonjun wears black again. no tie this time. his hair is messier, like he didn’t bother too much. he looks good anyway, like he always does. like someone who never had to try.
the room is almost identical to the one where you met: glass, steel, a flag in the corner.
your mother sobs quietly during the signing. your father doesn’t let go of her hand. your brother tries not to look, but when you lean down to hug him goodbye, he hides his face in your shoulder and mutters a broken, “please don’t forget us.”
and that’s when you finally cry.
not loud. not messy. just silent tears running down your cheeks as you sign the paper that says you no longer belong to them. your name next to yeonjun’s. your status: married. active participant in national repopulation initiative.
they even stamp it. a red seal. final. absolute.
you don't remember the ride to your new shared apartment. only the sound of the car, the blur of the buildings, your hands gripping the hem of your coat in your lap like it’s the only thing tethering you to reality.
yeonjun doesn’t speak for a while. and when he does, it’s soft. careful.
“you don’t have to pretend around me,” he says, eyes on the road. “i know this hurts.”
you don’t answer.
he pulls into a residential complex. government-provided. modern, quiet. two bedrooms, a shared kitchen, everything fully equipped. it smells like fresh paint and new plastic. not like home.
your boxes are already inside. so are his.
the apartment is... neutral. beige walls. grey couch. chrome kitchen. there’s a small balcony, but it faces another building.
you walk into your assigned bedroom and close the door without saying a word.
and to his credit, he doesn’t follow you. not right away.
but now, days pass like fog.
there’s a schedule pinned to the fridge now. a printed routine from the bureau: acclimation period, cohabitation adjustment, health preparation. underlined: mandatory hospital check-up before family planning begins.
you go to the hospital together a week later.
the nurse greets you by your couple ID number.
yeonjun jokes to break the tension—something dumb about feeling like a robot in a factory—and you don’t laugh, but you glance at him sideways. just a little. he notices.
you both go through blood work, fertility testing, infectious disease screening. the nurse asks personal questions. too personal. about cycles and hormone levels and sexual history—
you flinch.
yeonjun speaks for you when you freeze.
“she’s not comfortable,” he says simply. “ask me first.”
his voice is calm, but there's steel beneath it. the nurse adjusts her tone after that.
on the ride home, you stare out the window. he drives with one hand on the wheel, the other tapping his thigh, nervous energy he never shows in his posture. it’s the little things you’re starting to notice.
“you didn’t have to speak for me,” you say, finally.
“i know,” he answers. “but i wanted to.”
and again—there it is.
that kindness you didn’t ask for. that warmth he keeps offering, even though you haven’t given him much back.
nights are the hardest.
you pretend to sleep early, even when your eyes stay open in the dark for hours. the room feels too still, too foreign. the bed smells like the laundry detergent they gave you in the relocation kit. the ceiling fan turns slowly, quietly. your chest feels tight, like grief has found a home inside your ribs and refuses to move out.
sometimes, you press your ear against the bedroom wall. you can’t hear much. just the occasional soft shuffle, the hum of yeonjun’s voice when he speaks on the phone in hushed tones. he never speaks long. never laughs out loud. not anymore.
you miss your mother’s voice echoing from the kitchen, your brother’s heavy footsteps running down the hallway. the scent of warm rice and grilled mackerel. the sound of your father clearing his throat before calling everyone to eat.
now, there’s only silence.
until one night, a knock.
not loud. not urgent. just... present.
“hey,” comes his voice through the door. “you don’t have to open. i just wanted to say... i know this feels like the end of everything, but it isn’t.”
you sit up slowly. your hand hovers near the handle but doesn’t reach it.
“i know we didn’t choose each other,” he continues, voice low and careful, “but maybe that doesn’t mean we can’t choose to be good to each other.”
you swallow. your throat feels raw.
after a pause, your voice comes out in a whisper, hoarse but steady. “okay.”
you don’t open the door. but you walk to it, lean your back against the cool wood. and then—almost imperceptibly—you hear the sound of him lowering himself on the other side. sitting with you. just like that. no pressure. just presence.
you stay like that for a while. breathing the same air, separated by a few centimeters and a thin barrier. but somehow... it feels closer than anything else has in weeks.
you don’t talk more that night. but when you finally slide back into bed, you sleep without crying.
that’s a first.
the next morning, there’s tea waiting on the counter.
he doesn’t say it’s from him. but he’s the only other person here, so you thank him anyway.
a nod. a tiny smile. you sip it, and it’s sweet.
from that night on, something shifts. neither of you says it aloud, but the air is different now.
you start having breakfast together. simple stuff—toast, boiled eggs, fruit. you sit across from each other at the tiny kitchen table and talk about nothing. weather. uni schedules. news updates.
one afternoon, you both arrive home soaked from the sudden rain.
you were out grocery shopping. he met you on the walk back by chance. no umbrella. you ran together. you laughed—really laughed—for the first time since being assigned. your clothes clung to your skin, your breath short from the sprint.
in the elevator, he looks at you and says, a little breathless, “you’re kind of cute when you’re mad at the rain.”
you blink at him. cheeks warm. you don't know what to say.
that night, he passes you a hairdryer through your door.
“so you don’t catch a cold.”
you murmur thanks. he lingers in the hallway a moment, like he wants to say something else. but then he leaves.
the next few nights, he knocks more often. never asks to come in. just talks through the door. sometimes you join him on the floor again, your backs pressed to opposite sides of wood. you start to open up. a little at a time.
one night, just past midnight, you both end up in the kitchen again.
you couldn’t sleep. neither could he. you make tea, he brings a packet of cookies.
the city outside is asleep. your apartment is bathed in soft fridge light.
you find yourselves sitting on the floor, backs to the counter.
he asks, voice low, “did you ever fall in love before all this?”
the question feels heavy. you stare into your cup.
“no,” you answer honestly. “i didn’t let myself. what was the point, if it was forbidden? if we were all going to be assigned anyway?”
he nods slowly. you notice the way his eyes flick toward the window, as if remembering something far away.
“i did,” he says finally.
your heart stirs.
“in high school,” he goes on, “i fell for this girl in my class. she had this ridiculous laugh and used to bring snacks for everyone. i liked her for three years. never told her. i thought... i don’t know. part of me really believed she’d be assigned to me.”
you watch the way his lips twist into something halfway between a smile and a wince.
“i used to daydream about it,” he admits, almost embarrassed. “our names printed together on the envelope. hers next to mine. like it was meant to be.”
you don’t say anything. you let him speak.
“and then she got married last year. to someone else. she posted a photo with her husband and... i laughed. like, really laughed. because it was so stupid. how much hope i’d put into something that was never mine to decide.”
you imagine it. the version of him in a classroom, heart racing every time she turned around. young, hopeful. painfully innocent.
you don’t know her name. you’ll probably never meet her.
but you hate her a little.
you hate that she had his love, his dreams, his belief. something you were too scared to even touch.
and you hate that your chest aches when he says her name without saying it.
“i’m sorry,” you whisper. “that it didn’t work out.”
he looks at you, and there’s something tender in the way his eyes soften. “i’m not,” he says after a beat. “i wouldn’t have met you if it had.”
the silence after that is heavy, electric.
you don’t answer.
but you stay there with him. knees almost touching. the scent of tea between you. eyes a little too full. hearts slightly ajar.
the email arrives quietly, with the mechanical ding of a notification breaking the silence of your morning. it’s nothing dramatic—just a government seal, a cold subject line: YOUTH EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM FOR NEWLYWEDS.
you’re still in your oversized sleep shirt, hair loosely tied up, your fingers wrapped around a warm mug of barley tea as you sit at the small kitchen table. the place smells like toasted bread and laundry detergent. yeonjun walks in a few minutes later, yawning, dressed in sweatpants and a faded university hoodie, a slice of toast clenched between his teeth. he glances over your shoulder to see what you're looking at.
you click the email open. it’s from the ministry of social and familial affairs—another mandatory policy. another thing the government arranges for you, like you’re pieces on a board.
“because both parties are currently enrolled in higher education,” you read aloud softly, “the government will provide access to part-time employment opportunities and offer a financial subsidy for essential living expenses during the first year of marriage.”
you don’t say anything for a long while after that. the words hover in the air, bureaucratic and impersonal. but somehow, they make this life feel more real. more permanent. like you’re not just living in a temporary dream—you’re expected to stay here. build something.
“well,” yeonjun finally says, mouth half-full, “that’s... something. we should check it out later.”
you nod, even though your stomach feels hollow.
you still think about that night. the night he told you about his first love. about how he spent three years loving her in silence, convinced she'd be the one fate would give him. the girl with snacks and a bright laugh. the one who got married last year. not to him.
and no matter how much you tell yourself it’s ridiculous, it still gnaws at you sometimes. there’s this faint, irrational heat in your chest whenever she crosses your mind. you don’t even know what she looks like. you don’t know her name. but something about the way he talked about her—with such tender resignation—makes something sour rise in your throat.
you hate that it lingers.
you hate that it hurts.
that night, the rain starts late.
it begins with a steady tapping against the glass, the kind that would normally soothe you—white noise for your thoughts. but then the wind picks up, howling through the narrow alley between your apartment and the building next door, and you know what’s coming.
the first clap of thunder makes you freeze.
your fingers curl around the blanket. your chest tightens. you try to breathe slowly, like your therapist taught you when you were younger. but then comes another one—louder, deeper. it shakes the walls. it shakes you.
you’ve always hated storms. they made you cry as a child, and when you were too old to crawl into your mother’s bed, you forced your little brother to sleep beside you just so you wouldn’t feel alone.
now you’re in a place that doesn’t smell like your mother’s laundry, that doesn’t hold your brother’s sleepy warmth.
you’re alone again. except you’re not. not really.
you don’t think. you just move.
barefoot, your steps light across the cold floor, you open your bedroom door and cross the hall. you knock on yeonjun’s door twice, already feeling embarrassed, but unable to stop.
he opens almost immediately, wearing a gray t-shirt and sleep-tousled hair. his eyes are soft when they meet yours.
“are you okay?” he asks gently, already understanding.
you hesitate. “can i… stay here tonight?”
there’s a beat of silence. he nods, stepping aside without a word, and gestures for you to come in.
his room is dim, smelling faintly of his cologne and clean linen. it’s warmer than yours. there’s a stack of books by his bed, an open laptop with half-written notes still on the screen, a navy blue hoodie slung over the chair.
he grabs an extra blanket and starts to lay it out on the floor, but you shake your head, already trembling from another rumble of thunder.
“i… don’t want to be alone,” you whisper.
yeonjun pauses. and then, slowly, he walks back toward the bed and lifts the corner of the blanket for you.
you crawl in on one side. he lies down on the other. space between you, but not coldness. not indifference.
“i’ve always been scared of storms,” you murmur into the dark. “when i was little, i’d run to my parents’ room. then i made my little brother stay with me. i thought that when i grew up, i wouldn’t be scared anymore. but i guess… i still am.”
you feel the bed shift as he turns onto his side, facing you. his voice is low, almost a hush.
“nothing’s going to break tonight.”
those five words feel like something heavier than comfort. they feel like a promise. and they make something fragile inside you twist.
you’re quiet for a long time after that. the silence is heavy but not uncomfortable. it’s the kind of silence that lets your heartbeat slow. the kind that feels full of something new—something you don’t have a name for yet.
you fall asleep to the sound of rain and his breathing, even and steady beside you.
and when you wake up in the early morning light, his hand is resting over yours.
you slept like a baby.
it's the first thought you have when you blink your eyes open, bathed in the pale light of morning seeping through the curtains. the room smells like faint detergent and something unmistakably yeonjun—warm cotton and the slightest trace of his cologne. the air is quiet now, no more thunder shaking the walls, no rain tapping restlessly against the windows. and your chest feels… calm.
it surprises you, how rested you feel. how deep your sleep was. how safe.
you remember all those nights with your younger brother, clinging to him as the storm rattled outside, whispering stories or counting sheep until your mind shut down from exhaustion. sleep was never easy back then. it was something you wrestled for, clawed your way toward, until it finally overtook you like mercy. but last night... last night, it came softly. it held you.
and now you realize why.
yeonjun’s arms are around you.
not tightly, not possessively—just gently draped, like he forgot to move in the night, like his body instinctively curved around yours in sleep. one of his hands rests over your wrist, the other loosely against your waist, warm even through the thin fabric of your sleep shirt. and his face is so close, calm and boyish, lips slightly parted, his breath even and soft against your skin.
your heart pounds immediately, panic fluttering low in your stomach—not because you’re scared, but because this is unfamiliar. because you don’t know what to do with this kind of tenderness.
you want to pull away. you should. you really, really should.
but instead you stay.
you stay because there’s something about this moment that feels too fragile to break. something inside you, some cracked place, is being filled just by existing in this quiet closeness. and you realize—though you’ve never wanted to admit it—that you’ve been touch-starved for a long time. that there’s a part of you that’s been aching for connection, for warmth, for someone.
his fingers twitch slightly in his sleep, adjusting against your hip, and your breath catches. the movement is innocent, unconscious—but your skin reacts like it’s been branded. you swallow hard, trying to still the storm inside you, even though the one outside is already gone.
you stay like that for several more minutes, listening to the soft hum of the apartment, watching the way the sunlight plays over his features. you trace the line of his brow with your eyes, the soft curve of his lashes, the shape of his lips. he looks so peaceful like this—unguarded, almost boyish. and for a second, you wonder what he’s dreaming about. if he ever dreamed of something like this.
he stirs eventually, a sleepy sound escaping his throat as he blinks slowly awake. his gaze is unfocused at first, but then it lands on you, and something warm flickers in it.
“…morning,” he mumbles, voice still gravelly from sleep.
“morning,” you whisper back, suddenly aware of how close you are, of how your bodies are still tucked together like pieces of the same story.
neither of you moves.
there’s a pause where his eyes search your face, slow and unreadable. and then, with a sleepy smile tugging at his lips, he lets out a soft breath.
“you didn’t run away in the middle of the night. that’s a good sign.”
you laugh quietly, your cheeks burning. “i slept too well to even think about moving.”
he hums, pleased. “me too. i usually toss around like crazy, but i guess… you were a good influence.”
you want to joke. to deflect. but instead you find yourself whispering something real.
“i felt safe.”
his eyes soften.
you don’t say anything else. you just lie there a while longer, not moving, not rushing. there’s a peace in the way your bodies still fit together, in how neither of you seems quite ready to let go.
but the world, eventually, pulls you back. responsibilities, the clock ticking louder in your head. breakfast. classes. life.
yeonjun stretches lazily and finally pulls back, giving you space without question, his smile sleepy but kind. “i’ll make us coffee.”
you nod, watching him slip out of bed, hair tousled, shirt riding up slightly at the back. you press your hand to where his body had been, still warm, and you sit there a little longer, your thoughts spiraling in slow, confused circles.
because even though last night was about fear and storms… this morning feels like the beginning of something else entirely.
the waiting room smells like antiseptic and soft lavender, a strange combination that doesn’t manage to calm your nerves. you sit side by side with yeonjun on a sleek government-issued bench, your fingers clasped tightly on your lap, trying not to let your knee bounce with the anxiety pressing into your chest.
he seems more composed than you are—back straight, hands relaxed, legs slightly spread in his usual confident posture—but when you glance sideways, you notice how he keeps licking his lips, how his jaw clenches just a little every few seconds.
the appointment with the planning officer had been scheduled right after your wedding—clinical, efficient, emotionless, like everything else in this system. you hadn’t talked about it. hadn’t even wanted to think about it. but now it’s here, and there’s nowhere to hide.
“choi yeonjun. choi y/n,” a nurse calls softly from the doorway, clipboard in hand. “follow me.”
you walk side by side into a white, spotless office where a woman in a pale beige suit greets you from behind a desk. she looks to be in her forties, composed, direct, her nametag reading ms. kang – reproductive health officer.
you sit across from her. the air feels heavier now.
“so,” she begins, smiling in that polite, unyielding way government workers do, “you’re about a month into your union. how’s the adjustment been?”
you blink, unsure how to answer. yeonjun speaks first.
“we’re getting used to it. slowly.”
