Hi!! Welcome to my little silly blog, I mostly write Satoru related one-shot fluff on here because I stick to fanfics on wattpad/ao3 , but anyway... Pick your choice!
Feel free to request anything (that's not borderline weird/illegal)<33
Teaser: Gojo Satoru unknowingly falls for the one person he's not supposed to. A girl with no connections, no right to see the future, no time and someone who never knew love. The star plasma vessel.
Hi beautiful people, a few weeks ago i teased the idea of Ditto which has this plot, very angsty and not at all sweet or dramatic like my other long ffs aaaand im happy to show u guys the opening chapter.As always , on wattpad and ao3.
ACT I:
Track sixteen.
Death is a horizon that shapes our consciousness.
Dying is not just your biological end, It's the failing act of meeting the future again, the success of erasing your existence too.
It it said that people carry on to live different lifestyles depending on how much they think about death, and how much they let it affect them.
Your case was different, you knew you were condemned to death since you were old enough to grasp the concept of never seeing someone ever again because they didn't walk the earth anymore.
Mundane things like dreaming of your future— what your limbs will grow into, who you will meet, what you will be, who you will turn into, become a luxury you can't afford to even think about.
Time becomes precious, more than it already is.
The world isn't as colorful, it's a fragile painting you live in.
Made by ink that decays too quickly, that erases with the passage of days.
Words aren't as meaningful. What you tell another doesn't reach their heart. Everything is an empty promise because once you're gone, it's just empty words.
Empty like how your casket will be once the clock strikes 12 A.M. on your eight-teenth birthday.
When you're born a star plasma vessel, death is your only destiny, your only true promise.
You unfortunately meet Gojo Satoru when your mind is already set on dying. When there's no going back from accepting your fate.
It was a Thursday, but not just any Thursday. Nothing was just anything after the void in your chest consumed you day and night.
"Yo! Who are you?"
The man who you'd come to know as Yaga shot him a glare instantly, "Gojo, have some manners."
You didn't reply to him, just quietly stood by the noticeably taller buzzcutted man with a vein already popping out of his forehead— caused a much younger boy that threatened the director's height with his long legs and skeleton arms despite his age.
The stance you were in: slumped shoulders, hands tightly gripping the ends of your sweatshirt, limbs squeezed together like you were physically trying to make yourself smaller, couldn't be farther from who you are.
You aren't shy.
But you're not as loud and lively as you were.
Though that was when you were once happy, maybe.
He was freakishly lanky, tall, rocking on his heels backwards and forward continuously like it pained him to stay in place— and dripping in arrogance.
From miles away, you could tell he was one of those rich kids who grew up with silver spoons and spent their days with nannies instead of their mothers— hence the lack of empathy and social skills.
But he stood out in a way that your middle school enemies didn't.
Sure, you had known about Jujutsu for a total of a decade by the time you crossed paths with him for the first time, and even with no actual knowledge about it, you knew the shift in the atmosphere ever since he'd come into the picture was something that had to do with his power.
It was like ever since he'd drawn closer, the walls of the old wooden hall narrowed down, pressing the air against you.
As his raven haired friend who trailed behind saying: "Sorry about him.", you noticed he didn't cause the same bend in gravity. He was normal, a sight you were more accustomed to than his albino-white haired friend who wore pitch black sunglasses even indoors.
Pitch black irises, equally dark stretchers, and emo-long hair— at least you could find somebody in your memory that has reassembled the man who introduced himself as Suguru Geto.
Yet, his friend drew a blank. Was it even possible to be that stretched out and have grandpa-white hair at his age? You didn't dare to ask, but the question was at the tip of your tongue.
Nor did you even glace towards the short brown haired girl next to them.
Nonetheless, the albino didn't seem to love how quiet you'd been. "Cat got your tongue?"
Unfortunately for him, you were in no mood to entertain him at the time. So you didn't bother replying, and just bowed to Yaga and his friend before inaudibly excusing yourself.
You heard him huff out in disbelief as you disappeared further into the hall.
"So she can talk, even if I didn't hear anything, but she doesn't even look my way. You should teach her some manners, sensei."
Yaga was brief with your introduction, not that he could allow himself to even phantom about letting your real reason for attending the school slip out— all under your request.
"That's L/N Y/N. In other circumstances I'd say she is going to be your new classmate, but she's not going to be studying with you two and Shoko."
Gojo tilted in head in confusion as his teacher took a pause, subconsciously pursing his lips as his next words built a sentence. "Either way, treat her well."
"What the fuck is wrong with her?"
There w̶a̶s̶ is too much wrong with you to put into words.
Born a star plasma vessel, you've known ever since you were old enough to grasp the concept of evil beings lurking around, invisible to people referred as "non sorcerers" but completely visible to "sorcerers", that your world wasn't sunshine and rainbows like a 10 year old girl was supposed to see it as.
You were neither a sorceress or even someone with cursed energy, but you served as a candidate for merging with master Tengen, to reset their power and refresh their immortality.
It's grim, knowing that you have an expiration date, and that every day in your life has to have meaning, mandatory, so you wouldn't die with the regret of doing nothing with your life.
For the most of it, your parents tried to not bring it up after you'd caught them discussing it for the first time at age ten.
But it always lingered in the back of your head. The weight behind the words grew with you. And at times, aged somewhere around fourteen and fifteen, it started gnawing at you in different ways— you felt heavier after laughing with them over something stupid— because you knew this was temporary.
The pressure, the fear, the stress kept piling up over the years, little by little. Till you found yourself actually spending the rest of your time to the fullest. You knew your time was coming, turning eight-teen seemed to be just around the corner at sixteen.
But then, the world tilted on it's axis. The house was empty by the morning, the house phone was bombarded with calls from people you didn't know. Child services, aunts, uncles, friends, distant relatives, sorcerers, Masamichi Yaga.
Six-teen, you were six-teen when your parents died in a car crash.
And many things that followed after the crash turned you into more of a vessel than a human. Which is ideal for master Tengen. A human, not a person— someone with no name, someone that has little to no connections with society— raised apart, almost emotionless, that wouldn't feel anything when they gave their life away.
"For the greater good."
By the second month, you were moved to Jujustu High because it seemed better than becoming an orphan who would get adopted by a new family, who'd eventually suffer the loss of a child.
Crushing the dreams of innocent people was never in your cards. So, under your conditions because there was no use living a normal life when you had nothing and nobody, you accepted Masamichi's offer.
The things you asked for were simple.
One, you'd study apart from the other students. If you were going to be somewhere for the next two years, you'd at least get an education and die with a high-school diploma. Finding x, y and z seemed better in your mind now, than basking in bittersweet memories of your late parents all day.
You didn't have a mother to peel the sour layer of citrus off your grapefruit.
There was no longer the faint hum of your father playing the guitar in the background.
Two, the school's staff would not mention the reasons behind your stay at the institution and you would have a different set of teachers, class hours, and stay in a different dorm setting than the others.
Three, most important condition of them all, everyone would turn a blind eye to what you did on campus and off campus. You're not a sorceress, and not even a real student. So you didn't want them to pay special attention to you.
Not when you had less than two years left. It's no time to limit your freedom now.
Which is why Yaga let you wander off after introducing you to his student's. You weren't much of a talker, he knows, and it's only natural after everything you'd went through as of late.
He couldn't imagine, even under all of his thick skin, how it must feel to abandon your city, move to somewhere as loud as Tokyo— all alone to top it all off. And to die in less than two years.
You walked around the vast campus. It's nestled deep in the Tokyo outskirt's mountains. Covered by greenery—dark oak trees, a barrier that's not visible to the naked eye. There are torii gates at the entrance.
Some comfortable reading spots under trees, you noted, though you weren't going to ever use them. You didn't have that kind of liberty, to put yourself out there— to be seen. Because your clock would start to slow down if you interacted with anyone.
If anyone were to see you, to acknowledge you, and grab you hard enough, then leaving would become a lot harder. Both for you, and them.
You don't remember your father's last words, or your mother's. Then again, you can't seem to remember their faces all that much lately. Your mother's soft features, some embedded on your own face, fade from your recollection.
Was your father's voice always as gruff and deep as it was the last time he scolded you for getting hurt at school? Or was it that you don't remember how softly he used to speak to his only daughter?
Birds chirp loudly outside, and it reaches you where you're walking through the wooden corridors— where the floors creak with every step, and where the timber pillars held up the structure of the traditional building quite well despite the years.
And despite all of the decaying. You wished you were as resilient as hardwood sometimes.
Shoko notes by the one week mark of seeing you that she hadn't caught sight of you once since the brief introduction with their homeroom teacher. It's no surprise to her that the two idiots that she calls her best friend's have no recollection of the encounter ever happening, but at least, Suguru remembers who you were— eventually.
The three of them are shaded from the Wednesday sun by the leaves of a tree trunk probably more than three generations old. All of them hold a different flavor of the same line of soda's. Shoko holds a cherry coca cola, Suguru has a grape Fanta, and Satoru has the good old sugar-filled original cola.
For a brief second while she was zoned out before mentioning her, she thought about just how many times her little trio hits the vending machines up on the weekly— while the two male's reminisces about their first year.
Suguru was cackling loudly about the horrendous short and spiked up hairstyle Satoru sported just last year, which really makes the brunette wonder if it was really considered nostalgic when it was just one year ago, till she cut them off.
Saving Satoru from his doom.
"Hey, have any of you seen that L/N girl?"
That same high schooler that was just being made fun of, is the first to quirk a brow.
"Who?" He receives a sigh in return.
She tries again. "The new girl?"
This time it's the black-haired best friend who becomes an owl. "Who?"
"Ugh, I can't believe either of you. Y/N? The new girl we met just last week?"
Somehow, a bell rings in Suguru's head and he gets a solid idea of who his friend is talking about. Meanwhile Satoru is stuck where he was five minutes ago.
"Satoru, the quiet girl."
And the cogs start turning in the six eyes' head.
"Ah, the freak." Shoko nearly spits out the gulp of her drink onto the grass, but she refrains from doing so.
But before she can even do anything else, Satoru continues. "Now that you say it, I haven't seen her around once. Is she a ghost or something?"
It seems like he somehow summoned you, or that the universe shifted fates gears. Because that night, you're walking under the moonlight— mindlessly letting your body take you wherever along the empty streets of a seemingly quiet neighborhood.
You feel like wrenching somewhere because the streets reek of alcohol all of the sudden, and only when you snap out of your trance do you realize that the neighborhood is in fact not quiet and that there is an apartment blasting music just at the end of the road.
A group of boys are play fighting or talking outside of the building, a group of girls are hunched over the trash can— throwing up. Which is what is making you nauseous too.
And yet, you have to get through the multitude of people so you can go back to Jujutsu High.
However, you don't pay half of the attention you should when passing through the street and someone is hauled right onto your side as you walk with your head down, convenience store bag clutched in hand— trying to not let it's contents spill all over the floor.
Obviously, you trip over yourself and barely save yourself from meeting the floor face on.
It seems though, that you're not lucky, because the boy you've apparently ran into, when he was the one who slammed into you, isn't happy. You quickly take note that he's really tall, familiarly so.
"Sorry."
You mutter, not because you're guilty of something when you're really the victim in the situation, the words just slip past your lips out of habit.
The man simultaneously voices out the same words as he turns around to see who he's bumped into.
And you don't expect to see Gojo Satoru's bare, bright, uncovered eyes stare back at you for the first time.
But you do.
In that moment, it doesn't even cross your mind to ask what a Jujutsu High student is doing here, downtown, at a party that looks like it's probably hosted by teenage boys with no powers, with no real responsibilities like he has.
With certainly 'boring' lives. Parallel to the one he lives.
Where they are seen as boys, and not weapons.
Then again, it makes sense.
This is the kind of normalcy people like him wish for.
The kind of life in which you will only worry about hurriedly picking up red and blue plastic cups form the floor, abolishing the smell of cigarettes and drunk teenagers off the walls before your parents make it home at sunrise.
"Sorry."
Ditto.
The words don't leave your mouth, but you almost find it amusing how instead of being bothered by your run-in with the school's most annoying student and strongest sorcerer—that would surely be on your ass after today, you're thinking about how the first words you've offered someone in some time is a half-assed apology that ditto-ed.
His tone held the same indifference yours did, he's even less sorry than you were to have almost sent you flying.
But in that brief second of recognition, you see something else flash behind those irises. Something akin to curiosity, maybe even intrigue.
It's his turn to ponder what the ghost of Jujutsu High is doing outside on a weekend, after being MIA for a week. Hanging under the radar when he can barely leave the school for these parties— despite having the strength he does.
You're starring at him with the most bored, blank expression he's ever seen someone hold. And it makes your eyes somehow look caved in even more with the eyebags around them.
The hold you had on your plastic bag full of random items—an strange-flavored new ice cream release, some pads, a bottle of gas water and something well against your school's policy— cigarettes you plan on finishing before even stepping on the grounds again.
He doesn't have the time to throw a remark about anything because you're already brushing past him with no regard to share another moment with him.
Satoru is left planted there. Speechless.
Nobody has ever looked at him like you did— like he was an unpleasant sight.
Like he's nothing.
The thought irked him.
But the sound of your voice, the way you pronounced the few vowels—almost inaudibly—got stuck in a loop. Relentlessly playing over and over his head.
It's the first time in his life that he's ever found himself feeling so small, worthless, and he doesn't like that.
Especially when someone it's someone as irrelevant as you who makes him feel this way.
If only he actually knew just how big of a part you play in his world.
Lawyer!Megumi Fushiguro x Editor-in-Chief!Pregnant Reader
Summary: You find your husband's search history.
Tags: Soft!Megumi · Slice Of Life · Fluff · Established Marriage · Pregnancy After Infertility · Implied Fertility Treatments · Pregnancy Anxiety · Mentions Of Negative Tests · Early To Mid-30s Megumi And Reader · Alaska Move · Big Built Megumi · Domestic Caretaking · Emotional Crying · Food · Nausea Mention.
A/N: Idk, I was bored and wrote this in December '25 but never got around to posting it because I haven't been well since and also lost the plot like five times while editing.
Playlist
Things people can do in Alaska with their pregnant wife.
You stop behind the couch with one hand braced under your belly, the other still holding the empty water glass you came to refill.
Megumi is asleep under the low amber lamp, his laptop open on the coffee table, one large hand hanging off the edge of the cushion. He’s still in his dress shirt, sleeves rolled to the forearm, tie pulled loose and abandoned somewhere near his collarbone, glasses sit crooked on his face.
He snores mildly due to the crooked angle, which he would deny in court.
You look back at the screen.
He has six tabs open.
Alaska Railroad, Girdwood resort, prenatal massage, Northern Lights heated dome, wildlife conservation drive-through, best calm-water coastal cruises for motion sickness.
Your throat closes.
He had spent dinner pretending to care about the acquisition scandal your imprint was currently circling like vultures. He had cut your salmon into smaller pieces without asking, slid your water closer every time you forgot to drink it, and looked tired when he smiled at you, but you’d thought it was work.
You hadn’t known he was planning how to make Alaska soft for you.
The article is still open below the search bar.
Low-impact comfort, beautiful scenery without grueling logistics, heated cabins, wide windows, warm drinks, and places where she can stay inside the car if she gets tired.
Your hand moves to scroll.
The Alaska Railroad—a heated train car with panoramic windows, no bumpy roads, and no hours on your feet.
Girdwood—aerial tram, fire pits, indoor saltwater pool, avoid hot tubs, book prenatal massage.
Fairbanks—heated dome under the northern lights, so she can watch from bed.
You press your lips together, but it doesn’t help.
Megumi shifts at the whimper you fail to swallow. His brows draw together before his eyes open.
He looks at your face. “What happened?”
You shake your head.
He’s upright in a second, glasses pushed up into his hair. “Are you in pain?”
“No.”
“Cramping?”
“No, Megumi.”
“Dizzy?”
“No.”
He reaches for you anyway, palm careful against your side, then the underside of your belly. “Then why are you crying?”
You set the glass down before you drop it. “You looked really sweet sleeping.”
He stares at you.
You sniff.
His mouth flattens. “That’s creepy.”
A laugh breaks out of you. “You looked very sweet, husband.”
He stares at you confused.
You wipe under your eye with the heel of your hand, and he catches your wrist before you can be rough with your own face, his thumb rubs softly over your skin.
The baby shifts, a slow roll under your ribs.
Megumi feels it.
Neither of you speaks.
That’s the thing nobody had told you about finally getting what you begged science, money, bloodwork, calendars, injections, and your own tired hope to give you after years of trying. Joy would not arrive alone but would bring fear with it in the nursery boxes you were both too superstitious to fully unpack. It slept between you when the baby was too still for thirty minutes.
Megumi lowers his forehead against your belly.
“Hey,” he murmurs there. “Don’t scare your mother.”
The baby kicks him.
You laugh again.
He looks up at you, offended in the sleepy, handsome way that made you marry him. “She’s already disrespectful.”
“She gets that from her father.”
“I’m a respected attorney.”
“You fell asleep researching.”
His face changes. It’s not noticeable.
But you know him.
You pretend not to see the laptop. “Come to bed.”
He closes the laptop with one hand and stands, heavier than he used to be, broader through the shoulders, softer only where your hands liked him best. Then he bends, picks up your glass, and guides you toward the kitchen first.
“Water,” he says.
In the kitchen, you drink because he watches until you do.
The next morning, you dress like you have no idea—a nice long wool coat, a loose turtleneck, hair pulled back, gold earrings, a long wool skirt, and boots that Megumi had already checked twice for traction.
He comes out of the bedroom holding a scarf.
“No, I look editorial.”
“You look cold.”
“I’m seven months pregnant and still better dressed than half the state.”
“You’ll be warm.”
He wraps the scarf around you himself, careful with your hair, then crouches to zip your boot when the zipper catches.
You look down at your stern, overbuilt husband on one knee in the entryway.
Your chest does that dangerous thing again.
He glances up.
Then winks.
Your soul leaves your body. “Did you just—"
“No one will believe you.”
You smack his shoulder with your glove.
He catches your hand, kisses the knuckles through the wool, then stands.
Later, the train is warm.
Megumi has gotten you seats by the window, tea in a paper cup, ginger candies in his coat pocket, a folded blanket he bought outside in case you got cold, and a printed reservation schedule marked in his neat handwriting.
You sit beside him and watch snow catch on black spruce, mountains shouldering up through the morning, the whole world cold and enormous while your husband keeps one hand under your coat, palm spread over your belly.
The baby kicks after the train starts moving.
Megumi looks down.
“She likes it,” you say.
He smiles that small smile and kisses the side of your head
You lean your head against his arm.
After a while, he opens his coat so you can tuck closer without asking. His chin rests briefly on your hair. Outside, Alaska rolls past in white and blue and dark green, and inside, Megumi checks your tea temperature before handing it back.
You take one sip.
Perfect.
At the wildlife conservation center, he drives the loop slowly enough that a four-year-old toddler in a stroller passes you.
“Megumi.”
“You said your back hurt.”
“A moose is judging us.”
“The moose can mind his business.”
You watch bison move through snow, a brown bear sleeps in the distance like a dropped coat, and wolves pace beyond the fence, pale and elegant and uninterested in the people whispering from warm cars.
Megumi keeps the heater low because you said the air made you nauseous when it got too dry. He opens your Sailor Boy Pilot Bread packet with his teeth when your gloves get in the way, then holds the bag out without looking, eyes on the road.
Then you take one and hold another toward him.
Megumi glances over once, only long enough to see what you’re offering, then opens his mouth. His eyes go back to the road before his teeth close around it.
You chew faster than he does.
By the time he finishes, you’re already digging around in the bag again.
Another for you.
Another shoved toward his mouth.
He takes it with the same tired patience people use around unstable explosives.
Snow crunches softly under the tires as the sanctuary road curves ahead. Megumi keeps one hand steady on the wheel between bites, shoulders forward, attention fixed like the whole world has narrowed to the road, your seatbelt, and the baby in your belly.
You finish yours first again.
Then immediately pick another cracker out and push it against his mouth.
You feed him half the packet over the next ten minutes through pure insistence. Crackers, then dried fruits, then the weird little ginger-infused wild berry jam you bought at the station because the old woman at the register said they helped with nausea.
Megumi eats every single thing you hand him, his jaw moving slowly while his attention stays fixed on the icy road ahead.
Then you stare at him again.
“What?” he says finally.
“You’ll survive in captivity.”
He frowns. “What does that mean?”
“You eat whatever I hand you with no questions. Totally domesticated.”
He flings your blanket over your head. “Nap time.”
You remove it with a chuckle, stare at the side of his face while he drives, at the small crease between his brows, at the careful set of his mouth, at the man who packed three kinds of snack foods and still forgot to eat until you put food directly against his lips.
“What?” he asks, quieter this time.
You reach over and brush a crumb from the corner of his mouth. “You’re my home, Megumi.”
His hand tightens on the wheel.
For a second, he says nothing.
Then he pulls into the next viewing spot, parks, and turns to you. “We moved here because you wanted quiet.”
You nod, because you had wanted distance from elevators full of people who stared too long, from office bathrooms where you had cried over negative tests, from family calls that turned every question into a pressure point. You wanted snow, locked doors, slow mornings, a place where no one knew how long it had taken.
Megumi looks down at your joined hands.
“I can’t make your head quiet,” his voice softens. “I know that.”
Your mouth trembles before you can stop it.
His thumb moves once over your knuckles.
“But I can make the day smaller.” His voice stays low, almost careful. “I can check the road before you wake up. Keep food where you can reach it. Find places where you don’t have to stand too long.”
He glances briefly toward the back seat, where your blanket and spare gloves sit folded beside the bag he packed without mentioning it.
“I can bring you home the second you’re tired,” he tells you. “Even if you say you’re fine.”
You laugh once, but it comes out ruined, and then you’re crying.
Megumi unbuckles his seatbelt, turns as much as the car allows and reaches for your face, thumb catching the tear before it gets past your cheek.
“Hey,” he whispers. “Don’t do that.”
“It’s the pregnancy."
“I know.” His hand stays on your cheek. “I read the books.”
Outside, the moose keeps chewing through a mouthful of brush, calm and enormous and uninterested in the fact that your husband has just cracked your chest open in a parked car.
You cover his hand where it rests against your face. “You make me feel like we’re going to be okay.”
His expression shifts into something small and full of hope.
Then he leans across the console and kisses you, slow and careful.
When he pulls back, his ears are pink. “You knew about the search.”
You keep your face very still. “I don’t know what search you mean.”
Megumi stares at you.
You stare back with grave composure.
His thumb brushes under your eye again. “You’re bad at lying.”
You look out the windshield, pretending to study the moose. “I only saw the title.”
“That’s the worst part.”
You press your lips together.
He watches you try not to smile, and something in his face loosens. “I wanted to get it right.”
The sentence is low enough that it almost disappears under the hum of the heater.
You look back at him.
Megumi’s gaze has dropped to your belly again. “You’ve had to be careful for months.”
Your hand finds his over the curve of your coat.
The baby shifts under both of your palms.
Megumi breathes out slowly, as if she answered him.
“You got it right,” you say.
He nods, eyes still too soft.
Then he turns back, puts the car in drive, and eases out of the viewing spot.
A few minutes later, when the lodge comes into view and you spot the low orange flicker of fire pits through the snow, you gasp a little too early.
Megumi doesn’t even look at you. “Awful acting.”
You smile into your scarf. “I was surprised.”
This time, his mouth moves first, almost a smile.
“Stay there,” he says when he parks.
You do, watching him come around to your side through the windshield. He opens your door, blocks the wind with his body, and wraps the blanket around your shoulders before your boots touch the ground.
A/N: I can be persuaded to do a Yuji one in the same AU.
Masterlist
Images are from Anime (S3)/Pinterest; the sparkling divider is from @pixopix, the trees are from @firefly-graphics, and the engagement banner is from @saradika-graphics.
Teaser: Gojo Satoru unknowingly falls for the one person he's not supposed to. A girl with no connections, no right to see the future, no time and someone who never knew love. The star plasma vessel.
Hi beautiful people, a few weeks ago i teased the idea of Ditto which has this plot, very angsty and not at all sweet or dramatic like my other long ffs aaaand im happy to show u guys the opening chapter.As always , on wattpad and ao3.
ACT I:
Track sixteen.
Death is a horizon that shapes our consciousness.
Dying is not just your biological end, It's the failing act of meeting the future again, the success of erasing your existence too.
It it said that people carry on to live different lifestyles depending on how much they think about death, and how much they let it affect them.
Your case was different, you knew you were condemned to death since you were old enough to grasp the concept of never seeing someone ever again because they didn't walk the earth anymore.
Mundane things like dreaming of your future— what your limbs will grow into, who you will meet, what you will be, who you will turn into, become a luxury you can't afford to even think about.
Time becomes precious, more than it already is.
The world isn't as colorful, it's a fragile painting you live in.
Made by ink that decays too quickly, that erases with the passage of days.
Words aren't as meaningful. What you tell another doesn't reach their heart. Everything is an empty promise because once you're gone, it's just empty words.
Empty like how your casket will be once the clock strikes 12 A.M. on your eight-teenth birthday.
When you're born a star plasma vessel, death is your only destiny, your only true promise.
You unfortunately meet Gojo Satoru when your mind is already set on dying. When there's no going back from accepting your fate.
It was a Thursday, but not just any Thursday. Nothing was just anything after the void in your chest consumed you day and night.
"Yo! Who are you?"
The man who you'd come to know as Yaga shot him a glare instantly, "Gojo, have some manners."
You didn't reply to him, just quietly stood by the noticeably taller buzzcutted man with a vein already popping out of his forehead— caused a much younger boy that threatened the director's height with his long legs and skeleton arms despite his age.
The stance you were in: slumped shoulders, hands tightly gripping the ends of your sweatshirt, limbs squeezed together like you were physically trying to make yourself smaller, couldn't be farther from who you are.
You aren't shy.
But you're not as loud and lively as you were.
Though that was when you were once happy, maybe.
He was freakishly lanky, tall, rocking on his heels backwards and forward continuously like it pained him to stay in place— and dripping in arrogance.
From miles away, you could tell he was one of those rich kids who grew up with silver spoons and spent their days with nannies instead of their mothers— hence the lack of empathy and social skills.
But he stood out in a way that your middle school enemies didn't.
Sure, you had known about Jujutsu for a total of a decade by the time you crossed paths with him for the first time, and even with no actual knowledge about it, you knew the shift in the atmosphere ever since he'd come into the picture was something that had to do with his power.
It was like ever since he'd drawn closer, the walls of the old wooden hall narrowed down, pressing the air against you.
As his raven haired friend who trailed behind saying: "Sorry about him.", you noticed he didn't cause the same bend in gravity. He was normal, a sight you were more accustomed to than his albino-white haired friend who wore pitch black sunglasses even indoors.
Pitch black irises, equally dark stretchers, and emo-long hair— at least you could find somebody in your memory that has reassembled the man who introduced himself as Suguru Geto.
Yet, his friend drew a blank. Was it even possible to be that stretched out and have grandpa-white hair at his age? You didn't dare to ask, but the question was at the tip of your tongue.
Nor did you even glace towards the short brown haired girl next to them.
Nonetheless, the albino didn't seem to love how quiet you'd been. "Cat got your tongue?"
Unfortunately for him, you were in no mood to entertain him at the time. So you didn't bother replying, and just bowed to Yaga and his friend before inaudibly excusing yourself.
You heard him huff out in disbelief as you disappeared further into the hall.
"So she can talk, even if I didn't hear anything, but she doesn't even look my way. You should teach her some manners, sensei."
Yaga was brief with your introduction, not that he could allow himself to even phantom about letting your real reason for attending the school slip out— all under your request.
"That's L/N Y/N. In other circumstances I'd say she is going to be your new classmate, but she's not going to be studying with you two and Shoko."
Gojo tilted in head in confusion as his teacher took a pause, subconsciously pursing his lips as his next words built a sentence. "Either way, treat her well."
"What the fuck is wrong with her?"
There w̶a̶s̶ is too much wrong with you to put into words.
Born a star plasma vessel, you've known ever since you were old enough to grasp the concept of evil beings lurking around, invisible to people referred as "non sorcerers" but completely visible to "sorcerers", that your world wasn't sunshine and rainbows like a 10 year old girl was supposed to see it as.
You were neither a sorceress or even someone with cursed energy, but you served as a candidate for merging with master Tengen, to reset their power and refresh their immortality.
It's grim, knowing that you have an expiration date, and that every day in your life has to have meaning, mandatory, so you wouldn't die with the regret of doing nothing with your life.
For the most of it, your parents tried to not bring it up after you'd caught them discussing it for the first time at age ten.
But it always lingered in the back of your head. The weight behind the words grew with you. And at times, aged somewhere around fourteen and fifteen, it started gnawing at you in different ways— you felt heavier after laughing with them over something stupid— because you knew this was temporary.
The pressure, the fear, the stress kept piling up over the years, little by little. Till you found yourself actually spending the rest of your time to the fullest. You knew your time was coming, turning eight-teen seemed to be just around the corner at sixteen.
But then, the world tilted on it's axis. The house was empty by the morning, the house phone was bombarded with calls from people you didn't know. Child services, aunts, uncles, friends, distant relatives, sorcerers, Masamichi Yaga.
Six-teen, you were six-teen when your parents died in a car crash.
And many things that followed after the crash turned you into more of a vessel than a human. Which is ideal for master Tengen. A human, not a person— someone with no name, someone that has little to no connections with society— raised apart, almost emotionless, that wouldn't feel anything when they gave their life away.
"For the greater good."
By the second month, you were moved to Jujustu High because it seemed better than becoming an orphan who would get adopted by a new family, who'd eventually suffer the loss of a child.
Crushing the dreams of innocent people was never in your cards. So, under your conditions because there was no use living a normal life when you had nothing and nobody, you accepted Masamichi's offer.
The things you asked for were simple.
One, you'd study apart from the other students. If you were going to be somewhere for the next two years, you'd at least get an education and die with a high-school diploma. Finding x, y and z seemed better in your mind now, than basking in bittersweet memories of your late parents all day.
You didn't have a mother to peel the sour layer of citrus off your grapefruit.
There was no longer the faint hum of your father playing the guitar in the background.
Two, the school's staff would not mention the reasons behind your stay at the institution and you would have a different set of teachers, class hours, and stay in a different dorm setting than the others.
Three, most important condition of them all, everyone would turn a blind eye to what you did on campus and off campus. You're not a sorceress, and not even a real student. So you didn't want them to pay special attention to you.
Not when you had less than two years left. It's no time to limit your freedom now.
Which is why Yaga let you wander off after introducing you to his student's. You weren't much of a talker, he knows, and it's only natural after everything you'd went through as of late.
He couldn't imagine, even under all of his thick skin, how it must feel to abandon your city, move to somewhere as loud as Tokyo— all alone to top it all off. And to die in less than two years.
You walked around the vast campus. It's nestled deep in the Tokyo outskirt's mountains. Covered by greenery—dark oak trees, a barrier that's not visible to the naked eye. There are torii gates at the entrance.
Some comfortable reading spots under trees, you noted, though you weren't going to ever use them. You didn't have that kind of liberty, to put yourself out there— to be seen. Because your clock would start to slow down if you interacted with anyone.
If anyone were to see you, to acknowledge you, and grab you hard enough, then leaving would become a lot harder. Both for you, and them.
You don't remember your father's last words, or your mother's. Then again, you can't seem to remember their faces all that much lately. Your mother's soft features, some embedded on your own face, fade from your recollection.
