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blake kathryn
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@nyotaponpon
@mayoigotokurousagi LAST ONE OF YOURS here's Jin!!!
Jin is. . .he's a lot sweeter than you'd expect once his affinity gets high lol. . . . I FEEL LIKE I ENDED UP WITH A LOT OF COMMENTARY HERE. . .he just acts very different as affinity goes up, i have to point shit out haha
I've also amended this one to be all of his voicelines now!
May 27th 2025 edit for his year 2 birthday lines
Hello: (the first time the game is opened after that character is set as home screen NPC. Only happens once per day, unless the character is switched out and back.)
"Where the hell do you think you're going? Quit dawdling and help me get ready." お前、どこほっつき歩いてたんだ?……さっさと支度を手伝え
You've Got Mail: (whenever there's something in the inbox, usually Arena rewards)
"Hey, you've got mail. Don't tell me you're not going to open it. What if it was for me?" おい、手紙。放っとくつもりじゃねぇだろうな。 俺宛があったらどうすんだ? あ?
Jin, why would your mail be in my. . .whatever
Default: (requires no affinity, has no time constraints)
"...Get to the point. The trash here is so long-winded." チッ……さっさと要件を言え。ゴミどもはこれだから面倒くせぇ
"A party? I don't waste air on bootlickers. Try Tohma." 社交界? 肩書き目当ての奴らに構うつもりはねぇよ。塔真をあたれ
"Don't just stand there like an idiot. Hurry up. ...What? You got a problem? Spit it out." おい、ぼさっと突っ立ってねぇでついてこい。 ……何だ、文句でもあんのか?
"Kneel! Tsk... Where's {PC}? Bring her to my room." 跪け! ……チッ。あの女はどこだ。今すぐ俺の部屋に連れてこい
"What? Your schedule's not my problem. Just arrange it around me." あ? お前の都合なんて知らねぇ。黙って俺に合わせてりゃいいんだよ
Affinity 1: (between 5am and 11am)
"...Huh? I don't want to see your face at the crack of dawn. Get out." ……あ?寝起きから、その面見せんな…… 下がってろ
given how vulgar his speech is sometimes i'm surprised he didn't say "asscrack of dawn"
Affinity 2: (between 11am and 4pm)
"Tell the chef I'm not in the mood for meat today." ……シェフに伝えろ。今日は肉の気分じゃねぇってな
Affinity 3: (between 4pm and 8pm)
"I'm not wasting my time fooling around with those brats today. If they're really that bored, just make them go on a low-ranking mission or something." ガキの遊びに付き合う気はねぇよ。そんなに暇なら、適当に低ランク任務でも行かせておけ
he's just barely avoiding making iPad kids out of Kaito and Lucas lmao
Affinity 4: (between 8pm and 5am)
"Put my dinner over there. I'll eat later if I feel like it." ディナーはそこに置いておけ。気が向いたら食っておく
i am once again asking the ghouls to FUCKING EAT PROPER MEALS.
Affinity 5: (between 8pm and 5am)
"I need more data for this case... Go find Tohma, servant." 任務の資料が足りてねぇ…… 下僕、塔真を呼んでこい
Affinity 6: (between 4pm and 8pm)
"A Class C anomaly? Miss me with that weak shit. Why do you think we have a Vice Captain?" あ? C級怪異? つまんねぇことに俺を巻き込むな。 何のために副寮長がいるんだ?
MISS ME WITH THAT WEAK SHIT I AM IN TEARS WHO TAUGHT YOU TO TALK LIKE THAT. . . .
Affinity 7: (between 11am and 4pm)
"What about class? Ha. What makes you think you can lecture me? Worry about yourself." ……授業の時間? ハッ、俺に説教とはいい度胸じゃねぇか。お前は自分の心配でもしてろ
Affinity 8: (between 4pm and 8pm)
"You don't even know that? What do they teach here?" ……そんなこともわからねぇのか?この学園の教育はどうなってんだ
I guess Jin has a good handle on the material and everything he'd need to know, as a third year. I say 'as a third year' but Alan didn't understand some of the basics so--
Affinity 9: (between 8pm and 5am)
"Bianerus! ...I'm not feeling it today. You can go." <ビアネルス> …………チッ。調子が悪い。今日はもう下がれ
Affinity 10: (between 10pm and midnight)
"It's late. We're done here. Leave." ……もう遅い。話は終わりだ、下がれ
Affinity 11: (between 5am and 11am)
"You're late. You've got some nerve making me wait, servant." ……遅ぇよ。下僕ごときが俺を待たせるな
Affinity 12: (between 11am and 4pm)
"...I'm hungry. Go order lunch. For two." ……腹が減ったな。おい、ランチの手配をしろ。2人分だ
i guarantee you the pc did not consider that he meant "i want to eat lunch with you" the first time this happened. she probably just thought "damn jin's hungry today."
Affinity 13: (between 4pm and 8pm)
"You have plans? Take a second and really think about whether your plans are more important than me before you open that mouth again." 今日は都合が悪い? ……俺より優先する価値があるか、よく考えてから口を開け
Affinity 14: (between 5am and 11am)
"...Why are you so chatty today? Just pour my tea and get out of my face." チッ……うるせぇ。いつもの紅茶だけ淹れて失せろ
'stop trying to befriend me and go away' lmao
Affinity 15: (between 5am and 11am)
"You should be grateful I'm giving you the time of day this early in the morning." 俺が朝から相手してやってんだ。ありがたく思え
Affinity 16: (between 11am and 4pm)
"Why do you look so worn out? If you're going to serve me, learn how to take better care of yourself. Tohma, take her to the infirmary." おい下僕、なんだその顔色は。俺に仕えるなら体調管理は万全にしろ。 塔真、こいつを保健室に運んでこい
why the infirmary. . .i don't think she needs a doctor i think she needs a nap. You're overworking her didn't Tohma tell you not to break her you donut
Affinity 17: (between 10pm and midnight)
"It's still early... You want to practice the waltz? Bold, aren't you? You're going to be sore tomorrow." まだこんな時間か。 ワルツの練習?……生意気に催促しやがって。 覚悟しろよ。お前は明日、筋肉痛だ
are we still. . .talking about the. . .dancing. . . .
Affinity 18: (between 8pm and 5am)
"You want to dine with me? Ha. All right. Show me if you've learned anything." お前と俺が、ディナーを一緒に? ハッ、面白ぇ。お手並み拝見といこうか
impromptu lesson on table manners!?
Affinity 19: (between 10pm and midnight)
"It's quiet tonight... Sit here, next to me. We're playing a duet. Don't give me that look. You'll know this song." 今夜は静かだな……隣に座れ。 連弾だ。そんな顔すんじゃねぇよ。 ……お前も知ってる曲だ
I previously used the expression names to describe his expression as 'pouting' and 'like a spoiled child' but he mostly just looks irritated lmaooo
Affinity 20: (between 5am and 11am)
"Waking me up every morning was your idea, so I'd better see you here tomorrow too. That's an order." ルーティンにしたのはお前だろ。責任取って、明日も起こしに来い。 ……これは命令だ
how quickly we go from "i don't wanna see your face first thing in the morning" to "i had better see your face every morning". . . . (it's not quickly at all. it's actually an incredibly slow process getting affinity up.)
Affinity 21: (between 11am and 4pm)
"...I was too active yesterday. Massage me, servant. ...What the hell was that? Put some muscle into it." チッ。昨日は体を動かしすぎたな。 下僕、次はマッサージだ。 ……足りねぇよ。もっと強く押せ
i love this one he's just like bitch what the fuck kinda weak ass massage is that put some back into it?????
Affinity 22: (between 4pm and 8pm)
"You don't know about dining etiquette? I don't have time for this... If you want me to teach you, I better see that nose on the grindstone." テーブルマナーがわからない? 面倒くせぇ……俺に教わるからにはそれ相応の覚悟があんだろうな?
we are reaching critical levels of "i need to make you presentable so you can meet my father" also I find it funny that this is after the "you wanna eat with me? let's see if you've learned anything" line. WHEN WERE THEY SUPPOSED TO HAVE HAD LEARNED OR DO YOU EXPECT THEM TO STUDY YOU AS YOU EAT
Affinity 23: (between 8pm and 5am)
"What's that? My helicopter, obviously. Quit gawking and get in." 俺のヘリだ。見たらわかんだろ。……いいから、さっさと乗れ
get in servant idk where we're going but you are going with me
Affinity 24: (between 10pm and midnight)
"I've got plans early tomorrow. Your house is too far. Stay here tonight." 明日は早朝から用事がある。お前が寝泊まりしてる寮からじゃ間に合わねぇかもな。 今夜は、ここに泊まれ
another expression note. . .he's looking away and putting his hand on the back of his neck here. He's shy, almost. Because he's not asking you to stay over to perform some task. It's not your usual master-servant dynamic. He just wants you close to him. As close as possible. He really is rather sweet.
Affinity 25(max): (no time constraints)
"Never learn, do you? I don't take you being here for granted. I know it won't last forever. That's all I'm going to say." 懲りないやつだな。言っておくが、こうやってお前が隣にいること…… 俺は、永遠に続くとは思ってねぇぞ
Jin makes a kind of sad face when he says it won't last forever. well, as sad as he can manage.
He knows that once your curse is broken you'll probably go back to your ordinary life. If your curse can't be broken you'll die. And if you, for some reason, continue to stay at Darkwick even after being cured, he'll be a fourth year next year--he's gonna go off to do field work. Eventually he'll work in the highest levels of the Institute and eventually he'll take his father's place as the president. With all of this, there's no way you'll be able to be together, no matter what. This is a short lived burst of happiness and attachment for him. It means a lot more to him than you realize.
Spring: (March-May) (between 5am and 11am)
"(yawn) What's with that look? I'm not allowed to yawn?" ふぁっ…… あ? 何だその顔は。俺があくびして悪ぃか?
(between 11am and 4pm)
"The flowers you can see from the balcony? Yeah, I had them planted. ...My mother liked them." バルコニーから見える花……?ああ、俺が植えさせた。 …………お袋が好きだった花だ
the balcony bg and the front of frostheim background don't have flowers visible in them(i mean the balcony has potted plants but no flowers). . .i wonder what kind of flowers his mother liked. maybe the pc will grow them when they turn into a Kyklos.
(between 4pm and 8pm)
"Sunset's supposed to be nice this time of year. Come on, servant. Before I change my mind." 春茜か……おい下僕、少し外に出る。 俺の気が変わる前に付き合えよ
(between 8pm and 5am)
"You're going to see the cherry blossoms tonight with the brats? Suit yourself. I doubt any of you can appreciate them." あ? ガキどもと夜桜を見に行く? 勝手にしろ。お前らに、あの風情がわかるとは思えねぇけどな
'you guys are too poor to appreciate nice things'
Summer: (June-August) (between 5am and 11am)
"Those little shits are so loud this morning... They're worse than the cicadas. Tohma, go exterminate them." クソ、朝からガキどもがうるせぇ。 塔真、あのセミより鬱陶しい奴らを駆除してこい
MODS, PUT 'EM IN THE BLENDER.
(between 11am and 4pm)
"What kind of moron chooses to go out in the sun this time of year? Unless you want your brain to melt, stay here with me." わざわざこの時期、日を浴びようなんて奴は馬鹿しかいねぇ。 お前も脳みそ溶かしたくなきゃ、ここにいろ
jin. . .this is frostheim. it is PERMANENTLY WINTER here, even to the point of that the day-night timing doesn't change. It's not hot unless we leave the boundaries of frostheim. . . . THIS IS A THINLY VEILED EXCUSE TO GET YOU TO STAY WITH HIM.
(between 4pm and 8pm)
"You've got tickets to a fireworks festival? The view's better from a helicopter. ...You've got guts thinking you can show me a good time, peasant." あ? 花火大会の観覧席チケット? 花火はヘリから見るもんだろ。庶民の分際で俺を誘いやがって……
'peasant' is worse than 'servant' in my opinion. . . .
(between 8pm and 5am)
"Haven't heard the sound of waves for a while... Get the speedboat. I'll drive." しばらく波の音も聞いてねぇな…… おい、今すぐクルーザーを出せ。操縦は俺がする
jin just shoving you into various vehicles to take you places is really funny to me for some reason. you're like his purse dog. he just wants to take you everywhere even if it doesn't really benefit him to do so. also he can drive a speedboat????
Autumn: (September-November) (between 5am and 11am)
"I overworked myself. Go get Tohma. I was right having him get that PT license. I should have you get one too." 塔真を呼べ、オーバーワークした。 あいつに整体の資格を取らせたのは正解だったな。 下僕、お前も取るか
. . .doesn't that take like three years minimum in japan. . .how did you get him to get that. . .didn't he only meet you like two and a half years ago and you weren't even in the same house then. . .is that a darkwick offered course. . . .
(between 11am and 4pm)
"A pumpkin spice latte? I'm not drinking this saccharine garbage. Give the rest to the brats." あ? パンプキンスパイスラテ? こんな甘ったるい茶は飲まねぇよ。残りはガキどもにやっとけ
what do you think he is, a basic bitch like you? Not a big fan of sweets. Noted.
(between 4pm and 8pm)
"My favorite family vacation? Don't have one. This conversation is over." 行楽の思い出?そんなもんねぇよ。 ……この話は終わりだ
(between 8pm and 5am)
"I don't play the piano because I like it. It's just force of habit." 別に、ピアノが好きで弾いてるわけじゃねぇよ。ただの惰性だ
Winter: (December-February) (between 5am and 11am)
"...Don't fucking wake me up. Come back later." ……起こすんじゃねぇ。話なら後にしろ
he hates the heat he hates the cold. . .well he also hates mornings in general. . . .
(between 11am and 4pm)
"Why is my name on this snowman? Tohma, give me your gloves. Whichever half-wit made this has shit for eyes." なんで雪だるまに、俺の名前が? ……塔真、手袋を貸せ。これ作った奴の目は、確実に腐ってやがんな
"is that supposed to be me. . .? aw hell no i am fixing this shit"
(between 4pm and 8pm)
"Tell the chef and the brats we're having a roast dinner tomorrow. Kobe beef. They know how I like it." 明日はローストディナーだ、シェフとガキどもに言っとけ。 肉は神戸牛でな。焼き加減はわかってるはずだ
i like that the frostheim ghouls eat dinner together like a family. . .jin looks at Kaito and Lucas and goes 'those are my idiot sons. i cannot stand them.'
(between 8pm and 5am)
"You're staying here tonight, servant. I'll show you an aurora you couldn't even dream of." 下僕、今夜は泊まれ。最上級のオーロラを見せてやる
see how this is worded differently from when he asks you to stay over because 'your house is too far away'? even when he's trying to be sweet to you, as long as he maintains your power imbalance he feels comfortable--he has something over you here--but trying to lay his feelings bare, just saying 'i want you to stay with me', that's so much more than he's used to saying.
His birthday (Year 1): (August 31st)
"A birthday party? This has Tohma written all over it, that asshole's always using me to— You're planning it? ...I'll think about it." 誕生日パーティー? 塔真の奴、また俺を客寄せに使って…… 違う?お前が主催? ……気が向いたらな
'that asshole tohma is trying to make me go outside aga--oh you're planning the party. oh. okay. maybe.'
His birthday (Year 2): (August 31st)
"What? You got me a present? …You can give it to me later. Come to my room in an hour." あ? 俺に誕生日プレゼント? ……あとで受け取ってやる。 1時間後に、俺の部屋に来い
he wants his present in private thank you u.u
Your birthday (Year 1):
"The song I just played? It's G. F. Handel. He wrote it for the queen's birthday." さっき弾いた曲?……G.F.ヘンデルが、女王の誕生日に送った曲だ
in case you don't get the significance of what he's saying here. . .lemme fetch one of Tohma's lines for you--
"I'm no more than a servant. Frostheim is ruled by a king, you see." 私はあくまで小間使いですよ。フロストハイムには、キングがいますから
my dude I think jin just called you his queen--only for your birthday though don't get cocky, servant
Your birthday (Year 2):
"Hey, servant. Did you get the package from Tohma yet? …No? Tch… What the hell is he doing…" おい、下僕。塔真から荷物は受け取ったか? ……まだだと? チッ。 あの野郎、もたもたしやがって……
on one hand. . .did you not want to deliver the present yourself. . .on the other hand. . .TOHMA WHERE IS MY GIRL'S PRESENT LMAO. . .he's just trying to teach you that you should do things yourself Jin!
New Years (Year 1): (January 1st)
"Hope you're ready for another year being at beck and call, servant. First up, my New Year's courtesy calls. Go do them for me." おい、下僕。今年も俺専用の女中として必死に尽くせよ。 まずは新年の挨拶回りだ。代わりに行ってこい
'happy new year! your purpose is still serving me.'
New Years (Year 2): (January 1st)
"…What took you so long? You're already resigned to another year as my servant, aren't you? … Hurry up and make my tea then." ……挨拶が遅ぇ。 今年も俺に仕える覚悟はできてんだろうな? …… わかってんなら、さっさと茶を淹れろ
Valentine's Day (Year 1): (February 14th)
"What's that sad-looking box you're holding? ...Oh. No, don't throw it away. I'll take it." なんだ? この貧相な包みは。 ……ああ、そういうことか。 捨てなくていい。受け取ってやるよ
jin is one of those characters who probably gets a mountain of chocolates given to him by admirers, all brand name and like from famous confectioners and shit. real nice fancy packages. so he sees your shitty little unprofessional homemade thing and is like 'tf is that' before he realizes it's for him and it's made with love and he just. . .ah. no, i want that, actually.
Valentine's Day (Year 2): (February 14th)
"What's that red box, servant? …Stop fidgeting. Just give it to me then." おい下僕。その赤い包みはなんだ。 ……もたもたしてんじゃねぇよ。 だったらすぐ、俺に渡せ
White Day (Year 1): (March 14th)
"Keep your schedule open tonight. You're having a meal your peasant taste buds couldn't even dream of." おい、今夜は予定を開けとけ。庶民じゃ一生出会えねぇような美味いもん、お前に食わせてやるよ
White Day (Year 2): (March 14th)
"Hey. Pick a store from this list. A car will be here in an hour. You better be ready to go when it is." おい。このリストから、店をひとつ選んでおけ。1時間後に車が来る。 急いで支度しろ
April Fool's Day (Year 1): (April 1st)
"Hey, are you all right? ...Tsk. If that was a joke, it wasn't fucking funny. I've changed my mind. Cancel all my plans for the day." おい、お前大丈夫か? ……チッ。質の悪ぃ嘘だな…… 気が変わった。今日の予定はすべてキャンセルだ
i feel like Jin is about to put together the most elaborate prank and it's gonna hurt someone's feelings or get somebody hurt and no one will find it funny and he'll end up feeling super shitty. like that one spongebob episode.
April Fool's Day (Year 2): (April 1st)
"…I've only got one thing to say to you. Don't lie to me. Keep that in mind when you open your mouth." ……お前にひとつ言っておく。俺に嘘を吐くな。わかったら口を開け
Halloween (Year 1): (October 31st)
"Where the hell's Tohma? Asshole sent the brats to my room to beg for candy. Next time I see him I'm going to wring his fucking neck." クソ……塔真はどこだ。俺の部屋に籠持ったガキども寄こしやがって。 あいつ……ぶっ殺すぞ……
okay but did you give them candy?
Halloween (Year 2): (October 31st)
"Trick or treat? Huh. You've got guts. Come here. I'll give you a treat." トリックオアトリート? へぇ、良い度胸じゃねぇか。 褒美をやるよ こっちに来い
Christmas (Year 1): (December 25th)
"Go tell Tohma what color dress you're wearing tonight. Why? Maybe I'll wear a matching ascot tie. If I feel like it." 今夜着るドレスの色を塔真に伝えておけ。 あ? 理由? 気が向いたらアスコットタイの色を合わせてやる
Christmas (Year 2): (December 25th)
". . . What tasteless rags are you wearing, servant? Take them off. Now." … … … …おい下僕。その品の欠片もねぇふざけた格好はなんだ? ……脱げ。今すぐにだ
his ass could not handle the santa outfit lmaoooooo HE'S GOT HIS EYES SHUT FOR A BIT AND THEN HE'S JUST MAD AT YOU
Idle: (about 20 seconds without interacting with the game) (below 13 affinity)
"...Where the hell did she go?" ……あの女、どこ行きやがった?
(13 affinity and above)
"Shit... This is throwing me off. Who does that servant think she is?" ……クソ……調子が狂う。 下僕の分際で、舐めやがって……
he feels so wrong without you next to him aw
Absent: (logging in for the first time in 2 or more days?)
"...You've got guts abandoning your place at my back, servant. I'm going to have to retrain you." …………っ、おい……下僕は常に主人の後ろにいるもんだろうが。 お前は再教育だ
ONCE AGAIN IT FEELS LIKE I PUT NEARLY ALL OF THEM IN IT'S ALL OF THEM NOW! The way he treats the pc in so many different ways but it makes sense with his character and feelings. . .as far as the home screen lines go, Jin definitely loves you in some capacity. He's actually quite clingy. . .i'm a little too sleepy for more coherent thought haha
omg.. do you guys actually miss me? 🥹
I miss him
𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚘𝚗𝚎 - 𝙳𝙰𝙸𝚂𝚈 𝙲𝙷𝙰𝙸𝙽
-In which you leave behind the only life you've ever known after your boyfriend cheats on you, only for him to come back after you've already started moving on-
oikawa x reader, atsumu x reader
cw: fem!reader, mentions of cheating, breakups, time skips, canon divergence, eventual smut, love triangle, angst, fluff, mentions of death wc: 2k
"𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘸 𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘺𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥?"
𝗡𝗼𝘄 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴: "Daisy Chain - The Neighbourhood" 00:24 ━●━━━━━ 03:01 ⇄ ◃◃ ⅠⅠ ▹▹ ↻
Who do you become if you move forward? Who do you remain if you stay?
Sendai, March 2017
“Oikawa cheated on you.”
You almost couldn’t believe the words when they fell out of Iwaizumi’s mouth. You didn't want to. They were strained and heavy, like bricks on glass. Not your Tooru. He would never do that. He loved you. He told you so every morning, when the sunlight would just barely peek out over the skyline, and his alarm would ring at 5 a.m., which you’d always end up complaining about. He’d start his day so much earlier than yours—he had so much more to accomplish—but he’d always come back to your bed and kiss your temple before he disappeared for fourteen hours. Even through all the fights, and all of the miscommunication, and missed texts, and selfishly second guessing your life because, you had chosen to follow him, after all. He still loved you.
But Iwaizumi’s face said it all. You’d know that look from anywhere. You grew up with it.
“I don’t know what he was fucking thinking. But I told him if he didn’t tell you, I would.” His brows furrowed, lip drawn into a tight, thin line. ‘So, here I am now,’ you thought he’d say.
Your first instinct was to laugh. Not cry or scream. But laugh. Because it was just so absurd. Three years of middle school, three years of high school, and now three years of dating. And he chose now to throw it away. Like he just woke up one morning and decided, ‘I think I'm done here.’
Iwaizumi kept talking, but you stopped listening. He was angry. Probably more so than you were, given how long it took him to finally shut up. And when you finally brought yourself back into the present, you realized he was staring at you—expecting you to say something.
“What?” you blinked.
His face scrunched, and you noticed the room got impossibly warmer. He called your name, “Are you okay?”
That also made you laugh, because in what world would someone think to ask, ‘Are you okay?’ after telling said person their boyfriend and best friend of almost ten years just cheated on them.
“I’m genuinely sorry I had to be the one to tell you this. I don’t know if he was ever planning on it, but it's been a week now and—”
“A week?” you choked. The corners of your eyes stung.
He nodded slowly, like he was struggling to understand where the disconnect was coming from. And you couldn't blame him, really. It wasn't like he had the easiest job in the world currently.
But also, you really had no room for empathy in your heart right now. Because your entire life—the same one that hadn’t changed in a decade—was now crumbling before you. How silly to think the universe would allow you any more complacency.
“I think you should talk to him. He’s not going to be happy with me, but I really couldn't give a shit.”
You nodded, a small ‘Yeah.’ barely squeaking past your chapped lips. And say what, exactly?
But you couldn't really bring yourself to say anything else. Partially because the room was starting to spin, and because you suddenly lost your ability to breathe properly. But also because there wasn't anything to say.
So you left. Ignoring Iwaizumi as he yelled after you, ignoring the overwhelming urge to call Tooru, ignoring the churning in your stomach that was definitely your breakfast about to force its way up your throat.
You wanted to be mad at Tooru, but instead you were only mad at yourself. Because you should’ve seen this coming. You should have known that your relationship was spiraling to a head like this.
In middle school, you were placed in homeroom between two annoying boys who couldn't stop arguing—One with soft, perfect, milky brown locks, and another who’d constantly shoot perturbed looks over your head, ones that never quite reached his kind eyes, and aiming directly at the former, like they could pierce through his overly-handsome face. You only managed a week in that class before the two decided for you that you’d forever be a part of their life.
In highschool, you spent all of your afternoons the exact same way—waiting patiently on the second floor of the giant gymnasium, looking down at the volleyballs that flew back and forth—at the talented setter who somehow always knew exactly what decisions to make in order to bring out the best in the players around him.
As an adult, you spent the first four years of your freedom following after the boy who’d taken over your entire life. And now, here you were, impulsively deciding to leave, without waiting to see when he’d notice you stopped walking behind him.
As you climbed into your beat up car, the same one Tooru had teased you about replacing for years, you began planning how you’d make your exit. Despite all the times you’d suggested moving in together, you were currently beyond grateful he would always decline.
Which, the more you thought about, was impossibly stupid. You were there seven days out of the week. Your toothbrushes sat beside one another. You had half of your wardrobe in the bottom of his closet. You slept next to him almost every night. You took his jerseys to be dry cleaned on your way to work.
In practice, the two of you already lived together. It made you wonder if he was just afraid of the finality of it.
The door to his apartment pushed open with a familiar creak, and you were immediately greeted by the sweet smell of air freshener you had bought for him. The apartment was cold. You didn't even bother turning on the overhead lights—It wasn't like you needed them, anyways.
Looking back, it's funny how quickly you were able to pack your things. Despite everything, there was only so much of you that occupied his space. Selfcare products, clothes, your contacts, your toothbrush. A stranger walking past wouldn’t think twice of assuming he lived alone.
You stood silently in the middle of his living room, watching the slow and stagnant life of the city below. A sentimental part of you—the one that held no qualms against the passive life you lived for the past 22 years—felt a tug to stay.
With a helpless sigh that snagged against the painful pit in your chest, you turned away from the world outside. The door was still open, the familiar hallway of the complex staring back at you patiently, like it wouldn’t judge you if you changed your mind.
But you didn’t. The door slammed shut with a loud click, a framed picture from your anniversary watching your back.
You almost forgot how annoying the elevators in your building were. They took too long, and as they crept their way up each story, there was a more likely than not chance of a sudden panic-inducing rattle to shake the entire metal cage. When you first moved in, it scared you shitless. Now, you barely noticed it. You wouldn't mind if today was the day the shitbox finally gave out.
It would be embarrassing to admit you forgot the exact number of your apartment. Oddly enough, your feet took you straight there. Up to the sixth floor, take a right immediately, then walk until the second corridor, then a left, and it was the 5th door on the left.
Thumbing your keychain, you unlocked the door with less agency than you had all day. You dropped your bags as soon as you entered, kicking them into the wall with a defeated huff. There was no point in going through them now.
Warm evening sunlight cascaded through a giant window, blanketing the room in tired, golden haze. The couch stood perfectly undisturbed, throw pillows laid comfortably on its plush surface. You couldn't remember the last time you had spent more than a night or two at your own apartment.
The only benefit not living in your own home had, was the lack of dishes. You instinctively trudged to the kitchen, a pit in your stomach. The fridge stared back at you with a low hum as you opened it, its empty shelves mocking you. Of course, you had no need to buy groceries. You didn't live here.
You scoffed, the first audible sound from your mouth since Iwaizumi had delivered the devastating news of your now ex-relationship. Shutting the door a lot harder than was necessary, you hunched yourself over the island counter and pulled out your phone. You had to eat something, and if a cold delivery was your only option, you’d gladly take it.
Before you could even think about typing in your passcode or what take out you’d order, you were bombarded by a wall of notifications. Ones that ranged from obscure apps you never used, to texts you had yet to read. Some from Iwaizumi, some from your old Seijoh groupchat. But three stood out like a sore thumb.
7:45 a.m. Tooru: Babe did I leave my knee pads in the dryer?
7:53 a.m. Tooru: Nevermind. Got them.
4:30 p.m. Tooru: Drive safe from work. I love you.
You stared at the messages for far too long, rereading the last text over and over.
I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.
Your thumb hovered shakily. Then, a text bubble appeared on the screen.
You practically dropped your phone like it was molten lava. He was typing. He probably knew what Iwaizumi had done.
You failed to wet your lips, mouth dry. Staring like a deer in headlights, you waited for a message to come through.
Nothing came.
Everything you had been holding back that day finally reared its ugly head. A choked sob clawed its way from your throat. And then you grabbed your phone again, cursing yourself when you couldn't swipe out of the app fast enough. You were so, so, pathetic.
Crying while trying to order a fucking pizza. You couldn't even see the damn screen, and you kept pulling away to wipe your eyes every ten seconds. Finally, a message notification. You swiped it away. Another one came. You swiped it away.
It was like fucking rapid fire. Your phone rang, Tooru’s face lighting up your screen. You cried louder, yelling at the phone to shut the fuck up. You just wanted a damn pizza, why was that so hard?
He kept calling, and you kept declining. All to the point where you couldn't even have five seconds before it was ringing again. You gave up, turned the thing off, and threw it across the room with a screech that sounded like a dying animal.
Finally, there was only silence. The dull hum of your appliances. A faint thump from one of your neighbours. But somehow, it all made it so, impossibly worse. You had nothing left to distract you from everything. Nothing left to do.
You crumbled into yourself.
Osaka, September 2017
Your aunt died at the end of August, which is how you ended up in Osaka.
You aren’t necessarily sad about it. Sure, you’d met her here and there, at family reunions and short vacations as a kid. But truthfully she wasn’t that big of a part in your life. It makes you feel guilty. Because here you are, sitting next to your entire bloodline as they cry and give touching speeches, and you can’t stop thinking about whether you packed enough clothes for the trip. Thank god no one can read your mind.
The ceremony is nice, you think—not that you’d have any idea of whether or not she’d approve of it. You sit close enough to notice the intricate wood grain of her casket, and the way the candles sitting either side of it flicker impatiently. The pew creaks beneath you every time you shift, which doesn't help the throbbing in your lower back that's begging to be stretched out. To make things worse, the new dress you bought last minute is rubbing your skin raw.
You really shouldn't be complaining. A woman just died, after all. Your aunt died, you remind yourself. You cringe. When the hell did you turn into such a piece of shit?
You’re not even paying attention to whoever’s speaking, because instead you’re busy justifying to yourself why you aren't a bad person for not caring. Well, you do care—just not right now. That makes it even worse, and now you’re apologizing to your aunt as if her ghost is standing over your shoulder and judging you. She probably is.
The service isn’t as long as you thought it would be. The worst part are the estranged cousins and distant relatives that come to speak to you, reminiscing and grabbing your arm while saying, ‘You’ve changed so much!’. Every once in a while you lean over to your dad, discreetly asking him to remind you of their names. Half the time, he doesn't even know himself.
You keep waiting for an “appropriate” time to slip out, but it never seems to come. To make matters worse, your father informs you on short notice that you’re required to be present at the probate meeting. Why the actual fuck would you need to be there?!
To inherit her fucking house, apparently.
an: guys I was SO FUCKING EXCITED to start writing this !!! my old haikyuu obsession came and fucking knocked me into the new year, so I had to write about my two sexy setter boyfriends duh. I don't know how long this will be, so i'm hesitant to call it a slow burn, but I have soooooooo many ideas!! This was partially inspired by 1keshi's White Noise. It's an Atsumu x reader fic, and I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, recommend you read it if you love Atsumu. updates might be slow, because college is abt to start again and ofc I find inspiration at the worse possible time. regardless I hope you all enjoy <3
A like and reblog goes a long way! thank you so much for your support <3
head in hands. thinking about haku packing for your honeymoon and throwing in a shirt and sweats and a thick cardigan just in case the nights at the ryokan get cold. the cardigan he packs is specifically the green one you bought for him for your first anniversary together, chosen carefully from a recycled kimono store in asakusa. you said it reminded you of him, green silk and gold thread like sunlight through leaves. he thinks it reminds him of you, of new buds in bloom, of spring and the scent of something good on the horizon.
