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nanami kento || papamin
1.7kish, reader, baby yuji, and nanami celebrate his birthday. no bears or subway employees were harmed in the making. Day 3 prompt. Yes this is out of order and Yes I am late. Shh!
"Shhhhh!"
You would not argue with Yuji for any reason as small as this, however, surely, the pad of your feet against the wooden floors at 2pm, an hour before Nanami Kento is said to come home, doesn't need shushing does it?
"Someone's—" "Shhhh!!!"
In a whisper, you try again, "Someone is excited."
"Papamin can hear."
You quirk an eyebrow up, the boy returns to his task at hand. Sawing strawberries, the long ways, for cake decorations. It's a bit lopsided, but Yuji insisted every single bit of cake was necessary.
How else would his precious Papamin know how much the youngest adores him? Every single sprinkle and crumb is necessary!
You cut the blueberries for him, because those are too small and too squishy for his child-safe knife. It's cute, watching him concentrate so much, the boy has never been silent this long, if that doesn't speak to his devotion of Papamin what else would?
The lopsided cake becomes yours and Yuji's to decorate once all the fruit is chopped up. Yuji wants more fluffy clouds and you're not sure which frosting tip is supposed to make that, but selecting a 'open star' and praying it meets the critique of your harshest grader yet.
He claps happily and then carefully holds tongs to get the fruit onto the cake, though one drops a bit prematurely and his fingers go to grab the slippery sweetness. "Uh oh…." You can see his eyes water, there's a large hole where his finger previously was. You smile all the same, "Watch this."
You've binged a plethora of cake decorating videos, grabbing a flat long spatula and dropping a dollop of frosting a top, you sooth over the hole best as possible and make a flower with the tiny strawberries Yuji has cut up. "Flowers for Papamin!"
Nodding, you decorate the rest of the cake with help from the youngster, blueberries in the middle, more sprinkles on the cloud. It's no where near the pinterest photo but it's real and here. On the table where you, Yuji and Nanami will have lazy late lunch together. "Time to put it in the fridge!"
He escorts you like a bodyguard, pulling chairs and decorative vases larger than him away from your path, opening the fridge and insisting to hide the cake behind apple juice. His Papamin isn't a fan of that, after all, it's only for Yuji.
He gives you a high-five as you set about cleaning up. He's reciting all the words you've taught him today, spelling them each while he bounces around you, mostly excited the longest word he knows how to spell is birthday. Yuji did confess earlier, he didn't think it was such a long word, "B-d-a-y-, birthday." "B-i-r-t-h-d-a-y- birthday."
🎂
It isn't as if Nanami Kento is anticipating anything big, birthdays have taken new meanings once Yuji stepped into his life. Never had he imaged actually stepping in to parent his Godson, but he is nothing if not dutiful. He made a vow to keep Yuji safe always, and if that means processing his own stunted emotional baggage, then so be it.
He's brought balloons that fly, the kind Yuji will enjoy. He smiles picturing the blue and gold balloons floating around his kitchen, Yuji hidden by the island. Maybe Nanami should keep balloons on Yuji always, this way he'd always have awareness to his location.
You may not be a fan of that.
You and your sweet smile, kind eyes and, happy-to-help attitude. You work at Yuji's day care, one illness gone on too long, you staying by Nanami's side late into the emergency room, and he… he's a selfish as any man isn't he?
"You don't have to do this alone, Nanami." You had said it so matter of fact, as if the entire world would conspire to help protect Yuji if Nanami dared to look for hope.
Either way, his heart fills and is ready to spill over hearing, "Papamin!", upon entering the apartment. He tucks his shoes into the cabinet, places his coat and briefcase on the chair on the side, meant for these things, and keeps himself in a crouching position when Yuji's tell-tale feet pad across the floors. Your huff of "Yuji!" as he rounds the corner, giggling into Papamin's arms who raises to his full height.
He squeezes his arms around Nanami as best he can, "B-e-r-d-a-y! Happy Birthday!"
"Is it mine? Already?" Yuji laughs at that, you sigh, "He does know how to spell it, properly." Yuji does a 'Nu uh' and hides into his Papamin giggling, kicking his feet. "Happy Birthday Nanami, Yuji—" "Shh!"
You lift your arms, "Alright alright, all we did today was spelling." Yuji lifts his head, "Spellings." Nanami tilts his a bit, assessing your words, does he allow this little secret you two are in on? "Spellings."
🎂
The "stuffed" bear Yuji has made for Nanami is a hoot. It's tiny head and entirely too beefy middle body has the Nanami Kento laughing in ways that feel too precious to share with the world. And somehow you're allowed here, on this sofa, to watch him soften in safety. "Papamin!" Yuji lifts the bear in triumph, clearly his gift for Nanami will be the one snuggling him for weeks on end.
You pull out a miniature stuffed teddy bear, "Yujimin."
Yuji gasps, dropping Papamin teddy into Nanami's lap before crawling over the sofa cushions, stepping into your thighs and raising his arms for the teddy. It's a bit painful, he's starting to get too big for this kind of climbing adventures, but you drop the bear into his hands. He sits in your laps, tiny gasps and oohs, "Pink! Like me!" He points to the fur, you nod, brushing his pink hair from the back of his face, "Like yours."
Nanami pulls the Papamin teddy up, "Bath time."
Which is longer, because Yuji needs a story on how Yujimin and Papamin Teddy's came to be, how they found one another, where will they find honey? Do they know Winnie the Pooh? Important considerations to be made!
🎂
Yuji sleeps star fished, Papamin teddy on his belly and Yujimin teddy near his cheek. He made it through four pages of the book Nanami read to him, and then lights out. "He had a big day." You say to Nanami.
Tucking in the chairs at the dinning table, out of habit. Yuji has run into these more often than not, Kento clears the crayons and table set. A wipe down with a disinfecting wipes, down the sides of every chair's arm and he's in the kitchen. "I got this."
He notes, you trying to unload the dishwasher, it's more routine now. Him insisting on taking on the chores he can't due to his job, you meandering around the space, reluctant to leave. "How's your book coming along?"
"Hmm, still have just one fan." Your eyes dart over to Yuji's door, and then at the ground. You should get on that, finding a way to print and publish the children's book you've been working on. Nanami believes in your project, but that's Nanami, you wonder if there's anything you'd insist on doing that he wouldn't support you with.
It's not that his faith is blind, you've seen him reject the business ideas his blue eyed friend brings him, so… it's hard to say he's a bit soft on you. Cuz maybe he is, and then what does that mean?
You're an important piece of the village Nanami has mustered around him, he was suddenly thrown into guardianship. So unequipped he was those two years ago, now he understands Yuji before Yuji himself can find the right words—which he knows, he needs to break the habit of doing. Encourage Yuji using his own voice, allow him to fumble and struggle over certain words, yet he can't can he?
He wants to protect Yuji, who is too young to understand where his mother and father have gone, why Papamin is here. "Hey." A warmth that spreads only under your fingertips, your palm must be the missing piece from the sun, he turns softly, inquisitive.
A tiny blue box, a green ribbon, "Happy Birthday Kento."
You didn't have to, you know this. All the extra care you do with Yuji is the gift itself Nanami could never, ever, repay you for, but here you are again. Helplessly kind, caring, doting.
A selfish man he is, drying his hands with the sink towel, letting it rest over a broad shoulder as he takes the box, "Can I open it now or later?"
"Now." You wanna hear it, the big hearty laugh you know he'll let roar from his throat. Carefully he tugs at the green ribbon, ever gently, slides the tip of his finger into the careful folds of the paper. It's blue, which means it's Papamin, which means Yuji will absolutely want to play with it, draw on it, etc…
The plain box gives away nothing of it's contents, but as he removes the lid, the laugh he lets out is infection! Gosh, what a handsome, handsome man, he lifts the Italian Herbs & Cheese inspired seasoning, "Now, you know this could spell trouble."
"Trouble?" The smile doesn't fade from your lips, he nods, "What if Martha from Subway catches wind of this? Buying off-brand seasoning—"
"It's an artisan blend," you shrug, "if it reminds you of your precious Subway bread, that's on you." He loves when you do that, calling him out on his slightly unhealthy habit of eating at Subway almost daily. Yuji was much younger and Nanami still unprepared for what it takes to feed, raise, clothe, bathe, keep alive a toddler.
"I haven't been there in…," Gosh how he crosses his arms, hand to his chin, exaggerated thinking, "Huh, five days."
"Crazy." You lean close, hand on his forehead, "Are you catching something Kento?" You hand drops back to your side, he's tempted to catch it, you need to check again, who is he? Not eating at Subway for a whole 120 hours. And then you sing-song, "Must be all the recipes I've shown you, real food Kento, is unbeatable."
It is.
He thinks fondly of your patience in teaching him Yuji's favorite 'green sauce' pasta, an abundance of tenderness in your hands, helping him chop, stir, plate. "But… if you'd like to, scratch that craving, I guess I could be free tomorrow noon."
"Tomorrow noon?" He has a call with Gojo Satoru about thermal socks and their untapped potential, an easy thing to cancel. "Well, I can't promise a thing about the service," he holds the seasoning up, "But we could absolutely compare the two."
Pairing: Nanami Kento x Fem! Reader
WC: ~10K
CW: Fluff, smut, angst, topics of self-harm. This fic will deal with themes of death, so read at your own discretion.
Synopsis: Nanami Kento finally arrives in paradise, at long last. He meets you, but things are not what they seem. He'll learn what second chances are really about, and truly learn to live in the present.
Notes: Thank you, @bungalowbear, @blackfire2013, and @pmpmyread for reading the excerpts and guiding me through this. Your support was much appreciated. This is my submission for Nanami Week 2026. Heavily inspired by the Black Mirror episode, San Junipero.
🐼 synopsis: Troubled child Kento Nanami looks forward to every summer he stays with his grandparents in the countryside to escape the horrors that plague him at home. However, the common thread that spins a friendship between you is a vow you both don't realize will alter the quality and trajectory of your separate lives long afterwards.
🐼 words: 7.6k
🐼 cw: ANGST AND FLUFF ONLY. In-universe au, first love, curses, angst & comfort, childhood friends to lovers, some heavy themes, grief, some canon divergence, brief mention of character death, cursed tools, mentions of bullying, childhood trauma and fear, self indulgent/self-ship coded hell.
🐼 my day 1 entry for Nanami Week the SFW prompt: First Love. Thank you in advance 💕 there are many Danish references sprinkled throughout so if I made a mistake PLS let me know 😭there's really no words I can string together at this time that are sturdy enough to hold the weight of the love I have for this man, so I hope this fic can convey that instead. 🚬
🐼 @eveningatthemoviesnetwork @nanamiweek . dividers by @/designlikenonsense. sparkles by @/anitalenia
The sunshine rambles and stretches on in ample bursts amidst its glimmering sea of a sky in the countryside, save for the occasional patch of powdery clouds as the days sauntered into the heart of June, before it would usher in the official start of summer.
"Kento?" His grandmother, affectionately known as Mormor, calls from the warmed end of the trailing scent of a batch of loaves toasting in the oven in the sun drenched kitchen.
"I'm cooking lunch, please come help at once!"
"Be right there." Kento Nanami, aged 9 years old, murmurs as his eyes scan the half-devoured page in front of him with a bit more urgency. A singular blond bang falls in front of his face until the rest follows in a golden cascade to reveal the stray freckle or two underneath, skimming the lines of ink faster than he can find a suitable place to pause.
Once lunch preparations are nearly done, a heavy hand pats his shoulder.
"Need ya in the garden after you're done helping Mormor."
Kento sighs, but in the back of his unusually precocious mind, he knows his temporary disappointment will eventually be overshadowed by the pride in learned gratitude that surfaces after an honest afternoon's hard work.
Daylight persists with the sun dipping lightly over the horizon to cast long shadows of the approaching afternoon that ripple through swaying weeping willows near the river that runs to the large pond on the far end of the small village, across the bridge where Kento approaches, mind elsewhere, soaking in the peace the countryside affords him from the persistent darkness that clung to him back home, only pausing to kick the occasional stray stone back to the side of the road where it belonged.
He would have ridden his bike but the pleasant day and the long hours of fulfilling his grandparents' bidding left him wanting to take full advantage of the time during his Mormor's afternoon nap.
The village before supper is mostly quiet, with the exception of the typical group of suspects made up of the neighborhood kids that come to stay for the summer and congregate in the roads year after year.
Kento can vaguely remember being forced to mingle with them when he was younger and his Mormor would take him to gatherings, such as the occasional book club that she would be responsible for bringing a casserole to.
Those ones he didn't mind as much, for he could opt out of the roughhousing with the other kids and eavesdrop on the adult conversations instead, which Kento happened to follow quite closely when he'd take it upon himself to read the books beforehand.
Except for that one romance novel Mormor caught him with and abruptly confiscated, reminding him that it was not suitable for children.
Books were more compelling than playing pretend anyway, never mind the calming distraction they provided from seeing things he shouldn't and keeping the wild imagination he was frequently declared to have within the boundaries of his mind.
At least that's what the sensible part of young Kento believed, that was, perhaps unusually advanced for someone of his age depending on who you'd ask.