“good,” she nods, tapping something on her tablet. “you’ve both passed the health screenings, no genetic flags or fertility concerns. so the next step is to begin trials of compatibility-based conception.”
you shift in your seat. trials.
“have you already begun your sexual relationship?” she asks, her tone calm, like she’s asking about the weather.
your breath catches. your eyes widen slightly, and your face goes hot. “uh—no. not yet,” you manage, your voice too soft, almost guilty.
yeonjun straightens a little, eyebrows twitching, his tone sharper. “we’ve only been married a few weeks. there hasn’t been time.”
ms. kang doesn’t flinch. she only nods and types something on her screen. “i see. while it’s natural for some couples to take time, we recommend initiating intimacy soon. it will help establish the rhythm of your connection and allow us to track progress for planning interventions if necessary.”
your ears are burning now. her words play back in your head like static: initiate intimacy, track progress.
you glance at yeonjun without meaning to, and he’s already looking at you—but his expression is unreadable. his jaw is tight again.
“we’ll… take that into consideration,” he says curtly.
the rest of the appointment passes in a blur. you nod and agree to things you barely hear, accept pamphlets on fertility monitoring and hormonal optimization. by the time you walk out of the clinic, your skin feels too tight for your body.
you don’t speak on the way home.
you sit beside him on the train, trying to focus on the passing buildings outside the window, but your thoughts keep circling the same place. the way she said it. the expectation of it. and worse—the idea of it.
because the thing is… you’ve thought about it. even before this meeting, in the quiet moments, in the space between shared breakfasts and brushing past each other in the kitchen, in that night you slept in his arms like you belonged there.
you’ve wondered what his mouth would feel like pressed to your neck.
you’ve wondered how his hands would move if he weren’t just offering comfort.
you’ve wondered how his voice would sound if it wasn’t so composed—if it cracked with want.
but that was all private. safe in your imagination. not something stamped into paperwork. not something tracked by government programs and fertility logs.
and now you can’t not think about it.
when you finally get home, it’s too quiet. you move around each other like magnets unsure if they should attract or repel. you both pretend you’re just tired. that it was just a long day.
but the silence drips between you, thick and unspoken.
you head to your room without a word, tossing the clinic folder on your desk like it burns. you try to sleep. but the image of yeonjun, tense and handsome in the cold clinic light, won’t leave your mind. his voice, defensive. his fingers, twitching on his knee. and most of all, the memory of his arm around your waist from that night—the heat of his skin under your palm.
an hour passes. maybe two.
you shift in bed, restless. you toss the blanket off. put it back on. stare at the ceiling. you hear footsteps in the hall.
a soft knock at your door.
you sit up, heart hammering. “come in.”
yeonjun stands there, messy hair and hoodie half-zipped, eyes unreadable in the dim light. he doesn’t come in right away. just leans against the doorframe and runs a hand through his hair.
“sorry,” he says after a moment. “about earlier. the clinic.”
you nod. “it’s okay.”
he looks at you then, longer, and something flickers in his expression—something caught between curiosity and hesitation.
“they make it sound like it’s supposed to be… mechanical,” he murmurs, crossing the room slowly. “but it’s not, right? it’s not supposed to be.”
your breath catches.
he stops by your bed. close enough for you to see the flutter of his lashes, the nervous line between his brows. close enough that you feel the heat radiating off his body.
you don’t know who moves first. maybe it’s you. maybe it’s both of you at the same time. but suddenly, the space between you disappears.
his hand brushes your cheek, soft and hesitant, and you lean into it without thinking.
“i don’t want it to be just… a task,” he says quietly, voice barely a breath now. “not with you.”
you don’t answer. you just let your forehead rest against his chest, your heart beating too loudly, your breath catching in your throat.
and when he wraps his arms around you again—warm and strong and familiar—you feel the storm rising again.
but this time, it’s not outside.
it’s you. it’s him.
and it’s not fear anymore.
it’s something else entirely.
you don’t kiss that night.
you could’ve. maybe you almost do. there’s a moment where his thumb brushes the corner of your mouth and your eyes lift to meet his, and you feel it—that shift, like the world holds its breath. but then he steps back, gives you a small smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and says goodnight in a voice that’s too soft, too careful.
he leaves your door cracked open behind him. and somehow, that’s worse than closing it.
after that, the tension lingers—thick and quiet like smoke.
in the mornings, you find yourselves together more often than not. your coffee mugs sit side by side now. sometimes you forget whose is whose. he steals sips from yours and you pretend to scowl, but your heart trips every time your fingers brush when you both reach for the sugar at the same time.
you fall into a rhythm. not romantic. not domestic. but something else. something intimate in a quiet way.
when the job placement emails come through, you sit together on the couch, scrolling through them on your shared government-issued tablet. yeonjun lands a spot as an assistant at a community cultural center downtown—flexible hours, reasonable pay. you get placed in a local library, part-time shelving and cataloguing.
it’s not exciting. it’s not your dream. but it’s… stable.
“at least we won’t starve,” yeonjun says one evening, his arm slung lazily over the back of the couch behind you. “thanks, government.”
you snort. “maybe next year they’ll assign us a kid and a dog, too.”
he laughs—really laughs, loud and full—and something about the sound makes your chest ache. it makes you want to say something dumb just to hear it again.
but what sticks with you, what haunts you, is that night after the storm. not because of what happened—because of what didn’t.
and what happened at the clinic. what the officer said. what yeonjun said after.
you think about it too much. think about him too much.
and you think about her.
the girl he loved once. the one he talked about in that quiet, midnight voice, when the rain had softened and you were wrapped in his hoodie like armor.
you remember how his gaze turned distant as he spoke of her, how he confessed that he truly believed she’d be the one assigned to him. that he waited. that he hoped.
how the disappointment burned when he found out she wasn’t.
and you shouldn’t feel anything about it. it’s in the past. he told you that.
but sometimes, when you catch him staring into space or fiddling with that little leather bracelet he always wears, your chest twists a little. and you don’t know why.
you’re not in love.
you’re not supposed to fall in love.
yet it keeps slipping in—quiet and slow. like water through cracks.
one evening, it rains again. not a storm, just a steady drizzle that makes the air smell clean. you’re both tired from work and university, but neither of you wants to be alone in your room.
you sit on the windowsill together, knees touching, sharing a bowl of strawberries yeonjun bought on the way home. the fruit is sweet and cold against your tongue.
“i used to love the rain,” he murmurs, watching it trail down the glass. “when i was a kid, i’d sit on the porch for hours just listening. it felt like… everything else stopped for a while.”
you glance at him. his profile is soft in the dim light, his hair falling slightly over his eyes.
“it used to scare me,” you admit quietly. “storms, i mean. as you may know...”
he smiles without turning to you. “you were scared.”
“yeah.”
there’s a pause.
“you weren’t scared the other night,” he says. “not with me.”
you shrug. “you made it easy not to be.”
the silence that follows is gentle. not awkward. just… full.
“do you think it’s still possible?” he asks suddenly. “to fall for someone? even with all of this?” he gestures vaguely, and you know he means the system, the laws, the matching algorithms and fertility checkups and pre-written life paths.
you don’t answer right away. you don’t know how to.
“i think we’re not supposed to,” you say after a long pause. “but maybe… that doesn’t stop it from happening.”
his eyes find yours then, and they don’t look away.
your heart stumbles.
neither of you speaks. the air feels like it’s crackling again—not with lightning, but with something just as dangerous.
the next night, you fall asleep on the couch together. not planned. not anything.
you were watching something. you don’t even remember what. but you woke up with your head on his chest, his arm wrapped around you, heartbeat steady against your ear.
you don’t move. you can’t move.
it feels too good. too right.
his shirt smells like laundry soap and skin. his fingers shift in his sleep, brushing lightly along your back. it makes you shiver. it makes you think about things you shouldn’t.
you stay there until the sun begins to rise.
you pretend to be asleep when he finally stirs and lifts his head slightly, blinking at your face. you feel the weight of his gaze.
but he doesn’t move either.
and neither do you.
because something’s changing. you both feel it.
you just don’t say it. not yet.
not until it’s too loud to ignore.
and maybe that moment is coming faster than either of you is ready for.
you try not to overthink the moments.
you try.
the accidental sleep on the couch becomes less accidental. the next week, it happens again—this time during a shared late-night study session. you're both exhausted, papers and notebooks strewn across the coffee table, half-finished cups of coffee gone cold.
you wake up tucked under the same blanket, the light off, the tablet blinking low battery on the floor. yeonjun is beside you, his legs tangled with yours, his breathing soft against the crown of your head.
he doesn’t say anything when you open your eyes. he’s already awake, watching you, and when he sees you stir, he whispers a faint “morning” like it’s a secret.
you nod, throat dry. “morning.”
neither of you moves.
and maybe it’s the silence. maybe it’s the way his hand is resting lightly on your hip, not possessive, not bold—just there.or maybe it’s because of the way your name sounds in his voice lately—gentler, more familiar, too intimate for two people who were supposed to be strangers made spouses.
whatever it is, it roots itself deep in your chest, wraps vines around your ribs, and refuses to let go.
but things are still complicated.
you remember the appointment at the family planning center far too clearly. how the sterile walls and uncomfortable chairs felt like a sentence being handed down. the woman at the desk, clipboard in hand, speaking in clinical terms while smiling too much. the questions.
“have you two begun sexual relations yet?”
your body stiffened so fast it hurt. you’d shaken your head, cheeks burning.
“no,” you said, barely above a whisper.
and then yeonjun.
his voice didn’t waver. didn’t shrink. but there was a hint of something—offense, maybe, or just discomfort buried beneath practiced calm.
“not yet.”
not yet.
those words echoed for hours after.
the woman nodded, unbothered, flipping her pen in one hand.
“you should consider beginning soon,” she said, checking off a box. “intimacy will help strengthen the emotional bond and allow us to begin identifying which fertility path will suit your needs. the government recommends couples begin within the first ninety days of union.”
you had never wanted to disappear more.
the walk home was silent.
yeonjun didn’t mention it. you didn’t either.
but it sat between you like a stormcloud, buzzing with electricity, waiting to crack open.
you catch him watching you more after that. not in a bad way. not in a way that makes you feel unsafe. no—it makes you feel too safe, and that’s somehow worse.
he’s careful. always. but he’s still a boy. and you’re still you. and your bodies know things your minds are afraid to say.
the small space you share only makes things more dangerous.
his cologne clings to your pillows. your lotion starts appearing on his arms. he hums the songs you listen to in the shower. he buys your favorite snack without asking.
you start wearing his shirts to sleep without realizing. you only notice the third time it happens—when he stops in the hallway and his eyes dip, linger, then flick back up with a quiet clearing of his throat.
“is that mine?”
you glance down at yourself. it’s an old oversized gray tee. soft. worn. familiar. his scent baked into the fabric like sunlight.
“uh… yeah. sorry. it was just on the chair and—”
“keep it,” he says, not letting you finish. “looks better on you.”
you go to bed that night with your skin buzzing.
and things only build from there.
he starts cooking more, pulling you into the kitchen with an easy “help me” that really means just stand here while i talk to you. you lean on the counter while he cuts vegetables, while he stirs sauces, while he tells you about his classes and how boring statistics is, how he almost fell asleep mid-lecture. you laugh and call him dramatic. he grins and tells you it’s your fault for not waking him up when he left.
“you’re supposed to be my wife now. you have responsibilities.”
he says it like a joke. you laugh like it is one.
but your heart stutters anyway.
one night, it rains again. not a storm, just heavy and constant, soft thunder echoing in the distance. you find yourself awake at midnight again, restless, curled on the couch in the living room with your knees tucked to your chest.
yeonjun finds you there.
he doesn’t say anything—just sits beside you, close but not touching, and watches the rain drip down the windows.
“can’t sleep?” he asks.
you shake your head. “not really.”
“you okay?”
you nod, even though you’re not sure.
the air between you hums. it’s familiar now. this closeness. this heavy, unsaid thing growing slowly between shared silences and sidelong glances.
you lean your head on his shoulder, unsure why. maybe it’s because the rain feels lonelier tonight. maybe it’s because it feels like something is shifting again.
his breath hitches almost imperceptibly, but he doesn’t move away.
“do you think they’re watching us?” you ask softly. “the government, i mean. checking how fast we fall in love. how fast we sleep together.”
he’s quiet for a moment.
“maybe,” he says finally. “but they can’t measure the parts that matter.”
“like what?”
he tilts his head toward yours. “like this.”
you feel the words like fingertips down your spine.
you close your eyes, and his shoulder under your cheek feels like solid ground.
this is the moment where maybe everything could change.
but you don’t kiss. not yet.
you breathe in together.
and for now, that’s enough.
the power cuts out a little after ten. it happens suddenly—an abrupt flicker, followed by darkness swallowing the apartment whole.
you blink, heart skipping, your body already tightening with reflex from the sound, from the silence that follows too quickly.
then the soft sound of rain begins again.
but unlike the last time, this one is gentle. no thunder, no flashes of light through the windows. just rain, steady and calm like fingers tapping against glass. it’s the kind of rain that makes the night feel softer than usual. quieter.
yeonjun lights a candle he keeps in the drawer near the kitchen, its flame swaying in the center of the living room table, casting shadows on the walls. he brings it over to the couch where you sit curled up under a blanket, your knees pressed to your chest, already waiting.
he joins you without asking.
“guess we’ll have to pretend we’re in the 1800s,” he murmurs, glancing at the candle.
you laugh softly. “at least you’re not reading me poetry.”
“don’t tempt me,” he grins.
the silence that follows isn’t uncomfortable. it rarely is now. something about the rain, the flicker of light, the way you’re seated side by side with your shoulders barely touching, it all feels… close.
your gaze drifts to the window, where the raindrops race each other down the glass. and before you can stop yourself, your thoughts start circling again. you’ve been doing that more and more—ever since that night. ever since yeonjun told you about her. the girl he loved in high school. the one he thought would be assigned to him.
you swallow. your chest tightens, not with pain exactly—more like an unfamiliar ache. something raw you haven’t named yet.
“can i ask you something?” you say, voice quiet.
yeonjun hums, eyes still on the candlelight. “of course.”
“i haven’t stopped thinking about her.”
he turns to you, brows faintly furrowed. “who?”
“the girl you were in love with.”
his expression doesn’t change much. he just blinks slowly, watching you. “why?”
you let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding. “i don’t know. maybe because… i’m jealous of her.”
that makes him laugh—soft, surprised. “jealous?”
you nod, heart pounding. “yeah. i guess it’s stupid. but… she got to be your first love. she got all of you when it meant something. and now, i’m just—”
“my wife?” he cuts in, still smiling, trying to lighten the air. “you’re my wife now. kind of a win, don’t you think?”
but you don’t smile back.
you turn to face him, the dim light catching on your lashes, your jaw tight. “it’s not the same,” you say softly. “i know this is supposed to be a marriage, but it doesn’t feel right… hearing about your past like that. it’s not fair. it’s not fair that i have to be the one who came after.”
yeonjun’s smile fades. the playfulness drains from his face, replaced by something heavier. something slower. he looks at you like he’s really seeing you now—like maybe he’s been seeing you all along but didn’t know how close you were to unraveling.
“hey,” he says quietly, voice low and careful. “you’re not after anyone.”
you try to look away, but he catches your chin between two fingers, guiding your eyes back to his.
“she’s the past,” he murmurs. “but you—you’re the present. you’re the one who’s here. who sleeps beside me. who leaves hair ties on the bathroom sink and wears my shirts and steals my side of the bed.”
your lips part, but no sound comes out.
“don’t do that to yourself,” he whispers. “don’t compare. it’s not the same because this is real. and growing. and you—”
he leans closer.
“you make me forget her name.”
you blink, breath catching. the air feels different now. the candlelight flickers between you, but you can barely see it. all you can see is him—his face inches from yours, his voice warm and deep and trembling just enough to make your pulse race.