🌶️🔞 below sorry i couldn’t help myself
but the nights never get cold, what with honeymoon activities, and you end up wearing the shirt more than he does (and nothing else, much to his satisfaction). the sweats spend most of their time on the floor.
the cardigan gets tossed onto the floor the first night in your eagerness. haku finds it in the same place the next morning, green against the tatami like grass in rolling fields of forever, gold thread and white lining winking in the morning sun. he hangs it up almost reverently, a reminder of where haku and you end, where haku-and-you begin.
that is, until you put it on one night. haku’s white shirt is drying in the bathroom after the groans of last night ended with an accidental spattering of cum neither of you could clean. the lingerie you packed has long been tossed to a corner of the room, slid off you with deft tongue and worshipful touch, white lace discarded like omikuji in favour of bare skin and gasps coaxed from the heat of your throat.
when you slip the cardigan on after your shower, hair towel-dried and messy, nipples peaking in the cold of the room, haku groans. here you are, covered in paths where last night’s kisses landed. here you are, honey of your skin fresh and pebbling under his gaze, covered only by the silk you’ve gifted to him.
when you look at him he knows you know exactly what you’re doing to him.
haku crosses the room in five steps. his hands find your waist faster than you can blink, nose nudging the soft of your jaw upwards so he can mouth at the column of your neck. it makes you hum, sweet, pleased, his.
“princess,” he breathes, “that’s my cardigan.”
your fingers trace his biceps. they trail down to where his sweats hang low on his hips. “mine, now.”
whether you’re talking about the cardigan or the hardness beneath the warm cup of your palm he doesn’t know. he’s always been yours. he can’t remember a day since he met you that he hasn’t been yours.
he laughs, instead. it rumbles through his chest, echoes into the sweet spot between your neck and shoulder. his hands come up to cup your chest, fingers flicking gently over your nipples in the exact way that makes you arch into his hold, turns the name you hold on the tip of your tongue breathy with want.
“haku,” you half-demand, and he has to laugh. he acquiesces, kneading the soft of your skin one last time before he tugs you backwards to the futon.
the cardigan slips its way off your shoulders the first time his tongue teases into you. he spreads your folds with two fingers, nose bumping into you in all the right places, and he watches with half-lidded eyes as you throw your head back and launch his name into moans that go straight to his cock. oh, to purify himself between your legs, to find your essence coating the shine of his lips and down his chin, your very own omiki of his making.
the cardigan puddles around your wrists when he coaxes you down from your high. his hands are firm around your thighs. your hands are shaky with the weight of holding yourself up, holding yourself back from reaching for him, but when he looks at you, all gold and whiskey, all burning and tender, something in you bends, shatters like caramel on the tail of his kisses.
your hand finds his cheek. haku rests against your palm. he looks, looks at you from between your parted legs like you are his personal idol, dressed in his spit and his colours, warm like the colours of summer, radiant in the afterglow of his devotion.
he places another small kiss on the seam of your thigh. maybe he should buy you your own cardigan.
You'd lose.
cw: crack, MDNI, background character reader, ceo!gojo who’s 6’5 and has anger issues, you’re sick of him and y/n and quit your job to go work for ceo!sukuna, barely proofread
m.list | part four | part five (you are here)
You and Sukuna took the same car to get here— his car, to be exact. A red LaFerrari that he explicitly told you not to scratch before your hand even reached for the door handle.
To say you were stranded was a bit dramatic— you were just bitter about having to call an uber when you could’ve just driven here yourself. But no, Sukuna just had to have everything go his way, being the raging narcissist he is.
Your phone began to ring as you were about to book a ride home. It was a call from none other than Uraume, Sukuna’s overworked publicist. You weren’t planning on answering at first, until you realized they’ve probably already seen videos of the two men brawling, and most likely saw you somewhere in the backyard, cringing each time you heard Sukuna’s fist crack into Gojo’s face.
The call was tense, filled with lots of sighs on Uraume's end and ‘I don’t know’s’ on yours. At one point they even had the audacity to ask why you didn’t try to stop him, to which you countered by asking, “would you have physically tried to stop him?”
“…No,” they admitted. Neither of you were as bold as y/n.
They ended up dragging you to county jail with them, and for plot purposes, used Mr. Sukuna’s car to get there. And now you are here— in jail (not really).
There’s two people here that you actually know quite well.
Kiyotaka Ijichi and Iori Utahime.
Uraume gets whipped in the face by their own bob as they snap their gaze towards Ijichi, scoffing at him as if he were the one at fault for the lingering sting on their cheek. The noise that came out of them was closer to that of a snarl though, making the poor man nearly piss his pants.
He doesn’t get paid enough for any of this. Why the fuck does he have to be the one to bail Gojo out of jail?
As if it wasn’t bad enough, now he has to deal with Satan’s publicist. Ijichi’s not complaining about you though. In fact, he’s quite envious of you, having escaped Satoru and all.
Seeing how unbothered you seem makes him wonder if his own boss was the real devil here, not Sukuna.
Fuck that— they’re just as bad as each other, they might be enemies now, but they’d probably be the best of friends when they see each other again in hell.
“Hi Ijichi,” you politely nod, being the one to break the tension in the waiting room.
“Hi Reader,” a thin smile forms as he nods back, before cautiously greeting the pipsqueak, “…Uraume.”
“Don’t fucking look at me.”
“Okay,” Ijichi weakly responds, putting his head down.
Silence falls over the room once again.
You go and sit with Utahime quietly. She seems just as unbothered as you are in this situation. How could you be anything but that? You know the issues between the two of them have nothing to do with you, despite feeling the tension in the room as you scroll on your phone.
It’s not long until you all hear heavy metal doors unlocking, an officer holding it open so the two men can walk out. Mr. Gojo looks slightly ashamed, Mr. Sukuna doesn’t, you’ve never seen him more proud.
Until he realizes who’s here to pick him up.
“Oh great,” Mr. Sukuna grumbles at the sight of you and his publicist. “I don’t wanna hear whatever fuckin’ speech you two have rehearsed for me. I don’t give a fuck if there were cameras, I’d beat his ass again.”
“You didn’t beat my ass,” Gojo stubbornly corrects him, looking at the black eye he gave him. “It was a fair fight.”
“Oh? So it’s not over for you?” he cocks his head to the side, always looking to start a fight.
“What? No! I didn’t say anything about that.”
“You insinuated it when you said it was a fair fight— I don’t do fair. You either win or you lose. So no, it’s not over.”
“Okay,” Utahime gets in between the two, all motherly-like instead of ‘YOU GUYSSSS, STOOOOOPPPPPPPPPPPP’, before it escalates. “If you two want to fight so bad, then I think I have a solution for that.”
Satoru scoffs, “what the FUCK? I thought you were on my side!”
“I am,” she sternly responds. “Me and Uraume spoke on the phone right after those videos came out. We think it’d be a great idea if we held a charity boxing event, that way you two could get good publicity while pummeling each other.” Uruame’s standing there, stoically nodding their head. “We could also invite some others to take part in the boxing match, like some of the Zenins, the Kamos… Mr. Mahoraga.”
“DON’T” Satoru yells at the woman, making her flinch a little.
Sukuna clicks his tongue. “You just love yelling at women, don’t you?”
He is so performative. “You’re one to talk,” you mutter under your breath, scrolling through your phone, still butthurt about your first day working for him.
“What?” he flatly asks.
“Nothing.” you keep your eyes on the screen, knowing your boss probably has murder on his mind right now. You said what you said, you know he heard it too.
“Whatever,” he mutters, eyes turning back to Utahime, not realizing the look Gojo’s giving him. He might not be close to the man, but he knows for a fact Sukuna doesn’t let just anybody make snide remarks at him like that.
How close are you two?
Utahime sighs, she’s always hated being sidetracked. “Alright, that’s what we're doing.”
“I never agreed to this,” Gojo says, rushing to get in front of his publicist, “I literally just got out of jail, you can’t spring this shit up on me!”
“Yeah, county jail,” she sounds so fucking fed up with him, it’s not like he went to prison. “And I'm sorry, you’ve never had a choice in this matter, unless you want to lose investors. Is that what you want? Do you want to be poor, Mr. Gojo?”
“Absolutely fucking not,” he responds, more conflicted than ever. He totally would lose investors over this. Fucking snowflakes. “I’ll do it.” For the sake of giving Sukuna another black eye, not the children. “I’ll see you then, assh–”
Sukuna hasn’t been paying attention, at all. His back is turned to him, looming over you as he watches you play the fight back on your phone. He’s laughing, too.
You two are totally fucking.
He just can’t prove it yet.
—
You roll your eyes as Sukuna wipes some sauce off the side of your mouth. You obviously mind, which is funnier to him since he really doesn’t care to fix little details like that. Uraume left you two— they only showed up to give Sukuna his car, leaving you with the man who’s still drunk off his own adrenaline.
When he brought up getting a bite to eat, you thought it’d be some fancy place like you’re used to whenever accompanying him to a business lunch, or dinner. But, this time he chose some shitty little dinner and you honestly can’t even get mad about it.
The fries were greasy, and good.
“Open,” he murmurs, then watches the way you take a bite from said fry that he inched toward you.
“These are some pretty good fries.”
“I know,” he huffs out a laugh, then pops one in his mouth, “That’s why I come here.”
“Wait… so you’re really doing the charity event?”
“Yeah,” he responds, as if it were obvious.
My bad, is what you want to say. But instead, you simply say, “okay.”
“What?” he smirks, taking a sip from his beer. “You don’t think I’m gonna win?”
“I never said that,” you clarify, starting to wonder just how many words he’s put in other people's mouths, he's worse than Gojo in your opinion. You rest your elbow on the table, propping your head up with your hand, “I just think it’s a lot.”
“It is,” he agrees, taking another sip from his beer. He sighs, “I don’t know. This is why I hired Uraume, they really know what’s best sometimes.”
You deadpan. “You think getting socked in the face is what’s best?”
“No,” he scoffs. “I dunno what you’re so worked up about. Everyone knows me.”
“And what do they know?”
“That he won’t win.”
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ᴋɪʟʟ ᴍᴇ ᴏʀ ᴋɪꜱꜱ ᴍᴇ — ʏᴀᴋᴜᴢᴀ! ɢᴏᴊᴏ x ꜰᴇᴍᴍᴇ ꜰᴀᴛᴀʟᴇ! ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ
ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ › you take a job as the hishō, personal secretary, to tokyo's most terrifyingly pretty crime boss, satoru gojo, with only one goal: to kill him. unfortunately for you, the man who allegedly murdered your parents is offensively hot, and you find yourself losing your heart somewhere between the gun in your hand and his mouth on your throat. turns out revenge is hard when your target is moaning your name. 「 ᴡᴄ: 15ᴋ 」 ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ/ᴛᴀɢꜱ › mdni/18+ only, yakuza au, enemies to lovers, violence (knife, gun, blood), mentions of death, trauma/grief/betrayal, slow burn, but also everything is burning, eventual smut, cnc, power dynamics, rough play (belt, chain), russian roulette foreplay (yeah), fem body reader, unprotected piv, he wasn't actually the villain whoops ᴀ/ɴ › somehow incapable of writing a short fic anymore... also didn't mean for it to take this long, but happy (late) birthday to our six-eyed slut! hope you guys enjoy this ♡ | art @_3aem on x
You were on your knees.
Not in apology, not in surrender, and certainly not in any posture the man in front of you deserved. If fate had a sense of humor, it was an ugly one.
The tatami bit through your stockings, cold and unforgiving. Someone had bled there not long ago; a dark streak marked the floorboards by your left hand, already drying but still tacky at the edges. You tried not to think about whose it had been. The House had no shortage of candidates.
Above you stood Satoru Gojo — oyabun of the largest syndicate in Tokyo, unofficial minister of the underworld, monster with a saint’s smile.
You had spent half your life memorizing that face. It had been sketched in ash and blood across your earliest memories, painted in Sukuna’s voice as the man who ruined everything.
Now he stood within reach. A hand-span away, close enough to kill.
His thumb pressed lightly into the hollow of your throat, reminding you that your life was his to revoke between one word and the next.
“Lie to me again,” he said, “and I’ll show you what becomes of people who try.”
One ought not to sound tender while delivering a threat. It muddled the social cues.
His voice was warm enough to unsettle the discipline you’d spent years perfecting. It sounded amused, as if teasing a lover or a favorite pet. You lifted your gaze, claiming what little ground a kneeling woman could take.
His thumb drew a small, contemplative circle over your pulse. Ideally, you would have been immune to the sensation. Unfortunately, your body, treacherous thing, had neglected to consult you before responding, and leapt under his touch.
You opened your mouth. “I told you—”
He pressed a fingertip to your lips, stalling the story behind your teeth.
“Come now, my little hishō,” he coaxed, voice dipping perilously close to indulgence. “What did I say about lying?”
Your mission was simple: kill Satoru Gojo.
Revenge rarely came with straightforward instructions, yet yours had.
A clean directive: infiltrate the largest criminal organization in Tokyo, get close enough to its untouchable king, and, at the right moment, put a bullet between his blue eyes.
It was simple in the same way “just swim” was, if someone tossed you into open water with your hands tied and your legs lovingly fastened to an anchor.
“Swim,” Sukuna had said. “Or sink. Either way, don’t float.”
Sukuna had taken you in when you were sixteen, found you barefoot in the ash with dried eyes and smoke-filled lungs.
“Satoru Gojo did this,” Sukuna had told you. “Remember that name.”
And you did.
He gave you a decade to prepare; to shape grief into discipline, and discipline into weapon. Ten years to become the sentence he intended you to deliver.
Which made your circumstances almost comedic, because instead of slinking through alleys with knives strapped to your thighs, you’d spent the last few years filing expense reports and color-coding calendars. Hardly the glamorous, blood-soaked assassin work one would expect of a deadly femme fatale.
But infiltration thrived best in plain sight.
So while other recruits broke bones and bled out on warehouse floors, you embedded yourself in the administrative route, where competence was revered and cleverness went politely unremarked so long as the numbers balanced.
You sorted accounts, memorized which fronts were real and which were hollow, pretty façades. You learned where bribe money came from and where it went. Took careful note of whose name appeared too often, and whose never did.
One such name appeared everywhere, and it belonged to Suguru Geto — chief advisor, architect of order, and Gojo’s shadow in human form.
You spent three years under him, working ostensibly as a junior clerk. You made sure every schedule you touched ran seamlessly, every file was where it needed to be, every problem disappeared before his attention needed to land on it.
Your work was your audition. Suguru never said much, but when an opening finally appeared, he had given a thoughtful hum and offered your name in recommendation.
And that was how you came to be the kumichō hishō : personal secretary to the oyabun himself. A position that required trust, access, and proximity — all things you intended to weaponize.
You met him on a Monday.
“Gojo-kaichō,” you announced yourself, every syllable pristine, bowing at an angle that served as a testament to the formality drilled into every junior member of the House.
He didn’t return the courtesy. He didn’t need to, he’d seen you before — briefly, in passing moments that barely counted as acknowledgment. To him, you’d simply been another administrative disciple; to you, he’d been a ghost with white hair.
Satoru Gojo sat behind a low, elegant desk, scrolling through something on his tablet. He wore no sunglasses indoors — a small, stupid thing to fixate on, but every rumor you’d ever heard had included them. Now you finally got to see his blue eyes.
Eyes your nightmares had worn all your life. Eyes etched into your memory with fire and grief. Eyes belonging to the man who slaughtered your family.
If vengeance had a face, you’d been told it wore his. And your vengeance smiled at you now.
“You’re early,” he said, looking up. “Trying to impress me?”
“I aim to meet expectations,” you replied.
And yes, those expectations included stabbing him someday, but one shouldn’t spoil a perfectly good surprise.
He leaned back in his chair, long legs crossed, fingers steepling as he regarded you. He stared long enough that your spine locked straight on instinct, long enough that you wondered if he could sense the lie coursing through your veins.
“Your file says you worked under Suguru,” he continued. “He speaks highly of you.”
Satoru Gojo only allowed a select few within arm’s reach, and he trusted even fewer. You had known since the beginning that the fastest route into Satoru’s confidence was through the men guarding his throne. Suguru had been the doorway, and you had stepped through without hesitation.
Another polite bow, poised and deadly. “Thank you, kaichō.”
“No—”
He lifted a single finger.
“—drop the title when we’re alone. We don’t need all that boring formality, do we? I’d hate for us to sound like strangers.”
You recalibrated. Quickly. “Understood, Gojo-san.”
That earned you a wince. Wrong answer.
“Doesn’t my own hishō know my name?” he questioned. “Try again.”
Stories had warned of that small change in expression. There were rumors of how a slight downturn of his mouth could send seasoned officers stumbling over apologies. All it took was one look from him to remind you exactly how disposable you were, and whether or not you would see tomorrow.
You had been breathing on borrowed time since the night you lost everything. Since Sukuna found you in the ruins of your childhood home with soot in your hair and your parents’ bodies growing cold beside you and told you their killer’s name.
The man you’d been raised to destroy stood only a few inches out of reach, and if you wanted to get close enough to kill him, you had to get close enough to please him first.
You met his gaze, bright as a blade-silver in sunlight. “If that is your preference… Satoru.”
His smile widened in private satisfaction. It was the kind of smile that made women foolish and men dead. But you didn’t allow yourself to gloat. Not until the knife went in.
“Mm. Much better.”
He looked you over in a way that wasn’t entirely professional. Not lecherous, either. You felt his gaze sweep from your face to the curve of your throat, along the line of your waist, and back up.
Pushing back from the desk, he rose to stand. Up close, he was taller than memory had promised, lean underneath the tailored shirt, sleeves rolled high enough to reveal the beginning of dark ink curling along one forearm.
“As my secretary, I expect you beside me at all times.” He circled around the desk, not offering you a chair. “Suguru tells me you’re the right person for the job. Prove to me you’re more than just a pretty face.”
He gestured toward a stack of files on the side credenza. “These are this week’s problems. You’ll sort, prioritize, and decide what I actually need to care about. If I see something on my desk that shouldn’t be there, you’ll know.”
You moved toward the stack, already calculating. One third legitimate, two thirds rubbish. Some pieces were neither, and those were the truly important ones.
As your fingers touched the top file, his hand came down lightly over yours.
“I don’t believe in second chances,” he said conversationally. “And if you ever decide to betray me…” His thumb pressed down with a force that made your knuckles pale. “… I won’t be kind.”
Your heartbeat was traitorous, but your smile was perfect.
You angled your face toward him, stubborn to the bone. “Don’t worry, I’ll do everything to win your trust.”
“I’m sure you will.” His hand lifted. The contact faded, but the impression of it remained.
You stacked the files into your arms. They were heavier than they looked — as problems often were.
“Conference room in twenty,” he said, already turning back toward his desk. “Your performance there will decide if you stay or get replaced. Good luck.”
“Yes, Satoru.”
You had made it into the lion’s den. Now you just had to survive long enough to kill the king.
By the time the meeting ended, you had a rough working map of the House’s power structure, a mental dossier of names to avoid, and enough amended drafts to build a modest fort.
A sensible woman would have gone straight back to her desk. You were not always sensible.
Not where Satoru Gojo was concerned.
He stayed behind after the others left, perched on the edge of the long table with his jacket discarded and his tie hanging loose in a silk carcass. The top buttons of his shirt were undone, sleeves pushed up, the ink on his forearms more visible now, winding in sharp black lines along tendon and fibers.
You hadn’t planned on seducing him today.
Truly.
You’d intended to wait until you understood the terrain of his office, the weather of his moods, the purpose of his glances.
But after the third time Satoru’s eyes slid over you—with a touchless look that felt like a fingertip trailing the length of your spine—your patience dissolved like cheap sugar.
“I believe this is the part where you leave,” he said, without looking up. “Take this opportunity to go home before I find something else for you to do.”
You should’ve obeyed.
But Sukuna would’ve called that a half-measure. Anything short of the throat was a waste of effort.
Besides, seduction was a language you spoke fluently; a weapon you wielded better than a knife. And if he insisted on looking like that, well… you could hardly be blamed for responding in kind.
You let a single page slip from your stack.
Just one.
A delicate little tragedy that fluttered off the top and land squarely at his feet.
“Oh—sorry,” you said, stepping closer.
You were aware of your blouse, your perfume, the way he watched you like he already knew something was coming.
You knelt.
The table blocked his view from any potential passerby. You leaned forward to reach the document, enough to send the neckline of your blouse dipping into suggestion.
And when you looked up, those blue eyes were already looking down at you. Fucking beautiful, unfortunately. Though, fortunately, it made your job all the more easier.
“Oops,” you said, with a smile that was not sorry at all.
You knew how you looked — knees together, spine straight and back arched. Men were so predictable you sometimes pitied them.
“Long day,” you said. “You must be tired too.”
“Oh?” he questioned, eyes taking a leisurely tour of your body. “Think you can make it better?”
He walked right into your trap. Bless him.
You let out a small laugh and trailed your fingertips up the inside of his calf, eyeing him all the while with the most devastating look in your arsenal.
“If there’s anything you need,” you whispered, “anything at all… you can tell me.”
Satoru’s lashes dropped a shade, mapping you, deciding which part of you he’d like to taste first. A thoughtful drag of his tongue ran along his cheek.
“Is that so?”
You had him. It was disappointingly easy.
He watched you from above, your body half-kneeling before him, lips parted, breath subtly quickened. You’d spent years sharpening seduction into strategy, into blade.
You could see him wanting; you could smell it. Men, no matter how mythologized, were so obedient to hunger.
You nodded, eyes on his. “You only have to say.”
His eyes narrowed in amusement and he curled his finger in a slow beckoning motion.
“C’mere then.”
You rose slowly, smoothing the page between your fingers, letting your hair slide to one side in a practiced cascade while shifting your posture in a way that offered him an undeniably enticing vantage point — the perfect portrait of desire.
He leaned back, bracing his hands on the table behind him. You took up the space between his knees.
Satoru Gojo, for all his reputation, wasn’t immune to gravity.
“You’d do anything, huh?” His voice dipped, dark and teasing.
Your lips curved into a soft, inviting shape. “Anything within reason. And perhaps beyond it, if you’re persuasive.”
You felt the moment crest; the dangerous, dizzying ache of a man about to fall headfirst into your orbit. You felt his desire inches away from being exploited. His heart was being pressed beneath your blade.
“Is this the depth of your ambition?” he asked, lips touching the shell of your ear. “You climb ranks like this? On your knees?”
He tugged the paper out of your fingers and set it aside, then caught your wrist. He guided your hand to rest against his shoulder, then to the back of his neck, as if testing what you would do with the contact. Your fingers flexed before you could stop them.
If his touch had been possessive, it would’ve been easier to hate.
His free hand settled at your waist and pulled you close. It would have taken very little to close the gap between your mouths.
“By the way,” he murmured, eyes skating down, “this blouse isn’t workplace appropriate.”
“Neither are you,” you replied, steady, sweetly venomous.
His laugh was low and sinful. “Care to tell me why you’re doing this, exactly?”
You smiled in return, one you’d practiced time and time again on your past missions.
“I love fucking powerful men.”
Stated plainly.
“You’re good,” he conceded. “If I were a foolish man, I’d be flat on my back already.”
“You’re assuming I’d let you lie down,” you said.
He laughed, delighted, then raked a hand through his hair, humor not quite reaching his eyes anymore.
“Here’s your problem, sweetheart,” he whispered. “You walked in here thinking you could seduce me—”
His hand wandered near your shoulder, fingers brushing your bra strap, slipping under it. He tugged. A soft snap of elastic that claimed you.
“—and I enjoyed it, don’t get me wrong.” His lips brushed the corner of your cheek, a shadow of a kiss. “But I don’t fold that easy.”
You swallowed: a fatal little give-away. He’d heard it.
“If you play with me again,” he said, hooking a finger under your chin, tilting your face up to his, “I won’t stop halfway.”
God, he was insufferable.
“And sweetheart,” he added, brushing a strand of hair behind your ear in a gesture far too gentle for the threat underneath, “the next time I ask you why you’re really here—” his thumb tapped your lower lip, “—I’ll make sure you’re in no position to hold anything back.”
You felt that line in places you pretended not to own.
And just like that, he released your wrists and leaned back, dismissing you with a sharp smile.
“Now, go,” he said, “before you do something else you’ll regret. And try not to dream about me tonight.”
He nodded towards the door, as if that settled things.
You stepped back on shaky legs, cursing the heat crawling under your skin as you left the room. Your heels clicked down the hallway in the kind of grace only born from spite. Inside, you trembled with an emotion you refused to name.
It wasn’t desire. You’d rather die than call it desire.
You had vowed to kill him, yet he made your blood sing. And that was unforgivable.
The prologue of your revenge had always been simple in your mind: enter, get close, strike. But now you understood that to kill him, you’d have to stand far closer than you ever intended.
The House had it’s own choreography, and you learned it quickly.
Your day began at six.
Not six-oh-five. Not six-twenty after lingering in a hot shower fantasizing about slitting Satoru’s throat.
Six.
You arrived every morning before sunrise. No one never told you when to be there; he simply expected you to know.
By the time most staff staggered in with their coffees and their dread, you’d already skimmed the night’s reports—shipments, debt with numbers so creative they deserved rewards, bribes disguised as philanthropy—and marked the three items you knew Satoru would point at first before placing those on the top of the stack.
The first time you did it, he flicked through the pile and said nothing. The third time, he didn’t even look down before asking you, “What do I need to know?”
The first emergency landed on your desk precisely on the hour each day. Crises that were dispassionately thrown on your in-tray. Your hell now resembled an inbox full of unread emails and misfiled invoices.
One morning, it’d be the death of a debtor who owed a grand amount. The next, it’d be dockyard disputes. Either they were late, lying, or terminally stupid.
It fell to you to determine which, and to solve it.
Today’s agenda covered routes, port inspections, business owners with sudden moral objections, and a shipment that had “gone missing” in a way that suggested it had acquired new, unofficial owners.
When a mid-level captain proposed handing a district over to an outside crew in exchange for a cut, you advised mildly, “It would seem unwise to trust a man with forty million in debt to handle even more money.”
“And you know this how?” The caption retorted.
You slid a copy of the ledger to him. “You authorized their last restructuring. But you forgot to hide it.”
Satoru tapped his fingers on the table once, pleased. “Listen to my secretary. She knows where we keep the bodies.”
By dinner, you had filtered his messages, deleted thinly veiled bribes, flagged three assassination warnings, and answered enough correspondence to keep five lesser executives busy for the week.
At supper, you had escorted a “visitor” into the private parlour. A model with legs up to her ears and the young ambition in her eyes. She was a gift from a Kabukichō club owner as a gesture of good will in exchange for the clan’s protection.
“When is Gojo-kaichō arriving?” she asked, hopeful.
“He’s not coming,” you replied curtly.
She blinked. “But I was told—”
“I’m sorry.”
You gave her a polite smile and reminded her to maintain decorum before exiting the room.
You’d almost laughed; poor girl thought she was here for the big fish, when in reality, she was just a treat fed to the oyabun’s many lap dogs.
An occupational hazard of selling one’s body to realize a dream is that everyone else had the same idea.
Including you, for that matter.
And by nightfall, you were bone-tired, hair escaped from its pins and blouse rumpled from twelve hours of grueling work. Your mind began drafting a resignation letter.
Your day didn’t end here though, for being Satoru Gojo’s hishō meant your days belonged to him. Your mornings, your afternoons, your whole being. And tonight was no different.
You were now responsible for running the beating heart of the clan, and your desk was the axis upon which the empire spun.
And when the monsters of the underworld finally slept, you returned to his office. Past the shoji screens that hid dark secrets, past the pillars that raised Tokyo’s crime rate — you found the devil by the low table.
There he lounged, the unchained beast of Tokyo’s veins, sleeves undone, hair falling loose around his face, tie lay discarded, a silk carcass. A bottle of expensive sake sat uncorked beside him.
He looked up, a decadent smile stitched on his lips. It was indecent, the sight of him.
“Busy day?” he asked, knowing full well he’d engineered all your inconveniences and even made some profit off of it.
“You certainly give your subordinates plenty to do,” you replied, setting the last reports of the day down.
“Poor thing.” He reached out tenderly, lifting a lock of your hair and curling it around his finger. “Want me to put you to bed?” he asked, as if offering you a noose.
It was remarkable how swiftly one could fantasize about snapping a man’s finger clean at the joint. But patience had preserved your life this long.
“I’d like to go over the finances.”
“Later.” A single command, a stone wall. He patted the cushion beside him — a directive disguised as hospitality. “Sit.”
Obedience was the quickest way to reach the throat, so you slid in beside him and sank into the seat.
He poured a second cup and tipped it your way. “Drink.”
If he beckoned, you’d obey. “As you wish.”
Satoru toyed with the lip of his glass while he watched the movement of your throat. He shifted, propping himself on one arm, the motion rippling muscles beneath an anthology of tattoos.
You had intended to behave tonight, but exhaustion and the warmth from the alcohol loosened your restraint, and he was looking at you with the same indulgent interest again.
His intrigue was a crosshair, and you didn’t mind getting caught in the fire. So you inched closer, letting your shoulder kiss his arm.
It was a small thing. A spark tossed into a waiting tinderbox.
His eyes narrowed at the gesture. “Hm,” he said, “is this your second attempt?”
“… attempt?”
“To fuck me.” His grin widened, wicked and pleased. “Or to kill me.”
Your nearly choked on the liquor, the burn lodged in your throat. Knowing the sick bastard, he’d say just about anything to see how you’d wilt. And if he wanted to be bold, you’d match him measure for measure.
“Such narrow options,” you said sweetly. “Why not both?”
His hand slid to your jaw, a touch both intimate and deadly. For a split second, you felt the ghost of a possible death.
“Satoru—”
He shushed you, thumb brushing your lower lip, commanding silence.
“What do you want from me tonight?”
“I’m here to deliver your reports.”
“No,” he said, gliding over the corner of your mouth. “That’s your excuse, not your reason.”
You held very, very still.
“What is it? Position? Protection? Pleasure?” He studied your face, searching deeper. “Or is it something else?”
He waited; for the truth, or for the lie, but you didn’t give in. You were trained to be made of silence. You couldn’t reveal yourself yet.
“Interesting,” he sighed.
And on cue, he reached into his back pocket and withdrew a revolver. A sleek black thing, polished and heavy.
Your blood iced. You knew enough of guns to recognize the weight of consequence.
He cracked open the chamber, and inside, one bullet glinted. He spun it, and with a metallic whirr, clicked the cylinder back into place.
“Well,” he said softly, “if what you want is to kill me, now’s your chance.”
Satoru took your hand and wrapped it around the weapon. Your fingers curled around it without conscious thought, an extension of your will.
Russian roulette — a one-in-six chance, a one-in-six promise. Either you’d succeed, or you’d die trying.
“Are we playing?” you asked, savoring the electric thrill that danced under your skin.
Satoru’s smiled tilted, sinful and bright. “Only if you’re up for it, darling.”
You lifted the revolver and pressed the barrel to his temple — a lover’s kiss in steel. As expected, he didn’t flinch. Neither blinked nor breathed.
“You remember what I said?” he murmured. “That if you tried to seduce me again, I’d make you finish what you started?”
His hand slid to your waist, then lower, then back up to the nape of your neck. From there, he guided you onto his lap—slowly, insistently—until your knees straddled his thighs, skirt riding up, breath colliding with his.
“I’m holding you to it,” he whispered against your lips, hand gliding up to curl into your hair. “So go on. Kill me, if you can.”
Your thighs clenched involuntarily around him. You felt your pride shrivel, but your hunger grow. How humiliating.
“What exactly do you stand to gain from this?” you questioned. “If I win, the throne falls; but if you win, all you have to do is replace me.”
“I get excited when a beautiful woman puts my life between her pretty fingers.”
His other hand slid between your thighs. His thumb pressed slow, sinful circles over your underwear, heat radiating under his touch.
You cocked the hammer with your thumb — a sound crisp enough to carve the room in half.
He let out a sound nearer to a moan than anything else. His fingers pressed harder between your legs, stroking you with maddening precision.
“Pull it,” he whispered, grinding you down onto his hard length. “C’mon, sweetheart. Give me your best shot.”
The first command of his you wanted to obey.
Your blood ignited and you leaned in close. You didn’t want to miss the sound of his skull breaking open. The crack, the shatter.
“As you wish.”
And you pulled the trigger.
Click.
Empty.
His breath broke, melting instantly into a strangled, ragged sound you’d never heard from him before, then he crushed his mouth to yours.
The kiss was hungry, beautiful — his tongue slid against yours, claiming, taking. His hands gripped your thighs as he rutted up into you through your clothes. You gasped into his mouth as his thumb slid beneath your underwear, stroking your clit with ruthless intent.
“Fuck—again—“ he exhaled, hands sliding beneath your blouse, palms rough, fingers greedy.
“Satoru—” you breathed, dizzy with pleasure.
He dragged his lips down your throat, sucking hard enough to bruise. “Do it again,” he growled. “Pull the fucking trigger—now.”
“But that’s not how the game works—”
“—I don’t care, just do it again.”
The desperation in his voice was obscene, the sound of a man who’d finally found something worth worshiping or destroying. You pressed the barrel under his jaw this time, angling it upward. He groaned, hips bucking.
“You’re making this too easy,” you said, rolling your hips down on him.
He laughed, breathless. “Oh, sweetheart… don’t make me beg.”