Besides, it had been years. Families came and moved away. The current circle of neighborhood kids probably wanted nothing to do with the gangly blonde kid who always kept his nose stuck in a book.
"Whatcha in for?"
Kento yelps at the sudden voice interrupting his occupied train of thought that tuned out the outside world long enough that he didn't realize he stumbled into a small clearing in a patch of trees near an arm of the bumbling creek that deviated from the main river that fed into the central pond.
And there you are.
You blink, confused at his confusion when he was the one clearly infiltrating the maximum security prison for highly dangerous magical beings you and your friends were currently imagining the small area as.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Hey what's taking so long?!"
"I'm just catching him up!" You yell to your group of friends that are congregated at the prison's toll bridge (aka the real bridge that's a few yards away)
"You must've done something real bad, you know." You mutter to Kento as you throw the monolith of eternal beauty(a lavender and gray pebble) you smuggled past the fairy guards into your leaf and acorn soup.
"I can see the accelerated time spell of this place is already beginning to take effect on you." You tut, pointing to Kento's worried expression, shaking your head as you use your ladel(a stick) to offer Kento a sip, who's still frozen with shock, confusion, and a ton of judgement.
"Drink this, it helps."
"I-I'm sorry, you're the one who's confused, I'm not-"
"Sure you are, you're Kento Nanami, the last missing elven prince, are you not?"
"I-."
"C'mon y'all, she's not even listening to us."
The fairy prison guards(your friends) have given up waiting on you to say your lines and have resumed their hostile negotiations with the band of rebels Kento assumes are here to break you and (apparently himself) out of the invisible cage you're stuck in.
"You really should sit down. You're technically standing on the lion jellyfishes' electrical current."
"Oh." Kento stumbles, moving out of the way of the circle of stones he notices are intentionally surrounding you both in this small cove.
"I've been sentenced to five eternities for threatening the King." You inform him, strumming the pine needle strings of your miniature harp.
"I'm a former servant of the castle, turned rebel leader. I was treated poorly by the King as a servant in my youth. I watched him murder my father and so I retrieved the monolith of eternal beauty to stay alive. I've made it my life's mission to avenge his death and stop the King's oppressive rule once and for all. What's your story?" You ask in a more chipper tone, pausing the dramatic background music on your harp to stir the leaf and acorn soup that's beginning to boil over.
"Um...aside from your unnecessary trauma dump. I'm here because..." Kento pauses. "Because..."
His mind goes blank, somehow suppressing the initial imaginative thoughts that usually bubble to the forefront of his brain. "...this is ridiculous."
"Awh, I get it. You're fatigued."
"No. I was trying to read. Yanno? A book?" Kento waves the thick young adult novel in his hand, exasperated.
"Wait, is that the new dragon series? The one they're making into a movie?"
"Yeah?"
"That thing is like a behemoth!" You cross your arms, impressed. "I'm surprised you're interested in it."
Kento pauses. "Why's that?"
"You're like one of the math olympiad kids who only cares about winning the science fair."
"I do have an imagination, you know." Kento retorts, beginning to turn away, trying to find his way back to the road.
"Then how come you won't tell me how you ended up in the most dangerous prison for fairytale creatures? I told you mine."
"'Cause we're not 6 anymore." Kento huffs.
You shrug, hoping to disguise your disappointment by turning back to your stew as a beat of silence passes over you, yet Kento remains where he's standing for a reason he can't put a finger on at the moment.
"Alright, I apologize, have we met?"
"Yes. You don't remember me?"
Oh.
At that moment, somewhere, deep, deep in the fuzziest recesses of his memory, Kento remembers you. How could he forget?
You were one of the girls in his grade back home, though the most recent school year you were in one of the other classes which could explain why adding the face to your name didn't click the first time.
Perhaps it was how you refined and popularized the method for making those annoying glue bookmarks that you would make and dry in the indents in those Spacemaker pencil boxes that sticks with him.
The teachers eventually put a stop to the whole operation when an unregulated black market of those annoying things began to break loose as a result.
A devastating blow to small businesses like yours, he remembers you lamenting.
"Never understood why everyone's in such a rush to bring capitalism to the second grade." He had muttered, shoving his textbooks into his messenger bag a few days after the teachers made the announcement.
"What the-?" Kento panics, realizing his favorite bookmark is nowhere to be found.
"Need a hand?"
There you were with an outstretched hand, waving what appeared to be a blue one with polka dots, suspiciously his favorite.
Kento looks at you blankly. "Thanks, but I don't have any money."
"I'm uh, c-clearing out my inventory!" You state cheerfully, hoping the nervous smile on your face is enough cover for the warmth on your cheeks and the barely concealed truth that you did in fact make this specifically for him and were holding onto for an indiscriminate amount of time, more so than how your delivery of those words was botched beyond belief like it was your first time ever speaking a sentence on Earth.
"It's on the house."
"Sure, I suppose." Kento mumbled, taking it reluctantly. "Thanks."
And he never did see the triumphant smile break out on your face after that before he turned and walked away, leaving you with that breadcrumb of an interaction you would try to sustain your schoolgirl crush on for the rest of the year until you never spoke since.
-----
"Hey, hey, Kento." You wave three times in front of Kento's face, silent before he blinks furiously as he swiftly snaps back to the present.
"You okay? Hey look at me, We're busting out of here...The rebels are here. You're gonna wanna take that with you." You gesture to his book. "We'll need to keep those elder scrolls of wisdom on hand in case of emergency."
"My what?"
"No time, just follow my lead. Go!"
Kento looks at an invisible camera as he's suddenly yanked by the arm through the grass at lightning speed. Up ahead, the small band of fairy rebels surge past the blockade of guards, over the bridge, up the staggering hill.
"Tuck and roll!"
Kento blindly follows your lead, lobbing himself on the ground and tucking and rolling until you come into the safe distance of the pond.
"Free at last! We made it past the veil into to the fairy kingdom."
Kento stands up and immediately falls back down.
"Oof. The effects of the monolith can be brutal once you're back." You assure Kento and give him a hand up and allow him to throw his left arm over your shoulder, supporting his weight which was surprisingly light, keeping his precious book tucked underneath the right as you strode towards the trees.
"Thanks." Kento mumbles, still trying to allow his eyesight to catch up with his orientation as the world kept spinning.
"Don't mention it. Let's pray the others made it out safe too. But from now on we need to keep a low profile. We're wanted men, you know." You point to an invisible poster on the nearest tree.
"Oy, it's even worse than we thought. C'mon."
Kento raises an eyebrow as you tiptoe quietly until you reach the pond's edge gesturing him near for a closer look.
"The reflecting pond of infinite prosperity will nurse you back to health. See?"
You tap the surface of the water with your finger and Kento blinks as a ripple begins to flow away from the impact.
There's a shift there he's not familiar with. Either he hit his head harder than he thought or he's really immersing himself into this imaginary play you have going on.
He's guessing it might be the former but as he gazes at his reflection in the pale green water, something unsettling flips in his chest.
"Hey."
Yet, somehow, when you speak, it goes away.
"Sorry."
"It's okay. It's only a small one."
"What?" Kento gulps, as he feels himself turn pale once again. His hair stands on end as he feels that force of dread begin to build up in his stomach as soon as it goes silent.
"Do you see it?"
He follows where you're pointing, until it leads to a figure hovering over the middle of the pond.
"N-no... that's impossible how did—?" Kento begins to panic.
The figure looks at him, until its lips curl into a sinister smile. It has the body of a fly but it's far too ugly and abnormally large to be considered as such. Its demented eyes hone in on him as it releases a high pitched shriek.
Kento wants to scream but his vocal chords have shriveled up in his throat. His heartbeat begins to thump at an alarming cadence so fast it echoes in his eardrums until he's certain it can be heard aloud from where you're standing.
"Kento?"
Kento turns and runs at top speed, over the hill, trips on the way down, across the bridge, down the road and back to his grandparents house.
"Kento? You're late for supper, skat."
Kento's sobs break the damn of tears streaming down his face before he crosses over the threshold, slamming the front door shut.
"Kento?"
His grandparents' questions go unanswered as he ascends the staircase and slams his bedroom door behind him.
"This isn't happening. It's not happening. Not real, not real, not real..." Kento whimpers in useless mantra, rocking back and forth, hands clasping the back of his head. "It's not real, go away."
A quiet knock comes at the door.
"Kento? Please come down for dinner."
"GO AWAY!"
Mormor pauses. Her momentary anger is quickly softened by the warning she recalls given by her daughter when Kento first arrived, the cautionary tale of his wild imagination that occasionally interfered with his sleep. She tugs at the collar of her robe with a concerned look on her face before taking her leave down the hall.
Kento cries quietly in his room, not noticing the plate of food his Morfar eventually leaves on a tray outside his door.
-----
Sometime in the middle of the night, when the hum of the refrigerator and the metronome of grandfather clock ticking down the hall are the lone keepers of the hushed hour, Kento finally decides to sit up, pacing to the door.
He hears his Mormor's voice speaking hurriedly, a bit in that dialect Kento's not as familiar with but it's enough for him to piece together what his Mormor is telling his mother hours away over the phone.
"Mor? You're calling quite late, is everything alright?"
"I think Kento is seeing them again."
"Mamma, are you sure?"
"He was inconsolable this afternoon and wouldn't eat his dinner."
Kento looks down at the plate at his feet and closes his door without another word.
"He doesn't do well with changes. He gets upset when his routine is interrupted."
"He's been perfectly content up until today. Even got a smile out of him this morning when I made fresh bread."
"Is he still sleeping well at night?"
"No. I still catch him reading. His light's on right now but he won't answer."
Mrs. Nanami sighs.
"We should give him time...it could be something else entirely. "
"Thank you, Mamma, keep me posted."
"You're welcome, my dear. I certainly will."
-----
The next morning arrives and Kento's eyes flutter open to the wayward tune of mourning doves outside his window and a gentle rapping at his door.
"Kento?"
Kento's bleary vision shifts into focus and his eyes widen as he sees you sneak underneath his Mormor's arm, strolling into his room before she can stop you.
"Hey Kento!"
"Your friend is here to see you." Mormor announces late, a tad flustered at your forwardness, but smiles nevertheless.
"You dropped this when you were running away screaming your head off."
Kento's eyes widen as you hand him his book, completely intact.
"Oh, thank you."
He flips through, inspecting the pages.
"I tried to figure out what page you were on but I gave up."
"No worries. Thanks anyway."
"So, you wanna come out and play with us?"
"Huh?"
"We still need to figure out your backstory and overthrow the evil king. Oh, and I already talked to your grandma and she said you could."
"But...what about my chores?"
Kento looks at his Mormor, whose expression twists sympathetically. Of course the countryside's list of tasks never paused on any given day, but, given the circumstances, Mormor has decidedly made an exception for today.
"The chores can wait. Why don't you get dressed and cleaned up? You and your friend can have a bite to eat before you head out?"
Kento wants to agree to your proposition but the haunting memories of yesterday slowly shift back into the forefront of his mind.
"No, thank you." He throws his blanket back over his eyes, a visible tremor of fear shaking through him.
"Hey!" You reach over, pulling the blanket off until Kento snags the end of it, engaging in a short tug-of-war.
"It'll be fun!"
"I really would rather not."
"Why? The flyhead scared you?"
"Flyhead?" Kento freezes, lowering the blanket just so that curious set of light chestnut eyes are visible. "You saw it?"
You nod. "Yeah I did."
"I...how?"
Mormor manages a concerned smile, though a bit confused. For now she surmises it must be familiar lingo between kids. Whatever it is, you seem to be reaching through to Kento, so she holds back any reserved judgement.
"If you come out, I can show you how to deal with them. I already took care of the one yesterday so he shouldn't bother us anymore."
"A way to deal with them? How?"
"Well, you gotta get up first!" You tease, releasing your grip of the blanket to toss a stray pillow towards his head.
Kento stands up in a moment of seemingly spontaneous rejuvenation, nearly pulling you out of the room and down the stairs. "Let's go!"
"Ah, Ah! Not after you get something to eat!" Mormor calls after you, stopping you in your tracks.
You giggle, nudging Kento with your shoulder for what it's worth. "Bet I could beat ya to the table."
-----
After a fresh bread basket and home boiled eggs, you're out in the steady rays of early morning summer sun again, telling Kento everything there is to know about the strange being he saw.
"Curses. That's what my dad called 'em." You explain, while Kento strolled next to you in his space as your temporary pupil at your side, arms unfolded to allow him to absorb every word, a new slew of million curious questions blooming past his excitement and slow vindication from the relief of puzzle pieces reconciling at last over a lifelong issue he'd been told and subsequently believed only existed in his head.
"When I first saw them, I think I was 5? At least that I can remember. My parents said I was fussy as a newborn so it might've been earlier than that." Your voice sounds futher far off the more you recount.
"My parents taught me that if I use my imagination and just imagine that the curses are part of the games, then they can't hurt me."
"You can do that?"
"Sure, it's easy. My parents say I have to be older before they can teach me more about certain stuff. They said there's a special school that'll teach me but I'm still too young to go. So that's why we come to the countryside every year 'cause the curses don't like it out here."
Kento watches you patiently, eyes following the new pebble you've begun to kick back and forth to one another in some sort of passive game.