Was your father's voice always as gruff and deep as it was the last time he scolded you for getting hurt at school? Or was it that you don't remember how softly he used to speak to his only daughter?
Birds chirp loudly outside, and it reaches you where you're walking through the wooden corridors— where the floors creak with every step, and where the timber pillars held up the structure of the traditional building quite well despite the years.
And despite all of the decaying. You wished you were as resilient as hardwood sometimes.
Shoko notes by the one week mark of seeing you that she hadn't caught sight of you once since the brief introduction with their homeroom teacher. It's no surprise to her that the two idiots that she calls her best friend's have no recollection of the encounter ever happening, but at least, Suguru remembers who you were— eventually.
The three of them are shaded from the Wednesday sun by the leaves of a tree trunk probably more than three generations old. All of them hold a different flavor of the same line of soda's. Shoko holds a cherry coca cola, Suguru has a grape Fanta, and Satoru has the good old sugar-filled original cola.
For a brief second while she was zoned out before mentioning her, she thought about just how many times her little trio hits the vending machines up on the weekly— while the two male's reminisces about their first year.
Suguru was cackling loudly about the horrendous short and spiked up hairstyle Satoru sported just last year, which really makes the brunette wonder if it was really considered nostalgic when it was just one year ago, till she cut them off.
Saving Satoru from his doom.
"Hey, have any of you seen that L/N girl?"
That same high schooler that was just being made fun of, is the first to quirk a brow.
"Who?" He receives a sigh in return.
She tries again. "The new girl?"
This time it's the black-haired best friend who becomes an owl. "Who?"
"Ugh, I can't believe either of you. Y/N? The new girl we met just last week?"
Somehow, a bell rings in Suguru's head and he gets a solid idea of who his friend is talking about. Meanwhile Satoru is stuck where he was five minutes ago.
"Satoru, the quiet girl."
And the cogs start turning in the six eyes' head.
"Ah, the freak." Shoko nearly spits out the gulp of her drink onto the grass, but she refrains from doing so.
But before she can even do anything else, Satoru continues. "Now that you say it, I haven't seen her around once. Is she a ghost or something?"
It seems like he somehow summoned you, or that the universe shifted fates gears. Because that night, you're walking under the moonlight— mindlessly letting your body take you wherever along the empty streets of a seemingly quiet neighborhood.
You feel like wrenching somewhere because the streets reek of alcohol all of the sudden, and only when you snap out of your trance do you realize that the neighborhood is in fact not quiet and that there is an apartment blasting music just at the end of the road.
A group of boys are play fighting or talking outside of the building, a group of girls are hunched over the trash can— throwing up. Which is what is making you nauseous too.
And yet, you have to get through the multitude of people so you can go back to Jujutsu High.
However, you don't pay half of the attention you should when passing through the street and someone is hauled right onto your side as you walk with your head down, convenience store bag clutched in hand— trying to not let it's contents spill all over the floor.
Obviously, you trip over yourself and barely save yourself from meeting the floor face on.
It seems though, that you're not lucky, because the boy you've apparently ran into, when he was the one who slammed into you, isn't happy. You quickly take note that he's really tall, familiarly so.
"Sorry."
You mutter, not because you're guilty of something when you're really the victim in the situation, the words just slip past your lips out of habit.
The man simultaneously voices out the same words as he turns around to see who he's bumped into.
And you don't expect to see Gojo Satoru's bare, bright, uncovered eyes stare back at you for the first time.
But you do.
In that moment, it doesn't even cross your mind to ask what a Jujutsu High student is doing here, downtown, at a party that looks like it's probably hosted by teenage boys with no powers, with no real responsibilities like he has.
With certainly 'boring' lives. Parallel to the one he lives.
Where they are seen as boys, and not weapons.
Then again, it makes sense.
This is the kind of normalcy people like him wish for.
The kind of life in which you will only worry about hurriedly picking up red and blue plastic cups form the floor, abolishing the smell of cigarettes and drunk teenagers off the walls before your parents make it home at sunrise.
"Sorry."
Ditto.
The words don't leave your mouth, but you almost find it amusing how instead of being bothered by your run-in with the school's most annoying student and strongest sorcerer—that would surely be on your ass after today, you're thinking about how the first words you've offered someone in some time is a half-assed apology that ditto-ed.
His tone held the same indifference yours did, he's even less sorry than you were to have almost sent you flying.
But in that brief second of recognition, you see something else flash behind those irises. Something akin to curiosity, maybe even intrigue.
It's his turn to ponder what the ghost of Jujutsu High is doing outside on a weekend, after being MIA for a week. Hanging under the radar when he can barely leave the school for these parties— despite having the strength he does.
You're starring at him with the most bored, blank expression he's ever seen someone hold. And it makes your eyes somehow look caved in even more with the eyebags around them.
The hold you had on your plastic bag full of random items—an strange-flavored new ice cream release, some pads, a bottle of gas water and something well against your school's policy— cigarettes you plan on finishing before even stepping on the grounds again.
He doesn't have the time to throw a remark about anything because you're already brushing past him with no regard to share another moment with him.
Satoru is left planted there. Speechless.
Nobody has ever looked at him like you did— like he was an unpleasant sight.
Like he's nothing.
The thought irked him.
But the sound of your voice, the way you pronounced the few vowels—almost inaudibly—got stuck in a loop. Relentlessly playing over and over his head.
It's the first time in his life that he's ever found himself feeling so small, worthless, and he doesn't like that.
Especially when someone it's someone as irrelevant as you who makes him feel this way.
If only he actually knew just how big of a part you play in his world.
Tags: bestfriend!Gojo/he's inlove with his bsf!Satoru x mommyissues!reader. Self indulgent, maybe. Mentions of domestic abuse and slight description of it (nothing too much), complicated family situation, yearning, angstangstangst, v bittersweet, I need to proofread and rewrite...
WC:2K, Creds to og artist.
You didn't even slam the door on the way out.
Because you can't.
Despite the hot tears blurring your sight, the tightness of your chest, the thorns growing in your throat and the expanding cracks in your heart.
You didn't slam the front door shut.
Because she'd run after you, angrier than before. Acting like she's holding her anger in when she yells 'Don't slam the fucking doors on me you piece of shit!'.
When in truth, she never controlled herself.
Especially not when she lost her mind over the smallest things.
You had merely broken a cup. The glass slipped from your hand when you realised it was too hot to hold, meeting the floor with a loud sound of shattering.
Though, you heard her patience snap—as if she ever had any—louder than the cracks spreading across the floor, some shards digging into your feet.
You'd only heard the sound of her chair scraping against the floorboards with a loud, painfully deliberate "Rrrrrrrrk!" of polished wood against worn-out wood.
The sound was so loud you thought it echoed through the empty house. When really, it was whispering for you to run.
Run before her steps reach you.
You had heard her steps. Slow, careful, calculated. Dangerous as they neared you. Your heartbeat had quickened, hands starting to faintly tremble by your sides.
And then she turned the corner.
Dull eyes meeting yours the second she stepped into the kitchen.
After the flicker of her eyes to the cracks on the floor, and back to your face, you didn't flinch when she slapped you.
Or when she screamed, 'You ungrateful girl! I work so har-'
The words blurred into one another, you don't remember them now as you walk barefoot on the sidewalk. In nothing but your socks with blood stains from where glass had gotten through and to your skin.
Because you've heard her offer saccharine words to strangers, never you.
She's boasted about her nieces, siblings, friends, parents.
Never you.
You're a mistake.
What ruined her life.
But when skin meets skin.
It still hurts.
And you try not to cry. But it stings, her palm against your cheek. Her fingers in your scalp, tugging the hair while she swings your brain left and right.
It burns, when she throws you against walls just for you to end up on the floor where she takes the opportunity to kick, and kick, and kick.
All while still spewing the meanest words a mother isn't supposed to even know.
It's regular. It's always the same.
Your house is a cage you can't seem to get used to, or mold yourself to despite the years.
You're 17.
And you remember being 10.
Wondering if it ever gets better.
You met Satoru that same year.
He had recently moved into the house across the street. It's massive, a giant contrast to your humble, broken and old one.
But he was nothing like the pretentious, cocky boy you'd assumed he would be like because of his money.
He was kind like nobody you've ever met. Too loud.
You steered away from him out of fear.
Noise always meant something bad in your household.
And Satoru was everything but quiet.
He was presistent though.
Painfully stubborn when you refused to hang out with him.
You never understood why someone so friendly, popular and likeable like him was still friends with you throughout middle school, then high school—now—after you gave into being friends at 11.
But he stayed.
Even without never really being let in on your reality.
At times, he did push with questions.
"Why can't I stay at your house?"
"... Maybe this time you'll let me sleep over?"
Only to be always met with a no.
He still stayed.
Despite all the times you brushed him off, despite knowing he was always on the surface and never in your chest.
Though you kept him close to your heart.
You remember when he moved away when you were 15 to another neighborhood. Not too far away to switch schools, but far away for you to realise the feelings you'd grown for him over the years as you both grew together.
There was never really a sibling bond between the both of you.
You always knew his actions had a certain level of depth behind them.
He didn't tie your hair back out of the goodness of his heart. He didn't stand by your side when you got your first period—with snacks in his 14 year-old lanky fingers—because you accidentally confessed it while crying due to cramps.
It was never accidental with him.
Never casual when he never let you get close to any other guy, or when he talked about you to others like you drew the galaxy with your own hands.
No.
Maybe that's why you fell for him harder than you intended to.
And now, you're both in high school.
He's 18, graduating this year.
Leaving you behind.
Your heart aches whenever you think about it.
That's not the main issue between the both of you.
You may have not noticed it, but he has. He sees it clear as day.
The way you're slowly pulling away from him.
Drifting off to somewhere he can't reach and doesn't know.
Ever since high school had started though, things have gotten a lot worse back home for you.
The arguments are more frequent, louder, painful.
Both physically and mentally.
You hide the cuts, the bruises and the scars from his curious, bright eyes behind excuses and loose clothes.
Little digimon bandages because it's easier for him to get distracted by the fact that it's a digimon band-aid, and not a band-aid that hides another incision on your soul.
She's always merciless with you.
It's sad to say you're used to it.
And you're not supposed to be sitting on the curb, swallowed by the darkness—where the moonlight doesn't shine—at these hours.
Your mother would start fuming at the sight of the unpleasant thing she has to call her daughter, out on the street acting like she's some depressed teenager.
The word depressed to your mother is an insult.
To you, it's honestly how you really feel.
But you don't voice it out.
As you try and fight the tears that are still trying to slip past your eyes with your head over your knees—pressed tightly against your chest by your arms—you don't notice the footsteps coming.
The wind brushes past you.
It's not cold outside, not really.
During the daytime its hot, humid.
But now, there's a slight chill that makes the hair on your arms stiffen. You're wearing one of Satoru's Minecraft shirts which he'd left for you to wear once you stayed over at his.
Embarrassingly so, you never bothered to give it back to him just so you could feel how it'd be to sleep by his side.
You can't stifle the sobs that quietly escape you once the tears overcome you.
And Satoru is silently standing over you. Watching, feeling his heart chip at the corners.
He knows you haven't noticed him yet.
Still, he crouches down without you needing to see him or explain—and he wraps his arms around your shaky, curled-in figure.
Before recognizing the smell of him, the warmth of his arms, you jumped. Pulse skyrocketing to the thousands before steadying.
The smell of lingering musk ,something woody but fresh wraps around you. Something so him. Comforting.
Then, the panic comes in.
"Satoru-" Your voice cracks halfway, mixing with a choked sob.
His embrace tightens, "Shh, It's okay."
Those words do it for you.
You break.
With full cries, hiccups, shaky breaths and whimpers you can't supress.
He caresses your back without saying a single word as you clutch onto his shirt, soaking it with tears, with you. So he doesn't mind at all.
And Satoru has always known you've fought your own battles. Ones you never let him in on.
But never one has he wanted to leave.
So he stays until your crying subsides into irregular inhales, then evens out to normal breathing.
Slowly, you peel off him to see the soaked white shirt he's wearing now.
Your expression instantly drops again, lips starting to downturn when he catches it. The thorns in your throat grow again, another round of tears already brewing.
He shushes you, bringing the pads of his fingers to dry the dampness under your eyes. "No, no, don't cry."
Gutted, you feel gutted. Horrible.
"I'm so sorry, Satoru." Is all you manage to faintly breathe out.
He pulls on a small smile. Pressing a brief, warm kiss to your forehead.
You can't meet his eyes. You don't.
But his cerulean ones run over your figure. His shirt swallowing your slumped shoulders.
Then his gaze moves down.
He sees red on your arms, the bruises starting to take shape.
Further down, the blood staining your socks.
His body goes cold.
And you don't need to look at his eyes to know they're dimming as he finds out.
You can hear his heart crack from where you are.
"Y/N."
You hear the pain in his strained voice.
A beat passes before you feel his hands make their way around your waist with a weak tremble, pressing you flush against him again with all the gentleness in the world.
Now, you're two teenagers on the sidewalk, hugging on the curb.
Broken.
Hurt beyond what words can describe.
But you tell him, 'Just hold me, please.' too quietly, almost inaudible.
He catches every word.
And he does just that.
He holds you.
Knowing that the questions would come later.
So will the answers.
And the explanations.
But sometimes all you need is for someone to trace around your scars.
For someone to see them.
And soften their edges.
-
When I was 13, I read a line somewhere that you don't have to love your mother just because she gave birth to you, and that changed a lot for me so I'll leave it here with da masterlist.
Tags: bestfriend!Gojo/he's inlove with his bsf!Satoru x mommyissues!reader. Self indulgent, maybe. Mentions of domestic abuse and slight description of it (nothing too much), complicated family situation, yearning, angstangstangst, v bittersweet, I need to proofread and rewrite...
WC:2K, Creds to og artist.
You didn't even slam the door on the way out.
Because you can't.
Despite the hot tears blurring your sight, the tightness of your chest, the thorns growing in your throat and the expanding cracks in your heart.
You didn't slam the front door shut.
Because she'd run after you, angrier than before. Acting like she's holding her anger in when she yells 'Don't slam the fucking doors on me you piece of shit!'.
When in truth, she never controlled herself.
Especially not when she lost her mind over the smallest things.
You had merely broken a cup. The glass slipped from your hand when you realised it was too hot to hold, meeting the floor with a loud sound of shattering.
Though, you heard her patience snap—as if she ever had any—louder than the cracks spreading across the floor, some shards digging into your feet.
You'd only heard the sound of her chair scraping against the floorboards with a loud, painfully deliberate "Rrrrrrrrk!" of polished wood against worn-out wood.
The sound was so loud you thought it echoed through the empty house. When really, it was whispering for you to run.
Run before her steps reach you.
You had heard her steps. Slow, careful, calculated. Dangerous as they neared you. Your heartbeat had quickened, hands starting to faintly tremble by your sides.
And then she turned the corner.
Dull eyes meeting yours the second she stepped into the kitchen.
After the flicker of her eyes to the cracks on the floor, and back to your face, you didn't flinch when she slapped you.
Or when she screamed, 'You ungrateful girl! I work so har-'
The words blurred into one another, you don't remember them now as you walk barefoot on the sidewalk. In nothing but your socks with blood stains from where glass had gotten through and to your skin.
Because you've heard her offer saccharine words to strangers, never you.
She's boasted about her nieces, siblings, friends, parents.
Never you.
You're a mistake.
What ruined her life.
But when skin meets skin.
It still hurts.
And you try not to cry. But it stings, her palm against your cheek. Her fingers in your scalp, tugging the hair while she swings your brain left and right.
It burns, when she throws you against walls just for you to end up on the floor where she takes the opportunity to kick, and kick, and kick.
All while still spewing the meanest words a mother isn't supposed to even know.
It's regular. It's always the same.
Your house is a cage you can't seem to get used to, or mold yourself to despite the years.
You're 17.
And you remember being 10.
Wondering if it ever gets better.
You met Satoru that same year.
He had recently moved into the house across the street. It's massive, a giant contrast to your humble, broken and old one.
But he was nothing like the pretentious, cocky boy you'd assumed he would be like because of his money.
He was kind like nobody you've ever met. Too loud.
You steered away from him out of fear.
Noise always meant something bad in your household.
And Satoru was everything but quiet.
He was presistent though.
Painfully stubborn when you refused to hang out with him.
You never understood why someone so friendly, popular and likeable like him was still friends with you throughout middle school, then high school—now—after you gave into being friends at 11.
But he stayed.
Even without never really being let in on your reality.
At times, he did push with questions.
"Why can't I stay at your house?"
"... Maybe this time you'll let me sleep over?"
Only to be always met with a no.
He still stayed.
Despite all the times you brushed him off, despite knowing he was always on the surface and never in your chest.
Though you kept him close to your heart.
You remember when he moved away when you were 15 to another neighborhood. Not too far away to switch schools, but far away for you to realise the feelings you'd grown for him over the years as you both grew together.
There was never really a sibling bond between the both of you.
You always knew his actions had a certain level of depth behind them.
He didn't tie your hair back out of the goodness of his heart. He didn't stand by your side when you got your first period—with snacks in his 14 year-old lanky fingers—because you accidentally confessed it while crying due to cramps.
It was never accidental with him.
Never casual when he never let you get close to any other guy, or when he talked about you to others like you drew the galaxy with your own hands.
No.
Maybe that's why you fell for him harder than you intended to.
And now, you're both in high school.
He's 18, graduating this year.
Leaving you behind.
Your heart aches whenever you think about it.
That's not the main issue between the both of you.
You may have not noticed it, but he has. He sees it clear as day.
The way you're slowly pulling away from him.
Drifting off to somewhere he can't reach and doesn't know.
Ever since high school had started though, things have gotten a lot worse back home for you.
The arguments are more frequent, louder, painful.
Both physically and mentally.
You hide the cuts, the bruises and the scars from his curious, bright eyes behind excuses and loose clothes.
Little digimon bandages because it's easier for him to get distracted by the fact that it's a digimon band-aid, and not a band-aid that hides another incision on your soul.
She's always merciless with you.
It's sad to say you're used to it.
And you're not supposed to be sitting on the curb, swallowed by the darkness—where the moonlight doesn't shine—at these hours.
Your mother would start fuming at the sight of the unpleasant thing she has to call her daughter, out on the street acting like she's some depressed teenager.
The word depressed to your mother is an insult.
To you, it's honestly how you really feel.
But you don't voice it out.
As you try and fight the tears that are still trying to slip past your eyes with your head over your knees—pressed tightly against your chest by your arms—you don't notice the footsteps coming.
The wind brushes past you.
It's not cold outside, not really.
During the daytime its hot, humid.
But now, there's a slight chill that makes the hair on your arms stiffen. You're wearing one of Satoru's Minecraft shirts which he'd left for you to wear once you stayed over at his.
Embarrassingly so, you never bothered to give it back to him just so you could feel how it'd be to sleep by his side.
You can't stifle the sobs that quietly escape you once the tears overcome you.
And Satoru is silently standing over you. Watching, feeling his heart chip at the corners.
He knows you haven't noticed him yet.
Still, he crouches down without you needing to see him or explain—and he wraps his arms around your shaky, curled-in figure.
Before recognizing the smell of him, the warmth of his arms, you jumped. Pulse skyrocketing to the thousands before steadying.
The smell of lingering musk ,something woody but fresh wraps around you. Something so him. Comforting.
Then, the panic comes in.
"Satoru-" Your voice cracks halfway, mixing with a choked sob.
His embrace tightens, "Shh, It's okay."
Those words do it for you.
You break.
With full cries, hiccups, shaky breaths and whimpers you can't supress.
He caresses your back without saying a single word as you clutch onto his shirt, soaking it with tears, with you. So he doesn't mind at all.
And Satoru has always known you've fought your own battles. Ones you never let him in on.
But never one has he wanted to leave.
So he stays until your crying subsides into irregular inhales, then evens out to normal breathing.
Slowly, you peel off him to see the soaked white shirt he's wearing now.
Your expression instantly drops again, lips starting to downturn when he catches it. The thorns in your throat grow again, another round of tears already brewing.
He shushes you, bringing the pads of his fingers to dry the dampness under your eyes. "No, no, don't cry."
Gutted, you feel gutted. Horrible.
"I'm so sorry, Satoru." Is all you manage to faintly breathe out.
He pulls on a small smile. Pressing a brief, warm kiss to your forehead.
You can't meet his eyes. You don't.
But his cerulean ones run over your figure. His shirt swallowing your slumped shoulders.
Then his gaze moves down.
He sees red on your arms, the bruises starting to take shape.
Further down, the blood staining your socks.
His body goes cold.
And you don't need to look at his eyes to know they're dimming as he finds out.
You can hear his heart crack from where you are.
"Y/N."
You hear the pain in his strained voice.
A beat passes before you feel his hands make their way around your waist with a weak tremble, pressing you flush against him again with all the gentleness in the world.
Now, you're two teenagers on the sidewalk, hugging on the curb.
Broken.
Hurt beyond what words can describe.
But you tell him, 'Just hold me, please.' too quietly, almost inaudible.
He catches every word.
And he does just that.
He holds you.
Knowing that the questions would come later.
So will the answers.
And the explanations.
But sometimes all you need is for someone to trace around your scars.
For someone to see them.
And soften their edges.
-
When I was 13, I read a line somewhere that you don't have to love your mother just because she gave birth to you, and that changed a lot for me so I'll leave it here with da masterlist.
Tags: bestfriend!Gojo/he's inlove with his bsf!Satoru x mommyissues!reader. Self indulgent, maybe. Mentions of domestic abuse and slight description of it (nothing too much), complicated family situation, yearning, angstangstangst, v bittersweet, I need to proofread and rewrite...
WC:2K, Creds to og artist.
You didn't even slam the door on the way out.
Because you can't.
Despite the hot tears blurring your sight, the tightness of your chest, the thorns growing in your throat and the expanding cracks in your heart.
You didn't slam the front door shut.
Because she'd run after you, angrier than before. Acting like she's holding her anger in when she yells 'Don't slam the fucking doors on me you piece of shit!'.
When in truth, she never controlled herself.
Especially not when she lost her mind over the smallest things.
You had merely broken a cup. The glass slipped from your hand when you realised it was too hot to hold, meeting the floor with a loud sound of shattering.
Though, you heard her patience snap—as if she ever had any—louder than the cracks spreading across the floor, some shards digging into your feet.
You'd only heard the sound of her chair scraping against the floorboards with a loud, painfully deliberate "Rrrrrrrrk!" of polished wood against worn-out wood.
The sound was so loud you thought it echoed through the empty house. When really, it was whispering for you to run.
Run before her steps reach you.
You had heard her steps. Slow, careful, calculated. Dangerous as they neared you. Your heartbeat had quickened, hands starting to faintly tremble by your sides.
And then she turned the corner.
Dull eyes meeting yours the second she stepped into the kitchen.
After the flicker of her eyes to the cracks on the floor, and back to your face, you didn't flinch when she slapped you.
Or when she screamed, 'You ungrateful girl! I work so har-'
The words blurred into one another, you don't remember them now as you walk barefoot on the sidewalk. In nothing but your socks with blood stains from where glass had gotten through and to your skin.
Because you've heard her offer saccharine words to strangers, never you.
She's boasted about her nieces, siblings, friends, parents.
Never you.
You're a mistake.
What ruined her life.
But when skin meets skin.
It still hurts.
And you try not to cry. But it stings, her palm against your cheek. Her fingers in your scalp, tugging the hair while she swings your brain left and right.
It burns, when she throws you against walls just for you to end up on the floor where she takes the opportunity to kick, and kick, and kick.
All while still spewing the meanest words a mother isn't supposed to even know.
It's regular. It's always the same.
Your house is a cage you can't seem to get used to, or mold yourself to despite the years.
You're 17.
And you remember being 10.
Wondering if it ever gets better.
You met Satoru that same year.
He had recently moved into the house across the street. It's massive, a giant contrast to your humble, broken and old one.
But he was nothing like the pretentious, cocky boy you'd assumed he would be like because of his money.
He was kind like nobody you've ever met. Too loud.
You steered away from him out of fear.
Noise always meant something bad in your household.
And Satoru was everything but quiet.
He was presistent though.
Painfully stubborn when you refused to hang out with him.
You never understood why someone so friendly, popular and likeable like him was still friends with you throughout middle school, then high school—now—after you gave into being friends at 11.
But he stayed.
Even without never really being let in on your reality.
At times, he did push with questions.
"Why can't I stay at your house?"
"... Maybe this time you'll let me sleep over?"
Only to be always met with a no.
He still stayed.
Despite all the times you brushed him off, despite knowing he was always on the surface and never in your chest.
Though you kept him close to your heart.
You remember when he moved away when you were 15 to another neighborhood. Not too far away to switch schools, but far away for you to realise the feelings you'd grown for him over the years as you both grew together.
There was never really a sibling bond between the both of you.
You always knew his actions had a certain level of depth behind them.
He didn't tie your hair back out of the goodness of his heart. He didn't stand by your side when you got your first period—with snacks in his 14 year-old lanky fingers—because you accidentally confessed it while crying due to cramps.
It was never accidental with him.
Never casual when he never let you get close to any other guy, or when he talked about you to others like you drew the galaxy with your own hands.
No.
Maybe that's why you fell for him harder than you intended to.
And now, you're both in high school.
He's 18, graduating this year.
Leaving you behind.
Your heart aches whenever you think about it.
That's not the main issue between the both of you.
You may have not noticed it, but he has. He sees it clear as day.
The way you're slowly pulling away from him.
Drifting off to somewhere he can't reach and doesn't know.
Ever since high school had started though, things have gotten a lot worse back home for you.
The arguments are more frequent, louder, painful.
Both physically and mentally.
You hide the cuts, the bruises and the scars from his curious, bright eyes behind excuses and loose clothes.
Little digimon bandages because it's easier for him to get distracted by the fact that it's a digimon band-aid, and not a band-aid that hides another incision on your soul.
She's always merciless with you.
It's sad to say you're used to it.
And you're not supposed to be sitting on the curb, swallowed by the darkness—where the moonlight doesn't shine—at these hours.
Your mother would start fuming at the sight of the unpleasant thing she has to call her daughter, out on the street acting like she's some depressed teenager.
The word depressed to your mother is an insult.
To you, it's honestly how you really feel.
But you don't voice it out.
As you try and fight the tears that are still trying to slip past your eyes with your head over your knees—pressed tightly against your chest by your arms—you don't notice the footsteps coming.
The wind brushes past you.
It's not cold outside, not really.
During the daytime its hot, humid.
But now, there's a slight chill that makes the hair on your arms stiffen. You're wearing one of Satoru's Minecraft shirts which he'd left for you to wear once you stayed over at his.
Embarrassingly so, you never bothered to give it back to him just so you could feel how it'd be to sleep by his side.
You can't stifle the sobs that quietly escape you once the tears overcome you.
And Satoru is silently standing over you. Watching, feeling his heart chip at the corners.
He knows you haven't noticed him yet.
Still, he crouches down without you needing to see him or explain—and he wraps his arms around your shaky, curled-in figure.
Before recognizing the smell of him, the warmth of his arms, you jumped. Pulse skyrocketing to the thousands before steadying.
The smell of lingering musk ,something woody but fresh wraps around you. Something so him. Comforting.
Then, the panic comes in.
"Satoru-" Your voice cracks halfway, mixing with a choked sob.
His embrace tightens, "Shh, It's okay."
Those words do it for you.
You break.
With full cries, hiccups, shaky breaths and whimpers you can't supress.
He caresses your back without saying a single word as you clutch onto his shirt, soaking it with tears, with you. So he doesn't mind at all.
And Satoru has always known you've fought your own battles. Ones you never let him in on.
But never one has he wanted to leave.
So he stays until your crying subsides into irregular inhales, then evens out to normal breathing.
Slowly, you peel off him to see the soaked white shirt he's wearing now.
Your expression instantly drops again, lips starting to downturn when he catches it. The thorns in your throat grow again, another round of tears already brewing.
He shushes you, bringing the pads of his fingers to dry the dampness under your eyes. "No, no, don't cry."
Gutted, you feel gutted. Horrible.
"I'm so sorry, Satoru." Is all you manage to faintly breathe out.
He pulls on a small smile. Pressing a brief, warm kiss to your forehead.
You can't meet his eyes. You don't.
But his cerulean ones run over your figure. His shirt swallowing your slumped shoulders.
Then his gaze moves down.
He sees red on your arms, the bruises starting to take shape.
Further down, the blood staining your socks.
His body goes cold.
And you don't need to look at his eyes to know they're dimming as he finds out.
You can hear his heart crack from where you are.
"Y/N."
You hear the pain in his strained voice.
A beat passes before you feel his hands make their way around your waist with a weak tremble, pressing you flush against him again with all the gentleness in the world.
Now, you're two teenagers on the sidewalk, hugging on the curb.
Broken.
Hurt beyond what words can describe.
But you tell him, 'Just hold me, please.' too quietly, almost inaudible.
He catches every word.
And he does just that.
He holds you.
Knowing that the questions would come later.
So will the answers.
And the explanations.
But sometimes all you need is for someone to trace around your scars.
For someone to see them.
And soften their edges.
-
When I was 13, I read a line somewhere that you don't have to love your mother just because she gave birth to you, and that changed a lot for me so I'll leave it here with da masterlist.
Echoes of us, my grand ff (jkjk) has just ended and I'm mourning it to say the least, so, don't read this if you have intentions to read the story/or haven't gotten to the end of it because here are some snippets of how first-time baby daddy Satoru is..
Art by yunonoaii!!
First time baby daddy Satoru who meets his twins on a Saturday in May when he becomes something above the strongest, a father. He welcomes your two blessings firsthand in the delivery room and he's met with his son first.
His copy and paste little creation who has the same blue eyes, the same messy white hair, and the same big feet— though, twenty-eight years smaller and younger.
New father Gojo who barely has any time to take in his sons features, to engrave them in his memory, before you're already pushing out your daughter.
Her birth is quicker than his baby boy's, and though he'll never admit it out loud, a lot more emotional for him. Because the second he saw the small body, his heart skipped a beat.
She's your twin, even with her having all of his color palete— magically dominant milky hair that grew within you, the same cerulean in her orbs, but the unforgettable shape of your eyes, your nose bridge, and your ears.
Which is all he can make out in the chaos of the delivery room where you are bleeding out while your son is in your arms— loudly crying, and where his baby girl— spun directly from starlight is also wailing in his embrace.
But, It's the best day of his life.
Clueless dad Satoru who comes home the night of your discharge, quiet. Too quiet, unusually silent. Because he can't get anything out—he's deathly scared inside of something going wrong right now.
Your pregnancy was a terrifying eight-months, and now, with his miracles in their strollers, he's mortified that something tilts sideways and everything goes wrong.
But you're there to assure him nothing is going to happen.
Lovestruck Gojo who can't stop staring at his two week old daughter.
And you're scared your two week old, and five minute older, baby boy will notice the slight favoritism his father has over his sister, so you tell Satoru to at least act like he's being fair.
He tends to your sons needs like a true dad, but lingers around your girl's small crib at night just a bit longer. When you ask him why, his smile grows so big that you're sure his cheeks hurt.
"She's exactly like you, so pretty." You think he sounds funny, because his voice hitches just a bit when he talks in that adoring tone of his about your "carbon copy", mind you, she has his blue and white genetics plastered all over her.
The strongest father crumbling to ash when his babies start crawling on their own and show no need of him now that they are more independent.