“yeonjun…”
“can i kiss you?” he breathes.
you nod.
slowly, his hand slides to your jaw, his thumb brushing the soft skin beneath your cheekbone. he closes the space between you inch by inch, giving you time to pull away, but you don’t. you lean in.
when his lips finally meet yours, it’s not fireworks. it’s gravity.
you sink into it, into him, into the warmth and tenderness of it. it’s careful, at first—testing, soft, a question asked in the silence. but then you tilt your head, fingers finding the collar of his shirt, and he answers with a deeper kiss, one that pulls a sound from the back of your throat you didn’t expect.
it’s too much. it’s not enough. it’s everything all at once.
when you finally part, you’re breathless.
he presses his forehead to yours. the candle crackles gently nearby. the rain keeps falling.
“i’m sorry,” you whisper.
“don’t be,” he says, brushing his nose against yours. “i should’ve known. i should’ve said something sooner.”
you shake your head. “no. i needed to feel it. to say it. i think i’ve been holding everything back since this marriage started.”
“me too.”
you both fall quiet again, but this time, it’s different.
you’re not two strangers trying to survive a system anymore.
you’re two people finally reaching across the space that was never meant to last.
and outside, the rain sings soft lullabies to the city, and the candle flickers like a heartbeat, and in his arms, you no longer feel like a second choice.
you feel chosen.
the next morning, something has changed.
it’s subtle. nothing overt. not at first.
you wake up earlier than him and find yourself just… watching him for a moment. the soft rise and fall of his chest. the curve of his lashes against his cheek. how he frowns slightly in his sleep, like he’s still half in a dream. you should look away—you’ve always looked away before—but now your eyes linger.
when he stirs, blinking against the light, he sees you watching. he doesn’t flinch. he just smiles, sleep-warm and real, and your heart does something uncomfortable and sweet in your chest.
“morning,” he murmurs, voice rough.
“morning,” you whisper back, your voice catching a little.
he reaches out lazily, his fingers brushing your arm beneath the blanket, and even though it’s nothing, just that, your breath hitches. you tell yourself it’s the closeness. the aftermath of the kiss. but the warmth in your chest says something else.
and then the day goes on—but not quite the same.
at breakfast, he sits closer than usual. your elbows touch when you both reach for the sugar. he doesn’t apologize like before. doesn’t pull away. just grins and bumps your shoulder on purpose this time.
you roll your eyes. “you’re annoying.”
“you kissed me last night,” he says, way too casually. “you don’t get to call me annoying anymore.”
“you asked first.”
“still counts.”
the banter is light, teasing, familiar. but under it, there’s a new current. an awareness. every glance feels heavier. every touch lingers a second longer than it should. when he hands you a dish, his fingers brush yours, and neither of you lets go right away.
the silence between you becomes something else entirely. no longer filled with obligation or awkwardness. now it feels like a question that neither of you is brave enough to answer out loud.
until it happens again. in the kitchen, late at night, as you’re washing dishes and he comes up behind you. at first it’s innocent—he says something dumb, you laugh—but then his hand finds the small of your back, and you freeze, not because it’s wrong but because it’s not. it feels too good. too natural.
you turn, slowly, water dripping from your hands, and he’s already looking at you like he wants to kiss you again.
he doesn’t. not yet. he just leans in and gently tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. his fingers graze your cheek, his eyes drop to your lips, and then—he walks away.
you stand there for a moment, heart pounding, wondering how the hell he keeps doing this to you.
a few days later, you’re invited to visit your family.
it’s your first time back since the marriage. your parents had called to check in, of course, had even video called once or twice, but nothing replaces being home. your mother’s cooking. your father’s quiet warmth. your brother’s chaotic energy.
the moment you walk through the door, your mom pulls you into a hug so tight you almost cry again. your dad claps yeonjun’s shoulder, awkward but trying. your brother, now twelve, looks like he’s grown taller.
he eyes yeonjun up and down, squints a little, then smirks at you.
“so, are you pregnant yet?”
you freeze.
your dad chokes on his tea. your mother lets out a gasp so sharp it could cut metal. yeonjun’s eyes go wide—like someone just yanked the floor out from under him.
“yoonho!” your mom yells, already reaching for the nearest dish towel like it’s a weapon. “you can’t ask that!”
“what?” your brother yells as he runs from her, laughing like a maniac. “i just wanted to know if the government system’s working!”
your dad is still coughing. you’re standing there redder than a tomato. burning with mortification.
yeonjun, after a stunned beat, laughs. really laughs. full chest, head-tilted-back laughter that’s so contagious you can’t help but giggle through your hands.
“don’t encourage him,” you say, smacking his arm lightly.
he grins down at you, eyes sparkling. “i’m sorry, that was—really something.”
“he’s an idiot,” you mutter, still mortified.
“he’s your idiot,” he says, voice softer now.
you glance up at him and smile, something warm spreading in your chest. it surprises you, just how much that smile feels like home.
and even after the chaos settles, even after your mom manages to drag your brother back by the collar to apologize properly, even when you sit around the table laughing and eating and telling stories—there’s a small, secret current running beneath it all.
the way yeonjun’s hand grazes your lower back when he leans past you to grab a dish. the way you lean into him just slightly when your mom starts talking about your childhood, and he listens like he wants to know everything.
and when the night ends, and you both return to your apartment, it’s quieter—but it’s a good quiet. that kind of peace you only feel when someone’s truly, finally getting under your skin.
the drive back home is quiet, but not in a bad way. it’s the kind of silence that lingers after too much laughter, after too much emotion crammed into too little time. the windows are fogged slightly from your breaths, and the hum of the road is the only sound between you. outside, the city lights blur in soft halos, the streets wet from the rain earlier in the day, reflecting neon and moonlight.
you’re leaning against the car door, eyes heavy, body full from dinner, from memories, from everything. your family had insisted you stay the night, but you knew it would’ve made leaving harder. too emotional. too permanent. so you thanked them, smiled through the tightness in your throat, and left.
and now, here you are, beside him. yeonjun’s one hand is on the wheel, the other resting between the seats, fingers tapping idly against the console. you glance at it once. then again. his profile is calm, a faint curve to his lips like he’s still smiling at your brother’s chaos.
you break the silence first.
“sorry about today… my family can be a lot.”
he lets out a soft chuckle. “i liked it.”
you turn to him, a little surprised.
“really?”
he nods. “they’re… warm. chaotic, yeah, but it felt real. like they love you so much they don’t even try to hide it.”
you press your lips together, looking down at your lap, suddenly blinking back something stinging in your eyes. you weren’t expecting that answer. or maybe you were, but not the way it made your chest ache so gently.
“thanks,” you whisper.
you don’t realize you’re still staring at him until he speaks again, this time softer.
“and your brother…” he smirks a little. “i can’t believe he said that.”
you groan, hiding your face in your hands. “please don’t remind me.”
“i’m serious,” he laughs, and then looks over at you, his gaze lingering longer this time, “you were so red.”
“because it was embarrassing,” you shoot back, but your voice is lighter, warm with the trace of a smile.
his eyes flick down to your lips.
“you’re cute when you blush,” he murmurs, and it’s so quiet you’re not even sure he meant to say it out loud.
your breath catches. your heart stutters. suddenly the space between you feels smaller. the console is no longer an arm’s length—it’s a breath. the air is thicker. hotter.
you look at him, really look at him—his jaw sharp in the glow of passing streetlamps, the tendons in his neck tense, his grip on the wheel a little tighter now. he looks back, just briefly, but it’s enough. something electric pulses between you.
and then he pulls over.
not far from your building, not quite home yet—but enough to be alone. enough to pause. the engine hums low, a steady heartbeat in the silence. he doesn’t look at you right away, just stares forward, fingers tightening, loosening, tightening again on the wheel.
you feel your pulse in your throat.
“i…” he starts, then stops. he turns to you, eyes darker than before. clearer. “can i ask you something?”
you nod, heart racing.
“why did it bother you?” he asks quietly. “about the girl i told you about.”
you stare at him. that familiar heat returns to your chest, crawling up your neck. you bite the inside of your cheek before answering.
“i don’t know,” you lie at first. but then, you sigh. “maybe because it was real for you. maybe because… you had someone you wanted, once. and i never did. and now i’m supposed to just… live with that. pretend like i’m not wondering if she would’ve made you happier.”
he watches you for a long moment, expression unreadable. then, finally, he leans a little closer, voice low.
“do you think i’m not happy?”
your throat dries.
“are you?” you whisper.
he exhales slowly, shaking his head like he can’t believe he’s about to do this. and then he shifts, fully turning toward you. his fingers reach up, brushing lightly against your chin, lifting your face to his.
“you’re not her,” he says. “you’re you.”
and then, without waiting, without asking again—he kisses you.
it’s not urgent. not rough. it’s slow, deliberate, tender with something sharp hidden beneath. like he’s been holding it back for too long and now that it’s happening, he’s pouring everything into it. his hand cups your jaw, thumb stroking your cheek. your lips part before you even realize, and his tongue grazes yours, soft, testing, like he’s still asking if this is okay even now.
you melt into it.
your hand slides up his arm, gripping his bicep, grounding yourself as heat spreads through your veins. your bodies don’t move much, still confined by seatbelts and space, but it’s intimate. intense. and when he finally pulls back, breathing harder than before, he rests his forehead against yours.
“you’re not her,” he whispers again. “and thank god for that.”
you sit there, breaths mingling, skin flushed, hearts racing in tandem. your hand is still on his arm. his thumb is still tracing your cheek.
and this time, neither of you says a word. because you both know—something just changed again.
you’re not lovers. not yet.
but your hands brush again on the way to bed. he holds your gaze a little longer. and when you lie down, back to back, you find yourself pressing closer, just enough that your spine feels the heat of his chest.
you fall asleep like that.
and neither of you says a word.
you both had an appointment early in the morning. the ministry of civil labor had sent a formal notice last week, listing the available part-time positions for couples still enrolled in university, and now you were seated across from an administrative worker who barely looked up from her screen as she explained the contracts. yeonjun was placed in a logistics department for a government-run supply chain—something with inventory and system inputs. you were assigned to a small local archival center where they'd digitize old birth and marriage records, which felt ironic in a way that made your stomach twist.
“you’ll receive your first schedule by the end of the week,” the woman said without emotion, and you both nodded, signing at the bottom of the page, pens scratching the paper in tandem.
walking out of the building, yeonjun nudged your shoulder with his and whispered, “look at us. signing contracts like a real married couple.” and you rolled your eyes, but couldn’t help the smile pulling at your lips.
“you mean we weren’t real before?” you asked, raising a brow.
he smirked, unlocking the car and opening your door. “we were married on paper. now we’re married... and employed.”
you both laughed, climbing into the vehicle, and the warmth lingered even after the engine hummed to life. it was a quiet kind of happiness, soft and simple, like the feeling of your bare thighs against the leather seat, like the sun warming the dashboard. you wore a dress that day—casual, nothing too fancy, but it clung lightly to your frame in the breeze when you walked out earlier, and you caught the way yeonjun had looked at you from the corner of your eye. not blatant. just... noticing.
the road was mostly empty. the hum of tires on pavement filled the silence as the laughter faded, replaced by something thicker. something weightier.
at a red light, he stopped the car smoothly, one hand still on the steering wheel. the other lifted, slowly, casually, and without looking at you, he placed it on your thigh.
he didn’t squeeze. he didn’t slide his fingers higher. just let his palm rest there, warm and firm, like it belonged.
your breath hitched.
you tried not to move, tried not to tense up, but the sensation crawled up your spine like wildfire. it was such a simple touch, so ordinary, but it landed somewhere deep in your belly—hot, twisting, coiling. your skin tingled where his fingers barely pressed into the flesh, and your thighs felt suddenly, achingly aware of how little separated them from him.
he said nothing.
neither did you.
but your body betrayed you—the way your chest rose a little faster, the way your knees shifted slightly, as if trying to find an answer to the question that touch had asked.
the light turned green.
he drove on.
his hand didn’t move.
the silence stretched, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. it was charged. heavy with something that neither of you dared name yet.
you exhaled, slow and shaky, and he glanced at you briefly, lips curving—not into a smirk, but something softer. something fond. he rubbed his thumb in a slow arc, barely there, and your fingers curled around the hem of your dress to keep from shaking.
by the time you got home, the tension had woven itself into your skin like a second layer. you both stepped out of the car and walked toward the apartment quietly, but the air buzzed with every step.
inside, the routine resumed—shoes off, bags down, water poured into glasses—but your thoughts were nowhere near the surface. every time he passed behind you, you felt his presence more than you saw him. every brush of his hand, every graze of his arm felt like a firestarter.
you stood near the sink, rinsing the cups, when he came up behind you. didn’t touch you. just stood close enough that you felt the heat of his chest on your back, close enough that your breathing stuttered.
“need help?” he murmured, voice low, mouth near your ear.
you shook your head, but your body leaned slightly into him anyway. traitorously.
his hands didn’t move—not yet—but his presence surrounded you, a quiet pressure that built with every second. you turned your head slightly to glance at him, and the proximity was enough to make you both pause. your lips weren’t touching, but they could’ve. your noses almost brushed.
and then he reached for the cup beside you, taking it slowly, deliberately, his fingers brushing yours. your breath caught again.
“thanks,” he said, voice still low.
you watched him walk away, your hands trembling under the water, and you knew—tonight, you wouldn’t be able to pretend this tension didn’t exist. it was burning its way into your bones.
that night, everything felt like it was humming. the silence between you wasn’t really silence—it was full of what hadn’t been said, of what hadn’t been done but nearly was. the ghost of yeonjun’s hand on your thigh still lingered, burned into your skin. your legs still tingled from the pressure, the weight, the heat. and when he brushed past you in the kitchen again after dinner, it felt deliberate. or maybe you just wanted it to be.
your heart hadn’t settled since the drive home.
later, after you’d both changed into your sleep clothes, you met again in the hallway, the light above you casting a golden hue that made his skin look warm and soft. you paused at the same time, eyes locking. your breath caught in your throat, because he wasn’t just looking at you—he was seeing you. seeing the hem of your shirt, the way it clung slightly to your waist. seeing the bare stretch of your legs, your collarbone, the fine line of your neck.
you thought he’d say something.
he didn’t.
he just stepped past you, heading to the shared living room like usual. the storm from earlier had passed, leaving a cool breeze in its wake. you followed, drawn to him like always. you both sat on the couch, feet tucked beneath you, shoulders close but not quite touching. it was dark. the power had gone out temporarily again, only the soft blue emergency lights casting faint shadows across his face.
“you’re quiet,” you said, voice barely above a whisper.
“just thinking,” he replied, his tone low, almost distant.
you turned your head toward him. “about what?”
he hesitated. “about earlier... the car. and how it felt.”
you sucked in a soft breath. “me too.”
silence again.
and then, slowly, as if guided by instinct, he reached over and touched your hand. fingers brushing the back of yours. the contact was small. barely anything. but it was enough to pull the air from your lungs. you turned your palm and laced your fingers with his.
it felt dangerous.
he looked at your joined hands like he didn’t recognize his own, and then back at you—his eyes darker than usual, hooded, like he was holding back a tide. you weren’t sure who moved first. maybe it was him. maybe it was you. but one second you were sitting apart, and the next your bodies were angled toward each other, your knees brushing, your breaths tangled. his hand cupped your jaw gently, fingers trembling against your skin, and he leaned in, close enough that his lips nearly grazed yours.
your pulse roared in your ears.
his mouth touched yours like a whisper—featherlight, testing.
you responded before you could think, lips parting for him, heat blooming low in your stomach like wildfire. the kiss deepened slowly, wet and slow and dizzying. his tongue brushed yours, cautious at first, then more certain, like he needed to taste you, like he was starved. your hand curled into his shirt, tugging him closer, and he groaned softly into your mouth, deep and breathless.
his hand slid down your side, fingers skating over the thin fabric of your sleep shirt, and you gasped when they reached your hip. he pulled you into his lap, your thighs straddling him, bodies pressed together too close to ignore. the heat between you crackled—your hips shifted without thinking, and you felt the hardness of him, solid and hot beneath you.
his lips broke from yours for a second, his breathing rough. “fuck... y/n...”
his hands gripped your thighs, sliding up, thumbs brushing the edge of your underwear. you whimpered, pressing closer, grinding down gently. it was heady. dizzying. perfect.
and then—
his phone rang.
the sound shattered the moment like glass.
you both froze.
you were on his lap, panting, trembling, your lips swollen from the kiss, your heart pounding like a war drum. he didn’t move for a second. then he cursed under his breath and gently lifted you off him, muttering a strained apology as he reached for the phone. his voice cracked when he answered, trying to sound normal.
you stood there, stunned, breathing hard, still tasting him on your tongue.
after the call, which only lasted a few seconds, he didn’t look at you.