His hands slid higher, knuckles grazing the edge of your bra and fingers brushing bare skin, dragging soft sounds from your lips you hadn’t planned to give him. The undercover veil you were hiding behind began to thin as desire clawed its way free, and you had to contain it.
You pressed the gun harder into his jawline, down the column of his throat. His head tipped back for you, exposing himself in the most sinful offering — inviting death itself.
His body under yours was solid heat, his blatant lust was a warning you welcomed. And for a traitorous moment, you wished the bullet wouldn’t bite just yet. His fingers slid deeper inside you, and you instinctively cocked the weapon once more, choking on a moan.
“God, you’re tight, fuck—” he hissed.
His voice was a wrecked, ruined mess. It made your entire body tremble, not with fear but with the intoxicating thrill of being the only person in the world who could tip him over the edge now. His eyes fluttered shut, mouth parting in anticipation.
“C’mon baby,” he whispered, barely audible. “Make me feel it.”
You pulled the trigger.
Click.
Empty, again.
And Satoru Gojo—oyabun, kingpin, untouchable monarch of Tokyo’s underworld—made a noise so filthy, so shattered, it rewired your entire understanding of power. His fingers thrust into you even harder, so fast and relentless it made you break open.
“Again,” he begged. “Again—pull—don’t stop—don’t fucking stop.”
You smiled against his mouth, mumbling, “Aah—you must really want to die for me.”
“And you must really want me,” he murmured, stroking tender circles inside you, rendering you a sloppy, shuddering mess. “Still wanna play, darling?”
His fingers stroked deep enough to rob you of coherent thought. The next word left your mouth as a broken sigh, more confession than answer: “Yes.”
In an instant, fabric began to tear away in frantic shreds and your blouse, the same one he reprimanded you for, ripped open to bare breasts heaving with labored breaths.
Satoru’s hands slid up your hips, firm and commanding, shoving his trousers down to free the thick, flushed length of his cock, already rigid and leaking pre-cum like venom from a fang. He pressed himself against the wet mess between your thighs, heavy and twitching with impatience.
He guided you down onto him with a single brutal thrust, sending your vision white and blurry. Your pussy clenched around the brutal invasion, walls stretching to accommodate his girth.
“Satoru—” it spilled from you, uncontrollable and pathetic.
“Fuck, you’re a vise—” he grunted through gritted teeth, head tipping back as he bottomed out inside you, hips grinding up and punishing you with every inch of him. “Tight little thing, aren’t you? Who knew my hishō could take my cock so well.”
Your fingers dug into his shoulders, your hips jerked. He set a savage rhythm, hard, deep and wholly unrelenting. Each thrust was a violent kiss against your insides. Your breath dissolved into a fractured sound, landing between a moan and a plea.
“Didn’t you want to kill me, sweetheart?” he taunted, breath hot against your jaw. He snapped his hips again, stuffing your pussy with his thickness. “Or did you change your mind after riding me?”
You could barely inhale, let alone answer. His hands dragged up your back and gripped your hair, guiding your mouth to his. You shook your head, denial on your tongue that you couldn’t arrange into words.
He thrust up harder. “Can’t speak all of a sudden?”
You whined — a tiny, belittling sound.
“That’s it,” he whispered, fucking you devastatingly slow, wanting to savor each ruined breath you took. “Let me hear how weak I make you feel.”
He reached for your hand, the one still clutching the revolver, and guided it back to his temple. “Pull the trigger,” he urged, ramming into you with delicious force. “Pull it while you’re squeezing me like that.”
The gun’s metal glinted mockingly, a cold kiss to his skull while his hips slapped against you. Your entire body seized as he fucked harder, his free hand gripping your ass to hold you steady as he claimed every inch of you.
“God, you’re perfect,” he groaned, sweat beading on his brow, the chamber’s uncertainty fuelling his frenzy. “So tight—if I die like this—fuck—”
His words were drowned out by the sound of your moans. Your walls fluttered around him, desperate for release. You arched up, nails raking down his back as his cock throbbed inside you, swelling with each reckless plunge.
“Do it,” he rasped, burying his head into your shoulder. “I wanna feel it—while I’m inside you.”
You cocked the hammer.
“Ready?” you whispered into his ear.
His hips jerked violently at your voice, cock throbbing inside you, thick and merciless. The risk twisted pleasure into something psychotic, a symphony of gasps and grunts echoing off the walls.
“Baby—” he grunted. “Shoot. Now.”
You leaned back, eyes locked on his, all blue, blown and wild. The trigger hovered under your finger now, his trust a deranged offering, and with one brutal thrust, he slammed into you —
BANG.
You had a clean aim. You had a clear shot. But you… missed.
The bullet grazed his shoulder.
“FUCK—”
He cried out; sharp, guttural, erotic. His hands clamped down on your hips as his entire body arched into you, shattering into a raw moan — a king’s unraveling as he spilled deep into your depths, ropes of seed flooding you while his body convulsed in ecstatic defeat.
Hot spurts filled you in waves, each one forcing your own release to crest and crash down your spine. Your cunt spasmed around his sex, milking every last tremor from it.
Power inverted in that moment — the feared oyabun reduced to a quivering wreck under you, the gun’s empty laugh sealing your dominion in the underbelly’s fevered night.
The smoke from the spent cartridge curled upward in a thin ribbon, drifting between your faces like a spectator that couldn’t decide where to look first: the blood sliding down Satoru’s arm… or the way you were still seated on his cock.
His shoulder bled in a neat, warm streaks, marking the path of the bullet you’d meant—and failed—to bury in his skull.
He looked beautiful all bloodied. Serene, even. Didn’t even seem to feel the pain; or perhaps he felt nothing but the pain and reveled it like some kind of masochist kink.
You had nearly killed him, and he came apart beneath you for it. How grotesque. A terrifying, magnificent man to destroy.
He held you there, impaled on him, unwilling to withdraw, keeping you exactly where you’d been at the moment of impact.
“Now tell me, my dear hishō, who taught you to shoot?”
His tone was gentler than the question deserved. Your fingers flexed around the revolver still in your hand, barrel still warm from the shot.
Your parents would’ve hated who you’d become.
They had clawed their way out of the underworld before you were born, trading blood for anonymity, carving a quiet life under names that weren’t their own — a fragile refuge meant to keep you hidden from exactly this kind of world. You were never supposed to learn of their past, but secrets have a way of surviving fire.
Kohaku and Shiranui.
Aliases you had uncovered by accident only after their deaths — a scrap of a document left behind in a lock box, written in the thin handwriting of people who had worn names never meant to last. They believed secrecy would save you, but the same world they ran away from found you anyway.
“I asked you a question, sweetheart.” His blue eyes sharpened, luminous and cutting. “Who else has placed a gun in your pretty little palm?”
“Does it matter? If I wanted you dead, I would’ve aimed better.”
“Then why do I have a sneaking suspicion you missed on purpose?”
His thumb brushed the underside of your thigh, a lazy stroke that made your abdomen tighten in spite of your better judgment. Your hips shifted fractionally, and his release began seeping lower with every movement.
Shameful.
“Are you mad I hit you?”
He chuckled. “Barely.”
“Still closer than anyone else had got.”
“Mmm,” he mused, fingers gliding up your ribs to brush the torn edges of your blouse. “Did hurting me feel good?”
You felt his cock swell inside you once more. He was truly sick — but if this is what got him going, you’d run along with it to the very end.
You wanted to break his jaw. You wanted him to touch you again.
“Killing you would’ve made me feel better,” you murmured.
He grinned like you’d just confessed your love. His hands slipped into your hair again, cupping the back of your skull.
“Want a rematch?” He asked.
“Rather confident for a man currently bleeding out.”
“It’s just a scratch, darling.” He rolled his shoulder, winced, then smiled wider. “Besides, I’ve had worse. Women try to kill me all the time.”
“Do you bury your dick in all your assailants?”
He barked out a laugh, bright and delighted, then dipped his head to your neck and placed a light kiss against your pulse point. “Jealous already?”
You were already imagining several forms of torture to use against him, each one more inventive than the last.
“Satoru,” you began, but he cut you off with a soft bite at your throat.
“I still want my answer.” His hand slid down to your lower back, holding you flush against him, his cock a warm, throbbing weight inside you. “I’d love to thank whoever it is for sending you my way.”
The image of his pupils dilating, full of deranged desire — it was enough to make you wet all over again.
You had to force yourself off before you lost even more your dignity. His cock slid out of you with a slick, humiliating sound that pulled a broken breath from his mouth.
You already crumbled once tonight, you weren’t going to allow him a second win. So you stood, straightened your ruined blouse, buttoned what fabric remained and wiped his cum from your inner thigh with the back of your hand, unbothered and elegant in your desecration.
And when you turned to leave, he called out softly:
“You know I’ll find out.”
You paused at the doorway, not bothering to look back.
“You can try.”
And then, with the revolver tucked into your waistband and your thighs still trembling from the taste of him, you slipped into the hallway.
Behind you, Satoru Gojo laughed, ruined and thrilled. “God,” he whispered to himself, wincing as he clutched his bleeding shoulder. “She’ll be the death of me.”
The polished marble under your heels was far too honest.
It reflected everything you didn’t want to acknowledge: the missing button on your blouse, the shaky set of your knees, the unmistakable white mark down the inside of your thigh — traces that belonged to a man who should’ve been dead by now, the man whose cock had just split you open.
You pressed the revolver against your sternum. The metal had cooled by now, but your pulse hadn’t quite caught up.
You gathered your pride with both hands—a fragile thing tonight—and managed all of ten steps before your phone buzzed. The vibration sliced through you more effectively than any bullet ever could.
You didn’t need to check the caller ID. Sukuna always had impeccable timing.
You ducked into a shadowed alcove, the kind used by junior officers to hide their fear and by senior ones to hide their affairs. It was silent save for the murmur of distant guards and the reverberation of Satoru’s ragged moans that still clung to your ears, sticky as sap. You swallowed it down before sliding your thumb across the screen.
“Tell me you made progress.”
No greeting. No patience.
“I’m working on it.”
You’ve came to known that the silence that followed meant he was displeased.
“Working on it,” Sukuna repeated flatly, as if tasting the words and finding them offensively bland.
Your grip on the phone tightened until your knuckles paled. A bead of sweat slid down your spine. You hated that your body still responded to him like this, like a loyal dog trembling under its master’s wrath.
Old instincts crawled out of hiding: shoulders tightened, breath caged in your throat, body poised for punishment that would never come from a phone line but felt imminent all the same.
He took you under your wing after you were left alone in ruins. He gave you a new family, a new home, but you weren’t so foolish to consider it love. No — he did it for a reason, as he did everything else. You shared a common goal, and he used it as leverage.
He couldn’t smell the sex on you, nor the gunpowder. He couldn’t possibly know you had failed, but Sukuna had a sixth sense for hesitation; and your hesitation was still wet between your thighs.
“His guard is high,” you said, forcing steel into your tone. “I need more time.”
Another pause.
“Funny,” Sukuna finally murmured. “One of my crows told me that Gojo dismissed some whores earlier.” A rustle of fabric, the creak of a leather chair. “But that he was… occupied with another plaything.”
Your heart stopped.
No.
His spies couldn’t have known that quickly, could they? It was too fast. Too soon —
“My little blade wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?” His tone smoothed into conversational, as intimate as it was cruel.
The cold wall at your back gave you something to lean on, but it didn’t stop the memory from rising. Your skin ached where Satoru’s hand had bruised them.
Shame should’ve been beneath you. It belonged to weaker creatures. Yet you felt so small.
“If I act too recklessly, I lose everything,” you said, lifting your chin.
“And if you act too slowly, you’ll be the one on the chopping block,” he countered.
Your mouth went dry.
Sukuna rarely stated threats outright; he preferred to let the meaning go unspoken. This time, something in his tone suggested he was growing tired of your pace, tired of waiting.
Your teeth clicked together. You refused to let him gain the upper hand on you, even across distance. “He made the first move,” you said. “I followed along to keep suspicion low.”
Sukuna exhaled, a sound like a blade leaving its sheath. “When I send a woman to kill a man, I expect her legs to open only if his throat does.”
“My purpose is intact —”
“Did you enjoy it?”
Your glare at the wall could’ve cracked stone. Satoru’s fingers had been inside you only ten minutes ago, but Sukuna’s words now curled around the same places they’d been.
“That isn’t relevant.”
Silence stretched.
“He’s only toying with you, my blade. He wants you pliant and eager, wants you grovelling at his feet, begging for an inch,” Sukuna said. “He’s only survived this long because that’s how he controls everyone.”
Images you didn’t consent to flooded your mind uninvited — Satoru’s fingers digging into your hips, the way he’d groaned when the bullet kissed him, the absolute sight on his face as he spilled inside you, aching for more.
“I am no one’s puppet,” you reminded him, reminded yourself.
Sukuna laughed. A slow, indulgent slice of sound. “Everyone kneels for someone. Even you.”
“I’ll get the job done.”
“Good. Finish it.” A breath. “Or you’re of no use to me.”
The line went dead.
Two monsters lived in your veins. Two shadows stalked your steps. Both would kill you without a second thought if you misstepped.
You vowed to survive them both.
“You’ll be accompanying me to the diplomatic conference in Aoyama.”
His announcement carried customary discipline, but the way he passed the day’s itinerary to you, imperceptibly calm, told you that you were being maneuvered into a new position on the board.
The summit in Aoyama was the single, most important meeting that occurred mid-winter every year, where negotiations were held between the yakuza and the official hands that controlled Japan.
To accompany him was a privilege reserved for the men who carried Satoru’s empire on their spines, not the woman who took his calls and reorganized his life into neat little folders.
Suguru paused mid-stride when he heard it. He didn’t comment but the crease between his brows tightened by a hair’s breadth — a subtle response, but in a house that lived and died by subtext, it felt like a warning.
Only Satoru Gojo could dictate the state of gravity, and today, he’d shifted its pull.
The drive to Aoyama passed in a cultivated quiet. Satoru lounged beside you, one hand draped over the seat-back, indifferent and sprawling.
Weeks had passed since the night you’d straddled him with a gun at his temple—weeks since he’d bled under you and still pulled pleasure out of your name—yet he made no mention of it.
No wry comments, no smug smile, not even the satisfaction of a shared secret. The memory lived richly in your body, unwanted and stubborn, yet he gave it no air.
He behaved as though it had been a minor indulgence, as if he’d never touched you at all. That restraint lodged under your skin more effectively than any taunt.
The car rolled through the old district, past stone torii gates and pines. The compound awaited behind wooden doors marked with diplomatic crests older than most bloodlines in the city.
A man in formal robes bowed at the gate. “Gojo-kaichō. We’re honoured.”
His reverence evaporated, souring at the sight of you stepping out: a woman in a position reserved for power-brokers. And not three paces behind him, but beside.
It was a disruption so brazen it might as well have been an open-handed slap across the old guard’s sensibilities. His face rearranged itself into polite confusion, then morphed into a strained smile.
Excellent. You did enjoy a good societal inconvenience.
Inside the meeting chamber, cushions arranged by rank circled a low table. Suguru’s seat—traditionally to Gojo’s immediate right—remained conspicuously empty, until Satoru gestured you toward it with a slight incline of his head.
It dropped political grenades in the center of the room.
There was no mistaking the action. No plausible alternative explanation. He wanted every man in that room to feel the shift. He was making a point, and you were the punctuation.
A few of politicians darted glances at one another, all equally unwilling to voice the insult. If they were scandalized, they hid it poorly.
Satoru, perfectly at ease, settled at the head of the table — a reigning deity on his altar.
“Shall we begin?”
The meeting progressed in a delicate dance of polite euphemisms and hidden meanings: officials offering gifts disguised as requests, Satoru offering requests disguised as threats.
You listened to every word with the attentiveness of someone born into duplicity. You translated half-truths, tracked who avoided which topics, caught every subtext, every sidelong glance.
If you had been anyone else, you might have enjoyed the theater. But Satoru’s presence at your side unsettled the performance.
He did not behave as he usually did with subordinates. His attention drifted toward you at intervals you couldn’t predict — in small ways at first, then gradually bolder, as though he wanted to catch your reactions mid-thought.
When one official presented a district proposal, he brushed the small of your back as he reached for the territorial map. It was brief, barely the impression of warmth through the silk of your blouse, yet it made you feel treacherous things.
Then came the second transgression, the one that truly fractured the room’s composure. A sever arrived to pour tea. He bowed low, reached for the pot, then froze mid-air when Satoru lifted a hand to stop him.
“No,” Satoru said. “I’ll do it.”
Chaos did not always announce itself loudly. This time it arrived in a small gesture.
He reached for the pot, and without any trace of ceremony, poured your cup first.
It rearranged the hierarchy so violently you could physically feel the reorganization of power.
The officials sat in perfect silence, their eyes flickering between the two of you, witnessing the crime of customs being broken.
“See if it suits you.”
You lifted the cup with a serene nod. “Yes, Satoru.”
The single use of his name made him pleased. Only after that did he allow the server to proceed with the remaining guests.
Not one man dared object.
Throughout the negotiation, Satoru invited your opinion. When he disagreed with someone, he’d glanced at you first — your reaction would decide how sharp his blade should be. When a politician attempted to manipulate the conversation, his attention turned to you, a silent question:
Did you see that too?
And when the meeting concluded, the officials bowed deeply once more, though several avoided your eyes entirely.
Cowards? Perhaps. But in this world, they lived longer than the brave.
Night deepened around the House by the time you returned to your desk. Most of the staff had already retired; only the tall and solemn shadows the lamps cast remained.
Which was why the envelope startled you.
Brown manila, waiting dead center on your desk — unsealed, unmarked. As someone accustomed to poison in many forms, its contents paralyzed you in ways no chemical could.
Inside lay a black and white photograph, weathered at the corners, drawn from a life you no longer spoke of. You had received a thousand threats, a hundred bribes, half a dozen coded warnings in your life — none made your hands feel quite like this.
A girl stared back at you — younger than innocence, older than safety. Her hair was tied loosely in clumsy ribbons, eyes already learning the language of loss. You remembered the day it was taken. You remembered who took the photo. You remembered you took everything afterward.
Footsteps.
“Still working?”
You turned too quickly.
Satoru stood in the doorway, sleeves rolled to his forearms, face softened by the late hour. The ruthless oyabun looked almost harmless like this, but the photograph served as a reminder that you knew better.
“No plans for the holiday?” he asked lightly. “Most people visit family around Christmas.”
Family was an interesting choice of word. Your fingers slid the photo back into the envelope with the smallest movement possible, controlled down to your cuticles.
“Work doesn’t pause for the calendar.”
“I suppose not.” He said, hands in his pockets, gaze sweeping lazily across your desk. “Even so,” he continued, “it’s hard missing home.”
Your lungs tightened. “Some get by without one.”
A humorless smile touched his mouth. His eyes flicked to the envelope — not accusatory, not even curious.
“Not a fan of this season?”
“Winter’s never been kind to me,” you said.
“Yeah, I know the feeling.”
His expression wavered. A shadow of guilt, quickly hidden. You almost thought you’d imagined it.
“Well,” he said, turning back on his heel toward the door, “don’t stay up too late. Fatigue makes people careless. And around here…” his gaze held yours, “… mistakes could be fatal.”
He slid the shoji door open.
“Good night.”
When the last of his presence dissolved down the hall, you slipped into the storage room and closed the door with the sort of care employed for sealing a crypt.
The light sputtered once, as if offended by your intrusion, then flooded the cramped space in a weary glow. Dusty binders leaned drunkenly against rusted filing cabinets. Forgotten crates sat lodged in corners. And you—all sweat and panic—stood in the center awaiting judgment.
You opened the envelope again.
The photograph was still there. It hadn’t fled like you hoped. It had no right to exist, and even less right to find you in the House.
No one should have had access to that image. No one except the dead.
But there was only one man who could explain how. He answered on the first ring. This alone felt like an omen.
“What did you do this time?” Sukuna asked. The absence of mockery in his tone was more jarring than any threat he’d ever made.
“I received something,” you said. You hated the thinness of your voice, so you cleared it and tried again “A old photograph. Of me.”
His exhale was nearly soundless, but you felt it. “How young?”
The photograph lay open in your palm. The girl you used to be, once upon a time — if one could call traumatic childhood arson “once upon a time.” She was as much as a ghost as your family was.
“Fifteen, maybe sixteen. Thereabouts.”
The quiet that followed unraveled slowly. The man had the emotional landscape of a whetstone, yet you heard his breath catch. The last time he’d made that sound was the night he found you standing barefoot in the ruins of your home, staring at the embers as if they might give you answers.
“That picture doesn’t exist,” he said carefully. “I burned the negatives. I burned everything.”
“Well,” you replied, irritation coiling sharply in your chest, “it seems fire wasn’t thorough enough.”
“I silenced everyone,” he insisted. “Every neighbour, informant, and rat from that district.”
“And yet,” you said, holding the picture between two fingers like a venomous insect, “here we are.”
“Where did you find it?”
“On my desk.”
“You mean it was inside the House?”
“Yes.”
A raw, unfilled, “Fuck,” tore out of him.
Sukuna prided himself on being unshakable. People told bedtime stories about his self-control, most ending with someone losing a finger. It might have been flattering to hear him rattled on your behalf, if the circumstances weren’t catastrophic.
“Does he know?” Sukuna asked.
You didn’t answer fast enough. Hesitated for the tiniest, incriminating second.
“And don’t lie to me,” He pressed.
“He came in a minute later,” you said. “Asked about holidays. Family. That sort of sentimental stuff.”
“Fuck.” The second curse of the night — that can’t be good. “He was baiting you.”
You bristled. “Don’t you have any faith in the girl you raised?”
“Oh, I have plenty of faith,” he said dryly. “Just not in your ability to resist getting down on your knees when you were supposed to incapacitate him.”
“I told you, that’s—”
“Listen to me, and listen well,” Sukuna interrupted, “if he started looking into you, you’re already in danger.”
“He suspects everyone, it’s in his nature,” you answered, though you didn’t even believe your own words as you spoke them.
“No,” Sukuna said sharply. “You’re not as sharp as when you first went in. You’ve been playing secretary for too long, and time is running out.”
The insult landed because it was annoyingly accurate.
“I’m handling it,” you assured. “I just need an opening.”
“Get it together,” he snapped. “You’ve wasted enough opportunities. Do it. If not today, then tomorrow.”
Your throat tightened. “It—it’s not that simple, I—”
He cut you off. “It is that simple. Grow a spine and finish what you were sent you to do.”
You stared at the storage room wall, its peeling paint suddenly fascinating.
Satoru Gojo and Ryomen Sukuna had been carving pieces off each other since long before you could remember. You grew up with those tales — ugly, private history buried beneath years of casualties and grudges.
Satoru had the bloodline, the wealth, the pedigree. The Gojo family ruled the old world with its stiff rituals and polished traditions, passed it down through immaculate lines of succession. They were the face of order in a city built on corruption. To cross them was to disappear without a word.
Sukuna came from the other side of the city; from scrap metal and slums, from roofs with holes and children who learned to steal before they learned to speak. He had built his reputation from blood and defiance, piercing together an empire of outcasts.
Their feud predated your existence, their hatred shaped the underworld. And you, inconveniently, were a piece carved by one man to destroy the other.
“Kill Satoru Gojo before he finds out. And if you fail me, I’ll make sure there’ll be nothing left of you to bury.” The line went dead.
The war between them had built you. Now it threatened to destroy you.
Someone had gone digging. Excavated the grave of your past and resurrected bones that should’ve been dust.
One of Gojo’s men? Satoru himself?
You didn’t know yet.
But you knew this: The truth was tightening around you like a noose. Your mask was slipping. And the next act would be bloody.
You were going to kill Satoru Gojo today.
You told yourself this while fastening your blouse, while pining your hair. It made you feel competent, which was generous considering your recent track record. You tucked your conscience somewhere inconvenient to take back out.
Motivation looked flattering on you. Determination even more so.
But your newfound conviction had the lifespan of a soap bubble, because the moment you stepped into the main hall, Satoru was there — leaning against the banister, making you feel oh-so-guilty of wanting to rid the world of one of its natural wonders.
“Morning,” he said. “We’re heading out.”
You scanned the hall for traces of another body.
“Just us?” you asked.
Not because you hadn’t heard him, but because the universe rarely offered you anything this easily without charging a painful fee afterward.
“Yes, you and I,” he said, throwing a coat over his shoulder. “Do try to contain your excitement.”
“Where are we going?”
“A shrine outside the city.” He started walking. “Come on.”
There was no command in his voice, just expectation.
You hated how naturally your feet followed, and instead started compiling a shortlist of creative ways to stab a man in a moving vehicle while simultaneously berating yourself for noticing, yet again, how indecently good his shoulders looked from this angle.
There you go again.
The drive carved through the mountains, winding along hairpin curves and cliffs where trees stood tall enough to blot out the sky.
Satoru looked unbothered by the terrain; he lounged with one arm thrown over the seat, tapping a syncopated rhythm on the leather of the steering wheel with one finger.
Meanwhile, your lungs were shrinking.
He might as well have been ferrying you through memory itself. Each curve in the asphalt made a different scar burn.
You knew this route.
You had traveled it once, as a child, when your world was busy falling apart. It didn’t matter how many years passed; certain roads remembered what they had witnessed.
This one remembered your parents’ deaths all too well.
You stared dead ahead, no interest in revisiting the version of yourself who had memorized it, but questions gnawed at the back of your mind:
Was Satoru truly responsible for the photograph? And if he had… Was he bringing you here out of cruelty? Mocking you with this little field trip?
Now, as the car turned its final bend, the shrine came in to view. It perched at the crest of a hill, framed by old stone steps and cedar woods. Shrine bells tinkled from the eaves. The illusion was peaceful — insulting so.
Your parents’ ashes were interred not far from here. You remembered staring at the freshly turned soil all those years ago, overwhelmed by a grief that felt too large and too shapeless to fit inside your tiny body.
A priest approached quickly, robes swishing over the ground as he bowed the moment Satoru stepped out of the car — a gesture normally reserved for either divine beings or corrupt men with deep pockets. In Satoru’s case, both were applicable.
“Gojo-kaichō,” the priest greeted warmly.
Satoru returned a smirk. “Good to see you, old man.”
“It has been some time. You’ve grown taller.”
“And your hair’s gotten grayer,” Satoru replied, patting his shoulder. “Now rise, unless you want your spine to stay that way.”
The priest chuckled, shaking his head before looking over to you with courteous uncertainty.
“And who might you be, my dear?”
“She’s with me,” Satoru said easily, naming you like something that belonged to him.
You had to pretend not to be affected by the ownership in the pronoun.
The priest bowed kindly. “A pleasure. Please — walk with us.”
You followed from a distance, watching the unlikely pair walk alongside each other in strange harmony. The cedars forming a natural cathedral overhead through the narrow stone path behind the shrine.
“You haven’t visited in awhile. What brings you here today?”
“I’ve been busy,” Satoru said. “And it’s that time of the year again.”
“I see, so it is,” the priest said, turning away with a somber knowingness. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
Your steps faltered long before you allowed them to. A single look at the small cemetery behind the shrine was all it took for the old and dormant feeling to come alive again. Rows of weathered stone markers rose from moss. Incense sticks soldered in a nearby urn, scattering prayers in smoke.
They stopped at three gravestones, set slightly apart from the others.
“You’re here for them, aren’t you?” the priest asked, turning to him with a somber knowingness. “Their deaths were senseless. They deserved more years than the gods allotted.”
Satoru didn’t answer with words. Instead, he approached the stones in an uncharacteristically careful gait.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” the priest said before wandering off to tend incense.
Satoru barely registered his sudden absence, simply knelt before the graves, brushing fallen needles away with a care that broke you open in slow, terrible increments. An unexpected act of solemnity you didn’t expect from the man whose name you had been rehearsing like a death sentence for a decade.
One gravestone stood unmarked, the other two bore inscriptions with names eroded by years of rain and winter, illegible to anyone without the misfortune of having memorized them.
Kohaku and Shiranui
Aliases. The identities you’d buried along with their bodies. Your parents.
The oyabun fell away, peeled back to a man kneeling in the dirt before the ghosts he couldn’t outrun.
“I was too young then. Too stupid, too brash.” Satoru exhaled, the sentence punched through him. “I couldn’t save them,” he confessed.
Save them. Save them?
The ground shifted, then shifted again, refusing to settle.
“They paid the price for my inexperience,” he continued. “And I’ll carry that guilt with me for the rest of my life. Every winter, I come back here and ask how to make it right.” His throat tightened. “They never answer, but I’ll keep asking.”
The coat over your skin was suddenly too thin for the cold. Too flimsy against the weight of your unraveling. The truth did not arrive gently.
Sukuna had found you broken. He had given you a name, a new purpose. Weaponized your grief for his own war.
Your gospel had been wrong.
Your throat constricted painfully, and you turned your face away in fear he’d see your eyes water; it’d give away too much. You couldn’t afford even a hairline crack. The smallest truth leaking from you now would unravel every deception you’d built.
Every thought in your mind warred with the next:
If Satoru mourned them— If he regretted— If he wasn’t the monster— If Sukuna lied—
Then whose revenge had you been living?
The ground beneath you felt suddenly untrustworthy, as if it, too, had learned something equally unpalatable.
Satoru looked over his shoulder then — and your heart had the audacity to ache.
“Sometimes I feel like a fraud. What use is it to have so much power, yet not being able to use it to protect the people closest to me?”
You’d trained in suffocation, in pain tolerance, in emotional austerity. Yet none of it prepared you for the unbearable sight of Satoru Gojo, the monster you were raised to kill, speaking regrets to the ghosts of your parents.
“Sorry,” he said quietly as he stood, brushing pine needles from his knees. “I know, cemeteries aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. I shouldn’t have dragged you here.”
A ridiculous thing to apologize for, given the scale of your collapse.
“But the truth is…” He inhaled. Exhaled. “I didn’t want to be alone again this year.”
“It’s fine,” you managed, but the lie was off-center, cracked down the middle.
He eyed your hands — white-knuckled in the folds of your coat, fingers pressed so hard it nearly numbed inside the fabric.
“You’re freezing.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
How dare he see you. How dare he look past your defences, to mourn the dead you thought he’d slain, to voice his regrets so freely while you stood just inches from their graves.
He was supposed to be the monster. Your entire upbringing—every bruise, lesson, and night spent weeping into your pillow—depended on that certainty.
You had spent your life grieving a version of events that never existed.
Your voice grew brittle from the pressure of holding yourself together. “I’m fine,” you repeated.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Before you could retreat, he shrugged off his coat and wrapped it around your shoulders. His presence eclipsed the winter, warm in a way you did not deserve.
“You can tell me.”
No, you couldn’t — if he knew who you really were, who you’d been sent by, the graves behind him would not remain symbolic.
“I can’t,” you said, landing close to a plea.
The wind lifted a strand of your hair against his cheek. His eyes dipped, briefly, to your lips before you tore your gaze aside. You couldn’t afford softness. Not from him; not when you wanted to kill him just moments ago.
But Satoru had never been patient with evasions. He cupped your jaw with one hand and brought you back to his face.
“Look at me.”
His eyes were the worst part.
The piercing blue cut deep into your armor, more earnest than they’ve ever been deadly. A single tear slipped loose despite your command. He caught it with the pad of his thumb, brushing it away before it could fall, a touch so delicate it shrank the world around you.
“Satoru…”
You wanted—needed—to ask, to know the truth of that winter night straight from his mouth. Your throat burned with the question: Did you kill them?
But the words tangled, tangled, tangled, tightening around your neck, choking you.
He leaned in, forehead to forehead, breath to breath. He lowered his face like he feared his own touch might break you.
“I don’t know what’s troubling you,” he said. “But I’m here, and I have no intention of letting you go.”
The vulnerability in his voice tore through you like shrapnel.
“I know I’ve failed to protect people in the past before,” he murmured, brushing a strand of hair behind your ear, “but please place your trust in me, just as I’ve come to put mine in you.”
You closed your eyes, feeling his breath skim your mouth. Your fingers curled into fists to stop yourself from reaching for him. This was wrong — you shouldn’t want this; shouldn’t want him. But you did. Desperately.
“And I know I shouldn’t,” he admitted, trembling against your lips. “God, I really shouldn’t. Every logical part of me tells me you’re trouble—”
Your nearly laughed, nearly confessed that ‘trouble’ wasn’t even the half of it.
“—but then you look at me, and I forget every reason to be cautious. Tell me, my hishō…”
His nose brushed yours, slow and impossibly gentle. You felt the shadow of his impending kiss, and allowed your body to forget restraint.
“… do you feel the same?”
A single inch — and you would’ve kissed the man you were meant to murder. A single inch — and you would’ve betrayed your life’s mission. A single inch—
Your phone buzzed.
Satoru felt it the same instant you did; the way your breath went rigid, the way your hand jerked backward as if the sound seared.
You fumbled for the device, dread already rising like bile.
From: Sukuna You’ve run out of time.
Your stomach dropped clean through the earth.