"Every now and then they take me to these boring meetings. A bunch of old guys just sit around and talk about random curse stuff. I hated going cause the kids there are always so rude."
"Wait, there's others? Kids our age who see the same thing?"
"Well sure there are. Hey, you know, maybe my mom can talk to your mom and you can come too!"
"Really? That would be great if she could."
"Sure thing. I don't really know any other kids besides you who can see 'em. I never made friends at those dumb meetings. I always got teased."
"Why's that?" Kento asks, perplexed, his voice lowering a bit out of concern. "You seem kind enough to me."
"'Cause I'm adopted." You shrug. "I look different than my parents and I wasn't supposed to be able to see the curses either until they taught me how, so I get called a fake."
Kento doesn't kick the pebble back to you this time. He looks at you, sensing the true weight of the unspoken hurt you carry that you're strong enough to release out loud to him, that re-offending familiar sting of misunderstanding he's been burned by as well that suppresses all those natural feelings he had learned were bad to feel.
He puts a hand on your shoulder, before giving it an awkward pat.
"You're not a fraud to me, if that makes you feel any better. I think you're real."
"Hey thanks." You smile, nudging him with your arm. "C'mon, I'll introduce you to everyone. None of 'em can see curses either but they're all really chill."
-----
"Hey y'all."
The rebel fairy council meeting is interrupted momentarily as you and Kento approach.
"What took you so long?"
"I was getting Kento. He's gonna join us today."
"The Nanami kid? The one that's really quiet?"
Kento stands there awkwardly concentrating on a grasshopper nearby as he becomes very conscious of being perceived with a reputation that apparently preceded him that he wasn't aware of, twisting his fingers repetitively in his pockets like the motion could somehow render him invisible on the spot if he focused hard enough.
"You ain't a spy, are ya?" One of the kids squints as they continue their interrogation of the suspicious newcomer.
"N-no I'm not a spy."
"You ain't some kind of freak?"
"Um...no I'm not." Kento's face blooms redder than the tomatoes in his Morfor's garden.
"Hey! Guys, he's real useful." You step in, advocating on Kento's behalf to alleviate some of the heat from the hot seat he's currently sitting in.
"He has the elder scrolls." You gesture to the book in his hand, looking more proud than a defense attorney delivering their winning argument in court.
The others gasp.
"So how come you didn't say so in the beginning? Alright, alright. Look, kid. You're in for now. Just don't slow us down, alright?"
"I won't, I mean, I'll prove myself useful. You have my word." Kento gulps, his face graduating to several shades lighter.
The hours of play pass by in a blur to everyone outside of the bubble of innocence Kento and your newly found circle of friends found themselves in.
The flyhead never did resurface again, but a different force is slowly beginning to construct itself the longer Kento is around you without you noticing while the minutes of summer prolong themselves in a way Kento just assumed he wasn't meant to ever experience.
When you laugh, he finds himself unable to remember how easy it once was to retrieve the shadows that accompanied him everywhere he went.
It overturns and digs up that feeling of childhood somewhere along that way that stopped feeling like one, and somehow every flower that crosses Kento's path in the trails by your favorite trees in the fairy kingdom resemble ones that he'd have a feeling you'd like.
Somehow, he wonders in depth for the first time if this is what his father meant every time someone made the grave mistake of bringing up the long-winded story at parties of how Mr. Nanami met his wife.
But for now, all you have is the day, the endless sun and the neverending stream of worlds yet to be in the young minds of Kento's and yours that don't want to sleep.
It lives in the warmth remaining long after the hours run out like the scattered seeds and wishes uttered quietly to himself and carried by the wind from the picked dandelion you offer to him in the waning light of the countryside's sky.
------
Throughout the day, Mormor hears the distant laughter coming from the bridge and the pond but her daughter's words echo in her memory and she supposes one afternoon can't hurt.
Kento was an especially responsible child after all, surely he wouldn't let the bowl of soup and rye bread sandwich on the table go cold.
She continues sweeping her porch, humming to herself as she can't allow the chore list to interrupt the creation of childhood memories.
-----
"Dang, your Mormor doesn't ever make you have a time you gotta be home?" You ask Kento as you trudge down the road, out of breath, and warmed by the sun.
"Um. No, no I don't." Kento lies.
A street lamp flickers, signalling the late hour that was probably well past supper.
Technically, Mormor didn't give him a time to be home. Despite his better judgement, something vague settles in his stomach like an unknown pit.
"You're lucky, I wish mine weren't so strict."
The gravel crunches under your jelly shoes and you wobble slightly to kick the rock under your heel until it lands lightly next to your feet.
"Oh my goodness!! I completely forgot!"
Without warning you bolt in the other direction.
"Huh?"
"No time! Come on! Come on!"
"But..." Kento tuts his teeth nervously as he looks in the direction of the staggering glow of distant yellow lights in the windows of his grandparents' home, consequences rattling across his brain in a broken spiral before he too takes off after you, leaving a small trail of dust in his wake while the sky shows the beginning signs of indigo.
-----
"There he is...whew!"
Kento nearly trips and falls down the hill when you arrive at the pond across the bridge, curiously craning his neck at the hole in the tree you're currently occupying yourself with.
Inside of it is a small plastic panda, sitting with his legs straight out, pudge in an endearingly adorable ratio and a black and white belly that's smaller than the palm of your hand.
"I got him at the book fair. Kawaii needs his greens every night. He watches over the fairies in the trees while I'm away. I know he looks like a regular bear on the outside but he's actually like a good luck charm." You explain to Kento.
"My parents said he's supposed to help me, and one day I won't need him anymore since I'll be able to control things better all by myself."
Kento can't explain it either but that shudder of an unseen force arises again as he stares into the little plastic panda's face. Almost as if the area around it is bending...
"He needs a proper habitat. I hate just putting him in this tree. He doesn't have a bed or a furniture!"
"Well, here, why don't you give him to me?" Kento suggests before his brain can catch up to him. "I can make him a habitat. My Morfar's always been good at that kind of stuff. I bet he could help make a home for..."
"Kawaii."
"Yes, Kawaii." Kento nods, locking down the name of this possible new friend.
You consider the alternatives, the words your parents gave you when they gave Kawaii to you. You know you have no reason not to trust Kento.
"Okay, deal. I'll give him to you tonight and you bring him tomorrow and we'll meet at the lamp post?"
"Promise." Kento reassures you. "I'll take good care of him."
You smile as you retrace your steps back together in the minimal light that has now turned dusky blue.
The presence of the sun stays behind long after it bid the sky farewell and tucked itself into its bed of gray clouds. The symphony of cicadas and croaking of frogs settles over the grass that sway with the percussion of the evening breeze like a cloak of stars.
You both pause under the lamplight, a beacon of orange borrowed from the dwindling sunset that is soon to be no longer.
"See you tomorrow?"
"See you tomorrow."
"Goodnight Kento. Goodnight Kawaii."
"He says goodnight back." Kento grins and you smile before you disappear into the house three doors down.
-----
The earful Kento received from Mormor and the cold sandwich was well worth the full night of sleep he had not gotten for an amount of time that might as well have felt like years to 9 year-old Kento.
His eyes flicker open with the whimsical dustings of the summer morning's light, pleased to discover Kawaii is right where Kento left him, perched on the nightstand next to his book.
"Morning." He mutters to the little bear, expression ever vacant as that comforting feeling emanates from its small little black dots for eyes.
Kento hates to admit as a kid who once swore he would never attach himself to silly things like toys that he's beginning to understand why you have such a strong connection to Kawaii.
Kento gets up and strides into his bathroom with a pep in his step, doing his usual wash up and getting dressed until his feet hit the stairs, Kawaii in tow.
Mormor looks up from her plate where Morfar is seated across from her, morning paper folded next to his napkin until a small piece of egg rolls off his fork and onto the sentence was reading.
"Godmorgen."
"Godmorgen." Kento shoves his eggs into his mouth, immediately regretting the instant scorch to his tastebuds.
"HSFHAHASFHAHAAA." He swallows them with difficulty, reaching for his orange juice to tame the burn before reaching for his toast.
Gulp gulp gulp. Cronch cronch cronch
"Skat. Slow down."
"I'm sorry-" cronch, gulp. "This is my favorite. Thank you for making it, Mormor." His chair slides back on the wooden floor with a loud squeal as he hastily wipes his face.
"Where do you think you're going? Mormor inquires in that stern tone that would make any reasonable person freeze on the spot.
Morfar looks up, coughing before he decides to go back to the half egg-smeared article about the mysterious vandalism of the town statue of its bear mascot for the seventh straight week in a row.
"There are chores to be done, you know."
"Yes, I know, Mormor, but—"
"But? You think they'll just get done by that magic you claim to see? I made one exception yesterday, Kento. But you know the rules. Work. First."
"But, I made her a promise...." Kento protests weakly, already feeling his knees wobble for pushing the envelope further than he ever had with his grandmother's rules that he knew good and well not to challenge on a pleasant day, much less a bad one.
"You can hold up your promise. After these chores." Mormor side eyes her husband who quickly shifts to attentiveness like he didn't let the last 30 seconds go by with no absorption, paying them to the first hint of today's daily crossword puzzle instead.
"You heard Mormor, Kento. Garden. Now. Be back in 10 minutes to help with the dishes."
"...Yes, Morfar."
-----
"Hey! What took you so long?"
"I'm sorry. Mormor had me do chores again today."
"Oh, its okay. My parents did too."
Kento pauses as he approaches you, noting the weariness in your countenance that seemed to dull that natural sunniness about you by a few degrees.
"Hey, you alright?"
"Course I am, what do you mean?"
"Um, I dunno, you look kinda tired...but hey, I brought Kawaii." Kento reaches in his pocket, showing the little bear, safe and sound.
"EEEE you brought him back! I missed you!" You give him a hug, squeezing Kawaii close.
"You were right. He really is like a good luck charm."
"Wait, he worked for you too?!" You ask, flabbergasted.
"My mom said Kawaii is only supposed to work for me and nobody else! My sibling stole him one time and he didn't work. Ha! Serves em right." Your lips turn into a sly grin as you give Kento a playful elbow.
"Guess you just have the magic touch, huh? Is that right, Kawaii? Is Kento your new favorite?"
Kento smiles as you bring him to your ear to ask Kawaii's opinion directly.
"Nah, second favorite. You're still his first." Kento bashfully corrects.
"Well that's more like it!" You smile, putting Kawaii back in the front pocket of your dress where he belonged.
Kento beams as you resume your usual walk, the river rambles to your right in euphonious echoes blending with the cacophonic chirps of birds in the heart of the afternoon.
"Hey, want to race to the light post?" Kento asks, deciding a rematch was due for the loss you gave him the other day at breakfast.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because you're gonna win, duh."
"How are you so sure about that?"
"I saw you at recess." You dismiss him with a wave at your hand. "You weren't one of the ones picked first at soccer for nothin'."
"Haha, so?"
"How come you quit playin' anyways?"
"Eh. Zenin made it miserable." Kento recalls that young spoiled boy that used to be in your grade who had been pulled out a couple years ago in order to receive some fancy private tutoring.
"Alright. Fine. Let's see if you still got it, then."
"One, two..."
You take off hastily, almost tripping over your legs. "...THREE!"
"I never said—ah, for Pete's sake." Kento chuckles before running quickly after you.
The race became a trek through forgotten lands that led back to another daily checkup on the health and prosperity of the fairy kingdom near the pond.
That evening, when the blue became tinged with the orange of fading sunlight, Kento felt that subtle knot of dread beginning to re-fasten itself, knowing he'd have to bid you farewell and shoulder the burden of the lonely evening once again.
But, to his surprise, having already sensed his disappointment, you start to hand over Kawaii.
"Here."
"I can't."
"Just take him, Kento. You need him more than me."
Kento pauses, though possibly true, despite the relief he feels immediately upon holding the little bear, something still uneases him about taking Kawaii for another night. Remembering that look on your face, the way that tiredness weighed on your expression the next morning.
"Keep him." Kento insists.
"What about his house?"
"I can still make him his house. How about, we'll trade off, every other night?"
"Deal."
Kento grins, handing off Kawaii to you.
"If—,"
He pauses.
"If you bring me five of your Mormor's cookies tomorrow."
"I- five?" Kento sputters.
"Hey, do we have a deal or not? You gotta keep Kawaii alllll night if you can't handle that."
"I...five is a lot to ask, you know?" Kento frowns. "Mormor is not some free cookie factory." He pauses and reconsiders. "....Fine, very well."
"Deal. I knew you'd come around."
"Heh, like you'd ever know." Kento mutters without denying the plan he's already hatched, counting down the seconds until he can see the look on your face when he holds up his end of the bargain.
-----
The light under Kento's bedroom door stays on into the late hours.
Small wood shavings fall onto a tarp as Kento sets to work, applying everything his Morfar taught him, tongue sticking out of his mouth in concentration as he angles the small knife, skillfully whittling, slowly carving away at what he doesn't realize in the current moment of dedicated concentration is only the fulfillment of the beginning of so many promises he hadn't even made to you yet.
Yet somehow even that fleeting thought feels like something he'd rather rise to the occasion to meet than cower away from for a reason that none of the most advanced novels he's ever read can provide him with the adequate vocabulary to explain.