He's fussier than your twins on some days. When the they refuse to be fed by him, and opt to shove their chubby hands full of food in their mouths instead.
"No! No! No! Stop feeding yourselves! I'm not ready for you to grow up so soon!"
You drop the spatula from your hand, leaving the pancake batter half way to homogeneity to turn around and see the strongest sorcerer with one trembling lip jotted out like he's about to cry.
It's a ridiculous, funny, ridiculous sight.
"Baby, why do they keep growing?" A snort almost escapes you, but you hold it in to remind him that your overly energetic toddlers are nowhere close to crawling away from the both of you.
"Satoru, honey, they are going to choke on their food if you don't keep your six eyes on them. I'm pretty sure they aren't that grown."
Still, he's acquired a heaviness in his chest that even your words can't shake.
"If I blink... they're going to be off to college soon..."
And you swear you heart a sniffle coming from where he was sat.
But later at night, when the kids are in dreamland, letting their minds run laps over the rainbow just like their tiny legs do during the day.
When the house is still for the first time in the day. Which never really happens in the Gojo household. Satoru is firing his shenanigans up again.
You're basking in your nightly ritual. A warm bath with your lover, your bare back against his naked chest while he massages soap into your scalp.
It's these moments that tighten your marriage just a bit more every night.
"So," Nearly a decade of on and off marriage with Satoru has taught you more than clearly that he was up to no good whenever his tone dropped into that curious one.
"What about..." He takes a long pause, pressing his soapy fingers against a tight spot on your shoulder instead of continuing to leather your hair.
"another baby?"
Maybe Satoru likes being a father too much.
You cock an eyebrow almost comically quick. Turning your head sideways to see his cheeks painted a dusty pink, his hair wet and clinging to his forehead, but those dangerous eyes of his sparkling more than ever.
Synopsis: Newly married to a firefighter, Fushiguro Toji, you're ready to take your relationship to the next stage. But you want something he seems to not, and where you thought your husband would stay by your side through the hardships, through the difficulty of conceiving, you're met with the complete opposite.
Tags: Husband/firefighter!toji x infertile!reader, reader goes through IVF, doctor Shoko, stepson gumi, angstangstangst. Au.
Part two.
Wc:3.4k
"I want a baby."
You told him on the honeymoon. Two weeks married. Lounging on a sunbed somewhere in Greece.
Simple, clear and straight. No beating around the bush.
He was wearing a linen shirt, muscular torso covered for once. Holding a very colorful cocktail you'd gotten him against his refusal to drink something so girly, so orange and so sweet.
Though, you know he's secretly enjoying it deep down.
And you have dated Toji for long enough to want this chapter in your life. Long enough to see every burn, every scar on his skin— and every struggle beneath the surface.
And you know he's already been through this chapter with his son who is currently back home, at your parent's house.
Of course, you knew you'd take the role of becoming a 'mom' somewhere along the lines of falling for a man with such a complicated past as him.
You love Megumi to the moon and back. The little boy that's been on earth for seven winter's by now, quiet as the ocean waves during the morning, but as pleasant as the sun of a snowy day.
But you want your own little creation. Something half you, half Toji. One hundred percent made out of love. Perhaps a little boy that looks like Megs so he can have a little brother and have his days a bit louder.
Or a little girl with your hair, your nose, and her father's eyes.
He hesitates for a good while. You don't blame him. It's allowed for him to take a moment so he can weigh just how much you're asking for.
He's 35, he's lived for a good while.
You're 29, and you feel like the clock is running out of time. But you had never met someone like Toji. Nobody had ever pulled you in just like he does.
You've never loved someone more than you've loved him.
So, you'd never wanted to have kids until your mind changed once you met his son.
And now you want your own, as selfish as it may sound.
Though he doesn't provide you with a definite, clear answer, he hugs your side just a bit tighter, he presses a tight lipped kiss onto your forehead, and you go at it like rabbits for the rest of the honeymoon.
He sees the way you glow, the way there's a jump in your step, and how your smile is higher around the corners, brighter. Though he wasn't sure about it in the beginning, his hesitance is chipping around the corners by the day.
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to have his wife swollen with him, and to have a baby girl in nine months.
It's well over one month after your honeymoon and you've been anxiously pacing around the bedroom, pregnancy test in hand. Toji's at work, Megumi is at elementary school and you have been feeling weird these days.
Strangely bloated, overly tired, very hormonal. And your skin is electrified with excitement and anticipation as the stick in your hand processess the results.
The world stills for a second. The faint hum of the lights fade out of earshot as disappointment washes over you. Time doesn't stop for anyone, but you feel like it did for you as the words "not pregnant." stare back you.
Your heart lurches against your ribcages, nothing has felt this disheartening in a while.
You pick Megumi up from elementary school quieter than usual, still asking him about how his day went, what he did— and how he feels. But your tone is clipped, fragile around the corners.
The little boy picks up on the dullness in your eyes and you school your down turned smile to usher more information out of him.
Toji comes back late as always, it's two A.M. when he comes through the door and it's in these hours where the house is always quiet, where you're sound asleep in the master bedroom and when Megs is peacefully sleeping in his own room.
But tonight, you're not in your bed.
He sees the soft light coming from the living room where he stands in the foyer. So he slowly drops his heavy duffel bag on the floor and takes careful, quiet steps till he reaches the space to find you on your side, tightly wrapped in a blanket on the couch, eyes wide open, starring at the wall.
It's a strange sight to him, really, just this morning, you were all happy when kissing him goodbye—shoving a bento box in his hands before taking the kid to school and going on about your own day.
Now, you're starring off into space, a foggy look behind your eyes. You don't even notice him draw closer to where you were. He takes note of the cold tea on the coffee table, but doesn't pay much mind to it as he crouches in front of your face— snapping you out of your thoughts.
"Hey baby, you okay?" His hand comes up to caress your head, briefly kissing your forehead as your eyesight adjusts to him.
Part of you feels stupid for being so dramatic about the mere fact of not being pregnant yet, which is perfectly fine.
But you're about to feel a whole lot worse when you lie to him.
It's a white lie.
"I'm fine, how was your day?" A small smile comes up to your face.
Toji tilts his head so he can get a better face of your face smushed against the pillow and he notices the dampness over the space in between your eyes and the little wet spot on the cream pillowcase.
His eyes flicker to yours and the comforter. You see the image building in his head, and you don't want that. Abruptly, you sit up. His arms retract from where they were smoothing over your head to press his elbows into his knees so he doesn't lose his balance.
In a second, you're no longer holding that unreadable expression. You blink and suddenly Toji finds a look he recognizes in your irises. Lust.
He doesn't understand why your arms suddenly wrap around his broad shoulders, why you pull him closer—making his arms cage you in on the sofa, palms pressing into the leather of the couch.
Or why you kiss him like you need him to make you forget something.
Yet, he gives in.
You thought your little white lie would last longer than it did.
It didn't. More time had passed, you tried everything. You stupidly followed pregnancy rituals behind Toji's back—even measuring your basal temperature, finding perfect conditions to have sex in and swearing to your husband that you're just so in the mood, and always being mindful of when you're ovulating.
Well, five month's have passed. Nothing. You've seen "Not pregnant." and one line on more pregnancy test's than you could count—all ranging from the cheapest dollar-store brands to the most accurate, expensive ones you could find.
Maybe you were spiraling, maybe.
Still, you tried to convince yourself it was okay. Nothing was wrong with you, that you were just unlucky. That you would soon fall pregnant.
I mean, you couldn't believe that you're married to someone with such a high-drive, and that you're still not pregnant.
There's nothing wrong with you, right?
There's no way you're infertile? You?
On the other hand, Toji isn't stupid, he's noticed the sudden spike in your "libido" as you say. But he knows there's something bothering you beyond work.
He's not sure if he has the right to ask though. He's tried, you brush him off every time with "Nonsense, I'm perfectly fine, baby." You think you're slick, but he sees the weak smile you force on your face.
You decide to face the matter that has been gnawing at you on Friday. 6 months after your honeymoon.
The woman in front of you embodies perfectly the doctor you see in your nightmares when you had imagined this day. The inevitable day the results of all your medical testing for infertility, or sterility.
Your heart is beating so irregularly you're sure you have a high chance of having a heart attack as you sit on the chair, in the fluorescent-light illuminated clinic consultation room.
Dr. Ieiri Shoko holds your results on a clipboard. Your palms are clammy in your lap, and you feel the hair on your neck too much suddenly.
The silence is shattered and her words come out clear.
“Your results suggest you may have difficulty conceiving naturally due to...” She says something else, but you don’t understand what it means.
Will you be able to have a baby?
She sees the question in your eyes and takes a deep breath before saying,
“Spontaneous conception may be difficult for you."
Megumi comes out of school and you're waiting for next to the door, making small talk with other mother's like every other day as you wait for him.
His little eyes zero on your figure and he makes his way over, wrapping his tiny arms around your leg once he gets to you. You stop chatting with Mrs. Kugisaki to tend to your own child and bid your goodbyes.
Finally away from the school, you walk hand-in-hand with the little ravenette as you question him like usual about his day despite the weight in your chest and the crumpling papers stuffed in your bag.
They rustle, make noise that is barely audible, but they remind you of something you wish you'd never found out about.
Megumi tells you his friend, Yuji, is going to have a baby sister in a few months—which makes him want to ask where babies come from, but you don't say anything after he tells you the piece of information.
And you feel horrible. Your throat burns as you try to hold tears in because it feels like the universe is rubbing salt into your wound.
Again, Toji comes home late. He hasn't taken a shower at work today, so he reeks of smoke, sweat and there's dust all over his veiny forearms. This time, you're not in the living room.
Instead, you're sitting with your head over your arms—seemingly asleep with a piece of paper under your face. He almost laughs at the sight, but only a quiet, breathy chuckle escapes him to not wake you.
It's one A.M., you must be tired. So much that you don't notice him carefully lift your torso off the table, hook his arms under your legs, an effortlessly lift you in his arms.
He intended on taking you to your shared bedroom, strip you from your work clothes and change you into something comfortable so you could sleep in peace.
He doesn't move when his eyes catch the symbol of a medical clinic at the top of the crinkled paper previously laid under you.
Still asleep, you're set on the couch, a blanket messily draped over you so he could get back to the document.
You stirr awake then, as Toji's figure looms over the kitchen table. Paper in hand, fingers tightly digging around the corners of it.
And you don't even run your eyes, you bolt off the couch instantly. You get in the kitchen, to his side in a flash—arms reaching for the paper before he could reach the words.
But he knows you're hiding something. His eyes are frantically scanning the paper now that you've confirmed his suspicions.
Then, he finds them.
"Even with IVF, the patient's chances of successful implantation are estimated to be below twenty percent per cycle."
It was written all over the page in complex medical terms even before he'd found that sentence, but he's nothing of a science man. He's brute, resourceful, skilled. Hands on.
So it's only when the words translated to "Your wife can't have kids." did he understand what you had been hiding for the last six months.
And you feel your world tilt, maybe it does. You stop clawing at his side. Not having gotten closer to the paper before he found out, you slump to the floor in tears once you see the look of shock on his face.
But Toji isn't reacting like you thought he would, he's not upset. He's just holding the paper, uncertain of what to do.
He has a child.
So, he doesn't understand just what this means to you.
The only thing he does is lift your sobbing figure from the floor, setting you back down on the couch, and he holds you till you're not crying. Whispering quietly that it's okay.
He grasps just how much this affects you, and just how much you really want a baby.
Megumi has also noticed the shift in the air. How you push around your breakfast in the morning without taking any real bites, the slump in your shoulders and the bad attempts of putting on a facade for him.
Toji convinces you to try the treatments for your infertility like your doctor had mentioned was a possibility, IVF. He'd already discarded everything else on the sheet—surrogacy, artificial insemination...
The first package of syringes and fertility shots come in three months after you sort everything out with Dr. Shoko who has already pushed different ideas into the equation (Adoption, again surrogacy...) because while IVF injections can be highly effective, it has it's series of risks and consecuences.
Still, Toji assured you he'd be by your side throughout the entire process. You believed him.
Yet, the sight of the needles and the hormone-filled syringes in that cardboard box felt like a bucket of ice cold water called reality pouring down on you.
You hunched over, sitting on the closet toilet seat with your head in your hands, and with your husband reading the instructions on the counter.
Megumi is watching Ben 10 in the background while you stifle your sobs that echo in the dimly lit bathroom.
After a few minutes, Toji slowly walks back with an injection in his hands. He's prepared everything he had to, and now all that's left for him is to pinch you the start of an endless struggle.
As you sit there, with tears running down your face, with the walls of the room closing in on you—at least that's what it feels like, you wonder if this is really worth it.
You look up, hoping to find an answer in his black irises through your blurry sight. Except, you draw a blank. There's nothing behind his soft gaze buy reassurance that whatever you chose to do in this moment, he'll support.
Though, you know that even if he held the answer, you wouldn't find it. Because this is something you have to decide on.
There's nowhere to run.
Slowly, you stand up.
Toji is still deliberately holding the injection, not showing any signs of backing down.
And you lift the shirt you're wearing—one of his old ones, with trembling hands.
He looks at you seriously now, still in his place.
You see him asking if you're sure.
... It wouldn't hurt trying.
It does end up hurting.
There are bruises blooming across your stomach, early morning monitoring appointments before work, blood draws every other day, ultrasounds before sunrise, hormone crashes after failed transfers, and enough medication in your bathroom cabinet to make you feel sick just looking at it.
The egg retrieval leaves your body sore for days.
The failed transfer afterward hurts even worse.
And still, no baby.
Dr. Shoko’s warning about multiple failed cycles becomes true to the bone.
When you’d discussed IVF over and over again, she had highlighted every risk.
How emotionally draining it could become.
How physically brutal repeated cycles often were.
She mentioned the strain this could cause on your marriage.
But you convinced yourself nothing would happen between you and Toji.
Nothing.
Oh how you wish everything stayed the same way.
Somewhere along the months. The spontaneous midnight crying, the constant mood swings, the nightmares, the sickness and the pain you were going through pushed Toji to the limit.
He couldn't stand hearing you cry anymore, he couldn't handle the sight of the purplish marks that appeared after he injected with his own hands the needles.
It started to make him rot from the inside out, little by little.
Bit by bit, he slowly started to wish for it all to come to an end. If you had to suffer this much for a child, maybe you weren't meant to have one at all.
He'd never tell you that though.
And he hasn't realized how, slowly, he'd been pulling away from it all. Distancing himself from you in small ways.
Wanting nothing to do with it anymore.
You've never been so alone.
He doesn't inject the syringes anymore.
You throw up on your own. You hide the bruises.
You don't have intimacy with him anymore became you've afraid your battered, tired body is what's pushing him away.
Even when it's something far deeper than that.
Of course, your little angel sees the change.
The subtle dim in your light, your strained smiles, the way you're mentally around less.
The moms at school ask him if you're okay since Toji has changed his schedule so he can pickup Megumi more often.
He works the night shift now.
There are no slow mornings with him cooking breakfast for his wife and son.
There is an empty house he comes to at midday, a cold plate of food you've made for him, a box full of medicine in the bathroom, a trash can full of tear filled napkins, negative pregnancy tests, and empty syringes.
And the house is an organized wreck.
It's clean.
But cold.
Megumi is over at Yuji's house for the weekend. He's been invited by the pink haired boy himself. After confirming with Sukuna, you dropped him off and made your way back home.
It's a Saturday, nothing special, nothing new. That's what you think. But then you see you husbands shoes by the door.
He usually works on weekends now too.
You don't know when he started getting so busy, or why. Maybe to pay the treatment.
You leave your own pair of shoes at the door before going in.
He's on the couch, coffee mug in hand.
It's only 11 A.M., he was gone for the morning. So you assume he called out of work early today, or it's his day off.
Softly, "Honey?" , you call out because he's been starring at the wall ever since you've came into the room.
Which is in the dark mostly, there's only a faint amount of light seeping through the curtains and providing some type of visibility.
His head turns softly your way. "Hey."
Your eyes drop to his uniform, the overalls, the pants, clean. And the deep eye bags under his eyes.
"No work today?"
Despite how shaky things have been between the both of you, you think that a day off might be amazing for the both of you. Maybe you'll rekindle the fire.
See how he truly feels.
Maybe reply to "how are you?" Sincerely for the first time in a while.
However, he doesn't say anything—he shakes his head before setting the mug down on the coffee table.
You take a seat on the edge of the couch, facing him as you carefully follow his every movement. The tension in his shoulder is pronounced with every shift of his muscles.
And with one deep sigh, he breaks.
"I don't think we should do this anymore."
Your heart drops to your stomach.
His hand shoots up to rub down his face when he realizes what he's said.
"No- not us, I mean... the treatment."
What he says doesn't relieve you any less.
Your throat closes up as you let what he says settle in your chest.
And you feel yourself crumbling, slowly.
So much your voice comes out weaker than you expected, hoarse and quiet when you say.
"I want a baby, Toji."
He swallows, but he doesn't look away.
"I know you do."
You don't need him to say anything else, you can already see he's made his mind up.
There's no need for him to pronounce the words.
But I won't give you one.
Though you're wrong with why he won't give you one—you think he doesn't want a child, you've both reached a slump in your new marriage that you're not sure you can overlook.
You feel pathetic for crying again, because it's all you've been doing for the last year and a half.
Enduring every symptom you had to so you could get the slightest possibly of carrying life inside of you.
How could this be happening to you?
How could your marriage be falling apart?
Because you want a baby?
And precisely because you're falling apart trying to have a child, is why Toji no longer wants a baby.
He can't lose another wife.
But more specifically, he can't lose you.
The final thing you say is, "I can't give that up.".
Toji is never going to have a baby with you.
Not after everything you've sacrificed, never.
Your legs are shaky once you push yourself off the edge of the sofa. You've barely shared 10 sentences, and yet, your life has just flipped.
Megumi is at Yuji's.
And you're so sorry for what you're about to do.
part two.
not proofread yet, sorry for any infertility misinformation n stuff, I'm going to have to research a bit more but I got no time rn.
Yeah... let's welcome Toji to our list of stories!!!
Tags: Firefighter/Husband!Toji x infertile!reader, mentions of pregnancy, stepson Megs, labour, fire hazard, reader goes through ivf, best friend!Sukuna to the rescue, dr.Shoko.
This took too long pls don't let it flop T-T
Part one
Wc: 5.5k
The house is a home to silence that gets broken by a sobbing Megumi every day, every hour like clockwork.
It's been three months since you've left, and Toji is on his last straw.
The seven-year-old has been seemingly going through a tougher worse patch than his father. Which is normal, the woman who had taken care of him since he was still a baby was now gone overnight.
Vanished without leaving a single trace.
Like you didn't become the tether their family needed after their losses. Like you weren't the only person who accepted becoming the mother Megumi needed.
All of that just for you to leave like you were never even by his side.
But deep down, your husband was having it bad on a level that had his skin go pale, his muscles weak, and his life dull.
Toji never thought he'd be so affected by your absence. And he's been selfishly trying to bury the sorrows underneath fire and ash.
Longer shifts at work when his hours were already long, leaving his child at home with whoever is available at whatever hour of the day.
The worst part?
It's radio silence from your end ever since the day you'd left without sparing him another word.
He remembers how your legs shook after you'd pushed yourself off the couch's armrest. It's vividly tattooed in his mind how the sight of your trembling body and tear-stained face made his chest tighten because he knew he'd done it for real this time.
It's stupid, he used to make you end up shaking and tearing up under different circumstances before, ones that had nothing to do with having your heart ripped out of your chest.
However, while it's physically unable for him to erase how broken you looked that night from his mind, he barely recalls ever hearing you pack anything—maybe he was zoned out when you did—but he found your shared bedroom empty by the time you were gone.
Sukuna called him early in the morning out of the blue. Voice gruff with a heavy underlying layer of irritation.
It was 8 A.M. on a Sunday, but Toji was already slipping his shoes on when his friend practically pleaded him to pick his child up.
Claiming he had more than enough of the Fushiguros because apparently, Megumi had a rough night and he kept crying out for his mom.
Toji didn't know what to tell the little boy when he got to the salmon-headed uncle's house.
The door had opened and his son practically bolted out of the house, straight onto his father's legs where he clawed and clawed until he was picked up.
Yuji was looking at the duo from behind his uncle's legs, looking guilty as if he were the one responsible for his best friend's inner turmoil.
It was quite the contrary.
Megumi had enjoyed himself that night.
The two boys played video games way past the time they were usually allowed to be awake, ate a lot of sweets, as Sukuna didn't care to refuse two pre-teens of the candy they pulled out of nowhere.
But now, as he nuzzled his spiky hair further against his dad's chest, Megumi wished for nothing but to go home and find peace in his mother's arms.
The two older and identical copies of their "sons" bid each other a half-assed goodbye—both still too tired to properly socialize—only saying they'd meet up later before Toji was back in the car.
His son slept through the car ride home, and he woke up noticeably calmer and in a mood that improved the closer they got to home.
What his father failed to warn him about was the sheer emptiness he'd find once he crossed the threshold of their apartment.
The key was barely out of the lock before Megumi pushed the door open, hauling himself inside the foyer, screaming, "Mama!" with his tiny, high-pitched voice, buzzing with anticipation.
A moment passed. He was still standing at the entrance, waiting for you to rustle around and show up at the end of the hall with your arms wide open—and a comforting smile on your face.
Nothing.
Nothing happened after another few silent seconds.
And little Megumi turned to his father, who hadn't moved an inch.
Still in the corridor.
Feeling the strange coldness seep out of the house and into his bones, caused by the lack of your presence in the apartment.
For the first time in his short life, Megumi saw his father hold an expression on his face that wasn't irritation or disinterest.
Despair and pain.
Etched into his dark, sharp features.
Today is quite an eventful day for you, not because you have something coming for you, but because you're quitting your job.
It's a silly, extremely boring office job you've been at for less than four years now, but it pays just enough for you to live on the other side of Tokyo, far from Toji and your sadly, little one.
In a two-bedroom apartment that casually has a balcony that bumps up your rent to be higher than it's supposed to be? Yes, but until you moved into a place with a terrace, you'd never realized just how much you had been needing one.
You close the last tabs after saving your work with a small smile you can't stop from stretching across your face. Makoto, your deskmate, looks over the divider with a movie-style comedy with an exaggerated pout on her face.
She's a sweetheart, younger by three years but the most trustworthy person you've ever met while working. Unfortunately though, this is probably the last you'll see of her, as your private lives don't mesh.
The poor girl takes a two-hour train ride for this mediocre job and you certainly won't take time out of her precious weekends to meet when she's such a busy person.
But you promise to stop by and let her take you around Kyoto sometime. A loud, melancholic huff escapes her as she mourns the loss of her favorite coworker.
You giggle at her deflated posture in her chair.
"Don't be so sad, Mako."
You're entirely too calm and happy for a person who is resigning today.
However, this is a resignation that every person in the office is okay with. Not because you're deeply hated by your now former workplace, but because there is a reason why everyone is willing to let an employee as talented and loyal as you go.
Just in time for you to walk out, your boss, Nanami Kento, appears behind you. He's uptight as ever. Clad in squeaky-clean Oxfords, a mathematically straightened blazer, and his hair gelled back—as organized as the office life at 7:3 Corporate Banking Company is.
Except, you almost feel your eyes jump out of their sockets when you see the bouquet of flowers in his arms.
"Oh! Mr. Nanami, what a nice bouquet you hav—"
He cuts you off before you even finish your awkward comment.
"These are for you."
Again, before you have time to be shocked about it, he places them in your hands, almost sending you to faceplant the floor with their weight.
And you also can't get a single word in because he's continuing.
"Congratulations on your pregnancy, Mrs. Fushiguro. It's been lovely having you here."
Yeah.
Two months ago, you moved into a cheaper, smaller, and clammy apartment across town with a heavy heart and a cloudy mind.
You haven't divorced Toji, and you're not sure if you can do that without properly clearing the air between you and your husband.
Though, the idea of going back and looking into his eyes to hear the word no after everything you've been through is enough for you to keep your distance indefinitely.
Even when at night, you miss the feeling of his arms wrapped around you more than anything, keeping you caged against him—warm and safe on the coldest nights.
Or being awakened by the little rascal in the morning. Kissing his chubby cheeks to death while he complained.
The first month was hard. Really hard. You barely ate, lived off the first thing you saw at the nearby convenience store that sells the most out-of-pocket flavors of literally anything, and avoided going out altogether if it wasn't for work.
You'd be lying if you said you didn't miss him though.
If you said you didn't wish he'd come and find you at work on one of those days where the clock ticked too slowly, you would be a horrible liar.
But those dreams never happened.
He never came.
Never called.
And you didn't see the light in life.
Until the phone call.
You didn't recognize the number anymore, having gotten another phone and changed your contact.
So when your old phone buzzed on the nightstand, a week after you'd settled in with a new Blackberry, your heart thumped hard against your chest.
It wasn't your husband.
"Hello, Y/N?"
Upon picking up, you'd immediately recognized the voice. Dr. Shoko. It had totally fled your mind that you were supposed to tell her you were giving up.
"Oh, yeah, it's me."
That evening, your voice felt smaller than anything.
You felt smaller than anything once the remains of a life you were in just a month ago were on the other side of the phone.
You'd almost forgotten the bruises you'd wake up to decorating your stomach, all the nights you retched in the bathroom—holding your own hair, alone.
"It's been a while since we've spoken, hasn't it?"
Your doctor was a woman older by a few years but that possessed a honey-like, calm voice that you're sure could calm anyone.
It was almost comforting to hear it.
But when she calls, it's always for the same thing.
To break your heart into pieces again.
So you brace for impact like you have every other time.
You reply to her question with an, "I'm doing great," even though it's the fakest thing you've said in a while.
Then, you hope she doesn't ask about Toji or Megumi.
Thankfully, she doesn't, and you hear the rustle of papers before she takes a pause from saying it's great to know you're doing good.
"Okay, so if you remember, we took out some eggs during your last cycle and you had them implanted the following week."
There's a brief silence as she prepares her next words.
You take it to let the fact run a lap around your head.
By now, it had totally fled your mind that there was yet another successful implant of fertilized embryos inside of you.
And that the last week before you left Toji behind, you had a fair amount of bloodwork and lab tests done.
Specifically, on that gloomy day, you had your most recent blood draw.
Still, you had done this many times with no success by now.
She always says the same thing: successful implant, see you in a week.
Then she calls you in for tests, you do them, and she calls again with the news of no baby.
It's always the same.
First come the injections, the hormones.
Then the painful surgical extraction of your eggs.
Toji had to submit his own sperm too.
The lab fertilization follows.
The embryos are cultured for a few days.
You go back, they're placed inside your uterus.
And then, nothing.
No baby, no life.
Just another scar deep in your heart.
Your doctor had been rambling about something for the last minute, but you were in your head, completely out of it and not hearing a single thing until you heard her call out your name.
"Y/N? Y/N?"
Finally, she had managed to pull you back and you replied.
"Yes? Sorry, I got distracted."
A soft sigh came through the phone.
"Did you hear what I said?"
You hadn't missed a beat before replying no.
"You're pregnant, Y/N."
And you saw the first sliver of light then.
Within you.
So, you're the happiest pregnant woman there is, despite your crumbling marriage, despite the guilt that tugs at your heartstrings from having abandoned another little one behind.
But you've wanted this for longer than you can remember.
There's nothing that has tethered you to Earth as much as the two-month bump you have subtly poking out from under your clothes.
You're so over the moon, in your little bubble, that you're even grateful you wake up nauseous because of the little being inside of you, and not because of a bad reaction to the drugs you took just to have your baby.
And your cabinets are empty save for the prenatal vitamins you take.
There are no empty syringes in your apartment's trash can.
But there are discarded negative pregnancy tests and used-up, once hormone-filled injections in Toji's apartment.
He can't bring himself to throw them away even when the sight revolts him.
The box of remaining treatments for another cycle is still in the bathroom, the cabinets full.
Untouched.
It dawned on him that he had messed up the second you walked out the door.
That he discarded you, perhaps unwillingly, just like you had discarded negative results after successful implants.
He'd discarded all of your sacrifice.
The months of pain you went through just to have something half you and half him.
Because of his fear.
And the thought, that realization, makes bile climb up his throat every time.
Anywhere.
He loses his mind every single time too.
He's at work.
Leg bouncing up and down, eyebrows drawn tightly together, lips pursed—jaw locked like he's fighting the urge to jump at someone.
When really, he's fighting himself.
Sukuna is lazily lounging on an uncomfortable metal chair he pulled out of the janitor's closet and into the open garage, next to the lined-up fire trucks.
It's lunchtime, he's just had whatever slop their coworker made.
And he feels horrible.
With the heat clinging onto his skin and the salty aftermath of whatever thing he had just eaten, the pink-haired man was sure he was on the road to hell and seconds from perishing.
A firefighter uniform is a layered system of protective clothing designed to protect firefighters from heat and fire, to say the least.
But God, was it hot inside that clingy uniform.
And for men like Sukuna and Toji, it was uncomfortable as it was always too tight around the arms.
Having had enough of the clingy material, Sukuna had his coat thrown somewhere and he's been itching to rip his white shirt off his chest.
He can't do that though.
So, he's left in his navy blue, yellow-striped cargo tactical pants with the overalls unhooked from his shoulders and hanging by his sides.
He's taken off practically every layer he's allowed to, and he wishes he could throw his shoes away too, but he can't.
By his side, though, is a visibly distressed Toji.
Fully.
Dressed.
In the 32-degree Celsius Japanese heatwave.
Had his coworker looked normal at the very least, Sukuna would've bet there would be at least three forest fires with the scorching hot sun shining outside.
But he's quiet as a church mouse when he eyes the raven.
He barely lasts a minute before he barks.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?"
Toji groans, sinking further into his own metal chair, subconsciously hiding his face under the high neck of his coat.
His friend continues to talk though, picking at the subject.
"What? The missus giving you shit? Yuji's been saying that Meg is quite upset lately."
Once more, he doesn't get a reply.
That makes him quirk a brow in curiosity and slight irritation.
Even when he knows Toji isn't a man of many words, just like he isn't.
However, it's now that he notices his friend's hands are balled up into painfully tight fists by his sides.
And it's only now that he realizes it's been a while since he's heard about you.
"Toji, where's your wife?"
Sukuna's voice isn't as light anymore. It's deeper when he asks where you are.
Because you've known Sukuna for longer than Toji has.
After all, he's the mutual friend you both met each other through.
So, when it comes to his childhood best friend, it's not funny at all to Sukuna anymore.
Toji knows.
"She's gone."
That he's dancing on a thin line.
Either he gets punched by the short-tempered man, or the next months are going to be spent in psychological warfare.
"Gone? What the fuck do you mean gone?"
The man has already pushed himself off the chair, sending it a few meters back. The sound of its feet scratching against the floor momentarily echoes.
"Gone."
He would never admit it, but the fact that you have been gone for four whole months without him finding out about it irks him on a level that most people never get to.
Anyway, Sukuna is on his last thread too.
He's called your old number a hundred times in the last hour after his shift ended.
Not once have you picked up.
And you haven't heard the phone ring once.
You're at your trusty convenience store, struggling to crouch and reach the snacks on the lowest shelf with your three-month bump between you and glory.
It's hard, satisfying these end-of-trimester cravings.
To add salt to injury, when you can't reach the bottom packets of mochi, you can't reach the chips on the highest shelves.