Satoru’s eyes flicked from your face to your phone. Then to your face. Then back again. He drew back half an inch, confusion melting into concern, color draining from his face.
There was no room for suspicion in his expression. What remained was only a slow, terrible comprehension, spreading like a crack. His eyes no longer held sincerity.
“Satoru—”
Your lips parted, the beginning of a denial or a confession, you didn’t even know, but the universe, in it’s impeccable cruelty, decided you didn’t get either.
A sound split the quiet. His head snapped toward the distant roar of an engine barreling far too fast, its snarl cutting through the gravel path. It was coming closer.
His voice dropped to a register, cold and clear. “Get behind me.”
He didn’t wait for compliance, hauling you backward with a hand around your waist as the car exploded around the bend, moving too fast for the curve. Sleek, black, headlights flaring and bearing down, aimed straight at the both of you.
Sukuna was trying to silence you.
The sedan tore toward you both, tyres grinding asphalt. Satoru pivoted, one arm locking you tight against his chest as he twisted his body to shield yours.
He moved before the car could kiss the dirt beneath your feet. The warmth of him vanished as he thrust you aside. His hand dipped beneath his coat, flashing metal.
First shot.
The front tire burst, shredding rubber into ribbons. The sedan fishtailed wildly but kept coming, momentum carrying its malice further than physics should allow.
Second shot.
Rear tire gone— The vehicle jerked sideways, chassis screaming across the ground, gravel ricocheting off the guardrail as it veered.
The windshield aligned with you both for a split, perfect second.
Third shot.
The bullet shattered the glass, a crystalline burst, drilling cleanly through the driver’s skull. His head snapped back, life seeping down in red.
The sedan skidded into the embankment and died with a pathetic hiss of its engine.
Satoru lowered his gun, slowly, delicately, at odds with the ruin smoking ten meters away.
Then, without so much as a breath, turned to the limp body slumped behind the fractured glass. He stepped forward with a terrible calm, boots crunching the pavement, reaching through the broken wreckage to tug the corpse upright by its collar.
Satoru didn’t look away when he saw the tattoo peeking through the blood on the man’s face. A bone-deep understanding he didn’t need to speak.
You both knew the distinct markings well. You’d trained beside men who bore it. Bled under the same crest of Sukuna’s clan.
He let the body drop with a hollow thud. Turned. And found you.
You had seen him when he was angry. When he was amused. Faced him aroused, playful, bored. But you had never—not once—faced him wounded. It was the worst thing he’d ever worn.
His eyes weren’t that of rage; they bore only betrayal.
You expected him to shoot you. Or to shout. Even just to drag you into confession. But what he did next left a gaping hole in you, bigger than any bullet ever could.
“So that’s the truth then,” he murmured, impossibly quiet. “You’ve been his from the beginning.”
He approached you in small steps, crossing the shrinking distance between you, each footfall hopeful that you might say something to prove him wrong.
His gun hung loosely at his side, as soulless as the life it took. It balanced on a scale between mercy and obliteration.
“And here I thought…” He huffed, shaking his head once. “No. Doesn’t matter what I thought.”
He reached up, thumb brushing your lower lip. The usual comfort and warmth now replaced by an icy frost. He caressed your cheek in an early apology, gentle in its irony.
You didn’t see his hand shift. Didn’t register the flash of motion. The gun he’d used to save you just a minute before was now pressed cold on your temple.
“What did I say about second chances?”
“Please—Satoru, I—”
The butt of the gun struck behind your ear.
The last thing you registered before darkness was his hand catching your fall. Letting you hit the ground would have been too cruel, even for a man who’d just had his heart shot out of his chest.
Consciousness returned the way guilt does — slowly, then all at once.
The first thing you felt was pain: the ache in your skull where the butt of his gun had kissed you goodnight.
The second thing was cold metal: a heavy collar locked tight at your throat, a chain running from the back of it to a steel ring embedded in the pillar behind you. Your wrists were free, but the illusion of freedom was the cruelest restraint of all.
And the third thing: the most dangerous thing— was Satoru.
He stood a few paces away, sleeves rolled, hair mussed, bandages winding down one strong arm. His shirt hung open at the collar, exposing the long line of his throat — the one you swore to slit.
“Comfortable?” he asked. It was enough to be mistaken for gentle if not for the hurt crawling beneath it. “I know you enjoy being on your knees.”
The chain rattled as you instinctively shifted back. It was a pointless act. Fear only whetted his appetite.
He crouched in front of you and hooked a thumb under your chin; the collar tugged your throat upward in a humiliating angle.
“Let’s start simple,” he said. “Who are you?”
You lifted your chin as far as the metal allowed. “You know who I am.”
He smiled without warmth. “If I did, sweetheart, I wouldn’t be asking.”
You caught the sight of fresh blood on the ground beside you out of the corner of your eye. He answered the question you hadn’t yet asked.
“Another one of Sukuna’s little spies,” he said. “He wasn’t very talkative. Only said something about a photo.”
Fuck.
Sukuna planted it all along. He’d wanted you to panic. To act quickly.
You barely had time to react before Satoru’s fingers curled in the chain and yanked. Your breath stuttered painfully as the collar lurched you forward.
“Did you enjoy it?” he asked, laughing softly. “Making me your little play thing?”
The amusement in his voice was worse than yelling. Worse than violence. Your pulse pounded against the collar, and you hated—hated—that he could feel each tiny jump of your fear.
“It’s my turn now,” he said, standing up without warning, dragging your spine upward until you were forced into a kneeling arch. Your hands flew to the metal instinctively, nails scraping uselessly against it.
“Tell me why he sent you.”
“Satoru, it’s not what you think. You got it all wrong—”
He clicked his tongue, disappointed but unsurprised. The chain jerked again, and you leaned forward involuntarily, on your hands and knees.
He reached down, unbuckling his belt. Your jerked back, or tried to — the collar choked the motion into a humiliating gasp. The leather hissed out of the loops.
He doubled the belt in his hand, testing the weight. The snap of leather folding echoed in the room as he knelt down behind you.
“Let’s try this again, shall we?”
CRACK.
The first belt strike landed across your ass, sharp and bright, staining your skin pink beneath the fabric of your skirt.
You gasped, reaching for the collar. “Satoru, please—you have to believe me—”
“Believe you? How could I ever do that again?”
“I—I misunderstood—please—”
He smiled. “Lying to me again?”
CRACK.
The second landed lower, kissing the curve where thigh met cheek. Your breath spilled out in a ragged hiss.
“Sweetheart,” he whispered, almost tender, “you had plenty of time to rehearse this story. Don’t insult me with a sloppy performance.”
“I thought—Sukuna—he told me you killed them.”
“Them?”
“Kohaku and Shiranui—”
Satoru moved so quickly the chain snapped taut with a metallic shriek. He drove both fists into the stone wall behind you, the impact so hard it thundered through the chamber and sent dust raining down from the ceiling.
He didn’t even register the injury. His shoulders were shaking, breath tearing in and out of him.
“You—you’re cruel, you know that? Out of all the lies you could feed me, you picked the one thing I already torture myself for.”
“Satoru, please—listen—“
“Don’t.” He grabbed the chain again, forcing your back arched, your throat exposed. His face hovered inches away from yours, heartbreak dripping from every word. “Don’t say my name like you’re allowed to.”
“But it’s the truth—“
“The truth,” he spat, “is that you walked into my life, tried to seduce me, tried to kill me. And now — now you dare use them—” his voice cracked on the word “—as a shield? How could you possibly even know them?”
“No, no — listen, I didn’t know—how could I not think—?”
CRACK.
“You’re going to tell me everything,” he murmured, dragging his fingers over the welt rising on your skin, “even if I have to pry the truth from your throat with my tongue.”
It was no use. He simply wouldn’t believe you. And honestly, why should he?
You had failed him the moment you chose to believe Sukuna. If you wanted even a sliver of his trust back, you’d have to earn it the way he understood best.
You inhaled, slow and sharp, then snapped back against him, grinding the welt into his palm, daring him to feel how much you could take.
“Don’t take your time. I hate waiting.”
Two could play at this game, but only one of you understood the rules well enough to cheat. He’d never believe you if you started at the end, so you’d have to convince him with your actions.
“Mm,” he hummed, groaning in satisfaction. “There’s my eager hishō. You finally ready to confess?”
“You want answers?” You met his eyes, your own raw and daring. “Take them. Whatever you think I did, whatever you think I am… drag it out of me and hear it for yourself.”
Silence dropped. His fingers flexed around the chain.
“Do you know what you’re asking of me?” he asked slowly. “Because if I start.. I won’t be able to stop.”
“I know,” you replied. “That’s why I’m offering.”
His hand slid between your thighs, but you moved first, rolling your hips into his fingers, slick heat coating them before he could tease you with it.
“Ahck—!” you choked on the sound.
“God,” he breathed, lips brushing your shoulder. “That’s pretty. Your first honest reaction.”
His hand pulled the chain back while two fingers plunged inside you. Your body arched, chain clinking desperately as you clawed air for balance.
“You’re soaked from this? From being whipped? From being chained up like a dog?”
His fingers thrust hard, deep, curling mercilessly. You cried out, hands scrambling for purchase on the pillar.
“Look at you, already shaking. I haven’t even started.”
He kept his fingers seated deep in your cunt, stretching you indecently around him while your back was forced into a helpless bow.
“How many times did you sleep under my roof imagining the kill, hm? Did you get yourself off on the thought of ending me?”
Your breath stuttered on the edge of a moan, body instinctively trying to twist free, but all that did was make the collar bite deeper and Satoru sink harder inside you.
“How could you possibly think you could kill me…” he said, lips dragging along your neck, “…when you’re clenching like this around me?”
Your body squeezed his fingers on cue.
“Fuck — if this is what betrayal feels like, I guess it’s not so bad.”
His hand moved faster, thrusting inside you with slow, grinding strokes that scraped pleasure down your body like a serrated blade. It made your forehead hit the pillar, and a sob strangle behind your teeth.
He hooked an arm around your waist as he shoved deeper, sending flashes of vicious pleasure through you. Your thighs started shaking uncontrollably, spitting slick everywhere with each thrust.
“Ahh—”
“Sweetheart, you’re dripping down my wrist. Isn’t this exactly what you wanted? Isn’t this how you planned to get close to me?”
He thrust again, hitting that spot that made your vision flicker. “Please—c-can’t take it—”
“Still want me to keep going?”
“Yes—god, yes—don’t you fucking stop—” you gasped before your pride could stop you.
He laughed, breath shaking. “For a traitor, you can be so demanding.”
He loosened the chain, then dragged his fingers out of your mess, achingly slow, making you whine at the emptiness, but he didn’t give you time to mourn the loss.
He grabbed your hips and pulled you backward, caging you between his legs. “Now we do it my way.”
His hands roamed, one wrapping around your waist, the other sliding down to undo his zip with a single flick.
His cock pressed hot and heavy through your folds, letting you feel how easily he could take you. And just how much you wanted him to.
“You’re going to tell me everything, one way or another,” he murmured, lining himself up, “and I’m going to enjoy every fucking second until you do.”
His cock slid against your throbbing entrance, coating himself with you, teasing pressure where you needed him most, enough to make your pussy sob for it.
“Ngh—Satoru—”
“Hm?” His hips drew back, poised, angling the head of his cock exactly where you were throbbing, pressing in just a fraction — so small it felt like madness. “Does that feel good?”
“More—I need more—”
“Want me that bad, do you?”
Your hips jerked to feel him, but he didn’t give in, instead drawing his cock back and slapped it lightly against your swollen clit.
“Beg for it properly, sweetheart.”
“I need you inside me—Satoru—fuck me, please—”
He pushed in. You cried out, nails scraping the floorboards.
He sank into you inch by merciless inch, filling you until your breath splintered into broken sounds.
“God—fuck—so tight—” he grunted, hands trembling on your hips.
Your cry echoed off the walls, and when he bottomed out, your mind white-noised, filled to the brim with the feeling of all his inches
“Again,” he snarled, fucking into you, sharp, brutal strokes that punched air out of your lungs. “Why didn’t you kill me when you had the chance?”
He spanked you once more—with his hand this time—the strike landing loud. Your body writhed against the chain, pleasure and pain culminating together.
“Were you enjoying yourself a little too much?” he rasped, rhythm growing savage, hips slamming against you with the fury of betrayal and the hunger of revenge. “What’s your motive?”
“Answer me,” he said, thrusting aggressively, “or I swear to God, I won’t stop. I will fuck you senseless, ruin you, keep you on this damn chain until your legs give out—”
Tears spilled out, overwhelmed by the sensation. You tried to wrench away, but the chain cut a warning into your throat.
“Ah-ah,” he scolded softly. “Be good.”
He flipped you over, your back meeting the cold ground, and pinned your wrist above your head, stretching your body. You hissed his name through clenched teeth, equal parts arousal and indignation.
He drove himself in again, angling upward until spots danced in your vision, making you tremble so violently you had to brace yourself against him.
“You like it rough like this, don’t you?”
The chain clinked with each thrust, metal biting your throat with every surge of his hips. You screamed, a raw, desperate buildup you couldn’t fight.
He pressed his lips to your ear, the sounds spilling from him so filthy you bit down hard on your lip. The chain rattled in frantic applause while your body tried, valiant and foolishly, to take him, withstand him.
“Tell me why Sukuna chose you,” he growled against your throat. “Say it while you come for me.”
“Satoru—ahh—he—”
But he slammed deeper, and you began to unravel further, jerking helplessly as your world began to shatter, everything in you fraying at the edges.
“—he told me you killed my parents!”
He stilled as your words came undone against him, the confession ripped free, delivered without any dignity.
He searched your eyes, hunting for the line between truth and performance. You let him see it. Let him see the feral, wounded thing that had been living inside you.
He caught your jaw, not rough this time, just terribly, terribly precise.
“Say that again,” he said. “All of it. Exactly.”
Your voice shook but didn’t falter. “He found me the night they died. In the ruins. He told me you ordered the hit. That you watched them burn. He took me in, and promised me justice.”
You watched the change happen in him: disbelief, fury, denial, then the worst of them all — recognition. Slowly, carefully, he eased himself out of you and gathered you in, pressing a kiss to your throat. Another to your jaw. One to your lips, tender where everything before had been brutal. A litany of apologies in touch.
You tried to speak. He kissed you again instead, slow and sweet and devastating in its sincerity, a complete contradiction to the way he’d just taken you.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, voice wrecked. “You should hate me. You really, really should.”
He held you tight against him, forehead pressed to yours. His hands framed your face, gentle where his grip had once been punishing, soothing where he’d been wild.
“He told me that you were the one who left me with nothing,” you said.
The flinch that crossed his features gutted you, and he pulled you impossibly closer, as if proximity alone could refute a decade of suffering. “The only thing I did was fail them.”
“What do you mean?”
“They didn’t want this life. They wanted you safe. Away from all of this.” His thumb brushed the corner of your eye. “I couldn’t find you in the fire. I thought you had perished along with them.”
Your chest constricted so sharply you tasted iron. All these years, your life was shaped by someone else’s narrative. Years of belief, twisted around a lie.
“The night they died,” Satoru continued, “I was too young, too slow. I showed up too late.” He swallowed, a bare, human sound. “Sukuna got to them first.”
Satoru lifted his hands slowly, giving you every chance to flinch away. When you didn’t he cupped your face. Your tears began blurring the edges of him, and he thumbed each one as it fell, but erasing their tracks did nothing to absolve him.
“Every winter I go back and ask for forgiveness that will never come. If I’d known you survived, I would’ve searched the ends of the earth for you.”
You squeezed your eyes shut and shook your head, a cry catching in your chest that scraped your ribs raw. “Sukuna… he used me.”
His fingers slid into your hair, cradling the back of your skull. His expression hardened, not at you, but around the thought that the man responsible for your suffering was still walking freely on both legs.
“I’m so sorry,” he mumbled into your hair. “I’m sorry for every year you spent believing you were alone. For not being there.”
He held you against his chest as you wept, then reached behind you. Metal clinked, and the lock clicked open. The collar loosened and slid from your throat, leaving a faint, ghostly ring in its place.
Your neck felt naked without it.
He tossed the collar aside. Hated himself for ever needing it.
He drew back just enough to see you.
“You deserved everything he took away from you. Safety, a home, a family.” His voice turned small to the point of breaking. “Let me make it right.”
He tilted your chin up.
“Look at me.”
You did. You couldn’t not.
“Listen,” he said, the words that followed were a vow, deadly, sacred and intimate in the same breath:
“I swear I’ll make him pay for the childhood he stole. For what he did to them. For what he did to you. I’ll bring you his head on a platter and let you decide what to do with it. And after that, if you’ll let me, I’ll put you back together.”
You stared at him, throat thick. “You’d do all that?”
“And more.”
The promise he made was everything you thought you wanted. Someone was finally standing beside you. But you couldn’t reach for the vengeance he offered.
Your hand rose instead, finding the bandage on his shoulder. A wound you put there, one that he hadn’t once blamed you for.
“Satoru, I lost too many lives to war. I don’t want revenge anymore.”
He froze — a halt so absolute his own heart paused between one beat and the next. “I don’t understand. Don’t you want to see him suffer?”
“I want more than that,” you said. “More than blood, I want a life my parents would’ve wanted me to have. I want to try living. Will you help me?”
His answer was immediate.
“Sweetheart, I’d rebuild the whole damn world if it meant you finally got to live in it. I’m with you, wherever you go next.”
For the first time in your life, your future wasn’t a tomb; and for once, you weren’t alone anymore. Your purpose sat in your chest, reborn from the ashes. For the first time in a decade, hatred wasn’t the only thing you felt.
Domesticity suited neither of you. But you were giving it the old underworld try.
There was tea steeping in porcelain mugs. There was a vase of flowers you hadn’t bought, something fluffy and yellow you still hadn’t identified, arranged with the unmistakable chaos of a man who could dismantle a human spine but could not, apparently, tell a rose from a weed.
It was deceptively peaceful, until you remembered who you were.
Something crashed in the alley outside—a single metallic clang that made you, Satoru and the illusion freeze mid-sip.
Your hands slipped automatically beneath your robe, reaching for a knife that wasn’t there. Satoru’s fingers twitched toward the waistband of pants he wasn’t even wearing.
Two predators in a kitchen at seven in the morning,
A shape darted past the window. The neighbor’s cat strut past it, looking visibly unimpressed that it was one misunderstanding away from a massacre.
“Oh,” he said, lowering his empty hand. “False alarm.”
“Was it?” you muttered. “Could be a decoy. I wouldn’t put it past Sukuna.”
“It was a cat. It’s harmless.”
“How can you be so sure?”
He grinned, the delighted smile of a man who loved seeing your instincts flare. “You’re right, I was fooled once.”
You set your mug down with the resignation of someone realizing normalcy may be a myth invented by optimists. “We’re terrible at this, aren’t we?”
“I don’t know,” he mused, sipping his tea. “I could get used to having a morning routine.”
You elbowed him, but he caught your wrist easily, brought your knuckles to his lips, kissed them in a way entirely too soft for a man who chained you to a pillar only weeks ago.
“What? Wake up and watch your hishō threaten a cat?”
“Yes,” he conceded, leaning against the counter. “And speaking of that…”
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes. Your mission,” he said, pushing off the counter with theatrical gravitas, “should you choose to accept it—”
His fingers found your waist, brushing the silk of your robe aside.
“—is to take your place beside me again.”
“You’re rehiring me?”
He shrugged. “Well, my operations have been distressingly boring lately. I missed when my secretary was trying to kill me.”
You nudged him, smiling with the affection he’d earned inch by blood-soaked inch. “So,” you murmured, “is this a formal job offer?”
Something wicked sparked in his eyes, familiar and brand new all at once. “Of course, you’ll have to pass an interview first,” he said simply.
You snorted. “Excuse me?”
He retreated into the living room, easing himself into the low armchair with that same indolent authority. One leg folded over the other, head tipped, watching you with patient hunger, eyes bright with unmistakable invitation.
“If you want the position, you’ll have to show me just how far your ambition goes.”
So that was where this was going.
The silk belt of your robe slid loose beneath your fingers. Satoru tracked every step as you crossed the room, hips swaying with deliberate sin.
When you reached him, you let the robe fall. The fabric whispered down your skin in a slow, teasing cascade and pooled on the floor.
“Oops,” you said, with a smile that was not sorry at all.
You sank to your knees before him.
And above you sat Satoru Gojo — oyabun of the largest syndicate in Tokyo, unofficial minister of the underworld, kingpin on his unshakable throne,
yours.
“Welcome back, my hishō.”
› congratulations on reaching the end!! i tried to make it shorter — believe me, i really, really did. hoped you enjoyed it nonetheless, and thank you for reading this far! your support means the world to me -`♡´- ⤷ masterlist
Yes, kitten.
cw: crack, MDNI, background character reader, ceo!gojo who’s 6’5 and has anger issues, you’re sick of him and y/n and quit your job to go work for ceo!sukuna, barely proofread
m.list | part one | part two | part three | part four (you are here)
Fundraisers were alright, Sukuna supposed.
Free food, free drinks, being painted as an angel in headlines for attending. Was the absolute headache, that is mingling with people he couldn’t give two shits about, a good trade off?
No, not really. He had a role to play though as a man of his caliber, and today, he is trying his best to win a Grammy.
Why?
Because he wants to beat Satoru Gojo in raising the most money for orphans. It’s like gambling, except instead of getting his money back tenfold, he gets to see Gojo nearly dissipate into thin hair from the amount of embarrassment he gets from not being the richest one in the room.
It’s like that one Katy Perry song where she talks about feeling like a plastic bag that’s drifting through the wind, and this plastic bag in particular is in the middle of a main road, flying around in every which way from all the cars that keep hitting it.
“Mr. Sukuna?”
The voice he’s more than familiar with causes him to turn around, still chewing on one of the hors d’oeuvres he snatched off one of the servers' platters, when he quickly murmurs a little, “what?” under his breath so you wouldn’t see the chewed up food in his mouth.
He’s not sure why he cares so much about your opinion on people who talk with food still in their mouths. He’s a little preoccupied at the moment— trying his best not to stare at your tits while you inform him about something he probably doesn’t care to know about.
“Mr. Sukuna,” you begin to snap your fingers in an attempt to pull him out of whatever daze he’s in, pulling an offended scoff out of him.
“Get your fingers out of my face, woman.” He clicks his tongue, gently pushing your hand to the side. “I’m your boss for fucks sake.”
“I know,” you barely try to defend yourself, “I’m trying to do my job right now, and you’re making it pretty hard for me to do it when you’re zoned out.”
“Okay— fuck— what is it?” he responds defeatedly, setting the food down on the napkin in his hand.
“Mr. Yaga will be making the speech today, so it’d be a good idea to catch him before that and talk,” he rolls his eyes, "even if it’s just for a little bit.”
“Fine. What else?”
“The Zenins will be attending as well, so it’d be good for you to catch up with them.”
“Which ones?”
You look back down at your tablet, trying to figure that out, completely unaware of Sukuna's eyes accidentally slipping down to your cleavage, then blinking and looking right at you once you look up again.
“Naobito, Toji, and Jinichi.”
“Didn’t know they let that gorilla out of his cage,” he snorts.
“That’s rude,” you hiss at him in a hushed tone, hoping to god no one heard that.
“It’s true,” he playfully argues, using a hushed tone as well. “He looks like a fuckin’ caveman, at best— admit it.”
Your brows pinch together. “No.”
“Admit it, or you’re fired.”
“Okay, fine, he kinda does,” you sigh, avoiding the smirk on his face as your eyes begin to scan the room until they land on the clan members. “They’re here already, go say hi.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he murmurs, popping the fancy appetizer in his mouth and washing it down with his champagne after. “Also, go put the iPad away, you’re here as a representative today, not as an assistant. Go network, or whatever.” His instructions earn him an apprehensive look, making him place a hand on the side of your arm, pushing you towards the door leading to the parking garage. “Go.”
“Fine— you better not complain about me missing anything tomorrow.”
“I won’t,” he mutters, starting to walk away so he himself can do some “networking”.
—
“In front of everybody, bro.” Sukuna and Toji burst out laughing, 2 glasses of champagne into talking shit about Gojo, completely unaware that he’s standing right behind them, talking to an investor in his own company. “No, no— and then he was like ‘nobody touches her,' like nobody wants to, you fucking twink.”
Gojo’s just about had it and cuts the investor off short to slam his champagne flute down on the table next to him, turning around to yell at Sukuna.
“I’m not a fucking twink,” Gojo seethes, pointing a finger at himself. “My dick’s probably bigger than yours.”
The two men freeze at first, covering their mouths to hold their laughter in.
But Sukuna eventually loses it.
“Hah!” the man snorts at the ridiculous statement— nobody has a bigger dick than him. “Prove it then, whip it out.”
Now, is that an appropriate thing to say during a fundraiser for starving children? No, but he’s also donated more than enough money to be able to argue with someone if he wanted.
“What? No!” Gojo grimaces, completely thrown off by the response.
“Oh, wait, let me guess. You can’t because it belongs to y/n.” Sukuna waves his hands around in a taunting manner.
Gojo couldn’t take hearing y/n’s name come out of such a vile mouth and sees red, without warning, he punches Sukuna square in the face, and the entire room goes quiet.
The room was still, save for a few people shuffling closer to the scene, you being one of them, to see what happened.
Knowing Sukuna’s temper, you were really hoping it had nothing to do with him, but lo and behold, there is a big fat grin on his face, with blood trickling down his nose. He licks some of it off his lip and begins to laugh in a way that would concern even god’s toughest soldier, “You hit like a fucking pussy.”
Those were the last words that came out of Sukuna’s mouth before launching his beefy body towards Gojo, tackling him, and landing on the table full of the hors d’oeuvres that can no longer be enjoyed by today’s guest, as they’re now smeared all over the two CEO’s.
“Gojo-san! No!!” y/n literally pops up out of nowhere and starts to run after him. Her attempt at stopping him quickly fails though, as one of the security guards holds her back.
Little does he know that this morning will be the last time he sees his family, once the CEO catches wind of him holding y/n back, keeping her in place by pressing her back against his chest.
He really has no other choice— she’s flailing around like a ladybug that got thrown on its back, struggling to get back up on its feet.
“STOOOOOPPPPPP!!!!!” y/n continues to screech, a few of the onlookers find it far more interesting than seeing two grown men breaking tables and dishes as they fight, there aren’t many people that can hit an octave as high as Mariah Carey. “this isn’t YOOOOU!!!!”
“Kitten!” Gojo’s grabbing onto Sukuna’s collar when he stops, while the man that’s been clobbering him has the decency to pause so Gojo can say his last words. “Shut the FUCK up.”
Y/n’s breaking free from the security guard's hold by the time he finishes that awfully rude sentence, beginning to run away in embarrassment.
“I thOUGht yoU LOveD ME!!” she cries, the volume of her voice rising and dropping each time her delicate feet hit the ground.
Gojo yells back at her, voice filled with nothing but pain, “MY MOTHER NEVER TAUGHT ME HOW TO LOVE.”
Y/n says something in return, but he can’t hear it because Sukuna’s back to pummeling him in the face. “NOBODY GIVES A FUCK ABOUT YOUR MOM.”
Y/n hears the heartless words coming out of Sukuna’s mouth, and despite being inches away from the exit, she decides she’s heard enough. She comes stomping back, sniffling, tears still streaming down her cheeks from being told to shut the fuck up.
She points a finger at him. “Not another word out of y—AHHHHHHHH”
Yup, you guessed it. She fucking fell.
From how much and how hard Gojo’s fucked her, you and your boss are incredibly surprised that he hasn’t put her in a wheelchair yet. He needs to. Her legs are just useless at this point.
“Y/N!!!” Gojo screams, failing to get out of Sukuna’s grip— now he’s the one being held by the collar.
“HAHAHA! YOU SEE THAT?!” Sukuna manically yells in his face, having never looked so happy in his life as he begins to gaslight the ever living fuck out of him. “SHE FELL BECAUSE OF YOU. THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT. YOUR SELFISHNESS HAS BROUGHT HER NOTHING BUT PAIN.”
The words strike Gojo like lightning, and he knows it’s true, but as Sukuna said, he’s selfish and wants nothing more than to run to y/n’s rescue.
Too bad he’ll never get the chance to, because the police are somehow already here and putting him and Sukuna in handcuffs.
“Wait!!” Y/n screams at the cops, holding on to her knee that’s in pain. “He did nothing wrong!”
The cops, of course, ignore her. They’ve seen this scenario play out an exhausting number of times. They don’t even know what she’s crying so hard for— she could literally bail Satoru out in an hour.
“I’ll be back for you, baby. I swear!” Gojo heaves as the cop shoves him around, making him walk towards the door.
Sukuna’s right behind him, still being rude as fuck, “yeah kitten, your daddy will be back real soon.”
“STOP CALLING HER THAT,” Gojo snaps his head back to yell at Sukuna some more.
“And what are you gonna do?!” he continues to taunt him, grin growing wider, “fight me? defy the laws of handcuffs so you can punch me in the face again??”
One cop looks at the other with an amused look, “should we put them both in the same car?”
and at the same time, you hear:
“Hell yeah.”
“DON’T.”
The bickering doesn’t die down until the cops actually drive off, and you’re just left there in complete and utter shock. There’s food and broken glass all over the floor, different groups of people whispering amongst themselves, y/n sobbing on the floor.
Do you even have to go to work tomorrow?
notes: if this were y/n's pov, it'd be angst rn bc her ceo told her to stfu
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notorious playboy crown prince turned young king tooru oikawa is nothing but a speck of dust to you. insignificant at best, a minor annoyance at worst. as the eldest child of one of your kingdom's most powerful duke families, you have been raised to believe that you are the best of the best.
and it's true.
intelligent, strategic, cunning, and clever. you play the part of a noble lady well, but it's the role of heir to your family's dukedom that you fancy to play pretend. because that's all it'll ever be: playing pretend. while your father may dote on you, favor you, and love you more than anything else in the world, nothing will change the fact that women cannot and will never be allowed to rule. you may be the perfect fit to inherit the dukedom, if only your greatest flaw wasn't the fact that you are a woman.
as if the crushing news of your younger, incompetent brother being prepped to take over your father's estate isn't bad enough, your mother is pushing you to marry. gone are your days of sword training with your father, seeking privacy in your family's garden, and hunting in the woods. tea parties, gown fittings, and dance lessons fill your itinerary.
while many suitors line up, hoping to take your hand in marriage, it isn't good looks or charm or status or wealth that you are searching for. what you seek is something nearly unheard of: an equal partnership. if you can't rule the dukedom alone, can't you at least rule a simple estate with your husband, side-by-side? as true partners?
to celebrate your king's birthday, the royal family of your kingdom invites many foreign royalty and nobility to join in the festivities. there's a hunting competition, and with respect to cultural differences, your king allows even women to participate. despite your mother's protests, you participate. however, you are mistakenly given a faulty map, one that leads you to a rather secluded part of the forest -- a section of the forest that is not open to hunters. a lion enters the field you are in, and before you can decide whether to fight for your life or die trying to flee, who else would save you other than the newly crowned king of a foreign nation, tooru oikawa? the banter that ensues is cut short once you two realize that the lion wasn't the only danger present; you are both surrounded by assassins. who they're here for is quite obvious.
the two of you must defend each other; after narrowly escaping the assassins that you couldn't kill, you and oikawa are lost in the vast forest and need to seek shelter as the sun starts to set. despite you vehemently denying being cold (your shivering body giving you away), oikawa lends you his coat. the two of you make it back to the safety of your kingdom, but upon stepping foot onto royal grounds, oikawa collapses in front of everyone, and you are immediately put on trial for the attempted murder of a foreign king. when telling your story, you realize how ridiculous the truth sounds, so you tell a teensy tiny lie to get out of it.
"we were secretly meeting."
when questioned as to why a duchess from this kingdom was secretly meeting another kingdom's king, you cheekily ask everyone in the court what could be the possible reason for why a young unmarried woman and a young unmarried man would want to see each other + what kind of business they would like to discuss in private. when the judge tells you that he wants you to stop with the cheeky comments, you finally "confess" and admit that "king oikawa and i are secret lovers. that's why we were alone." it's an alibi, one that can only be confirmed by oikawa and oikawa alone.
for days, you wait in anxiety for him to wake up. you have been thrown into jail for the time being since your feeble story is hardly enough to clear your name. you've had no contact with oikawa and all you've done when the two of you were escaping death together was either insult him or ignore him. when a guard stops in front of your cell with a grim expression on his face, you're certain that this is the end of your life. you prepare for the execution order, but what you're not prepared for is for the guard to unlock your cell and kneel down to you, giving you a sincere apology on behalf of the royal family.
after all, king oikawa was threatening war when he heard that his beloved fiancee was behind bars.
(old concept that i still think about often!! fake marriage with reluctant allies to lovers!!!! banter! slowburn! but that light mood of this premise turns dark very fast; a good blend of being both plot and character driven!! you've got your own ulterior motives, as does he and everyone else in this story. morally grey characters!!! murder, espionage, political intrigue, family drama and secrets, backstabbing, falling in love!!!!)