-----
He's up before the first note of the mourning doves' melody can float across the halls of the empty sky as he cleans the kitchen with purpose, stepping out into the garden like he's on a mission.
Mormor passes Kento on the staircase, nearly doing a double take as she watches him carefully balance his neatly folded and sorted laundry back to his bedroom(with an already made bed) before he emerges.
"Mormor, I got my chores done early, can I go out and play?" He asks, holding his breath, bracing himself for his next humble request.
"And could you bake an extra batch of cookies, please?"
---------
Your flip flops slap noisily on the crunching gravel, flicking off the morning dew from rain that clung to the grass while a barely there breeze rustles the remaining chill in the trees from the night as warmth brews with the awakening dawn like a pot of coffee.
You're fully expecting to beat Kento to your meeting spot but today is the first day he'll prove you wrong: five of Mormor's cookies to be exact, and a small wooden carved bed that Kawaii had always wished for.
------
From the rise of the sun to the descent of cicadas at night, every day blooms a new pattern of the endearing simplistic childhood happenings of a countryside summer.
July arrives, dragging in more heat from the brightest sun in the sky as one more freckle appears by Kento's eyes that light up with joy at the sight of gulerodskage (carrot cake) his Mormor made as he turned ten, that closed and wished for only one thing in a long while he hadn't on those previous birthdays, which was to have as many more just like the ones you, and this summer gave him.
Mormor's cookies and Morfar's tomatoes in exchange for your folks' oranges and strawberries. The better half of Kento's lunch in exchange for your smile and more chapters from his favorite book. More sidewalk chalk and playfully bent rules of the game. More puddles from late August rain. More popsicles and a growing fondness for piña colada on Kento's part and early mourning doves ringing in before the day.
The hours stretched thin in number just like Kento's nightmares whenever that bear stayed the night.
For weeks at last, Kento went to bed with nothing but the expectation of another outside adventure and his first love awaiting him in the morning to beat the creatures that used to haunt him every night.
His purpose for doing something now includes Kawaii, with some help from his Morfar, helping him craft one more piece of furniture in the habitat of his dreams, filling up Kawaii's cardboard box that Kento brings every morning to your meeting spot with one more room in it, one more piece of furniture upholding the end of his promise he made to keep him safe.
And so, time passed unapologetically while neither of you were looking.
It was some day that neither of you can single out as the last one.
One last evil fairy king defeated. One last round of unstoppable laughter. One last time where the daylight held on until 9 pm when Kento watched it melt to indigo with you hand in hand until that street lamp flickered on like the remaining sand through an hourglass.
"Wait! Kawaii! Kento needs Kawaii! I can't leave him without Kawaii!"
One more time like right now as you say your final goodbyes and your families await in the car, that you decide to leave with him in the only way you can.
"I can't take him."
"Yes you can. I'm willing to give up Kawaii if it means you can sleep better at night. Keep him, Kento." You say loudly so your voice doesn't shake.
"Hold onto Kawaii for me. Just give him back when you no longer need him, yeah?"
Kento swallows, remembering your words, knowing that day must have already come for you.
"I promise. I'll hold onto him."
You smile and he smiles back, one last hug and one final glance at the little cardboard mansion with hand carved furniture you built with Kento's Morfar for Kawaii together, and the tears don't flow down Kento's face until your family's car is long out of view.
-----
The next summer at his grandparents' arrives, but without you.
Kento still does most of everything that he can, for your memory's sake. He imagines and he reads, the fairy kingdom of trees at the pond remain free of all tyranny as long as he and Kawaii visit.
Kento lets his Morfar help him carve one more thing for Kawaii's ever expanding mansion, choosing colors and keeping layouts in the way you probably would have approved of, even if Kento relies mostly on the shape of what he remembers that you left behind.
He stays busy with the tasks his grandparents give him. From helping Mormor in the kitchen, to the gruff acknowledgement as the closest thing to praise wrapped in endless garden tips he'd get from his Morfar.
That summer turned into his last in the countryside, with Kawaii sleeping at his side.
-----
New friends and a new school, the dawn of Kento's adolescence arrived and soon he wasn't the only boy who once cried for the invisible horrors nobody else could see.
He learned how to fight them as a sorcerer, more hairs left on his pillowcase by the morning that he learned to sleep through instead, making room for utter devastation that the little despairs prepared him for. He hadn't stopped for some time to realize all of what was held at bay by those precious carefree childhood summers at his grandparents' home.
You never did come back after that summer. The convenience store just ran out of his favorite stuffed bread. Kento Nanami can only vaguely remember his Morfar's favorite gardening tips.
His best friend, Yu Haibara, is dead.
Adulthood and the world of curses don't leave much time nor space he can allocate for living bigger than baseline survival. Money. His childhood, that one summer, some far off lifetime ago. Money. A new dream of Malaysia.
A brush with the slow moribound succession of all 28 years of his life in that subway station he survived that dreadful night, beginning the next 28 with a new lease on life.
He slowly takes his way back, rebellion to rebirth a new purpose, to return and choose to live when mere survival almost destroyed him.
He's learned it now, and it's earned him back, every scar, every shaky step forward more solid into the orbit of a long lost path he had crossed with once and thought he wouldn't again for good.
-----
It is an early morning in the spring, Kento Nanami, aged 36 years old, looks back contentedly at his half-scarred reflection over the sink.
To his left, some messy handwriting on lined paper, and a velvet box with his mother's ring.
The windows fog with the collide of sea and rain.
A small chapel filled with loved faces sits eagerly in wait.
One more thing, Kento remembers and delivers to Nobara Kugisaki before he meets you at the end of that aisle.
"She is gonna kill you for choosing to do this right now, you know?" Nobara shakes her head, emptying the little bear Kawaii into her pocket.
Kento just grins. "Those are consequences that I can live with."
And he vowed anew that very afternoon on the culmination of his fulfilled promise from that one childhood summer with you that he would.
-----
"That was completely uncalled for you know, offloading KAWAII onto me like that RIGHT BEFORE I walked down the aisle."
Kento takes your left hand in his, squeezing it tightly so it has nowhere else to go on your remaining drive into the country.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Nanami." He says on purpose, giving you his version of a wink from the hollow of his left eye whose subtle expressiveness is just as unphased as ever in the driver's view mirror.
"Cruel and wrong. Just SICK and WRONG."
"And honest." Kento says calmly in in that frustrating way he had mastered of reframing everything to be better than he had left it.
"It was honest, and true. Tender. Soft. Human. You."
"I love you, Kento."
"And I love you more."
The stars that line your soul.
Tsukamoto in the backseat is doing his best to reckon with the fact that he's no longer the only bear in your lives, having recently been adopted by you and Kento from Yaga to retire him from training to a new purpose in life.
And he supposes that the calming protective energy from Kawaii can put them both on neutral ground, at least for now.
You arrive at your destination, scouring the grounds of your new home until you find the perfect spot for Kawaii and his mansion in a small grove of trees.
"I think this place will do just fine." You smile as Kento pulls you in for a kiss next to the for sale sign, glossed over in big red letters.
"That's exactly what I hoped you would say, love."
Before he follows after you into the empty farmhouse.
Synopsis: An evening with Soshiro takes an unexpected turn when he agrees to try something new ... [Hoshina x Reader]
Contents: NSFW! Romance, established relationship, explicit sexual content, oral sex, face-sitting, rimming, anal play (all male receiving).
(The Vice Captain works very hard, and deserves to have his cake eaten, as I strongly believe.)
Dividers by: @uzmacchiato
Time slips unnoticed, into velvet-clad corners, when you're alone with him.
Evening is a shift that comes all too soon, shadows rising along the walls, unable to break the cocoon of lamplight surrounding you both.
Times like these are rare, when you can both cast aside the trappings of duty, walls of analytics on flashing screens, sharp commands barked over speakers and the tramp of boots over tarmac.
You're resting between the relaxed spread of Soshiro's legs, one elbow propped on his knee, turning pages at a leisurely pace as you finally embrace the chance to read the novel he'd loaned you a week ago.
His fingers are in your hair, absent and gentle, the tips applying light pulses of pressure to your scalp, as he flips through some videos on his datapad.
Warmth asserts itself as you lean back into him, sighing as you take in the solid weight of him against your back.
He turns his head, nose nudging playfully against your ear.
"Tired?"
"Hmm. Drowsy, maybe."
"Am I that good as a pillow?"
"A very muscular pillow. But yes."
He breathes a soft laugh as you half-turn to languidly embrace him, tracing a barely perceptible line across his jaw.
In the lamplight, you can see all those secret tender parts of him, the fine hairs illuminated on the skin of his arms, the tight, pale, shallow trenches of old scars, the shorn growth against the nape of his neck, a contrast to the fall of silky strands above. You spy the rough-edged callouses on the insides of those clever, sinewy fingers, now hanging relaxed against the edge of the sofa.
It gives you a moment of unguarded wonder, that in all these hidden ways, he is yours to appreciate.
Perhaps, now might be the ideal time to ...
"Soshiro."
"Hmm?"
It's barely a query, more a contented hum as your touch travels further, back and forth along his cheek, up across his eyebrows, down the bridge of his nose. He tilts his head back, eyes closing in an single moment of complete bliss.
"We have the whole afternoon to ourselves."
"You makin' a proposal of some kind?"
"Maybe."
"Now, drop that coy act."
"No such thing here, sir."
"Sir? Is that what we're playing?"
"No."
"Come on. Give a guy a heads up."
When you don't answer immediately, he cracks one eye open before sitting up, transitioning from languid to alert with frightening speed.
"Oh? Somethin' else you had in mind?"
You've severely underestimated how hard it is to get the words out.
How would you even go about telling him exactly what you wanted?
"Maybe ... it's better if I show you?"
He's now watching you, as he must analyze each opponent in the field, gaze flicking across your face, taking in every tell-tale shift, the catch of lower lip between your teeth, the way you don't quite raise your eyes to his.
"Since when are you this shy with me?"
To anyone else, he might be teasing. To you, there is subtle meaning, a soft, unfurling invitation, fragrant as a flower that only opens to the night.
The lowering of his voice almost sends a shudder through you.
In spite of it all, the words still don't come. There is but one way around this.
Slowly getting to your feet, you hold out one hand to him.
"Please?"
He regards you for a moment, leaning back on one elbow, before a brief lift of his eyebrows and a small curve of the corner of his mouth tells you that he's at your disposal.
His hand slots into yours, following as you lead, for a change, surprisingly obedient.
That doesn't bode well, from your experience. Soshiro loves turning the tables on you, but this time, you might just catch him off guard enough to make your desires clear.
In the bedroom, you let go of him, fingers trailing against the tips of his before you climb onto the bed and pat the space beside you.
Still obliging, he seats himself, playfully dipping in for a kiss, lips soft and slightly open.
Palms supporting his weight, lean torso stretching out, cat-like, he's all patience and no mercy, holding your prisoner with the expectant tilt of his head.
For what you have planned, permission yet to be granted, you must pay homage first to what he does to you.
The loose cotton trousers and sleep shirt are shed easily, bringing with them the fragrance of the bath you'd taken earlier.
Underwear follows with ease.
Soshiro tracks the unveiling of your form with that warm, sensual appreciation that's now so familiar to you. He raises a hand to the hem of his own shirt, as if testing how much you'll allow him.
With a small push of that same hand, you shake your head, smile growing.
He let's you take charge, legs swinging slightly in that engaging way he has of showing just how much he anticipates what's to come.
Naked, you grip his thighs lightly, bracing as you lean forward, the arch of your back now within his line of vision.
He whistles softly, one of his fingers working its way through a twist of your hair, tugging.
"Now that's a view, sweetheart."
"You're about to give me a better one."
He certainly does, mischief made murky with arousal as you slide your hands up, up, beneath the shirt, taking it with you in your mapping of his torso.
In the dim light, his body is marked as if by a meticulous scribe, a hundred stories of battle recorded in every puckered scar, those more faded a testament to all the ways he has grown as a soldier.
Up, up, over the tighter breadth of his chest and shoulders, catching there momentarily, before you draw the shirt over his head.
He regards you, hair mussed on one side, pushed away from his forehead, a slight flush across the bridge of his nose.
Before he asks, one finger placed over his lips silences him.
Then, you're sliding down the elastic of his waistband and underwear, the dark trail of hair growing wider, soft beneath your fingers.
He is already half-erect, exposed inch by inch as you render him as naked as yourself, a sumptuous vision laid out before you.
The drop of material around his ankles is quick in comparison, kicked away as his smile fades slightly, now more fixated on the way you move away from him.
He follows you, with eyes, and then shuffling forward on his knees, as you slip back closer to the headboard.
Soshiro still hasn't unraveled the yarn of intent, but he's caught one of the threads, closing in hand over hand.
You stop his progress with light touches to his shoulders, and he straightens, the shape of him stark and powerful, broad in the shoulder, narrow in the waist, the ripple of his abdomen a living current beneath feather-light tracery.
He lets you look, as he looks in turn, all of him bared to your view.
Strength tempered by devotion, discipline, delectable in its shedding, the tenderness and trust that march side by side, from the brightly lit halls of his heart to yours, all presented in one iridescent moment.