“i think... i’ll sleep in my room tonight,” he said quietly.
you blinked. “oh.”
he didn’t explain.
he just walked away.
and something cold settled in your chest.
you crawled into your bed alone, wrapping the blanket around yourself tightly, but you couldn’t sleep. not when you still felt the ghost of his hands on your body. not when your lips were still tingling from the kiss. not when he had looked at you like he needed you, and then walked away without a word.
you turned over. again. again. and again. your heart ached with confusion. was it too much? did he regret it? had you done something wrong?
you couldn’t take it anymore.
you got up, padded down the hall to his room, and raised your fist to knock.
but then you froze.
because you heard it.
soft, muffled sounds, irregular breathing. your eyes widened.
a low groan, deep and drawn out.
then a quiet, wet sound—rhythmic, unmistakable.
your breath caught.
you didn’t mean to listen. but you couldn’t move.
then, you heard it.
“y/n...”
your name, moaned out—quiet but desperate. raw. like a confession.
your knees weakened.
another moan, louder this time, almost a whimper.
and then—your name again, breathless, almost broken, followed by the sound of skin slapping softly against skin, faster now.
he was close.
he was touching himself.
thinking of you.
you pressed your palm to your mouth, trying not to make a sound, cheeks burning, body trembling. you shouldn’t be here. you shouldn’t hear this. but your legs wouldn’t move. your breath came in shaky gasps, your heart thundering as heat rushed between your thighs, pooling heavy and hot.
you didn’t know what this meant.
but you knew one thing.
he wanted you.
and now, you didn’t think you could ever look at him the same again.
you didn’t mean to lean closer.
you didn’t mean to press your ear too tightly against the door.
but your balance faltered—just a second too long standing on your toes, your weight shifting, your breath too shallow—and suddenly your foot slipped on the edge of the smooth hallway floor. a soft, startled sound escaped your throat as your body tilted sideways, your hand fumbling for the wall, failing.
and then—thud.
a soft crash, your hip hitting the floor, your palms slapping down just in time to soften the fall. you gasped and quickly clamped your hand over your mouth, praying he hadn’t heard, that you hadn’t been loud enough—but inside, panic bloomed like fire. your chest heaved as you tried to stay perfectly still, your cheeks on fire, the oversized t-shirt—his t-shirt—riding high around your waist from the fall.
then you heard the shuffle. footsteps. hurried. a sudden rush from the other side.
“y/n?” his voice was sharp. worried. confused.
before you could react, the door swung open.
and there he was.
yeonjun.
bare-chested, sweat clinging to his collarbones, his hair disheveled, lips swollen and flushed, his hand still adjusting the waistband of his boxers as if he hadn’t had time to fix himself. and then he saw you.
on the floor.
his shirt up around your waist.
your bare thighs. your panties exposed.
your hand covering your mouth, eyes wide like a deer caught in headlights.
time froze.
he stared at you, blinking once, then again. his mouth parted, but no words came out. his gaze dropped—just for a heartbeat—but you saw it. the flicker. the hunger. the tension that snapped into existence like a spark to gasoline.
you scrambled to tug the shirt down, cheeks burning, breath caught.
“i—i slipped, i wasn’t—i mean—”
“were you listening?” his voice came out low. rough.
you opened your mouth, then shut it. your throat tightened. your heart was pounding so violently you felt it behind your eyes.
“y/n…” he whispered, stepping closer.
your breath hitched.
“i heard you,” he said, his voice strained now. “outside the door. you… you heard me too, didn’t you?”
you nodded slowly, like it was all you could manage.
he knelt beside you without thinking, his hands hovering for a moment before one slid to the small of your back, the other cupping your cheek, his thumb brushing your skin gently, eyes searching yours. “you heard me… say your name.”
you couldn’t speak.
“fuck,” he whispered. “i didn’t mean for you to know. i tried to walk away because i couldn’t control it. i thought... if i gave us space—”
“why?” your voice cracked. “why did you walk away after kissing me like that?”
his jaw clenched. “because i wanted more. i wanted too much.”
your lips trembled. “me too.”
something inside him snapped.
he surged forward, his lips crashing into yours with a hunger that was no longer restrained. this wasn’t careful. this wasn’t gentle. this was weeks of stolen glances and soft touches and building need exploding all at once. his mouth was hot, possessive, his hand slipping to your thigh, then gripping, pulling you into him as you moaned against his lips.
you tasted everything—desperation, desire, the salt on his skin from sweat, the sound of his breath ragged and wild. you clung to him, your fingers digging into his bare shoulders as he leaned you back slowly onto the hallway floor, his body covering yours, fitting against you perfectly. your thighs opened for him without thought, welcoming the pressure of his hips between them, the hardness of him pressing directly against the wet heat soaking your panties.
“fuck, y/n,” he groaned against your mouth, “you have no idea what you do to me.”
his hand slid beneath the hem of the shirt—his shirt—the one you wore to sleep every night, the one that smelled like him. his palm caressed your waist, your ribs, then cupped your breast softly over the fabric of your bra, his thumb teasing the sensitive peak until you whimpered, arching up into him.
“you shouldn’t be here,” he rasped, but didn’t stop. “i’m trying so hard to do this right. to be careful.”
“then don’t,” you whispered back, your voice broken, needful. “don’t be careful.”
his eyes burned into yours.
his lips kissed down your jaw, your neck, biting softly at the tender skin just below your ear. “you’re gonna make me lose it,” he growled.
“maybe i want you to.”
his hand slipped lower, over your stomach, fingers grazing the band of your panties—when suddenly—
a sharp knock on the front door shattered the moment.
you both froze.
his chest rose and fell against yours, his forehead dropping to your shoulder.
another knock. then a voice from outside.
“government delivery. lights restored. system check.”
“fuck,” he hissed.
he helped you sit up, both of you breathing like you’d just run miles.
you looked at each other.
your lips swollen. your skin flushed. your bodies aching.
you wanted to scream.
but instead you swallowed it down, tugged the shirt over your thighs, stood on shaky legs. he followed you in silence, running a hand through his messy hair, still visibly hard, still clearly affected.
“i’m sorry,” he whispered.
you didn’t respond.
because you weren’t sure you wanted him to be.
you weren’t sure what you expected when you whispered, maybe i want you to. maybe you thought he would pull away, maybe he’d laugh and tell you to go to bed, that you were just talking nonsense, caught up in the tension of it all. but he didn’t. instead, the room stayed still, save for the thrum of the rain against the windows and the sound of his breathing, which was slow, deep, heavier now, as he looked down at you with something dark and burning in his eyes.
his voice was low, but not soft. "do you know what you're saying?" he asked, barely above a whisper. you nodded, your throat too tight to speak. you could feel his body, warm and solid, pressed against yours as he leaned in again, and this time the kiss wasn’t tentative. it was hungry, deeper, drawn out, and you could taste the restraint in him, the way he held himself back even as his hand gripped your waist tighter.
you barely noticed how he guided you back onto the mattress until your head hit the pillow. your fingers curled around the fabric of his shirt, the same one you'd stolen from him to sleep in, and now it was twisted between your hands as he kissed you again and again, lips trailing down the line of your jaw, the hollow of your throat, your pulse fluttering under his mouth.
every touch was slow, deliberate. when his hands slid under the hem of the shirt you wore, it wasn’t rushed—it was reverent. he looked at you like you were something sacred, something he’d been aching for, something forbidden and now finally his. his fingers traced the line of your hip, the soft skin just beneath your navel, pausing just above the waistband of your panties. you shivered beneath him, your body responding before your mind could catch up.
"tell me if you want me to stop," he murmured, his forehead pressed against yours. you shook your head immediately, a breathy no escaping your lips before you could second guess it. and something in him broke. or maybe it snapped into place. he kissed you like it was the only thing keeping him alive, his hands roaming, learning the shape of you, the softness of your thighs, the arch of your back as you gasped under his touch.
he took his time. he whispered how beautiful you were, how long he had wanted you like this, how the thought of you in his bed had driven him insane since that first night the storm pushed you into his arms. every kiss lower was met with a pause, a glance, asking, confirming, cherishing. his hands didn’t fumble; they explored, gentle and firm, his mouth hot against your skin.
you had never felt like this before. it was more than arousal—it was a kind of unraveling, a melting of all the fear and restraint you had carried for so long. the rules, the systems, the cold logic of the world outside—none of it existed here. here, in his arms, you were just a girl wanting a boy. no laws. no assignments. no duties.
just him. just you.
and when he finally touched you, really touched you, the moan that escaped you was soft, stunned, your fingers digging into his shoulder as he kissed the side of your neck. you were wet, aching, needy in a way you hadn’t even known your body could feel, and yeonjun seemed to know exactly how to handle you—teasing, stroking, whispering your name like it was a prayer.
his own self-control was fraying at the edges. you could feel it in the way his breath hitched, the way his voice broke when he groaned your name against your collarbone, the way his hips rocked against your thigh without even realizing it.
"you make me crazy," he whispered, biting gently at your shoulder. "since that kiss. since that first night. fuck—i think about you all the time. you wearing my shirt, you laughing in the kitchen, you sleeping next to me—"
"yeonjun," you gasped, your back arching as his fingers slid beneath your panties, finally, finally touching you where you needed him most. he cursed under his breath, kissing you again as your legs parted naturally for him.
he kept you on the edge, slow, patient, as if he was memorizing every sound you made, every breath you took. he didn’t rush to have you—not yet. this was still the prelude, the first taste, the careful unraveling. but you were close. too close.
and then.
he leaned over you again, lips brushing your ear, his voice hoarse. "can i make love to you?"
you nodded, heart pounding. "yes. please."
every movement after that was reverent, every sigh swallowed into a kiss, every tremble in your limbs steadied by his hands. he helped you out of your panties, gently, and shed his own clothes with a kind of urgency that was quiet, controlled, but full of need. when he settled between your legs, he paused, eyes meeting yours with a question so full of tenderness it made your chest ache.
his hand wrapped around himself, and your breath caught in your throat. he was thick, long—too much. your eyes widened without meaning to, and he noticed, chuckling softly as he kissed the corner of your mouth.
“it’s okay,” he whispered, but your voice came out shaky when you murmured. “it won’t fit…” he hushed you gently, his palm stroking down your thigh.
“we’ll go slow,” he promised, though the way his jaw clenched told you even he was struggling to hold back.
the stretch was new, unfamiliar, but he moved slowly, letting you adjust, kissing you through the discomfort, murmuring praises against your lips. he held you like you were fragile, like the world would stop spinning if he hurt you, and when you finally relaxed around him, he moved with a rhythm that spoke of restraint and reverence, yet underneath it burned a fire he could barely contain.
it was gentle, yes, but not shy. it was soft, but not without heat. the way he groaned when your nails scraped down his back, the way he whispered your name like it anchored him—it was everything. his hands never stopped touching you, his mouth never far from yours, and the way he looked at you made you feel like you were the center of the universe.
the pace picked up only slightly, but the angle shifted when he gently maneuvered your body, pressing a soft kiss to your shoulder before whispering, “turn around for me, baby.” your heart skipped as you obeyed, rolling onto your stomach, your cheek resting against his pillow, flushed and dazed, breath hot against the fabric. he settled behind you, large hands caressing the curve of your hips, his voice low and rough against your ear. “you look so good like this… fuck, i could lose my mind.”
you felt him guide himself back in, slower this time, deeper, and the gasp that left you was nothing short of a whimper, your back arching instinctively. the new position had him hitting that spot—the spot—with a precision that made your eyes roll back, your mouth dropping open against the pillow. “yeonjun—oh my god—” you choked, voice muffled, and he groaned above you, one hand gripping your waist as the other gently turned your face just enough so he could kiss your parted lips. “look at you,” he breathed, panting, watching your blissed-out expression with dark, desperate eyes. “you feel so fucking good—so tight around me… you were made for me, weren’t you?”
your voice came out broken, shaking. “it feels s-so good… i can’t—yeonjun, i—” but you didn’t need to finish. he could feel it. your body clenching around him with every slow, deep thrust. he bent over you, chest pressed to your back, skin to skin, and whispered filth in your ear in between kisses down your spine. “such a good girl,” he rasped, “taking me so well… fuck, i’m close. i can’t—i need to pull out…”
you nodded weakly, barely able to breathe, trembling as he gave one more thrust, then another—and with a strangled moan of your name, he pulled out and spilled his release onto the dip of your lower back, hot and heavy against your skin, dripping down to your ass. he groaned, his forehead against your shoulder, panting hard as he tried to come down from the high. “fuck, you’re perfect,” he murmured, voice ragged. “so fucking perfect.”
when he collapsed beside you, he didn’t pull away. his arms wrapped around you, pulling you into his chest, both of you still catching your breath. the rain still tapped gently against the windows, the room now full of the scent of sweat and skin, of something new, something sacred.
"i’ve wanted you for so long," he murmured against your hair.
"i know," you whispered back, curling into him.
and for once, you didn’t feel cold. you didn’t feel alone. you didn’t feel like someone forced into something by a cruel system. you felt wanted. chosen.
his.
yours.
the morning came too quickly, the sun bleeding gently through the curtains, casting a golden warmth across the tangled sheets. your body still ached in the most delicious ways, and your skin was marked with soft reminders of his mouth, his hands, the way he held you like you were breakable and wanted all at once. you hadn’t said much when you woke. yeonjun had only kissed your forehead, helped you get dressed, and now you were sitting in the waiting room of the ministry’s planning clinic, the air sterile and overly bright.
the doctor, a warm-looking woman with gentle eyes and an enthusiastic tone, greeted you both like old friends. “ah! newlyweds,” she smiled, scanning her clipboard. “i see you’ve finally started your sexual life together. that’s wonderful news!”
your cheeks flamed immediately, and beside you, yeonjun coughed, suddenly fascinated by a poster about prenatal vitamins on the wall. “uh, yeah,” you mumbled, barely able to meet her gaze.
“good, good,” she said brightly, motioning for you to follow her behind a curtain for a quick checkup. “we need to make sure everything’s healthy and progressing normally. it’s still early, but we want to optimize for fertility, yes?”
you nodded, letting her guide you onto the examination table. her hands were professional, but the whole thing still made your stomach twist. you were sore—still a little tender—and she noticed, humming under her breath.
“you’re fine,” she reassured you, adjusting her gloves. “some sensitivity is natural after a first experience. but you’re healthy, everything looks good.” she smiled. “do you track your cycle, darling?”
you nodded slowly, fingers tightening on the edge of the table. “yes… i keep a calendar.”
“perfect. when was your last period?”
you told her, and she did some quick math on her tablet before her smile brightened. “then your most fertile window should be starting in about four days. if you’re trying to conceive—and you should be, of course—it’s best to be active every other day during that period. that increases the chances significantly.”
you wanted to sink into the floor. “o-oh.”
“don’t be shy. this is natural.” she patted your knee, then stood. “you’re young and healthy. your compatibility score is ideal. You just need to be consistent now. and relaxed. it should be something enjoyable.”
you weren’t sure what your face looked like when you stepped out, but yeonjun blinked and stood instantly. the doctor gave him a little wink and whispered something about keeping the environment fun, and you could practically feel the tension coil between your ribs as you exited the building together.
the ride home was quiet for a while. the hum of the engine, the soft buzz of traffic, the way your thighs were pressed together beneath your dress. he tapped the wheel with his fingers, sneaking glances at you out of the corner of his eye.
finally, you exhaled. “she said i’m entering my fertile window soon.”
his hands stilled on the steering wheel.
“in four days,” you added, your voice too high, too soft.
“oh.”
another silence.
“and she said we should—uh—every other day. during that window. for higher chances.”
“right.” he adjusted his grip again. “makes sense.”
but neither of you looked at each other. because the thing was, last night hadn’t felt like a scheduled duty. it hadn’t felt like a requirement, or a step in a plan designed by the state. it had felt messy, desperate, slow, sweet, and hungry. it had felt human.
and now the idea of doing it again, like you were just checking off boxes on a clinical list, felt… weird.