It's ridiculous.
So you have been staring at the ketchup-flavored bag of chips on the shelf for the past five minutes, debating whether you give it up and go home, or wait for someone to waltz into the deserted convenience store where even the cashier is absent so they can grab it for you.
You choose the latter.
Or you did at first.
But your patience is stretched thin quickly.
You decide to try one last time to reach it yourself, despite the strain in your lower back.
Slowly, you lift yourself onto the tips of your toes and deliberately angle yourself to graze the end of the bag.
Then, you feel the presence of someone taller behind you reach past your body and grab it.
You're about to complain about how rude that was, maybe even accidentally start crying because of your hormones, but the man places the chips in your hands before you turn to look at him.
You quickly manage to catch a glimpse of the man's forearm.
Shit.
You're fucked.
Fuck, who wouldn't recognize those tattooed forearms with ink that make grown men swallow hard and fear him?
Right there, you hope he doesn't pay attention to who he has just helped—
And you're unlucky because for the first time in his life, Sukuna bats an eye to a random person.
He catches a glimpse of your side profile as he lets the item drop into your hand, already turning to leave, but he stops dead in his tracks to take a second look.
Oh, of course he has to run into you after calling about two hundred times in the last two hours.
But Sukuna is shocked for the first time in ages.
His MIA friend, in a convenience store that doesn't even have a name, miles and miles away from your home.
What a coincidence.
"Y/N? What the fuck are you doing here? Why haven't you answered my calls?"
You're stiff as a tree, hoping that the comically large bag of chips will hide the bump you're sporting under your sundress.
Aha.
You're far from slick.
Because one look from Sukuna and you're exposed.
You're sure the clerk comes out of the back after hearing Sukuna's loud barking.
"What the fuck?!"
Can a man curse more than Ryomen? Jesus.
Unfortunately for you, bolting is out of the question with your mildly swollen feet.
So you force him to pay for your random snacks in exchange for an explanation.
And you make it seem like a casualty that you're coincidentally pregnant during a rough patch with your husband.
You don't tell him that divorcing is something you think about some days, or the horrible last year and a half you lived through in order to even lie about your baby.
He doesn't need to know that.
He wouldn't understand if you told him you left your husband because you wanted a baby.
If your own didn't, how could he?
By the time you're done shrugging his concerns off, it's late.
So he insists on taking you home. You make him stop at the foot of your building and swear.
"I don't want Toji to know." You say. He purses his lips because he doesn't believe it.
Again, you shoot him a pointed look. "You owe me the discretion, asshole."
He's retorting like you've shot him.
"What for? I literally just paid for your things. If anything, you should stop lying to my face and tell me the truth."
Accidentally, your lips make an "o" and you expose yourself once more. But you don't care.
Shrugging again, you say, "Nah, I'm good, don't tell him." A pause comes in the middle of the next sentence.
Now more serious, you shift around as you plead. "Please don't tell him. It's complicated right now."
He scoffs, mumbling something incoherent but really similar to "Fucking idiot." under his breath before tossing your purchases back to you, giving you a side hug, and saying he'd catch you later.
That night, you don't sleep out of fear that Sukuna would snitch, even if he's never done that, being a man of his word, and that Toji would show up at your door.
He never does.
And part of you is disappointed.
No, every part of you is disappointed.
Ruined, even.
It's been nine months, you're full term, about to pop out a child, and he hasn't reached out once.
Your husband hasn't looked for you once.
On many nights, you cry about it.
It's no longer the hormones that have you so sensitive, you know your helplessness comes from deep within you.
It hurts more when it's Sukuna taking you to the hospital on the night your water breaks.
It hurts more than the contractions.
You cry,
cry,
and cry.
Because you don't want Sukuna to be driving you.
You don't want him here at all.
Which is incredibly selfish as he's been supporting you all throughout your pregnancy.
Except at ultrasounds, you refused to let him take you there.
Refused to let him inside the appointment.
Toji was supposed to be there finding out the gender of your baby by your side.
He was supposed to be looking at your little girl's face inside your womb.
You weren't supposed to be alone.
Or receive judgmental looks from the women in the waiting room.
Some equally as pregnant as you, some less or more, but all accompanied by their partners. The fathers of their children.
And you wanted to yell that you're married, and not the slut they look at you like.
You have a husband.
You wear your wedding band with "through sickness and in health" promised to you.
So, where is your husband?
On the night your water breaks, you're cooking. Something sweet, a new recipe you've never tried where making caramel—homemade caramel—is crucial for its success.
None of that store-bought stuff.
You blame the baby in you for wanting such complicated things.
Halfway through the process, right as you're mixing sugar, butter, cream, and a pinch of salt that's going to transform into a rich, golden confection, you think you pee yourself.
Safe to say, you didn't.
The water that spilled on the floor was in fact not pee, but your water breaking.
And you panic so hard all you do is dial Sukuna in a hurry—making him call out of work—and haul the hospital bags out of the apartment all on your own.
Not sparing a single glance at anyone who sees you in your flowy nightgown, with a distressed face and two suitcases by your side.
Right, that pan you left on...
Spawned a team of Tokyo firefighters, amongst them a tired, sunken-eyed, wrecked Toji to the rescue.
He was handed the information of the situation while a teammate drove the truck without question to the location, like it always is.
Over the truck's blaring siren, he read out the data to the other firemen.
"Neighbors reported a house fire on—" He reads out the name of the street, region, floor, and everything they know that has been reported about the fire.
He gets to the end of the report and his heart drops.
"The tenant is FUSHIGURO Y/N." His coworkers don't hear what he mumbles at the end, but they know something is wrong with the horrified look he's wearing.
The truck is shaking as it drives through traffic, but Toji's bark at the driver makes it tremble even more.
"Hurry the fuck up, get us there now!"
And they get there.
Toji hauls himself out of the truck first, body moving before his mind does.
Every inhabitant of the building is found outside, scared and worried, but Toji's heart is reaching the sky. He has it in his throat, ready to jump out.
Because how is it that the first time he hears about you, it's because you're engulfed in the one thing he prayed you'd never get close to?
His vision starts to get blurry as he reaches the floor.
You'd think it's inhuman, that a man of his height and stature, wrapped in those clothes, can past more than ten flights of stairs to reach your apartment in record time.
He smells the ash from the hall before he throws your door open, calling out your name through his hoarse throat.
It's closing in on him. Everything, the walls.
But you're not here.
There isn't a single sign of life.
And his heart stops.
He's not even supposed to be there.
He knows because he faintly hears his men scream from the staircase for him to leave, get out, that there is nobody.
Nobody?
What do they mean nobody?
Where is his wife?
His sweetheart.
On ground level, water is already being sprayed. Multiple men are at work. Placing ladders, climbing, watering down.
Doing damage control.
Yet nobody does damage control on him.
Where is his wife?
"Toji!" He hears his senior's voice call out from nearby.
But he stands there in the living room.
Surrounded by flames.
Even though he's not touched by them yet.
"Toji! Get out of there right this second!"
He feels like he's already burned.
"You have a son and a wife! Get out!"
The superior hesitates at the threshold Toji passed to get inside. Except it's now barricaded by fire.
Where is his wife?
"Your wife is at the hospital, she's not here!"
And he moves.
You are at the hospital.
Crying like you're on the verge of death.
Maybe you are. Sukuna definitely knows he's about to die though, you're gripping his forearm like you need him to hold you to Earth while you send him to the sky.
"Fuckfuckfuck, you're killing me, woman—" He doesn't even think about how much his words annoy you, causing him to barely dodge the fist you had heading for him.
The thing is, you're not pushing or anything. Nor are you in pain with the epidural in your spine. But you've been in labor for the last four hours, only 5 centimeters dilated, and sobbing profusely without stopping.
Even the nurses are worried because all you say is "I want my husband!" like you can't do it without him here.
And it's the truth.
You can't.
Sukuna has said many times he can't get Toji because 1: He's on the clock so he probably won't pick up, and 2: You won't let him go.
Though, his arm hurts so much—it's red, and even with his thick skin, he's sure a fat bruise will appear in a few hours, that he decides it would absolutely not hurt to call the raven-headed idiot that is supposed to be in his place.
You hear him promise to call and immediately let go.
Just as Sukuna steps outside of the room though, still hearing your sobs from the hall, heavy and rushed footsteps near before he even has the chance to ring Toji.
Because there he is, running past Sukuna, probably not even registering that he's there, and he goes inside.
But your husband wasn't ready to be met with what he was.
Toji Fushiguro looked like a man who had crawled straight out of hell.
His uniform was soaked.
Ash stained the sleeves.
There was soot smeared across his jaw and neck.
His chest rose and fell violently as he struggled to breathe.
For a moment, nobody moved.
Nobody spoke.
His wife.
Swollen with—
No, pregnant.
Fully pregnant.
A huge stomach which you have both your hands over.
Tears paint your face in a glossy layer.
That's not what makes his heart stop though.
A pin drops in the silence and you're sure a continent cracked.
He chokes out a sound you can't understand.
It all crashes over him right then.
He can't form a single coherent thought.
But he shakes, he starts shaking.
It's all too much.
His dark eyes find you instantly.
The world seems to stop.
You stare.
He stares.
Nine months.
Nine entire months.
Yet the second you saw him, every memory came rushing back at once.
The first apartment.
Megumi sleeping between you both after a nightmare.
The wedding ring still sitting on your finger.
Everything.
Toji looked like he was about to collapse.
Your name broke coming from his throat.
You've never hated yourself so much.
But the physical pain is slowly creeping back up on you.
And the cry you let out snaps your husband out of his shock.
Even after months apart, his body moves on its own.
His hands find yours.
Nurses swarm in.
You can't get the words "I'm sorry" out, but you try.
Knowing that they won't ever be enough to earn forgiveness.
His head lowers.
And suddenly, you feel something warm hit the back of your hand.
A tear.
Then another.
The room went silent.
It wasn't though.
It was loud with medics preparing you to push.
You had dilated enough.
But you couldn't pull your eyes off him.
Couldn't stop smelling the smoke, fear, and regret he was radiating.
You let out a loud groan amidst the moment, subconsciously squeezing the life out of his hand.
He doesn't care though.
You don't either.
"Mrs. Fushiguro—" For the first time, you hear the midwife.
"We have to get this baby out of you, mama, please help us."
You cry.
Really cry.
Because it hurts everywhere now.
In your heart.
And everywhere else.
"Push!"
You don't, you can't.
You don't find the strength within you.
They yell at you to push again.
You still don't.
Toji lifts his head, red eyes finding yours.
There's nothing but worry and something fragile, something Toji doesn't know how to name, fear, behind his eyes.
A rough, calloused hand finds the apple of your cheek.
He doesn't care about the baby, but he does care about you.
"Y/N, baby, please."
"Push!"
Through your blurry vision, you finally manage to.
He wipes the tears that fall as you cut the circulation off in his bicep.
"Okay, mom, good! Keep pushing!"
Her cries are the most beautiful thing you've ever heard.
It hurts a bit to see them hand her over to her father first, but you find it okay.
You find it more than okay when you see him hold her.
A man of so much sorrow and pain, holding the purest thing on Earth.
His daughter.
The world is frozen in time.
Somewhere, the birds stop chirping.
The waves swallow the shore.
His chest loosens.
Something shatters in him.
It feels illegal to hold her.
She's so small.
So beautiful, nothing like him.
No dark eyes, no dark hair.
No scars, no marks.
He can't believe this is his.
Your daughter.
After years.
After injections.
After heartbreak.
After countless negative tests.
She was finally here.
A sob escapes him.
One he couldn't stop.
One he didn't even try to.
His hand gently brushes against her tiny head.
It was silent in the room.
"She's beautiful."
You look down at her.
Then up at him.
And for the first time in nearly a year, your husband looks at you the same way he had on your wedding day.
Like you were the most important thing in the world.
The room fades away.
The hurt isn't gone.
The damage isn't repaired.
There will be conversations.
Arguments.
Apologies.
Months of healing.
Maybe years.
But as your daughter yawns against your chest and Toji carefully wraps one arm around both of you, neither of you lets go.
Not this time.
Tsumiki has two broken parents.
A mother that went through hell for her.
Who would do it again to see her tiny fingers wrap around her mother's.
A woman that needed answers from her husband.
Who isn't aware that he did look for her.
Everywhere.
At her old workplace, asking everyone, spending every day calling, searching, dying inside.
She has a father that's messed up by life.
Past relationships, family trauma, a fear in his heart he can't allow himself to admit exists.
A man who doesn't know how to hold on.
But he's never been so sure that this time, nothing is escaping from him.
And an older brother standing by the door, brought by Sukuna himself.
That has a completely different set of eyes and thoughts.
But a brother that has already deemed her the most precious thing on Earth.
Hmm... as for dessert.. the masterlist maybe?
Please lmk how u felt about this little story, i love reading coms!!
synopsis : satoru gojo is a nobel-nominated genius with three phds, a devoted wife, and one tiny problem: he's accidentally turned himself into his nineteen-year-old self. now locked out of his own house and mistaken for a very persistent stalker by the love of his life (that’s you), he has one mission—fix the time machine, reclaim his face, and survive your increasingly violent attempts to defend your marriage from... him.
tags — oneshot, porn with plot, established relationship, domestic fluff, crack treated seriously, age regression/de-aging, identity shenanigans, miscommunication but it’s technically quantum, time travel(?) shenanigans, idiots in love, emotional whiplash, romantic comedy, jealous of himself, satoru gojo is so down bad, penis in vagina sex, kitchen sex, breeding kink, mating press, praise kink, overstimulation, sexual overstimulation, multiple orgasms, multiple sex positions, satoru gojo worships you like a religion, slight size kink, he’s been deprived okay, smut happens after he fixes everything
wc — 20.1k | gen. masterlist | read on ao3?
a/n: yes i wrote this in one day. yes i wrote this instead of focusing on finishing the part two of my apothecary diaries au fic. please don’t get your pitchforks out (• ▽ •;) if u see i typo, no u don’t.
two weeks.
fourteen days of existing as a walking contradiction—a twenty-nine-year-old genius trapped in the lanky, smooth-faced prison of his nineteen-year-old body. satoru adjusts his reading glasses (the same prescription, thankfully, because his eyesight had been terrible since childhood) and stares at your front door like it’s the gates of heaven guarded by the world’s most beautiful, most stubborn angel.
his hair catches the afternoon light, those fine strands the color of fresh snow that had turned this ethereal shade when he was four and his first chemistry set had gone spectacularly wrong. it had originally been a soft, milk-tea brown, the color of dusty books and early autumn. he’d tried to invent a hair-growth serum for his dad. instead, the mixture combusted, coated his scalp, and bleached every strand into something unnaturally pale. his parents had panicked, thinking he’d poisoned himself. little satoru, meanwhile, had stared into the mirror and grinned with gap-toothed delight.
now, at nineteen-again, it falls across his forehead in soft waves, glowing almost silver in the sunlight. he looks like a walking, talking academic heartthrob from a university romance novel—which would be flattering if his own wife didn’t look at him like he was an unsightly bug on her kitchen floor.
the irony tastes bitter on his tongue, metallic like blood and regret. he’d spent six years perfecting a device to slow down time—not for scientific glory or recognition, but because twenty-four hours with you had never felt like enough. he’d wanted to stretch lazy sunday mornings into eternities, to make your sleepy smiles and the way you hummed while making coffee last forever.
instead, he’d accidentally turned himself into a time paradox of the most pathetic variety. a cautionary tale about hubris wrapped in the body of a college freshman.
his phone buzzes somewhere in the basement lab, probably sending another automated message to your device: still working on the temporal displacement project. eating the sandwiches you left. miss you. love you. —satoru
the ai assistant he’d programmed to keep you from worrying had become his greatest enemy. every perfectly crafted message, every detail programmed to sound exactly like him, was another nail in the coffin of his credibility. he’d been too thorough, too careful, too much of a perfectionist even in his contingency planning.
because here he stands, looking like a college freshman who’d wandered into the wrong neighborhood, while you believe your husband is safely tucked away in his lab, probably elbow-deep in equations and caffeine addiction.
the thing is—and this is where his pride starts gnawing at his intestines like a particularly vindictive parasite—he doesn’t want to sneak into his own house. he’s the dr. satoru gojo, for crying out loud. he has three phds, a nobel prize nomination, and enough patents to wallpaper the entire first floor. he shouldn’t have to skulk through basement windows like some sort of lovesick cat burglar just to access his own laboratory.
he’s a dignified man of science. he has principles. standards. a reputation to maintain, even if that reputation is currently being dragged through the mud by his own temporal incompetence.
no, he’s going to do this the right way. he’s going to convince you, properly and thoroughly, that he is exactly who he claims to be. he’s going to walk through the front door like a civilized human being, kiss his wife hello, and pretend the last two weeks never happened.
this is a matter of scientific integrity. of personal dignity. of—
he rings the doorbell.
the sound of your footsteps approaching makes his heart perform some sort of olympic gymnastics routine, complete with triple axels and a dismount that leaves his stomach somewhere in the vicinity of his ankles. even through the door, he can picture the way you move—that particular grace you’ve always had, like you’re dancing to music only you can hear. you’re probably wearing one of those sundresses he loves, the ones that make you look like you’ve stepped out of a 1950s magazine about perfect wives, except you’re real and warm and you smell like vanilla and clean laundry and home.
the door opens, and satoru’s brain promptly short-circuits.
you’re wearing the yellow dress. the one with tiny white flowers that he’d bought you for your second anniversary because you’d mentioned once, in passing, while distracted by a butterfly in the park, that it reminded you of the field where you’d had your first picnic. he’d remembered that throwaway comment for six months before finding the perfect dress, had it tailored to fit you exactly, had even added those hidden pockets because you always lost your keys.
your hair is pinned back with the butterfly clips he’d made for you—tiny mechanical marvels that flutter their wings when you laugh, solar-powered and calibrated to respond to the specific frequency of your joy. he’d spent three weeks perfecting the mechanism after you’d mentioned liking butterflies. three weeks of delicate gear work and programming, all for the chance to see you smile when the wings moved.
you look at him, and your expression shifts from hopeful to confused to absolutely murderous in the span of three seconds.
“oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
his heart skips a beat. maybe five. this is the part where he says something clever. this is the part where he charms you back into loving him. this is the part where his superior intellect saves the day and—
before he can open his mouth to explain, to plead, to grovel at your perfect feet, you’ve already produced what looks like a small silver device from somewhere in your dress. the hidden pocket in the seam, specifically—the one he’d reinforced with extra stitching because you had a tendency to overstuff it with lip balm and emergency snacks.
the device hums ominously, a sound that sends ice water through his veins because he recognizes it immediately. it’s the personal protection gadget he’d built for you last christmas, after you’d mentioned feeling nervous walking home from your book club in the dark. he’d spent a month perfecting it—a sleek little thing that could stun, disorient, or mildly embarrass an attacker depending on the setting.
and right now, you’re turning the dial past ‘warning shot’ and heading straight for ‘regret your life choices.’
“listen here, you little creep,” you say, and your voice is deadly sweet, like honey laced with cyanide. the juxtaposition of your floral sundress and the murder in your eyes is somehow the most attractive thing he’s ever seen, which probably says something deeply concerning about his psychology. “i don’t know who you think you are, but i’m a married woman. deeply, completely, utterly in love with my husband.”
the way you say ‘my husband’ makes something in his chest crack open like a fault line. there’s so much pride in your voice, so much fierce devotion, and he wants to bask in it except you’re not talking about him. you’re talking about him, but not him-him. you’re talking about the version of him you actually want to see walking through this door.
“so whatever pathetic attempt at impersonation this is,” you continue, and the weapon in your hand starts glowing a rather alarming shade of blue, “you can take it and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine.”
“wait, wait!” he holds up his hands, noting with growing horror how young they look, how smooth and unmarked by years of lab work. these hands haven’t built the music box that plays your wedding song. these fingers haven’t spent countless hours crafting the little inventions that make you smile. “i can explain! i know this looks bad, but i’m really—”
“satoru,” you finish, your eyes narrowing dangerously. “yes, i heard your little introduction yesterday. and the week before that. you know what? the name satoru only fits one person in this world, and he’s about a hundred times more attractive, intelligent, and charming than whatever discount walmart version you’re trying to pull off.”
the words hit him like a freight train loaded with emotional devastation and existential dread. discount walmart version. you—his wife, the love of his life, the woman who’s seen him drool on his pillow and still kisses him good morning—think he’s a cheap knockoff of himself.
“my husband,” you continue, and there’s that tone again, soft and dreamy and absolutely besotted, “is brilliant beyond measure. he’s kind and funny and makes me laugh every single day. he has these eyes that light up when he’s excited about something, and he gets this little crease between his eyebrows when he’s concentrating. he’s tall and gorgeous and perfect, and you...” you look him up and down with obvious disdain, “are none of those things.”
satoru feels something die inside his chest. possibly his will to live. definitely his ego.
because the thing is, you’re right. he doesn’t look like the man you married anymore. he looks like a college student, all gangly limbs and baby fat and skin that hasn’t been weathered by years of late nights in the lab. he looks like someone who might ask you for help with his homework, not someone who’s built you a smart house that anticipates your every need.
“but i know things!” he says desperately, his voice cracking in a way that makes him want to crawl into a hole and die. “i know about your scar from when you fell off your bike when you were seven! it’s shaped like a crescent moon and you hate it but i think it’s beautiful! i know you cry during dog food commercials but only the ones with golden retrievers! i know you keep our wedding photo in your recipe book, tucked between the pages for chocolate chip cookies and banana bread!”
your expression grows more dangerous with each word, and the weapon in your hand charges up another notch.
“you sick little stalker,” you hiss, and the venom in your voice could probably strip paint. “how dare you dig into our private life and try to use our precious memories against me! what kind of pathetic creep researches someone’s marriage just to play dress-up?”
“i’m not playing dress-up!” he protests, and he knows he sounds pathetic, knows he looks like exactly what you think he is—some obsessed fan who’s done way too much homework. “i know about the time you got food poisoning from that seafood place and i held your hair while you threw up! i know you have a freckle shaped like a heart on your left shoulder! i know you sing off-key in the shower but you think you sound like an angel!”
“stop it!” you snap, and your finger hovers over the trigger. “stop trying to soil our beautiful relationship with your creepy research!”
“i know about our first fight!” he rushes on, desperate now, sweat beading on his forehead. “it was about the thermostat because you like the house warm and i run hot! i know you forgave me by leaving little notes in my lab equipment! i know you doodle my name in the margins of your books when you’re daydreaming!”
each piece of intimate knowledge he reveals only seems to make you angrier, and satoru realizes with growing horror that he’s trapped in some sort of emotional paradox. the more he proves he knows you, the more you’re convinced he’s a stranger.
“and i know,” he adds, his voice dropping to something desperate and broken, “that you’re wearing the perfume i bought you for your birthday. the one that smells like vanilla and jasmine and makes me want to bury my face in your neck and never leave.”
you go very, very still.
“that’s enough,” you say quietly, and somehow that’s more terrifying than when you were shouting. “i don’t care how much you’ve stalked us, how many private details you’ve dug up, how perfectly you’ve copied his appearance. you are not my husband.”
“but—”
“my husband,” you continue, and your voice goes soft and dreamy again, like you’re talking about something holy, “is perfect. he’s brilliant and beautiful and kind, and he loves me exactly as much as i love him. he’s probably in his lab right now, working on something that’s going to change the world, missing me but dedicated to his research because that’s who he is. that’s the man i married.”
the weapon powers up another notch, and satoru is pretty sure it’s no longer set to ‘stun.’
“and you,” you say, looking him up and down with obvious disgust, “are just some sad little boy with a crush and too much time on your hands. so here’s what’s going to happen. you’re going to leave. now. and if i see you anywhere near our house again, i’m going to do something that will require a very good explanation to the police.”
satoru stares at you—really looks at you—and sees the fierce protectiveness in your eyes, the way you’re guarding not just your home but your marriage, your happiness, your love for a man you think is safely tucked away in his basement lab.
you’re magnificent. terrifying and beautiful and absolutely magnificent.
and you’re about to potentially murder him while defending his honor.
“i know about the night after our second anniversary,” he tries one more time, his voice breaking completely now. “when you wore that blue nightgown with the little ribbons, and we danced in the kitchen to that song you love, and then we—”
“that’s it.”
the blast catches him square in the chest, and suddenly satoru is airborne, flying backward off your porch and landing in the rose bushes he’d planted for your last birthday. the thorns are sharp, but not nearly as sharp as the look you’d given him right before pulling the trigger.
he lies there for a moment, stunned and possibly concussed, staring up at the sky and trying to process what just happened.
through the ringing in his ears, he hears you call out: “my husband is a genius with 845 patents and the most brilliant mind of our generation! you’re just some sad little boy who probably googled him! stay away from our house, or next time i’m setting this thing to something more permanent!”
the door slams with enough force to rattle the windows.
satoru continues lying in the roses, rose petals in his hair and thorns in his dignity, and tries to comprehend the fact that his own wife just threatened to potentially murder him while defending his honor with the very weapon he’d built to protect her.
somewhere in the distance, a bird chirps. a car drives by. the world continues spinning as if nothing momentous has just occurred.
he’s never been more in love in his entire life. which is probably a sign that he needs therapy. or a lobotomy. possibly both.
he lies there for a moment. processing. his ribs hurt. his pride hurts more. his entire soul aches in a way that is both deeply romantic and profoundly stupid.
“also!” you shout from the upstairs window, your voice carrying that indignant tone you get when you’re really worked up, “my husband has better hair! and better posture! and he’s taller! and he knows how to dress himself like an adult instead of a lost college freshman!”
each addition feels like salt in the wound. you’re systematically dismantling every aspect of his nineteen-year-old appearance while praising the twenty-nine-year-old version with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for describing paradise.
“and he smells better!” you continue, apparently not done with your character assassination. “like expensive cologne and coffee and home, not like... like drugstore body spray and desperation!”
satoru sniffs himself reflexively. he doesn’t smell like desperation. does he? the drugstore body spray comment is just mean, especially since he’d specifically chosen the brand you’d complimented on a stranger once.
“and his voice!” you’re really getting into it now, leaning out the window with the fervor of someone delivering a sermon. “his voice is deeper, and smoother, and when he says my name it sounds like music instead of like a squeaky toy!”
he touches his throat self-consciously. his voice had been deeper before the accident, richer, more confident. now he sounds like he’s going through puberty again, all cracks and uncertain intonation.
“and he would never be stupid enough to break into someone’s house like some kind of delinquent!” you conclude with devastating finality. “my husband is a gentleman and a scholar and the most wonderful man who ever lived, and you’re just some discount imposter who isn’t fit to shine his shoes!”
the window slams shut.
satoru groans. loud and dramatic and entirely justified.
he really should’ve just built a cloning machine. or left a video message in case of accidental de-aging. or tattooed a note to his own arm. but no, he had to get ambitious. he had to try and invent time-space atmospheric slowdown like a dumbass in love.
he drags himself up from the rosebush, brushing petals and leaves from his shirt. there’s one stuck in his hair, refusing to leave like it has a vendetta. his reflection in the front window shows a pathetic figure: clothes wrinkled, hair disheveled, a small cut on his cheek from the thorns, and an expression of profound defeat.
this is what rock bottom looks like, apparently. getting ejected from his own home by his own wife while she sings the praises of his other self.
the irony is suffocating. you love him so much that you’d attack anyone who even pretended to be him. your loyalty is absolute, your devotion unwavering, your protective instincts sharp enough to cut glass. it’s everything he’d ever wanted in a partner, everything he’d fallen in love with, turned against him in the cruelest possible way.
he presses his hand to his chest, where the stun device got him. it still tingles, a reminder of your precision, your preparedness, the way you’d defended your marriage without a moment’s hesitation. you’d been magnificent, absolutely magnificent, and he’d been the target.
satoru limps toward the sidewalk, his teenage body protesting every movement. his legs feel too long, his center of gravity all wrong. everything about this borrowed youth feels like wearing an ill-fitting costume to the most important performance of his life.
he looks back at the house—your house, his house, the home you’d built together—and feels the weight of his isolation settle around him like a heavy coat. inside, you’re probably making dinner, humming that song you always hum when you’re slightly stressed, maybe wondering why the strange boy keeps bothering you when your husband is working so hard in his lab.
the thought of you worrying, of you feeling unsafe in your own home because of his appearance, makes his chest tight with guilt. he’d never wanted to frighten you, never wanted to make you feel threatened or uncomfortable. he’d just wanted to come home.
but this isn’t working. two weeks of doorbell rejections, verbal demolitions, and physical removal have made it clear that the direct approach is a spectacular failure. you’re not going to believe him, not when he looks like this, not when every instinct you have is screaming that he’s an imposter.
he understands that you love your husband—him—so much that you’ll fight off anyone who threatens that love, even if it means breaking your own tender heart to do it. he understands that the depth of your devotion is exactly what makes this situation so impossible.
he also understands that his dignity, his principles, his stubborn refusal to sneak around his own house like a common criminal, has just officially been abandoned in your rose bushes along with his pride.
because two weeks without you is already too long, and the thought of spending even one more night in a hotel room that smells like industrial disinfectant instead of your vanilla perfume makes him want to invent a time machine just so he can go back and slap his past self for being such an arrogant idiot.
science is about adaptation. evolution. knowing when to abandon a failed hypothesis and try a new approach.
tonight, dr. satoru gojo, nobel prize winner and distinguished gentleman of science, is going to break into his own house like a lovesick teenager.
his dignity is already dead anyway. might as well bury it properly.
night falls like a heavy curtain draped by a particularly melodramatic theater director, and satoru crouches in the shadows of his own garden like some sort of discount romeo—if romeo had been a twenty-nine-year-old genius trapped in a nineteen-year-old’s body and juliet had been his own wife who’d recently threatened him with what appeared to be a weaponized jewelry box.
the irony tastes like burnt coffee and shattered dreams. he’s spent six years turning this place into fort knox’s prettier, more technologically advanced cousin, all in the name of protecting you from theoretical dangers that pale in comparison to the very real threat of his own stupidity. motion sensors that could detect a butterfly’s landing, cameras with night vision that would make the military weep with envy, locks that respond to seventeen different biometric markers—and here he is, plotting to break into his own fortress like the world’s most pathetic cat burglar.
the security system hums softly in the darkness, a technological lullaby he’d programmed himself. every blinking light, every nearly invisible laser grid, every pressure-sensitive tile in the walkway—his own paranoid genius, now turned against him like some sort of karmic boomerang wrapped in irony and spite.
he adjusts his reading glasses and studies the house like a general surveying a battlefield. except generals probably don’t usually have to factor in the devastating effects of seeing their beloved wearing pajamas into their strategic planning.
the kitchen window. salvation arrives in the form of his own procrastination—there’s a loose latch on the kitchen window that he’s been meaning to fix for approximately four months and seventeen days. not that he’s counting. you’d mentioned it in passing on a tuesday morning while making pancakes, your hair still mussed from sleep, wearing that ridiculous apron with the anthropomorphic strawberries that should have looked childish but instead made you look like some sort of domestic goddess descended from mount olympus to bless his unworthy kitchen with your presence.
he’d nodded and made appropriate husband noises about adding it to his mental to-do list, then promptly forgotten because you’d started humming that song—the one you always hum when you’re happy, the one that sounds like sunshine would if sunshine had a voice—and his brain had short-circuited somewhere between “fix window latch” and “marry this woman again immediately.”
procrastination, it turns out, has never felt so much like divine intervention.
satoru approaches the window with the careful precision of someone who knows exactly how much pressure the old frame can take before it creaks loud enough to wake the neighbors’ dog, which would start a chain reaction of barking that would inevitably lead to you investigating the commotion. his nineteen-year-old fingers work the latch with muscle memory that spans a decade—apparently some things transcend the space-time continuum, including his intimate knowledge of his own home’s structural weaknesses.
the window slides open with barely a whisper, and satoru feels a brief moment of triumph that’s immediately crushed under the weight of what he’s actually doing. breaking and entering. into his own house. to convince his own wife that he’s actually himself.
if there’s a support group for men who’ve been defeated by their own scientific brilliance, he’s definitely going to need the membership information.
he slips through the window with the fluid grace of his temporarily teenage body, and the contrast is jarring—he’d forgotten how easy movement used to be, before years of hunching over microscopes and circuit boards had given him the posture of a question mark and the flexibility of a particularly rigid breadstick. his nineteen-year-old joints don’t protest the maneuver, don’t crack ominously or require the careful choreography he’s grown accustomed to.
it’s like being a ghost haunting his own life, except ghosts probably don’t have to worry about whether their wives will recognize them.
the house settles around him in the darkness, familiar as his own heartbeat. every creak of the floorboards, every sigh of the old ventilation system, every subtle shift of air that speaks of home and safety and belonging. the scent of dinner lingers in the air—something with garlic and herbs that makes his stomach growl traitorously, reminding him that nineteen-year-old metabolisms apparently require more fuel than whatever laboratory subsistence he’s been surviving on.
guilt tastes like copper pennies and regret as he imagines you eating alone, probably glancing at the basement door every few minutes, wondering if your husband remembered to eat anything more substantial than the sandwiches you’d left for him. the automated messages from his ai assistant feel like lead weights in his chest—every perfectly crafted lie, every synthetic expression of love and longing, every digital deception that kept you from worrying while the real satoru stumbled around in a teenage body like some sort of scientific cautionary tale.
his feet hit the kitchen floor with barely a whisper of sound, and for a moment, he allows himself to breathe. step one: infiltration successful. step two: somehow make it to the basement without triggering any of the—
the lights explode to life like the sun deciding to have a particularly vindictive tantrum.