Soft lines of fire, drawn down the contours of his chest, catching on the fine hairs there, circling his nipples, and he's letting out a shaky breath, a clear sign that you're as breathtaking to him as he is to you.
There is a symmetry in the way your palms drag across him, down the ridge formed along the middle of his abdomen and up the lean length of his thigh.
His head falls back as you narrow in on your target, the silky pull of skin shifting back and forth as you stroke the heavy, heated length of him.
In the humid hush of the bedroom, focus draws its claws to a searing point, where your lips join with his again, and this time, it is different.
Lush, heady, reverence and lust drives the delicate spike of your tongue against his, and you know all too well that you have to tell him now, before this goes further.
"Soshiro."
You can barely form the word, as his mouth covers yours.
"Feel like telling me now?"
His hands are on your waist, fingers flexing, on the verge of taking action.
He will, if you don't.
"I want to taste you."
A hum of amusement vibrates against your throat, where his lips have currently found purchase.
"Y'could have led with that."
"Wait. Not just that."
You stroke once more, and he is now fully rigid in your grasp, a soft groan escaping him.
"Then - "
"Here too."
Sheathing him in the slow pull, you slide your hand down to his base, cupping the sac, rolling in your palm. His skin is even softer here, and your handling of him draws out a hiss of pleasure, thighs unconsciously spreading further apart to give you better access.
"Fuck, that's good, I - "
"And here."
Your words now barely audible, you trace a line with shy hesitance away from there, a searing pathway from the base of him to where the curve of his buttocks begins.
Soshiro's eyes fly open, one hand coming to rest on your wrist.
He holds you there as you ask him for permission silently, ready to move away if he gives you the signal.
"Wait, that's what you wanted? You sure?"
"I do. I want to. Only if you'll let me, of course."
He looks away from you briefly, one hand coming up to scratch feverishly at the back of his neck. His ears are more scarlet than you've ever seen them, but you hide your amusement at the sight.
Soshiro doesn't seem put out, more a case of the rare bashfulness you've been privileged enough to drive him to on occasion.
Seeing him like this winds a vice around your lungs, sweet and wine-rich.
"Ah, well, I mean, sure. I don't ... have objections. Sounds good. But damn, I didn't know you liked that."
"I didn't want to try it until now. With you, I mean."
The heat from his face is now almost palpable.
"Well, how do you want to ... "
In answer, you smile, shifting away from him to lie on your back. Your legs slip between his, hips sliding into place against his inner thighs as he straddles you.
He is watching you with something close to disbelief as you crook a finger, beckoning him further up, before tapping your mouth impishly.
"Come take a seat, sir."
A shaky exhale, followed by a breathless laugh are your rewards.
"You can't be serious."
"I am serious."
"You want me to - "
"Sit on my face, Soshiro."
"D'you have any idea what you're asking? You'll suffocate!"
"And maybe they're worse ways to go out."
"Now, don't you - "
You're both laughing by now, the earlier uncertainty dissipating as he considers you from above, the mischief building in his glance a welcome reignition.
"All right, but I'm not putting my weight down. Sure way to get your nose broken."
Running a hand up the side of his thigh, you urge him forward.
"Stop worrying. And get up here."
He shuffles carefully towards your head, and you inhale sharply at the completely new angle offered of your lover's form.
In spite of his objections, his cock is flushed and harder than ever, veins standing clearly beneath the skin, flesh bobbing slightly against his lower abdomen as he moves, leaving translucent traces of fluid where the head briefly makes contact.
The heat of him surrounds you, the weight and heft of those powerful thighs now angled right above your chest. A slight dusting of coarse, dark hairs speckle his upper thighs, thickening as they form part of the thatch above his erection.
Soshiro's scent is what is most intoxicating, musky, earthy, slight sweat mingled with the distinct smell of him.
He's right above you now, keeping his balance on his knees as you utter a soft gasp, the length of him brought down with greed born of desire to your lips.
Above you, a shudder runs through him from top to toe, knees sinking further into the bed as you pass your tongue all along his length, coating him in wet heat.
"Ahhhh, fuck."
It's almost an involuntary expulsion from his chest, an excalamation of surprised warmth, because he's never experienced what you're giving him in this position before.
You let it play out, the familiar dance of taking his head in your mouth, drawing back the foreskin with a push, gently circling within the wet tip, tasting him thoroughly.
He chokes back another groan, hips jerking fitfully.
This close, you can feel every twitch, every pulse, and blood thunders in your ears, almost loud enough to drown out the sounds of how you slick him down to the base.
A few more strokes and you find your rhythm, letting out soft noises of approval as his hand tangles in your hair, easing you through the heated worship of him.
Where you are now, however, is not your final goal.
Slowly, your hands drift along his thighs, up, up, towards the firm curve of his lower buttocks. The muscle jumps beneath your fingers, so sensitive as he is to where you touch him.
You slip his cock out of your mouth with a soft, wet noise, earning another groan, and allow the tip of your nose to drift south along it, inhaling the hot, mingled scent of his essence and the tang of your own saliva.
He tenses above you, eyes squeezing shut, as he obeys the slight direction of your push and moves just a few inches further up the bed.
There is a great deal of awareness in how he takes care never to put much of his weight on you, even as you now find yourself directly below him, tongue running along the delicate crease that leads from his sac to the edge of his opening.
He's probably holding himself too stiffly to be fully immersed in what you're doing to him, for fear of hurting you, but you plan to remedy that.
You want him to forget, to sink further than he ever has, to show him how much you can give to him, in this time you have together that seeps through both your fingers, slow as the drip of thickened honey.
Starting with care, you grasp him firmly, drawing him down onto you, even with the slight resistance you feel. Your find the rim of him, slightly creased, the sparse, coarse hairs around it tickling your tongue.
Tracing the edge slowly, dragging out the sensation, you avoid probing too deep, knowing that he'll tense up further as a reaction.
Soshiro's hands hit the headboard, fingers gripping tight. He tries to lift himself off to escape the white hot pleasure you're giving him, too good, too warm, too much, but you aren't having it.
Warm, ragged pants start to escape him, sounds you've never heard before, startling in their raw, imploring appeal.
Never pausing, you bury your face deeper in him, taking small moments to release yourself to breathe.
Like this, his scent, the solid, downward press of him, his heat on you, the damp, satiny skin, the slow rocking motions he's taken up as you lick, taste and softly tease him, are beginning to unravel you in ways you cannot fathom.
It must be the same for him, because you feel him shift above you, and you pull away for a second, taking him in.
God, what a view.
His head is bent forward, the whole weight of his upper body held up by his death grip on the headboard, knuckles turning white.
The straight, gleaming hair has now tangled on his brow, damp with sweat. The flush that had started as one of embarrassment has now transformed to one that suffuses the skin of his face, neck and chest with a rosy glow.
His nipples stand as pert points, directly in your line of sight, stiff-peaked with arousal.
As you watch, he catches your gaze, deliberately reaching down to palm his rigid cock, a soft, strangled groan accompanying the motion.
This is probably the most aroused you've ever seen him, but it is his eyes that capture you beyond anything else.
Soshiro's eyes are reflections of the deepest parts of himself. Inscrutable to most the majority of the time, they maintain professional distance with ease, all while providing assurance that he notices, that he cares.
When in battle, they take on the aspect of the wiliest predator, keen-edged as one of his blades, sighting vulnerabilities in plating and armored joints as a bird of prey does, swift and immediate.
Here, with you, they widen to reveal new depths, new pleasures to be mounted, conquered, within the arena of your lovemaking.
He lets you see it all, drunk on the heady waves of what you give him, reckless in what he takes, for once, sacrificing what discipline has taught his body.
True release is a treasure that only the palms of your hands, your fingers, your tongue, the softness between your thighs, the supple valley between your breasts, can lay before him.
Above you, Soshiro strokes himself, mouth falling open, face contorted with supreme desire. You take a moment to suck his tip, swollen and wet against your lips, tasting him once more, before going back to your pursuit.
This time, you penetrate him slowly with your tongue, hands gripping his buttocks firmly as he utters the most earnest cry you've ever heard from him.
Deeper you go, the flutter and flex of sphincter around you, your hands slipping over the firm curve of his ass, the fine hairs there now outlined beneath your exploring fingers.
You squeeze him once, appreciatively, eliciting a half-groan, half-laugh.
"Gonna ... be the death of me with that pretty ... pretty mouth - "
It's the first time he's managed to speak in the entire encounter, slurred and delirious, and you let him feel the secret curve of your lips.
You're not done with him yet, not by a long shot.
Setting up a steady rhythm, you keep your grip on him, taking some of his weight. The density of Soshiro's muscle makes him heavier and far more solid than he seems beneath baggy jackets and loose trousers.
Each drop of his body pries him open to you further, the inside of him smooth, tender, easier and easier to breach with your lubrication.
The raise of him on your palms allows you to take deeper breaths, circling him with light and firm strokes, before sinking him onto you again.
No coherent words are forthcoming any longer, only the wet sounds of where you lick and slip into him, the uneven slide of his hand over his own cock.
Moisture is seeping down, as more and more of the pearly translucence slides from his tip down the shaft, all the way down to where you work him, spreading a sheen across your nose, mouth and cheeks.
Soft moans, ragged-edged with delight, half-uttered encouragement, shattered by the shift of your nose and tongue, begging, pleas, pants and cries, all culminating to the most vocal you've ever heard him.
He is close, you can tell from the way his movements have become increasingly spasmodic and irregular, the desperation and warning that has entered his voice as he calls to you.
Determined to bring him to the edge your way, you grasp the firm flesh harder, fingers sinking in slightly as you spread him, giving you greater access.
A great shudder passes through him, his hips now swinging freely back and forth, the headboard rattling slightly under the force of his grip.
You push as deep as you can, fingers keeping him open as you pulse, plunge and swirl. His thighs are now shaking, clamping down on your cheeks harder, the wet, hard heft of his cock dropping to the top of your face.
You're well aware that this man could accidentally crush you between these same legs you've worshipped, and the thought is oddly arousing.
Then, under the tight grip you have on him, you feel every muscle draw taut as a bow string, held on some quivering, molten edge. His back trembles, arching, abdomen pulled in so tight that you can make out every ridge and dip above his hip-bones.
He cries out your name, sublime praise in every broken syllabyl, cracking like a whip of thunder on the verge of completion.
You hold your tongue inside him still, letting him rock back and forth as his climax eases enough for him to ride out the all-consuming pleasure.
Hot viscosity leaks down the length of him, salty, earthy, and you remove yourself from him long enough to lap up the rewards of his spending.
You're gentle with him, keeping the working of your lips and tongue slow and measured, and he gasps, clutches your hair, taking great shuddering breaths as your fingers wander from knee to groin, grounding him with the warmth of your touch.
Eventually, he gathers up enough co-ordination to slide from on top of you to the side, collapsing across the covers, arms and legs outstretched.
You're already missing the solid heat of him, the sensation of being trapped within the cage of his strength, having him so freely responsive to you.
It can wait, as can your own bottomless yearning for him to fill you in turn.
You slip from the bed, padding barefoot to the bathroom where you clean off the remnants of your joining from your face, mouth and throat, dampening a cloth with warm water.
When you return to him, he hasn't moved an inch, much to your amusement, still sprawled bonelessly, as if you've well and truly defeated him this time.
His eyes are open, though, taking you in with something that is, perhaps, new.
There is a crushing tenderness there, reserved for you, and you alone, a binding vow altogether separate from the twine of two bodies in all their sensual glory. His regard settles warm across you, a fleece blanket in winter, along your fingers, arms, shoulders, hair, knees and ankles, as if to ascertain that all of you is still safe and intact.
As much as you can tangle the yarn of all that he is, your love slowly spinning him back together when all is done, this is the core of him that remains unchanged.
A man of the sword, through and through, even in the throes of passion, even when shedding the armour he wears over the perpetual beating of his soldier's heart, just for you.
You'll place each piece back together over him, locking it in place, readying him to face it all, as you do now, with the warm washcloth over the gleam left on his skin.
He lies still, let's you take care of him, one hand rising idly to play with your hair, as he is fond of doing.
It's an absent gesture, one of familiarity, but this evening it is intentional, carrying a heavy spell that threatens to trap your heart forever.
You drop the cloth aside and sink down to him, arm draping across his chest, the press of his chin to your forehead the most natural order in the world at present.
"You all right?"
He laughs softly in response, tracing the shell of your ear.
"Can't feel my legs real well, so yeah, got me better than any round of practice I've had in years."
His voice is still hoarse with exertion, pitched deliciously low.
"I take it you enjoyed it."
"Kind of an understatement."
Your playful retort dies in your throat as he lifts your chin, his mouth slotting against yours with a breathless intensity that seems to fill your lungs with something other than air.
When he parts from you, slow and soft, repeatedly pressing forward again, as if you're the sweetest thing he's ever tasted, you manage to speak once again.
"I loved it. Feeling you like that."
"You did?"
He doesn't wait for a response, easing you into him again, his kisses falling like summer rain over a drowsy field at dusk.
To know Soshiro as he is now, unburdened of all the paraphernalia of duty and battle, stretched out after you've robbed him of his senses, is the greatest gift indeed.