“does it feel weird?” you blurted, staring out the window.
yeonjun looked at you, startled. “what?”
“this. talking about it. like it’s a chore or something. when last night—” you trailed off, cheeks heating.
he nodded slowly. “it feels weird because it wasn’t just about the system. it was… about us.” his voice was quiet, unsure, but honest.
you twisted your fingers in your lap, the weight of his words settling between your thighs like the lingering ache from last night. you didn’t know how to act now—how to go from that kind of vulnerability to pretending you were just following instructions.
“i want to do it again,” you admitted, so softly it could’ve been mistaken for a breath. “but not because of the calendar. because… i liked how it felt. with you.”
his knuckles tightened on the wheel, his jaw clenching as he looked at you again. something in his eyes flickered—warm, molten, restrained. “good,” he said roughly. “because i haven’t stopped thinking about it since i woke up.”
your breath caught.
the red light ahead turned green, but neither of you were breathing normally anymore.
this wasn’t just about reproduction.
not anymore.
and neither of you knew how to navigate that yet—but the thought of exploring it again?
set your blood on fire.
you didn’t even make it past the front door.
as soon as it clicked shut behind you, he turned to you like something had snapped loose inside him—like the silence in the car, the weight of what had been said at the clinic, the image of you squirming in your seat all flushed and embarrassed, had pushed him past the edge. his hand cupped the back of your neck, pulling you in with a force that made your breath stutter, his lips crashing into yours with none of the hesitation from the night before. it was need—pure, undiluted need—and you melted into it like you’d been waiting all day.
your back hit the wall, your fingers clawing at the hem of his shirt, dragging it up over his abs while he kissed you like it was the only thing keeping him alive. his hands found your thighs, lifted you slightly, pressing your hips together in a rhythm already too hungry for the softness of conversation.
you moaned into his mouth, and that was it—he growled low in his throat, carrying you the few messy steps to the living room, collapsing with you onto the couch in a tangle of limbs and breathless gasps. you straddled him instinctively, the dress you wore bunching at your hips, and the way you ground down against him made him curse under his breath, hands tightening on your waist.
"fuck, baby, you're driving me insane," he muttered, kissing down your jaw, your neck, your collarbone, dragging the straps of your dress off your shoulders as his thumbs traced soft, dizzying circles into your skin.
"then do something about it," you whispered, breathless, rocking your hips again just to feel him buck up into you, so hard already it made your mouth go dry.
he didn't need more encouragement.
he kissed down your chest, taking his time, pulling down the top of your dress to reveal more skin, his mouth hot and greedy as he licked and sucked at your breasts, tongue flicking over your nipple until you were gasping his name. his fingers pushed the fabric higher, baring your panties and the damp patch growing darker by the second, and he groaned, burying his face between your thighs like he needed to taste you just to stay sane.
you cried out, your hands tangled in his hair, legs shaking as his tongue worked slow, devastating circles against your clit, sucking gently, teasing you with the edge of release only to pull away. “so wet for me already,” he whispered, voice thick, lips glistening. “you’ve been thinking about this since the car, haven’t you?”
you nodded, eyes fluttering shut, and he rewarded you by sucking harder, his fingers slipping inside to stretch you just right, his other hand holding your hips down while you rode the edge again and again until you whimpered, begging, thighs trembling.
“please, yeonjun… i need you, now.”
he didn’t make you ask twice.
he pulled you onto his lap again, kissing you deep, letting you taste yourself on his lips. and then he stood, shifting you onto the couch, turning your body gently, hands guiding your knees onto the cushions, your chest pressed to the armrest, your ass up for him—offered, exposed, throbbing.
"you’re so fucking perfect like this," he whispered, one hand sliding up your spine, the other gripping your hip as he positioned himself behind you, dragging the tip of his cock along your slit, teasing, wet and hot.
you whimpered, pushing back slightly, and when he slid in, inch by inch, you gasped—eyes rolling back, the stretch sharp and addictive all over again.
“fuck, you feel even tighter like this,” he groaned, sinking in all the way until your ass met his hips. “you’re gonna ruin me.”
he started to move slowly, the position letting him hit deeper, every thrust punching little moans from your lips. the slap of skin against skin echoed through the room, his hands gripping your waist, your thighs, your hair. and still, he kissed your spine, leaned over you, whispered filth against your neck.
“you like this, baby? you like being fucked like this?”
“yes—yes, fuck, yeonjun—it feels so good—”
he reached around, rubbed slow circles against your clit as he fucked into you deeper, faster, making you cry out into the pillow, your body arching under him, thighs shaking again.
"let me see your face," he panted, one hand turning your head slightly so he could kiss you, so he could see your expression—your flushed cheeks, your lips parted, eyes unfocused.
“you’re so fucking beautiful like this,” he growled. “you’re gonna make me come just looking at you.”
you felt it building again, heat coiling low in your belly, your body tightening, trembling, your moans turning desperate as he kept you right on the edge, hitting that perfect spot inside you over and over.
“yeonjun—i’m gonna—”
“me too—fuck—i need to pull out—”
but you reached back, grabbing his hand, voice shaking. “don’t. please. come inside.”
he choked on a moan, hips stuttering, and then he was spilling into you with a groan so deep it made your toes curl, holding you tight as he filled you completely, shaking from the force of it. your own climax hit just seconds later, white-hot and blinding, and you collapsed onto the couch, boneless, his body draped over yours, both of you gasping for air.
his come dripped slowly down your thighs, warmth spreading between them, and he didn’t move—just pressed gentle kisses to your shoulder, your back, your spine, whispering your name like it was the only word he knew.
neither of you said anything for a long time.
but you both knew.
there was no going back.
the following days slipped into a blur of aching need and restless nights. you both tried to keep the doctor’s advice in mind, to space out your moments, to give your bodies time to recover, but desire doesn’t listen to calendars or rules. every morning, before you left for university, you found yourselves tangled together, breathless and desperate, fingers tracing familiar curves as if memorizing every inch again and again. afternoons after classes weren’t any different; the moment you closed the door behind you, yeonjun’s hands were already on your waist, pulling you close, his lips claiming yours with the same fierce hunger that never dulled.
the days were a patchwork of stolen touches and whispered promises, of quick, heated moments before rushing to your part-time jobs—him with the university’s cultural center, tutoring students in language and literature, and you at a small café nearby, pouring coffee and smiling through the haze of exhaustion and longing. you came home exhausted but your body still hummed with anticipation, the ache of missing him settling low and deep, urging you back into his arms. your skin grew sensitive, your senses sharper; even the smallest brush of fingers sparked a fire beneath your skin.
and every time he pulled you close, you let him come inside you—every time—forgetting the cautious rhythm the doctor had suggested, letting your bodies rewrite the rules in the heat of the moment. the cool logic of planning was swallowed whole by your hunger, your need to be closer, to feel him deeper, to lose yourselves entirely in the mess and sweetness of this forbidden, stolen intimacy.
sometimes you’d catch yourself wondering if the doctor would be surprised—or scandalized—to know how little control you really had, how much your hearts raced and how your bodies begged for more. but in those moments, all that mattered was yeonjun’s warm breath against your neck, the way his hands shaped you like a secret only he was meant to know, and the way your own voice trembled when you whispered his name.
it was messy, it was frantic, but it was yours. and for the first time since everything began, it felt like freedom.
you were wiping down the counter when one of your coworkers, a woman named hana, leaned over with a gentle smile. she was older than you, maybe 35, and had a quiet confidence about her that made people listen. she lowered her voice just a little, as if sharing a secret.
“you know, i was assigned a husband too. i thought it would be awful, honestly. i was scared. but it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. at first, i wasn’t sure if i could love him, or if he even cared. but slowly, i saw who he really was. and now, i’m so happy. we have two kids, and we’re thinking about a third. it’s scary, getting older, but i go to family planning a lot, trying to make sure it’s possible. the government even recognized me for wanting to keep repopulating. it’s strange, isn’t it? how these arrangements can lead to something real.”
you nodded, the thought settling deep inside your chest. could yeonjun and you be like that someday? sure, you cared for him. he was your husband, your partner in this harsh world. you pictured mornings waking up next to him, the soft light catching his face, the two of you building a life, maybe even raising children together. but love — real love? you had never felt it before, not like this. the feeling was foreign, like a story you’d read but never lived. still, yeonjun was everything to you, and that was enough for now.
later that day, when your shift ended, yeonjun was waiting by the door like always, leaning casually against his car. you slipped inside and immediately started talking about your day, the small victories, the tiring moments. he listened, eyes bright, then shared his own stories, laughter in his voice. the rhythm of your lives syncing quietly, comfortably.
and then, on a quiet street, just as the light ahead turned red, you suddenly blurted out, “do you love me?”
the car jerked slightly as yeonjun slammed on the brakes, both of you moving forward with the momentum. the question hung between you, heavy and unexpected.
he was silent for a moment, gaze fixed on the road ahead, and you could almost see the weight of the thought pressing on him. love was a strange word, loaded with promises and fears. but then his eyes met yours in the rearview mirror, steady and sure.
“i do,” he said slowly, voice low but certain. “maybe not like the stories you hear — wild and all-consuming — but i love you. from the moment i saw you, from that first kiss in the storm, from every day since. every laugh, every touch, every quiet moment. it’s real. and it will only grow.”
your heart fluttered in a way that was both new and familiar, and when the light turned green, he eased forward, hands gripping the wheel a little tighter.
back at the apartment, the world outside disappeared as yeonjun pulled you close. the night was gentle but full of fire, his hands exploring with a tenderness that spoke of trust and deep desire. lips brushed your skin with reverence, soft whispers mingling with quiet moans. you traced the curve of his neck, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath your fingertips. every touch was a promise, every kiss a new discovery.
he took his time, patient and caring, making sure you felt cherished, safe. the moments stretched between you, slow and delicious, as if the world had paused just for this — for the two of you, tangled in sheets and warmth, sharing something sacred.
and as you finally melted into him, the love he had spoken of filled the space between your bodies, unspoken but undeniable.
“congratulations,” the doctor said, her voice warm, glowing even, as if she had just handed you the entire sky. “you’re pregnant.”
the world stilled.
you blinked, lips parting, heartbeat stuttering in your chest. yeonjun, who had just stepped inside the room after waiting anxiously outside, froze beside you. his eyes darted from your stunned face to the doctor and back again, like he was trying to make sure he’d heard correctly.
“what?” you breathed, voice barely there.
the doctor smiled, gentle and knowing, like this was her favorite kind of moment to deliver. “you’re about six weeks along. everything looks good so far. the symptoms you’ve been experiencing — the nausea, the cravings, the mood swings — they all point to a healthy early pregnancy. we’ll begin prenatal care from today.”
you felt yeonjun’s fingers slip into yours, holding tight, like he needed to anchor himself. like you were both floating. he didn’t say anything right away — his throat worked around words he couldn’t seem to find — but his hand trembled slightly in yours.
the tears came slowly, not from fear or sadness, but from something else entirely. wonder. disbelief. awe.
a baby.
your baby.
with him.
“i…” you started, then shook your head with a small, breathless laugh. “i thought it was just stress. i didn’t want to hope.”
“and yet, here we are,” the doctor said kindly. “your next steps will be regular checkups, nutrition monitoring, and continued intimacy when you feel comfortable. you’re doing great already.”
you could hardly focus after that — her voice faded to a background hum as your eyes lifted to meet yeonjun’s. he was already looking at you, completely undone. his gaze was soft, watery, reverent. like you were something holy.
he squeezed your hand. “we’re going to be parents,” he whispered, like saying it out loud would make it real.
and it did.
you nodded, blinking away fresh tears. “we’re going to be a family.”
the drive home was quiet, but not empty. yeonjun kept stealing glances at you at every stoplight, like he couldn’t quite believe you were real — like he couldn’t believe the little life beginning inside you was real. his hand never left yours on the console between you, thumb tracing absent-minded circles over your knuckles.
when you stepped into the apartment, he didn’t let go. he guided you gently to the couch, like you might break if he wasn’t careful. and then he was kneeling in front of you, both hands now on your stomach, even though there was nothing visible yet — just warmth. just possibility.
“thank you,” he whispered. “for this. for you. for everything.”
you touched his hair, carding your fingers through the soft strands, heart swelling. “i didn’t do this alone, junnie.”
he leaned forward, lips brushing your still-flat belly, and then rested his forehead there, breathing slow and deep. “i’m gonna do everything i can to be good to you. to them. we didn’t choose this world, but i’ll choose you every day in it.”
you’d never felt more seen. more loved.
later that night, he held you closer than ever in bed, your back to his chest, one hand cradling your stomach, the other tangled with yours. the rain tapped gently against the window again, just like it had the night everything between you shifted.
and now it had shifted again.
you weren’t just husband and wife anymore.
you were parents.
you were a beginning.
and wrapped in his arms, with his heartbeat pressed against your spine, you let yourself dream — not of what the government wanted, not of duty or numbers, but of soft mornings and tiny fingers, of lullabies and laughter echoing through the walls.
of a future you hadn’t dared imagine.
but now, it was here.
growing inside you.
growing between you.
and it was love.
the apartment smelled of cake and laughter. pink balloons were tied to every chair, streamers hung slightly lopsided from the ceiling, and tiny frosting handprints decorated the corners of the tablecloth. your baby girl — chaeyeon — had turned one.
she was currently asleep in your arms, a little drool soaking into your blouse, her tiny chest rising and falling in perfect rhythm. you'd never seen her smile so much in one day, or so determined to wobble around on her chubby legs while everyone clapped for her.
your parents had cried. yeonjun’s mother had brought enough food to feed an entire village. your brother had looked absolutely horrified when asked to hold chaeyeon and had instead stood frozen like she was made of glass. yeonjun’s older brothers had been more relaxed — juggling their own kids, swapping parenting tips with you and yeonjun, their wives giggling over how much yeonjun had softened in just a year.
it was a blur of love. of family. of a happiness you never expected from a life that had once felt forced upon you.
now it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
when the door closed behind the last guest, you let out a long breath and leaned against it. yeonjun was on his knees collecting bits of wrapping paper and cupcake crumbs, his sleeves rolled up and his hair a bit messy from carrying hana all afternoon.
“i think i have frosting in places i didn’t know were possible,” he muttered.
you giggled and padded over, gently placing a hand on his head. “she’s finally asleep. like… deep asleep. miracle of miracles.”
he looked up at you and smiled, slow and soft. “we survived our first birthday party.”
“barely.”
you both laughed, exhausted but giddy, and after tidying up the last of the chaos, you shuffled into your shared bedroom — the one that now held a rocking chair, a baby monitor, and the scent of lavender oil and baby lotion.
you sat on the bed, back against the headboard, and looked at yeonjun as he pulled off his shirt and tossed it aside. his skin glowed faintly from the sweat of the day, and his eyes were crinkled with something tender when he looked at you.
“hard to believe we’ve made it here,” you murmured.
“i know.” he crawled onto the bed beside you, resting his head against your shoulder. “long time ago we were just trying to figure out how to be in the same room without losing our minds.”
“or jumping each other.”
he snorted, pressing a kiss to your shoulder. “that too.”
you fell quiet for a moment, fingers brushing through his hair. “when they told me we were being assigned… i hated it. the system felt so cruel. mechanical. like love didn’t matter.”
“me too,” he admitted, voice low. “i kept wondering who you’d be. if you’d hate me. if i’d hate you.”
“and now… i can’t imagine waking up without you next to me.” you turned your face into his hair, breathing him in. “you’ve become everything.”
he lifted his head, eyes dark with something more than just love. “you gave me a family. you gave me her.”
“we gave her to each other,” you whispered, lips brushing his.
he kissed you then — slow, deep, familiar in a way that made your toes curl. and when he pulled back, eyes half-lidded, he murmured, “i need you.”
“then take me,” you breathed.
you barely finished speaking before he was on you, lips claiming yours again, more urgent this time, tongue teasing, his hands slipping beneath your shirt to cup your breasts. you gasped, arching into his touch as he rolled a thumb over your nipple.