FROM EDEN.
summary ⟡ A wounded knight finds sanctuary with a witch.
contains ⟡ 17.1k wc, female reader, witch reader, knight phainon, (temporary) amnesia/memory loss, yandere?, phainon is mentally unhealthy here, moral ambiguity, blood and violence (not very graphic but it is there), minor character deaths (yes. deathS!), slow burn-ish, some fluff
note ⟡ it’s here!!! it’s finally here!!!! 😁 after two long months, i can finally share this fic with all of you hehehehe. also i changed the title last minute bc i realized from eden fit much better with what i was going for in this story than like real people do!! i also dedicate this piece to @elysiumae for sending me the art that inspired me to write this in the first place. i hope you come to love this just as much as i do <3
also posted on ⟡ ao3
𝐈. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆'𝐒 𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃
Steel clashes against steel. The air is thick with smoke and the copper tang of blood, and Phainon—commander of King Nanook’s vanguard—stands in the heart of the chaos. His black helm marks him as a beacon, and enemy spears and arrows alike seek him out. Around him, his men falter, their shields splintered, their cries swallowed by the roar of advancing foes.
He bellows orders, cutting down another soldier that charges, but the tide is against them. The line collapses. War banners fall to the mud. One by one, his comrades vanish beneath the enemy’s press until Phainon realizes he is the last.
A spear grazes his helm, and agony bursts white-hot across his skull. His vision reels, the world washing red. Blood spills hot down the side of his face, searing his eye. He staggers back, fighting only to keep his legs moving.
The battlefield is lost. To stay is to die.
He turns and runs. Through smoke, through brambles, through the jeers and shouts of pursuit, he forces his battered body onward. Each step is heavier than the last; each breath feels like fire. The enemy’s shouts echo behind him, but the forest swallows him whole, branches clawing at his armor as he crashes deeper into the shadows.
The forest is deep and strange—the deeper he runs, the quieter the world becomes, as though the trees themselves conspire to swallow sound.
He is alone, save for the thundering of his heart and the wet drip of blood from his helm. His sword slips from his hand, forgotten. The world tilts and Phainon collapses onto the forest floor.
His vision blurs, and just before the darkness takes him, he hears the soft crunch of leaves close by. Then, a gentle meow.
And, nothing more.
𝐈𝐈. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐂𝐇
He wakes to silence.
His eyes open slowly. A wooden ceiling looms above him, beams dark with age, the air tinged with the scent of herbs. He doesn’t recognize it—doesn’t recognize anything.
More than that, he doesn’t remember who he is.
His chest tightens as he searches the fog of his mind for something—a name, a memory, a place—but it’s like reaching into smoke: everything slips away before he can hold it.
He swallows against the dryness of his throat. He’s in a bed, blanket heavy on his chest. Around him, there are shelves sagging with jars and bottles, books are stacked haphazardly, and there are strange trinkets laid out everywhere. None of it sparks recognition.
He sits up too quickly. The room tilts, his skull throbs, and he grips the blanket bunched at his waist until the dizziness fades.
A sound draws him out of himself. Meow.
He turns his head. An orange cat sits on the windowsill, its yellow eyes fixed on him, tail flicking lazily. They regard each other for a long moment, as though the creature expects something of him. Then, without ceremony, it leaps down and pads out the door.
His body protests as he pushes the blankets aside, muscles stiff and uncooperative. He staggers when he stands, catching himself against the bedpost. His legs are heavy, but the need to follow propels him forward. Each step is unsteady, but he manages, trailing the soundless paws through the narrow hall and down a creaking stair.
The cat doesn’t wait; it moves with a purpose, leaving him to stumble after, forcing his pace to match.
At last, a door yawns open onto light. He blinks against it, squinting as the cat pads outside. He follows, and he emerges into air crisp with pine and soil.
What he sees makes him stop in the doorway.
You stand at the heart of a small clearing, bathed in the dappled light that falls through the trees. Birds perch on your shoulders and fingers as though you were a branch. A fox lingers at your feet. Rabbits, a deer, and a dozen other forest creatures circle you in attendance. Your lips move, and though he can’t hear the words, he knows you are speaking to them.
The orange cat trots toward you and lets out a sharp meow. You turn at the sound.
Your gaze meets his across the clearing. For a moment, the world holds its breath. His heart lurches in his chest, stuttering in a rhythm he doesn’t understand.
The animals scatter at once, startled by his sudden presence. Birds lift onto the trees, the deer bounds into the shadows, and rabbits vanish into the bushes. In their wake, only you remain, standing alone at the center, the cat padding to your side.
Your hands lower slowly, and then you turn to face him fully.
“You’re finally awake,” you say. “That’s good. You’ve been unconscious for two weeks. Actually…” You tilt your head, frowning faintly. “Why are you here? You should be in bed still.”
The words are simple yet he barely hears them. His heart stumbles against his ribs, as though it recognizes something his mind cannot. He can’t look away from you. He doesn’t know who he is, but standing beneath your eyes, he feels anchored, as though some missing piece has found its way back to him.
You stride towards him with quick steps. Before he can speak, your hands press lightly against his arm, his shoulder, steering him back toward the house. The touch makes him jolt more than the cold air outside, small and unassuming but somehow enough to stir heat into his chest.
You push him gently through the doorway and into the living room with the small couch. “Sit,” you insist, ushering him down.
He obeys clumsily, lowering himself into the cushions. His body sinks into them, but his gaze drifts back to you, searching, wondering.
“I followed your cat,” he says at last, voice rough with disuse. The words feel inadequate, almost foolish, but they’re all he can manage against the pull inside him.
“Ah, yes,” you call from the kitchen. A moment later, you return, a glass of water in hand. You press it into his grasp and he accepts without protest.
“His name is Mydei, short for Mydeimos,” you explain, settling opposite him. “He keeps an eye on you when I can’t.”
As if summoned by the mention, the orange cat leaps onto the low table between you. Mydei sits with practiced elegance, tail curling neatly around his paws.
“Oh. Thank you?” he says, though the words sound uncertain, like a question.
Mydei blinks slowly, then offers a soft meow, as if in reply.
You hide a faint smile. “Aside from disorientation, what else are you feeling? Is your head aching? Any nausea? You lost a great deal of blood.”
He takes a long sip of water, letting the coolness ease the dryness in his throat before lowering the glass to his lap.
“My head…” he hesitates, pressing a hand to his temple. “It aches, yes, but not… unbearably.” His brow furrows as he tries to chase the thought further. “Everything feels… heavy. Like my body isn’t mine yet.”
He falls quiet, eyes dropping to the glass in his hand. A moment passes before he adds, “I don’t remember much. Hardly anything at all. Not even my name.”
“Hm… how inconvenient,” you say, thoughtful but not unkind. “That means we have no way of knowing how you came into my forest looking as though you’d just walked away from a battlefield.”
At the word battle, something stirs in him—sharp, jagged pain flickering behind his eyes. He winces, a hand lifting instinctively to his temple. And just as quickly as it comes, the ache fades, leaving only the echo of something he cannot grasp.
You watch him carefully, noting the shadow that passes across his face, but choose not to press. Instead, your voice softens, “But I do know your name.”
His head lifts, hope in his eyes.
“Your broadsword carried an engraving,” you continue. “Phainon. I believe that’s your name.”
The name strikes something inside him—a resonance, like the toll of a bell. He mouths it once, tasting the syllables, then again with more sound. “Phainon…” The word feels both foreign and familiar, like a garment he once wore but has long since outgrown.
“I had a little trouble carrying your sword back with me,” you admit, a faint crease forming at the edge of your brow. “It’s a good thing Mydei was there to help while I carried you.”
Phainon blinks, gaze sliding toward the orange cat perched on the table. Mydei is calmly licking a paw, utterly unconcerned.
A cat—carrying a broadsword. He can’t wrap his head around it. The image his mind conjures—this small, sleek creature dragging a weapon nearly as tall as he is—strains against reason.
“What a strange thing,” Phainon mutters.
You tilt your head at his remark, an amused smile flickering at your lips. “Strange as it may be, but it’s true. Mydei has his ways.”
Then as fast as it came, the smile on your face vanishes, replaced by a more solemn look. “Listen… you’re still in no state to be wandering. You’ve lost too much blood and your memories are—” you hesitate, choosing the gentlest word, “—foggy.”
“Foggy,” he echoes.
You nod, and continue, “I have room here. Stay—at least until you’ve recovered your strength. Until your memories start to return.”
The offer hangs in the air. Phainon looks at you as if the world had shifted beneath him.
“You want me to… stay?” he repeats. “And that’s fine with you? I… I’m a stranger.”
You nod once, and the corners of your mouth lift into a reassuring smile. “Yes. Stay.”
Something flickers across his face—relief perhaps, though he’s not sure himself. With quivering lips and a shaky breath, he says, “Then… thank you.”
Mydei hops down from the table, tail swishing, and curls up at your feet as though sealing the agreement.
𝐈𝐈𝐈. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐘
He learns the days by the way the light moves across the floor. Morning begins when the window fills with golden light, when the air smells faintly of herbs and boiling water. Evening comes when the shadows stretch long enough to touch his bedpost.
At first, he only watches.
You move through the house with quietness and certainty, hands always busy with something—stirring, pounding, pouring, stitching. He studies the rhythm of your motions, how even your smallest gestures seem to have purpose.
He tries to mimic that quiet. He sits when you tell him to rest, eats what you place before him, drinks the bitter teas you prepare without complaint. But still, there’s a restlessness under his skin. His body remembers movement, command, duty—even if his mind has lost the names for them.
Sometimes you catch him standing by the doorway, staring at the forest beyond. His hand will twitch faintly at his side, as though reaching for something that isn’t there. Other times, he startles when you enter a room too quietly, muscles tensing before he realizes it’s only you.
Once, you find him outside before dawn, shirt clinging to his back with sweat. He’s been trying to split a fallen branch with a knife far too small for the task. The effort leaves his hands trembling.
“You should be in bed,” is what you say as you approach him from behind.
He freezes mid-motion, then turns to look at you—like a child caught stealing bread. “I thought… I could help.”
“You’ll help by healing,” you say, taking the knife gently from his hand.
He hesitates, then nods, slow and obedient. When you turn to leave, he follows you back without another word.
After that morning, he still rises early. But now, when you catch him watching the light through the window, he stays seated—if only for a little while. He tries to rest, but rest does not come easily. His wounds are healing, and his memories remain unsteady, yet idleness feels wrong to him.
Before long, he begins to move again.
He knows what it is to serve—to repay debt with labor—so he volunteers for small tasks.
At first, you refuse him. You tell him he’s still healing, that his hands should hold nothing heavier than a spoon. But the more you insist, the more it seems to ache in him. One morning, he follows you out to the clearing, eyes earnest.
“Let me help,” he says. His voice trembles with something close to pleading. “I can’t just sit here while you work. Please—give me something to do.”
You study him for a long moment—the way his shoulders hover between tension and apology, the way his fingers twitch restlessly at his sides as though already reaching for a task. Finally, you sigh, gesturing toward the axe resting by a stump.
“Fine,” you relent, “If you insist, start with that. But take it slowly. If you reopen your wounds, I’ll make you drink every bitter tonic in this house.”
He nods—too eagerly, too grateful—and moves to take the axe. When his hands close around the handle, his posture shifts into something almost reverent. He runs a thumb along the grain of the wood as though it was something more than a tool of work.
The first swing is clumsy. The second lands better. By the fifth, the rhythm begins to find him. And though sweat beads at his temple and his breath comes hard, there’s certainty in his motions, like something dormant has remembered its shape.
When the pile at his feet grows, he looks toward you, expectant and seeking approval. And you only nod, smiling faintly. “That’s enough for now.”
But later, when you find the buckets by the well filled to the brim, or the latch on the cupboard newly repaired, you don’t comment. You only notice the way his shoulders ease when you pretend not to notice.
And soon it becomes habit—his way of contributing, his way of belonging.
However, he is not alone in these routines.
At first, he thinks it’s a coincidence—the way Mydei always seems to appear wherever he goes. The cat follows him everywhere, always just a few steps behind.
Even at night, he’s there.
The first evening, Phainon nearly trips over him on his way to bed. Mydei is already settled on the doorway, tail curled neatly around his paws.
“Are you keeping watch?” Phainon asks, but the cat only blinks.
The next night, it’s the same. On the third, Phainon tries again. “You don’t have to guard me. I’m not going anywhere.”
Mydei’s ears twitch, but he says nothing.
Phainon sighs, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Right… You only respond to her, don’t you?”
The cat tilts his head slightly. Then he curls into himself, and the glow of his eyes fades in the dark.
After that, Phainon stops trying—he lets the silence stay between them. So now, when Mydei pads after him at dusk and settles in his usual spot, Phainon simply lets him be. There’s a strange comfort in that quiet surveillance, even if the cat doesn’t feel like opening himself up to him.
And eventually, the days fall into rhythm.
At dawn, he shoulders the axe, splitting logs until the ache in his arms feels almost right. His palms blister, but he swings as though they’ve blistered a thousand times before. At midday, he hauls buckets of water from the well, stride steady but gaze far away. In the evenings, he mends what he can: roofs, fences, tools. His fingers fumble over the smaller work, but when they curl around a hammer’s grip, they fall into familiar certainty.
The quiet is a kindness, but also a cage. The hush of the forest presses in on him, and though the air smells of pine and earth, he feels his muscles twitch for an enemy that never comes. His hands ache not only for work, but for the heft of a blade, for the moment of strike and counterstrike.
At night, he lies awake staring at the broadsword propped in the corner of his room. You had cleaned it for him, oiled the leather of its grip, and even polished the steel until it caught the sunlight in sharp glimmers during mornings. Beside it rests the armor you had stripped from him when he first stumbled into your care—dented, scarred, but whole again after your diligent scrubbing.
The sight always stirs something in him. He cannot recall the battles that scarred that armor, cannot name the men who might have stood by his side, but his body knows. The urge to stand guard through the night, to patrol the forest, to protect this small house and the one who sheltered him—it thrums in his chest as if written into his blood.
Perhaps he was a knight once. The thought explains much: the impulse to serve, the hunger to protect, the restlessness that drives his muscles even in peace. Yet the longer he gazes at the steel, the heavier his chest grows.
A knight without memory is little more than a stray dog—trained to bite, yet wandering without a master to serve.
One evening, over the simple fare you’ve prepared—stew and bread—he sets his spoon down. “You never cook meat,” he observes. “Do you not care for it?” His tone is casual, but his eyes search for you carefully, as if gauging whether it’s want or scarcity that keeps it from your table.
“I could hunt for you,” he adds after a pause, almost eager. The thought of the chase, the draw of the bow, the kill—it would give his restless muscles something to do, something they know.
But you decline immediately, shaking your head. “No. Thank you, but I don’t eat meat or poultry.”
He frowns faintly, confused. “Why not?”
“Because land animals are my friends,” you say simply. “I will not ask one to die for my plate.”
The words settle heavily between you. His shoulders ease, and though the hunger for action still coils within him, he swallows it down.
“I see,” he murmurs, glancing down at his hands—hands that probably (surely) once lived by killing—and does not press further.
Sometimes, like today, he pauses, standing in the clearing with the axe poised above the wood, and the thought comes unbidden: I could split a skull just as easily. And the image lingers too vividly in his head.
His grip tightens on the handle. Then, something flashes behind his eyes.
He’s no longer in the forest, no longer holding an axe. The weight in his hands is heavier. The air reeks of smoke and oil, and the light is wrong—it comes from fire, not sun. Around him, armored figures move through around a narrow room. There’s a table overturned, and he hears a child crying; a woman’s voice is pleading from somewhere behind the door.
But Phainon’s eyes are fixed only on the man before him—kneeling, trembling, faceless. Then, his arm moves before he can think. The blade arcs down.
Then the vision is gone.
He staggers, and the axe is heavy in his hands again. The forest is quiet and his pulse hammers against his ribs like it’s trying to escape.
He doesn’t notice at first that Mydei has been watching from the fence post. The cat’s yellow eyes never waver, tail flicking. And when Phainon grips the axe too long, when his breath grows heavy, Mydei meows, and it pulls him back.
Phainon exhales, and then he goes back to work.
The pile at his feet is already enough for weeks, but he keeps swinging, each crack and thud a way to drown out the darker images that slip too easily into his thoughts. For a moment, he grips the axe too tightly, staring at the blade as though it might turn on him.
Slowly, he sets the tool aside. For a long while, he just stands there, palms raw, trying to shake the violence from his body. He wipes his hands from his tunic, as though the gesture might wipe away the images too.
“Phainon.”
Your voice pulls him away from his thoughts. He startles slightly, caught off guard, and he turns toward the sound of you.
“You’ll wear out both axe and arms if you keep at it like this,” you say, walking toward him. “The forest can only give so much.”
His expression falters into sheepishness. He wipes his brow with the back of his wrist, then rubs at his neck. “Sorry. I just… want to be useful.”
“You’ve split enough to last me a month,” you reply. “There are better ways to be useful.”
He blinks. “Like what?”
“You can come with me to town today. I haven’t gone in some time—too busy making sure you don’t fall apart under my roof.”
His brows rise. “Town? There’s a town nearby?”
An amused smile makes it way to your lips. “Of course. Where else would I get fish and flour? You didn’t think I pulled them out of thin air, did you?”
“I thought…” he hesitates, “I thought you just made them appear. You are a witch, aren’t you?”
That earns him a laugh. “You’re a funny one, Phainon. Yes, I am a witch, but I don’t conjure what I can craft and gather. I could, but I’d rather make things than have them simply appear.”
“Sorry. It’s just—” Phainon shifts awkwardly, scratching at the back of his neck again. “You’re probably the first witch I’ve ever met.”
Your smile tilts, and almost teasingly, you say, “Probably? We wouldn’t know, would we? Not with your memories still fogged over.”
Before he can answer, you turn briskly. “Come on, then. To town. My apprentice is likely wringing her hands by now, wondering where I’ve gone again.”
He hesitates. “Wait—what about the house? Won’t you need someone to guard it while you’re away?”
“Mydei can handle it,” you say, as though it’s obvious. Right on cue, the orange cat slips from behind your skirts with a little meow, brushing against your legs. Phainon blinks at him, incredulous.
First, the creature can drag around a broadsword. Now he’s expected to stand sentry over a house?
You catch his expression and suppress a laugh. “Mydei is a magical cat. He can do anything a person can do—sometimes even better.”
Phainon gives the animal another long look, but Mydei only flicks his tail and yawns.
“And besides,” you add, lowering your voice conspiratorially, “this forest is spelled. Anyone with ill intent who tries to cross the border won’t make it far.”
His brows furrow. “What happens to these people?”
“They get lost,” you answer, too calm, too uncaring. “Until the forest swallows them whole.”
The words echo long after you’ve spoken them.
Phainon can’t quite shake the thought of the forest, and of those who would enter it with dark intent. And what it might do to him, should the forest ever decide his heart was not so clean.
Even as you set off together, the sound of your voice lingers in his skull, heavy as the axe he left behind. The path out of the woods is easier beneath your lead, but he cannot help glancing over his shoulder, half-expecting to see eyes in the trees.
By the time the trees thin and the road spills into a village, the shift is jarring. Voices rise and tumble together—market cries, children’s laughter, the thud of cart wheels on earth. Smoke curls from chimneys, and the scent of bread and roasting meat hangs heavy in the air.
It should feel safe, yet Phainon’s chest stays tight. There are too many people—too many voices overlapping, too many faces he doesn’t know, too many bodies moving in patterns he can’t predict. In the forest, it was simple: just you, him, Mydei, and the animals. It was a world he can hold with his hands.
Here, everything is too much and too loud. A child darts past, laughing, and he tenses. A shopkeeper calls out prices, and his back straightens. Someone jostles his elbow in passing, and his hand twitches and aches for something akin to a weapon.
He keeps close to you, shadowing your steps as though your presence alone is a tether. You are the only familiar thing in this sea of strangers.
You lead Phainon toward a quaint shop draped in hanging plants and vines. When the two of you step inside, something white blurs past the shelves and barrels toward you. It collides with your chest in a soft, squeaking impact.
Phainon reacts instantly: his hand shoots to his back, grasping for the familiar weight of his broadsword, but only air greets him. His other hand curls into a fist as his shoulders tense, but you lift a palm to still him. A subtle shake of your head halts his instinct.
There’s no enemy here.
His jaw tightens, though his stance relaxes slightly. He lowers his hands, still watching the odd being as though it might bite.
There’s… a creature nuzzling against your neck. Plump and round, with soft white fur tinged in pink and turquoise, its tiny wings flutter uselessly against your shoulder. It makes a plaintive, piping sound, halfway between a whistle and a squeak.
“Yes, yes,” you murmur, your hand smoothing over its mane comfortingly. “I’m back now. You can stop crying.”
“What… what is that?” Phainon asks.
“This is Little Ica,” you reply, tone far warmer than it had been earlier in the forest. “They’re a pegasus and my apprentice’s familiar. Speaking of…” You glance around the shop, scanning the shadows beyond shelves. “Where’s Hyacine?”
As if on cue, the sound of hurried steps come rushing through the backroom. Then a voice, light with relief, exclaims, “You’re back!” Hyacine rushes, her curls bouncing with each step. She stops short when she sees Phainon, but her worry swiftly overtakes her surprise.
“You were gone so long! I thought maybe you’d forgotten to eat again.” Her gaze flicks over you, searching for signs of weariness. “You didn’t, did you? You always lose track when you’re mixing stuff, and—oh, never mind, at least you’re safe and alright.”
Her eyes soften further when they land on the pegasus nestled against your shoulder. “And Little Ica found you first, hm? No wonder I heard them crying.” Then her eyes fall on Phainon again, who’s all tall and stiff behind you. “And you’ve brought someone with you. You never even come to town with Mydei, yet here you are—walking with another man.”
Hyacine’s voice takes on a teasing tone, and you sigh at once. Her words, however, make Phainon’s head tilt curiously.
Another man? Is she hinting at someone else in your life? But he has never seen another soul in the forest besides you, Mydei, your animal friends, and himself. Who is Hyacine talking about?
“He’s a stray I picked up not long ago,” you answer lightly. “He’s the reason why I’ve been absent.”
Hyacine’s brows lift with interest. “Are you taking him in as an apprentice too? Ica and I wouldn’t mind another friend!”
“Oh, no,” you say quickly. “He’s only here for a short while.”
“Aw, that’s too bad.” She juts her lips, pouting. “What brings him here with you today then?”
“A change of scenery,” you reply. “He’s been shut away in the forest for days. I thought the bustle of town might do him some good—help clear his mind. He’s lost his memories, you see.”
Hyacine’s face softens. She glances at Phainon, expression turning gentle, almost pitying. “How awful. What happened to him? And how did you even find him?”
“Mydei found him actually,” you explain. “Just at the edge of the forest. He said Phainon looked like he was running from something. But whoever—or whatever—it was, they’ve probably already lost their way.”
“Oh, Phainon? Is that your name?” Hyacine tilts her head toward him.
He shifts slightly, before giving a curt nod. “Apparently.”
Her lips twitch, and a small giggle escapes. “Well, it suits you. Lucky you stumbled into our forest. Not all who dwell in the woods—witch or not—are half as kind as my teacher.”
“Are you speaking ill of Anaxa again?” you ask with an amused smile. “You know you would’ve been his apprentice if Ica hadn’t liked me better.”
Anaxa. A man’s name, and it snags in Phainon’s mind. Is that the man that Hyacine must be hinting at? The other man?
Hyacine huffs. “If I’d known you were such a stubborn and neglectful teacher, I would have accepted Mr. Anaxagoras’s offer instead!”
“Of course you would.” You shake your head, smiling faintly as though you’ve had this argument before. “But enough of that. I didn’t come here just to banter. I brought new wares for the shop.”
At that, Little Ica finally detaches from your shoulder, wings fluttering as they drift toward Hyacine. You lift your hand, and with a casual flick of your fingers, the air beside you ripples. A pocket of space yawns open, and without hesitation, you slide your arm inside, as if reaching into another world.
Phainon stiffens, heart thudding hard at the sight of your hand disappearing into nothingness. He surges forward, hand shooting out to seize your shoulder before the void can swallow you, but before he can touch you, your free hand lifts and presses lightly against his chest. The touch halts him more effectively than a command.
“What are you—” His voice is harsher than he means it to be, the tension audible.
“Relax,” you murmur. “It’s only a space pocket. A safe place to keep what I can’t carry on my own.”
The warmth of your palm lingers through the fabric of his tunic, and he finds himself frozen there, caught between embarrassment and the urge to insist you step away from the rippling darkness.
He swallows hard, forcing himself to still. His eyes, however, don’t leave the pocket of space that devours your arm with casual ease.
A moment later, you withdraw, arm still intact and holding neat bundle of herbs and jars. You brush the dust from your hands as though you’d done nothing more extraordinary than fetch something from a shelf.
You hold the things out to Hyacine, and she stretches her arms to take them. Phainon lingers behind, watching the exchange.
“You could have used me to carry them for you,” he says.
Because he would have. He would have if you had only asked. For you—his savior, the one who let him stay even though he had nothing to offer but a name he didn’t even remember and a sword he can’t quite recall how to wield—he would carry far heavier things. That’s what a knight does, isn’t it? They pay their debts with their own body, their own service, their own small pieces of loyalty chipped away until they belong entirely to the one who spared them.
A knight serves. A knight owes. And what is he now, if not a man shaped to serve?
“You’re still recovering,” you answer. You don’t even look at him as you say it, which makes it worse, as though the matter is already decided and he doesn’t get a say. “You shouldn’t even be chopping wood at all, but you insist on chores. You are a very hardheaded patient.”
At that, Hyacine bursts out laughing, her curls bouncing as she hugs the bundles to her chest. “Finally,” she says, bright and teasing, “you’ve met someone who can go toe-to-toe with your stubbornness!”
You roll your eyes, but Phainon blinks at the words, tilting his head slightly, as though he’s unsure whether to feel stung or proud or both. His mouth opens like he might protest, then shuts again. He looks away instead and curls his fists, as if silently promising himself next time, he’ll carry the burden before you even get the chance to deny him.
When the two of you finally leave the shop, you guide him through the streets toward the wet market. The air is damp and heavy with the smell of fish, blood, and mud, and there are voices calling out prices and children darting between stalls.
Phainon notices the eyes—not just glances, but lingering looks that follow wherever you walk. And he hears whispers too, words he cannot make sense of but knows must be about you, because they never started until you appeared.
And you don’t say a thing. Maybe you don’t hear it, or maybe you’ve grown used to it—so used to it that it slides right off you. But Phainon can’t let it slide; it scrapes against him like grit in an old wound.
Why do they look at you like that, as though you are something to be feared and mocked all at once? Why do they whisper with so little care, as if you aren’t standing right here among them? And the vendors—the boldest of them all—jeer openly when you pass, muttering under their breaths as though you were powerless, as though you weren’t a witch, as if you’re less than them when he’s certain it’s the other way around.
It builds in his chest—that hot, bristling urge to step in front of you, to bare his teeth, to silence them all. And he almost does, but you just keep moving, intent on the stalls, so he forces himself to match your pace.
At a cart piled with pale cabbages and spotted apples, you pause. He leans down close, words caught between clenched teeth, low enough that only you can hear.
“Why do they behave like this toward you?”
You’re turning an apple over in your hand, examining its bruised skin. “Because I don’t belong here,” you answer simply. “They’re always like that. Just ignore them.”
“But how could they be so… crude?” His voice carries the disbelief of someone who still doesn’t understand how people can bite the hand of someone who has never even done them wrong.
“That’s just how ordinary folk are,” you murmur, putting the apple back with a faint shake of your head. You mutter something about the fruits not being fresh, before moving on to another stall. “It’s not as though they can do anything to me anyway. This is the most they can do—whisper, sneer, look away when I pass. I’m fortunate enough to even set foot in their home. And if they did try to drive me away…”
Your voice tilts, even quieter, “Well. They’d lose the one thing I can give them that they need most—which is medicine.”
Phainon frowns. “They don’t have doctors here?”
“No.” You shake your head. “This town is poor, though it may not look like it at a glance. They have too many mouths, but not enough coins. They would all be dead if not for me.”
You say it so easily, so matter-of-fact, that Phainon almost misses the weight of the words. His frown deepens; he wants to say they should be on their knees before you for that. That they should build shrines to your name if you’re the reason they’re even breathing.
Instead, you add, “Hyacine helps too, of course. She knows how to heal, how to prepare salves and teas. But she’s still learning, and I won’t let her rely on magic for curing sickness.”
Phainon tilts his head. “Why not? Wouldn’t that be easier?”
You shake your head again. “Because magic can fail, or worse—it can hurt if used carelessly. Herbs, remedies… those are reliable. A cure has to last longer than a spell. Hyacine is clever, but she still has much to learn before she can craft medicine without error.”
You turn another piece of produce in your palm, and mutter something about rot and poor harvests again. Phainon doesn’t say anything anymore, because he’s thinking about the eyes that lingers, the whispers, and the jeers circling endlessly in his mind.
He shadows over you as you move from stall to stall. And though he’s silent, his hands keep twitching at his sides, as though itching for a sword—or something, anything—that could cut sharp enough toward anyone who dares linger too long in their staring.
The walk back is quieter.
The sun hasn’t moved much—still hanging somewhere between noon and after—but the streets are emptier now, and the voices from the market have faded into the distance. The air smells of pine again, of damp earth and dust.
Phainon walks a step behind you, carrying the bundle of things you bought: produce, cloth, jars, and even the small pouches of salt and spices you insisted was light enough to carry yourself—until he looked at you as if you’d insulted him just by suggesting so.
You’d argued, of course. You’d said, “I have a space pocket. It’s far more convenient and easier.” And he’d said, “But you told me earlier there were other ways to be useful. This is me being useful.”
You’d gone quiet after that, lips pressing thin before you muttered something under your breath that sounded a lot like stubborn man. So now, here you are, walking through the road that leads back to the forest while he shoulders all the weight like it means nothing.
“You know,” you say all of a sudden. “You behave so much like a knight sometimes.”
Phainon blinks, caught off guard by the sudden remark. “In what way?”
“Apart from the sword you carried and the armor you wore when you came here, I can also sense it in the way you can’t sit still,” you answer, looking straight ahead. “You always need to be doing something. Helping. Chopping. Fixing. Carrying things that aren’t yours to carry. You get anxious when you’re idle. You want to be useful.”
He huffs a small laugh through his nose, not because it’s funny, but because the words land too neatly in him. “That sounds accurate.”
“I thought so.” You tilt your head. “You’re like a dog, really.”
The word hits him like a strike. He stops walking.
Something moves behind his eyes—a flicker, a flash, a sound. A voice, deep and cold and too familiar though he’s certain he’s never heard it before.
My knight.
My beast.
My hound.
The words echo through his skull, and the world seems to lurch with them. The road blurs, and for a moment, he isn’t standing on dirt beneath the dappled light of the noon sun. Instead, he’s kneeling on marble, head bowed low, and wearing his armor—he also feels a hand, heavy and pressing, resting on his head as though he were some animal that needed taming.
The weight of that imagined touch burns through him.
He sucks in a breath, and his shoulders tense. The bundle in his arms shifts, jars clinking faintly. His skin has also gone cold, yet his pulse races like it’s trying to crawl out of his throat.
You notice instantly. “Phainon?” you call his name, stopping in your tracks as well and turning to him. “What’s wrong?”
He swallows hard, but the words don’t come right away. His mouth is dry. The memory dissolves quickly as quickly as it came, leaving only the echo of the words lingering like an aftertaste.
Finally, he speaks, voice low and rough, “Don’t… don’t call me that. I don’t like it.”
You blink. “Like what?”
“A dog. I don’t…” His throat bobs. “It doesn’t sit right with me.”
You study him for a moment—his pallor, the way his knuckles whiten around the things he’s carrying, the faraway look in his eyes, the strange stillness in his face as if he’s holding himself together by sheer will.
“Alright,” you say, softly, kindly. “I won’t call you that again.”
He exhales, a small, uneven breath that sounds like it’s meant to be a thank you but gets lost somewhere before it reaches his tongue. The silence that envelops between you is fragile—like something that could break if either of you spoke too loudly.
When you start walking again, he follows, though quieter than before. His mind hums with the ghost of that voice, that hand, the word that shouldn’t have stung as much as it did.
Once you arrive back at your home, Mydei is the first to greet you.
He’s waiting on the porch, tail curled neatly around his paws. The moment he spots you, a soft meow slips from his throat. He rises and stretches, then pads down the step to brush against your leg. His fur carries the warmth of the afternoon sun.
“Missed us, did you?” you murmur, stooping to run your fingers through his coat. Mydei purrs, low and content, circling your ankles once before glancing up at Phainon.
His gaze lingers. Then, with a flick of his tail, he turns and follows after you as you step inside the cottage. He doesn’t brush against Phainon.