Perhaps this is the best time of all, when both your limbs are langorous with the act of knowing each other, when the evidence of your sumptuous feasting has been cleared away, when night steals into secret spaces known only to lovers.
Let the dawn have its hours, because none are lovelier than these.
Rahu Unknown Middle Name Ratna (made up last name)
You have already heard me talk but now I’m going to say more.
THIS.
This was beautiful. Filth dipped in honey. Like I already said, there is something so fucking incredible about being able to make a man crumble in pleasure. How they can shed their armor and lay themselves at your feet. Being able to give pleasure is powerful. And Reader does it so beautifully.
When in battle, they take on the aspect of the wiliest predator, keen-edged as one of his blades, sighting vulnerabilities in plating and armored joints as a bird of prey does, swift and immediate.
Here, with you, they widen to reveal new depths, new pleasures to be mounted, conquered, within the arena of your lovemaking.
For a man as guarded as Hoshina, it’s rare that he has someone willing to show his true self with. I love diving into how you’ve shaped Reader to be his other half and equal.
For as much as rimming and other booty thoughts makes me giggle, it’s still something that should be discussed as with anything in the bedroom. It requires not only consent but trust and you show it beautifully.
You crafted a rare moment off into a sensual and simmering sexual encounter between two loving partners. The way his pleasure builds. How his slight hesitation melts into ecstasy. How he leans into you slowly, letting you give what he takes. It’s just—!!!
Oh! And I absolutely LOVE this line:
Soft moans, ragged-edged with delight, half-uttered encouragement, shattered by the shift of your nose and tongue, begging, pleas, pants and cries, all culminating to the most vocal you've ever heard him.
I love love LOVE being able to say so much with so few words. You don’t need to write out his sounds of pleasure, you paint it beautifully and it made my toes curl Rahu. I was literally grinning from ear to ear.
And the come down? The way reader not only gives pleasure but after care. The way she takes in how loose and relaxed he looks. The way he lets her clean him up. The way HE LOOKS AT HER. THE HAND PLAYING WITH HER HAIR. I could see it in my minds eye, the way he was looking at her. A soldier that has dedicated his life to protecting his country and you. Showing love and affection and treasured moments that we will never see in the manga or anime.
Listen.
I could go on and on. I haven’t really read fics in quite a long time so this was a wonderful opportunity to dive back into it.
You have such a gift Rahu. You know this of course and I will never stop saying it. This delicious treat will now sit on my shelf of yours. Right next to Fat Gum (you know the one with the dresser…).
Chapter summary: In which experimentation flirts with standard as Tuesdays keep bringing you and Nanami onto each other’s paths, and a shared, improvised push-and-pull blooms between trying new things and sticking to the familiar.
Pieces referenced in this chapter:
▶ My Foolish Heart by Bill Evans Trio ▶ B Minor Waltz by Bill Evans
▶ So What by Miles Davis ▶ Take Five by Dave Brubeck Quartet
Word Count: 6.3k
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When the following Tuesday rolls around, you find Nanami notably absent from his usual seat.
There’s a certain anticipation that recedes within you at this realization, one you don’t recognize yourself holding until now, much like a tide pulling away from the shore of your mind, leaving a faint sting of disappointment in its wake.
It feels rather silly to find yourself somehow slightly missing a man you’ve briefly spoken to once and only seen twice, almost foolish to mourn a routine that appears to have halted before it could truly take hold.
Your actual routine resembles more what you end up doing instead—taking your habitual seat without fanfare, mindlessly ordering a drink you don’t quite register until well after you’ve taken your first sip, and tuning your mind to the stage in an attempt to rid your psyche of the pressure accumulated throughout your grueling work day.
Tonight’s group of performers forms a trio: a pianist, a bassist, and a percussionist who do not delay in starting their set as soon as the lights dim. They open with the familiar notes of My Foolish Heart, a cover version that adheres to Bill Evans’ recognizably wistful take on the jazz standard, one which befits you both in its title and in its melancholic piano tones, particularly speaking to you tonight.
Reports, KPIs, deadlines—for the next hour and a half or so, as your left hand idly mirrors the piano accompaniment over your table, you find respite in the slow diffusion of the day’s pressures under your fingertips, guided by the memories of hours on end spent passionately practicing for a craft that has now been sidelined in favor of the pragmatic drudgery of everyday life.
Reports, KPIs, deadlines—all contributors to the unpredictable and very much unwelcome overtime to which most of Nanami’s recent evenings are lost.
Calls that could’ve been emails, emails that could’ve been avoided altogether if only people could pay attention and actually read for once.
On the surface, he’s taken all of this in stride, ever the team player despite his ordinarily strict delineation between work and life slipping as sneakily as the purview of his role has.
The recent integration of the summer interns in the office has thrown a new variable into what was always set to be a busy end of quarter. As a result, Nanami finds himself inheriting much of the additional workload incurred by his colleagues, which, in turn, jeopardizes what is now an all too precious Tuesday night window between the hours of seven and nine in the evening.
This is where Nanami sees it imperative to draw the line.
And he does draw it, even if it’s a blurry one. He leaves the office on time, yes, but responsibility tethers him to bringing his unfinished work out with him, thereby merely deferring the dreaded overtime—a stark violation of the unwritten rule he’s managed to stick to since he embarked on this career.
But at least he’s here now, and at least he’s in your presence, even if you don’t realize it.
The atmosphere in the back lounge, where Nanami sits for the first time, is significantly more casual—a sharp contrast to the quieter, warmer, and more intimate front area he’s most accustomed to. By the time the sounds from the stage reach here, they arrive somewhat diminished, dissipating under the loud crack of pool balls, and of boisterous chatter and laughter.
Alas, this is where he’s better suited tonight, Nanami thinks, and it’s almost on cue that his phone buzzes, reminding him as much by buzzing over this work laptop, vibrating strongly enough to make the aluminum rattle against the wooden table. The incessant pinging comes much to Nanami’s irritation, a persistent source of his distraction tonight, but it’s one that he temporarily relegates to a far-back corner of his attention, which has since been captivated by you.
Here he is now, watching you from afar, and despite the rowdy soundscape around him, Nanami manages to mute the surrounding noise and to forget, if only for a moment, the tedious client report deck that has burdened his mind this evening, and to hone in on both the music emanating from the stage, along with the woman who emulates it with her graceful movements.
This is when it hits him, hard—the fact that he’s so much farther from you than he’d like to be.
Nanami's vantage point only grants him a partial view of your profile, but he’s not so far that he’s not able to discern a uniquely wistful air about you.
It’s in the softness of your eyes, slightly more distant than usual under half-lowered lashes, and in the slump of your shoulders, reflecting a certain quiet surrender to the notes you’re playing over keys he can nearly feel as much as he imagines you do.
Much like the first time he perceived you, Nanami finds himself enchanted by the movement of your fingers, this time by the way they track the slow cadence of the notes being played, as if they are the ones generating the sounds themselves.
When his phone buzzes again, it succeeds in shattering him from his contemplation. It's yet another notification, not the one he hopes to see, certainly not the one that liberates him from the chains of this onerous, last-minute deliverable from hell that currently hinders him from enjoying the rest of the evening as he truly desires.
He lifts his gaze after a moment lost to replying to yet another previously addressed detail, but instead of finding you, they land on Mona-san, the friendly server he’s watched engage with you so often, the one who was kind enough to guide him towards this lounge when he’d arrived earlier, hesitantly seeking for a suitable place to catch up on work, after which she'd cordially offered to be of service if he’d needed anything else.
When Nanami raises two fingers, just enough to catch her attention, it’s a reflexive gesture that long precedes the conscious decision of taking her up on her offer.
“You really ought to get up there and just play one of these days,” Mona cuts into your reverie with a light tap of her tray on your table. “This place would be too lucky to host something as sweet as a performance from you.”
“You flatter me, Mona-san,” you respond, your gaze drifting up to hers as you’re still slowly emerging from the ninety near-uninterrupted minutes you’ve spent lost in something beyond the performance on stage. “I'm far too washed to inflict myself upon this fine establishment.”
This time, it’s your arm that Mona taps with her tray, softly but no less reprimanding.
“I’m supposed to pretend you didn’t present us with some delicious crumbs that one time when you slid on that piano and played a little something for that fun crew from your office?”
“You mean the half-assed rendition of Autumn Leaves I was borderline coerced into performing by my manager? I only relented because I badly needed that bonus and because I'm still fairly certain everyone would be too drunk to remember it.”
“Oh, I see how it is,” she says as he reaches over to pick up your empty cup. “Well, if it’s going to take another team-building outing for me to ever hear you play again, you already know I’m not beneath tracking down that boss of yours. He seemed to like me a lot! I bet I could convince him to bring you all back. ”
You laugh at her remark, finding some levity in what is perhaps the most irrefutable thing she’s said so far. “I don’t doubt for a second that he’d be putty in your hands, but it would be a waste of effort, I fear. I promise you there is no audience for what I’m barely capable of coherently playing these days.”
“I don’t know about that. I can think of at least one potentially interested party…” she trails off.
It’s only after you’ve fished your wallet from your purse, ready to settle your tab for the evening, that you meet Mona’s expectant gaze, which she flicks both to her right and towards the door behind her.
She must read the confusion in your eyes because her movements get slightly more pointed as you struggle to follow her gesturing before finally your eyes finally land on the back of a man’s figure right before he disappears out of view through the bay window, but not prior to your mind attributing the distinct combination of pinstripe and light gold to Nanami Kento.
Your gaze snaps back to Mona, and the amused glint in her eyes validates your guess as much as it signals her eager anticipation for your response.
“I suggested the back lounge after he asked if there was somewhere he could plug his laptop and take some work calls, but if you ask me, Blondie was far more mesmerized by your silent take on B Minor Waltz than whatever he had going on his little phone.”
The second part was easier to dismiss, especially when coming from your friend, who you know to possess an almost comical flair for hyperbole. But it takes you a moment for it to register, for you to align what you just saw and what Mona’s just said—that Nanami was not only here but that he'd been sitting just a few feet behind you all evening.
“Please, Mona-san," you say with a dismissive shake of your head. "You realize that I do not know this man.”
“Hey, I’m just the messenger,” she says with a slight shrug. “And you may not know him, but he did just cover your tab, by the way.”
“He did what?” you say with a laugh that tilts more nervous than incredulous.
“You heard me. So put your card away, but also… You didn’t hear this from me. He damn near swore me to secrecy, and I’m really only telling you this on the off-chance that you are the reason this Nanami guy keeps returning and leaving these generously fat tips. Don’t you mess up the bag for me, now!”
She leaves as swiftly as she arrived, before you can muster up a response, before you can ask the nascent shuffling in your mind. Your eyes flick back to where you’ve just witnessed Nanami make his exit, finding only a palpable echo of his presence.
The days that follow melt into one another.
By the time it's Tuesday again, the week already feels dissonant and disarrayed, a tone set by your phone alarm inexplicably failing to ring, which kicked off a domino effect of a missed train, a forgotten lunch, and a chaotic work day that leaves you frazzled by the time it rolls into its evening.
In the absence of your umbrella, it’s only the thin hood of your jacket that offers you scant protection from the sudden downpour that appears to be escalating just as you step out from the train station, as if it had been lying in wait, stretching the short walk to the bar into what feels like an eternity.
You have half a mind to skip your evening plans altogether, of surrendering and calling it a day, and if it’s a thought that is trumped almost as hastily as it forms, it’s in no small part due to a bit of sunk cost fallacy, along with the thin but solid thread that moors you to the conviction that this is exactly the kind of distraction you need after a hectic day like this.
So along you trudge, and as you finally approach the door, lingering words jostle to reach the forefront of your tired mind.
On the off chance…
It’s with a forceful shake of your head that you attempt to dislodge the persistent phrase uttered by Mona-san last week, the one that’s been echoing in your mind for the better part of the last six days. It takes you a moment for you to make the mental migration back to the present, to the lights already dimmed as you enter, to the music from tonight’s performance already emanating from the stage, and to whomever else you may or may not find here tonight.
And it turns out that much like last week, you don’t see Nanami when you glance over at what is decidedly no longer his usual seat.
Almost instinctively, certainly before you consciously command them, your eyes shift, bound for the back lounge, but it’s an endeavor that is halted as soon as it is conceived, because your eyes do find Nanami before you expect them to.
There he sits, with his suit jacket discarded over the chair next to him, and you wonder whether his relaxed demeanor is more pronounced than usual, or if it’s simply your distance, along with the soft, subdued lighting that grants him this allure.
On the off chance that you’re the reason…
It’s with unyielding might, this time, that the words you discarded just a minute ago resurface to the forefront of your mind.
Nanami's eyes are narrowed in an intent gaze, as if to study the trumpeter on stage, who is in the middle of enacting a recognizable solo covering a familiar Miles Davis Quintet piece, one you know like the back of your hand but whose title somehow evades you within the tumult of your mind.
Just take another seat, you tell yourself. You take note of the few individual ones open closer within the front-most rows, and of the numerous ones towards the back. Hell, even Nanami’s so-called usual seat is free right now, and you know it’s almost as good as yours, so you can just take another seat.