“fuck, i love how sensitive you still are,” he muttered against your neck, biting softly before soothing the skin with kisses. “you get wet the second i touch you, don’t you?”
you nodded, already trembling as he dragged your panties down your thighs, fingers grazing your slick folds. “you make me like this… only you.”
he groaned, dipping two fingers inside you, curling them just right, his thumb circling your clit until your hips were grinding against his hand.
“look at you,” he said, voice rough, “needy little wife. always so eager for me. i could fuck you for hours and it still wouldn’t be enough, would it?”
“never enough,” you panted, nails digging into his shoulders. “please, junnie—”
he flipped you onto your stomach, lifting your hips until you were on all fours, head turned into the pillow. “you know what this does to me, seeing you like this,” he growled, running the head of his cock through your folds before slowly pushing in. “fuck, still so tight for me.”
you moaned, face burying into the pillow as he filled you to the hilt, rocking his hips with slow, brutal precision. his hands gripped your waist, pulling you back to meet each thrust, hitting that perfect spot that made your vision blur.
“tell me how good i make you feel,” he said through gritted teeth, fucking you deeper.
“so good—oh god, junnie—right there,” you whimpered. “you fuck me like you own me.”
“because i do,” he hissed. “you’re mine. every inch. every breath. and this pussy? fuck—this was made for me.”
your cries were muffled into the pillow, tears prickling at your eyes from the pleasure building impossibly fast. he bent over you, pressing kisses to your back, your shoulder, your neck, never stopping his rhythm.
“gonna come, baby?” he whispered in your ear. “cream on my cock like you always do?”
you nodded desperately, clenching around him, your orgasm ripping through you with a strangled moan.
he followed right after, cursing low and dark, emptying himself inside you with a final thrust. “fuck—gonna fill you up again. maybe give chaeyeon a little sibling.”
you both collapsed onto the bed, boneless and breathless, his arms wrapping tight around you from behind.
and in that moment, as the warmth of him settled over your back and your heartbeat steadied with his, you smiled.
because this was the life you never asked for — and yet, it was everything.
and now, there was no one else you’d rather be loved by.
nerdjo’s high maintenance gf is his prettiest distraction !
I. DISTRACTION #1: NO KISSING IN THE LECTURE HALLS !
time: 8:46 am location: Curtis Lecture Hall I (CLH-I)
gojo satoru is typing one handed because his other hand is pressed between your thighs.
not that he minds. 8AM thursday means excel sheets & a cup of hot coffee to keep his bleary eyes open. gojo satoru is trying—trying to focus, but his pretty girl is talking a mile a minute and he’ll be damned if he didn’t reply to your every word.
“it was so hard getting out of bed today, toru,” you pout up at him, chin on his shoulder & gloss sticky on his sleeve. “i told kento to stop by and wake me up on his way to class. can you believe he didn’t?”
“i’m very proud of you for getting out of bed regardless.”
“thank you. it was very hard.”
you sigh against his shoulder. “he’s probably still mad i cussed him out,” you huff, reaching up to twirl the hairs on his nape. “all because i put him on cherry crush and he tried to act like he discovered it first.”
satoru’s eyes are still on his screen, so you squeeze his palm between your thighs to bring him back to you. “he’s so petty, toru.”
“very petty, baby.”
you frown. it’s been exactly thirteen minutes and forty-two seconds since satoru looked at you last. he’s been on this stupid spreadsheet since class started, and it’s really starting to piss you off.
so you block his view.
“look at my fingers, toru,” you breathe, lifting your hand in front of his face. “i was in such a rush i forgot my rings. my hand looks so ugly.”
he lifts his head—just slightly, just enough that he can focus on the screen & not your hand in front of him—& replies without a beat. “looks pretty, baby,” he murmurs, kissing the back of your hand. “so gorgeous.”
oh, that’s enough.
“toru.”
“hm, baby?”
“kiss me.”
gojo satoru chokes on his tongue. he freezes, blue eyes leaving the screen only to dart around the crowded lecture hall in alarm. he lets his eyes drop to you, and perhaps he shouldn’t have, because you’re looking up at him with glossy lips & too-big eyes & lashes that flutter in that way that means trouble. gojo gulps.
“we can’t do that right now, sweetheart,” his voice catches. you’re pouting up at him but satoru only cups your cheek and tries to reason with you. “we’re in public. can you wait for me, angel?”
your brows furrow, lips wobbling into that pout that only spells out gojo’s demise.
“are you ashamed to kiss me in public?” you croak, fake sniffling. “am i that ugly?”
you’re not ugly. you’re the most beautiful girl in the world, you know it, satoru knows it, & he also knows you’re doing this on purpose. but your eyes are so glossy. your breathing’s all hitched. your shoulders shake like you’re about to sob—
gojo satoru folds under zero pressure.
he cups your face, thumb brushing faux tears off your lashes as he presses his lips to yours. you taste like strawberry candy & something too sweet to have a name. gojo sighs into your mouth. cocks his head. pulls back just to lean in again when your lashes flutter up at him all pretty. he lets his thumb tug your lip and tongue lick your teeth and—
“ahem.”
you both freeze.
in the row in front of you the nanami kento is there, frown on his face & completely unamused. there are pens littered on his desk & his laptop is wide open—is he reading semantic error?
he eyes you both, lips curled in disgust.
“this is not a love nest.”
you & satoru are blinking in disbelief when nanami turns back to his laptop. he slams it shut in embarrassment when he’s met with an inappropriate panel onscreen.
II. DISTRACTION #2: NETWORKING ❌ NOT WORKING ✅
time: 7:14 pm. location: Bergeron Center for Engineering Excellence
⎚-⎚
gojo satoru has five minutes until the most important meeting of his life.
an opportunity to pitch one of his latest projects to some high-class engineering recruiters—lucky him! he’s in a private office with his speech in his hands, and his beautiful girlfriend kicking her feet on the office table.
you’re supposed to be his supportive plus-one. and gojo does feel supported—how could he not when the love of his life is here for him, dressed up like a midsummer dream? but gojo thinks he’d feel even more supported if you weren’t bracketing his thighs & tugging on his tie every time he tries to speak.
“thank you all for coming. i’m honored to have this opportunity—“
“satoruu,” you coo. “i miss you.”
gojo satoru knows better than to sigh. he does it anyway, collapsing into your neck in resignation as he squeezes your hips. you’re pressing a glossy kiss to his jaw. “i’m right here, sweetheart,” he mumbles, closing his eyes. “will you let me focus?”
you nod sweetly, patting his cheek dismissively when he presses a kiss to your neck in thanks.
“thank you all for coming. i’m honored to have this opportunity to present—“
“satoruu,”
thirteen words this time. fairs.
“yes, sweetheart.”
“my feet hurt,” you state, kicking your feet up to show him. for once, you’re not being totally dramatic. even with your heels on satoru can see the sides of your feet reddening, flushed & slightly swollen against the material. his brows furrow. “how’d this happen, angel…?”
he kneels down to slip your heels off. you pout: “i got new heels so i’d look pretty for your presentation. now my feet hurt and i’ve ruined everything.”
satoru frowns, but you’re still spiraling. dramatic as always, talking like it’s the end of the world with your eyes glossy & nose wrinkled in lament. but gojo’s heart only goes sticky in his chest. how could you possibly ruin everything when you are everything?
he reaches up to wipe a tear off your cheek. “look at me, baby,” he murmurs, other hand rubbing circles on your ankles. he looks devastating like this—hair messy, tie loose from all your tugging & knees on the floor for you even though he’s in his finest dress pants. “you didn’t ruin anything, okay baby? look.”
he slips off your heels, then his own leather shoes, & laces them onto your bare feet. “wear these.”
you blink as he lifts you off the table, kneeling back down to adjust the shoes better. you wiggle your toes. your feet don’t even reach the middle, and you almost fall trying to walk two steps, but the gesture alone has you beaming. you turn to him with your lips bent in a clumsy smile.
“they’re huge, toru,” you tease, twirling around for him to watch. satoru only smiles. his heart goes sticky in his throat. he pulls you into a soft kiss because trying to speak might make his chest hurt.
knock knock.
one of satoru’s classmates—nerd #1—peeks his head in, expression slightly terrified. “uh, gojo? they’re ready for you in the boardroom,” he gulps. “you’re up.”
satoru nods, gathers his speech papers. you’re practicing walking around in his shoes now, arms stretched out to help you balance as you strut around with a grin on your face. gojo satoru looks down at his feet. they’re in nothing but a pair of socks.
right.
he sucks in a breath, then turns to kiss your forehead. “stay here where it’s warm, okay?”
you’re still admiring yourself in his shoes, but you chirp out an okay! regardless. satoru bites his lip. it’s showtime.
——
the faculty is looking at satoru like he’s grown two heads.
have they never seen a shoeless man before? how rude. he’s standing on the boardroom’s stage now, clipboard in hand, projector lighting up the board behind him. some of the recruiters are nodding. the others are trying not to look at his feet so they can’t be accused of classism. gojo satoru is not even poor. a glance at his suit should tell you that.
but gojo doesn’t care. he presents without issue—even though the entire time, his mind is on you.
the boardroom door has a center made of glass. through the pane, satoru can see you back in the office—you’ve somehow found music controls for the office’s boombox, and you’re dancing—oh god, you’re dancing—twirling around with a clumsy smile & laughing when you stumble in his much larger shoes.
satoru’s heart swells. his lip twitches.
gojo turns his focus back to his presentation. he’ll work hard to keep you smiling for the rest of your life.
III. DISTRACTION #3 : WHY IS MY GIRLFRIEND IMMUNE TO TUTORING…
time: 6:14 PM location: The Quad, Satoru’s Apartment.
⎚-⎚
“who discovered the americas ?”
“Martin Luther King.”
You are going to fail this exam.
“that’s enough general history today,” gojo mutters, voice croaking in alarm when you give your answer. you’re tucked in his lap, fingers curled in his collar, nose in his neck & completely unbothered. your perfume is sticky in his lungs. “let’s try math. you like math, baby?”
“mhm,” you kiss his jaw. “love it.”
no you don’t. gojo flips open a book with one hand, the other rubbing circles on your thigh. “let’s practice some integration…” he scans the page for questions while you twirl the hairs on his nape. “okay, this one. can you try this for me, princess?”
your lips tug into a bored frown. “okay,” you lean up to glance at the page, “done.”
he blinks, “done?”
“yes,” you flop back against him, soft & pretty & tired & his. “i solved it in my head.”
satoru bites his lip, brows knit in concern. “baby, you can’t solve integrals in your head.”
“i have a very strong brain.”
satoru prays for some strength of his own. okay—okay. he purses his lip. “so strong, baby. do you want to walk me through your process?”
you frown in his neck.
“first of all,” you tug his collar, lashes fluttering, “i looked at the numbers.”
“good job.”
“then,” you tug his earlobe, “i got bored.”
“oh.”
satoru sighs—of course you did. he purses his lip, blue eyes flitting across the page as his spoiled pretty angel hugs his neck; dreary and tired and ‘bored’ in his lap. finals are coming up and things are not looking good for you. he prays for strength (again).
you seem to have found some strength of your own. gojo’s not sure when you pick up your phone (which he had confiscated from you earlier), but while he stares into the distance and laments your guaranteed failure, you scroll through your phone with a grin on your lips.
“toru, look at this bag,” you coo, pushing the bright screen to his face. “it’s so pink and pretty, just like me.”
“just like you,” he repeats, still staring into the distance.
“wow, nine-hundred-and-fifty dollars,” you kick your feet in his lap. “baby, can i buy it?” you coo, voice sweet.
satoru blinks out of his daze. he glances at the phone screen—then at you, suddenly sweet & bright & brimming with energy. his thumb brushes your inner thigh. “baby, you’re supposed to be studying.”
“i am studying,” you frown, and gojo wants to kiss it off again. “i’m studying consumer behavior. can i have your card?”
there are three reasons gojo satoru should not give you his card.
you are going to fail your exams.
you haven’t double-checked if the price is in CAD or USD.
you are going to fail your exams.
gojo lets you have his card.
you squeal, hopping off his lap to retrieve his wallet in the other room. satoru leans back against his desk chair. in front of him, his desk is a mess of opened books & littered pencils, a ‘get good grades!’ subliminal playing on your mini speaker because you insisted the whispered affirmations would guarantee your success. gojo sighs.
“thank you, toru!” you sing as you pad back into the room, a skip in your step. you lean down to kiss his cheek & flop onto his bed to open his laptop. you have his wallet in your hands, and gojo satoru already knows you will not double check the currency.
gojo closes your textbook with a sigh. better luck next time.
ac: (see alt text!) @ to00fu
DISTRACTIONS, end.
HEARTKAJI. do not steal, copy, edit, translate or reupload.
pairings. bowser!sukuna x princesspeach!reader x mario!satoru
summary. you’ve been “kidnapped” by sukuna again—but the castle’s luxurious, you’re not exactly restrained, and every time satoru storms in to “rescue” you, you’re a little less willing to leave. they think they’re fighting over you… but you’ve always liked being in the middle.
content warnings. 7.1k words (super mario if it was peak), explicit sexual content, threesome, sukuna tops satoru AND YES THEY KISS yay!, power imbalance, possessive behavior, jealousy themes, bratty reader, light dubcon/kidnapping roleplay, oral sex, fingering, face sitting, creampie, spit sharing, degradation and praise kink, voyeurism, competitive bickering during sex, mild humiliation, overstimulation, spit roasting, lowkey dom-ish reader?, emotional manipulation played for comedy, lowkey crack so don't take this super srs.
author's note. got violently high last night and watched the super mario movie w my boyfie then this was born (my excuse to write yaoi)
you don’t know how this keeps happening, except you do. it’s always the same: the soft pull of teleportation magic or whatever the fuck he calls it now, the slow blink of disorientation, and then pink silk sheets or marble floors or a three-person bath sunk into the center of the room like a stage.
the castle is always the same, too—lavish in a way that feels intentional, like it’s been redecorated for you, like someone keeps hitting “reset” and changing the theme just enough to pretend it’s not a pattern.
last time it was rose petals. the time before that, champagne on ice. this time it’s cherries. purple and cold and split in half like he knew you’d complain about the seeds. there’s a gold tray floating nearby, embossed with little star motifs that glow faintly when the steam rolls over them.
“open,” he says, and of course you fucking do.
the bath is hot enough to sting. the steam’s curling your hair at the edges. your face is tight with that honey-clay-fancy-shit mask he special ordered from the capital, some absurd royal apothecary with a logo shaped like a mushroom crown, and there are cucumbers on your eyes that you didn’t ask for but now can’t remove without effort, so here you are.
dripping wet. blind. mouth open. being hand-fed by the most dangerous man in the empire. again.
this isn’t a rescue mission. it’s a spa day.
there’s a small brass bell by the tub, too. he told you it was decorative. you rang it once. servants appeared instantly. you’ve never touched it again.
and yet—if satoru gojo kicks down the castle door one more time while you’re soaking in a three-foot-deep lavender salt bath, you are going to commit an act of treason yourself.
“chew princess,” sukuna says lazily, and you chew, because arguing while topless in cucumber-blindness never works out in your favor. his fingers graze your lips. cold and wet. it doesn’t feel like a fruit offering. it feels like a game. a game you’re pretty sure he keeps winning on purpose.
“i should lock the door this time,” he mutters, mostly to himself. “fucking idiot’s probably already scaling the south wall.”
you snort. inelegant. a sound unbecoming of a captive princess. “you say that every time.”
“and every time, you let him ruin our date.”
you flick one cucumber slice off. barely crack an eye. he’s sprawled by the edge of the bath, arm balanced on the porcelain, hair up, chest bare, tattoos coiling, like this is his personal brothel and you’re the treat he summoned.
there’s a throne in the corner of the room you’ve never seen him sit on. he prefers this instead. he pops a cherry into his own mouth and chews like he invented the concept of pleasure. he probably thinks he did.
“i wouldn’t call it a date,” you mutter, and he tilts his head.