“gotcha, you little creep.”
and there you are.
standing in the doorway like an avenging angel who’d decided that white cotton nightgowns were the appropriate battle attire for dealing with home invaders. the nightdress—the one with the lace trim that he’d bought you for your birthday because you’d mentioned once that you felt pretty in white—catches the harsh kitchen light and transforms you into something ethereal and terrifying in equal measure.
your hair spills over your shoulders in loose waves, the same waves he’s buried his fingers in countless times, that he’s watched catch morning sunlight during lazy weekend mornings when the world consisted of nothing but you and him and the space between heartbeats. but there’s steel in your posture now, a predatory grace that speaks of skills he’d never suspected, secrets kept with the casual competence of someone who’s been protecting others while letting them think they were doing the protecting.
satoru opens his mouth to explain, to plead, to throw himself at your mercy and grovel with the desperation of a man who’s spent two weeks learning exactly how much his life means nothing without you in it—
your hand moves faster than his genius brain can process, faster than the calculations that usually come as naturally as breathing, faster than any of the combat scenarios he’s ever run through his head during his more paranoid moments.
the karate chop catches him right at the base of his neck with surgical precision, and satoru’s world doesn’t just explode into stars—it becomes a supernova of sensation and realization and the most inappropriate surge of attraction he’s ever experienced.
because even as his vision goes blurry around the edges, even as his knees buckle and his carefully planned explanations scatter like startled birds, even as consciousness starts its tactical retreat from the battlefield of his skull—you’re beautiful.
he’d known you were deadly, in the abstract way that husbands know their wives are capable of anything. but seeing it, experiencing the controlled violence of someone who’s spent years learning how to end threats efficiently and effectively, watching the way you move with the fluid confidence of someone who’s never doubted their ability to protect what matters—
it’s like falling in love all over again, except this time it’s happening while his nervous system stages a coup and his equilibrium files for immediate resignation.
the woman he’d married, the one who makes him sandwiches with the crusts cut off because you knows he eats more when food is convenient, the one who leaves little notes in his lab reminding him to drink water and take breaks, the one who hums while doing laundry and always smells like vanilla and clean cotton and home—you just incapacitated him with the casual efficiency of someone who’s been trained to handle much worse threats than lovesick scientists with poor life choices.
and he’s never been more attracted to another human being in his entire existence.
his vision swims, the edges of the world growing soft and fuzzy like someone’s smeared vaseline on the lens of reality. but even through the haze of imminent unconsciousness, he can see you clearly—the slight flush in your cheeks from adrenaline, the way your breathing has quickened just fractionally, the protective fire in your eyes that speaks of love fierce enough to level cities.
“you,” his mouth tries to form words, but his tongue feels like it’s been replaced with cotton batting soaked in novocaine. “you’re...”
“insane?” you supply helpfully, though your voice carries that particular note of concern that always appears when you think he might be hurt. “scary? criminally strong?”
“perfect,” he manages, and even slurred beyond recognition, the word carries every ounce of wonder and adoration and bone-deep reverence he feels.
you blink, clearly not expecting that response from your supposed stalker, and in that moment of confusion, satoru sees something shift in your expression. a flicker of uncertainty, a crack in the armor of your righteous fury that lets just a hint of the woman he knows peek through.
then the world tilts sideways, his legs forget how to function, and consciousness waves goodbye with all the dignity of a deflating balloon.
satoru surfaces from the depths of unconsciousness like a man drowning in reverse, fighting his way back to a reality that feels suspiciously soft and comfortable for someone who’d just been neutralized by his own wife.
the mother of all headaches pounds against his skull with the rhythm of a particularly enthusiastic drummer, and somewhere in the distance, birds are chirping with the sort of aggressive cheerfulness that makes him want to invent a device for negotiating with wildlife.
satoru opens his eyes to find himself on the porch—his porch, their porch, the one with the swing he’d installed because you’d mentioned once that you’d always wanted one—with a pillow tucked carefully under his head and a glass of water sitting nearby like a peace offering from the goddess of justified violence.
even while knocking him unconscious for breaking into his own home, you’d made sure he was comfortable.
the pillow smells like you—vanilla and that lavender fabric softener you use and something indefinably warm that he’s never been able to identify but would recognize anywhere. it’s the same scent that clings to his shirts when you do laundry, the same one that fills their bedroom in the mornings, the same one that he associates with safety and belonging and the radical concept that someone might actually love him enough to put up with his particular brand of brilliant stupidity.
he sits up slowly, his head spinning like a carnival ride operated by someone with a grudge against inner ears, and catches sight of a note tucked under the water glass. the handwriting is yours—neat, precise, with the same careful attention to detail you bring to everything from grocery lists to the birthday cards you make by hand because you say store-bought ones don’t carry enough love.
for the headache. next time, try using the front door like a normal stalker. —the wife of the REAL satoru gojo
despite everything—the splitting headache, the existential crisis, the fact that he’s been reduced to breaking into his own home like some sort of romantic criminal—he smiles. even your passive-aggressive notes are perfect. even when you’re threatening him with bodily harm, you’re taking care of him. even when you think he’s some delusional teenager with stalker tendencies, you’re making sure he’s hydrated and comfortable.
he’s never been more in love, which would be romantic if it weren’t so completely pathetic.
the front door opens with the sort of casual grace that suggests you’ve been watching him from inside, probably trying to determine whether he’s going to keel over again or attempt another round of breaking and entering. you step out wearing a blue sundress that makes his chest ache with longing so profound it feels like a physical injury—the one with tiny white flowers that he’d bought you for your second anniversary because you’d mentioned once that it reminded you of the field where you’d had your first picnic.
you’re carrying a plate of what looks like his favorite cookies, the ones you only make when you’re worried or upset, the ones that involve three different types of chocolate and a recipe you guard more jealously than state secrets. the fact that you’ve made them now, for what you think is a complete stranger, speaks to a kindness so fundamental that it makes his throat close up with emotion.
“you’re awake,” you observe, settling into the porch chair you’d insisted on buying last spring, the one he’d grumbled about because it didn’t match the aesthetic he’d carefully planned, the one that’s now his favorite spot in the world because it’s where you sit in the mornings with your coffee and your terrible romance novels and your complete contentment with the life you’ve built together. “good. i was starting to think i’d hit you too hard.”
there’s genuine concern in your voice, the same tone you use when he’s working too late and you’re worried he’s going to collapse from exhaustion, and satoru feels his dignity—what little remains of it—crumble into dust. his wife is worried about the wellbeing of someone she thinks is essentially a teenage stalker, because that’s the kind of person you are. that’s the kind of heart you have.
he struggles to his feet, swaying slightly as his nineteen-year-old equilibrium files a formal complaint about the abuse it’s recently endured. “you... you know karate?”
the question comes out slightly accusatory, tinged with the bewilderment of a man discovering that his beloved is capable of violence on a level he’d never imagined. six years of marriage, six years of thinking he knew everything about you, six years of believing he was the protector in this relationship—
“among other things.” you bite into a cookie with the satisfied air of someone who’s just discovered an interesting new fact about the world, watching him with the expression of someone observing a particularly fascinating specimen under laboratory conditions. “my husband doesn’t know. i like letting him think he needs to protect me. he makes the most adorable gadgets when he’s worried about my safety.”
the casual way you mention keeping an entire martial arts background secret from him makes satoru’s head spin worse than the concussion. not because you’ve hidden something from him—everyone deserves their secrets, their private spaces, their own mysteries to unfold in their own time—but because you’ve hidden it for the most fundamentally sweet reason imaginable.
you’ve been letting him play protector while being perfectly capable of protecting yourself, because you think his overprotectiveness is cute.
he falls in love with you all over again, which seems physically impossible given that he’s been operating at maximum love capacity for the better part of a decade, but apparently the human heart has hidden reserves for discovering new depths of adoration even when you think you’ve already catalogued every possible reason to worship someone.
“why didn’t you tell him?” he asks, genuinely curious despite the circumstances and the growing certainty that he’s about to learn something that will fundamentally reshape his understanding of the woman he married.
your expression softens in the way that always makes his chest tight with emotion, that particular look of fond exasperation mixed with infinite patience that you reserve for discussions of your husband’s more endearing quirks.
“because my satoru gojo is the smartest man alive,” you say, and the pride in your voice makes something warm and golden spread through his chest like sunrise, “but he’s also a complete idiot when it comes to the people he loves. he’d spend all his time trying to make sure i never had to use those skills instead of appreciating that i can take care of myself. this way, he gets to feel protective, i get beautiful functional jewelry and self-defense gadgets, and everyone’s happy.”
the way you say his name—their name, his name, the name you chose to take and make your own—carries so much love it’s like being hit by lightning made of pure affection. there’s pride and exasperation and devotion all wrapped up together, the voice of someone who sees all his flaws and brilliant strengths and loves him not despite them but because of the ridiculous, wonderful, impossible whole they create.
“he’s lucky,” satoru says quietly, his voice rough with emotions he can’t begin to untangle, “to have someone who understands him so well.”
“he is,” you agree, and your smile could power entire cities, could fuel space programs, could probably solve half the world’s energy crisis if properly harnessed. “he’s brilliant and kind and funny, and he makes me laugh every single day. he’s also terrible at remembering to eat when he’s working and has a tendency to forget that normal people need more than three hours of sleep, but he’s perfect. he’s mine.”
satoru has never experienced jealousy of himself before, but it turns out to be a unique form of psychological torture—listening to the woman he loves describe him with such complete adoration while being unable to claim that love for himself. it’s like being handed a gift and told you can look but never touch, like being shown paradise through bulletproof glass.
the domesticity of it, the casual way you catalogue his flaws alongside his strengths, the matter-of-fact possessiveness in that final declaration—it’s everything he’s ever wanted and everything he currently can’t have, all wrapped up in a blue sundress and served with homemade cookies.
“what if,” he tries carefully, his voice pitched to sound like idle curiosity rather than the desperate plea it actually is, “hypothetically, something happened to him? what if he was... changed somehow?”
your expression shifts faster than a summer storm, going from warm affection to arctic fury in the space between heartbeats. the cookie in your hand crumbles slightly from the sudden tension in your grip, chocolate chips scattering like the remains of his dignity.
“nothing’s going to happen to my husband,” you say, and your voice carries the kind of quiet menace that speaks of consequences beyond imagination. “and if someone tried to hurt him, they’d have to go through me first.”
the protective fire in your eyes makes something primal and deeply satisfied purr in his chest, even as his rational mind catalogs this as yet another example of how thoroughly he’s miscalculated this entire situation. you’d go to war for him. you’d fight gods and demons and the fundamental forces of the universe itself if it meant keeping him safe.
and here he is, the very person you’re trying to protect, being threatened by that same fierce love.
“but hypothetically—”
“no hypotheticals.” you stand up with sharp, efficient movements, smoothing your dress with the same precision you bring to everything, from folding fitted sheets to organizing his lab equipment when he’s too scattered to think straight. “my husband is in his lab, working on something that’s going to change the world, because that’s what he does. and you’re going to stop harassing us, because that’s what you’re going to do if you want to keep all your limbs attached.”
the dismissal is absolute, final, delivered with the authority of someone who’s never doubted their ability to follow through on threats. you disappear back into the house like an avenging angel returning to heaven, leaving satoru alone with his thoughts and the growing certainty that dignity is a luxury he can no longer afford.
he sits on the porch steps—his own porch steps, in front of his own house, locked out by his own security system and his own wife—and contemplates the spectacular wreckage of his scientific career. somewhere in that basement, his life’s work hums quietly, the temporal displacement device that was supposed to give him more time with you having instead stolen the time he already had.
the irony would be poetic if it weren’t so completely devastating.
satoru gojo, holder of 845 patents, winner of seventeen international scientific awards, the man who’d revolutionized three separate fields before his thirtieth birthday—reduced to breaking into his own home like a common criminal, only to be defeated by his wife’s previously unknown martial arts skills and her absolutely justified protective instincts.
he’s given up his dignity, his professional reputation, and apparently his door privileges, all because he’d been too excited about surprising you with a scientific breakthrough to properly test the safety protocols.
note to self: next time he wants to revolutionize temporal mechanics, maybe start with laboratory mice instead of jumping straight to human trials.
assuming there is a next time. assuming he can figure out how to convince you that the teenager on your porch is actually your husband without sounding like the world’s most delusional stalker.
the basement feels very far away suddenly, farther than when he’d been planning his infiltration, farther than the actual physical distance between the porch and the lab where his salvation waits. because now he understands the true scope of his problem: it’s not just about fixing the temporal displacement device.
it’s about rebuilding trust with someone who thinks he’s been safely contained in his laboratory while a dangerous stranger makes increasingly desperate attempts to insert himself into their life.
satoru sighs deeply like a man who has discovered that rock bottom has a basement, and that basement has a sub-basement, and he’s currently spelunking through the geological layers of his own humiliation. the pillow you’d left under his head when you dragged his unconscious body out here mocks him with its floral pattern—little daisies that seem to whisper pathetic in tiny flower voices.
his dignity lies somewhere in your rose bushes, probably fertilizing the begonias.
he stares hopelessly at his own house—the house he designed, built, and has been systematically locked out of by his own security measures. the irony tastes like pennies and poor life choices. somewhere in that house, you’re probably stress-baking again, creating cookies that could end world hunger while muttering about stalkers and the general incompetence of teenage boys who think they can impersonate geniuses.
the truly tragic part is that you’re not wrong. he is a teenage boy trying to impersonate a genius. the fact that he actually is that genius feels like a technicality that the universe is refusing to acknowledge.
satoru stands up, brushing pillow lint off his jeans (when had he started wearing jeans? his twenty-nine-year-old self exclusively wore slacks, but apparently his teenage body had different sartorial opinions). if he’s going to reclaim his life, his wife, and his chronological age, he needs to get into that lab.
the front door is obviously out of the question. you’ve made it abundantly clear that any further doorbell-related activities will result in weaponized consequences that his nineteen-year-old body might not survive. the back door is visible from the kitchen window, where you’re probably standing guard like a beautiful, homicidal sentinel.
which leaves him with the architectural equivalent of a hail mary: the basement windows.
he circles the house like a cat burglar who’s read too many heist novels and not enough actual breaking-and-entering manuals. the basement windows are small, the kind of windows that had seemed like a good idea when he was designing a lab and wanted natural light but not easy access. past-satoru had been worried about corporate espionage, not future-satoru trying to infiltrate his own laboratory while trapped in a temporal paradox of the most embarrassing variety.
the window on the east side looks promising. it’s partially hidden by the hydrangea bushes you’d planted last spring, the ones that bloom in impossible shades of blue because you’d somehow convinced them that regular hydrangea colors were beneath their potential. the glass is dirty enough to provide cover, and the latch looks old enough to have the structural integrity of a wet paper bag.
satoru crouches in the dirt, feeling like the world’s most pathetic ninja. his knees protest against the unfamiliar position—nineteen-year-old joints might be more flexible, but they’re also apparently more dramatic about being asked to crouch in garden soil.
the window latch gives way with the kind of rusty shriek that could wake the dead, the neighbors, and possibly several small woodland creatures. satoru freezes, waiting for the sound of your footsteps, the opening of doors, the general commotion that would signal his discovery and subsequent re-unconsciousness.
nothing.
either you didn’t hear it, or you’re currently sharpening something in the kitchen while humming ominously.
he slides the window open with the careful precision of someone who knows exactly how much the old frame can take before it decides to give up on life entirely. the basement yawns below him like the mouth of some scientific purgatory, all shadows and the faint hum of machines he’d built to make the world a better place.
getting through the window requires a level of physical coordination that his nineteen-year-old body possesses but his twenty-nine-year-old dignity abhors. he ends up sliding through headfirst, performing what could generously be called a controlled fall and more accurately described as a graceless tumble that would make circus performers weep.
his feet hit the concrete floor with all the stealth of a bag of hammers being dropped from a significant height.
the basement lab stretches before him like a technological cathedral, all gleaming surfaces and blinking lights that pulse in rhythm with machines whose purposes range from “revolutionary” to “probably shouldn’t exist but here we are anyway.” this is his domain, his kingdom, his sanctuary of scientific achievement and questionable decision-making.
it also feels like coming home and visiting a crime scene simultaneously.
everything is exactly as he’d left it two weeks ago, frozen in the moment when he’d stepped into the temporal field with the confidence of someone who hadn’t yet learned that the universe has a twisted sense of humor. the half-finished temporal displacement device sits on the main workbench like an accusation, all smooth curves and innocent blinking lights that belie its capacity for chronological chaos.
coffee cups are scattered around like caffeinated archaeological artifacts, each one marking a different stage of his research. there’s the mug you’d given him for his birthday with “world’s okayest scientist” written in comic sans font—your little joke about his ego that he treasures more than his nobel prize nomination. there’s the plain white cup he uses when he’s really focused, the one with the chip on the handle from when he’d gotten excited about a breakthrough and gestured too enthusiastically. there’s even the fancy porcelain teacup his mother had given him, which he only uses when he’s feeling particularly pretentious about his discoveries.
each cup tells the story of late nights, early mornings, and the kind of obsessive focus that leads to temporal displacement incidents.
his phone sits on the desk, buzzing intermittently with notifications he can’t answer. the screen lights up every few minutes with incoming messages, calls from colleagues, reminders about appointments he’s apparently missing while trapped in his own temporal feedback loop. but it’s the outgoing messages that make his stomach twist into knots that could anchor ships.
the ai assistant is working with the efficiency of a swiss watch and the emotional intelligence of someone who actually knows him. every few hours, it crafts another perfect message to your phone, each one a masterpiece of his writing style mixed with the kind of scientific romanticism that had won your heart six years ago.
making progress on the quantum stabilization matrix. the equations are beautiful—almost as beautiful as you in that yellow dress this morning. did you eat lunch? —satoru
breakthrough with the temporal field generators! i think i can increase efficiency by 34%. also, i dreamed about that weekend in kyoto again. we should go back soon. —your devoted husband
minor setback with the power coupling, but nothing i can’t fix. missing your voice. send a voice message please? maybe hum that song you like while i work? it always helps me think. —satoru
each message is a perfect imitation of his writing style, his habits, his love for you wrapped in scientific progress reports. they capture the way he thinks, the way he speaks, the way he can’t seem to separate his work from his adoration of you because everything he creates is somehow inspired by your existence.
no wonder you believe he’s down here, buried in his work, missing you but dedicated to his research. the ai had done its job too well, creating a digital phantom that was more convincing than his actual de-aged presence.
reading them makes him want to punch his past self for being so thorough, so careful, so goddamn good at programming an assistant that could replicate his personality down to the way he signs his messages with scientific terminology and pet names in equal measure.
satoru rolls up his sleeves and approaches his workstation like a penitent approaching an altar.
the lab’s security system chirps softly as he moves through the space, sensors tracking his movement with the bored efficiency of technology that recognizes him but doesn’t particularly care about his current chronological displacement. red lights blink in sequence along the walls, a heartbeat of recognition that would normally make him feel secure and accomplished.
instead, it feels like the lab is mocking him. oh look, the blinking seems to say, it’s the genius who outsmarted himself into adolescence.
the temporal displacement device looks innocent enough sitting there on the main workbench—a sleek silver contraption about the size of a microwave, all smooth curves and the kind of blinking lights that movie audiences associate with either miracle cures or impending explosions. he’d been so proud of it when he’d finished the initial design, so excited to show you what he’d been working on for months.
the irony burns like acid in his chest: he’d built a machine to give himself more time with you, and instead, it had stolen the time he already had.
but now, looking at it with the clarity that comes from two weeks of enforced separation and multiple instances of being rendered unconscious by his own wife, he can see exactly what went wrong. the power coupling on the left side shows signs of overheating, the quantum stabilization matrix is operating at 73% efficiency instead of the required 89%, and the temporal field generators are displaying the kind of fluctuation patterns that suggest they’re one strong breeze away from turning him into quantum soup.
his nineteen-year-old hands remember the work even if they look different doing it—smoother, unlined, with calluses in different places that speak of a life not yet lived. muscle memory is a beautiful thing, and soon he’s lost in the familiar rhythm of calibration and adjustment, replacing the burnt-out components that had caused the initial malfunction.
the security system continues its soft surveillance, cameras tracking his movement as he works. somewhere in the house above, you’re probably going about your evening routine, maybe reading in the living room chair he’d bought specifically because it makes you look like a goddess of domestic tranquility, maybe taking a bath in the tub he’d designed with jets positioned exactly where you like them.
you think your husband is down here, safely contained in his laboratory, working on equations that could revolutionize temporal mechanics. you have no idea that your husband is actually down here, working on equations that could return him to the age where you might not instinctively try to karate chop him on sight.
hours pass in the peculiar way that time moves when you’re focused on something that requires every neuron in your brain to fire in perfect synchronization. his back aches from hunching over the workbench—some things never change, regardless of what decade your spine thinks it’s living in. his eyes water behind his reading glasses, the same prescription he’s had since childhood because apparently temporal displacement doesn’t fix astigmatism.
the basement air grows stale and recycled, nothing like the fresh scent of your perfume or the way the house smells when you’re baking. down here, everything smells like ozone and possibility, metal and dreams, the peculiar combination of scents that comes from trying to bend the universe to your will through applied science and stubborn determination.
component by component, equation by equation, he rebuilds what his hubris had broken. the quantum stabilization matrix purrs back to life, its efficiency climbing toward the magic number that means the difference between “successful temporal correction” and “decorating the lab walls with physicist.” the power coupling stops smoking, which he takes as a positive sign, though the bar for success has been dramatically lowered by recent events.
finally, blessedly, after what feels like several geological ages, the device hums to life with the soft blue glow that means everything is working properly. the sound it makes is almost musical, a harmony of frequencies that speaks to the part of his brain that understands how beautiful math can be when it’s applied to impossible problems.
satoru stares at it for a long moment, this machine that had caused so much chaos, so much pain, so much embarrassment. it looks the same as it had two weeks ago, before he’d stepped into it with the confidence of someone who hadn’t yet learned that the universe has a deeply personal vendetta against his happiness.
but now it’s fixed. now it can undo what it had done, return him to the chronological age where his wife doesn’t look at him like he’s a particularly offensive piece of gum stuck to her shoe.
he takes a deep breath, tasting the metallic tang of possibility and ozone, and steps into the temporal field.
the world bends.
reality stretches like taffy in the hands of a cosmic confectioner who’s had too much caffeine and not enough sleep. colors bleed into each other, the visible spectrum having what appears to be a nervous breakdown while time folds backward on itself with the sensation of falling upward through a kaleidoscope made of mathematics and regret.
his bones feel like they’re growing, stretching, settling back into familiar patterns that his muscles remember even if his consciousness is currently experiencing what could best be described as temporal vertigo. his face reshapes itself like clay in the hands of chronology, features aging forward to match the man you’d fallen in love with, married, and spent six years learning to live with.
the sensation is indescribable and entirely uncomfortable, like being turned inside out by time itself while someone plays a symphony written in mathematical equations. his cells remember being twenty-nine, and they rush toward that memory with the enthusiasm of teenagers remembering they have a curfew.
when the light fades and the world stops doing its impression of a funhouse mirror designed by someone with a degree in theoretical physics, satoru catches sight of himself in the polished surface of another machine.
he looks like himself again. twenty-nine years old, tall and lean, with the same pale hair that had turned white when he was four and stayed that way out of what he suspects is pure stubbornness. the same eyes behind the same reading glasses, the same hands that you’ve memorized, the same face that you’ve kissed goodnight for six years.
the face you’d married, the body you’d mapped with your hands on lazy sunday mornings, the version of himself that you actually wanted to see walking through the door instead of some temporal impostor with the emotional maturity of a teenager and the physical appearance to match.
he runs his hands over his face, feeling the familiar planes and angles, the slight roughness of stubble that his nineteen-year-old self had been too optimistic to grow properly. these are the hands that have held you, touched you, built you impossibly complex gifts that serve no purpose other than making you smile.
satoru straightens his sweater and climbs the basement stairs like a man ascending to heaven, or at least to the ground floor where his wife is probably stress-baking cookies and muttering about the general incompetence of teenagers who think they can impersonate geniuses.
time to go home.
time to reclaim his life, his wife, and his dignity—though he suspects the dignity might be a lost cause at this point.
the basement door opens onto the kitchen, and the smell of home washes over him like a blessing from the domestic gods: vanilla and cinnamon, the lavender detergent you use on the dish towels, the faint scent of the coffee you’d made this morning before you knew your day would include multiple instances of assault and battery against your own husband.
he’s home. finally, truly, chronologically home.
you’re in the kitchen when he emerges, standing at the stove in that pink dress with the tiny pearl buttons he’s memorized but hasn’t seen in two weeks. your hair is twisted into a messy bun secured with one of his prototype hairpins—the ones that glow soft blue when you’re stressed. they’re glowing now, just barely, a testament to how worried you’ve been about his prolonged absence from the world above ground.
the wooden spoon moves in lazy circles through whatever you’re cooking, and the scent hits him like a physical force—garlic and herbs and that particular blend of spices you use when you’re making his favorite pasta. his stomach clenches with actual hunger for the first time in two weeks, nineteen-year-old metabolism finally giving way to twenty-nine-year-old appreciation for real food.
but it’s the humming that undoes him completely. that soft, unconscious melody you make when you think no one’s listening, the same tune he’d programmed into his ai messages because he’d been missing it so desperately. hearing it live, unfiltered, coming from your actual throat instead of his memory—
satoru doesn’t think. doesn’t hesitate. doesn’t announce himself like a civilized human being.
he launches himself across the kitchen like a man possessed, arms wrapping around your waist from behind, his chest pressing flush against your back as he buries his face in the curve of your neck. you smell like vanilla body lotion and that expensive shampoo he pretends not to notice the cost of, and underneath it all, just you. warm skin and the faint sweetness that clings to your hair, the scent that’s been haunting him for fourteen endless days.
“satoru!” you yelp, startled enough that the wooden spoon goes flying, clattering across the counter and leaving a trail of red sauce in its wake. “you absolute menace, you scared me half to death!”
he makes a sound that’s half laugh, half sob, tightening his arms around you like you might evaporate if he loosens his grip even slightly. his reading glasses bump against your shoulder as he nuzzles deeper into your neck, and he can feel the butterfly clips in your hair tickling against his temple.
“missed you,” he mumbles against your skin, the words muffled and desperate. “missed you so much.”
“missed me?” your voice pitches higher, indignant and fond in equal measure. “satoru, you’ve been ten feet underground for two weeks! i’ve been cooking for you every single day, leaving plates outside your lab door, and what do i find when i check? cold food. stone cold. untouched.”
your hands come up to cover his where they’re locked around your middle, and even through your scolding, your fingers are gentle as they trace over his knuckles. “what have you even been eating? because i know it wasn’t my cooking, and if you tell me you’ve been surviving on coffee and those horrible protein bars, i’m going to—”
“also,” you continue without pausing for breath, your voice shifting into that particular tone you get when you’re gearing up for a proper lecture, ”you will not believe the past two weeks i’ve had. there’s someone who’s been lurking around our house and he who looks like some bizarre teenage version of you?”
satoru’s stomach drops. his grip on you tightens involuntarily, and he feels you notice the tension, your body shifting slightly in his arms.
“he’s been so persistent. yesterday he actually had the audacity to break into our house through the kitchen window—our kitchen window, satoru, the one with the broken latch you keep forgetting to fix.” your free hand gestures wildly, even though he can’t see it from his position behind you. “thankfully, all those self-defense gadgets you made me actually work. that little stun gun you built into my bracelet? absolutely perfect. sent him flying right off our porch.”
the embarrassment hits him like a physical weight. his face burns against your neck, and he has to resist the urge to groan out loud. you’re giving full credit to his inventions, protecting his ego even while describing how you’d defended yourself against him, and the sweetness of it makes his chest ache.
“and the motion sensors you installed last month caught him skulking around the garden at three in the morning,” you continue, oblivious to his mortification. ”honestly, the dedication is almost impressive. stalking behavior aside, you have to admire his commitment to the whole ‘young gojo’ aesthetic. though i have no idea why anyone would want to look like you did in college. you were such a baby-faced disaster back then.”
“i know you know karate,” he blurts out, the words tumbling from his mouth before he can stop them.
you go very still in his arms. the humming stops abruptly.
“what?” your voice is carefully neutral, but he can feel the way your shoulders tense, the slight shift in your breathing that means you’re calculating your next move.
“i know you know karate,” he repeats, his face burning hotter against your neck. ”you’ve been taking classes since you were twelve. you never told me because you like it when i worry about you enough to make you protection gadgets.”
the silence stretches long enough that he starts to panic. then you let out a long, shaky breath.
“how could you possibly know that?” your voice is small now, embarrassed in a way that makes him want to wrap you up and apologize for everything. “i never... i was so careful not to...”
your hands try to pull away from his, but he holds on, threading your fingers together. “because i’m the boy,” he says quietly. “the one who’s been trying to talk to you for two weeks. the one you stunned off the porch and knocked unconscious in our kitchen.”
he feels the exact moment understanding hits you. your entire body goes rigid, and then you’re spinning in his arms so fast he has to step back to avoid a collision with your elbow.
your eyes are wide, your mouth falling open in a perfect ’o’ of shock. the blush that spreads across your cheeks is magnificent and mortifying, and he watches you process the implications with the expression of someone who’s just realized they’ve been caught in the world’s most embarrassing misunderstanding.