But so could he, comes another inner voice, overtaking the first one, as it occurs to you that it’s indeed your spot he chose to occupy, of all places.
On the off chance that you’re the reason Nanami keeps returning…
There’s just something about the prevalence of this phrase, about what is now its plausible implication, that utterly overrides your usual reservedness, handing the victory to the bolder voice side of you.
It feels like you are watching yourself walk towards Nanami, like a puppet on intrepid strings, your feet no longer yours to fully control as they carry you towards the empty side of the two-seater table that shines like a beacon next to the man who has yet to notice your approach.
Your words don’t spill as much as they flow out, steady and even, surprising even yourself.
“Thanks for saving my seat, Nanami.”
You watch as narrowed hazel eyes widen before shifting over to you, and when Nanami Kento finally meets your gaze, you find something in them that betrays the indecipherable calculation he is making in his mind, one whose solution appears to have him elect to scoot over to the second stool, sliding his drink and a barely touched order of appetizers along with him, inviting you not only to sit down but to join him.
“I’m surprised you made it,” he replies, his voice low and warm and natural as he gestures towards the seat he was just occupying, and you take it as easily and effortlessly as he invites you. It's yours for now.
Now it’s your turn to hesitate, but for not more than a brief moment during which you can’t help but wonder whether it’s the way Nanami punctuates his comment with your name or perhaps the lingering warmth of his body heat on the seat that brings a sudden, welcomed contrast to the cool, wet, chaotic world that exists outside these doors.
But then you see it, just barely perceptible under the dimmed lights, in the tinge of pink crawling up from the part of his neck exposed by his first unfastened button, rising over his chin before settling on his cheek.
It’s right here, in the way his fingers are pulling onto the edge of his plate before drumming them there, revealing a slight jitter you wouldn’t immediately imagine him to have, and it now comes to you in a quiet realization—that maybe you’re not so disadvantaged in this exchange, that perhaps you are both treading on the same, uneven ground.
It’s what gives you enough of a push to prop your head over your hand, to peer over at Nanami, and to quip on:
“I’m here every week, you might have noticed. What made you think I wouldn’t make it tonight?”
Nanami lets out a light chuckle, as if releasing a breath he’s been holding, “Well, you are exceptionally late.”
His point is one you’d gladly concede were it not for the amusement in his tone. Instead, it persuades you not to relent so easily.
“Late? I don’t believe I have a fixed arrival time.”
“Are you sure?”
It’s subtle, but you catch it, the tiniest twinkle in his eyes before he glances towards the stage.
Oh, is that how it’s going to be?
“Well, what constitutes late?” you ask, emphasizing the latter word with a playful air-quote gesture.
Nanami's mouth curves behind the next sip of his drink, his eyes peeking back at you over the rim of his glass.
“Well, the group is already well into its performance; this is, in fact, their second track. You’re usually seated with your mocktail long before they start.”
It doesn’t escape you, the way he does not even pretend to attempt to deny that he’s been observing you, even going as far as making a cheeky remark about your preferred type of drink. It drives a sudden rush of warmth to surge through your body.
Your gaze follows his as they return towards the stage, and your eyes instinctively find their habitual destination over the piano keys. For a brief moment, you take in the instrument's rhythmic, floating support, the way its tones form a calm sea alongside the bass and against the oh so familiar theme played by the robust sax, a piece whose title should be so easy for you to identify, yet remains lodged somewhere within your slightly disoriented mind.
When you attempt to steal a glance at the surprising source of said disorientation, you find Nanami’s steady gaze.
Again, the corners of his eyes crinkle.
Again, he smiles.
As the edges of your surroundings pleasantly blur, and the sounds around you take on a slightly muted quality, the soft sigh you emit is a subconscious effort to counteract the instinct to hold your breath.
“Alright, fine…" You concede. "So, you assumed that I wouldn’t show up, and that's what made you decide to sit here tonight?”
“Well, no, that’s not exactly it,” he says as he slowly leans towards you, cautious, halting about halfway between the space between you.
The dim overhead lighting strikes the side of Nanami's profile, creating shadows that define his jawline as much as they highlight a salient, deep-set weariness that forms pockets under his eyes. In your newfound proximity, you pick up a fragrance of salt-kissed ocean air, of effortless marine notes grounded by smooth cedarwood.
And for the second time in just as many minutes, you find yourself following Nanami’s gaze, guided by the extension of his arm forward as he points toward the stage once more before he speaks again.
“I sought to see it the way you see it," he continues, "To hear the sounds, in the way you hear them, and to perceive it all, from your perspective.”
He draws back, and just like that, the intimate instant promptly reverts to something more neutral.
“But seeing as you are here now, I don't mean to disrupt your evening. I'll change seats. Please do order anything you’d like. My treat,” he adds quietly.
It’s almost dizzying, the swiftness with which this permissive, uninhibited pocket of a moment finds itself shattered just as quickly as it is formed, and by its own architect, no less.
You realize how serious Nanami is in his intention to grant you your space in the snappy way he polishes off the rest of his drink, perhaps a little too quickly, before determinedly standing to his feet and moving to gather his belongings. The whiplash hits you with a jolt that has your words outpacing your thoughts as they slip past your lips.
“Do you always do this, Nanami? Generously pay for someone’s drink before robbing them of your company?”
His movement stills as your words register, and you can nearly visualize the gears spinning in his mind as he processes their implications. Your eyes meet, and for the first time, you think you manage to read Nanami Kento, to actually read him, to pinpoint exactly the point at which his aversion to imposing on you shines nearly as bright as his hope that you’ll allow him the indulgence.
You’re inclined to oblige the latter.
“What I mean is, thank you for your offer, Nanami. But only if you share an appetizer with me as well, will I forgive this clearly egregious transgression of sitting at my very unassigned seat,” you say, playfulness well-laced in your tone before softly adding, “Maybe I can share a thing or two about my perspective.”
You perceive something of a glint traveling to his eyes even before his mouth curves into yet another one of his smiles.
“Well then, if this is what will grant me your forgiveness,” he says as he gives a solemn bow of his head, a gesture that elicits a snicker from you.
It suddenly all clicks into place, like a lens finding its focus. “So What,” you say unthinkingly.
“Pardon?”
“So What,” you repeat, with more certainty, your turn to point gesture towards the stage. “It's the title for this piece. It’s a modal jazz track written by Miles Davis, recognizable by its call-and-response pattern between the bass and the rest of the group. It’s like a playful dialogue,” you pause to give a pointed sidelong glance at Nanami before adding, “You know, like banter.”
Nanami smiles and resettles himself on the seat next to you. It's his, for now.
“So, you’re a pianist?”
You reflexively wince at Nanami's words as they gently breach the comfortable lull you've both naturally slipped into.
A couple of weeks have elapsed since that rainy Tuesday evening when you first sat together, something that has since firmly ensconced itself as a wordless, weekly habit between the two of you, a simple one, not something you ever establish explicitly.
Now, Nanami does save your seat in earnest, and on the occasions you get here before him, you do the same.
Up until this present moment, your conversations have more or less held the same loose structure—he comments on the piece being performed, sometimes asks you something specific about it that you’re happy to answer and provide some context for. You both listen more than you speak, allowing the music to fill the space between you.
But then comes a moment on an evening like this—with the night’s performance taking a longer than expected interlude to a technical issue, extending the dead time in between sets, in between you.
Now it’s a subtle, but no less undeniable energy, a palpable magnetism, that occupies the void left by the paused tunes.
“Only in aspiration, I fear,” you finally respond as you bring your cup to your lips, reacting to a newfound urge to quickly find its bottom, as if it could hold the remedy to your sudden unease.
Nanami asks another question, but not before a moment of consideration, something more tentative tingeing his usually even tone, “Do you not play the piano?”
You pull the last traces of your drink through your straw with a hollow slurp, an audible reminder that there really is only so much time you can kill by hiding behind a citrus.
“I used to play more regularly… All in a past life now, really.”
Out of your peripheral vision, you detect Nanami’s gaze linger on you for a moment, as surely as you perceive that it’s more out of interest than scrutiny.
A pang of guilt tightens your throat at the sound of the unintentional curtness held in your tone, and yet you also find yourself tethered to the conviction that it’s perhaps for the best that you not yet broach a subject matter with which you're still grappling yourself.
Where you expect Nanami to follow up, he says nothing, instead only sliding the plate of appetizers he’s ordered closer to you, his silent offering.
And where you expect discomfort to slither into the silence that settles between you, you instead find something weightless, devoid of the kind of imposition you’d otherwise brace yourself for in an exchange like this.
It’s remorsefully refreshing.
Out of the corner of your eye, you catch Mona’s gaze for a brief moment, just long enough for her to throw you a cursory, amused lift of her eyebrow as she clears a nearby table.
With quite a few of her recent shifts no longer falling on Tuesdays, you’ve had so little opportunity to catch up with her in person. As you flash her a smile before dropping your eyes back to your empty drink, you can only imagine the speculative tales she’s made up about your budding association with “Blondie” over the last couple of weeks, just as you can imagine her risible reaction if she were to hear the way you’re handling her new favorite patron’s earnest attempt at small talk.
There's something of an urgent restlessness that spawns from somewhere just beyond that reflection, one perhaps that spurs you onward.
“These days I spend more time reading spreadsheets than sheet music,” you speak again, finally breaking the brief stillness.
Nanami lets out a low hum, “Accountant?”
It’s your turn to glance over at him.
“I am an auditor, yes… How do you know? I’m pretty sure I never told you this…”
“Just an educated guess…" he muses with a self-satisfied twist of his lips before adding, "based on some context cues…”
Your eyes don’t leave Nanami as your fingers find a mini-soft pretzel from his plate, welcoming your tongue with a tender, bread-like flavor that serves as the comforting prelude to the memory you’ll come to form from this moment.
“Alright, Mr. Detective, how about you? You look like you fit right in the financial district.”
It’s his turn to grimace before emitting a wry laugh as he responds, “I would hope not to.”
Across the room, the trumpet breathes a thin, wavering tone that cracks at its edge, a false start that may very well signal the end of this tangent you’ve both embarked on, one for which you somehow find a renewed desire to see through.
“Oh, come on, Nanami,” you playfully prod, happy to have narrowly evaded the previous, proverbial hot seat, “surely it’s not the worst thing imaginable, this profession that is fortunate enough to have a hotshot like you…”
A bashful chuckle escapes him as he drops his gaze down to where his hand fiddles with his gleaming watch strap, a now recognizable sign of a crack of timidity in his otherwise stoic armor.
“Asset and wealth management,” he responds. “And no, I suppose it’s not all bad, but it’s definitely not all good either.”
Ever so slightly, you push the plate holding your appetizers back his way, not unlike Nanami did just mere minutes ago.
“Tell me about the ‘not all bad’ part.”
“The money,” he declares without missing a beat, then glances at you over the rim of his cup, his eyes conveying the most solemnity they have all evening, drawing an earnest laugh from you.
“Yeah, I've audited firms like yours before. You all generally seem to be doing alright in that regard.”
It’s with a fleeting, yet delightful smile that he registers the reaction he’s elicited from you. You yield to the curious urge of following up:
“What do you dislike about it?”
You notice the tension in his jaw, the first time you find him to be anything approaching a true reticence that momentarily makes you wonder if you haven’t overstepped with your prompting.
But just as you think to give him an out, Nanami speaks again.
“I’ve been questioning a lot of things lately… One of them being a system whose existence is solely to make incredibly well-off people and entities even wealthier, and how that is valued above so many others without providing much societal value in itself...”
As he pauses, a quiet, thoughtful hum arises from you, to which he responds by throwing a glance your way, clouded eyes refocusing as if he’s just pulling himself back to the moment.
“Then I open my eyes, and it’s already Monday again,” he adds with a forlorn curve of his lips.
“Oh yeah, that happens a lot to me too,” you respond, mirroring his half-joke with a light laugh.
This pause barely has time to settle, a breath shortly held and lightly released.
“The truth is that I’m good at my job,” he continues, “and the irony is that the most efficient way to escape the system is to play into it until you have enough leverage to exit it. So for now, and until then, I’ll stay put.”
For now, and until then…
Nanami’s words carry a certain familiarity to you, one of a sentiment you can relate to all too well, a merging path, even from your differing vantage points.
You don’t get to linger on it any longer—it’s not a false start this time around, when the drummer kicks off a beat, but the earnest, recognizable opening belonging to the iconic 5/4 time signature from Take Five.
The piano jumps in shortly thereafter, driving the groove with its repeated two-chord trot before the bass follows its lead, forming the background over which the alto sax enters to layer its main melody.
There’s something almost hypnotic you’ve always found in this track, that you find still now—a reliably comfortable door through which you’ve escaped many a time before, as you sought to draw from Dave Brubeck’s syncopated piano pattern, to which you’ve all too often added your own, softly subtle variations. It’s the kind of safe track that always allowed you to slip into improvising on the technical feel, the pulse, and tempo of the piece, rather than chasing speedy, complex instrumentation.
You feel Nanami lean towards you ever so slightly, like he’s done so often now, and you instinctively mirror him to meet him halfway.
“I’ve been trying to pinpoint exactly what it is about this kind of piece,” he says, just loud enough for you to hear over the music. “Something in this genre that I find so captivating: the soaring melodies, the driving beat, the intricate harmonies—it coalesces into something truly special. I can’t seem to put a name to it.”