Behind you, Phainon lets out a short huff that sounds like laughter. “He still doesn’t like me,” he says. “So I don’t think he missed me as much as he does you.”
“Yes,” you agree without a second’s hesitation.
Phainon stares at you, the corner of his mouth twitching as if he can’t decide whether to feel offended or amused. “That was very quick.”
“Well,” you shrug, “I wasn’t going to lie. Cats can be quite territorial, you know.”
He hums, pondering. “He must think I’m going to steal you from him.”
You laugh, sudden and melodious—one of those bright little sounds that seem to catch him off guard every time, as though he hasn’t quite learned you’re capable of making it. And maybe that’s because you don’t laugh like that often. Most days your amusement comes out quieter; just a small puff of air through your nose paired with a smile, the kind of understated warmth one only notices if they’re paying close attention.
But this one—this clear, unguarded laugh of yours—is rare enough to feel like a gift. So rare that Phainon goes absolutely still for a moment, as if unsure whether he’s meant to hold it, treasure it, bow to it, or simply let it wash over him.
“Now I wouldn’t go that far,” you say. “Mydei is just protective.”
“Of you?” he manages to ask, feigning neutrality.
“Of the house. Of the forest,” you say, trailing off. “And yes, perhaps of me, as well. He’s like the guardian of this forest. He protects everything and everyone here.”
“Even me?” he asks.
“Yes. Even you.”
The words hit him strangely—like something heavier than reassurance, lighter than a promise, and yet somehow both. Phainon rubs the back of his neck as if trying to hide the warmth gathering there.
He thinks back to all the times Mydei has stalked behind him (which is always, really). The soft pad of paws trailing a few steps behind, the quiet little huffs of breath, the occasional meow when Phainon’s thoughts spiral too far into places they shouldn’t go.
He remembers the nights when he would sit up in bed, palm pressed to his ribs, breath caught somewhere between a gasp and a sob, and Mydei would hop onto the foot of the bed and simply stare at him.
Stop, the stare always seems to say. Don’t think of it. Don’t think about anything at all.
And somehow, it works. It helps. He helps. Though Phainon doubts the cat does any of it out of affection; more likely, it’s obligation. Or maybe, just like you said, it’s out of territorial instincts. Or maybe… the cat thinks he does it out of protection of you.
Protection from what? From whom? From himself?
That possibility feels uncomfortably plausible.
He wouldn’t put it past himself to hurt someone. He has the hands for it, the instincts for it, and the memories—though he could only recall half of it. But you? No. He could never deliberately hurt you. Not you—not the one who pulled him from the edge of death, the one who gave him a home before he even remembered who he was.
You are the one thing in his life that doesn’t feel stained.
Maybe Mydei is indeed magical like the way you claimed. You’re a witch; you produce pockets of space out of thin air and murmur words that make plants grow faster. So why not a magical cat? Why not a cat that can drag broadswords through forests or curse intruders or—he snorts quietly to himself—transform into a person if he wanted to?
The image almost makes him laugh. He can imagine it: Mydei as some unimpressed, sharp-tongued man, flicking his tail in human form.
“I really still can’t see how Mydei can do so much with his tiny body,” Phainon says, chuckling.
You smile. It’s the kind of smile that looks like you’re hiding the punchline to a joke the world isn’t privy to. “You have no idea.”
Your smile lingers for a heartbeat too long. And his gaze lingers on you for two heartbeats longer than that.
The house is warm behind you, with the smell of herbs drifting through the open doorway. The trees sway lazily, and Mydei sits between you both, tail twitching, as if monitoring the entire conversation.
It’s peaceful enough that Phainon’s shoulders lower without him realizing. Peaceful in the way a wounded animal might exhale when it recognizes that, finally, it will not be hunted today.
You turn first, heading toward the cottage, Mydei following suit. And Phainon trails after you—the same way he trailed after you into town, the same way he trails behind you whenever you lead the way.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, the memory of the moment on the road when you called him a dog and he froze flickers. But now, in the warmth that follows you both toward home, that memory slides off him like water. It’s not gone, but it has dulled—tucked into a corner of his thoughts where it can’t bite.
He catches his reflection in a window: tired eyes, longer hair, and face still bruised at the edges. But then he looks at you again, and the heaviness in him eases.
He wonders if that is magic, too.
𝐈𝐕. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐃
Days with you slip by almost unnoticed.
Phainon wakes each sunrise to the same rhythm: the scent of herbs steeping, the air filtering through the windows, and the distant chatter of birds gathering near your porch as if waiting for you to come greet them.
He falls into that rhythm without thinking, the same way a stray animal falls into step with the one who feeds it.
He still chops wood every morning. You tell him the pile is large enough already, that the shed won’t fit another log, but he keeps at it anyway. It’s habit. When he’s not swinging the axe, he’s repairing what needs fixing—the latch on the gate, the crack in the basin, the cupboard that hasn’t loosened in years. Sometimes, you suspect he breaks things just to mend them again. And he still carries water for you. Always insists on two buckets at once, even when you tell him the well isn’t going anywhere.
(And always, there is Mydei, watching.
Always, there is you.)
But lately, he’s begun to do other things too. He helps you tend to the herbs in the garden—kneeling awkwardly in the dirt, too big and stiff for such delicate work, yet careful, almost reverent when he’s handling the leaves. Sometimes he forgets how gentle he has to be, snapping a stem or bruising a sprig, and he looks so stricken you can’t help but laugh and tell him it’ll grow back.
(He notices, too, how you laugh more now. He remembers the early days when your laughter had been quieter, almost like you weren’t sure he could handle too much warmth at once. But lately—ever since that day the two of you first returned from town—your laughter has been different, looser. As if being beside him no longer requires caution. As if something between you both unlatched itself without either of you speaking about it out loud.
And perhaps he notices more than he should. Because now, whenever he fumbles with a sprig or accidentally uproots an entire seedling, you laugh openly and he tries to pretend it doesn’t strike him straight in the chest. He ducks his heads, pretends he’s checking the soil, pretends he’s not memorizing the way the sound curls around him like the light from the sun.
He doesn’t understand why it affects him so much. He only knows that he could grow addicted to it.)
He helps you cook too, though “help” is generous. He cuts too precisely, stirs too rigidly, like he’s following orders no one gave. He asks if he’s doing it wrong, and you tell him he can do whatever he wants as long as it’s still suitable for cooking.
He goes to town with you every now and then—to visit Hyacine, to restock your supplies, to carry the heavy things you insist aren’t heavy. The villagers still whisper when you pass, and Phainon pretends not to hear them. He doesn’t realize that sometimes, his silence is more of a comfort than his anger could ever be.
And then there are the forest animals.
At first, he only watched from afar as you fed them—the foxes, the deers, the flock of birds that perch on your arms as though you’re just another tree. Now, he feeds them too, though never alone. He says he’s afraid he’ll scare them off. You tell him the creatures like him, that they sense his good intentions. He doesn’t quite believe you, and the doubt sits quietly in his chest.
He knows what still sleeps inside him. The thirst. The edge. Whatever part of him remembers blood and command and killing. He fears that if he ever lets his guard down, if he ever reaches too fast, too hungry, he’ll harm something—someone—you hold dear. So he never feeds the animals without you.
When that fear starts whispering too loud in his head, Mydei is always there. The cat watches from afar, silent, orange, and unblinking. Never close enough to touch, but close enough to pull him back to himself. It’s strange—it’s been over a month, and the cat still hasn’t brushed against him. Not even once.
It doesn’t hurt him—at least that’s what Phainon tells himself. It’s just something he’s noticed. Especially since the forest animals seem to like him well enough when you’re near. Rabbits nibble on his boots, and once, a bird landed on his shoulder. He stood frozen for a full minute, afraid to breathe in case he startles it.
When he told you about it later, you only smiled and said, “See? They trust you.”
He thinks, sometimes, this must be what peace feels like. Not the grand kind—the kind the bards sing about—but something smaller and quieter. A hand brushing against his when you both reach for the same jar. The sound of your soft laughter spilling through the house when he hits his head over something. The faint smell of mint that clings to the sheets.
He catches himself watching you too often. The way your sleeves slip down when you knead dough, the small wrinkle that appears when you read, the way you hum to yourself while tending to herbs. It’s not that he means to stare; it’s that everything about you catches his eyes. You’re steady, like gravity, and everything about you feels natural. He doesn’t know when it started, but your presence has become the thing his mind drifts toward whenever it goes quiet.
Once, when you handed him a bowl of stew and your fingers brushed his, something in his chest stuttered—like when he first saw you after waking up from his injuries. It wasn’t just gratitude anymore. Gratitude was what he felt when you saved him. Now, this was something else.
The stray in him is beginning to settle, to rest its head.
He realizes, with a sort of frightened tenderness, that he’s been dreaming of this for a long time—long before he met you, maybe even before he lost his memory. The dream of belonging somewhere. Of having someone to come back to, to protect not out of duty but out of want.
But the dream has edges.
Sometimes, while he works, something flashes behind his eyes. A street, narrow and cold. The taste of hunger. The sound of a girl’s laugh, light and tired all at once. He sees her—his sister in everything but blood, small hands clutching a loaf of stolen bread. Her smile when she splits it in two.
He always shakes it off and keeps chopping. But the memories always return like waves, merciless.
He remembers the guards’ shouts. The blur of armor. The day he was caught with his hands full of the king’s silver. How strange it was, to kneel before a man so terrible and live.
The king had looked at him and smiled. Said something about sharp eyes and quick hands. Said he could use a creature like that.
And so, Phainon became what the king wanted—a hound that learned to bite on command.
He was fed, clothed, and trained. He rose through the ranks not out of pride, but out of survival. Each order he carried out, each throat he cut, each village he burned—he told himself it was for her. For the girl who still called him brother. For the one who deserved better than hunger.
He became his king’s favorite, his lapdog, his executioner. And with every life he took, his own slipped further away.
He doesn’t remember when the love of his sister’s laughter turned into pity of what he’d become for her sake. Only that he kept going, because stopping meant she could starve.
Now, when he dreams, he hears the king’s voice again. And in the dream, the voice follows him home.
Not your home, not your house, but theirs. The one he built long ago from stone and spite and blood, where the walls gleam faintly of red, as if still remembering the men he felled to pay for them. A house bought with his master’s coin, built from the bones of his enemies, yet raised with love for her—for his sister, his tether to what little of him remained human.
The door is open when he arrives at their home.
At first, he thinks she’s sleeping. The way she lies on the floor, hair spilled like ink across the floor, one hand curled loosely as though still clutching a dream, but then he sees the blood seeping beneath her.
His body moves before thought does. He falls to his knees beside her, calling her name—Cyrene. Cyrene. Cyrene!—until the sound breaks. His hands are useless against the stillness of her body. He doesn’t know where to press, what to hold, what to fix—all he knows is how to strike, what to break, what to snap. There is too much red, but none of it are his or his master’s enemies.
When the fire from the hearth flickers, he looks up and knows exactly where to go.
He storms through the marble halls of the palace, sword still strapped on his back. Guards scatter like birds before a storm, for even they know better than to bar the way of the king’s beast. The throne room yawns open, and the king is there, as he always is—calm, immaculate, cruel.
“Your Majesty,” Phainon rasps. “Someone murdered my sister. I need your leave to find them. I—”
The king doesn’t even look surprised. He only tilts his head, voice as smooth as oil. “There’s no need to look. I gave the order myself.”
Phainon stills. At first, he doesn’t understand. He only stares, chest heaving, waiting for the jest that never comes. Then, he asks, “What do you mean?”
“She was a distraction,” the king says, amusement curling at his lips. “A hound does not need a sister. A beast does not need a home. You are mine, Phainon, and I am your master. You will serve me until there’s nothing left of you.”
The memory shatters there.
He wakes drenched in sweat, heart hammering, half expecting to find blood on his hands. But when he sits up and looks around, it’s only the faint glow of the candle on his nightstand. Only Mydei’s eyes, glowing yellow in the dark. Only your soft breathing from the other room.
And the contrast between the two worlds—the one he lived and the one he’s living now—gnaws at him. Because here, in your small house at the middle of the forest, he’s learning what gentleness feels like again. He’s learning to speak softly, to hold things that break easily. He’s learning what it means to be seen as something other than a weapon once again.
And every time you smile at him, every time your hand brushes his shoulder, he feels something bloom that he cannot name. Something that hurts and heals in the same breath.
He wonders if this is what redemption looks like; not a cleansing, but an illusion—fragile and fleeting. He wonders how long he’s allowed to have it before the world remembers what he is.
Afternoon comes, and you’re both in the garden, knees dusted in soil. Phainon’s fingers, broad but careful, move between the roots as if he’s afraid of breaking them. He’s learning how to tell weeds from the herbs now, though he still hesitates sometimes, glancing toward you for confirmation.
There’s peace in it. The small sounds, the rustle of leaves, the buzz of insects, the distant lap of water somewhere. And you hum under your breath, something tuneless.
Then he stops. Abruptly. A stem snaps between his fingers, hanging limp. His shadow falls over the patch of rosemary.
“What if my memories return,” he speaks, sudden and quiet, “but I don’t want to leave?”
You blink, turning towards him. His eyes are somewhere far off, and there’s soil in his cheek, a smear like paint that doesn’t belong there.
You don’t think before you answer. “Then don’t leave.”
He breathes out a small laugh, half disbelief, half something else. “Really? You’d let me stay? Even though my stay was only meant to be temporary?”
“Yes,” you say simply. “And honestly… I’ve grown quite fond of you.”
The words drift out like a sigh, unplanned and unpolished, but they catch in the space between you and hang there. It’s the kind of sentence that doesn’t need an echo out loud to still reverberate.
Phainon doesn’t move for a long time. He only stares, as if your words were something he needed to memorize before the air could take them away.
I’ve grown quite fond of you.
It isn’t a confession, not really, and he knows that. You said it like one might admit the sun’s warmth or that the rain falls where it wishes. Simple, natural, true. But gods, it’s close enough to make something twist in him.
The words dig in, take root, and the warmth that spreads through his chest feels almost unbearable. Because if kindness could be fatal, it would sound like that. It would sound exactly like you.
He turns back to the soil before you can see the way his expression softens—because if you did, you might realize that those simple words have already undone him. The ache in his chest isn’t the old kind anymore; it’s gentler, the kind that he doesn’t want to fade.
He works in silence after that, slower this time. You get back to work too, humming once again. And though nothing else is said, he feels the shape of your voice in his head—circling, settling, steadying.
Then don’t leave.
He won’t. Not if he can help it.
𝐕. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐔𝐀𝐑𝐃 𝐃𝐎𝐆
“Go and take a break.”
From the soil, Phainon stares at you like you’ve just cast him out. His hands are still half-buried in the dirt, wrists streaked with soil. He blinks once, twice, as if trying to understand a language that shouldn’t apply to him.
“Why? I’m not tired. I can still help—”
You shake your head, shushing him before he can finish. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but… you need to go outside every now and then, Phainon. Don’t be a hermit like me.”
He blinks again. “Outside? But aren’t we—” He gestures vaguely at the sky, the trees, the garden that is quite literally outside. "—already outside?”
He’s pouting. He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.
You sigh, pulling off one glove. “Don’t get smart with me. You know what I mean. And our trips to town don’t count. You need… enrichment time.”
“Enrichment,” he says flatly, as if it’s a punishment. “What do I even do while I’m on break?”
“I don’t know,” you say, shrugging. “Take a walk. Lie in the sun and pretend to be a rock. Anything that doesn’t involve heavy lifting or chores.”
He exhales a small sound that’s almost a whine. “Then I’ll take a walk.”
“Lovely.” You clap your hands in delight. “Get back before sunset.”
He lingers a moment longer, as if waiting for you to rescind the order. When you don’t, he dusts his palms on his trousers and straightens, a little stiff. He hesitates, opens his mouth like he might say something, then thinks better of it. Finally, he nods once and turns towards the trees.
The forest receives him the way it always does—too quietly, as though listening. He walks without direction. The world is still; only the sound of water in the distance, a bird calling, and the faint crunch of leaves beneath his boots can be heard.
A break, you said. But rest feels foreign, like a word from a tongue he’s forgotten. His hands itch for work, for something to hold, something to guard. The axe, the bucket, the rhythm of doing—those are easy. This, the wandering, the having-nothing-to-do—it gnaws at him.
He keeps glancing behind him, half-expecting Mydei to appear, silent and judging, but the cat is nowhere to be seen. Perhaps you’ve sent him to make sure Phainon really does rest. The thought makes him huff, amused despite himself.
The path slopes upward until he finds himself on a small ridge overlooking the glade. The air here smells different—warmer and faintly of wildflowers. He sits down, awkwardly at first, like a man trying to remember how to sit. He closes his eyes.
It feels like he can hear the forest breathe. He hears the wind through leaves, a frog croaking by a creek, and even his own pulse, slow and steady for once. For a long moment, he lets himself sink into it.
Then he hears something crack—a branch somewhere behind him—and instinct surges before thought does. He’s already on his feet, shoulders squared, gaze snapping toward the sound. There’s no sword, but his stance remembers one.
He prepares himself for an attack, but when only a doe comes out from behind a tree, blinking at him innocently, Phainon exhales shakily. He forces his body to ease, hands unclenching one finger at a time.
“Sorry,” he mutters, voice softer than he expects.
The animal watches him a while longer before flicking its ear and turning away. After the doe disappears, Phainon stands still for a moment longer. He exhales slowly, then straightens, scanning the woods. He decides to keep walking.
You had said to take a break, and he supposes walking counts as rest if he pretends hard enough. Besides, the forest is vast and he’s still learning its edges. If he means to protect this place, he should know its bones as well as his own.
He moves deeper into the forest. The air grows cooler the further he goes, the light dimming where the trees thicken. He marks the way as he walks—fallen birch, hollow trunk, crooked pine—and imagines how a blade might catch there, how a man could vanish behind that ridge, how once could defend this place if it ever needed defending.
He doesn’t notice the sound right away. It starts fainly: metal against metal, faint and stuttering. He stills, listening. Then comes another sound: the low murmur of men’s voices.
His breath catches. Phainon turns toward it instinctively.
The forest dips ahead into a narrow clearing, and between the trees, he glimpses movement—a cluster of figures in armors gathered around a small fire.
Knights.
He recognizes their bearing even before he sees their faces. The stance, the way they hold themselves, how their swords rest close to hand even at rest.
He should leave, he thinks. But curiosity—or perhaps the ache of recognition—roots him in place. He edges closer, silent as he can be, until he can see them clearly.
Five men, all armored in the same style. The sigil painted on their breastplates is faint, scraped by battle and time, but the mark is unmistakable—a lone tower wreathed in flame. The paint has peeled away in places, yet the shape endures: proud, ruined, unyielding. It is the symbol of the king’s dominion. The brand of the beast he once served.
His throat closes. That symbol burns behind his eyes, familiar as the weight of a sword hilt.
Phainon doesn’t remember their names, but he recognizes their faces. He’s seen them before—fought beside them, maybe. Bled beside them even. Before he can decided whether to step forward or vanish back into the woods, his voice betrays him.
“Who are you?” he calls out, and his tone is sharper than he means it to be. “Why are you here?”
The men jolt up at once, startled. Hands fly to hilts, blades drawn with the rasp of steel. For a moment, the clearing brims with threat. But then, one of them speaks. His voice cracks around the edge of disbelief. “Commander?”
Another lowers his sword, eyes widening. “Sir Phainon—by the gods—it is you!”
The rest follow, faces lighting with something between awe and relief. They drop to their knees before him, blades pointed down in salute.
Phainon doesn’t move. The sound of his name—his title—rings hollow in his chest. Commander. The word fits him like an old wound reopening. “I…” He swallows, searching their faces. “Do I know you?”
The question makes their joy falter. They look at one another with confusion. One of them—a younger man with a scar beneath his jaw—takes a hesitant step closer. “Of course you do, sir. We’re your men.”
Phainon’s mouth opens, but nothing comes out. He looks at them—these ghosts of a life he’s certain he doesn’t want back. “I remember your faces,” he admits. “But not who you are.”
The men exchange uneasy glances. Then one of them speaks again, almost reverently, “Commander, we’ve been searching for you for weeks. We thought you’d died.”
Another one poses a question, tentative. “None of our other comrades had made it when we came to check the battlefield. How did you survive? Have you been living here all this time?”
Phainon doesn’t answer. The question hangs in the air, unanswered, because the truth—that he woke beneath a witch’s roof—feels too strange to speak aloud.
When he stays silent, another knight fills the space with words. “The king sent us to find you,” he says. “Dead or alive. He said the kingdom couldn’t lose its hound just yet. You were his best, Commander. His right hand.”
That word lands like a blade. Hound.
Phainon feels his pulse stutter. Images flash in his mind—marble floors, cold as stone. Then a gloved hand pressing down on his head, forcing him to kneel.
My beast.
My hound.
My creature of war.
He inhales sharply, and the forest tilts back to normal.
“I’m not his anything,” he finally says, low and certain.
The knights exchange uneasy glances once again. Then one speaks first, laughing, as if to cut through the tension. “Sir, surely you jest. We can return together—tell His Majesty you’re alive! The king will be overjoyed to have you back.”
Phainon’s gaze snaps to him, sharp enough for the smile to fade. “No.” The word startles them. “I’ve seen what he is. What he makes of men. I’m not going to kneel to that beast again.”
Their faces harden. “You… would defy His Majesty?”
Phainon doesn’t flinch. “I will no longer serve him.”
There’s a pause, before one steps forward and draws his sword. His voice is strained, almost pained. “Then you leave us no choice.”
Another shakes his head, eyes full of regret. “You taught us loyalty, Commander. You told us a knight without his king is a blade without purpose. Don’t make us turn ours on you.”
Phainon huffs, almost amused. “Then perhaps I taught you wrong.”
The knights exchange one final look, grim, before they raise their blades in unison.
“Then you must die for such treachery,” one of them says, and the sentence carries all the weight of a verdict.
For a moment, neither side moves. The forest waits, silent and breathless. Then the first knight lunges. Phainon ducks the first swing, feels the wind of it graze his cheek, and moves instinctively. He grips the knight’s arm, twists, and bone cracks beneath his hands. The man drops his sword, but Phainon doesn’t bother picking it up.
Another charges—younger, faster, but clumsy with fear. Phainon sidesteps, grabs the back of his neck, and drives his face into the earth. “You shouldn’t hesitate,” he says, too calm. “Did no one teach you that?”
Someone shouts something—an order—but it’s drowned in the sound of metal striking bark. The next blade skims across Phainon’s ribs, opening a shallow line that burns hot and wet. He hisses through his teeth, eyes narrowing.
A third swings high. The tip catches his cheek; though shallow, it paints his mouth red. He tastes iron, laughs low and breathless. With the back of his hand, he wipes the blood from his lip and smears it across his jaw.
“Did I train any of you?” he mocks. “None of you move like your lives are on the line.”
They circle him, three blades catching the light. He moves through them like shadow and muscle—less a man than a reflex. He takes a blow to the shoulder, catches another’s wrist, and wrenches it back until steels clatters to the ground. He drives his knee into a stomach, his fist into a jaw. He hears the crunch of something breaking, and something in him exhales in relief.
This, his body remembers. This is what I was built for.
But even as the fight unravels into chaos, another thought threads through him. He isn’t doing this for the king, or the crown, or the memory of command. He’s doing it for something smaller, gentler, kinder. For the quiet house in the woods. For the one who said then don’t leave.
A knight swings wildly at him, and Phainon catches the blade barehanded. Blood spills between his fingers, but he only smiles. “You should find a new master,” he says, shoving the man back, voice low and rasped with laughter that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Someone who’d actually care whether you live or die.”
The knight staggers, gasps. “And you? Who do you serve now?”
Phainon’s grin fades, eyes darkening. Someone worth dying for, he thinks, but what leaves his mouth is far different— “You should worry more about your lives.”
The last two come at once. He meets them head-on. The world blurs into motion and noise—boots slipping in mud, armor crashing, the hiss of breath through teeth. He drives an elbow into a throat, hears the wheeze, feels a blade glance off his arm.
By the time the silence returns, it’s thick with the smell of iron and pine.
Phainon stands alone in the clearing, chest heaving and hands slick and trembling. The fire the knights have set is still alive and crackling. His knuckles are raw and his tunic—torn. This is what his hands are made for; what the king carved into him. And for the first time, he thinks maybe he’s learned how to use that curse for something good.
He wipes his mouth again, smearing the blood across his face again, then he starts back toward home.
You are waiting outside the cottage, entangled in conversation with the birds and a bold red fox who refuses to mind his manners. The animals cluster around you as if you are a tree with fruit, and the fox keeps yipping—short, sharp sounds, tail swishing as he tries to startle the songbirds from your shoulders. They scold him in return, fluttering just out of reach, and you laugh softly at their quarrel.
Then the heavy scrape of boots over leaf sounds through the forest, and everything stiffens. The birds that were on your shoulders flutter once and go. The fox tucks his tail and runs off. Even the rabbits that had been lackadaisical in the grass bolt into the bushes. They do not scatter because of you; they scatter because of him.
Phainon steps into the clearing like a thing that has been pressed through a grinder. He is all torn cloth and the smell of iron. There is a thin line across his cheek where the blade kissed him; the corner of his lip is dark. His eyes are wide, lit at the edges with something like hunger. For a moment, the look is almost feral—it is the look of a man who has found what his hands were made to do and will not stop until they are still.
You don’t recoil from the stench of iron or the hunger in his eyes. You only watch as the animals skitter away, as the clearing empties itself of gentle things.
He halts a handful of paces from you and breathes, long and ragged. His fingers flex at his sides, as if still aching for more.
“What happened to you?” you ask. “You scared away my friends.”
He exhales. The sound is brittle. “Your spell isn’t very effective against people who change their minds.”
You pause, humming. “Hm… I suppose you’re right. Is that what happened?”
His answer is simple: “I killed them.” The words are delivered without flourish, like he hadn’t just admitted he committed something immoral. Then he drops to his knees, head lowering toward the earth in a soldierly bow. He doesn’t look at you as he asks—asks as if testing, “Did I do a good job?” There’s a faint, needy tremor in his voice, a whine dressed up as obedience.
There is a hand on his head before he can taste the mercy of your reply. It lands there the way it once had, long ago, by a different hand—heavy and owning. For a moment, the past flashes behind his eyes: a gloved palm, a crown’s amusement. But your touch isn’t the same. Your fingers are softer, and the pressure doesn’t claim him.
He doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t balk. He allows himself that small thing: to be steadied by the one who steadies him. Instead, he folds into the touch.
“You’re acting quite like a dog right now,” you murmur, fingers combing through his hair as if you’re ruffling the coat of an animal. “You told me you don’t like being compared to a dog. And yet here you are.”
For the first time since he arrived, the edge in his eyes melts. Adoration pours in like warmth. He lifts his head and looks at you, and the feral light in his eyes shifts into something gentler, more worshipful. The hand on his head trembles; he wants—wants so small, wants so large—to kiss it, to press it to his cheek and seal the gesture there. But he fights it, fingers curling just enough to catch your palm without taking it.
“Yes,” he says, earnest and raw. “But if it’s you, then I don’t mind.”
You let the silence make itself then, and he drinks the sound of it. And when you draw your hand away, he instantly misses your touch. It’s visible in the slump of his shoulders—in the small twitch of longing at his lips.
“Stand up,” you say at last. “Show me where you left them.”
He rises, obedient as a man trained to obey. Though he lingers. “Why?” he asks, the eagerness leaking back into his tone. “I can dispose of them myself. Just say the word.”
You shake your head, slow and certain. “I would like to bury them properly.”
He hesitates, incredulous and almost petulant. “Even when they tried to kill me?”
“Yes.” You tuck a stray curl behind your ear. “I believe giving them a proper burial would be their last and greatest mercy.”
His mouth opens to retort, but then closes it immediately. He nods his head just slightly and, without another word, turns toward the path that leads away from your cottage and back to the clearing he left.
Phainon’s footsteps drag heavier the longer he walks, as though the earth itself is trying to pull him down. His breaths are shallow and he keeps his eyes on the ground, like he’s ashamed of letting them rise.
It makes no sense.
You’re not angry. You didn’t recoil from the sight of him returning, with blood on his face and running down his arms, chest heaving with the aftermath of killing, and eyes blown wide from the adrenaline. Yet the silence between you gnaws at him—it burrows into the hollow places inside him like something alive.
He doesn’t know why he feels like he’s done wrong.
And he has. He definitely has.
The forest doesn’t judge him. You didn’t judge him. But he judges himself.
He killed people—men who once followed him into battle, who once trusted him enough to put their lives at his back. Even if he can’t fully remember their voices, even if their names are like dust in his mind, their faces still tug at something buried deep within him.
He slaughtered them with his hands.
And the worst part is that some part of him felt relief when it was over. Relief that the violence had someplace to go; relief that the hunger in him had been fed, even for a moment.
Phainon has always been hungry. The kind of hunger that isn’t for food, but for survival. For purpose. For something to strike, to break, to destroy before it destroys him.
He remembers stealing bread for his sister with shaking hands. He remembers stealing coins from the king, and how that single act shaped the rest of his life. He remembers the moment the king looked at him and saw not a boy but a weapon.
His guilt began there; and it only grew sharper, heavier, uglier. But today it feels different.
“It’s up ahead,” he says, voice strained.
You keep walking until the trees open into a clearing.
And there they are—five bodies, scattered where they fell. Their armors are dented and darkened with drying blood, and their swords lie discarded in the ground.
Phainon stops at the threshold of the clearing, breath caught in his throat. You step past him, skirts brushing the grass.
Watching you walk toward the bodies—toward the carnage he caused—tears at him. He watches the way you kneel beside the fallen men, brushing dirt from their armor, and straightening their limbs with gentle hands. And something in him collapses. Because now, watching you give them the tenderness he never could, something new forms inside him—
Shame.
Not for killing them—that part he understands, that part he can justify—but for how quickly and easily he did it. And for how you treat the dead better than he ever treated the living.
Is that why his guts twist? Is that why his throat feels constricted?
The thought coils tight, tighter, until it hurts to swallow, to breathe.
Would you have shown him the same mercy? If he had died out here, would you have buried him too? Would you have cared?
If he hadn’t killed them, they would have killed him. And then they would come for you. They would have torn through this forest, through your home, through you, without hesitation. And he can’t—will not—imagine that.
You are the only thing in his life untouched by blood. The only salvation he has left. The last thread tying him to the person he wants to be instead of the creature he was made into.
So why—why are you burying them? Why do you give them peace when they came here to retrieve him? When they didn’t hesitate on killing him for breaking his oath to the king? Why do you care enough to kneel beside their corpses?
The questions claw at him until they finally break free from his mouth, “Why are you doing this?”
You pause. “Doing what?”
“Showing mercy,” he says. “To men who tried to kill me.”
You brush soil from the gauntlet of one knight, studying the cracked metal with dried blood. “Because death is still death and they were still human,” you reply softly. “Someone raised them. Someone will grieve for them. Even if they came here with violence in their hands… they still deserve rest.”
Phainon stares at you like he’s seeing you in another light. His throat bobs almost painfully. “If I had died that day when you found me…” His mouth feels dry. “Would you have buried me too?”
“Yes,” you say without hesitation. “I wouldn’t have left you alone to rot.”
His chest tightens so sharply he almost mistakes it for pain. He stands rigid, and for a moment, he looks less like a warrior and more like a man who’s been struck by something he never learned how to guard against.
You lift your head. “Will you help me dig?”
He nods before he can think. His body moves clumsily at first, as though the guilt has made him heavy. You step back from the bodies, life your hand, and with a small twist of your finger, your space pocket emerges into existence. From within the pocket’s glow, you reach in and draw out a shovel. You offer it to him readily.
Phainon stares at the tool, then at you, still bewildered by how easily you conjure magic like it was as natural as breathing. He takes the shovel, his fingers brushing yours, and his heart stutters. He doesn't dwell on it too much; instead, he walks to a patch of soil near a tree and thrusts the shovel into the earth with a thunk.
He doesn’t speak anymore the moment he starts digging. The soil is loose near the roots, but the deeper he goes, the heavier it gets, and you can hear how strained his breathing is. He keeps wiping at his face with the back of his wrist, but he doesn’t stop working.
You don’t speak either. Somehow, it feels wrong to make any noise.
He keeps going until the grave is deep enough. You help move the first body, slow and careful. He barely looks at the faces. Maybe he doesn’t want to. Maybe he can’t.
You both place them on the ground. Then more dirt, then another grave, and another.
Phainon doesn’t rest. His shoulders shake sometimes, but he doesn’t stop. His hands are bleeding a little from gripping the shovel too tight. You try to take it from him once, but he jerks away like the touch seared him.
“…I can do it,” he mutters, voice rough and low. He’s not angry. Just… tired.
So you let him.
By the time the last mound of dirt is in place, the sun is low. The light is soft and warm and it hits the graves in long strips. Phainon stands there with the shovel planted in the earth, head bowed. When he finally lifts his head and turns to you, he’s pale. Too pale.