“oh my god,” you whisper, your hands flying up to cover your face. “oh my god, satoru, i am so sorry. i thought—when he knew things about us, about our private moments, i assumed he was some kind of corporate spy, or maybe a rival scientist who’d done research on us, or—”
”a stalker,” he supplies gently, reaching up to pull your hands away from your face. “which was a completely reasonable assumption, given the circumstances.”
“i called you a discount version of yourself!” your voice cracks with horror. “i told you that you weren’t as attractive as my husband! to your face! while you were actually my husband!”
despite everything, satoru can’t help but smile at the outrage in your voice. “technically, you were defending my honor. it was actually incredibly sweet.”
“sweet?” you squeak, aghast, your palms flattening against his chest like you’re considering shoving him away. but you don’t. you stay pressed against him, trembling, overwhelmed.
“i knocked you unconscious with a karate chop!”
“you have excellent form,” he says solemnly, unable to suppress the tilt of his lips. the memory of you, so fierce, so protective, haunts him in the sweetest way—a blurred flash of your nightgown fluttering as you moved with such lethal grace. he remembers the precision, the practiced certainty in your strikes, remembers thinking you’d never looked more beautiful than in that moment where you saw him as a threat and chose violence to protect his memory.
it makes his pulse thrum in his throat. it makes him want to sink to his knees and kiss the hand that struck him.
and yet, here you are, groaning, humiliated, burying your face against his chest to escape him—as if he’s not already completely ensnared. his hands settle on your waist, loose but present, fingertips teasing over the soft fabric of your dress, as though reacquainting himself with the privilege of touching you.
he tilts his head, blue eyes gleaming behind his glasses, drinking you in with a reverence that borders on obsession. he catalogues the way you fidget, the way your lashes kiss your cheeks as you refuse to meet his gaze, the heat blooming under your skin.
there’s a little crease between your eyebrows now—he’s put it there, just as you’ve placed a permanent one on his.
his thumb brushes the edge of your jaw, coaxing you to look at him. “you kept it from me,” he murmurs, savoring the tremor that passes through you, ”because you wanted me to keep making you gadgets.”
it’s not a question. he already knows. you told him, so sweetly, so earnestly, when you believed he was a stranger, and he will hold that secret like a pressed flower tucked into the pages of his heart.
“you think my overprotectiveness is cute?” his voice softens into something breathless, incredulous, dripping with adoration. “you think it’s cute that i lose sleep making things to keep you safe? that i forget to eat because i’m too busy worrying about you?”
your blush deepens, scorching, and you tug at his shirt like you want to disappear into him. “you make me the most amazing things when you’re worried about me. and you get this little crease between your eyebrows when you’re focused, and you forget to eat or sleep, but you always remember exactly how i like my coffee, and—” he watches you falter, your words disintegrating into a strangled sound of mortification. “this is not making me sound less ridiculous. is it?”
“it’s making you sound perfect.” his forehead drops to yours, and he cradles your face like you’re breakable, like you’re the finest piece of machinery he’s ever built.“ it’s making you sound like the woman i fell in love with—the woman who’s been taking care of me, worrying about me, defending my honor against discount versions of myself.”
his grin sharpens, unable to resist, “and you defended me so well, baby. ‘not my husband.’ ‘my husband is a genius.’ ‘my husband smells better.’ ‘my husband has better posture.’”
he leans in, nipping at your bottom lip, playful, intoxicating. “my sweet wife. i’ve never felt so protected.”
your laugh bursts out of you, watery and full-bodied, your hands rising to cup his cheeks, thumbs brushing over his cheekbones in trembling circles. “i can’t believe i spent two weeks beating up my own husband.”
“i can’t believe i spent two weeks watching my wife talk about how amazing her husband is while she was actively rejecting me.” his lashes flutter as he leans into your touch, like a cat, like something basking in warmth it had been starved of. “do you have any idea how confusing that was? i was jealous of myself. i was genuinely, pathetically jealous of the man you married while being the man you married.”
it’s a confession scraped raw from his chest, but you’re laughing properly now, bright and breathless, like you’ve been untethered from something heavy. you pepper kisses over his face in rapid, dizzying succession, your lips skating over his brow, his temples, the tip of his nose.
“you’re such a dork,” you murmur, still cupping his face, like you can’t bear to let go of him.
“i’m your dork.”
his voice is rough with want, his pulse tripping over itself as he lets the weight of everything crash into him all at once. his mouth brushes over yours again, lingering, reverent. “and i missed you so much. missed being able to touch you. missed you looking at me like you’re looking at me right now instead of like i’m some creepy teenager with questionable motives.”
“you are a creepy teenager with questionable motives,” you shoot back, but your words crumble under the softness that creeps into your voice. ”you invented a time machine just so you could spend more time with me.”
“and then immediately wasted two weeks because i’m apparently the only genius in history stupid enough to de-age himself by accident.”
his thumb slides over your bottom lip, unable to resist, unable to stop touching you now that he’s allowed to. his whole body hums with the need to consume you, to drag you inside his bones, to make up for every second he’d lost.
“not wasted,” you whisper, fierce and tender all at once. “never wasted. not if it brought you back to me.”
those words detonate inside him, and suddenly the kitchen feels too small, the air too thin. he’s been existing on stolen glances and careful distance for two weeks, watching you from afar, aching with the need to touch you, to kiss you, to prove to himself that you’re real and his and finally within reach again.
“we’ve been trying for a baby,” he says hoarsely, the words spilling out before he can stop them. “for months, and i just—i wasted two weeks, and i can’t—i need—”
you silence him with a kiss, soft and desperate and tasting like the tears you’ve both been crying. your hands fist in his shirt, pulling him closer, and he responds by lifting you, setting you on the counter so you’re at eye level, his hands spanning your waist, thumbs tracing circles over the soft fabric of your dress.
“i love you,” you breathe against his mouth. “i love you so much, and i’m so sorry i hurt you, and i missed you, and—”
he kisses you again, deeper this time, pouring two weeks of longing and frustration and desperate love into the contact. you taste like home, like forgiveness, like everything he’s been craving. your legs wrap around his waist, pulling him closer, and he can feel the exact moment you stop thinking and start just feeling, your body melting against his.
his glasses fog up. he doesn’t care.
your hair comes loose from its bun, the mechanical clips clattering to the counter, and he tangles his fingers in the silky strands, angling your head to deepen the kiss. you make a soft sound that goes straight through him, and he’s just starting to contemplate the structural integrity of the kitchen counter when—
ding.
the oven timer cuts through the moment like a bucket of cold water.
you break apart, both breathing hard, your lips swollen and his hair thoroughly mussed. the pink dress is wrinkled where his hands have been gripping your waist, and there’s a dazed look in your eyes that makes him want to forget dinner entirely.
“the pasta,” you say faintly.
“forget the pasta,” he growls, leaning down to press kisses along your neck, finding that spot just below your ear that makes you shiver.
ding. ding. ding.
“it’ll burn,” you protest, but your head tilts to give him better access, and your hands are still fisted in his shirt.
he doesn’t let you go. not when you say his name, not when you push at his shoulders, not when the oven timer chimes over and over like some petty background character begging for attention in a scene it no longer belongs to.
”don’t mind it,” he breathes against your throat, and it sounds less like a request, more like an instinct, as though there is nothing in this world more irrelevant than a meal when you’re in his arms again.
his lips move along the curve of your neck with reverence, brushing over your pulse, slow at first—a sweet drag of his mouth, the soft, wet pull of his tongue where your skin is most sensitive. he feels the flutter of your pulse beneath his lips, feels the way your body leans into his as though your bones have decided they’d rather trust him to hold you upright.
his breathing is uneven, shaky, like he’s on the edge of something he’s been chasing since the day he woke up in that younger body and couldn’t touch you the way he needed to. the memory claws at him now, vivid and bitter, that helpless ache of looking like himself and yet being nothing you would want to take in your arms.
you murmur something about the oven again, the protest barely formed, already dissolving into a sigh as he scrapes his teeth lightly along your skin. your hands remain curled in his shirt, not pushing anymore, just clutching—desperate, familiar, your fingers twisting into the fabric like you’re scared he might slip away again. his shirt bunches beneath your grip, your nails pressing half-moon shapes into his chest, but he craves the sting of it, the grounding pain of knowing you’re clinging to him, needing him just as much.
”it won’t burn,” he murmurs against your skin, his tongue following the line of your collarbone, his glasses slipping slightly down the bridge of his nose. ”it’s a timed self-shut. i programmed it myself. knew this might happen. knew i wouldn’t be able to let you go.”
he pushes his glasses up with a quick, practiced nudge of his wrist, never pulling his mouth too far from your skin. he needs to see you. needs to see every part of you. his hands are too busy, too greedy, sliding up the sides of your dress, pushing the soft fabric higher and higher until his fingertips brush the bare skin of your thighs. the dress pools around his wrists as though the fabric is surrendering to him, letting him through.
he feels you shudder when his thumbs trace slow, possessive circles just beneath the hem. he slides his hands further, the cotton dragging over your skin as if the dress itself is a barrier he’s grown to despise. ”been thinking about this for two weeks. touching you. feeling you. not some memory—you. this body.”
the tremble in your breath is sharp, palpable, sinking into his bones. your voice hitches when he catches your earlobe between his teeth, when he sucks lightly, as if tasting something he already knows belongs to him. his hands splay wide over your thighs, his touch more sure, more demanding now as though every second he isn’t inside you is unbearable. his fingertips trail along the curve of your legs, memorizing the heat and texture of your skin with the same focus he gives his research—meticulous, thorough, consumed by the need to understand everything.
he pushes his glasses up again, quick and automatic, the weight of them a familiar anchor as his vision sharpens, as though seeing you this clearly makes the need inside him all the more unbearable. he tilts his head just enough to see your lashes flutter, to watch your lips part around his name, and the sight burns into him with perfect clarity.
when his hands find your waist again, he isn’t gentle. his grip is firm, grounding, as though if he doesn’t hold you tight enough, you might vanish all over again. he tugs you back against him, hips flush to yours, and he can’t suppress the groan that punches out of him when he feels how warm you are, even through his jeans.
the heat of you burns into him, through the thin fabric, the kind of contact that makes his head spin. his cock twitches against the rough denim, aching, pulsing, a frustration that’s been building since the second he lost the chance to touch you properly.
“you’re not gonna let me feed you first?” you manage, but the breathless curl in your voice betrays you.
”you’re feeding me now,” he says, dragging his hands to your hips and grinding against you, slow and deliberate, a filthy drag of friction that has you gasping into his shoulder. he’s gone two weeks without this—without your heat, without your weight against him, without the sweetness of your mouth pressed to his.
his mouth captures yours again, the kiss messy and open-mouthed, his tongue chasing yours as though he might starve if he stops. he can’t get enough of you, can’t bear the distance, can’t stand the thought of pulling away, not even to breathe.
“but dinner—”
“it’s fine,” he murmurs, almost a laugh. “it’ll shut off on its own. you can’t burn anything while i’m loving you. made sure of it.”
his mouth moves lower, down the line of your throat, tasting the salt on your skin, the way you shiver when he noses along the curve of your shoulder. he kisses the delicate dip where your neck meets your shoulder, over and over, as though he could mark you with nothing but his mouth.
his hand slides beneath your dress again, impatient now, pushing your panties aside without ceremony. his fingertips graze your folds, and he sucks in a breath through his teeth—wet, already, and his chest tightens with something ugly and possessive because you’ve missed him just as much. the feel of you, the heat, the slick glide of his fingers dragging through your arousal—it short-circuits something in him. his jaw clenches, his breath stutters, and he presses his forehead to your shoulder to anchor himself.
“fuck, baby,” he whispers, his voice breaking apart, “look at you. missed me that much? couldn’t wait?”
his touch lingers there, gentle for a moment, tracing, teasing, his middle finger dipping to circle where you’re already aching for him. his other arm curls around your waist, holding you firm against him when your knees nearly give out. he rubs slow circles until you’re grinding into his hand, chasing the friction like you can’t stand the distance anymore. you’re warm and soft and trembling under his touch, your hips rolling helplessly, your breath hitching every time he circles just a little harder.
“satoru,” you whimper, half a plea, half a warning, but you’re already folding into him, already falling apart.
“’m here now,” he murmurs, guiding you to turn around, pressing your hands to the countertop, his body crowding you from behind. “i’m right here. gonna take care of you. gonna fuck you just like you need.”
he kisses your shoulder, slow and lingering, as though tasting your skin could imprint you deeper into him. the curve of your spine rises beneath his mouth, the faint tremble under his lips pulling something raw and animal out of him. he presses into you, his chest solid to your back, his hands smoothing over the fabric of your dress as if his touch alone could brand you as his, as if holding you like this might anchor him to this moment forever.
his jeans rasp against the softness of your thighs, each rock of his hips a little rougher, a little more desperate as he grinds against you. the friction is maddening. it makes him hiss through his teeth, makes his fingers dig into your waist like he needs to memorize the shape of you beneath his palms. when he reaches for his belt, it’s with the shaky impatience of a man on the edge of breaking. the buckle fights him, the leather dragging through the loops in a way that feels insufferably slow, and his breathing stutters, uneven, desperate.
“hurry,” you pant, your voice wrecked and pleading, your hips grinding back against him in small, frantic circles. “please, satoru, please… i need you now.”
he lets out a low curse when he finally frees himself, the tip of his cock dragging through your slick folds with a helpless groan as though even that brief touch is too much, too good, too long overdue. “fuck, baby, you’re soaked,” he breathes, half-crazed, his chest pressed tight to your back. “missed me this much, huh?”
“missed everything,” you gasp, your hands fisting around the edge of the counter, nails digging into the wood. “missed you. your voice, your hands… your cock. please, please don’t tease.”
he doesn’t wait. he can’t. he pushes into you in one, long, slow thrust, inch by aching inch, feeling you stretch and give around him, until he’s seated as deep as you can take him. the tight, wet squeeze of you makes his breath falter, a shudder wracking his frame, his body folding over you as his hands scramble for your waist, clutching like you’re the only tether left holding him to the earth.
“fuck… so full,” you whimper, your voice breaking on a gasp. “god, satoru… so good… i needed this… i needed you.”
he adjusts his glasses with a quick, shaky push, his vision sharpening just in time to burn the sight of you into memory—the delicate arch of your spine, the way your fingers clench around the countertop, the way your hips fit perfectly in his hands like you were carved just for him. the view sears itself into him, and the weight of it nearly drives him to the edge.
“shit… you feel like home,” he rasps, his voice fraying at the edges, his hands tightening until his knuckles ache. he pulls out slow, savoring the sweet, unbearable friction that drags along every nerve in his cock, only to slam back in with a force that steals his breath. again. and again. a steady, greedy pace that grows frantic under the pressure of his need.
the wet slap of skin against skin fills the kitchen, tangled with his ragged breathing and the soft, gasping sounds you make beneath him, each one sinking into him, winding tighter and tighter inside his ribs.
“oh, fuck, satoru…” you cry out, each thrust knocking the air from your lungs, your body meeting his with a desperate rhythm. “don’t stop… please, don’t stop… you feel so good, so deep… i can’t think… i can’t think when you’re fucking me like this.”
he leans over you, his chest pressed to your back, his breath hot and ragged against your ear as he drives into you with desperate force. his lips brush over the shell of your ear, trailing kisses down your neck as though his mouth can’t bear to leave your skin for more than a second. he mutters your name between each kiss, like a mantra, like it might steady him.
“you’re mine,” he pants, his words shivering with the strain of holding himself together. he kisses along your shoulder, his pace only faltering when his hips grind deep, seeking more, always more. “i’m not wasting another second, baby. i’m gonna… fuck, i’m gonna… i’m gonna make you feel me for days.”
“i already do,” you sob, your head tipping back against his shoulder, tears blurring your vision as you clutch his hand where it grips your waist. “you’re everywhere… you’re all i can feel… all i want… please, satoru, please don’t stop…”
his hand snakes between your thighs, his fingers circling your clit with practiced pressure, coaxing you to squeeze around him, to shatter for him. “come on, baby… let me feel you… let me feel you fall apart for me.”
“satoru… satoru, please, i’m so close… fuck… fuck… don’t stop, i need… i need…”
he groans low in his throat when your walls pulse around him, his body bucking forward like the sensation has stolen the air from his lungs. his other hand glides over your stomach, over the dip of your waist, greedy for the heat of your skin beneath the thin barrier of your dress. he wants to memorize every inch of you, wants to claim you in ways his body can’t quite articulate.
he buries his face in the curve of your neck, his lips brushing against the frantic pulse at your throat, his nose pressed against your skin as he breathes you in like oxygen. “talk to me,” he breathes, desperate, hoarse, the words scraping out like they cost him. “tell me you missed me. tell me i’m the only one who gets to touch you like this. tell me you’re mine.”
“yours,” you cry out, wrecked and breathless. “i’ve always been yours… satoru, fuck… you’re the only one… i missed you… i missed you so much… i can’t… i can’t do this without you… please, don’t let me go.”
“fuck, you’re so good for me,” he groans, the sound ragged and raw, and he ruts into you harder, the snap of his hips relentless as he chases you both toward the inevitable edge. “you’re perfect… fuck, baby, you’re perfect.”
“i’m… i’m coming… satoru, please… i’m—”
he doesn’t stop. he can’t. not until he feels you clench around him, feels you fall apart, your body trembling as you come, your voice cracking on his name like it’s a prayer you’ve been holding in for days. the sensation of you pulsing around him, pulling him deeper, drags a broken groan from his chest, and only then does he finally let go.
he thrusts deep, emptying himself inside you with a raw, gasping sound, his entire body shivering with the force of it. his release comes in thick waves, like his body refuses to let you go, like it’s been waiting for this, for you, to finally come home to him.
“don’t… don’t pull out,” you whimper, your voice small and trembling, your hands covering his where he grips your hips. “please, i want… i want to feel you… please, satoru… please stay…”
he doesn’t pull out. not yet. he stays there, his chest heaving against your back, his hips pressing tight to yours, as though his body could fuse to yours if he just holds on long enough. his hand slides over your stomach, his thumb brushing the fabric of your dress, his heart thundering against your spine. he wants to stay connected, to keep his body wrapped around you until the heat subsides, until the trembling quiets.
he kisses you there, the soft curve of your shoulder, his lips dragging lazy, reverent paths over your skin, savoring the tremble still coursing through you. “gonna keep you like this,” he murmurs, his voice low, thick with something that sounds almost reverent. “gonna keep you full, baby. not wasting anything.”
his hands rub slow, soothing circles into your hips, but his cock still twitches inside you, the heat of you pulling him under all over again. he presses his mouth to your spine, trailing soft, possessive kisses up to the back of your neck, his body vibrating with the hum of restless energy that refuses to ebb. it’s not enough. it’ll never be enough. he wants to keep going until the lines between you blur completely, until you forget where he ends and you begin.
he leans in, his voice breathless but steady now, a vow he lays against your skin. “this…” he pants, rolling his hips slowly, deliberately, still buried deep inside you, “this is just the start. not letting you go. not for the rest of the night.”
“don’t let go,” you whisper, arching back into him, your fingers sliding over his as though you might trap him there. ”don’t stop… please, satoru… don’t stop…”
his grip tightens, grounding you to him like he’s afraid you might dissolve between his fingers. “baby, you don’t even know how much i’ve missed you yet.”
he rolls his hips again, savoring the drag, savoring the stretch, savoring the way you arch back into him like you’re already craving more. it’s a promise—a warning—that he isn’t stopping any time soon. his hands smooth over your sides, up to your ribs, coaxing more sounds from you, coaxing more of you to open for him. his lips hover just behind your ear, his breath brushing warm against your skin as he begins to move again, slowly building the next wave, chasing the next collapse.
he hums against you, pleased, almost smug, as you tremble beneath him. ”let me make up for lost time, baby. i’m not done. not even close.”
“please…” it’s the only thing you can form now—broken, breathless. your hands tremble as you try to hold onto him, your fingers sliding helplessly against his shirt like you might fall apart without the anchor of his touch.
he tilts his head just enough to kiss the hinge of your jaw, his pace unhurried but determined. “i’ve got you,” he murmurs, his voice soft even as his body hums with something feral. “all night, baby. all night to love you, to fill you, to put our baby right where it belongs.”
he pulls out with a sharp, deliberate drag, leaving you clenching around nothing, and without giving you a moment to protest, he hauls you up, one arm locking under your thighs, the other cradling your back. you cling to him instinctively, barely able to breathe as he carries you to the bedroom, his grip rough, his breathing uneven, his jaw clenched tight with restraint he’s barely holding onto.
he drops you onto the bed, his hands instantly on you, yanking your dress up over your head in one swift, tearing motion, discarding it somewhere behind him. his glasses slip lower on his nose, his blue eyes molten and sharp behind the lenses, devouring the sight of you—messy, flushed, gasping. you reach for him, your lips parted, your throat working around the desperate sound that tumbles out—a soft, helpless “please…”
his hands slam your wrists to the mattress, his body caging you in, his cock thick and heavy as he grinds against your soaked entrance. “shh, baby,” he whispers, his voice trembling as he tries to gentle himself. “i’ve got you. you’re not going anywhere. i’m gonna take care of you.”
he refuses to take off his glasses. he wants to see everything—every tear that slips from your lashes, every tremble in your lips, every mindless sound that breaks from your throat. his gaze stays locked on you, even as his cock pushes inside you in one deep, devastating thrust.
“you’re mine,” he breathes, voice ragged, the words shivering apart as he bottoms out inside you. he can feel your walls flutter around him, clenching as though your body is desperate to hold him in, to keep him there. your body jolts beneath him, legs wrapping instinctively around his waist, dragging him deeper. your moan punches out, breathless, pleading, the only thing you seem capable of now. your hands cling to him, fingers clawing at his shirt like you’re trying to root yourself to him, as if the only thing anchoring you to the world is the brutal drag of his cock inside you.
his glasses slip slightly down his nose, fogging at the edges, but he refuses to push them up. he needs to see you, needs to burn every detail into his memory—the way your eyes glaze over, the tremble in your lips, the tear that slips from the corner of your eye. he wants to remember this: the raw, unguarded way you fall apart for him, the mindless way you beg him, the frantic rise and fall of your chest as you gasp for breath.
he drives into you again, harder, faster, each brutal thrust forcing the breath from your lungs, forcing more of those broken, needy noises out of you. the sound of skin slapping against skin echoes in the room, tangled with the ragged rhythm of his breathing and the choked cries that tumble from your lips. your hands scramble at his arms, your nails clawing into his sleeves, but you can’t find the words anymore. all that’s left is “please…” and the sobs that fall apart between the sharp snaps of his hips.
“i know, baby,” he pants, his breath hot and frantic against your skin, his voice frayed with restraint that’s slipping fast. ”i know what you need. you need me to fuck my baby into you, right? need me to keep you so full you can’t think of anything else? need me to fill you until it’s all you can feel?”
“please…” it spills from your throat again, almost a cry, your body tightening around him as though your own muscles are begging him to stay.
“i’ll give it to you,” he promises, soft, reverent, though the brutal rhythm of his hips betrays him. “i’ll make you a mama, baby. gonna make sure you can’t hold anything but me. gonna make sure you’re mine forever.”
he shifts, pulling your knees up to your chest, folding you underneath him, locking you into a perfect mating press. the angle punches another sob from you, your back arching, your legs trembling around his ribs. he presses his chest to yours, his mouth dragging over your ear, your jaw, his voice trembling with sweetness that contrasts the feral rhythm of his body.
“you’re doing so good, baby,” he breathes, kissing your temple, tasting the salt of your tears. “taking me so well. you want it, don’t you? want me to fill you? wanna be round with my baby? wanna feel me every time you move?”
your answer is a mindless moan, another tear slipping from the corner of your eye, your lips barely able to shape the one word that’s left in you: “toru...”
he hums against your skin, his cock grinding impossibly deeper. “that’s it, sweet girl. i’ll fill you up… keep you so full you won’t even remember what it feels like to be empty. i’ll make sure you’re carrying me by the time i’m done. i’ll fuck you so deep that my baby won’t have anywhere else to go.”
his hips slam into you harder, faster, sharp and bruising. you sob beneath him, clutching him, helpless against the rhythm that’s shaking you apart. his voice stays painfully soft, cradling you through it. “not wasting a single drop. i’m gonna fuck you until you’re mine. until you’re pregnant. until there’s nothing left but me inside you.”
“want it…”
his mouth crashes over yours, swallowing your cries, his kiss frantic, messy, desperate. you’re shaking under him, the overstimulation shredding your mind, your body trembling violently, your sobs trapped against his tongue as you beg him wordlessly to keep going, to never stop.
“that’s it,” he whispers, his voice breaking as he chases his release. “that’s it, baby. take it. take it all. take everything i give you.”
he folds you even tighter, pressing so deep you can feel him in places you didn’t know could ache. your orgasm crashes over you again, sharp and blinding, your body convulsing around him, your voice lost to the desperate gasp that splits from your lips. and he breaks with you, thrusting deep as he spills inside you, his cock pulsing hard with every grind, his breath faltering, his voice catching as he pants, “gonna make you mine… gonna make you a mama… gonna keep you full… keep you right here… where you belong.”
but he doesn’t stop.
he keeps grinding, his cock still thick, twitching inside you, his hands trembling where they hold your legs open, determined to keep every drop right where it belongs.
“not done,” he breathes, kissing your cheek, your temple, his voice sweet and low, shaking with the weight of how much he still wants you. “not done with you yet, baby. not until i know. not until i’m sure. not until you’re really mine.”
he rolls his hips again, deliberately, drawing out the stretch, dragging out the feeling, coaxing more choked gasps from you. your body arches weakly into him, clinging, helpless to do anything but take him.
“shh, sweet girl, i’ve got you. i’ll give you everything. i’ll fill you over and over until you can’t hold anything but me. i’ll give you so much you’ll feel me dripping down your thighs when i finally let you go.”
he drags his cock out slowly, savoring the sensation, just to slam back in, forcing another sharp cry from you, your legs trembling where they bracket his ribs.
“you feel so good like this,” he murmurs, his words melting against your skin. “so good and warm and perfect. i’m gonna keep going, baby. you can take it, right? you’ll let me, won’t you? you’ll let me make you mine, over and over, until there’s no space left for anything else?”
a needy whine is all you can give him now, but it’s all he needs.
he smiles against your cheek, soft and breathless, his glasses slipping lower as he kisses you again, his lips trembling against yours. “i know, baby. i know. i’ll take care of everything. i’ll make sure our baby takes. i’ll make sure you’re mine… i’ll make sure you’re full. i’ll keep going until you can’t think about anything but me…”
his pace builds again, steady, deep, his hands stroking your sides, his voice staying low, unbearably tender as he destroys you beneath him.
“i’ll give you all of me, sweet girl,” he promises, his voice cracking even as he drives for more. “all of me. again and again. until you’re carrying me… until you’re round with our baby. until you can’t breathe without thinking about me inside you.”
he shifts his weight, dragging his cock out just enough to thrust deep again, coaxing more desperate cries from you, his breathing rough as his chest brushes yours, his glasses fogged and slipping. his hands tremble where they hold you open, where they keep you pinned beneath him, where they swear to never let you go, as if letting go would unravel him entirely.
“i’ll fill you until you can’t take anymore,” he whispers, his voice raw, his lips dragging along your jaw, his breath hot and uneven. “i’ll give you so much you’ll feel me for days, baby. you’ll feel me dripping out of you every time you stand, every time you move. you’ll feel me inside you every second, every breath, every heartbeat. there won’t be a moment you’re not full of me.”
he slows down just enough to let you breathe, just enough to kiss you, just enough to hear the soft, breathy whimpers that melt into his skin. his glasses are crooked, fogged, his hair clinging to his forehead in damp strands. his lips brush yours, tasting of desperation, tasting of love, tasting of the ache he’s carried through endless nights, his body pressed flush against yours as if he could sink into you, as if he could live inside you if he tried hard enough.
“baby,” he pants, voice trembling, his hand brushing your cheek, lingering there, “roll over for me, yeah? wanna see you all pretty on your hands and knees, wanna see your ass all messy for me, wanna watch you fall apart just for me.”
his words make you shudder beneath him, make your thighs twitch, but you listen, your limbs shaky as you roll over, his hands never leaving you, his palms gliding down your waist, over your hips, steady, grounding, helping you position yourself just right. he murmurs soft praises as he lines you up, kisses pressed to the nape of your neck, to the soft curve of your shoulder, to the swell of your back as you settle on all fours, your face buried in the pillows, your breath already ragged.
“that’s it, pretty girl,” he croons, his voice thick with awe, his eyes roving over your trembling form like he can’t believe you’re his. “look at you, taking me so well. made for me, baby, yeah? your body was made for me, just to take me, just to fall apart on my cock.”
his hand slips between your thighs, his long fingers gathering your slick, coating them generously before pressing two inside you alongside his cock, working you open, stretching you around him until the burn makes you sob into the sheets, makes your hips jerk helplessly, makes you whine from the fullness, from how stuffed you are, the overwhelming stretch making tears prick at your lashes.
your knuckles turn white where you grip the sheets, trembling under the weight of him, under the delicious ache of him, your breath hitching with every slow curl of his fingers inside you. your thighs twitch, thighs spread obediently despite the tremble overtaking them, your skin fever-hot where his palms ground you in place.
his other hand steadies your hips, thumb tracing slow, grounding circles against your skin, his palm firm, his grip sinking into the plush of your waist like he’s afraid you’ll float away if he loosens it even for a second. his hair clings to his forehead in damp, clumpy strands, his cheeks flushed a lovely pink, his glasses slipping lower on his nose, fogged to uselessness but still perched stubbornly there, framing the feverish glint in his eyes.
his lips brush kisses to the curve of your spine, down to the small of your back, each press soft and lingering, like he’s tethering you to him with every touch, like he needs to brand himself into you, to make you feel him everywhere, in every breath, in every heartbeat.
“shh, you’re doing so good,” he breathes, his voice trembling with restraint, placing a tender kiss to the dip of your waist. “so good for me, baby. you’re perfect, y’know that? so perfect when you’re stuffed full of me. i love watching you stretch around me, love feeling you clench when i’m this deep inside you. it’s like your body was made to hold me. you were made to be mine.”
he slides his fingers out slowly, savoring the slick sound, savoring the way your walls flutter around him like you’re begging him to fill you again. your thighs tremble, your hips rocking back in search of him, your breath shuddering as you whine, pitiful and overwhelmed, lips parted, drooling onto the pillow.
the needy arch of your spine makes his chest squeeze, makes his cock throb painfully, makes him press flush against you as he grinds back in, deep and unhurried, pushing as far as he can go, his pace slow but devastating, each thrust a deliberate drag against every sensitive spot that makes you gasp, makes you sob into the pillows.