“you’re naked. i’m feeding you. he’s jealous. feels like a date.”
somewhere far below, a pipe groans as magic reroutes through the castle, like it’s bracing for impact.
you roll your eyes and sink deeper, the water sloshing over your collarbones. the tub is too big. the room is too warm. the air smells like fruit and whatever spell he always sneaks in when he thinks you’re not paying attention—the one that makes your legs feel floaty and your mouth dry. the one that makes you stay.
“he’s not jealous,” you lie.
sukuna laughs like you’re adorable. or pathetic. you’re not sure which one is worse.
you hear the splash before you realize he’s serious.
one thick leg, then the other. the water sloshes violently like the bath itself is trying to escape, and you almost lose one of the cucumbers off your eye again, but you don’t move—won’t give him the satisfaction. you lay there, blank-faced, toes wrinkling, cucumber-blind and bath-drunk while the warlord of five provinces and serial homewrecker of your peace slides into the tub like he fucking owns it.
because he does. because this castle was built to keep people out, and redesigned to keep you in.
“you have no boundaries,” you mumble, voice thick from heat and honey-mask goo and emotional exhaustion.
he hums. does not disagree. doesn’t say anything at all, actually—just settles in at the foot of the tub, lounging like it’s a throne, arms spread along the rim like he’s posing for a painting, and stares at you like he’s about to ruin something again.
you’re pretty sure this is how he waits between boss fights.
"this was supposed to be me time,” you mutter. more for yourself than him.
“it is,” he says, “i’m here.”
like that helps.
somewhere, a distant alarm chimes once. not loud. not urgent. just enough to say someone has entered the level.
you feel him hook one finger under your ankle and drag your leg toward him slow, indulgent, like he’s hauling in a catch, like your foot is a prize he won. the water parts, slick against your skin, and suddenly it’s his lap your heel’s resting in. he starts. thumb to arch. palm to sole. pressure applied just shy of pain. and you hate him for how good it is immediately.
"relax," he says, all fake-softness and amused mockery, "you act like i’ve never touched you before."
“you’ve never touched my feet before.”
he squeezes the ball of your foot just right and makes you groan through gritted teeth. “maybe that’s your problem. ungrateful. high-strung. too busy pretending you don’t love it here to let yourself enjoy anything.”
"i enjoy silence."
"never met a brat who didn’t lie for sport."
you hate that he's good at this. hate that you didn't know he could be good at this. hate that you’re not stopping him. that the bath is still hot, that his hands are still rough, that your other foot is already twitching in anticipation and he hasn't even touched it yet.
“yeah,” he mutters, low and satisfied, “there it is.”
"if you're gonna rub my feet like this every time, you should just kidnap me more often," you mutter, trying to sound bored and failing spectacularly.
"princess," he says, digging his thumbs in deeper, "you say that like you're not the one who keeps showing up."
his hands drift.
not immediately. he massages your other foot like he’s not planning anything—like he’s just being generous, like the ache melting from your calves isn’t calculated, like the bath isn’t a trap he set and walked straight into with a hard-on and a god complex.
but then his thumbs start creeping up. past your ankles. into your shins. up the backs of your calves where your skin’s the most sensitive. and you're still laid out, stretched and floaty, letting it happen. he's rubbing slow, like he has all night, like no one's coming to save you.
which they aren’t.
not yet.
you’ve been here enough to know the stages: the soak. the rubdown. the corruption. the bonus round.
his hands slide higher. up to your knees. your thighs. a palm braces against the bend of one leg and eases it open under the water, like that’s normal, like this is a trust exercise and not the prelude to filth. your cunt clenches like it knows what’s coming and wants to pregame the panic.
"i don't think this is in the massage manual," you say, voice dry, throat hotter than the bathwater.
he doesn’t answer. just leans forward. plants one lazy kiss on the inside of your knee like you’re something worshipped. like you’re a feast. like he’s already decided how you’ll taste.
and you—god help you—you don’t stop him.
you should. you know that. you should sit up and slap him and demand to be returned to your kingdom of overpriced skincare and mediocre royal suitors. but instead you let your legs fall a little wider. let him shift forward in the water. let him hook your knees over his shoulders like he’s done this before—has done this before—and let him drag you down the sloped edge of the bath until your ass is half out of the water and his mouth is hovering right there.
"say please,” he says, because of course he does. “go on. be cute for me.”
he grins, and then—boom.
the door slams open with enough force to shake steam off the walls.
the lock was enchanted. doesn’t matter. the hero always finds a way.
“GET YOUR HANDS OFF HER—!”
you don’t even lift your head. just sigh, high and long and put-upon, like your favorite face mask just got interrupted by a meteor. again.
“hello, satoru,” you say flatly. “nice of you to warp in after the cherries this time.”
there’s a faint squelch behind him as the castle seals the pipe he must’ve dropped out of. the scent of ash and ozone lingers in the air.
sukuna laughs. satoru is already halfway into the bath chamber with his stupid sword glowing and his white hair damp from rain and his eyes wide and horrified like he just walked in on a war crime.
and to be fair, he kind of did.
your legs are still over sukuna’s shoulders. your throat is still tight. your cunt is still pulsing like a fire alarm. and sukuna doesn’t even flinch. doesn’t retreat. just flicks his tongue out once, once, against the softest, most humiliating spot of you—as punctuation.
“oh,” he says, lazily. “you’re early.”
“you kidnapped her again,” satoru snaps, storming fully into the room like he pays the rent here, like he didn’t just walk in on you spread open in a royal bath.
“i invited her,” sukuna says.
“you never asked—”
“she never says no.”
“he’s got you under a spell,” satoru gasps, like this isn’t the eighth fucking time. “he’s—he’s doing something to you. you would never stay here willingly—”
“she asked for a refill,” sukuna says, not even glancing up from your inner thigh. “and a massage.”
“that’s not what this looks like.”
you bolt upright, peel the other cucumber slice off your face, dripping and humiliated and pissed off in five different directions now.
“oh my god,” you mutter, voice raw from heat and water and the whiplash of almost getting your pussy eaten into the astral plane. “both of you—shut the fuck up.”
sukuna doesn’t move. still lounging. big and broad like a final boss screen, steam curling around his tattooed chest like smoke from a fire-breath trigger, gold rings glinting at his fingers like coins from a chest you weren’t supposed to open. his shoulders are sharp. his jaw sharper. there’s something beast-shaped about the way he takes up space—even wet and lazy in the bath, he looks like he could wreck half the kingdom if you gave him a reason.
you shove sukuna off and stand. the bathwater crashes back into place. you step out, dripping, glistening, glowing with leftover soap and fresh vengeance, and snatch your robe off the heated hook like you’re the only adult in this cursed castle.
“you’re not rescuing me,” you snap at gojo, tying the sash. “you’re not corrupting me,” you shoot at sukuna. “you’re both just horny and dramatic and in love with the sound of your own arguments.”
satoru sputters. “i—i care about you—”
“you want to win me,” you correct. “like a sword duel or a fucking cake contest.”
“not everything is about your pussy,” sukuna drawls from the water, licking your taste off his lips like a challenge.
his tongue is sharp when it flicks out, forked at the tip like some kind of demon king parody of affection. his eyes glow just slightly—red and cruel—like he’s gearing up for his next form. like if you say the wrong thing, he’ll shift. claws, maybe. a shell. something ancient that drags you into him no matter how many times you run.
the castle hums again, and for a second, you swear the tub jets pulse in sync with your heartbeat.
“but you always make it about that,” you bite back. “so what’s the truth, huh? one of you wants to save me. the other wants to ruin me. but both of you are stuck in this dumb, pathetic tug-of-war and i’m the only one smart enough to say it.”
they’re both quiet now. dripping. wet. steaming in different ways.
you cross your arms.
“you don’t want to fight over me.”
you pause. drop your voice.
“you want to share.”
the silence is heavy.
you step forward, slow. drip across the floor. eyes locked on satoru first, then sukuna. neither of them flinch. neither of them breathe.
“and maybe if you two would stop acting like enemies and admit what you really want,” you murmur, “you’d both get to cum.”
sukuna stands.
and god, it’s a final boss animation.
he rises from the bath like he was spawned, not born—huge and horned at the shoulders with muscle and menace, black tattoos flaring like molten paths across his chest, glowing faintly gold under the water like lava veins. his aura crackles. the air bends. if he roared, you’d flinch. if he laughed, you’d cum. his dick is out like it belongs on a pedestal, and you’re not entirely convinced it doesn’t breathe fire.
you stare. satoru stares harder.
"what the fuck are you doing," satoru blurts, instinctively taking a step back like the sheer audacity is contagious.
“what’s it look like?” sukuna shrugs, climbing out completely, no towel, no shame, not even a flicker of modesty. he walks across the marble like he was born to stalk enemies and lovers barefoot and naked in his own castle. “i’m giving the lady what she asked for.”
he even leaves scorch marks in the water where he stood. not literal ones. just hot enough that your skin remembers them.
“she said kiss,” satoru says, face full panic, eyes full don’t make this real. “not—whatever this is.”
“you scared?” sukuna smirks. “it’s not gay if it’s for her.”
“that’s literally the most gay justification I’ve ever—”
“do you want to fuck her or not?” sukuna snaps, suddenly louder, stepping into his space, wet and steaming and mean. “because if we’re gonna fuck her, we’re doing it my way.”
he’s close enough now to smell like fire. not smoke. fire. heat from the source. it clings to him like sweat, like magic, like a dragon-shaped threat that decided it wanted you instead of treasure.
satoru's mouth opens. closes. twitches at the corners like he’s trying to glitch out of the conversation entirely. like if he blinks fast enough, he’ll wake up in a normal situation where he hasn’t just been pressured into gay chicken by the demon lord of wet arrogance.
"this is coercion," satoru mutters.
"this is teamwork," sukuna corrects.
you lean against the wall. robe loose. "tick-tock," you sing, "someone kiss someone or i’m going back in the bath, alone."
sukuna doesn’t break eye contact.
he steps in closer.
his hand curls around the back of satoru's neck, slow and tight like a threat dressed in silk. satoru flinches. exhales. and stares at sukuna’s mouth like it’s a moving target.
“just a kiss,” sukuna murmurs, voice low. “then you can pretend you hated it.”
his fangs flash. not cute little vampire points. canine. beast. prehistoric.
you’ve seen him bite before. once, during a sparring match, a rival ended up with puncture marks through enchanted armor. that rival never came back.
satoru doesn’t mean to do it. that’s what he’ll tell himself later.
he didn’t want to. didn’t plan to. didn’t lean in.
sukuna did. sukuna always does.
but his mouth is right there—wet and hot from the bath, and his hand’s already on satoru’s neck like he owns it, like he could snap it or kiss it or both—and there’s something about the way he says just a kiss that makes it feel like a dare.
so satoru folds.
he doesn’t tilt his head, doesn’t breathe, just stands there frozen while sukuna leans in—and kisses him like he’s trying to win something.
and fuck, does he.
it’s not sweet. not gentle. not curious.
it’s filthy.
it’s tongues first, lips second. teeth clacking, spit everywhere, heat rolling off both of them like a second bath was summoned just from the sheer friction of hate-fucking a kiss into place. satoru grunts, shocked and breathless and already grabbing at sukuna’s arm like he’s going to shove him off, like he should, but his hand stays. fingers digging into wet muscle, other hand on sukuna’s hip like maybe he needs to keep him steady, like maybe he wants more leverage.
sukuna groans into it. obscene. hands everywhere—cupping satoru’s jaw, dragging down his ribs, gripping his waist and pulling like he wants to fuse them. he kisses like it’s combat. like he’s breaking satoru’s mouth in. like he wants you to watch.
and you do.
robe open. chest heaving. eyes wide and wet and locked on the way satoru’s knees are buckling slightly, the way he breathes like he forgot how to, the way he moans when sukuna sucks his tongue just to be mean.
satoru gasps. sukuna doesn’t let him go.
hand in his hair now. tongue deep in his mouth. hips angled forward like if this keeps up he’s going to grind on him, and maybe he is, maybe that’s the point, maybe he wants to be rutting up against his rival’s thigh while you stand there wet and smug and choosing which one of them you’re gonna ride first.
when sukuna finally pulls back—strings of spit between them, both of them flushed and panting and glassy-eyed like they just got head in a thunderstorm—he laughs.
"see?" he pants, mouth red. “teamwork.”
satoru stares at him. you stare at them. no one says anything for a second.
“again,” you say, eyes bright, mouth sticky-sweet with command. “this time—on my bed. chop chop.”
you clap your hands once, like they’re stable boys and you’re the duchess of debauchery, and then turn on your heel like you expect to be followed.
they do. of course they do.
sukuna grabs a towel off the bath hook like it’s a weapon and slings it low over his hips, still smirking, still red in the mouth like he just fed on something divine. the towel looks absurdly small on him. more like a concession than coverage. like if he flexed wrong it’d be gone.
sukuna follows last. heavy footsteps that make the stone beneath the rugs shift like the castle’s recalibrating for his weight. every torch along the corridor flares brighter as he passes, flames bending inward like they recognize their source. the air stays warmer behind him, heat lingering like a warning sign you ignore on purpose.
you lead them barefoot through the hallway, robe swinging open, dripping water on the tile floors of the castle like a trail of sins you dare someone to mop up. the room you step into is ridiculous. all blush pink and soft textures and filigree mirrors. a bed so fluffy it looks like it would absorb a body whole. silk pillows with lace trim. a plush throw with your initials embroidered in gold thread.
sukuna scoffs. satoru blinks. you climb up onto the mattress like a throne.
“both of you,” you say, voice light, like you’re calling dogs to heel. “on your knees.”
they hesitate. for half a second. then obey.
sukuna throws the towel. satoru swallows like his soul’s leaving his body. and then they’re there—crawling up the edge of the bed, one on each side, eyes locked on your legs like they’re being drawn in by gravity.
you spread them.
you don’t even have to say it. they both move at the same time.
sukuna’s mouth goes to your inner thigh, tongue dragging slow and cruel up the softest skin, teeth brushing just enough to make you jolt. satoru kisses the other side, open-mouthed and reverent, like he’s trying to cancel out every filthy thing sukuna’s ever done to you with sweetness.
but it’s not about balance. it’s about devastation.
their mouths meet in the middle.
tongues brushing. lips sticky. spit mixing against your cunt like you’re the altar and they’re fighting for prayer rights. one sucks your clit. the other fucks you with his tongue. and then they switch. again and again. passing you back and forth like a dare, like a game, like if one of them makes you cum first it means something bigger than it should.
sukuna groans when you grab his hair. satoru moans when your thighs twitch around his ears. neither of them can breathe and neither of them care. they’re loud. messy. competitive. syncing up without meaning to.
you whimper. they grunt. you twitch. they dig in deeper.
you are dripping. soaking the sheets. arching into both of them like a spoiled royal, and they like it. they want it. they want to make you cum while staring at each other across your cunt just to prove they can do it better.
and you? you let them.
of course you do.
they’re exactly where they belong.
it hits you all at once, the way you’re being devoured, the way their tongues never stop, the way sukuna grips your thighs like he’s trying to carve his name into the bones underneath while satoru makes these fucking noises like he’s praying into your cunt. they don’t stop. they don’t breathe. they act like this is the final round of a competition neither of them wants to lose.
and you let them go until your hips stutter, until your fingers clutch the sheets, until your voice breaks in that perfect little way that makes them both glance up like they just heard the bell ring.
“switch,” you gasp.
they blink.
“want both of you,” you breathe, dragging one arm behind you, looking over your shoulder, “in me. now.”
it’s not a request. it’s a fact.
and god, do they scramble.
sukuna grabs your hips first. of course he does. palms you like he’s measuring the curve for fit, like he’s already imagining the drag of his cock inside you. satoru moves to the front, eyes wide and stunned and already hard like he knew this was coming and still wasn’t ready.
“on your knees,” you murmur, breath shallow, voice fucked-out and full of authority you didn’t earn but own anyway. “both of you.”
you turn over. press your face into the pillows. arch your back like an offering.
you feel sukuna’s cock drag through your folds first—slow, like he wants you to remember every inch. and satoru’s in front of you now, hand in your hair, cock flushed and leaking and twitching under your breath.