“Let’s go home,” you say.
He nods, but it feels like he barely hears you.
You walk side by side, though he drags a little behind you. His steps are slow and heavy, and sometimes you hear his breath stutter. You keep glancing back, checking to see if he’s still upright. He is, but it’s like he’s walking because he doesn’t know what else his body should do.
No animals cross your path. Everything is silent.
When the house comes into view, something changes in him. Maybe it’s the relief of seeing it. Maybe it’s the exhaustion catching up. But when he steps up into the porch, his foot catches a little and he stops completely right in front of the door.
He stares at the wood, and then his knees give out.
It’s like watching a tree slowly tilt and finally topple. He catches himself with one hand on the knob, but they tremble badly. His breath is shaky—like he’s trying not to let it turn into a sob.
“Phainon—” you rush to him, grabbing his arm before he can fall forward. “It’s alright. Come on.”
He doesn’t respond. His eyes are unfocused, staring down at the ground beneath him. Dirt sticks to his palm and his clothes, and there’s blood drying on his knuckles.
You slip an arm around his back, trying to steady him. “Let’s just go inside.” You guide him in slowly. He leans heavily on you, and you can feel how cold his fingers are.
Inside the house, it’s dim and warm. You lead him to the couch and ease him down. The moment he sits, his shoulders sag, and he looks like he’s sinking into the cushions without meaning to.
You kneel in front of him, brushing dirt off his hands with your thumb.
“You’re okay,” you whisper. “You can rest now.”
For a second, his mouth opens like he wants to say something, but the only thing that leaves him is a shaky exhale. Then he lets his head drop forward. Not onto the cushion, but onto your shoulder.
You don’t leave.
𝐕𝐈. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐊𝐄𝐏𝐓
When Phainon finally wakes, it’s slow—like surfacing from deep water. His body feels heavy, almost numb, and for a moment, he isn’t sure if he’s really awake or just stuck somewhere between dream and memory.
The first thing he sees is the ceiling.
He knows this ceiling now, but his mind still does that small, confused stumble, like it’s trying to compare this moment to the first time he opened his eyes here.
Back then, everything felt new. Confusing. He had no name, no anchor, nothing to hold onto. He remembers sitting up too fast, gripping the blanket, and the world spinning while he tried to make sense of anything.
It feels weird thinking about it—like remembering something from someone else’s life. Like it was a whole lifetime ago, but also kind of like yesterday.
He blinks a few more times, trying to clear the fog of his mind and in his eyes. His wounds don’t hurt as much now, but his body still feels like it’s been squeezed dry and left in the sun.
He turns his head, and there he is.
Mydei.
Perched on the windowsill again, in almost the exact same spot he was the first time Phainon saw him. Light behind him, tail curled neatly around his paws, and staring at him with those bright yellow eyes like he’s been waiting for this moment.
Phainon doesn’t say anything. He just laughs, though nothing is funny. Something inside him loosens at the sight, something warm and kind of embarrassing. He didn’t realize how much he missed that little face until right now.
Mydei blinks once, slow. Phainon blinks back. It feels stupid, but he does it anyway.
They hold eye contact for a while. Then Mydei lets out a meow, before hopping down from the sill. His paws barely make a sound as he lands. He gives Phainon one last look and then pads toward the door. He slips through the gap like he always does, tail swaying behind him as he disappears without another sound.
Phainon watches the doorway long after the cat is gone. He breathes out and sinks deeper into the mattress. He lies there for a while before the room starts to feel too quiet without Mydei in it.
It’s silly, he knows that, but the silence presses at him in a way he doesn’t like. So he pushes the blanket off and sits up.
He regrets it instantly.
His whole body aches—like his muscles are reminding him that he hasn’t used them like that in a long time. Not since before he came here. Not since before… everything.
He presses a hand to his side, where the knight’s blade had caught him. The wounds have closed, thanks to your care, but the memory of the fight still thrums under his skin. That sudden burst of violence—after weeks of calm, of chores and menial tasks—had knocked him. He’s not used to being idle, and though his mind aches for it, he’s also not used to being that monster anymore, either. His body feels caught between two selves.
He stands anyway.
He steadies himself on the bedpost, like he did the very first time he woke here. It’s strange how easily the memory returns—how he remembers the spinning room and the ache in his skull.
And how he had followed that same meow down the hallway.
“Mydei…” he murmurs, more to remind himself that he’s not dreaming.
He steps forward. His gaut is uneven, but Mydei is already waiting in the hall, sitting like he knew Phainon would follow. When their eyes meet, the cat flicks his tail once and turns around, walking ahead.
Phainon huffs a weak laugh. “We’re doing this again, huh?”
Mydei doesn’t answer. Of course he doesn’t. He just keeps going, trotting ahead with that almost smug walk of his.
So, Phainon follows. Down the hallway, down the stairs. Each step is familiar but also feels new because he’s remembering the last time. But this time, the uncertainty isn’t there. There’s only that soft ache, the echo of what he used to be and what he doesn’t want to return to.
The sunlight spills in from the the door just like before. Mydei pads out into the clearing without waiting for him. Phainon stops in the doorway, and it’s exactly the same.
You’re standing there again—in the clearing, surrounded by animals. Birds are perched on your arms, a fox is pressed against your leg, rabbits are scattered around your feet. A deer lifts its head when it sees Phainon, as if acknowledging his presence, but it doesn’t run. None of them run this time.
And somehow, that makes his chest feel even tighter.
You’re smiling at something one of the birds is doing; he can see your lips move as you speak to them even from where he is, and it makes the whole scene looks unreal—like it’s been pulled straight out of some dream he once had. He feels the same sudden stutter in his chest that he felt the first time he saw you like this.
His heart jumps, but it’s not painful—just… loud. Like it’s calling out to something. Like it remembers something even if the rest of him doesn’t.
He thinks back to that very first moment, when he stood here confused and disoriented, and you had turned toward him. How his breath had hitched without him knowing why. How something inside him had reached out.
Maybe it had been a sign.
Maybe his heart had already known back then—when he didn’t yet know his name, when he could barely stand, when everything was just fog—that he would come to love you. Maybe that’s why it reacted the way it did. Maybe it was already trying to tell him something.
Maybe falling for you was always going to happen, no matter what path he took.
His fingers curl lightly against the doorway. His legs feel unsteady again, but it’s not because of exhaustion or his wounds this time.
And then you turn—hearing Mydei’s meow, or maybe you just sensed him like you always do—and your eyes meet his.
His heart jumps again. Just like before. Just like it was always meant to.
And then you smile.
Not the polite ones you give to the townspeople even when they sneer at you. Not the teasing one you shoot him whenever he messes up a chore. Not the fond one you save for Little Ica when they fly into your arms every time. No, this one is different—like something you kept tucked away, something you didn’t think anyone would see. Something only he gets to see now.
And Phainon doesn’t know what to do with the feeling that hits him. It’s sudden—like warmth blooming in his chest and running all the way up his neck until his ears throb.
This time, he moves first. His feet carry him before he even finishes thinking about it. Last time, it was you who approached him first, walking toward a stranger who couldn’t even remember his own name. But now he remembers enough to choose.
And he chooses you.
You, who he’s decided is the safest thing he’s ever seen.
You, who he thinks looks even more beautiful when your eyes are on him and only him.
He’s so focused on your face—your smile—that he forgets to watch his step. His heel catches on a root, and he stumbles. He braces himself for the impact, for his knees to hit dirt, for humiliation, but he doesn’t hit the ground.
Instead, you catch him.
Your hands come up quick, holding him by the arms just like the first day—except it feels different this time. He’s no longer a stranger with your hands pressed against him as you lead him inside your home. He’s just… Phainon. A grown man tripping over nothing because you smiled prettily at him.
He feels stupid. He feels warm.
“You should be in bed,” you say, a teasing lilt in your voice.
It’s the same thing you’d said the very first time too—except now there’s a faint laugh in your voice, like you know exactly what you’re referencing. Like it’s an inside joke the two of you have shared for weeks. And Phainon can’t stop the laugh that bursts out of him.
“I followed Mydei here,” he says, almost breathless. His face is still burning, but the words come easily. Like they’ve been waiting.
You shake your head in amusement. “Of course you did.”
He huffs another laugh, rubbing the back of his neck even though your hands haven’t let go yet. “It’s becoming a habit, I think.”
“It is,” you agree. “Every time you’re not where you’re supposed to be, I find out you’ve wandered after that cat.”
“Well,” he mumbles, eyes lowering before lifting again—slowly, shyly, wanting desperately to keep looking at you, “he usually leads me to you.”
You blink at him, surprised by the sincerity of his words. Phainon seems to realize what he’s said only after it leaves his mouth; his hand lifts to rub self-consciously at the back of his neck again.
“…Oh,” you murmur, and it comes out far too soft. You clear your throat quickly, trying to smooth the fluster from your voice. “Well… he does have a talent for finding me.”
Phainon watches you, puzzled by the sudden shift in your demeanor. You avert your eyes, looking at everywhere else but him.
“You must be hungry,” you say. “Let’s get you inside.”
You slip an arm beneath his, steadying him at the waist with your other hand, and his breath stutters—not from pain, but from the shock of contact.
You help him upright, guiding his weight with ease. His body leans into yours without resistance, as though the simple act of touching you turns his bones to water. For a moment, he stands there, closer than he normally allows himself to be. Close enough that he can feel the heat of your skin through the fabric. Close enough that when he lowers his head, he can smell the faint scent of herbs clinging to you.
But then you step back.
The moment your hands leave him, Phainon deflates. You pretend not to notice, though your eyes soften imperceptibly.
“Come on,” you say. “Inside. You should sit before your legs give out again.”
He nods, but the stiffness in his jaw betrays him. He tries to straighten his posture, tries to pretend he didn’t melt the second your warmth left his skin. His hand hangs awkwardly at his side, fingers twitching once, as if resisting the urge to reach back for you.
Mydei meows and pads ahead, trotting toward the house with the confidence of a small prince. You turn toward the cottage as well, and Phainon follows you instantly.
Not because he’s weak, not because he needs to be led, but because following you feels right in a way nothing else in his broken memory does. Because he feels steadier with you in front of him. Because the ghost of your touch still lingers on his arm like something he already misses.
The forest closes behind him, peaceful and green.
The house waits, warm and familiar.
And Phainon trails after you through the door, shoulders relaxing the moment he steps inside once again—as though he hasn’t just returned to shelter, but something else entirely that is close to belonging.
Phainon wakes in the middle of the night that same day.
For a long moment, he lies there, staring at the ceiling. Then he swings his legs over the side of the bed.
Moonlight spills across the floorboards, guiding him to the corner where his old life rests—the armor you cleaned for him when he was still unconscious, and the broadsword propped beside it like a soldier.
He crouches slowly. His fingers brush the cool metal.
It should feel familiar. It only feels heavy.
Phainon stays like that for a while, hand on the breastplate, and staring at the blade that once answered every command except his own.
He huffs a quiet breath. Then he hears a meow. Phainon turns.
Mydei is awake on the windowsill, body a small silhouette against the moon. His golden eyes are open and fixed on him, unblinking.
Phainon lifts the armor slightly, voice low. “Sorry for waking you.”
Mydei’s tail flicks once.
Phainon gestures toward the door with a nod. “I was just about to go outside.”
The cat doesn’t move, nor does he make any sound. Then, as if his attention drifts, his head dips, eyes flicking to the armor in Phainon’s hands.
Phainon lets out a soft laugh. “Oh, this?” He turns the breastplate a little. “I was thinking of burying it, that’s all. I have no need for it now.”
He pauses, then adds lightly, “Do you want to come with me?”
Mydei yawns—a long and slow yawn that nearly splits his tiny face in two. Then he curls his tail around himself and settles back down, closing his eyes like the affair is beneath him.
Phainon smiles. “Okay then.”
He tucks the armor under his arm, takes one last glance at the sleeping cat, then quietly slips out the door and into the cool night.
Phainon steps off the porch, careful not to let the armor clatter in his arms. The cottage behind him glows faintly with the warm candlelight from your room—the only star in the forest that never seems to dim.
He heads deeper into the forest, barefoot in the grass, toward a place where the forest breathes differently. Where you once told him the land grows thick with roots.
It just feels right to go there.
The armor in his arms feel heavier now—not because of the metal, but because of the memories it drags with it. The weight of commands. The weight of kneeling. The weight of everything he did because someone else told him to.
He sets the armor on the ground.
For a long time, he just stares at it.
On any battlefield, it would have marked him as something to be feared—something deadly. Here, under the rustle of leaves, it looks small and lost. Like a relic of a life that no longer fits him.
Phainon exhales slowly. He kneels, digs his fingers into the soil, and begins to carve out the first handful of earth.
It isn’t burial like one does for a corpse.
It’s burial like one does for a curse.
When the pit is deep enough, he rests back on his heels. For a moment, he hesitates, fingers brushing the sigil painted on the breastplate. The mark is faint, shaped by years of blood, years of being the hound of another beast.
“…But not anymore,” he murmurs.
Then he slides the armor into the earth.
Metal thuds softly as he settles it into the ground. For a moment, he doesn’t move. He just stares, half expecting the armor to glow with some remnant of his past—rage, violence, loyalty that tasted like rust. But there’s nothing; only silence.
Phainon releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
He covers the grave with slow motions. Soil over steel. Dirt over duty. Earth swallowing a past that nearly swallowed him. And when he finishes, the mound looks like nothing more than a soft rise of ground.
There’s no marker—no trace, no legacy.
He sits back, knees bent, arms resting loosely over them.
For the first time since he woke in your house, he feels… light. The kind of lightness that makes his chest ache. That makes his eyes sting. It makes him almost laugh at the strangeness of it.
He tilts his head back. Above him, the stars blink at him. And for a brief moment, Phainon feels the forest shift around him—like it, too, recognizes what he’s done. Like the earth has finally accepted the weight he has carried for too long.
Then he stands, wiping dirt from his palms. When he turns to walk back home, the cottage glows faintly through the trees.
Your light.
His direction.
His reason.
He moves toward it without hesitation.
© 2025 kominigiru.
end note: the “man” hyacine was talking about is mydei; she knows mydei can shift into a human. i didn’t write a scene where he reveals himself to phainon as one bc i feel like it wouldn’t match with the vibes or whatever i was going for in here, but he was in his human form when he carried phainon’s broadsword :3 ALSO I DID NOT MEAN TO MAKE THE LAST FEW SCENES SO SOFT AND FLUFFYSVDJEBFJD the fluff writer in me just had to make an appearance ig 😔 it may have ruined the vibe i was going for a little but at the same time it felt as if the last act was begging for me to write some romantic shit so there’s that. this fic was self-indulgent anyway (just like the rest of my works tbh) so pls no bashing 😣 /lh
anyway! writing this was so fun and even though i struggled a little with it, it was still such a wonderful experience! i mean, what’s writing without a little challenge, right? i usually don’t like most of the things i write because i always feel like i could’ve executed them better, but i honestly think this might be my magnum opus LMAO. it still needs improvement of course but i really like how this one turned out yk!! it’s also the most i’ve ever written for a one-shot! and even though it took me a while before i could finally post this fic, i’m pretty proud of it :’]
if you’ve read some of my works, you probably know i often stick to fluff and whatnot, but i really really REALLY enjoyed writing phainon in a different light this time. he’s such a versatile character and in a way, this fic just made me love him even more hahahaha. though yes, i did still write him like a fool in love but i love it when he’s silly
i apologize for the yapfest!! i hope you guys enjoyed this and thank you so much for reading ❤️
Veiled Secrets
you've been set to marry the new emperor Satoru Gojo, but he wants nothing to do with all of that, he doesn't even come to your first meeting - rude! No, he must bathe with his concubines, but when he sees you for the first time and doesn't even know you're his wife? Everything shifts, but it turns out he doesn't know that you're not happy to be here either. Leaving your past love behind and everything you know for a foreign country, just to be unwanted by your new 'husband' is almost enough to break you. You're ready to go through the motions, play your role, but do you really know who Emperor Gojo is?
pairings- emperor! gojo x arranged empress! reader
contents/warnings - Historically INNACURATE asf, some angst, depression, enemies to lovers, lots of dry humour, longing, mutual pining, explicit smut, court tactics, Satoru being a hoe, reader missing her lover Suguru, a fuck ton of drama and games, he falls first and he falls hard. This chap - oral (f receiving) p in v sex, semi public sex, possessive Satoru, heavy angst, evil Suguru, court plots against our pookies, love confessions, a mix of fluff/smut/ anddd angst <3 - 10.2k wc
art is by @3-aem they're insanely talented 🥹
Enjoy this messy long chap - sorry for the wait my loves <3
<<<part five - playlist - masterlist - part seven (soon)
part six
Satoru swallows down his nausea when he peers at a letter that’s all folded up laying on your table, you’re fast asleep, spent from the love making. This week back has been cruel to both of you, and his time is scattered, it’s torn between you, endless meetings, the three concubines left, and planning peace agreements with the neighboring territory.
He’s barely been able to see you.
Last night he met you in your room late, kissing you until you cried out, holding you against him and making sure you came as much as you could until you almost fainted. He woke up and gently brushed your cheek, admiring your pretty little face as the hints of morning shone in, before he stood and studied more about you, the things you’ve brought.
He wanted to learn more of who you were, he saw some pretty silver brushes that must be from your family, the pin he knew was from the night shoved in a drawer hastily he notes. It’s almost as if you threw the damn thing in there, along with a little bottle of that fragrance you wore constantly, the one that entrances him to no end.
But the note, he can’t help but look at it, knowing he shouldn’t but he unfolds it carefully anyway, jaw setting then. He worried it would be some sort of love note, he knows you cared for that dumb knight, even if it wasn’t returned, but the nature of the note in question has his heart pounding in his ears, hands shaking with anger that anyone wrote you like that.
It’s not an anger at you, it’s an anger that he got to touch you, when he clearly gave you some fucking counterfeit necklace you clung to for dear life, traipsing around town spinning his dumb fucking tales. Yet he can’t help but want to burn this and any note to the fucking ground when he reads its contents in a scrawled, elegant handwriting.
My princess,
Forgive me for this, but I cannot stop thinking of you, the essence of your perfect nectar slipping across my fingers, I must admit I hungrily sucked it off and got just a taste of your sweetness. Your innocence which I hold so dearly to my heart, I know you wish it to be taken, but we must wait, my sweet flower, I wish to take my time and cherish every part of you when we do.
The memory of that alone lives on in a loop in my heated mind, and I know it’s a certain death if this gets out, but how can I not write to you, how can I not memorize every movement? Every flutter of your eyelashes like a butterfly's wings when I curled my fingers, the way your teeth sunk into your plush lip? It will be ingrained, as is the sweet way you asked for me to take you.
Soon, princess, soon.
“Mnh, morning handsome,” you murmur behind him, eyeing his perfect form and exhaling. “This is a sight I could get used to.”
He says nothing, making you frown then, you sit up and stretch, just wearing a little slip of material, walking up to him now carefully, feet padding on the marble stone beneath you, cold and unyielding. Your hand touches his back and he tenses, the muscles bunching, not pulling back but not giving in, looking over his shoulder so you see the set of his jaw.
“Toru?”
“My mama calls me that too,” he murmurs, cursing himself now internally. He is mad, furious, sick that you have this, but how can he be when you originally were just dragged here, and he acted as he did?
“Are you okay?” He turns, and you see a letter open in his hand, feeling sick to your stomach. “Fuck I thought I got rid of them all, I forgot one.”
“You had many?” He asks, tense now, a hand crumpling it as he reads it. “The fucker really called your cunt a flower, and your juices his nectar huh?”
“Oh shit,” you back off then, covering your face. “Satoru, as soon as we became intimate, I burned them. I swear, please do not be-”
“Shh,” he halts you, easing your wrists down, you see his blue eyes glowing with anger. “I’m not mad at you, of course I knew you kept things from him. It’s just… it’s just it makes me fucking want to kill him for ever touching you, ever.”
“I know the feeling,” you murmur softly now, tears in your eyes, as you think of yesterday. “Seeing Jia on your arm, laughing and kissing you? It killed me, it made me nauseous, I wanted to throw her into the fucking river.”
“I’d gladly let you,” Satoru grimaces, running a hand across your cheek and setting the note down, the other hand slipping up your waist. “I know it hurts you, trust me sweetheart. I fucking hate that you have to endure this.”
You swallow nervously, your throat gone dry. “You’re really not mad at me? I expected you to burn it right here.”
“Oh, I’d love to burn it, but I am not mad at you for having it,” you blink in surprise, letting him cup your face possessively, fingers wrapping your jaw. “I know you’re all mine.”
“Greedy for me?” You tease, earning his groan, as he kisses you now, hungrily, backing you until your knees are against the foot board of the bed, an arm on either side, towering over you with hungry lips.
“Fuck, Suguru had no right to ever touch you, I swear to god I want to dismember him in front of the whole fucking country.”
You take a shaky breath, feeling his anger, the tenseness of his lithe form in front of you. “I won’t go to see him.”
“You can,” he exhales as he picks you up in his arms, letting your feet dangle off the floor, as you wrap them around his neck. “How can I tell you not to?”
Your forehead rests on his, as memories swim back, of yesterday morning knowing his hands were on her waist, but not like this, not like you. “You don’t kiss them like this, hold them like this.”
He shakes his head, swallowing down the guilt of having to do anything with them, knowing it hurts you. “No, I have never kissed or held anyone like you.”
“Then I’ll know you’re mine,” your tears slip down your cheeks, as he sets you down, feeling his own emotions rise. “You do everything to show me how much you care, please don’t mistake it, though I am… horrible at sharing things sometimes, please know I care too.”
“You’re not,” he shakes his head, brushing aside your tears in the quiet of your chamber, tears burning his pretty blue eyes. “Do you want to keep the note?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?” He asks again, cupping your face tightly, kissing your forehead so sweetly. “He uses lofty, poetic words that I cannot.”
You lean back now, head falling so you can look up at him, brows going together, the sunlight filters and illuminates his pretty features, breaking your heart. “You do not need to use poetic words, I love your filthy ones.”
“Do you?” He hums a bit, hand slipping across your bare shoulder, exhaling and leaning low. “You don’t want me calling it a flower?”
“Call it a cunt,” you giggle even through your tears, and he can’t help but grin, before it falters, and he sighs, tugging you close, burying his head against your neck. “I thought you’d want to kill me just now.”
“No, just him,” he mumbles, then falters again. “Jia, she was all over me yesterday, grinding on me… I know you don’t wanna fucking hear but how do I just keep it inside?”
You ease back once more, and meet his gaze.
“I feel like I’m unfaithful and lying,” he swallows and brushes your hair back, sighing now.
“Satoru…”
“No, I feel horrible, like I have no control over shit when I ‘run’ the country, and all I do is hurt you.”
“You do much more, stop that,” you frown now. “You’re not being my cocky, conceited emperor. Where is he?”
“Wherever the conceited empress went,” you both are quiet for a moment. “I don’t want anyone but you.”
“I know.”
“My body didn’t even react,” he looks down at your pretty breasts, brushing his fingers across them. “Couldn’t if I wanted to, little witch and her spells.”
“I put a good one on you,” you want to tease, but it hurts, his pain – your pain, mingling together on your breaths as your lips meet once more. A gentle press, his strong hands against you, holding you so tightly. “If I don’t get my monthlies today, we will know.”
Any signs of them?”
“None yet,” you bite your lip then, brows together. “I’m scared it’ll take time to get pregnant, and we don’t even have time if…”
“I’ll put more cum in you then, and we’ll keep trying,” you blush now, so pretty in front of him. “I’ll drink your ‘nectar’ and all.”
“Lord he was something,” you laugh then, head against his chest, feeling it shake slightly as he chuckles. “I still haven’t gone to talk.”
“No?”
“No.” Satoru pauses for a moment, unsure of how to approach this. "Spit it out, Toru. I know that look."
“When he… when he fingered you, did you bleed?”
You pause then, frowning and nodding. "How could you know?"
Suguru’s tales make sense, he relished surely in the fact that he did ‘take your innocence’. Satoru sighs as you study him, rubbing the back of his neck. "A guess."
“Is that terrible?”
“No, not at all sweetheart,” he brushes your hair back gently. “If not gentle enough, and long enough fingers, you can break a maidenhead.”
“Oh… oh!? Oh god… and me and you…”
“It’s also normal to break it horse riding, anything, so do not feel terrible, I was still your first,” he tries to calm you as your brows draw together. “But he did say he ‘took it first’ so after this letter I was curious.”
“I thought I’d gotten some spotting or something,” you admit, remembering the confusion and how scared you were, it’s not like you could tell someone. “Is it why it didn’t hurt with you?”
“It didn’t hurt because you were soaked,” he teases now, sighing. “Dripping wet and easy.”
You heat up, flushed cheeks warm under his lips. “You're not upset at me?”
“Sweetheart I was a whore,” you giggle a bit then, nodding. “A complete whore actually, till you reformed me.”
“Are you reformed forever?” You ask softly. He lifts you now, big hands on your hips, moaning and kissing you gently.
“I am too susceptible to your witchcraft,” his kisses get more desperate, more needy. “Mnh I care not even if you'd laid with him, I just want to kill him for going around saying such.”
“He really did?” Your face has fallen, he nods. “Perhaps I should see him, to smack his face.”
There is a knock on your door, the two of you sigh.
“Another day of duty and not fucking your perfect cunt,” he feels you heat up at the comment as he presses you firmly against the bed, silky hair falling over a brow. “You're all mine tonight.”
“Am I?” He smiles and nods, so much still left unsaid, lingering in the air between you both, his arms on either side of you, pinning you there.
When would he build the courage to tell you he's fallen in love?
“If I have to…”
“Use Kiyotaka’s method?” You raise a brow, he grimaces at the thought. “I think it’s preferable to actually fucking-”
“As if I could,” he presses against you, hard and insistent. “From the moment I saw you in those baths you’ve had me ruined.”
“Oh did I? With my witchy ways?” You tease softly, he just studies you, carefully in the chambers you both now share, on the bed it’s nigh impossible to get you both out of some days.
“Acting innocent,” he scoffs – your hands trailing down his chest make his abdomen tighten, his breath hitching, looking down at a face he finds so fucking precious. “You knew the spells you cast.”
“Maybe so,” you tease, he hears the knock again and curses, glaring at the door. “Toru, if you have to… do what is needed, I’ll understand. I know how much trouble I cause with my jealousy.”
“Even if you weren’t, I don’t like doing things I don’t want to,” he brushes your hair back gently. “I think it’s time I change much about this country with you by my side, hmm?”
“I would enjoy that, too, you can do what you want, without… the shadow of the past.” You’re stroking his cheek, studying him calmly.
It’s not just the sex with you both.
It’s so much more, but the nerves get you, the situation gets you, when will you both just be able to enjoy this blossoming love?
*****
Suguru Geto did care for you.
He simply just didn't love who you were, what you stood for, everything about the monarchy in your country, but it was better there than this fucking empire. That white haired dick of a husband you have who has other women on his arm right now, but you seem perfectly content.
You didn't kiss him back, that wouldn't have bothered him before, you were just a game at first after all, just a pawn. His job was to use you to gain Intel for his group that was going to riot against your family, but god – every time he kissed your neck you would moan so pretty, you'd arch your back so he could kiss down your breasts, spilling secrets as he acted casual.
You were so painfully easy to manipulate, even easier to toy with, and Suguru loved that about you. How you confessed your love and spilled so many details his team could make sure to start wreaking havoc, to one day stop all of this archaic way of being, and usher in a new era.
The thing is, Suguru became fond of you in all those years together before he joined that revolution, and he knew you'd be hurt by this. It's why when you were promised he almost felt relief. He didn't want your death or assault on his conscience – it wasn't you who wanted to do all those things after all, you were just a girl when he met you.
Suguru was a little older, not by much but he'd already been through hell by the time his family adopted him and he became well respected. He saw the poverty you were too sheltered to, saw the corruption of your own parents who truly sold their daughter off without blinking an eye.
Yes, he had many of those necklaces you cried over, but he didn't expect your tears to hit him like they did. He didn't expect the assignment he had to be so sweet, for her pretty cunt to be so perfect, for her eyes to look at him with love.
Maybe he started falling then.
When he saw you again and kissed you, it was this piece of him that had been missing falling into place, like a missing part of a puzzle. You pulled back so fast he didn't get to really chase that feeling. Seeing your husband getting kissed across the way, locking eyes with Suguru and giving him a glare though?
He can't help but be upset for you.
If he had broken every vow and married you, got you against your own family, he would be having multiple partners.
“Thank you Sir Geto,” the former concubine Lola is in disguise as a lady in waiting, looking up at him now with pretty blue eyes. “You must want the empire to fall as badly as I do.”
Suguru had snuck her into the grounds as his servant, she apparently wanted revenge on Gojo himself. Suguru had no qualms about it, considering he could possibly get you away from him, and single handedly take down the empire – or at least, damage it.
She wasn't going to kill Satoru, but she was going to seduce him and make him ill, just enough time for Suguru to sneak you out of here. He already had the perfect disguise from Lola. She wanted Satoru back, for whatever odd reason. So she'd do anything – including getting herself pregnant so Satoru couldn't cast her away.
You'd be upset for a bit of time, but Suguru wants you back. The chaos at home and the uprisings, he planned on becoming the leader, and who better to bring a nation together than the country's princess?
“Of course, remember I want her,” Suguru’s tone is dark, she just giggles, she'd already sucked Suguru off at the bar last night but he can't say he's very interested. Just thought of you and how he wishes he could have had your lips around him.
“Good luck with her,” he raises a brow and she rushes off, you walk past her towards him now.
Yet you were furious when you finally did meet up with him, crossing your arms and raising a brow, so much smaller than the six foot four knight yet you held your own.
“Princess… I mean. Empress,” he takes your hand in his, seeing your scowl fade just a bit when you see Gojo. You shake yourself out of it, looking up at him instead.
“We can talk somewhere private, eyes are everywhere,” You're smarter than before, he can see you've grown, affection tugging at his heart, who you lead him to a quiet area surrounded by cherry blossoms. They fall and some land in your braided hair, Suguru delicately brushes the pink petals off.
“You're so beautiful,” he means that, but you're crossing your arms. “Can I not even say it?”
“No, you may not,” you bristle. “Care to tell me why you're telling the world you took my virginity!?”
*****
‘Do what you must for now, Satoru. I'll always know you want it to be me.’
The words echo in his head, making him furious with his current situation, he doesn't want to do anything. You know he must pleasure these girls at some point but how does it make it any better? How can he not be disgusted when it's not you?
“Satoru, please,” he’s getting lips kissed up his neck by Jia, he knows he’s likely going to fucking have to do something, but the thoughts are making him sick. He has this sinking feeling worrying about you that he can’t explain. “I miss you.”
“I miss you too,” he lies through his teeth, she’s grinding against him, but there’s nothing to grind against, how can he have excitement since he evil little empress entered his life? “I'm still so exhausted.”
“I know you were tired, but you can’t still be so tired?” She pulls back and bats her long blond lashes at him, pouty lips.
“I was at battle, it was physically taxing…” She kneels between his thighs now, hand paling his cock over his robes, Satoru sucks in a breath, jerking back and gripping her wrist.
She blinks when she feels nothing – his empress clearly broke his cock, and he's not mad about it. “Why are you not-”
“Um, hold on,” the last thing he needs are impotence rumors, however, he lifts her up and turns her, cursing with what he knows he's going to have to do.
Why couldn't you just come please them? At least he'd get to see his pretty empress lapping at a cunt and get some pleasure from it. As it stands he must hope that Kiyotaka’s ridiculous idea would work. He slips her skirt up, cringing at the fact that he has to put a damn fake cock in a girl.
It's not as big as him!?
Kiyo said it was, which may be an insult – But if she was foolish enough he could make it work.
“You're blindfolding me?” She giggles and Satoru just cringes. Hoping she's wet enough he wouldn't have to finger her upon all other things.
You approved of the idea but it's not okay with him even so, inserting it into her and watching her gush down it. Maybe at one point it would have been attractive or exciting, but it certainly wasn't now.
“Oh it feels so good! You're so big, mmm!” he sighs, clearly it is working but now he has to get this girl off without his own cock and he's not sure how to do it with such a contraception. He tries to angle it until she’s making all those noises he thinks he used to enjoy.
He can't wait to get rid of them.
He keeps thinking of you. You met with Suguru and he just hopes he doesn't mess with your head, he seems manipulative and if he hurts you Satoru will fucking kill him. The thought of killing him floods his mind more than the girl moaning and making a mess in front of him.
After she… is done or whatnot – He wasn't paying attention – Satoru has to kiss her even, perhaps that is the worst of it. He has to smile and play his role.