Nanami’s understated question hangs between you, the subtle seed of a definition, and somewhere within the brief lull, you find his curiosity to inspire you to articulate your perspective.
“I think it’s like you said—we live within rigid systems that have permeated nearly all aspects of society. Everything is methodically, meticulously, almost oppressively catalogued. Everything has a rule, every rule has a name, and very rarely do we have a choice in aligning ourselves to the kind of standards that seek to dictate everything, right down to what art can be, to what music can be.
You idly tap your finger along the rim of the appetizer platter, keeping time with the tune’s uneven rhythm.
“Take this piece, for example: five beats for each measure. For so long, most of Western music somehow just had to be four beats per measure, with perhaps the waltz being one of the few rare exceptions. Anything else wasn’t considered harmonic and was treated as inherently dissonant. Jazz finds its roots under a system that had one group domineering over another, and people deciding to create something for themselves rather than adhering to this interpretation of sheet music yielded by the dominant society.”
Nanami nods slowly, and you watch his eyes narrow in focus as they fix on the stage, taking in the rhythm, just as the percussionist enacts his solo. Smooth as silk, the performer’s stick glides over the right-hand snare with a steady torrent of single and double strokes. Much like the pianist setting the repeated phrase, the drummer’s performance is a study in spontaneous development, rather than speed or even technique.
“Improvisation,” Nanami echoes. “The bending of rules, the going against the grain. It's similar to how the improvised solo became a standard for rock music.”
“Yes, and that's also something that came about around the 60s and under the influence of Jazz. Yet, as you’ve pointed out, that improvisation itself was also later made standard—”
“Which goes against the original purpose…” Nanami cuts in, quickly picking up on your thread of thought.
“It kind of does, right? There will probably always remain a certain level of fixation with structure and standardization, which, granted, does have its place in the world…”
You trail off into a brief pause as the saxophone finds a smooth re-entry on the heels of the drum solo, sending a ripple of applause through the small crowd. Once the hum of conversation returns, you seek to circle back to Nanami’s original reflection.
“But I think there’s a certain acceptance of the disruption of expectations that is unique in Jazz as far as musical genres go, that fights vehemently against this over-indexing for the formulaic, that seeks to reclaim an otherwise stifled creativity and freedom. And if even just the tiniest part of you seeks out this kind of freedom, then—”
When you glance over to Nanami, you don’t expect to find him to have turned his attention, to have physically turned himself towards you. It must have been sometime during your moment of distracted monologue, you think, that he settled his forearm over the table like this, that he angled his shoulders in your direction, with his lingering gaze sharpened and his glass seemingly forgotten in his hands.
And as much as logic would have you avert your gaze, as much as a force of habit would usually have you shy away from this heightened level of perception, the nameless, disarming sentiment you sense being telegraphed by Nanami only further compels you to finish your thought.
“…then you might find yourself drawn to anything that emulates these values.”
Time warps around you as you hold each other’s gaze. Nanami’s eyes linger, realization catching in his eyes like honey in glass.
Then, a short, sudden chuckle breaks from him.
His head tips forward ever so slightly, and his shoulders loosen before relaxing into a light shake, as he lets out an earnest laugh. His gaze drops to his cup, around which he adjusts his grip as if he’s just remembering its existence.
You narrow your eyes at him, words of inquiry sitting right at the tip of your tongue, thwarted by your newfound fascination in observing Nanami Kento laughing.
You can’t help but mirror his chuckles with a nervous one of your own.
“What is it?” you ask tentatively, wishing in this moment that you could read his mind.
Nanami carefully places his drink on the table, his fingers leaving prints where the condensation clings to the glass, with something serious but no less sincere finding place in his eyes by the time they meet yours once more.
“You shouldn’t sell yourself short. You’re definitely a pianist,” he states.
It’s a simple, sincere affirmation, said so candidly and without fanfare. And yet, it comes to utterly disrupt the equilibrium you’ve worked so hard to maintain for years now.
For a radiant moment, you almost believe him.
Vestiges of an odd sentiment stick with you throughout the evening, a discordant feeling manifesting as a small pressure, a tightening at the base of your throat. It follows you long after you and Nanami part at the train station at the end of the evening, and much later still, after you’ve returned to your apartment.
It’s a sensation that takes on a certain weight you try to shake, as you shower, as you run through your skin care routine, and as you settle into your bed, reduced to a low hum that takes a backseat to your somnolence.
Only once you’ve succumbed to sleep does it resurge with a vengeance, in the form of that one recurring dream, a familiar one that consistently finds you sitting at what looks like a piano, one that seems to stretch infinitely both to the left and to the right.
This time marks an exception.
This time, the keys don’t look like bared teeth as they usually do, ready to devour and destroy anything that comes within their vicinity.
This time, and for the first time, your arms don’t feel bogged down as though they are cuffed in a cinder block sitting on your lap.
Some usual horror elements of the nightmare remain—you’re still forced into both the role of performer and spectator in this familiar sequence, whereby an eerie, unrecognizable cacophony of sounds plays, with ivory and black keys moving on their own accord. And still, despite your lack of physical shackles, you can’t seem to order your mind to bring your fingers up to the keys, to move your deep-toned hands to hover beyond where they remain suspended in the foreground instead.
But when the tune inevitably ends, you can feel it, for the first time in ages—it’s a feeling so foreign in this context yet so familiar in your memory, a low hum of reassurance against the backdrop of regret, a glimmer of hope as thin as the sliver lines of orange that snake through your curtain, signaling the beginning of the dawn you open your eyes to.
It’s a tentatively hopeful spirit that perhaps one day you could fix the discord yourself.
That perhaps the next step you take in faith won’t immediately betray you.
And that perhaps one day you could be the one playing on your own again.
You almost believe it.
<Previous Track | Series Masterlist here | Next Track>
When the sand around them isn’t whipping at their exposed skin and leather. When the whizz of bullets has died into the humid air. When the sun pitches deep purple, the deep orange of flames licking up into the air, burning wood fizzling around them. When it’s all quiet and nothing else matters…
What does he think about?
Probably too much.
For someone as otherworldly, there would never be a moment that’s not too heavy, too consequential, too anxious to keep down for very long. Does he think about his family? The two who took him in as a prisoner and left him as a young boy with far too much love than he knew what to do with. And to the other part of himself, does he hear them? When he presses his forehead to cold glass, gentle hands pushing dust away from the surface from neglect. When the markings on his skin illuminate, flickering softly in an unspoken language unthinkable to the human ear, does he hear them?
He must.
The level of exhaustion that colors his face afterwards. The way he drags his feet through the sand. The way he slumps his head into the press of shoulder blades, gentle snores in an ear over the hum of Angelina. Whatever he hears, whatever he does, it must take so much. For someone who holds the world on his shoulders, everything about him is too much.
Wolfwood thinks his head is too big. His hair is too spikey. His body too lanky for this world of violence and brutality. There’s so much more he could say, so much he has already said aloud that he wouldn't mind saying again. He’s made that face droop in disappointment. Watched his words color hurt in sea glass eyes. Ignored the sour feeling in his stomach while watching glass hands scratch the back of a neck in nervous anxiety.
His words know no bounds.
Does he think about how a fallen man still follows him around after an entire city disappeared? Does he wonder why someone who has killed so many chooses to hold back that urge when he says the word? Does he ever get the urge to get rid of the mistaken priest? To channel that power that thrums through his veins and colors his hair black as time goes by. To use that strength and wrap hands around a dusky neck?
Does he think about it?
The answer is always no.
It’s enough to make anyone nauseous. Enough to make one throw up their hands in defeat, to spew nasty words and to not give a damn about how they land. Wolfwood could spit and bite and bark as much as he wants.
But they will never mean a thing anymore.
They stopped meaning a thing the moment tears stained pale cheeks that cried over a child too late to save. When glass and flesh hands pressed next to his on a sandsteamer. Pushing with all his might to save Hopeland.
Probably before all of that.
But that’s between him and the man upstairs. If that man is even listening.
The last time he ever felt any sort of divinity. The last time the rush of religious exaltation ran through his veins like ice water. The last time he could entertain falling to his knees in supplication was when his eyes landed on tangled black, webbed veins fanned out into feathers, glowing with energy from another dimension. When those wings swooped down to protect humans with their guns aimed at him. That night two angels fought and rose to the sky before only one plunged down. Gabriel in another life. Delivering destruction instead of salvation.
It should have been a wake up call. To turn the other way. To rip up the contract that kept him tethered to uncertainty and never look back. But like the fool he is. He followed. Month after month until he felt that divinity again. Saw it with the peek of sea glass through curtains of honey gold.
What did he think about then?
The angel has an uncanny ability to show one thing and mean a thousand others. Beneath that smile, was there disappointment? Behind that “Nico,” was there “turn the other way and never come back?”
The masochist in him wants to say yes. Wants to revel in the rejection. But the other part of him, the hopeful and sticky and borderline aggravating part of him that Miss Melanie raised knows he is cherished.
When a quarter of leftover donut is pushed toward him at whatever diner they can relax at. When calloused hands press gently against blood soaked bandages, a scowl directed internally as he’s patched up. When they share one too many drinks, getting hazy from the alcohol and giggly when the music is too loud. When he smiles at Wolfwood. When he laughs at Wolfwood, loud and boisterous and all neck and fanged teeth, rapturous and contagious enough to tickle his ribs.
When that feeling pools in his throat thick enough to choke him, pressing against the back of his tongue to force the words out and swallowed down with bile. When this otherworldly, devastating angel does anything for him…
“Wolfwood?”
Soft words pitch through the air, smothering internal monologue with the present bleeding back from the edges. Thoughts buried for another time. Another night filled with cigarette smoke in a dingy hotel they can barely afford. There’s only now.
Now when he takes in the chill of the desert air. The feel of nylon beneath him from a sleeping bag that’s thin enough for the breezy air. Now when he counts to ten to gather the courage to finally look across the fire. Burnt orange whipping around them, pushing heat in every direction, parting like divinity itself to reveal messy blonde with dark underneath. A red coat folded neatly and bare arms on display through leather. Pale skin lightly flush from the heat and sea glass directed toward him once more.
Wolfwood offers a gruff noise from his throat, ignoring the honeyed feeling in his stomach to reach for the pack of cigarettes in his sleeping bag.
“You were quiet for longer than usual. I got nervous.”
He flicks his lighter, forgoing the flip before lighting his cigarette and sucking hard to almost catch filter. It keeps him quiet.
Because Vash has started rambling as he always does. Animated and smiling, with one wild hand, the other detached and resting beside him. For as much as he talks, Wolfwood hates how much he listens. Every random tidbit. Every bad joke. Every laugh that makes him believe in a higher power for just a second.
“It’s just funny,” Vash chuckles, finishing the end of a thought Wolfwood didn’t catch through the nicotine hitting his veins. “I often wonder so much about you.”
“Ain’t exactly a closed book, Spikey.” He lies, exhaling toward the fire, watches the flames catch the smoke and grow. “What do you wanna know?”
Vash hums, a discordant note that plucks some string in Wolfwood’s chest with a ferocity that almost makes him bowl over.
“I always find myself wondering at least once a day…. ‘What does he think about?’”
And Wolfwood—
Wolfwood pinches the edge of his cigarette, takes in a harsher drag. Revels in what it brings. It’s destructive enough to make a great habit. Ash coats his throat, burns away his health and most thoughts that bother him for longer than necessary. But it does little against the honey in his chest. With the way it coats his lungs and colors the back of his throat.
Because he thinks about too much.
How Vash’s head is too big. His hair too spikey. His morals too hypocritical. How Vash thinks too much about others but how he would never change it for anything. How Vash takes in the hatred and violence of those around him, directed at him, and still offers nothing but forgiveness they do not deserve.
He thinks too much about how his dumb ass red coat gives him away no matter where they go. How he smiles and plays with children when they’re brave enough to run alongside him. How he helps everyone who needs it no matter what it costs him.
How it only makes that disgusting feeling inside of him grow and emulsify into a gooey madness that might kill him. How—like now—he tilts his head in question, sea glass too honest and too something fucking else he has been fighting for too long.
What the fuck does Vash think about?
Wolfwood would like to think that through the guilt and self-sacrificial bullshit, Vash thinks of cigarette smoke and backs pressed together while bullets rain down from all angles. He likes to think Vash thinks about a suit jacket with one too many buttons undone. Of the way he swings The Punisher when he wants to show off for him.
But Wolfwood won’t go there. Because he knows when to back away from something that might kill him.
And ain’t that a lie?
Because here he is, sitting across from an angel that he hopes will bring him divinity until he stops breathing.
Honey syrup lays against his tongue, threatening to pry his mouth open and let it pool on the sand. So he takes another drag, lets the burn do nothing, offers Vash a simple shrug before he says,
“Not much, Tongari.”
Even though what he wants to say is far too much. Far too romantic. Far too hopeful for the both of them. The less he says, the longer Vash will stay.
So he keeps praying to a man upstairs that probably isn't listening anyway.
** I passed through this one time so if it doesn’t make sense, oh well! If you saw a grammatical error, no you didn’t!**