“that’s it, baby,” he groans, his head falling forward, his damp fringe sticking to his temple, his glasses slipping to the very tip of his nose before he finally pushes them off and tosses them blindly aside. “every time i fuck you like this, you just take me so good, like you’re meant to. you were made to take me, weren’t you? made to fall apart on my cock, yeah?”
his kisses grow more feverish, his lips dragging across your shoulders, the plane of your back, his tongue flicking along the salt of your skin as he grinds deeper, sinking lower with each thrust, each snap of his hips making you whine, making your hands claw weakly at the sheets. he listens to every gasp, every cry, every broken plea you bury into the pillows, savoring the tremble of your thighs, the collapse of your arms, the desperate way you push back into him, chasing the delicious pressure.
then he leans over, his chest pressing against your back until his lips find yours, capturing you in a desperate, clumsy kiss. it’s messy, wet, more panting and whining than kissing, but he drinks every sound from your lips like he’s starving, like he can’t bear to be separated from any part of you. his tongue traces yours, coaxing you into the kiss even as his hips grind into you harder, even as your knees threaten to buckle beneath him, your soft whimpers muffled against his mouth.
“don’t hide from me, pretty girl,” he murmurs between kisses, his breath hot against your lips, his voice honey-sweet and reverent even as he rocks into you deeper. “wanna hear you, wanna feel you, wanna kiss you while you fall apart on me. every sound you make is mine. every little sob, every little plea, mine.”
he chases your orgasm with grinding thrusts, with soft praises that melt into your skin, with kisses that sear into you, that drag along the curve of your spine, that brand you as his. his hands roam across your waist, your sides, your belly, squeezing and caressing as if memorizing the softness of you. and when you come, when your body clamps down around him like a vice, when you tremble and sob against his mouth, he doesn’t stop. he swallows every desperate sound, his pace never faltering, his grip on your hips tightening as he drives through the aftershocks, pulling even more cries from your swollen lips.
“you can take it,” he pants, fucking you through the tremors, his voice shaking with the force of his own unraveling. “you’re doing so good, baby, you’re perfect, you’re perfect, fuck, you’re made for me. made to take me, yeah? you can give me another, can’t you? just one more, pretty girl. just one more.”
his hips snap forward harder, more erratic, his sleeper build fully activated as his fingers dig bruises into your waist, as he holds you steady even as your arms give out, even as you collapse onto the bed, your cheek mashed against the pillow, your body trembling with every rough, desperate thrust. your breath hiccups, your body limp, overstimulated, but he keeps going, keeps coaxing more from you with each deep grind, dragging out your high until your thighs shake uncontrollably.
but he doesn’t stop. his grip doesn’t falter. his praises don’t cease.
he kisses the sweat-slick skin of your back, he whispers against your shoulder, he keeps telling you how good you are, how you were made for him, how he’ll fill you until you’re overflowing, until you’re leaking with him, until you can’t hold it all, until you feel him dripping down your thighs, until it’s all you can feel.
“so good, baby, you’re so good,” he breathes, his voice cracking on the edges, as if your name is the only thing keeping him tethered to this moment. “my sweet girl, my pretty baby, taking me so well. fuck, you’re made for me, you’re perfect.”
he chases his own end with frantic, desperate thrusts, with the wet, obscene slap of skin against skin, with the ragged breath of a man who has no intention of stopping until he’s poured every last drop of himself into you. his fingers flex against your waist, his lips never leaving you, his rhythm a frantic, beautiful mess, his voice breaking with every curse, every sweet nothing he pours into your skin.
and when he finally shatters, when his body tenses and he spills inside you, he groans your name like a prayer, like a curse, like a plea, his hands trembling where they clutch you, his kisses never stopping, his words still tumbling in a broken, reverent stream.
“so good, baby, you’re so good, you’re mine, you’re mine, you’re mine. gonna keep you like this, gonna keep you full, just like this, just like you’re meant to be. wanna see it drip down those pretty thighs.”
his body finally stills, but his hands never leave you, his lips never stop pressing soft, lingering kisses to your back, to your shoulders, to your waist, holding you close as if you might slip away if he lets go.
he stays inside you, buried to the hilt, his breathing shaky, his heart hammering wildly against your spine, his hair clinging to his damp forehead, his cheeks flushed and glowing, his arms curling around your middle to hold you tight, to anchor himself to you, to prolong this feeling of being so deeply connected.
he whispers to you softly now, praises spilling between kisses, his touch gentle but insistent, a man desperate to stay connected, to stay tethered to you in every way he can. his fingertips trace slow, lazy circles against your belly, memorizing the feel of your skin, of your warmth, the little trembles that still ripple through you.
“i’ll fill you up again,” he promises, his voice hoarse and full of love. “i’ll give you more, baby. you can take it. you always take me so well. i’ll keep you like this all night if you let me. just wanna keep you close, keep you mine.”
slowly, he shifts, carefully pulling out, his breath catching at the sight of his spend slipping out of you, leaving a glistening trail along your thighs. he groans softly, pressing a kiss to your lower back, savoring the tremble that runs through you. his thumb brushes over the mark he left there, tracing lazy circles as if to soothe the ache, as if to seal his touch into your skin.
he gently turns you over, cradling your waist, lifting you like you weigh nothing, his strong arms wrapping around you as if you’re something precious. he sits himself at the edge of the bed with you settled in his lap, your shaky thighs straddling him, your chest pressed to his, your breath still hitching as you try to find your footing in the aftermath, your arms barely strong enough to wrap around his shoulders.
his cock, still heavy, still hard, nudges against your entrance, and he shudders at the heat, at the way your body clings to him instinctively, like you never want to let him go. his hands slide over your hips, steadying you, his thumbs brushing slow circles into your skin, his touch reverent, patient, as if savoring the weight of you in his lap.
“come on, pretty girl,” he murmurs, his breath hot against your lips, his voice thick with sweetness and filth, his cerulean eyes glazed with adoration and hunger. “sit on me, yeah? just like this. let me keep you full a little longer. let me feel you, just a little more.”
he guides you down onto him, slow and patient, his large hands warm and steady on your waist as he lowers you inch by inch, savoring the sweet stretch, savoring the tremble that overtakes you as he fills you again, deeper this time, more deliberate, until his hips meet yours with a satisfying press.
your breath hitches, a sharp whimper escaping you, your head falling heavily to his shoulder as you struggle to accommodate him, your body straining around the overwhelming stretch, your fingers digging desperately into the firm muscles of his shoulders, clinging to him like you’ll drown without him.
his breath stutters at the heat of you, at how impossibly tight you are despite how many times he’s already filled you tonight. his pale hair clings damp to his temple, the ends curling from sweat, his cheeks flushed a tender pink, his lips parted and trembling as he exhales shaky, desperate breaths against your ear. his lashes flutter, his throat bobs with every ragged swallow, his entire frame taut, his biceps trembling where they hold you steady, straining to keep his composure, to keep his pace slow, to savor every second inside you.
his hands never leave you, one sliding to cradle your waist, the other splaying wide across your trembling back, as if to press you closer, to anchor you to him, to mold you to his body, to ensure that not even a breath of space separates you. he peppers kisses along your temple, the shell of your ear, your hairline, your jaw, his lips soft but insistent, his voice a low, reverent murmur that vibrates against your skin, as though he’s reciting a prayer only you can hear.
“look at you, baby,” he breathes, pulling back just enough to cradle your cheek in his palm, his thumb brushing away the stray tear that slips down your flushed skin. his ocean eyes are hazy, glassy with tenderness, with something so raw it tightens his throat and makes his breath stutter. “fuck, you’re so pretty when you’re falling apart for me. gonna let me keep you here all night, right? yeah? just like this, full of me. can’t let you go. don’t want to.”
his other hand curls into the nape of your neck, fingers threading through the damp strands of your hair, guiding your forehead to his, breath mingling, lips brushing as he steals soft, lingering kisses between his words, as if he can’t stop, as if he’s starving for you, as if kissing you is the only way he can breathe.
you can only whimper in response, the weight of him, the stretch of him, too much and not enough, your body trembling with the need to give him more, to feel him deeper, to be good for him, to make him proud, to belong to him.
his hands slide back to your waist, his grip steady but gentle as he begins to guide you, controlling your pace, moving you over him in slow, agonizing rolls. his thumbs draw slow, grounding circles into your heated skin, coaxing you to move, to ride him, to fall apart for him again. each time you rock your hips, you shudder, your breath catching on a sob, but he holds you steady, keeps you grounded, murmuring sweet words against your skin.
“shh, i’ve got you, baby. you’re doing so good,” he praises, pressing his forehead to yours, his breath shaky, his lips brushing yours between soft, trembling kisses. his silver lashes flutter with every slight tremble of his hips beneath you, his whole body trembling with restraint, with devotion, with the overwhelming need to stay inside you, to keep you close, to never let you go.
“you can do it, pretty girl,” he whispers, his voice low and rough, savoring every inch, every trembling grind of your hips. “just like that. take your time. i’ve got you. you’re mine. my sweet girl. let me take care of you. let me feel you just a little more.”
your thighs quiver, your movements sluggish and shaky, your whole body threatening to collapse from how sensitive you are, but he holds you, supports you, his hands never faltering as he coaxes you through it, guiding you with soft murmurs, with kisses pressed between your brows, against your fluttering eyelids, against the damp corner of your mouth. his hands roam your back, your ribs, your hips, memorizing the tremble of your skin, the heat of your body, the way you melt so completely into his lap, pliant and sweet.
he watches you, breathless, overwhelmed by how perfect you are, by how much he wants to keep you like this, forever tethered to him, wrapped around him, so utterly his. he savors the little gasps you give him, the soft hiccups in your breath, the desperate way you cling to him even when your body begs for rest, even when you sob softly into his shoulder, overwhelmed but unable to stop, unwilling to pull away.
when you finally falter, too sensitive, too overwhelmed to keep going, your movements slowing to weak, trembling shifts of your hips, he wraps his arms tightly around your waist and takes over, holding you close, keeping you flush against his chest as he grinds up into you in slow, deliberate rolls of his hips, savoring the sweet friction, savoring the little broken sounds you spill against his skin.
his pace is gentle but insistent, dragging sweet friction between your bodies, pulling broken moans from your lips, savoring the way you clutch at him, your fingers knotting in his damp hair, your head buried in his neck like he’s the only thing keeping you whole, the only place you feel safe, the only place you want to be. he feels your nails dig into his skin, your body trembling in his hold, but you don’t pull away. you press closer.
“that’s it, baby, i’ve got you,” he breathes, his voice cracking, trembling with the force of his own need, his own love. “just let me take care of you. just hold on to me. we’ll come together, okay? just like this. i’ve got you. i’ve always got you.”
his forehead presses to yours again, his lips parting to steal soft, desperate kisses, his hands trembling where they clutch you, his chest heaving as he rolls his hips deeper, slower, grinding against every sensitive spot inside you, savoring the desperate whines you spill against his mouth, savoring how you melt completely in his arms.
his voice is little more than a whisper now, ragged and broken, his praises melting into your skin as he rocks into you, chasing the edge with you pressed so sweetly against him, his breathing erratic, his kisses clumsy and endless.
“come with me, baby,” he pleads, his voice thick with love, with need, with desperation, his lips brushing yours as his hands tighten around your waist. “please. just like this. i need to feel you. i need you. just like this. don’t let go.”
you fall apart in his arms, your sobs trembling against his lips, your fingers tangling desperately in his hair as you cling to him, as you come so sweetly, so completely, your body shuddering in his hold, your thighs twitching, your hips stuttering as you grind against him, desperate to draw out the bliss.
he follows soon after, groaning your name like it’s a prayer, like it’s the only word he knows, his hips stuttering as he pours into you, as he holds you impossibly closer, as if he could fuse you to him, as if he could keep you here forever.
when you finally go limp in his arms, when your soft, exhausted breath fans against his neck, he holds you there, cradling you against his chest, his fingers stroking soothing lines along your spine. his hands slide to your thighs, rubbing slow circles, grounding you, savoring the weight of you in his lap, the softness of you, the way you fit so perfectly in his hold, the way you feel like home.
he presses soft kisses to your temple, to your hairline, to your shoulder, his breath warm against your skin, his lips tender and slow, as if he could never kiss you enough, as if he could never hold you long enough.
“so good, baby,” he whispers, his voice thick with tenderness. “my pretty girl. my sweet girl. we can stay like this, yeah? just like this. just you and me. i don’t need anything else.”
he buries his face in the crook of your neck, his breathing finally beginning to steady, his arms curling tighter around you, his whole body relaxing, melting into you as though he could sink into your skin and stay there forever.
you nod weakly, nuzzling into his neck, your lashes damp, your body pliant and warm against him. your arms loop lazily around his shoulders, fingers brushing the nape of his neck, and he presses one last kiss to your temple, one last kiss to your hairline, and he smiles against your skin, utterly content, utterly in love.
neither of you move. neither of you speak. you’re both too tired, too soft, too wrapped in each other to care about anything else, not even the cold dinner waiting in the kitchen.
“we’ll eat later,” he hums, his lips curling against your skin, his voice warm, tender, content. “just wanna stay here a little longer. just wanna keep you close. that’s all i need.”
his arms tighten around you as he buries his face in your shoulder, breathing you in, his body melting into yours, savoring the weight, the warmth, the softness of having you so completely, so entirely his.
Tags: Firefighter/Husband!Toji x infertile!reader, mentions of pregnancy, stepson Megs, labor, fire hazard, reader goes through ivf, best friend!Sukuna to the rescue, dr.Shoko.
This took too long pls don't let it flop T-T
Part one
Wc: 5.5k
The house is a home to silence that gets broken by a sobbing Megumi every day, every hour like clockwork.
It's been three months since you've left, and Toji is on his last straw.
The seven-year-old has been seemingly going through a tougher worse patch than his father. Which is normal, the woman who had taken care of him since he was still a baby was now gone overnight.
Vanished without leaving a single trace.
Like you didn't become the tether their family needed after their losses. Like you weren't the only person who accepted becoming the mother Megumi needed.
All of that just for you to leave like you were never even by his side.
But deep down, your husband was having it bad on a level that had his skin go pale, his muscles weak, and his life dull.
Toji never thought he'd be so affected by your absence. And he's been selfishly trying to bury the sorrows underneath fire and ash.
Longer shifts at work when his hours were already long, leaving his child at home with whoever is available at whatever hour of the day.
The worst part?
It's radio silence from your end ever since the day you'd left without sparing him another word.
He remembers how your legs shook after you'd pushed yourself off the couch's armrest. It's vividly tattooed in his mind how the sight of your trembling body and tear-stained face made his chest tighten because he knew he'd done it for real this time.
It's stupid, he used to make you end up shaking and tearing up under different circumstances before, ones that had nothing to do with having your heart ripped out of your chest.
However, while it's physically unable for him to erase how broken you looked that night from his mind, he barely recalls ever hearing you pack anything—maybe he was zoned out when you did—but he found your shared bedroom empty by the time you were gone.
Sukuna called him early in the morning out of the blue. Voice gruff with a heavy underlying layer of irritation.
It was 8 A.M. on a Sunday, but Toji was already slipping his shoes on when his friend practically pleaded him to pick his child up.
Claiming he had more than enough of the Fushiguros because apparently, Megumi had a rough night and he kept crying out for his mom.
Toji didn't know what to tell the little boy when he got to the salmon-headed uncle's house.
The door had opened and his son practically bolted out of the house, straight onto his father's legs where he clawed and clawed until he was picked up.
Yuji was looking at the duo from behind his uncle's legs, looking guilty as if he were the one responsible for his best friend's inner turmoil.
It was quite the contrary.
Megumi had enjoyed himself that night.
The two boys played video games way past the time they were usually allowed to be awake, ate a lot of sweets, as Sukuna didn't care to refuse two pre-teens of the candy they pulled out of nowhere.
But now, as he nuzzled his spiky hair further against his dad's chest, Megumi wished for nothing but to go home and find peace in his mother's arms.
The two older and identical copies of their "sons" bid each other a half-assed goodbye—both still too tired to properly socialize—only saying they'd meet up later before Toji was back in the car.
His son slept through the car ride home, and he woke up noticeably calmer and in a mood that improved the closer they got to home.
What his father failed to warn him about was the sheer emptiness he'd find once he crossed the threshold of their apartment.
The key was barely out of the lock before Megumi pushed the door open, hauling himself inside the foyer, screaming, "Mama!" with his tiny, high-pitched voice, buzzing with anticipation.
A moment passed. He was still standing at the entrance, waiting for you to rustle around and show up at the end of the hall with your arms wide open—and a comforting smile on your face.
Nothing.
Nothing happened after another few silent seconds.
And little Megumi turned to his father, who hadn't moved an inch.
Still in the corridor.
Feeling the strange coldness seep out of the house and into his bones, caused by the lack of your presence in the apartment.
For the first time in his short life, Megumi saw his father hold an expression on his face that wasn't irritation or disinterest.
Despair and pain.
Etched into his dark, sharp features.
Today is quite an eventful day for you, not because you have something coming for you, but because you're quitting your job.
It's a silly, extremely boring office job you've been at for less than four years now, but it pays just enough for you to live on the other side of Tokyo, far from Toji and your sadly, little one.
In a two-bedroom apartment that casually has a balcony that bumps up your rent to be higher than it's supposed to be? Yes, but until you moved into a place with a terrace, you'd never realized just how much you had been needing one.
You close the last tabs after saving your work with a small smile you can't stop from stretching across your face. Makoto, your deskmate, looks over the divider with a movie-style comedy with an exaggerated pout on her face.
She's a sweetheart, younger by three years but the most trustworthy person you've ever met while working. Unfortunately though, this is probably the last you'll see of her, as your private lives don't mesh.
The poor girl takes a two-hour train ride for this mediocre job and you certainly won't take time out of her precious weekends to meet when she's such a busy person.
But you promise to stop by and let her take you around Kyoto sometime. A loud, melancholic huff escapes her as she mourns the loss of her favorite coworker.
You giggle at her deflated posture in her chair.
"Don't be so sad, Mako."
You're entirely too calm and happy for a person who is resigning today.
However, this is a resignation that every person in the office is okay with. Not because you're deeply hated by your now former workplace, but because there is a reason why everyone is willing to let an employee as talented and loyal as you go.
Just in time for you to walk out, your boss, Nanami Kento, appears behind you. He's uptight as ever. Clad in squeaky-clean Oxfords, a mathematically straightened blazer, and his hair gelled back—as organized as the office life at 7:3 Corporate Banking Company is.
Except, you almost feel your eyes jump out of their sockets when you see the bouquet of flowers in his arms.
"Oh! Mr. Nanami, what a nice bouquet you hav—"
He cuts you off before you even finish your awkward comment.
"These are for you."
Again, before you have time to be shocked about it, he places them in your hands, almost sending you to faceplant the floor with their weight.
And you also can't get a single word in because he's continuing.
"Congratulations on your pregnancy, Mrs. Fushiguro. It's been lovely having you here."
Yeah.
Two months ago, you moved into a cheaper, smaller, and clammy apartment across town with a heavy heart and a cloudy mind.
You haven't divorced Toji, and you're not sure if you can do that without properly clearing the air between you and your husband.
Though, the idea of going back and looking into his eyes to hear the word no after everything you've been through is enough for you to keep your distance indefinitely.
Even when at night, you miss the feeling of his arms wrapped around you more than anything, keeping you caged against him—warm and safe on the coldest nights.
Or being awakened by the little rascal in the morning. Kissing his chubby cheeks to death while he complained.
The first month was hard. Really hard. You barely ate, lived off the first thing you saw at the nearby convenience store that sells the most out-of-pocket flavors of literally anything, and avoided going out altogether if it wasn't for work.
You'd be lying if you said you didn't miss him though.
If you said you didn't wish he'd come and find you at work on one of those days where the clock ticked too slowly, you would be a horrible liar.
But those dreams never happened.
He never came.
Never called.
And you didn't see the light in life.
Until the phone call.
You didn't recognize the number anymore, having gotten another phone and changed your contact.
So when your old phone buzzed on the nightstand, a week after you'd settled in with a new Blackberry, your heart thumped hard against your chest.
It wasn't your husband.
"Hello, Y/N?"
Upon picking up, you'd immediately recognized the voice. Dr. Shoko. It had totally fled your mind that you were supposed to tell her you were giving up.
"Oh, yeah, it's me."
That evening, your voice felt smaller than anything.
You felt smaller than anything once the remains of a life you were in just a month ago were on the other side of the phone.
You'd almost forgotten the bruises you'd wake up to decorating your stomach, all the nights you retched in the bathroom—holding your own hair, alone.
"It's been a while since we've spoken, hasn't it?"
Your doctor was a woman older by a few years but that possessed a honey-like, calm voice that you're sure could calm anyone.
It was almost comforting to hear it.
But when she calls, it's always for the same thing.
To break your heart into pieces again.
So you brace for impact like you have every other time.
You reply to her question with an, "I'm doing great," even though it's the fakest thing you've said in a while.
Then, you hope she doesn't ask about Toji or Megumi.
Thankfully, she doesn't, and you hear the rustle of papers before she takes a pause from saying it's great to know you're doing good.
"Okay, so if you remember, we took out some eggs during your last cycle and you had them implanted the following week."
There's a brief silence as she prepares her next words.
You take it to let the fact run a lap around your head.
By now, it had totally fled your mind that there was yet another successful implant of fertilized embryos inside of you.
And that the last week before you left Toji behind, you had a fair amount of bloodwork and lab tests done.
Specifically, on that gloomy day, you had your most recent blood draw.
Still, you had done this many times with no success by now.
She always says the same thing: successful implant, see you in a week.
Then she calls you in for tests, you do them, and she calls again with the news of no baby.
It's always the same.
First come the injections, the hormones.
Then the painful surgical extraction of your eggs.
Toji had to submit his own sperm too.
The lab fertilization follows.
The embryos are cultured for a few days.
You go back, they're placed inside your uterus.
And then, nothing.
No baby, no life.
Just another scar deep in your heart.
Your doctor had been rambling about something for the last minute, but you were in your head, completely out of it and not hearing a single thing until you heard her call out your name.
"Y/N? Y/N?"
Finally, she had managed to pull you back and you replied.
"Yes? Sorry, I got distracted."
A soft sigh came through the phone.
"Did you hear what I said?"
You hadn't missed a beat before replying no.
"You're pregnant, Y/N."
And you saw the first sliver of light then.
Within you.
So, you're the happiest pregnant woman there is, despite your crumbling marriage, despite the guilt that tugs at your heartstrings from having abandoned another little one behind.
But you've wanted this for longer than you can remember.
There's nothing that has tethered you to Earth as much as the two-month bump you have subtly poking out from under your clothes.
You're so over the moon, in your little bubble, that you're even grateful you wake up nauseous because of the little being inside of you, and not because of a bad reaction to the drugs you took just to have your baby.
And your cabinets are empty save for the prenatal vitamins you take.
There are no empty syringes in your apartment's trash can.
But there are discarded negative pregnancy tests and used-up, once hormone-filled injections in Toji's apartment.
He can't bring himself to throw them away even when the sight revolts him.
The box of remaining treatments for another cycle is still in the bathroom, the cabinets full.
Untouched.
It dawned on him that he had messed up the second you walked out the door.
That he discarded you, perhaps unwillingly, just like you had discarded negative results after successful implants.
He'd discarded all of your sacrifice.
The months of pain you went through just to have something half you and half him.
Because of his fear.
And the thought, that realization, makes bile climb up his throat every time.
Anywhere.
He loses his mind every single time too.
He's at work.
Leg bouncing up and down, eyebrows drawn tightly together, lips pursed—jaw locked like he's fighting the urge to jump at someone.
When really, he's fighting himself.
Sukuna is lazily lounging on an uncomfortable metal chair he pulled out of the janitor's closet and into the open garage, next to the lined-up fire trucks.
It's lunchtime, he's just had whatever slop their coworker made.
And he feels horrible.
With the heat clinging onto his skin and the salty aftermath of whatever thing he had just eaten, the pink-haired man was sure he was on the road to hell and seconds from perishing.
A firefighter uniform is a layered system of protective clothing designed to protect firefighters from heat and fire, to say the least.
But God, was it hot inside that clingy uniform.
And for men like Sukuna and Toji, it was uncomfortable as it was always too tight around the arms.
Having had enough of the clingy material, Sukuna had his coat thrown somewhere and he's been itching to rip his white shirt off his chest.
He can't do that though.
So, he's left in his navy blue, yellow-striped cargo tactical pants with the overalls unhooked from his shoulders and hanging by his sides.
He's taken off practically every layer he's allowed to, and he wishes he could throw his shoes away too, but he can't.
By his side, though, is a visibly distressed Toji.
Fully.
Dressed.
In the 32-degree Celsius Japanese heatwave.
Had his coworker looked normal at the very least, Sukuna would've bet there would be at least three forest fires with the scorching hot sun shining outside.
But he's quiet as a church mouse when he eyes the raven.
He barely lasts a minute before he barks.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?"
Toji groans, sinking further into his own metal chair, subconsciously hiding his face under the high neck of his coat.
His friend continues to talk though, picking at the subject.
"What? The missus giving you shit? Yuji's been saying that Meg is quite upset lately."
Once more, he doesn't get a reply.
That makes him quirk a brow in curiosity and slight irritation.
Even when he knows Toji isn't a man of many words, just like he isn't.
However, it's now that he notices his friend's hands are balled up into painfully tight fists by his sides.
And it's only now that he realizes it's been a while since he's heard about you.
"Toji, where's your wife?"
Sukuna's voice isn't as light anymore. It's deeper when he asks where you are.
Because you've known Sukuna for longer than Toji has.
After all, he's the mutual friend you both met each other through.
So, when it comes to his childhood best friend, it's not funny at all to Sukuna anymore.
Toji knows.
"She's gone."
That he's dancing on a thin line.
Either he gets punched by the short-tempered man, or the next months are going to be spent in psychological warfare.
"Gone? What the fuck do you mean gone?"
The man has already pushed himself off the chair, sending it a few meters back. The sound of its feet scratching against the floor momentarily echoes.
"Gone."
He would never admit it, but the fact that you have been gone for four whole months without him finding out about it irks him on a level that most people never get to.
Anyway, Sukuna is on his last thread too.
He's called your old number a hundred times in the last hour after his shift ended.
Not once have you picked up.
And you haven't heard the phone ring once.
You're at your trusty convenience store, struggling to crouch and reach the snacks on the lowest shelf with your three-month bump between you and glory.
It's hard, satisfying these end-of-trimester cravings.
To add salt to injury, when you can't reach the bottom packets of mochi, you can't reach the chips on the highest shelves.
It's ridiculous.
So you have been staring at the ketchup-flavored bag of chips on the shelf for the past five minutes, debating whether you give it up and go home, or wait for someone to waltz into the deserted convenience store where even the cashier is absent so they can grab it for you.
You choose the latter.
Or you did at first.
But your patience is stretched thin quickly.
You decide to try one last time to reach it yourself, despite the strain in your lower back.
Slowly, you lift yourself onto the tips of your toes and deliberately angle yourself to graze the end of the bag.
Then, you feel the presence of someone taller behind you reach past your body and grab it.
You're about to complain about how rude that was, maybe even accidentally start crying because of your hormones, but the man places the chips in your hands before you turn to look at him.
You quickly manage to catch a glimpse of the man's forearm.
Shit.
You're fucked.
Fuck, who wouldn't recognize those tattooed forearms with ink that make grown men swallow hard and fear him?
Right there, you hope he doesn't pay attention to who he has just helped—
And you're unlucky because for the first time in his life, Sukuna bats an eye to a random person.
He catches a glimpse of your side profile as he lets the item drop into your hand, already turning to leave, but he stops dead in his tracks to take a second look.
Oh, of course he has to run into you after calling about two hundred times in the last two hours.
But Sukuna is shocked for the first time in ages.
His MIA friend, in a convenience store that doesn't even have a name, miles and miles away from your home.
What a coincidence.
"Y/N? What the fuck are you doing here? Why haven't you answered my calls?"
You're stiff as a tree, hoping that the comically large bag of chips will hide the bump you're sporting under your sundress.
Aha.
You're far from slick.
Because one look from Sukuna and you're exposed.
You're sure the clerk comes out of the back after hearing Sukuna's loud barking.
"What the fuck?!"
Can a man curse more than Ryomen? Jesus.
Unfortunately for you, bolting is out of the question with your mildly swollen feet.
So you force him to pay for your random snacks in exchange for an explanation.
And you make it seem like a casualty that you're coincidentally pregnant during a rough patch with your husband.
You don't tell him that divorcing is something you think about some days, or the horrible last year and a half you lived through in order to even lie about your baby.
He doesn't need to know that.
He wouldn't understand if you told him you left your husband because you wanted a baby.
If your own didn't, how could he?
By the time you're done shrugging his concerns off, it's late.
So he insists on taking you home. You make him stop at the foot of your building and swear.
"I don't want Toji to know." You say. He purses his lips because he doesn't believe it.
Again, you shoot him a pointed look. "You owe me the discretion, asshole."
He's retorting like you've shot him.
"What for? I literally just paid for your things. If anything, you should stop lying to my face and tell me the truth."
Accidentally, your lips make an "o" and you expose yourself once more. But you don't care.
Shrugging again, you say, "Nah, I'm good, don't tell him." A pause comes in the middle of the next sentence.
Now more serious, you shift around as you plead. "Please don't tell him. It's complicated right now."
He scoffs, mumbling something incoherent but really similar to "Fucking idiot." under his breath before tossing your purchases back to you, giving you a side hug, and saying he'd catch you later.
That night, you don't sleep out of fear that Sukuna would snitch, even if he's never done that, being a man of his word, and that Toji would show up at your door.
He never does.
And part of you is disappointed.
No, every part of you is disappointed.
Ruined, even.
It's been nine months, you're full term, about to pop out a child, and he hasn't reached out once.
Your husband hasn't looked for you once.
On many nights, you cry about it.
It's no longer the hormones that have you so sensitive, you know your helplessness comes from deep within you.
It hurts more when it's Sukuna taking you to the hospital on the night your water breaks.
It hurts more than the contractions.
You cry,
cry,
and cry.
Because you don't want Sukuna to be driving you.
You don't want him here at all.
Which is incredibly selfish as he's been supporting you all throughout your pregnancy.
Except at ultrasounds, you refused to let him take you there.
Refused to let him inside the appointment.
Toji was supposed to be there finding out the gender of your baby by your side.
He was supposed to be looking at your little girl's face inside your womb.
You weren't supposed to be alone.
Or receive judgmental looks from the women in the waiting room.
Some equally as pregnant as you, some less or more, but all accompanied by their partners. The fathers of their children.
And you wanted to yell that you're married, and not the slut they look at you like.
You have a husband.
You wear your wedding band with "through sickness and in health" promised to you.
So, where is your husband?
On the night your water breaks, you're cooking. Something sweet, a new recipe you've never tried where making caramel—homemade caramel—is crucial for its success.
None of that store-bought stuff.
You blame the baby in you for wanting such complicated things.
Halfway through the process, right as you're mixing sugar, butter, cream, and a pinch of salt that's going to transform into a rich, golden confection, you think you pee yourself.
Safe to say, you didn't.
The water that spilled on the floor was in fact not pee, but your water breaking.
And you panic so hard all you do is dial Sukuna in a hurry—making him call out of work—and haul the hospital bags out of the apartment all on your own.
Not sparing a single glance at anyone who sees you in your flowy nightgown, with a distressed face and two suitcases by your side.
Right, that pan you left on...
Spawned a team of Tokyo firefighters, amongst them a tired, sunken-eyed, wrecked Toji to the rescue.
He was handed the information of the situation while a teammate drove the truck without question to the location, like it always is.
Over the truck's blaring siren, he read out the data to the other firemen.
"Neighbors reported a house fire on—" He reads out the name of the street, region, floor, and everything they know that has been reported about the fire.
He gets to the end of the report and his heart drops.