"open up, sweetheart,” he murmurs, just before you do. and then his cock is pushing past your lips, warm and salty and soaked, like he’s been ready to fuck your throat since the moment you told them to kiss.
sukuna sinks in at the same time.
you choke around satoru’s cock the moment sukuna bottoms out.
both of them groan. like your body was built for this. like they’ve been waiting their whole lives to ruin you together.
you can’t breathe.
you don’t want to.
there’s no rhythm, just need. sukuna’s hips slap against your ass, unforgiving, relentless, fucking you deep like he owns you. satoru holds your head like he’s afraid he’ll fall apart if he lets go, fucking your mouth with this desperate, whimpering pace like he’s sorry but also not stopping.
it’s spit. and heat. and suction. it’s tears down your face and drool down your chin and the brutal, gorgeous fullness of being used by both of them at once. your hands grip the sheets. sukuna’s fingers dig into your waist. satoru moans when you gag, tells you you’re doing so good, so fucking good, fuck—just like that.
you are choking. soaking.
and you never want it to end.
you can feel them in stereo.
sukuna buried in your cunt, hips snapping like a weapon, groaning every time you clench down like your pussy’s trying to keep him. satoru fucking your throat in short, desperate thrusts, hand curled tight in your hair, saying your name like a prayer he’s breaking on.
you’re dripping. crying. choking. perfect.
you don’t even have to look up to know they’re watching each other. you can feel it—the tension, the breathless, biting rivalry still simmering under all the moaning. they’re trying to pretend this isn’t what it is.
you ruin it.
you pull your mouth off satoru’s cock with a wet gasp, drool stringing from your lip to the head of him, your voice wrecked and raw and still smug when you gasp:
“kiss again.”
satoru blinks. panting. flushed to his ears.
sukuna doesn’t stop fucking you.
“she likes it,” he pants, slamming into you harder. “go on. be a good boy. give her a show.”
satoru groans. confused. humiliated. hard as fuck.
“what, you don’t want to kiss me when your dick’s in her throat?”
you swallow him again on instinct, just to watch him twitch. he gasps.
“you’re such an asshole,” satoru pants.
“then kiss me like you mean it.”
and he does. god, he does.
it’s brutal. hot. confusing and primal and way too much spit, but their mouths crash together over your body like it’s a battlefield, like they’re using each other’s tongues to claim you without saying it out loud.
you’re drooling around satoru’s cock again, the moan in your throat vibrating against him as sukuna fucks into you harder, deeper, one hand tangled in satoru’s white hair now, pulling him in to keep the kiss going.
they’re kissing over you while you’re getting fucked within an inch of your life.
spit and teeth and groans, tongues sliding, lips parted, their bodies rutting into yours at perfect opposite angles and still finding the time to moan into each other’s mouths like it’s a contest.
your cunt is clenching so tight it makes sukuna swear, low and hot, like he’s about to break.
and you? you’re soaking the sheets.
you wanted this. all of it.
and now you’re watching them fall apart for you. together.
you pull off satoru’s cock again with a gasp—spit trailing down your chin, your cunt dripping down your thighs, breathless and soaked and ready to be worshipped—and you look up at him like you’re about to give him his final test.
but before you can say a word, sukuna speaks behind you.
“lay down.”
and satoru does.
no hesitation. no backtalk. just drops back onto the mattress like his bones dissolved, like the command short-circuited something in his brain. his cock bounces against his stomach, red and wet and aching, and he looks up at you like he’s scared you’ll disappear if he blinks.
sukuna catches your wrist. leans in close.
“sit on his face.”
he says it like it’s nothing. like it’s inevitable.
and you move like you were waiting to be told.
satoru blinks up at you, already sprawled on the mattress, already halfway gone, cock flushed and twitching, lips wet from the last time he kissed sukuna like he forgot how to hate him.
“wait,” he breathes. “what are you—”
you crawl up. your knees land on either side of his head, and you hover—just long enough for him to look right at your pussy, glistening and dripping and open for him, so close he could lick it without moving.
“what are you…” he tries again, voice cracking now. “what are you doing—”
and then you sit.
his tongue doesn’t even wait.
it lunges.
like he can’t help it. like you just landed on a pressure point and released something primal. he groans—loud—mouth already open, tongue licking up your slit like he’s parched, like he’s sorry, like he’ll make up for every mistake he’s ever made if you just keep grinding down like that.
you moan. roll your hips. grab the headboard for balance.
and in front of you—you hear sukuna laugh.
a hand wraps around your waist. the other grabs satoru by the hip.
“don’t stop licking,” sukuna mutters again. “or i stop fucking.”
“wait—what—” satoru tries, voice muffled under your pussy, tongue still twitching, mouth still moving, breath already shaking.
sukuna doesn’t wait.
he never does.
sukuna grabs a fistful of satoru’s ass like he owns it. spreads him open. wide. rough. mean. just enough to make satoru twitch under you like he knows what’s coming and it’s already too much.
“you wanna eat her out so bad?” sukuna growls, breath hot across your spine. “do it with my cock in you.”
you hear it more than you see it.
the spit.
wet. thick. dragged right from the back of his throat and hawked down directly onto satoru’s hole like it’s a claim. loud and disrespectful, like he’s not even trying to be subtle about it, like this hole was made for him, and he’s just taking back what was already his.
it lands with a wet splat, stringy and hot.
satoru moans into your pussy. like it turned him on. like he hates that it did.
“fucking tight,” sukuna mutters, spreading his cheeks wider with both hands now, spit glistening on that perfect pink ring, watching it flex like it’s trying to run and take at the same time.
you don’t stop grinding. your thighs are shaking. your cunt’s soaked. satoru’s tongue keeps twitching under you like he can’t focus, like he’s trying to eat you out while processing the spit sliding down his crack, pooling where he’s already so sensitive it hurts.
sukuna spits again. harder.
watches it drip down. watches it stick.
then he lines himself up.
no warning.
just one filthy, stretched-out second of silence—then the slick, press of the head of his cock right against that spit-slick hole.
satoru gasps. tries to lift his hips. can’t. you’re on his face. sukuna’s got his ass spread wide like a fucking offering plate.
then sukuna starts to push.
you feel the way satoru shakes beneath you. feel the tremble in his hands on your thighs. feel the moan rip out of his chest and into your cunt, his tongue fluttering against your clit like he doesn’t know if he’s overwhelmed or about to cum untouched or both.
sukuna hisses through his teeth. forces himself deeper. grabs satoru’s hips and pulls him down onto his cock like he’s shoving the last piece of something perfect into place.
“fuck,” sukuna grits. “you feel that, princess? this tight little bitch clenching around me while he eats you out?”
you moan. it’s not a word anymore. not even a sound with meaning. just a shudder dragged from your ribs because satoru won’t stop licking, won’t stop moaning into your pussy while sukuna ruins him from behind like he was made for it.
sukuna leans in.
his hand comes up your spine, slow and steady, and then across your chest, fingers rough and wet from satoru’s skin, trailing up to your jaw to pull your mouth to his. he’s panting. flushed. still thrusting into satoru in long, brutal strokes. and then he kisses you.
wet. loud. hungry.
he kisses you like he owns the air between your teeth. like he wants to eat the sounds right out of your throat. you kiss him back with your whole body—mouth sticky, tongue filthy, your hips grinding harder on satoru’s face because you want him to feel it while sukuna devours your mouth.
“look at him,” sukuna growls, breaking the kiss, voice wrecked. “fuck, look.”
he grabs your chin. turns your head down.
and you do.
satoru’s face is soaked in your slick. lips swollen. nose shiny. tongue still out. his eyes are wet, desperate, fluttering like he’s already on the edge. you can feel his moans inside you, against you, vibrating straight up your spine.
you slide off his mouth slowly. his lips chase you for a second—instinct—but you’re already shifting down, dragging your cunt over his chest, your hands planted on either side of his face. sukuna keeps fucking him, cock slamming in deeper, rhythm rougher now that you’re watching.
you lean in.
satoru gasps, eyes wide, and you kiss him.
you kiss him like he’s already lost, like the only thing left is how thoroughly. your mouth is still wet from him, from sukuna, from everything, and when your tongue slides in he makes this broken little sound in his throat like he didn’t expect you to want him after all that.
you do.
your hand slips down between your bodies. wraps around his length. he’s hot and slick and so hard it’s almost embarrassing, like he’s been holding himself together on sheer adrenaline and your approval alone. you jerk him slow at first, thumb brushing the slit just to feel him twitch.
he moans into your mouth.
and that’s when his hands come up—hesitant for half a second, like he’s checking if he’s allowed—and then he pinches your nipples between his fingers, not mean. not gentle. just enough to make you gasp against his lips and grind your hips down without realizing you did it.
“fuck,” you breathe, breaking the kiss just long enough to look at him.
he looks wrecked. pupils blown. mouth open. chest heaving. still being fucked, sukuna’s hips snapping in a rhythm that never stops, never slows, like a reminder that satoru doesn’t get to forget where he is or what he’s being used for.
you jerk him harder now. faster. wrist flexing. spit-slick sounds filling the room. he whines—actually whines—and pinches you again, thumbs rolling like he’s trying to hold onto something, like the sensation is the only thing anchoring him.
“don’t stop,” he says, voice cracked, stupid, desperate.
you smile.
“i wasn’t planning to.”
you kiss him again, messy and open-mouthed, teeth bumping, tongues sliding, your hand working him steadily while sukuna fucks him deep enough to make his whole body rock. he’s trapped between it all—your mouth, your hand, sukuna’s cock—and it shows. his breathing is wrecked. his hips keep trying to thrust up into your grip even though he can’t go anywhere.
you pull back just enough to look at him again.
then you shift.
not fully. not yet. just enough to line yourself up, to let the head of him brush against you, to feel that hot, stupid pressure that makes his breath catch and his fingers dig in harder.
“look at you,” you murmur. “so fucked out already.”
his eyes flutter.
and you start to climb.
you do it like it’s yours to take. like his cock belongs to you, and you’re just coming back for it. you slide up and over him, knees planted firm on either side of his hips, one hand braced on his chest, the other still slick and wrapped around his shaft. you line him up. tease. not because he needs it—but because he can’t do anything about it.
you’re dripping.
you’re still open from earlier, still twitching, still needy, and the second the head of his cock catches on your entrance, you feel him twitch under you.
“fuck—” satoru pants, voice high. “please—i—”
you cut him off with a moan of your own.
and then you sink.
slow. tight. wet.
you feel every inch. you make him feel it. the way you clench down just to see his jaw lock. the way his breath stops in his throat halfway through. he tries to lift his hips—instinct—but he’s still full of sukuna, still being fucked, still being used, and he can’t do shit except take it.
you bottom out.
his eyes roll back.
you sit fully on him, hands planted on his chest, the weight of your body and the stretch of his cock and sukuna’s cock inside him making him shake like he’s about to cum untouched.
and sukuna—he grunts behind you, still buried in his ass, pace faltering just slightly.
“fuck, look at him,” he growls. “he’s gonna cum just from this.”
you roll your hips. slow.
satoru chokes on a moan.
“you like that, huh?” you murmur, leaning in close, your cunt pulsing around him. “being split open, used like a toy.”
he nods. once. quick. like he’s ashamed to admit it out loud. like it’ll make it worse if he says yes and you believe him.
his mouth opens. nothing comes out.
sukuna fucks into him harder.
your whole body jolts from the force of it, your hips sliding down, satoru’s cock pressing deeper inside you just as he lets out this little choked-off gasp against your mouth, like he doesn’t know how to hold it anymore. his hands are trembling where they cling to your waist, his chest rising too fast under yours, his eyes wide and wet and full of it—heat and pressure and disbelief. he’s shaking. so are you.
you kiss him again. open-mouthed and soaking in it, tongue messy, noses bumping, the two of you completely unraveling against each other while sukuna ruins him from behind.
“he’s gonna cum,” sukuna grits out from somewhere close, the sound of skin on skin louder now, sharper, his hand gripping your waist again, fucking into satoru like he can’t stop even if he wanted to. “he’s gonna fucking cum like this. you feel him?”
you do.
you feel everything. the way satoru’s cock kicks inside you, leaking and twitching, every muscle in his stomach flexing like he’s trying not to lose it too fast. the way his moans have gone quiet now—small, desperate, breathless little exhalations against your cheek like he can’t catch a full one anymore. he’s crying a little. you think. or sweating. or just overwhelmed. it doesn’t matter. he’s close. you can feel it in your spine.
you grind down on him harder. not even bouncing anymore—just moving in slow, tight circles, keeping him deep, dragging out the friction, letting the rhythm build slow and cruel and perfect while sukuna keeps fucking into his ass like he owns it.
your voice breaks before you mean it to.
“cum,” you whisper. not loud. not sweet. just necessary. like a spell you know will work.
and he does.
so hard it punches a sound out of him that he’s never made before. his whole body spasms under you, legs shaking, back arching off the bed like he’s trying to crawl out of his own skin. his cock throbs inside you, hot and thick, spilling deep while you’re still pulsing around him, still grinding down, still clenching like you need it to keep going just a second longer.
it’s enough.
your orgasm hits like a wave slamming into concrete.
you shake. full-body. your mouth open but no sound coming out now, not really, not when you’re gushing around him, cunt fluttering, thighs locking up around his waist like you’re trying to drown him in it. your head drops to his shoulder. you don’t even know if you’re breathing.
behind you, sukuna groans. it’s low. fucked-out. the sound of a man hitting the edge with no brakes.
he grabs your hips—hard—and drives into satoru one last time, deep enough to shove satoru back up into you, your body jolting on top of him as sukuna growls and spills inside him with a hiss.
you can feel it. the way satoru flinches. the heat. the mess. the way he groans through it, lips brushing your jaw, body still twitching.
nobody moves.
sukuna stays there, cock still buried in satoru’s ass, chest pressed against your back, breath ragged. satoru is wrecked beneath you, chest heaving, eyes fluttering shut, lips wet and open. your body’s still twitching. your cunt still fluttering every time he shifts under you, too sensitive now, too full.
you don’t say anything.
you just stay like that.
you roll your hips once more. slow. indulgent. squeeze him just to feel him twitch. sukuna hasn’t pulled out yet. satoru’s cock is soft inside you now, slick with his own cum and sweat and whatever’s still leaking out of him from behind. everyone’s breathing hard. everyone’s quiet.
you blink down at him. stretch your spine. adjust your hips like you’re just getting comfortable.
“you’re both so easy it’s disgusting.”
satoru twitches. sukuna snorts.
“the fuck does that mean,” satoru wheezes, voice cracked, hands still shaking on your thighs. “i just got spitroasted for like an hour—”
“and you liked it,” you mutter, already reaching for the nearest towel. “you fucking loved it.”
“she’s not wrong,” sukuna grins, pulling out of him slow, messy, mean, one hand dragging down your spine like he knows he’s about to say something that’ll start another fight. “you were moaning like a little bitch the whole time.”
“you kissed me first,” satoru snaps.
“you came while i kissed you,” sukuna snaps back.
satoru’s whole body jerks like someone slapped him with a wet cloth. “i came because she was riding me—”
“with my cock inside you,” sukuna interrupts, smug. “say it slower.”
“that’s not—no—that’s not what happened, you manipulated the timing—”
“oh my god,” you groan, flopping back against the mattress. “are you seriously arguing about whether or not that was gay now?”
“it wasn’t,” satoru insists immediately. “it was about her.”
“you tongue-fucked me.”
“you grabbed my face.”
you blink at the ceiling. “you literally moaned into each other’s mouths while i came. like.”
“okay but that’s not gay, that’s—” satoru starts, voice a little too high.
“oh my god,” you mutter, flat on your back now, towel draped over your stomach, one hand over your eyes. “can you both shut the fuck up.”
they don’t.
you know they won’t.
satoru’s already gesturing with one limp arm, trying to make a point about tongue placement and emotional sabotage. sukuna’s flexing like he didn’t almost fall over two minutes ago. you’re pretty sure there’s still cum drying on the sheets. no one’s moving.
“guess we have to go through this again.”
the room goes quiet.
you peek through your fingers.
they’re both staring at you.
satoru’s mouth is open like he forgot how to argue. sukuna tilts his head, eyes already darkening again.
theartofmadeline
discoholicmusic
amandla
areudirty
stormborns
vaporwave