He immediately sinks into his copper tub after his dumb fucking meeting where the pretentious fucks at least seemed a little more satisfied than they were before. He supposes giving the women some pleasure and attention helped – they at least dropped the idea for another concubine, but there is no washing off how he felt
Laying back his eyes flutter shut, picturing how beautiful you looked this morning in his arms and hoping you will be back soon. Just thinking of you riding him in this tub has him aching, stroking it and wincing at how sensitive he is. But he'll wait to give it all to you, and hope that you're still all his.
****
You knew Satoru was probably using that fake cock Kiyo procured from the brothel, and you’re not happy about it of course, but you were okay with it. In a way it prevented Satoru from having to use his own and avoided rumors if it worked, but also he was making someone cum, he was kissing them.
That hurts.
Not in the way that you're upset with Satoru, if he could have already done so they'd all be gone now, but every girl was a delicate important part of a partnership with the empire. Once at least there were heirs the concubines could stay but Satoru didn't want any of them here anymore.
You don't either. But you understand, this was his world, and he just couldn't accept that anymore, he was ever so the man who wants to control everything he craves the power away from the elders and the ones that run things in secret.
You still don't know how you feel right now, the gnawing in your mind that you can’t focus on right now. All of the ‘what ifs’ – what if he did end up doing more, not because he wanted to but… because he needed to? You'd forgive him – you love him after all, but it would hurt if he did in fact enjoy one of them. What if their pretty tits and their cunts on his fingers got him throbbing?
You can't think that way, especially with a secretive Suguru standing in front of you. You raise a brow, his dark hair is long and flowing against his face. At one time not long ago, Suguru was everything to you, your comfort when Gojo didn't try to know you, the man who first touched you.
Who was he now?
“I shouldn't have said it, I was hurt,” you flush furiously now. “Yet I did make you cum first and I felt…”
“Clearly you got my maidenhead,” you struggle to even say it, blushing at the conversation. “I won't disagree, yet to run around and say it to strangers, to ruin my reputation? What have I done to ever deserve your cruelty?”
Suguru pauses, saying nothing for a moment, stepping closer. “You haven't done anything,” he cups your face, an arm wrapping your waist now, tugging you against his hard body. You pull back, but he doesn't let you go.
“Do you not remember I am married?”
“So only you are loyal?” You blink back tears. “I just saw him kissing two girls and you have to be a pure little flower?”
“You know nothing of him, or my life,” he walks you until you're pressed against a tree, the branches curling overhead and keeping you both enshrouded in the cool shade. You're sniffling back tears of betrayal and hurt that he brushes off. “He… cares for me…”
“He loves you?”
You swallow now, looking down, only to earn your chin being tilted back up.
Does he love you?
He hasn't said but it feels like love. You want his love.
“I would only see you,” his fingers slide across your face now, thumb brushing your lower lip. “I'd tell them all to fuck off and burn the empire down for you.”
You scoff, he's kissing down the side of your neck, hungry kisses that remind you of back then, but your nails dig into his tunic, shaking your head. “You wouldn't even run away.”
“I regret it,” you can't believe him, as he laps his tongue up to your ear, hands on your hips. “I’m so sorry,” Suguru cups your face gently and pulls back a bit. Your lips tremble as the familiarity hits, as he leans low. “I was an ass.”
“An understatement,” Suguru sinks to his knees in front of you. Making you panic as his lips kiss up the waist of your silk yukata. “Get up, what are you doing!?”
“Just at least let me taste you again,” he looks up with amethyst eyes, hands sliding up your thighs. “I dreamt of licking your pretty, perfect pussy so many times, of even seeing it.”
“You certainly cannot!” You kick at him only for him to snatch one of your thighs, fingers drifting up your stocking clad leg, slipping your skirts as you shove at his head. “Get up this instant before I have him behead you!”
He chuckles now, eyeing your cunt and moaning, his breath ghosting your inner thigh. You kick him off you and lose your balance, he buffers your fall and you brace yourself up, looking at a face you once held dear. The boy you grew up with, his huge hands grabbing your waist and grinding you on his length.
“I want your nectar all over me, to drown in your sweetness, your pretty rose just so dewy for me,” those words you read over and over. He leans up on his elbows now, cupping your face, his other hand slipping up your stocking and higher. “Prettiest girl there is. I'd only see you.”
You take a moment, shutting your eyes, thinking of the last couple months. When Satoru was cruel, when he kissed up Lola's thigh, when he flaunted them. Yet there are memories of him trying. Changing for you, turning them all down as you rode him on his throne, grinning so handsome when he came back from battle.
His love even if he doesn't say it.
You had a young love with Suguru, but there was nothing like what you felt with your emperor. You grip Suguru’s wrist before he can toy with your clit the way he used to, scowling down at him.
“It's a cunt,” Suguru pauses, raising a brow when you pin down his wrist, smiling meanly down at him. “A messy, slutty cunt.”
“Princess–”
“I’m not your princess,” you lean back and smack his handsome face sharply. “I'm a fucking empress, your flowery words won't work on me anymore. I assure you I cum harder than you ever could have made me.”
It's Suguru’s turn to scowl, yanking you back down when you go to stand, cheek reddened by your handprint. “So you don't want it all sweet and gentle? Oh princess, I could fill your messy cunt so full you'll be broken.”
“You're shit at dirty talk,” you smack his other cheek as he pins your wrists, your breaths making your chest rise and fall spastically. “I’m not so sweet anymore.”
“Yeah, I clearly fucking see it,” he grips your hair, slamming his lips upon yours only for you to bite him, he laughs, pulling back from you, his dilated eyes tracing the curves of your face, the swell of your breasts straining against your gown.
“Don’t you dare even look at my tits,” your words make him smirk up at you, swiping the crimson blood off his lip.
“I think I love you more like this.”
“You’re psychotic,” you stand now and grab your skirts so hard your hands hurt, only to make it a few steps before his words halt you.
“Don’t wanna know about your parents?”
You turn to him, lips swollen from his kisses, god your filthy words and the way you just hit him, bit him, threw him down? Your pretty breasts heaving up and down in that gown? Fuck you’re so pretty like that, it’s all he can think when you walk back up reluctantly, fingers twitching on your fabric, so different than what he remembers you wearing.
High cut gowns, corsets, intricate curls, you’re not that girl anymore, clearly judging even from your eyes. Perhaps Suguru never really knew you, and just knew the girl you’d been so raised to be, not a girl who smacks him and says ‘slutty cunt’. Then again, this was likely that fucking emperor’s influence, and as hot as you are, that infuriates him.
He doesn’t feel bad for whatever will happen to him.
Maybe he’ll feel bad that it’ll hurt you.
“What about my parents?” You demand, coming to him and tilting your head back to look into eyes that are making you furious, making you sick.
“There are uprisings back home," Suguru says, a calculating glint in his eyes, still dilated while they trace the curve of your neck.
“Uprisings?” You frown now, though your parents had essentially married you off, they were not cruel. Your mother had been kind in fact, and your father doted on you as a little girl, though of course you were not ‘a son’ which they still actively wanted.
It doesn't mean you want harm to come.
So absorbed in the whirlwind that was Satoru Gojo and this empire, you haven’t spared them all the thoughts that perhaps you should have. Guilt gnaws at you, under his annoyingly astute gaze, one that you currently can’t read. Was he being truthful, or was he manipulating you?
"Your parents are in a very precarious position, the commoners grow tired of them living in wealth while they starve. Something you know nothing about, hmm?” He tilts your chin up, nausea rolls in waves through your stomach. “Locked in your tower, and now an Empress.”
“I know pain, I know suffering in my own way, of course not in that capacity and I don’t pretend to know,” you blink hot tears, shoving at his chest. “Do you know the pain I went through when they sent me away with nothing!?”
“Did you even miss me?” You scoff, shaking your head in his grip. “Or miss the idea of me?”
“I could ask you the same Sir Geto, if you ever cared would you spread such rumors?” He pauses, jaw tensing.
“I was hurt how quickly you moved on.”
“It wasn’t my intention to fall in love…” Love, you love Gojo. Every moment torn apart from him is agonizing, unlike without Suguru where you longed for him, without Gojo it was like a piece of you was ripped out and bleeding.
“If you want to come back, I’ll make sure they’re protected,” you gasp, stepping out of his hold. “For you I would.”
“Make sure they are… are you involved!?” His lips purse together.
“As I said, you know nothing of poverty, especially in our home, it’s far worse than here.”
“If there are uprisings, I will use an alliance with the imperial forces, I wouldn’t leave my husband, leave my duty behind! How involved are you, Sir Geto?”
“I’m Sir Geto now,” he sighs, shaking his head. “I can just say they’re in danger, that’s all I can.”
You recoil from him like a reflex, a surge of anger bubbling up inside you. "You're manipulating me, aren't you? Using my family's troubles to control me?"
“You’re smarter than I knew,” your teeth clench so hard they hurt, unbelieving his fucking audacity. “I am not manipulating you though, I’m giving you a chance. I’ll be here another week if you change your mind.”
“I should have you killed now,” Suguru brushes a hand through your hair, hovering over you, you swallow, scared suddenly of him. “Do not kiss me.”
“I get it, you’re in ‘love’ with your emperor, who doesn’t love you enough to get rid of his other girls,” you shake your head, earning a sharp tug at the roots. “You think once the newness wears off he won’t want them?”
You almost throw up.
Your heart pounds so rapidly you feel dizzy, blinking back tears at his words – ones that are already in your mind, the insecurities that eat at you from seeing those beautiful women having access to the man you love. You trust Gojo, you do, but you worry that you won’t be enough, and Suguru seems to hone in on it like a cruel attack on your mind.
“A man like that from what I’ve heard? Isn’t into commitment, isn’t into anything other than having fun at his country’s expense.”
“You don’t get to pretend to know him,” your tears fall no matter how hard you try to keep them in, but you stand firm with your gaze locked. “If that day comes, where he doesn’t want me? I’ll go from there, but there’s no world where I don’t want him.”
“You said that to me,” his hands grip your upper arms. “You said I was the love of your lifetime, look how fickle you are.”
“Let me go,” you tug away for him to grab your wrist, turning you back toward him once more. “I said let me fucking go, Suguru. The only reason I won’t have him kill you is the memory of our childhood where you protected me. Though you never even wanted to, did you?”
“I take protecting you so seriously that I’m the one that fucking sent you away,” you gasp, and he curses, eyes shutting.
“You. What!?”
“It’s too much to explain-”
“You sent me to another country!? For what purpose? Then acted ignorant when you knew? Let me fall for you when…”
You can’t breathe, the pain Suguru puts you through in those moments is far, far too much, you rip away from him, ignoring him calling your name, rushing out into the now cloudy sky overhead and trying to catch your breath. Your heart pounds in your chest so loudly you think it will burst out.
You bump into a servant girl who has a little scarf wrapped around her lower face, looking at you and lowering her eyes quickly.
“I’m so sorry,” you manage to gasp out, she just bows and walks away, you don’t think you’ve seen her before. You have no time to think of that.
You need Gojo.
“How was the reunion?” Lola asks Suguru quietly, he sighs, eyes narrowing on your retreating frame.
“Something,” he mumbles, she touches his arm but he pauses, taking her hand off just as quickly as you had his. “Your plan, it cannot hurt her.”
“Of course not, I’ll make sure she doesn’t get hurt.” She rushes off, and Suguru wonders then – what were his feelings?
Anger, at the emperor, and disgust at himself at that moment.
He can’t just leave you here.
*****
Instead of sitting in your seat for dinner tonight, you rush over to Gojo, and his face falls when he takes you in his arms, holding you tight. The room empties quickly, Kiyotaka and Miwa both looking concerned at you, Satoru’s arms grip you closely as the door echoes with a firm close, leaving you two alone.
“Shh,” he doesn’t know what to say, he’s never seen you like this, crying to the point you’re sniffling, unable to speak, all while he rocks you gently, inhaling your hair and shutting his eyes. “I’m sorry if it’s because of me.”
“S’not,” you manage to mumble, shaking as the sobs wrack your body. “I just… can’t… I can’t do this… I c-can’t anymore, I j-just…”
“Sweetheart,” you’re nonsensical when he leans back and cups your tear streaked face, and it breaks his heart into pieces, swallowing nervously while brushing your hair back, sticky from your tears. “You have to take a breath, please.”
He sits you on his lap, brushing his hand up and down your body, aching to fix it, whatever it is – knowing some of it was beyond his scope right now, even as he had things in action. To see the pain he’s put you through wounds him to his core, the girl he loves crying so hard that her face is puffy and swollen, eyes bloodshot and glittering with fresh tears.
“I’m here,” he murmurs soothingly, you cling to him again, burying your face against his neck. “This is because of me.”
“It’s not,” you shake your head, sobs shaking your frame, Gojo hugs you closely, sighing. “What happened that makes you… think it’s that.”
Satoru pauses, sighing, you lean up to look at his eyes, welling with his own emotions. “Kiyo’s trick worked, but… I still…”
He can’t finish his sentence.
Your heart breaks more, anger at this situation makes you want to explode. They put you both in this, and you found each other, just to drag you both the fuck apart in every way imaginable?
“You didn’t um… you weren’t in her or…”
“Not at all, didn’t even have to use the fingers,” he crooks his lips up, a sad smile on his lips. “It still felt wrong. I can’t scrub my skin enough.”
“It’s good it worked, it gives us time,” you murmur, even though it hurts, and he knows it does. “I have my own reason for being upset, it’s not you. I knew your plan and told you I would not get upset.”
“What happened, then?” He eases you to sit on the table, his hands resting on your upper thighs.
“I need a drink for this, and so will you.” Satoru’s jaw tenses, swiping your tears first with the rough pads of his thumbs. “Trust me.”
“I’m fucking terrified if something got my tough little empress like this,” he tries to lighten the mood, like he’s not hopelessly in love and furious that likely Suguru has you this upset. He pours you a little dish of sake and puts it to your lips. “Take a sip.”
“The only time I’ll follow your orders,” you tease even while you tremulously sip the little dish, he laughs softly, pulling back and tilting your chin up, thumb swiping your lip.
“Who’s going first today?”
“I’m tired of that being a thing for us,” you admit. “Aren’t you?”
“Very, I’ll go first since yours seems more upsetting,” he sits back in the chair, hands brushing your calves underneath your silk dress, exhaling at just how beautiful you look like this. It’s hard to remember it’s not just the two of you. “I had to hold a fake cock.”
You snort and cover your mouth, he glares all pretty up at you, snowy lashes trembling with his anger. “Sorry, shit, I… oh my god…”
You’re laughing as he throws back a sake dish, snorting himself. “You mean little thing.”
“Sorry, it just sounded so funny and I needed that laugh,” you swipe your tears, leaning now, your arms wrapping around his neck. “Continue, I’m sorry.”
“Laughing at my expense, cruel empress,” he kisses you though, moaning against your lips before pulling back, frowning. “Making her cum was… it just felt so fucking…”
“Shh,” you kiss him once more. “No details then. It worked?”
“Yes, she made a mess and it was quite annoying, I bathed as soon as I could,” he shivers as if he’s disgusted. “The only squirting I’ll accept is from your cunt.”
The softly flickering candles of the cast iron mounts on the walls cast an ethereal glow across Satoru's chiseled features, illuminating the soft curve of his lips as he smiles at you, devious and cocky, so fucking charming you struggle to hold back those words threatening to spill in that moment.
You love him.
“Filthy man,” you brush his hair back softly. “Sometimes it’s so easy with us it scares me, when the world seems to want to crush it all.”
He’s quiet, long fingers wrapping your wrist, kissing the inside of it with a soft peck. “I know, I feel the same way about you. Basically she came, seemed happy enough and apparently thought the blindfold was kinky.”
“Would you use a fake cock on me?” You grin and he scowls. “What!?”
“I’d never even let you have the hint of another cock in that perfect cunt,” you’re throbbing as he leans close, a hand entangling in your hair. “If you liked anything but me inside of you? I’d fucking lose it.”
“I’d never like anything better,” you blush then, looking down shyly at your admission. “Bet you’re gonna be so cocky about that.”
“Fuck yes I am,” he grins, then sobers up a bit. “You’d know if it wasn’t my real cock, hmm?”
“Of course I would… so that’s all though?”
“A kiss which was maybe worse, but yes, she fucked off and then I met with Kiyo to make more progress. Now,” he stands up between your thighs again, pouring you another glass. “Tell me what made you that upset, and who I need to dismember.”
“Have another drink,” you order, he does just that, sipping one side of the glass, putting the other to your lips. “Like the wedding night.”
“It is,” he caresses your cheek, tasting the sweet rice wine mixing with your lips when they take over yours again. “Mnh, lay it on me.”
“Suguru, he…” How do you even say all he did? “He said there’s an uprising with my parents.”
“Shit, what!?”
“Yes,” you sigh now, looking up into Satoru’s baby blue eyes, lost in them for a moment, hands slipping up his arms. It’s quiet save for your own heartbeat thudding in your ear, the distant clinks and murmurs of servants and others walking around outside. “I’m not sure how much I believe him, but he’s got something to do with it.”
“I heard he was involved in that sort of thing, but your parents?”
“Mhm, it seems he wants to take them down, and the only way to ‘keep them safe’ is to go with him.”
Satoru’s hands tighten bruisingly on your waist where they rest, pulse hammering as rage fills him. “He's playing a dangerous and dumb fucking game against me. I’ll help them, I promise.”
“I know you will,” your thumb brushes his lip now in return, leaning close and resting your forehead on his, sighing. “He kissed me and…”
Satoru’s brows lower, hands gripping tightly. “And?”
“He tried to…”
“What. The fuck. Did he do?” Satoru asks – feigning a calm, his eye goddamn near twitching at the thought of his fucking hands on you. You’re blushing furiously, trembling in his hold. “I will not be mad at you.”
“He begged to… taste my ‘dewy rose’,” Satoru’s gripping so hard you gasp. “Toru!”
“Sorry, shit…” He’s going to murder him in cold blood.
“I told him it was a ‘slutty cunt’ and smacked him,” he laughs then, cupping your face, seeing your shaky little smile. “Twice.”
“God I fucking love you,” it’s quiet then, it had come out so teasing, so natural, but your eyes lock, and the moment hums through both of your veins, until he sobers up, swallowing and stepping back just a bit, his hand tracing your body carefully.
“You love me?” You whisper, eyes glimmering with a fresh set of tears, he closes his eyes and takes a breath, before looking back at you, his heart hammering in his chest.
“I wanted to say that at the right time, but it just came out, and-”
You cut him off with a kiss that pours everything you feel into it, two hands on either side of a face you find so precious, pulling back to see his dilated pupils swallowing that azure of those irises. He just watches you, lips parted, breathless, your tears slip and fall down your gown, leaving little spots and blotches, trying to compose yourself.
“I love you, Satoru Gojo,” he exhales, kissing you deeper, tugging you against his hard body, lost in you then. “Mmm, I didn’t know w-when to tell you.”
“You love me?” He asks, voice heartbreaking, looking at your husband, your emperor…
Satoru.
He’s just Satoru when he’s with you, when he’s kissing you until you’re dizzy, when your thighs press on either side of your hips, arching desperately.
“Fuck everything right now, I need you.”
“Mnh!” He’s lost, pulling back, his hands gripping your hips to drag you closer, the dishes falling off the elegant table cloth, your hands braced on his strong chest, feeling the heat through his robes.
“He doesn’t get to touch you,” he whispers, you pause then, biting your lip, and he takes a pause, moaning. “I can wait. What else, shit…”
“He said… you’d move on, once I’m not shiny and new,” Satoru’s jaw clenches then. “That hurt the most, because it’s my fear.”
“Sweetheart, there’s no one but you,” your tears meld on his lips, wishing it was just you both, alone in your perfect little world. “Mnh, he’s trying to manipulate you, but guess what?”
You blink just a bit, dizzy off him, off the love he feels that you share, such happiness mixed with so much anxiety – yet all you can feel in this moment is that love.
“What?”
He smiles tenderly, gaze flickering across your face. “He doesn’t know who he’s fucking with, doesn’t even know you, how ruthless and smart my little empress is.”
You’re arching and kissing him again, all those thoughts swim from your mind – the fact that Satoru had to pleasure them, the fact that Suguru took shit too far, you can’t comprehend anything but that Satoru Gojo loves you. Real and tangible, pulling back with a desperate gasp, body humming.
“When you look at me like that, and I forget all about the world,” you say softly, lost in his ragged breaths, in how close he is. “I forget Suguru, I forget those girls, it’s all gone… and just you.”
“Then let it all be me,” he whispers into your mouth, his breath hot against your swollen lips, cupping your face so tightly. “All me, sweetheart, let me make sure you forget he did anything to you.”
“Please,” Satoru kneels right before you, parting your thighs.
“God tell me how you slapped him again,” you giggle, even through your tears, every emotion rampant as he toys with your clit. “Call it that again.”
“A slutty cunt?”
“Fuck I’m so in love,” your laugh dies as his fingers spread your puffy lips, kisses trailing over your stockings. “This cunt belongs to me.”
“Just you.”
He pauses, breathing ragged against the inside of your thigh, lips brushing lightly over the sensitive skin there, tickling you and earning your wanton moan, before you close your mouth as if to muffle the sound. He takes your hand off it, bringing your fingers to touch your own soaking wet cunt.
“Feel this? It’s all me,” he’s lost now, insanity filling his pretty blue eyes, thumbs tugging at your glittering lips, arousal pooling. Your finger lifts off, bringing it to Satoru’s lips, earning his moan as he laps it off. “Mmm.”
“All you, Satoru,” you answer back softly. “Only ever y-you.”
“Fuckkk,” he murmurs, voice thick and husky, his tongue drags up the length of your inner thigh, slow and deliberate and teasing as he drinks you up, precum drooling and making him ache. “He thinks he can fucking have you, huh?”
“He can’t,” you answer softly, gasping when he lifts you up with a smirk. “Where are we going?”
“Where everyone can hear me fucking my wife,” you blush furiously. “Those slutty concubines who are jealous, and your dumb fucking knight. Where does he stay, hmm?”
You’re throbbing now, letting him carry you with your fucking thighs wrapped around his hips, the palace echoes with the distant murmurs of people as he walks by casually. “You’re crazy!”
“I am,” he grins against your skin, passing several people until he eyes about the area all the guards are from your home country, sitting in the kitchens, he catches sight of Suguru then and smirks, earning a glare. “Ah, found him.”
You can’t look, you just cling to him and bury your face when he hauls you right into the study across from the kitchens, shutting the door and easing you down on a desk, spreading your thighs again. “You… here!?”
“Mhm, should echo good enough for him to fucking hear you scream my name,” he kneels between your thighs again, grinning up at you. “I want them all to hear you cumming, so don’t you dare close your pretty mouth.”
“It’ll be a scandal… it’ll… ah!” You can’t take it, the pleasure and desire mixing with the filthy thoughts of Suguru and the servants all hearing you, knowing they’d whisper it to the concubines.
You want this.
You cling to his silky white locks as he licks higher, desperately moaning, the faint echo of your gasps lingering in the room. “Love your cunt, love your taste, god I just fucking need you.”
It’s too much to remember propriety.
“After you cum?” He grins up at you. “I’m going to beat the fuck out of that man.”
“Toru!”
“Shh,” he’s rutting against his own palm, lapping that long pink tongue even higher. “All mine.”
When his tongue finally finds your core, it’s with a roughness that steals your breath. He licks into you like a man starving, one hand pinning your hips to the desk while the other grips your thigh hard enough to leave bruises, fingers dimpling in the plush of your thigh. Your fingers tangle in his hair, pulling sharply as pleasure coils tight in your core.
“T-Toru…”
“God, when you say that,” he palms his cock and moans, flicking his tongue up your slit. “And he thought he could taste this? Hah.”
Satoru’s lost in his anger, his jealousy, the need for you to be his and only his, forever. Never one day did he want to not have you by his side, on him, underneath him, lost in your essence, your scent, your beauty while he sucks your clit into his hot mouth and hums. You go to quiet yourself but stop it, finally just whining out his name, uncaring just like him.
You’re his, you belong to Satoru, all he can think of is the fact that you’re only his, that you’re made for him, that you taste so fucking perfect on his tastebuds. He had you first, he’ll be the one to only have you.
Your thoughts aren’t much different, no – spiteful, possessive, petty, you want Suguru to hear it too, you want all the concubines to know Satoru wants you, and only you. And that you are his – arching your hips up for more, hearing the hushed
“That’s it, fuck my face, make all that noise,” Satoru’s stroking his cock – your nails press into his scalp with your tugging, with your arching, cunt just drooling down his face. He drinks every drop up so desperately, the noises of just that alone so filthy, his cock pulsing in his own grip.
You gasp, tossing your head back, slamming the desk and making you cry out. You bite your lip, trying not to cry out as pleasure builds higher, his tongue relentless against your most sensitive spot, pausing and pulling back, saliva dripping in strings from where it was firmly planted on your slick lips.
“Sweetheart, let go,” he murmurs against you, flicking his tongue up with the lewdest sound, smirking. “Let them all hear who you belong to.”
Your hips jerk violently as you finally let go – you don’t hold back a thing, uncaring of just what the fucking court would think, in fact you hope it’s a scandal, you hope they talk about it. You hope all of those listening to your desperate whines and Satoru’s muffled moans realize it.
Even Suguru – especially him.
Touching you without your consent, trying to break you, those women and those people who just want to control and take you both away when they put you together, no it’s all too easy to spread your thighs wider and let the Emperor fuck you with his tongue. You let go so quickly, he knows every spot, a desperate little cry from your throat echoing as that orgasm hits you.
It’s so intense you can’t even see, that white hot pleasure just coursing over you in waves, gushing and pulsing all down his handsome face, earning his own soft whimper. Satoru laps at your mess greedily, drinking down every drop, his own cock ready to fill you, stretch you, but he lets it ride out, smirking as he hears those gasps all outside, the murmurs of conversation.
Fuck them.
Fuck Suguru, fuck the elders, and fuck those girls who say a goddamn thing to the girl he loves.
Loves, he loves you.
You barely have time to catch your breath and blink back your vision when your husband is flipping you around. “Bend over f’me, slutty empress.”
You’re all too eager, arching your ass up against him, your silk robes shoved up around your waist in mere moments, Satoru grips the base of his cock and moans when he finally gets that tip against you. The cold wood of the desk and the fluttering papers are doing nothing against your heated skin as he spreads you wide, hitching a knee on that desk.
His cock sliding effortlessly through your slick folds, making your head fall back, he leans over you, a hand on your throat. “Say it f’me,” he whispers, lining himself up with your fluttering hole. “Who does this tight little cunt belong to?”
“You,” you whimper when you feel that pink tip pop in with a filthy sound, lookign at him – drunk not just off the sake, but on him, both of your breaths converging. “Only yours, Satoru.”
Satoru kisses you, using one hand to brace himself when he fucks himself into you fully with just one mean thrust, drawing a filthy moan from your swollen lips, he pauses and groans, whispering your name, before he pulls back and slams in again, bruising your cervix. “F-fuck, that’s it, you’re s’good…”
His praise makes you wetter as he pounds your cunt in this damn study where everyone can hear, the sounds of skin smacking with every pummel of his hips loud, carrying through the thin door separating you both from the rest of the palace. All it does is make you wetter, more sensitive, letting him fill you so full, trying not to just scream with how he’s pounding your slutty hole.
“Ah- ah, louder,” he snaps his hips forward, pressing and exhaling, feeling you grip him like you’re ready to milk him dry, pulling back to lift your thigh even higher, until your other leg is just dangling, fully at his mercy. “Let them all hear how well their emperor fucks his wife, how they’ll never fucking get you.”
Each stroke sets a punishing rhythm, his tip brutally bullying your walls with every glide, tip grazing your spot in delicious drags that make you senseless. Coated in a sheen of sweat, cunt spasming and sensitive, his heavy balls hitting your needy clit in each smack, ripping every lewd and obscene sound from your throat.
“Satoru!”
In the hallway, you catch the sounds of them all, affronted clearly, Satoru chuckles and grins, leaning over you now. “That’s right,” he murmurs against your ear. “Let them hear how you take me, how you’re made for me.”
“For you,” you whisper desperately, feeling that pleasure building again, faster this time. “You love it, don’t you slutty emperor?”
“Says you, hah… pretty little whore f’me no one else,” you love it, the mix of his sweetness and his thick cock wrecking you. “Cum again, and again, let them all hear who I want wrapped around me.”
You are even more sensitive, lost in Satoru and his cock gliding easier and easier with how wet you are, arm wrapping and that hand sliding between your legs. “Ngh! Too much!”
Long fingers circle your clit with just the right pressure, pushing you to the point you can’t see, blackened fuzzy vision when he presses in so goddamn deep you feel him in your stomach. You feel him everywhere, clinging to his neck as he presses his heavy weight on you, his other hand leaving bruises on your hips, little marks of him he can kiss later.
“Love you,” you whisper again, testing the word on your lips, he pauses, fingers halting for a moment. “I do, love you. S’much.”
“I love you, fuck you’re all there is,” he kisses you again, moving slower now with those words in the air, the insanity of the situation fading. “Cum for me again, sweetheart, I want her milkin’ me for all this seed, fill you so full you’re round with my babies.”
That does you in, your cunt convulsing around him as your cunt does just that, milking him for all he has, he groans and follows you, painting your walls in white while desperately kissing you, drool spilling between you both. It’s messy, needy, desperate, his cock thrusting easier now, letting you swallow his moans, his cries.
You’re so shaky when he eases back with a filthy squelch, dripping your cum and his – your knees give out, he catches you with an arm around your waist, kissing you and turning you, smiling against your lips.
“Satoru you’re batshit you know,” he chuckles, his teeth glinting with that feral smile. “They all heard it, it’ll be…”
“The talk of the court,” he gently fixes your gown, peppering kisses on your sweat soaked brow. “Come.”
“I did.”
He snorts and kisses you again, the two of you slipping out to the several pairs of eyes on you all, Satoru grins at them, you see Concubine Jia, you see Suguru, the eunuchs of the court blushing and the servant girls whispering. Satoru’s robes are undone, you’re covered in his marks, as he looks directly at Suguru.
“Having a good night?” He asks everyone, raising a brow. “Something to say?”
“No! Your Excellence!” They all run off in different directions, Suguru’s jaw is locked, his eyes narrowed, studying the mess you are, you feel it and heat up in embarrassment.
“Let them see,” Satoru says softly, tugging you with him, where Suguru stands next to a servant, raising a brow at the man. “Ah, the failed knight. Heard you had some important information about my wife’s family?”
Suguru says nothing, just looking at you.
“I’ll have you in my aha…” he looks to the door open, the papers and ledgers strewn along the floor. “Study tomorrow, for a meeting. Sound good?”
He just inclines his head, Satoru unceremoniously lifts you over his shoulder like a goddamn cave man, but you can’t act like you don’t love it.
“See you tomorrow at noon,” as Satoru walks off with you, Suguru almost throws up in front of the entire room, seeing your giggling, flushed face as the tall man takes you away.
“You sure you don’t want to hurt her too?” Lola asks, Suguru shakes his head and scowls at her now.
“No. Only him.”
Lola just nods, turning away and glaring herself at that fucking display – before making sure she has just the right amounts of arsenic to take the girl Suguru and Satoru hold so dear.
She’s fucking tired of you.
ahhh so much drama ahead <3 I can't wait to get your thoughts!
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──── ⵌ RECORDS OF THE WITCH HUNTS
Characters: Phainon, Anaxa, Aventurine, Mydei, Dr. Ratio, Sunday
Tags and Warnings: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergent, References to past Witch Hunts, Mentions of Misogyny, Macabre Themes, Medical Malpractice, Mentions of Human Trafficking, Blood, Coercion, Murders, Themes of Obsession, Mentions of Cult-ish Behaviours, Implied Not-SFW themes, Fictional Depictions of Faith, Occasional Humor, Witch!Reader.
✧ Please refer to ‘the witch hunting ordinance’ tag for discussions and polls.
CLARION OF ANGEL'S TRUMPETS [MAIN STORY]
❝ The Witch Hunting Ordinance ❞
❝ Ending : The Holy Knight ❞
❝ Ending : The Undead Scholar ❞
❝ Ending : The Vain Lord Of The Sea ❞
❝ Ending : The Immortal King ❞
❝ Ending : The Doctor Who Heals The Dead ❞
❝ Ending : The Herald Of Xipe ❞
THE WITCHES' SEANCE [DISCUSSIONS]
ᡣ𐭩 Excerpts From The Witch Hunts #1 : The Identity Crisis
ᡣ𐭩 Excerpts From The Witch Hunts #2 : Relationships
ᡣ𐭩 Excerpts From The Witch Hunts #3 : Of Truth and Treachery
ᡣ𐭩 Excerpts From The Witch Hunts #4 : The Black Cat Sanctuary
ᡣ𐭩 Excerpts From The Witch Hunts #5 : Accidental Fatherhood?
TREATS FOR MR. WHISKERS [MISC.]
-; ੈ♡˳ Fanarts [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ]
-; ੈ♡˳ Weekly Assessment Report
-; ੈ♡˳ Age Directory Of The Cast
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Let’s go home, Phainon.
Managed to draw them in the mids of con prep
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