"The tenant is FUSHIGURO Y/N." His coworkers don't hear what he mumbles at the end, but they know something is wrong with the horrified look he's wearing.
The truck is shaking as it drives through traffic, but Toji's bark at the driver makes it tremble even more.
"Hurry the fuck up, get us there now!"
And they get there.
Toji hauls himself out of the truck first, body moving before his mind does.
Every inhabitant of the building is found outside, scared and worried, but Toji's heart is reaching the sky. He has it in his throat, ready to jump out.
Because how is it that the first time he hears about you, it's because you're engulfed in the one thing he prayed you'd never get close to?
His vision starts to get blurry as he reaches the floor.
You'd think it's inhuman, that a man of his height and stature, wrapped in those clothes, can pass more than ten flights of stairs to reach your apartment in record time.
He smells the ash from the hall before he throws your door open, calling out your name through his hoarse throat.
It's closing in on him. Everything, the walls.
But you're not here.
There isn't a single sign of life.
And his heart stops.
He's not even supposed to be there.
He knows because he faintly hears his men scream from the staircase for him to leave, get out, that there is nobody.
Nobody?
What do they mean nobody?
Where is his wife?
His sweetheart.
On ground level, water is already being sprayed. Multiple men are at work. Placing ladders, climbing, watering down.
Doing damage control.
Yet nobody does damage control on him.
Where is his wife?
"Toji!" He hears his senior's voice call out from nearby.
But he stands there in the living room.
Surrounded by flames.
Even though he's not touched by them yet.
"Toji! Get out of there right this second!"
He feels like he's already burned.
"You have a son and a wife! Get out!"
The superior hesitates at the threshold Toji passed to get inside. Except it's now barricaded by fire.
Where is his wife?
"Your wife is at the hospital, she's not here!"
And he moves.
You are at the hospital.
Crying like you're on the verge of death.
Maybe you are. Sukuna definitely knows he's about to die though, you're gripping his forearm like you need him to hold you to Earth while you send him to the sky.
"Fuckfuckfuck, you're killing me, woman—" He doesn't even think about how much his words annoy you, causing him to barely dodge the fist you had heading for him.
The thing is, you're not pushing or anything. Nor are you in pain with the epidural in your spine. But you've been in labor for the last four hours, only 5 centimeters dilated, and sobbing profusely without stopping.
Even the nurses are worried because all you say is "I want my husband!" like you can't do it without him here.
And it's the truth.
You can't.
Sukuna has said many times he can't get Toji because 1: He's on the clock so he probably won't pick up, and 2: You won't let him go.
Though, his arm hurts so much—it's red, and even with his thick skin, he's sure a fat bruise will appear in a few hours, that he decides it would absolutely not hurt to call the raven-headed idiot that is supposed to be in his place.
You hear him promise to call and immediately let go.
Just as Sukuna steps outside of the room though, still hearing your sobs from the hall, heavy and rushed footsteps near before he even has the chance to ring Toji.
Because there he is, running past Sukuna, probably not even registering that he's there, and he goes inside.
But your husband wasn't ready to be met with what he was.
Toji Fushiguro looked like a man who had crawled straight out of hell.
His uniform was soaked.
Ash stained the sleeves.
There was soot smeared across his jaw and neck.
His chest rose and fell violently as he struggled to breathe.
For a moment, nobody moved.
Nobody spoke.
His wife.
Swollen with—
No, pregnant.
Fully pregnant.
A huge stomach which you have both your hands over.
Tears paint your face in a glossy layer.
That's not what makes his heart stop though.
A pin drops in the silence and you're sure a continent cracked.
He chokes out a sound you can't understand.
It all crashes over him right then.
He can't form a single coherent thought.
But he shakes, he starts shaking.
It's all too much.
His dark eyes find you instantly.
The world seems to stop.
You stare.
He stares.
Nine months.
Nine entire months.
Yet the second you saw him, every memory came rushing back at once.
The first apartment.
Megumi sleeping between you both after a nightmare.
The wedding ring still sitting on your finger.
Everything.
Toji looked like he was about to collapse.
Your name broke coming from his throat.
You've never hated yourself so much.
But the physical pain is slowly creeping back up on you.
And the cry you let out snaps your husband out of his shock.
Even after months apart, his body moves on its own.
His hands find yours.
Nurses swarm in.
You can't get the words "I'm sorry" out, but you try.
Knowing that they won't ever be enough to earn forgiveness.
His head lowers.
And suddenly, you feel something warm hit the back of your hand.
A tear.
Then another.
The room went silent.
It wasn't though.
It was loud with medics preparing you to push.
You had dilated enough.
But you couldn't pull your eyes off him.
Couldn't stop smelling the smoke, fear, and regret he was radiating.
You let out a loud groan amidst the moment, subconsciously squeezing the life out of his hand.
He doesn't care though.
You don't either.
"Mrs. Fushiguro—" For the first time, you hear the midwife.
"We have to get this baby out of you, mama, please help us."
You cry.
Really cry.
Because it hurts everywhere now.
In your heart.
And everywhere else.
"Push!"
You don't, you can't.
You don't find the strength within you.
They yell at you to push again.
You still don't.
Toji lifts his head, red eyes finding yours.
There's nothing but worry and something fragile, something Toji doesn't know how to name, fear, behind his eyes.
A rough, calloused hand finds the apple of your cheek.
He doesn't care about the baby, but he does care about you.
"Y/N, baby, please."
"Push!"
Through your blurry vision, you finally manage to.
He wipes the tears that fall as you cut the circulation off in his bicep.
"Okay, mom, good! Keep pushing!"
Her cries are the most beautiful thing you've ever heard.
It hurts a bit to see them hand her over to her father first, but you find it okay.
You find it more than okay when you see him hold her.
A man of so much sorrow and pain, holding the purest thing on Earth.
His daughter.
The world is frozen in time.
Somewhere, the birds stop chirping.
The waves swallow the shore.
His chest loosens.
Something shatters in him.
It feels illegal to hold her.
She's so small.
So beautiful, nothing like him.
No dark eyes, no dark hair.
No scars, no marks.
He can't believe this is his.
Your daughter.
After years.
After injections.
After heartbreak.
After countless negative tests.
She was finally here.
A sob escapes him.
One he couldn't stop.
One he didn't even try to.
His hand gently brushes against her tiny head.
It was silent in the room.
"She's beautiful."
You look down at her.
Then up at him.
And for the first time in nearly a year, your husband looks at you the same way he had on your wedding day.
Like you were the most important thing in the world.
The room fades away.
The hurt isn't gone.
The damage isn't repaired.
There will be conversations.
Arguments.
Apologies.
Months of healing.
Maybe years.
But as your daughter yawns against your chest and Toji carefully wraps one arm around both of you, neither of you lets go.
Not this time.
Tsumiki has two broken parents.
A mother that went through hell for her.
Who would do it again to see her tiny fingers wrap around her mother's.
A woman that needed answers from her husband.
Who isn't aware that he did look for her.
Everywhere.
At her old workplace, asking everyone, spending every day calling, searching, dying inside.
She has a father that's messed up by life.
Past relationships, family trauma, a fear in his heart he can't allow himself to admit exists.
A man who doesn't know how to hold on.
But he's never been so sure that this time, nothing is escaping from him.
And an older brother standing by the door, brought by Sukuna himself.
That has a completely different set of eyes and thoughts.
But a brother that has already deemed her the most precious thing on Earth.
Hmm... as for dessert.. the masterlist maybe?
Please lmk how u felt about this little story, i love reading coms!!
Yesterday, instead of putting my ass to sleep, I finally got around to proofreading "Our empty bed" and I've decided to NEVER write ANYTHING at 3AM ever again because god was that little story GRAMMATICALLY INCORRECT AND A MESS.
Oh yeah, I've also started on Ditto drafts and scraps, here's a little sneak peak of the chapters...
Here's the cover (for now, not sure if I should change it, I'm tornnnnnnn)
I plan on publishing the first few chapters at the beginning of June soo... idk...
anyway proofread OEB and slightly tweaked version is up, sorry for my shitty little writing guys, love ya<3
Content: Post- Shinjuku/Shibuya arc Scar!jo x reader... angstangstangst...
Just a little story I badly wrote recently. Not proofread just yet but someday i'll rewrite it entirely.
WC: 3.8k
From me to you:
Satoru's hair has always been impossibly white, so characteristically him. Fluffy, pale as a foggy sky, milky and soft- though he always took care of it with minimal effort, it still felt like silk in between your fingertips.
And it stood tall, like him.
As you thread your soap-lathered hands through his locks, you try to remember the last time he'd properly taken care of it on his own. For months now, you'd been the one bathing him.
Shibuya has left marks on your husband that were too deep to even put into words.
Shinjuku though, it's left him even worse. A fraction of who he used to be.
Every night, you lead the same ritual ever since moving with him to your mother's house in the mountains. Where the quiet was the only thing that could reach him.
Though the water has calming essential oils—lavender, eucalyptus— and on some days even some lemon drops, mineral salts to help the scars scattered across his pale skin, nothing really could erase Sukuna's marks from your lover.
His eyes are closed in the bathtub like every night. Mind somewhere you can't reach even if you tried.
A ghost of himself now, he's been mute for more time than you could remember.
On some days you struggle to remember the deepness of his voice, the curious intonation he says some words with, the loudness.
Not in the medical diagnosis mute though, he can talk. But at the same time he can't. The inner turmoil inside him, which you know he fights every minute of the day, prevents him from uttering a single word.
Thankfully you know him well enough to leave him to himself. Where he tries to push away all of the trauma and bad memories that crept under his skin, deep in his bones at all times.
You know his favourite meals, what he eats and what he doesn't, how he likes his bed, or what he feels like doing without needing to communicate directly with him.
Yet, even with all of his silence, you still speak to him.
A few words can do a lot.
So at times when the frown is carved too deeply on his face, you're somewhat able to just barely ground him. Remind him that he's here and not on the battlefield anymore.
If it were up to you, he would never channel cursed energy through his body ever again. But those were affairs for a distant future you still hadn't pondered about.
Your fingertips curve inwards just a slight bit, nails grazing his scalp as you deliberately massage the conditioner into his hair now.
There are times where you struggle to fight your own trauma.
His fight was broadcasted everywhere, you were on front row watching when everything went down— guilt tugging everywhere, helpless, desperate. Mere streets away from the fight, too close for safety, but you couldn't help it.
Every explosion, crash and slash that reached him ruined you like they ruined him. And for long, excruciating hours, you watched him.
It was crucifying on a level that surpassed every existing limit.
He left his life there, on the line.
What came out of the fight were the remains of a winner, what was left of the strongest— bloodied, scarred tissue, and an even deeper hurt soul.
Pieces of you were everywhere too., people's ears had stopped working from the horrifying screams you'd subconsciously let out whenever his blood was shed.
Your hair was on the floor from ripping it out. Fingernails followed through the hours too, nail beds raw by the time Shoko had sedated you against your protests— all for your own good.
The quiet after the storm stayed longer than anything else., the brief minute the world went still— when everyone was silent before they broke into cheers, celebrations.
You remember your heart stopping, the adrenaline pulsing through each artery in your body. There was no happiness from your end as your eyes stayed glued to the screen where your husband's body was limp on the ground.
Within minutes you crossed the distance between him and you. Clawing your way past anything that stood between you and the thin line your husband was holding onto.
The bridge between life and death he was dancing on. You got there way before Shoko and any help came.
He was motionless on the floor.
A faint heartbeat was the only thing you heard when your ear was pressed against his left— over the cold surface of his chest that usually was warm and housed your head in hugs or on lazy mornings.
Shoko had come just in time to catch that snapping thread of heartbeat. Reverse cursed technique flaring to life and sewing together that pitter-pattering rhythm once more.
The way her eyes widened after figuring out his brain had almost bled beyond repairing was a face that was tattooed in your memory forever now.
So, as his lawful wife, witnessing that took its toll on you too. Everything did. The dried blood you can't seem to forget was on his handsome face, the frail state he was in for weeks.
Now, you fought your own wars. You were scarred in your own way.
Nowhere nearly as bad as the man infront of you though.
"Satoru, I'm done. You can lay there for as long as you want, I'll get started on dinner." Your sweet, Honey voice echoes through the bathroom as your rise from your stool, place a small kiss on his forehead and head out.
Tonight, pasta was on the menu.
Nothing special, bolognese.
Your husband's arms wrap around your midsection as you stir the sauce. Even when he is at his lowest, his love language is still physical touch, it's still finding his place right next to you— quieter now, but still the same.
From behind, you could feel the slimness of him. The lack of muscle he had gained and came out of the prison realm with. The sharp bones pressing against your back.
Your lips pursed, and you reached for the olive oil again. Despite your efforts, hearty meals and supplements, he still didn't gain the weight he needed back.
All that laid next to you at night was your inconsolable, bone-thin, unrecognizable husband.
But you still loved him anyway.
You remember the first day after seeing him on the metal table where Shoko had worked on him for hours.
He was gray.
Almost impossible to phantom when he was the loudest in the room, the light in your days.
The ocean in his eyes looked distressed, polluted with emptiness.
And yet, he was still your Satoru, the vulnerable and real one. The scared one.
Your survivor.
The most human one you've seen in your years of marriage.
He spent the first day awake, back from being on death's door, in his room at your shared apartment in Tokyo.
You took the quick decision of leaving the city within the week. To move to your late mother's house up in the isolated mountains.
The house is a complete 360 from the business and modern living that happens in the capitol. It had no electric, smart gadgets, no real useful lock on the front door. Not even a window that properly closed.
But there were generations of love in the walls. Love from your mother— from when she raised you within those old, crumbling, familiar walls, love from the sun, from your childhood.
He didn't run from the change. There wasn't really the right to.
So you both quietly settled there, alone.
His students visited once. He didn't dare to look at them. The scar across Yuji's face was too much for him to bear looking at, Nobara's eye patch stung.
It all reminded him of Nanami. A missing person in both of your lives. Somebody you hadn't adjusted to not having around.
You cried every morning in a secluded place behind the garden where you grew your produce.
Your mother's soil was still in optimal condition, even years after she abandoned the place, so it was fit for a little patch of tomatoes and whatnot.
Only early in the morning, before your husband had risen yet, would you let the tears spill. There, on a chair that was considered vintage now. Alone. With your own fears and pains.
Megumi's absence hurt him the most though.
His brain hadn't gotten to accept what had happened to the boy he took in as a child himself too.
You never pushed.
They left uncertain of everything, not how they came. And you reassured them that there was no need to go through the awkward evening in the mountains with their unwell sensei again, that you were taking good care of him.
Eventually, they gave in. Sometime when he gets better, you'll invite them over again.
Nobody but Shoko— who visits once a week, frequents your home.
It's okay, your time is fully on him anyway.
Months had passed since you last heard him form sentences.
You couldn't pinpoint the last time you watched a movie. Life had been colorless ever since Shibuya.
Before Sukuna and the scars drawn on Satoru's canvas, he was a loud person.
Sometimes insufferably so, but always energetic.
Now, you yearn for the days you couldn't hear the movie over Satoru's excessive commentary.
At night, you find yourself wishing you never complained about it. Because you'd do anything to hear him talk again as easily as he did before.
These simple things are what go through your mind as you shovel away.
Digging dirt up from generation old soil that needs to be prepped for the upcoming thousands of tulips you intend to plant.
Spring is right around the corner.
And you didn't expect to turn and find Satoru on the porch, watching.
Because he doesn't get up until his sorrows creep up into his dreams around 9 A.M.
And he surely hasn't gone outside, willingly at least, in the last three months.
So it catches your muddy-boot-wearing, sweat covered self off-guard.
You're suddenly all too conscious of your breathing, how much dirt is caught staining your worn out overalls.
Because it's the first time in so long that he's looking at you.
With those void, azure blue eyes of his.
Your heart foolishly skips a beat.
The weather warms up just a bit more after that day.
Though not even a week ago, it was still -10° in the lonely mountains— starting from today, maybe the conditions will improve just enough to welcome blossoming flowers and blooming crops.
Perhaps it's just enough for your own life to grow.
And the tiny one inside of you.
He lurks around the house more the next week.
He's up by the time you've headed into the garden now.
The mornings where you cry alone behind the planted flowers become harder to carry out.
So feelings start to get bottled up,
Your face barely has time to reduce its swelling before he's there, watching you in that silence you've grown to live in.
By now, you've left a chair there. For his morning show, you, aggressively, efficiently handling the most important and tiresome job there is to do.
Gardening. Growing your own fruits and vegetables.
The flowers on the sidelines are for your mere pleasure. They aren't as essential as your hardly grown produce are.
But, a bit of color in your black and white world seems appealing.
You wonder many times if the ache in your bones is a normal result of growing a new life.
3 months, that's how far along you supposed you were.
Nobody knew, but you're tuned in well enough with your body to know there was something wrong with you.
Satoru didn't notice you stopped menstruating. He probably didn't know it's already been two months since the fight.
But some part of you was glad he was oblivious. You couldn't imagine dropping such news on a man who doesn't even have a foot in reality.
Having a child is something you've wanted for a long time. So you're happy either way.
Keeping to yourself.
At least until he's ready, that's what you tell yourself.
Tulips are in full swing. Petals of magnificent shades paint your garden in a rainbow.
It's a beautiful sight.
Satoru has commented about them too.
Maybe the light is shining upon you two again.
Another few weeks have passed.
You've grown a lot more tired. No pregnancy symptoms pester you, thankfully— apart from the occasional migraines, dizziness and soreness you still manage to hide from your husband.
He's been... present lately.
It changes a world. Warmth spreads through you everytime you see him around the house.
Coming back to himself.
However,
He's covered from head to toe, even in the humid spring weather. Scars too shameful according to him.
A sign that he still fights the last everyday.
That it all takes time.
Though he hasn't told you, you know. You know how much the lines on his skin bother him because he thinks they tell the story of a weapon that succeeded, and not a man who almost lost it all.
But you love them.
Because they don't say anything he thinks they do. They're marks of heroism, of power, bravery and the victory of the world's kindest man.
And you love tracing every scar on the strongest sorcerer when he's in deep sleep.
Maybe one day he'll realize he's still perfect to you.
Now more than ever.
The mornings in the garden aren't spent crying anymore, you can't seem to let any tears spill since the end of your first trimester.
You've been guessing throughout your whole pregnancy. 5 months should be how long you've been expecting by now.
It's strange. How quiet your baby is. Or how your body is. Your bump is only noticeable when naked.
Helps hiding from Satoru. Though you feel that with the passage of time, guilt eats at you more.
You'll tell him soon enough, he's been getting better, you tell yourself.
Yet, you struggle to find the words to tell him.
Now, you read a maternity book your late mother had in the dusty attic, quietly preparing yourself for motherhood on your own as chamomile tea sits on the piece of log next to your chair.
Those times become less frequent, the moments to yourself on slow mornings, the more Satoru starts breathing and functioning like a normal human again.
He's gotten the talking ability back, as well as washing his hair on his own again.
Though he insists on you doing it for him everyday. So you do.
With your hidden bump it becomes harder to bend over the bathtub behind him. But you spread your legs wide and soap the milky hair.
You enjoy it. Every second. Because things are getting better.
Then at night, when your chest hurts for reasons you don't know, and your breathing comes hardly— all while he sleeps soundly by you, you're left wondering what is getting worse within you.
It's at the 5 month mark after Shinjuku that you finally trust Satoru enough to leave him alone at the house so you could duck into the city for some hours to run some much needed errands.
You didn't bring him. He isn't that healed to see the city, to bring him back to the ruins of Tokyo.
But your chest has this tightness that takes your waddling, 7 month pregnant self to Shoko.
Except she wasn't there.
Only the remains of her office existed in the space you had went to. An abandoned x ray machine, dusty stethoscope. Abandoned drawers of medicine and other medical supplies.
You manoeuvred the old machine well enough to see your baby on the screen.
The blurry scan showed nothing of the gender, well none that you could understand so you just moved on after watching the growing fetus for a bit.
It settled slowly within you, the fact that you were becoming a mother soon.
A sharp pain struck you again.
Chest tightening, breaths shortening like always.
Then you moved the gel tip of the ultrasound machine over to somewhere people don't see when they go to a sonography.
Left lung, under. Your heart.
Where you find another life growing inside of you.
Where you find a shadow.
At first, you think it's a trick of the ancient machine.
The screen flickers.
Static crawls across the corner.
The image distorts.
Your hand trembles as you press the probe harder against your chest.
A dark shape.
Small enough to miss.
Your heartbeat reaches your ears.
A continuous, strong thump,thump, thump.
The sound coming from your chest is uneven through the machine's speakers, distorted by age and dust.
You stare.
Stare.
And stare.
This isn't where a shadow should be.
The room suddenly feels too small.
You go home with bags full of food in the truck. Sweet delicacies you can't bake for your sweet-toothed husband.
He lights up like the sun does to the world in the mornings.
And that night you can't sleep.
Especially not after coughing up blood twice during his slumber.
The world seemed to have tilted sideways since that day in the doctors office.
Now you don't fill the silence, because there is no silence.
Your husband is his talkative self, though always rambling about superficial things until his past hits him and leaves him quiet for a second, he's talking.
That's all that matters.
When his students visit, still with no Megumi, but this time all of them, he's there just enough to be their sensei again.
Jokes find him easily like they always did before.
And you're happy in a way you haven't been in a while.
Maybe the growing baby in you will make everything better.
There's a chance there's nothing wrong.
It's on a ordinary Thursday you try to tell him you're pregnant.
A loaf of bread was in the oven, nothing out of the ordinary. You make a batch almost everyday.
You chicken out on the last moment and hide the smaller one.
He laughs at the burnt bread, it's a full— healthy, hearty laugh.
The fleeting thought about your pregnancy mind catching up to you slips your mind as you bask in the delightful sound.
Only when your own chuckles were interrupted by loud, strong chain of coughs faintly laced with blood did you realise that hiding your condition would soon be getting harder.
But Satoru is happy.
You realised that when you woke up late for once to find him smiling down at you.
Calloused hands running up and down your spine.
His beautifully scarred face, illuminated by the invasive sun seeping through your curtains.
You were scared he'd notice the paleness in your complexion, the thinness you hadn't had before.
The little bulge in your stomach pressing against him.
But he didn't.
And you didn't know if you had the courage, or the time to tell him before it was too late.
The radio was on in the living room. Satoru was humming a tune when a sharp pain shot through your whole body.
It wasn't coming from your chest this time, and it wasn't like the previous pains you'd felt.
Before you could even process what was going to happen, or the liquid dripping down your legs, a loud scream escaped you.
He appeared in the kitchen to find you hunched over the sink, holding your stomach.
That was the first time he noticed just the size of your stomach.
The swell that was too small to be full term, but it was.
His eyes didn't catch the blood spilling from the corners of your mouth, the other hand your had on your chest— because he was already taking you to the car.
Panic overrid his senses.
Fear consumed him. Guilt, regret, bile built up in his throat as he went pass multiple speed limits to get you downtown.
He pulled over to materialise you both into Shoko's office because he knew he wasn't going to make it by driving.
You were hauled onto a stretcher of some sorts, a bed. You weren't even sure with the amount of pain consuming you.
Satoru was screaming, profusely shouting something you couldn't hear as you lost ability to listen. Your eyes were dropping, and it all hurt so much.
You did feel something pinch you, maybe on your wrist. On your spine perhaps, or on your forearm. But you couldn't pinpoint exactly where what you assumed were needles being shoved into you.
Because you felt heavy. Your chest more than your stomach though.
Not a single coherent word came from you apart from threads of "It hurts." over what felt like an eternity.
A hand was holding yours.
The harsh edges and the familiar creases on the palm you traced every night told you exactly whose it was.
His.
You pushed out of mere instinct, because you felt your legs were open in the standard laying birthing position.
Not because you could see or hear Shoko telling you to. But because it hurt so much, your stomach, that you just wanted to push it out.
The pain stopped when you pushed one last time.
Then you felt light as a feather with each passing second.
You assumed your baby was wailing.
You wished you could see whether it was a girl or a boy.
The words I love you desperately wanted to escape you and reach the little one.
Satoru wasn't holding your hand anymore.
It panicked you not to see or feel anything. You wanted him near you more than the child.
Then a weight was placed on your chest.
Your hand shot up to hold the small frame on instinct.
Tiny, frail.
The smile on your face was genuine.
You wished you could see them.
Her or him.
Something told you it was a little girl though, mother's instinct.
Your baby.
But with the little force you had in your arms, you brought them up just enough to press your dry, cracked lips against their forehead.
The room blurred at the edges.
A cough followed—warm, metallic.
You barely noticed the weight lifted from your chest.
She's delicate. Soft and beautiful just like you.
Your was body lay out cold on the metal bed.
Then it was buried six feet underground in a casket that was too big for what you had become, all bones and degrading limbs.
He knew you weren't really there, underground. But the memory of your body relaxing, tension leaving your shoulders, your chest dropping for one last time as you took your final breath was something he'd never forget.
Something that had him picking himself apart everyday.
Shibuya had changed him.
Shinjuku had killed him.
But you,
You have erased him. Turned him into pure nothing.
A walking corpse, father of a baby spun from starlight that didn't deserve to have an absent father.
He remembered the noise in the room, the frantic beeping of the many machines that were attached to you. Far more than what he assumed a normal labour included.
He remembered the blood on the child you birthed, the one you grew under his nose.
His stomach was always in knots when he held her, yet she tilted his world with her sudden appearance in his life that he could find it in himself to see her as anything but his shared creation with you.
Then he remembered the never ending pool of blood coming from you.
Too much to be normal.
The tears that prickled on Shoko's waterline as she panicked meant no good when nothing she did stopped the bleeding.
No cursed technique, no stitching, no drug induced through IV.
She'd shouted so loud for him to leave the baby to you and help her— help her in any way at all to stop the red liquid that wasn't supposed to be leaving you, that he dropped his daughter into your arms.
Unknowingly, letting you have your first and last moment with her.
Fear was all that coursed through his veins, raw. Unmistakably consuming him from every side. His hands were red with you, he was scared.
Traumatized.
The room had gone quiet as you held your baby, eyes closed, a soft smile on your tired, sweaty face.
Shoko's choked cry said much more than any words ever could,
He took her out of your arms to tell you to hang on.
But it was already too late.
Cause of death, internal haemorrhage was written on the death certificate.
But it was more than that.
A tumour you'd hid from him, nestled deep within your heart that grew its life as you grew another.
He found the motherhood book on the piece of wood hidden behind the flowers in full swing.
Spring has never felt so cold despite the warm weather.
The mountains were freezing for him though.
He felt numb.
Weeks had passed already.
The ghost of you lingers around him.
At least that's what he tells himself because he still feels you.
Your sweet laugh echoing in the empty halls— following him around like invisible company, the plates you had put on the table that day were still left in their place— perfectly untouched like life hadn't continued.
For him it hadn't anyway, he was still at the hospital.
Still in the dark, but no longer in the battlefield.
In his own home.
He sees you everywhere.
Mostly in your daughter.
She has your eyes, and he's thankful for that because he didn't have the chance to see them before you left.
Why does the strongest sorcerer have a child harboured from pure love in an empty bed? Where he can't give himself to her because you've taken everything with you?
The cold creeps up in different ways despite the scorching sun outside.
It's in the halls, in his heart.
He's nothing.
Not a sorcerer, the strongest, a lover.
Nothing but a father without any consciousness.
And he feels it the most when he's wasting away, in your empty bed, as he holds your last act of love to him.
His darling little angel.
-
Sorry about that.. Satoru fluff medicine in my masterlist tho!
For months now you had been begging and pleading your boyfriend to visit the new trendy "vintage-style" photobooth they had set up near your small city apartment.
wc: 890.
Satoru had been busy working overseas with Suguru for the past month, leaving you all alone on evenings that felt too cold and quiet in Tokyo.
On most nights, you would call with him for some hours. Putting the ache in your heart at ease for some time before you eventually woke up with a heavy heart again.
Then after weeks, he finally came back. Eyes surrounded with those deep eyebags you never got used to seeing since he usually took really good care of himself, messy hair and briefcase in hand.
And yet, the warm smile that made it's way on to his face after seeing your tired figure unlock the front door was the sweetest thing you had ever seen.
You let him recharge at your apartment for a few days.
After practically nursing him back to life with massages and an open ear that listened to all of his complaints about the clients he had in the US, he finally felt well enough to take you out on a date.
He insisted on matching with you so, hours later- after having eaten at a cozy restaurant he had chosen, you were both strolling down the city on your way back home.
That was until, the red sign of the new photobooth came into sight. You immediately gushed, pulling at your boyfriends sleeve immediately to show him the place.
There was no refusal from his side as you dragged him over to it. He sat down on the small stool and wrapped his big hands around your waist to place you on his lap.
It was pretty cramped inside the booth- you could feel the steady beat of his heart on your back and how the warmth from his hands seeped through your jacket, but it's not like you both didn't live in each others skin, so it was fine.
You pressed buttons around after stealing some coins from your boyfriend and threw them in the slot, trying to get the machine to work until it eventually lit up and started a countdown. Scurrying, you quickly posed for the first picture.
A kiss on Satoru's adorable face while he pulled a silly face. As you pulled back, you saw that your lipstick had stained his pale skin and you broke out laughing- the second shot snapped right then with Satoru watching you giggle at the sight of him.
For the third pose, he pressed both of your cheeks together- smiling widely as the camera's flash went off.
Then for the last picture, he properly turned you to face him so he could give you a proper kiss. Your lips met his in the loving kisses your boyfriend always gave you and you melted in his hold.
The lights inside the booth died, indicating that the photo session had ended. A voice from the machine instructed to wait outside for your pictures so the both of you jumped out, feeling the cold night's temperature cling to your skin again.
Satoru stood by your side as you starred daggers at the drop box, all antsy while you waited for them to print.
You hadn't even noticed how your boyfriend was shifting nervously by your side. Biting his lip and looking literally anywhere but at you.
The pictures dropped and you reached for them at lightning speed. A bright smile immediately broke out form you as you skimmed the first picture all while getting closer to Satoru.
"Look baby!" You pointed at the first image where he looked like an absolute fool. He stayed quiet, too quiet as you moved down to the other shot.
After you commented on the second pic, then the third, he felt his hands getting sweaty and all clammy where they were shoved in his pockets as you neared the last shot.
Your eyes slowly trailed down to the last slot. The picture where Satoru had given you a real kiss, so frankly you didn't know what it looked like at all.
But,
In no world did you expect the last photo to be you and Satoru kissing with him holding a wedding band in between his fingers.
A very audible gasp escaped you as your head shot upwards to meet your 6-foot-something freakishly tall and handsome boyfriend scratching his neck nervously with his head turned sideways.
He turned his face to see your expression just to see if he had messed up, but when he saw your wide eyes and shaky hands, warmth spread through his body again.
And he pulled the velvet box out of his coat's pocket, dropped down on one knee- letting his trousers meet the wet snow as his fingers pried the case open to reveal the most gorgeous, the most you ring you have ever set your eyes on.
"Sweetheart, I'm aware I'm too much and that I'm bad at expressing myself but... I know that I want to hold you until the world ends and that I want to stay by your side until you remember me even in other lifetimes."
A wrecked, wet laugh escaped you as you tried to fight the tears that were trying to escape your waterline.
"Will you make me the luckiest man alive and marry me?"
"Yes!"
That night, you went back home no longer as a girlfriend, but as Gojo Satoru's fiancée.
I think we all collectively need more Satoru fluff
